nao tamura – DesignApplause

Design+world: luminaire. Design miami/ 2013.

Nov 24, 2013

5 december 2013 | 6 > 9p [ rsvp ]

Luminaire’s continued commitment to promoting good design and education culminate with the third installment of Design+World, a comprehensive exhibition exploring how today’s designers are interpreting materials, technologies and production methods to create work which is expanding the traditional boundaries of design. Luminaire Lab, a beacon of design excellence in Miami’s Design District, will be transformed into a design laboratory where the public can interact and explore new concepts in design. Highlighting the work of longtime friends and collaborators like Tokujin Yoshioka and Patricia Urquiola, the exhibition will also showcase Luminaire’s continued interest in glass. With Fabrica’s Drawing Glass, Nao Tamura‘s poetic glass lighting and a selection of limited edition glass pieces from our own collection, the exhibit examines the limitless possibilities and expert craft of the ancient material. Additionally, we will welcome Phaidon books to the showroom, bringing a preeminent voice in art and design to the design district.

element | tokujin yoshioka | desalto | 2013

One of the most influential creative minds living in the world today, Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka transformed the way we experience the world around us. For the past several years, he has been inspired by the random harmony of crystals, creating sculptural pieces that investigate the dependency that exists between human memories and natural phenomena. Luminaire will present the Elements Collection, launched during the Salone del Mobile 2013 and hatched from extensive research he conducted for the Crystalized Project. According to Yoshioka, the project “raises the question of how we connect our lives to the future by being exposed to the serendipitous beauty born of nature.”

chasen | patricia uriquiola | flos | 2008

On December 5th Luminaire is proud to host the incomparable Patricia Urquiola as she unveils her newest project – a book. This is Urquiola’s first monograph on her works aptly titled “Time to Make a Book.” Her eclectic approach to product design and architecture has established her as one of the key figures in contemporary design, working with great international design houses, including Moroso, De Padova, B&B Italia, Bisazza, Alessi, Driade, and Flos. This inspiring book captures the fervid energy of Urquiola’s life and work, in an unprecedented and striking design object as innovative and intimate as her body of work.

flow(t) | nao tamura | wonderglass | 2013

>moments square blue | anna torfs

utsuwa – drawing glass | ryu yamamoto | fabrica | 2013

Italian design research center Fabrica also explores a provocative balance between concept and function, translating rhapsodic ideas in three-dimension. In the U.S. debut of Drawing Glass, quick, gestural drawings from a range of designers become an ethereal series of glass objects interpreted by master glass blower Massimo Lunardon. Each artwork features the fourteen original sketches by Studio Formafantasma, Fabrica Head of Design Sam Baron along with five Fabrica designers alongside each original glass piece.

Luminaire is also proud to announce a partnership with Phaidon, the world’s premier publisher of books on the visual arts. The partnership is a meeting of the equal belief that we must celebrate the creative, and democratize access to design and design education.

[ Luminaire ] would like to extend an invitation to the public as we host a reception to celebrate good design around the world on 4 December from 6 > 9p at our Miami Design District location, Luminaire Lab. [ rsvp ]

Artek and Vitra: a partnership built on affinity.

Sep 6, 2013

On 6 September 2013, Vitra acquires Artek. Two venerable and like-minded bastions of avant garde modern furniture agree to partner. How like-minded? The logos may say it all.

panton chair | verner panton | vitra | 1967 | click > enlarge

stool 60 special edition series | tom dixon, comme des garçons, mike meiré, monocle, mads nørgaard, nao tamura | artek | 2013 (based on 1933 original by alvar aalto)

[ artek ] Artek was founded in 1935 by Alvar and Aino Aalto, Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl. The business idea of the company was “to sell furniture and to promote a modern culture of habitation by exhibitions and other educational means.” That was the beginning of Artek. The Artek collection comprises design furniture and lighting fixtures by the Nordic masters Alvar Aalto, Ilmari Tapiovaara, Tapio Wirkkala and Eero Aarnio. The latest addition to the portfolio consists of products by Yrjö Kukkapuro. The masterpiece of Kukkapuro, the Karuselli chair, will be re-launched on the market in the beginning of the year 2014. In addition to classics, Artek is also launching new generation design products under the Artek Studio brand. Alvar Aalto’s furniture represents an interpretation of Scandinavian modernism articulated primarily in Finnish birch wood. Wood and functionality are both hallmarks of the Artek collection. The Artek portfolio represents the most comprehensive collection of wooden design furniture in the world. Artek has international sales offices in New York, Berlin, Stockholm and Tokyo. The domestic market accounts for 60% of the company’s turnover, with Artek holding a solid position in the Finnish consumer and contract market. Vitra’s design classics have for a number of years been an important part of Artek’s collection for the Finnish market. Artek operates four stores in Finland, as well as a wide retail network.

[ vitra ] Vitra is a furniture company dedicated to developing healthy, intelligent, inspiring and durable solutions for the office, the home and for public spaces. Vitra’s products and concepts are developed in Switzerland by applying a diligent design process that brings together the company’s engineering excellence with the creative genius of leading international designers. It is our goal to create products with a high functional and aesthetic life expectancy. The Vitra Campus architecture, the Vitra Design Museum, workshops, publications, collections and archives are all integral elements of the Vitra Project. They give Vitra the opportunity to gain perspective and depth in all of its creative activities.

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