27/03/2013

Handcrafted Modern Europe: At Home with Mid-Century Designers

At Home with Mid-Century Designers

Have you ever dreamed about taking a sneak peek at someone’s home? Who’s home would it be? Do you find yourself looking inside people’s houses when taking a stroll around the block? Well, we believe we all do this. If we don’t have a perfect home, by looking at someone else’s house, we dream of living there. If we do have the perfect home, we still like to compare it to others, just to assure ourselves that, yes, our home still is the perfect one.


Leslie Williamson has often asked herself exactly those questions and has, thus, created her dream list of homes where she would have loved to visit, immerse herself in and immortalize. Her dream has become a book, titled “Handcrafted Modern: At Home with Mid Century Designers”, published by Rizzoli in 2010, a worldwide best-seller. The book itself is quite simple: it shows and tells the homes of one of the most interesting Modern designers: masters of studio furniture like Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima and J.B. Blunk; industrial designers like Russel Wright, Charles and Ray Eames and Irving Harper; architects Walter Gropius and Albert Frey.



Currently Leslie is working on a new project, a second book with the working title “Handcrafted Modern Europe: At Home with Midcentury Designers”, which explores homes of the grand masters of European design. Even though we are not allowed to know the complete list of designers, we already know there will be 13 names, among which Alvar Aalto, Bruno Mathsson and the Milanese Gae Aulenti. Speaking about her project Leslie declares: “I see homes as a portrait of their inhabitants, so I photograph each space with an eye not only to the architecture, design and wide views of the rooms, but also the small quiet moments that reveal these creative people’s character.” 
She recently also had to start a fundraiser on Kickstarter to fund her project, which, fortunately has ended pretty well and she is currently working pretty hard to finish the book on time.

Seen the success of her previous book and the positive result of the aforementioned campaign, we must note that it appears that we all want to have a peek inside those houses, too. Who knows, maybe we’ll get inspiration for making our perfect home.


Rujana Rebernjak – Photography by Leslie Williamson

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21/03/2013

Applied Design at MoMA

Applied Design at MoMA

The word design has infinite meaning. We witness it every day while we shop for our groceries, drive a car, use the computer or buy our clothes and furniture. Every single object we touch has, to a certain level, been designed. That is what makes design so interesting, because it impacts our lives in deep, yet almost invisible ways. Nevertheless, its meaning and usefulness have for so long been publicly distorted. Hence, we often confuse design for styling, for a superficial quality which can be applied to an object to our choice. But this conception of design is completely wrong, since without this silent practice we wouldn’t even have those objects we interact with daily.


As Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA puts it: “We were able to realize that design artists are the ones that transform the great revolutions into small gestures. Scientists and engineers produce disruptive inventions but designers are the ones that transform those innovations into objects that we can all use.
 Without them, there would be no progress in our lives; we wouldn’t have microwaves to heat up our food, we would not be able to use the Internet, we wouldn’t be driving cars with such ease. I could go on because the list is long, and the same goes for all the different types of technology. So design artists therefore play a fundamental role. If you compare society to a digestive system, design artists play the part of enzymes because it’s thanks to them that society is able to digest the inventions it receives.”


It is exactly this approach to design that the current exhibition at MoMA, “Applied Design” curated by Paola Antonelli and Kate Carmody, tries to highlight. It testifies the amazing diversity of contemporary graphic design and all the different forms it can take, from interface and interaction design, dynamic visualizations, products, furniture, 3D printed chairs and bowls, emergency equipment, and biodesign. Hence, you can see mine detonator by the young Dutch/Afghani designer Massoud Hassani to a bowl made by transforming desert sand into glass using only the energy of the sun, together with 14 video-games that the museum has recently acquired with the idea of pushing the boundaries of common preconceptions about what design is, or should be.

As the wider public, through bombastic design weeks and posh magazines, is being falsely induced in thinking that design should only be beautiful, almost as a piece of art you can just sit on, it is the work of curators like Antonelli and shows like “Applied Design” that we should all be more aware of since as Gui Bonsiepe states: “Design still is in this transition period, in which it is often considered a kind of external extravagance, which you can do or not do. For this reason, the notion of design as ‘added value’ is so misleading, because it presumes that you can have an object that is without design, to which you can ‘add’ something. But no, it is design by itself, whether it is bad design, this is another question.”

“Applied Design” is on show at Museum of Modern Art in New York until the 31st of January 2014.

Rujana Rebernjak 

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13/03/2013

Turkish Red by Formafantasma

Turkish Red by Formafantasma

There is something about certain colours that leaves us speechless. Deep blue, aquamarine, bright yellow, each colour has a profound ability to communicate a lot about both our culture as well as our history and surroundings. It is inevitable that we link certain colours to certain material artefacts, hence TextielMuseum in Tilburg has decided to dedicate an entire exhibition to Turkish Red, a particularly vibrant hue of red. The curator of the show, titled Turkish Red & More, Caroline Boot has invited five Netherlands-based designers to draw inspiration from the museum’s archives and develop a new project around what they have discovered: “the five projects are presented in a special context, together with the sources that they refer to: Art Nouveau weavings, objects from the Art Deco period, sample books, dye recipes, antique handiwork manuals, blankets and trimmings.”


The Italian duo based in The Netherlands, Formafantasma, has created a collection of 17 silk textiles titled BTMM1514 (Turkish Red), based on the archive of Driessen family and numerous samples of turkish red Felix Driessen has collected through the years.


Turkish red is drawn from madder roots, and was first developed in India and later brought to Turkey and Greece. Playing with the traditional modes of production, particular of Andrea Trimarchi‘s and Simone Farresin’s approach, they have created a series of silk textiles dyed with madder roots in collaboration with a German colourist, while the patterns were taken from the Driessen’s books, together with other visual element historically associated with Turkish red.

This apparently simple project clearly evokes the influence of colours, the Turkish red in particular, in our historical and present economic, geographical, cultural, aesthethical, social context. 
Turkish Red & More is on display until the 26th of May 2013 at TextielMuseum in Tilburg.


Rujana Rebernjak

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05/03/2013

Pibal Bicycle by Philippe Starck and Peugeot

Pibal Bicycle by Philippe Starck and Peugeot

It’s been a long time since we’ve heard of Philippe Starck. Anyone, who has even a remote idea about design, surely is familiar with that name. Starck became widely known back in the nineties when a crisis in the design system and the rupture with the modernism has allowed him to emerge as a design superstar. Among his most iconic objects you may remember the juice squeezer shaped as a spider or a UFO, whichever pleases you best, or his lamps with the base which took form of a pistol, or even, one of his last designs for Steve Jobs’ yacht (which, as you may know didn’t end that well). Seen that he is so fond of both his superstar status in the world of design and the intentionally shocking objects which have earned him that status, it appears quite strange to see him involved in a project for a urban bicycle. Hey, but here it is, and it also seems actually quite useful and unobtrusive, two adjectives that Starck has deliberately rejected in the past.


The bicycle in question was named Pibal and it is produced by Peugeot exclusively for the city of Bordeaux in France. It is a hybrid between a bicycle and a scooter, specifically developed after the citizens of the town listed a set of needs and suggestions that would allow them to cycle more easily. In fact, the set of references they have submitted has been translated into a perfect urban bike that one may traditionally pedal or, when traffic is heavy, use the low scooter-like platform to push themselves along with one foot. Pibal is made of aluminium and has yellow tires for visibility and big racks at the front and back. Currently developed in a limited edition series by French car manufacturer Peugeot, 300 units of Pibal will be lent to the citizens for free by the end of June.


“Just like the pibale, undulating and playing with the flow, Pibal is an answer to new urban ergonomics,” says Starck, “thanks to a lateral translation which allows oneself to pedal long distances, to scoot in pedestrian areas and to walk next to it, carrying a child or any load on its platform. It only has the beauty of its intelligence, of its honesty, of its durability. Rustic and reliable, it’s a new friend dedicated to the future Bordeaux expectations.” It’s is strange to hear Starck speak of an object in these terms, but since we whole-heartedly support this initiative, we can only say, let’s hope he does so more often.

Rujana Rebernjak 

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26/02/2013

Le Corbusier’s Secret Laboratory at Moderna Museet

Le Corbusier’s Secret Laboratory at Moderna Museet

Whenever a major exhibition appears about an important artist, architect or designer, it is legitimate to ask oneself what it might tell us that we didn’t already know. Even though every retrospective is surely a perfect occasion to see in person the works we greatly admire, it is that unknown angle about someone’s oeuvre that we might unconsciously seek. Well, Moderna Museet in Stockholm has delighted us recently with just such show about Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, the great architect that is widely known under his famous pseudonym, Le Corbusier.


In more than fifty years of his professional career, Le Corbusier has changed the way both the public as well as the professionals think about architecture, promoting the ideas of modernism as the only possible solution for the future. The show at Moderna Museet shows us though, that even though Le Corbusier was passionately devoted to his rigid modernist aesthetics, he also had a more poetic formalist side. And it is precisely that oscillation between his celebration of mechanical objects and his search for poetic forms that the exhibition tries to highlight.

Curated by one of the most prolific theoreticians of Le Corbusier’s work, Jean-Louis Cohen, this show is organized in five thematic sections dealing with the major stages of his work: his purist paintings and the villas of the 1920s; his rediscovery of vernacular values in the 1930s; his preoccupation with the synthesis of the arts after 1945; and the complex reminiscences of his late work.


Each chapter of this three-dimensional story tries to unveil the complex relationship between the two different chapters of his work, his artistic experimentation and architectural design, using different materials and forms. The 200 works selected include paintings, landscape drawings, still-lifes, portraits, sculpture, tapestries, furniture, architectural drawings, models of buildings and of entire city plans, books, and photographs. Even though we may think we already know everything about this grand master of architecture, a curious peak into his “secret laboratory” shown in Stockholm may unveil a subtle hidden side of him.


Le Corbusier’s Secret Laboratory is on show at Moderna Museet in Stockholm until the 18th of April 2013.

Rujana Rebernjak

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25/02/2013

PATTERN: A Book to Inspire

PATTERN: A Book to Inspire

Whether they are sharing space on a shelf or catch your eye on the coffee table every day, there are certain books that we seem to always come back to. No matter if they are filled with words or filled with images: it’s those books that inspires, those books that you can browse through time after time.

Some books present a history, some books dive into the present and some are like the ‘ultimate catwalk’. “PATTERN: 100 fashion designers, 10 curators” is the follow-up to SAMPLE, a book that upon its release in 2006 became an essential addition to the fashion bookshelf. Behind the book, as for SAMPLE, stands Phaidon and names such as Tavi Gevinson and the founding editors and publishers of Fantastic Man are included on the curator list.

In the book, on four pages each, you meet 100 contemporary designers that together capture the global trends of a somewhat ‘new era’. Christopher Shannon, Thomas Tait, Guillaume Henry and Yiqing Yin are a few of the names already known by The Blogazine and are together with names like Mary Katrantzou, Sarah Burton and Nicola Formichetti featured in the book. The 100 designers work across the fields of womenswear, menswear and accessories just like they work across the world: added to the expected four metropolis (London, Paris, Milan and New York) are cities like Shanghai and Sydney.

The content highlights the fashion of today: illustrations and never-before-seen photographs are accompanied by apprehensive and thoughtful texts written by the ten – not only influential, but respected – fashion figures curating the book. With references to the 1990’s, fashion affected by a restrained economy, delicate craftsmanship and haute couture, PATTERN might just be the next book to grace your coffee table, and definitely the next book to inspire.

Lisa Olsson Hjerpe – Image courtesy: in order of appearance Rachel Antonoff, SHOWstudio, Josh Shinner, Patrick Grant

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21/02/2013

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec – Drawing Book

Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec – Drawing Book

Even though we encounter a myriad of objects each day, we rarely ask ourselves where they come from, who has made them, designed them, produced them and how they intended us to use them. It is to say, we take the things that surround us for granted or, in some cases, simply admire them as a precious piece of art that we can sit on or turn off. Rarely the above mentioned questions intrude in our thoughts as we engage with our daily tasks. Nevertheless, the major part of objects that surround us were crafted through a long process of decision making that involved not only form and function, but also our affection and reaction towards them.


It is this almost invisible process of thinking through design that the new book by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec unveils. Titled concisely “Drawing”, this book collects more than 800 images produced by the French wunderkind brothers from 2005 until 2012. In that period of time, the Bouroullecs have established themselves as one of the most curious and particular contemporary designers, whose particular personal poetic is poured into three-dimensional objects. Working with companies like Vitra, Magis, Alessi, Kvadrat or Ligne Rosset, the Bouroullecs have become storytellers interested in crafting a new way of approaching everyday objects and daily actions.

And it is that process of designing that this book delicately tells through a long series of drawings assembled from sketches drawn of Post-Its or A1 sheets, using whatever tool available, showing that design can be as delicate as art, but also as real as everyday life.


Rujana Rebernjak

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12/02/2013

Book Machine at Centre Pompidou

Book Machine at Centre Pompidou

The idea of artists producing books isn’t that new or that special. Since the turn of the last century, modern and contemporary artists, lacking other – maybe more expensive, maybe more difficult or maybe less adequate – means, have delved with the production of books and printed matter. If we speak about Kurt Schwitters, Rodchenko, William Morris or even Dieter Roth, we aren’t surely discovering a brand new world, yet it somehow still appears to be an strangely unexplored and unfamiliar to many.


Hence, even if for those immersed head-to-toes in the world of books and independent publishing this might come as a bore, we feel obliged to speak about a new initiative that will take place at Centre Pompidou. Starting from the 20th of February, as a part of the fourth edition of “Un Nouveau festival”, Centre Pompidou will open a new platform for contemporary art publishing: Book Machine. The Book Machine was conceived as an event dedicated to book production in the largest sense. In essence, the commitment of the artist to the realization of their book or catalog is an extension of their body of work, and this results in the creation of what we call the artist’s book. The structure of the event will try to engage the public with the process of production of books, the ideas, theories and methods behind the production process through a series of conferences, events, lectures, discussions, screenings and performances organized and proposed by the publishing house Onestar Press.


Christophe Boutin and Mélanie Scarciglia, co-founders of Onestar Press and Three Star Books state: “At the heart of this engagement and from the depths of the Forum -1 at Centre Pompidou, there will be an atelier and office of book production open to the public, where visitors will witness a daily array of visual artists, writers and designers creating their books.” Besides the artists creating their books, the public will be offered the chance to actively engage in the production of books at the specially created “Book Machine Press”.

It seems that the Book Machine will be the perfect occasion to grasp a hint of that elusive and ever-evolving wondrous world printed paper and artist’s books.


Book Machine, 
Centre Pompidou, 
20 February 2013 – 11 March 2013, 
from 11 to 21.

Rujana Rebernjak

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30/01/2013

Designers As Contemporary Artisans

Designers As Contemporary Artisans

More than 150 years have passed since William Morris, the grand English designer, writer, poet, artist and socialist, has first expressed his repugnancy towards the industry and his praise towards traditional crafts. Since the industrial revolution, designers have often discussed their position towards mass production of industrial goods in opposition to the pleasures and values of transmitted by handcrafted objects. While the period following the end of Second World War has seen designers whole-heartedly embrace technology seen as a means of cultural and social renewal, the period after the digital revolution of the nineties and fascination with everything high-tech has seen designers take a step back in the process.


While re-discussing the issues of computer aided design and digital technologies, contemporary design seems to be currently taking a different shift. Even though many areas of design are strongly engaged with new technologies, the most traditional branches of design, like furniture and industrial design, are becoming more aware of the value of craftsmanship in the design process. As Paola Antonelli states in an article published by the magazine Domus “…here we are talking about designers getting their hands really dirty, which for some also means getting their consciences clean. The loaded history of crafts is once again timely, with its antagonism towards mass production, tinged with ethical implications, coupled with new conditions in the world and in the market—from a general awareness of the environmental crisis, to the attempt to price and sell design differently to appeal to art collectors.”


Hence, we are witnessing an actual ‘revival’ of a Morris-onian approach to design. It ranges from practices like the one pursued by Martino Gamper who works almost exclusively on limited edition projects designed with the help of handy artisans and sold in high-end design galleries. A more research-oriented approach like the one of the Italian duo based in The Netherlands, Formafantasma, who use craftsmanship as a method for sourcing new materials and modes of production. To end with the Dutch designer Hella Jongerius, who applies handcrafted details to industrially produced objects and furniture.

This new generation of contemporary artisans, whether they work inside the industry or in less institutionalized spheres of design practice, use craft as a method in developing projects that reflect both on the design discipline itself, as well as on the society, mass production, economy and the way we relate to the objects we use, in a constant dialogue between past and present, awareness and sensibility.


Rujana Rebernjak

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22/01/2013

AMO and OMA for Knoll and Prada

AMO and OMA for Knoll and Prada

We knew about the design-architecture-fashion love triangle for quite some time now. It has, by now, taken many different shapes, from Marni’s 100 chairs made by Columbian ex-prisoners, to more than a few no-brainers where a fashion company provided the textiles and a design company thoughtlessly applied them to their furniture. Nevertheless, the collaboration we have witnessed last week could hardly fit in any of the previously imaginable categories.


It is the widely appreciated love story between OMA and Prada that has managed to surprise us once again, but maybe this time, not in a very good way. During Milan’s Men’s Fashion Week, Prada presented their new line of clothing on a specially designed runway, arranged around the theme of the ideal home. And even though this might seem quite nice, the best part of this story is yet to come: the fabulously designed runway featured some of the most un-fabulously designed furniture, this time by AMO, the research counterpart of OMA, for the American company Knoll.


This explicitly post-modernist furniture, if judged strictly in the context of a fashion week, could definitely be appreciated. But, it is the fact that the furniture displayed on Prada’s runway, to be officially presented by Knoll on another high-profile Milanese event, Salone del Mobile, isn’t just a conceptual inquiry into post-modernist design, but an actual line of furniture to be sold and used in our more than un-perfect homes, that leaves a sense of doubt. Made from shiny plexiglas, carefully masked wood and colourful foam, these geometric swivel armchairs and stacked coffee tables aren’t something anyone should aspire of having in their ideal house. The only way this furniture might be understood is in the highly fashionable circles of ‘conceptual’ and ‘radical’ design where it is supposed to be looked, thought about and admired, but not actually used.


Rujana Rebernjak

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