slab light – DesignApplause

Johanna Grawunder. Carpenters workshop gallery.

May 21, 2012

line light |click > enlarge

In Texas, there is some big sky. It is part of a romantic landscape that serves as a backdrop for that part of American cultural heritage defined by austerity and hard, strong gestures. American minimalism and industrial ingenuity/machismo are phenomena that are complicated and nuanced. But they are also, essentially, informed by American landscape visuals: big sky, vast rolling hills and endless fields, an occasional cow. ~JG

line light

Big SKy represents a series of movements and variations on the theme of light. Johanna Grawunder creates minimal, luminous pieces of functional micro-architecture that express her passion for modern architecture as her credo is: light is architecture’s muse. This show also reveals her passion for the observation of nature and the infinite irisations of the sky.

corner light

corner light

tron platform

Shining matters is analyzed, composed and decomposed by the designer: Through projection, the beams shine from a box and produce a filtered and structured surface; through diffraction, the light recreates the colors of the rainbow on a fragmented and sculptural surface; through propagation, the rays escape through the cracks; through reflection, creating a mirrored effect; through interposition – an opaque glass softens the effect…

Johanna Grawunder is an architect and designer, and splits her time between her native California and Italy where, while working with Ettore Sottsass from 1985 to 2001, she learned more than just style, she gained a vision of the design process as a whole. Johanna Grawunder is a designer of light. Her approach is subjective; her non-allusive shaping invites us to look. | pieces on show: corner light, frame table, half-pipe light,f-box, line light, box light, slab light, torn platform table.