24/12/2013

Our Christmas Design Wishlist

Even though Christmas is already knocking on our doors, for those of you who are still catching up with their gift lists, here is a small selection of design goodies that you should definitely get.

Enzo Mari‘s perpetuate calendars for Danese are a timeless classic that you should already have in your homes. For those of you who don’t, this is the perfect occasion to get them, one for you and one for your loved ones.


Another essential classic is Konstantin Grcic‘s Mayday lamp for Flos. Simple and linear, with a delightful and witty hook that allows to use this portable lamp both hung up as well as leaning on the floor or table, it bears all the distinctive traits of Grcic’s designs that we have learned to love.


Since it’s Christmas time and we should only give the best presents ever to our beloved ones, here is another great designer and another wonderful series of objects. Produced by Olgen, Japan, this range of cast iron kitchenware is already sold out on Morrison‘s web shop, but if you try really hard you might be able to snatch that lovely pot somewhere.



What would a Christmas gift list be without a book. Even though this time of the year is supposed to be relaxing, thus not include any heavy reading, we warmly suggest a book that is as challenging as it is astonishing. Written back in 1971 by Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World is a mandatory read for any design fanatic that doesn’t go for style but substance.


Rujana Rebernjak 
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17/12/2013

In praise of Charlotte Perriand

Fashion and design have always been intrinsically intertwined: both aim at creating a way of life and an approach towards the world. It should not come as a surprise, then, that the great modernist designer Charlotte Perriand, devised a clothing system for herself that bares a striking resemblance with her modular furniture. After her trip to Japan in 1940s, Perriand wrote: “A new way of living awaited me there: work, leisure, discovery, representation. I had made up my wardrobe with interchangeable ‘modules’, as in my investigations of standardisation: four skirts, long or short, for the lower body and sweaters, blouses and bustiers for the top, all of which combined to give me at least 16 possibilities”. Fascinated with “apparent simplicity”, this architect, designer, urban planner and photographer broke away from outmoded conventions, inventing new concepts for living spaces (and, apparently, the way we should dress) following the idea of functionality, purity and timelessness.


Given her incursion in various areas of creative activity, it should not come as a surprise, then, that Louis Vuitton has chosen Charlotte Perriand as inspiration for their new Icônes collection as well as the main protagonist of their ongoing design project. While we might argue that LV’s 2014 Icônes collection bears little, if any, resemblance to Perriand’s formal virtuosity or conceptual sophistication, it is nevertheless an important recognition of the crucial historical role of this previously underestimated designer.



Additionally, in the occasion of Design Miami, Louis Vuitton has also built a previously unrealized beach house designed by Perriand in 1934. Perriand’s La Maison au Bord de l’Eau, was initially conceived for a competition to design cheap holiday lodging, held by French architecture magazine L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui and has been built using original sketches and drawings. Perriand’s design originally won second prize and was later reworked for wealthy vacationers, but the original scheme was never built. Even though building La Maison au Bord de l’Eau was surely more a marketing strategy than an ode to design history, Louis Vuitton’s new projects should at least be appreciated for bringing back to life a piece of our forgotten design past.


Rujana Rebernjak 
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04/12/2013

The Disappearing crafts in the North

In the beginning of this fall, Form, the popular magazine for Nordic Architecture and Design, informed the design world about “the fall of the Crystal Kingdom” in Sweden. The news, that the centre of the Nordic glass industry Orrefors Kosta Boda has been shut down and that 80 percent of the production will be moved to Thailand, has a sorrowful undercurrent and is discussed with a nostalgic sadness.


In the south Swedish Småland, Orrefors Glassworks has produced utility glass and crystal art glass since 1898 on the same site where ironworks operations had been run since the early 1700s. In the early 20th century, artists (and designers) became part of the product development process, starting with Simon Gate and Edward Hald in 1916 and recently with Karl Lagerfeld.



However, the craftsmen who have bore the industry are now sent home after the decision to turn off the kilns in the glassblowing shops in Orrefors and Årfors. The once glassmaking region is left behind empty. Now cheap labour in Thailand is considered to be the only way out of the present economic uncertainty of the Swedish glass industry.

Even though there is a trend of re-evaluating the localism and traditional crafts these days, the fall of the Crystal Kingdom is yet another example of disappearing crafts in Northern Europe. So, what does this mean? Isn’t the thought that we are moving all of our knowledge about traditional crafts to Asia a bit frightening? For now this might seem the only thing for companies to do in order to survive financially, yet is remaining with the knowledge, but without the skills, enough for the future? And although crafts are still taught in the North, it seems to be our persistent demand for cheap products what is killing the job opportunities for skilled craftsmen nearby. And with that, we risk to lose generations of wisdom, skills and crafts if we don’t find alternatives to preserve our artisanal industries.


Lisanne Fransen – Image courtesy of Orrefors 
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03/12/2013

Serpentine Sackler Gallery by Zaha Hadid

Nearly three months ago, on the 25th of September, Serpentine Sackler Gallery opened its doors in Hyde Park, in London. A short walk away from the main Serpentine Gallery, sitting just across the Serpentine bridge, the Sackler gallery was designed by startchitect Zaha Hadid. More than a simple gallery space in the middle of London, the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery is a bold statement: as much an expression of power as it is a monument to contemporary architecture.


In fact, Serpentine Gallery is widely known for its commitment to architecture through their annual commission of a temporary pavilion, the first of which was designed precisely by Hadid, back in 2000. But while the pavilion is always designed by an architect who hasn’t previously built in the UK, since her first collaboration with the Serpentine, Hadid has completed a few projects in London, such as the Olympic Aquatics Centre and Evelyn Grace Academy, in Brixton.



At first glance, it is obvious that the Serpentine Sackler Gallery is a “status symbol of luxury and political posturing”, borrowing Owen Pritchard‘s description of Hadid’s practice. While the main gallery space is situated in a restored former Powder Room, it is the extension added to the 19th century building that sparked all the criticism. It is a classic Hadid piece: a sinuous structure that from far away might appear as a wedding tent, while from up close it changes appearance from every angle. But what strikes the most is not the presumptuous character or the striking dissonance between the two structures of the Sackler Gallery; it is the undeniable feeling that, while the Powder Room building is as contemporary as ever, the extension already seems too old.


Rujana Rebernjak – Image courtesy of Serpentine Gallery and Luke Hayes 
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02/12/2013

Adam Nathaniel Furman’s intimate ceramics

It is quite unusual to think about ceramic as a mean to tell a story. Can we conceive a proper narrative dimension inside a vase collection? Can we see it as an uncommon tool of introspection? If we take for granted that objects have their own language characterized by a specific semantic and syntax, we may be more reluctant to believe that they can be transformed into the vehicle of a fictional self-representation.


Adam Nathaniel Furman, designer in residence at London Design Museum in 2013, has pushed the limit further trying to express through his creations the variable shadows of his moods and thoughts. The tangible result of his research is an original ceramic collection that transposes his personal obsessions – technological compulsiveness, kitsch, human-driven disasters, convulsed techno and joyous angelic jubilations- into a fluid overlapping of layers and concentric stairs. The intangible dimension, on the other hand, is entrusted to the pages of his digital personal journal entitled Identity Parade, a hypnotic flux of consciousness where he gets himself over a barrel, revealing his bittersweet, fluctuating emotions. The link between these two dimensions is more than deeply interconnected: the physical and the digital worlds share the same ups and downs, the same soarings, the same sinkings.



Nevertheless, what is even more remarkable is the understated attitude that Furman’s works demonstrate from the point of view of technological development. In fact, his vessels alternate the use of traditional cast with that of 3D-printing technologies (such as nylon laser-sintering and 3D-printing) with very homogeneous results: at first sight, it is basically impossible – also thanks to the hand painted cladding- to recognize which of the two techniques has been used. Thus, technology seems to be once again a critical tool to express new aesthetics: only the use of 3D-printing techniques, for instance, offers the chance to recall Maurits Cornelis Escher’s world and his impossible feats of architecture. Then, it’s up to colours and patterns to strengthen what morphologies have already suggested: a dizzy but exalting state of mind.


Giulia Zappa 
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26/11/2013

Ace Hotels – Past, present and future

Have you ever been in a hotel that made it impossible to remember the town, or even the country, you were in for a split second upon entering? Marble paved lobbies, fake golden columns, lavishly decorated yet impersonal rooms, cold and unfriendly bars are usually part of this landscape, whose apparent lack of hospitality and warmth fuelled the success of Ace Hotels. Defining itself “A friendly place, continually new”, the first Ace Hotel opened in Seattle in 1999 and immediately set a new benchmark for hospitality.


Taking distance from polished, but cold modernist aesthetics, Ace Hotels were created with the idea of merging iconic local elements, businesses and styles in a unique blend of hospitality and warmth at an affordable price. Working with local design firms, chefs, decorators, or even florists, each Ace Hotel was equipped with a selection of hip furniture, crafty detailing, great food and relaxed atmosphere, offering an unusually cosy place for its clients, as well as a trendy gathering place for the town dwellers in New York, Portland, Los Angeles, Palm Springs and, recently, London.



Unfortunately, one of the founders of Ace Hotels, Alex Calderwood, has passed away on the 15th of November, only six weeks after opening his first branch outside US. Calderwood was the creative genius behind Ace Hotels’ success, interested in humanizing big businesses by “rescuing things, not just discarding everything”. His love for icons of the past and local traditions which fuelled the explicitly retro aura of his hotels, will remain a strong reminder of the fact that while we may feel globalised at home, when abroad we are still looking for that local charm, beauty and warmth we may find in the streets of our hometown. Hopefully, Ace Hotels will continue to nurture that approach with the same passion, quirkiness and wit of their founder.


Rujana Rebernjak 
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19/11/2013

Monthly reads: Nomadic Furniture

History has taught us that the most radical thoughts and gestures are rarely met with approval when they emerge. It is time that gives them value and common appreciation. It should come as no surprise then, that when Victor Papanek first wrote “there are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a few of them” in the introduction of his book Design for the real world, his ideas were not welcomed. He was, in fact, forced to resign from the Industrial Designers Society of America and his work was met with scepticism, if not publicly ridiculed. And yet, 15 years after he passed away, Victor Papanek is now celebrated as one of the most innovative, disruptive and radical design thinkers of all times, while his most celebrated books, Design for the Real World and Nomadic Furniture, still offer inspiration and thoughtful insight on design practice.

Nomadic Furniture was written together with James Henessey and first published in 1973. In the first edition the authors state “No book like this has ever been put together before”, apologizing, thus, for all that is missing. They also quote Gerturde Stein, quoting Picasso saying “when you make a thing, a thing that is new, it is so complicated making it that it is bound to be ugly. But those that make it after you, they don’t have to worry about making it. And they can make it pretty and so everybody can like it when the others make it after you…”, but we can now state that neither these two apologies seem necessary.



Nomadic Furniture appears as a simple book, containing a series of do-it-yourself designs for furniture which “folds, stacks, inflates or knocks down or else is disposable while being ecologically responsible”. It is structured in sections, each of which presents a series of solutions for different necessities: seating, eating and working, storage, sleeping, light, babies and children, together with two special sections on human measurements and hints for working. It is as simple as it is challenging when it teaches us the right proportions of a dining table, while also handing precious advice on how to reduce our possessions without cutting down anything we might actually need. It also gives us hints on how to make our own bean bag, while teaching us how to taste freedom. In fact, it is as much a practical design guidebook as it is a manifesto for a new way of life.


Rujana Rebernjak  
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14/11/2013

Design Stores by Famous Designers

When online shopping has been taking the lion’s share of the markets, offline stores have started to change their concepts from the mere commercial destinations. Contemporary flagship stores do not only embody astonishing interiors as a proof of concept, neither they limit to provide an experience to the most demanding fashion victims. Instead, they have become the tangible horizon of our imaginary escapes, a parallel word that goes beyond products, and invests our eagerness in terms of extravagance, extraordinary, thrill. Designers do not miss the chance to give their contribution: one more time, they work as storytellers, providing a narrative plot that is capable to brand a space through inedited architectural solutions.


Peter Marino, the most revered among retail designers, has been working with the great majority of world renown luxury brands. As his most acclaimed project probably remains the “Louis Vuitton Maison” on London’s Bond Street (which is still the largest brand shop in town), a jubilation of golden chainmail and metal scaffoldings wrapping the entire surface of the walls. However, his latest, Chanel’s Avenue Montaigne, is not inferior to his most well-known precedent, combining a linear layout with astonishing, hyperbolic details – like Coco’s oversized pearls hung from the ceiling, or golden tweed wall coverings.

Most often, designers do not limit their collaborations to the world of luxury corporations. Jaime Hayon is a paradigmatic example of a more transversal, eclectic attitude. His versatility, in fact, allows him to respond to the need of exclusivity of niche luxury brands such as Octium Jewellery, while providing informal solutions for footwear giants such as Camper. Usually, the brands going for this strategy do not maintain an exclusivity policy with the designers they choose to work with: getting back to Camper, the Spanish company has demonstrated a special intuition to select the coolest designers around. Nendo, for example, was given carte blanche to redesign Camper’s New York store. While maintaining the white and grey palette, he succeed to give to a modular repetition a witty, yet decorative, effect.

Does great retail design remain a prerogative of luxury brands? Yes in most cases, even with a few notable exceptions confirming the rule. H&M’s flagship store in Barcelona is one of them: designed by Javier Mariscal in 2008, it combines a conscious architectural intervention – an hyper modern, essential steel structure inside the huge XIX century stairwell – with a cheerful, Spanish spirit. More recently, Normal Studio’s work for H&M Home‘s London store proves that also a DIY approach can contaminate the most established corporations retail rules.

Giulia Zappa 
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12/11/2013

Guest interview n°50: Giorgia Zanellato

Giorgia Zanellato is a storyteller. Her projects tell stories about our history, our relationship with objects that surround us, how they should be used, looked at and loved. Her projects teach us about beauty, honesty and diversity. Giorgia was born in Venice not so long ago, and this makes us appreciate her work even more. In a country that doesn’t offer much to younger generations, more so if they happen to be industrial designers, Giorgia has managed to find her spot under the sun through dedication, passion and unconditional love for her work.

Where did you study and how has this influenced your work?
I studied Industrial Design at IUAV University, in Venice, and later did a master in Product Design at ECAL, Lausanne. Both schools have taught me fundamentally different things: at IUAV I have learned more about design history, how design should be functional and formally ‘appropriate’, following the traditional notion of “form follows function”. On the other hand, ECAL was more about getting my hands dirty, making stuff and learning how to effectively communicate it. Combined, both approaches gave me the basis for developing my current design process.

If you hadn’t studied design, what do you think you’d be doing today?
I always say that if, for any reason, I should quit working as a designer, I would love to open a flower shop. That is, if I should ever be able to wake up that early in the morning.

What would you say is the most important characteristic of your work?
I am not sure what is the most important characteristic. I do know that I always try to give shape to a story, not only an object. I love to experiment with unconventional materials and finishings, with the idea of creating associations that can tell a story about the object itself, not only about how it should be used.


How would you describe your design process? Is there a ‘recipe’ you always follow?
My inspiration often changes – I can start from images, materials or stories which guide the creation of a narrative, further developed through extensive research. Only at this point I start working on the actual form, a process which could basically last forever, so I really have to find a compromise and learn when and where to stop. The material is a really important part of my process and I never choose it at the end. It is what guides the design process, but I wouldn’t say I always follow the same recipe.

Which one of your projects do you like the most and which one the least and why?
The project I like the most is Stock Collection, developed thanks to Luisa Delle Piane, who invited me to create a collection to exhibit in her gallery during Salone del Mobile 2013. I was totally free and I could experiment with unconventional colours and materials. Luisa gave me the freedom to try something risky and at the same time to be able to use precious materials (such as marble) that I have never used before. The first time I saw the collection was during the opening of the exhibition and I remember that was one of the happiest moments in my work so far. The one I like the least is a project I did before developing Narciso, my collection of mirror vases. It’s called Useful Ornaments and it has the same starting point as Narciso: creating a series of functional vases. I was trying to work with Murano glass blower without knowing exactly what I wanted to obtain so the result was a disaster. But without that project I could never have done Narciso.


You are currently working at Fabrica, could you tell us a bit more about the design studio there, what projects are you working on?
Fabrica Design studio, which is now called “Design Dialogues” is a team of around 12 young designers, coming from different countries, from Japan to Portugal, that work together under the art direction of French designer Sam Baron. I am working there as a consultant and the best part for my work is to constantly have the possibility to share ideas with so many different perspectives and cultures.

What would be your dream project that you haven’t yet had the chance to design?
More than creating a project for someone, it would be creating it with someone. My dream would have been to work with Ettore Sottsass. To work with a ‘master’ would surely be a dream come true, as I consider it the best way to continue learning. I strongly believe in confrontation between people as the best way to improve one’s work.

How do you envision the future development of design? What do you think is the role of design and designers in today’s society?
Design is much wider than only industrial design and design is currently being developed in so many different ways. Smaller companies are being born and designers are also working not only on creating objects, but also on developing new kinds of needs and new kinds of users. Design is becoming much more accessible. I wish there would be a more productive collaboration between companies and young designers where smaller companies would believe more in the role of a designer, especially in Italy.

What is your favourite and what is your least favourite book?
One of my favourite books is “Q” by Luther Blissett, but I also love “Little Prince“, I still like to read it a lot. I don’t actually have a least favourite book, cause if I don’t like a book, I am not able to read it until the end.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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07/11/2013

Empiricism vs Rationalism | Masters and Disciples

Let’s play a game. Its aim is to look for affinities and variations between designers and their disciples, and to establish a common thread that may highlight cultural roots, common backgrounds and shades of the identities. How do we start? For example, we could try to write down an equation like the following one:

Tom Dixon : Faye Toogood = Konstantin Grcic : Pauline Deltour

Who are the protagonists? Dixon and Grcic are perhaps among the most famous designers of the early fifty-year-old generation. The first is English, the second is German. In more detail, they both stand out for the consistent development of their projects, always capable to fulfill the needs of the end users without renouncing to innovate with originality and wit the interiors they contribute to furnish.



Nevertheless, it’s not only their personality to divide them – anarchic for Dixon, functionalist for Grcic -, but a cultural background which reminds us of a crucial chapter in European history of ideas: the dialectics between English and German philosophical traditions, empiricism and rationalism. Dixon, ethereally self-taught by his own intuitions, keeps on reinventing himself when he designs his beloved, iconic lamps, as well as when he founds a new design showcase (as it’s the case with Most). Grcic, instead, has an undisputed talent to synthesize a problem solving attitude with a rigorous aesthetics, as for Achille Castiglioni’s Parentesi restyling in 2013, or for his most venerated product, iconic Magis’ Chair One.


And what about Toogood and Deltour? They both worked side by side with the other two designers in their own studios, getting acquainted with their masters’ methodologies and approaches. Then, they both chose to work as freelancers, emerging on the European scene as two of the most innovative young voices in the design field.

In her installations (La Cura, The Batch Room, Natura Morta), Faye Toogood privileges the spontaneity of a rough, impulsive taste: the experiences she’s used to offer to her customers, or to her public, are developed every time according to the specific context she’s involved in, always in the quest to reshape her objects through an immanent approach. The process is always refocused, and self-expression can’t be but an inescapable requirement. Pauline Deltour, on the contrary, doesn’t overstep the physical boundaries of her products, neither she reconsiders their terms of usage. Instead, she prefers to provide cost-effective yet fit-for-purpose solutions for everyday living needs (Alessi’s “A Tempo” collection, Discipline’s “Roulé” collection), designing affordances with an emphatic, familiar touch and working with materials through a clear-cut resolution.



Giulia Zappa 
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