At the Milan Furniture Fair’s purpose-built fairgrounds at Rho Fiera, there are many impressive stands, and many that are enormous, and often particular design motifs or materials are seen repeated.
Perhaps the most prevalent theme at the 2014 fair was birds: birdsong, bird cages and forest settings. But Dedon’s stand was the most outstanding. Cut from white metal, graphic silhouettes of trees are accompanied by birdsong and other sounds of the jungle.
This White Jungle was based on a concept by Dedon designer Daniel Pouzet, while the graphics were created by his wife, Marilena Oprean.
PUC near completion with team – that’s me underneath
Last year, I teamed up with a great bunch of designers from Woods Bagot’s Sydney studio to create Planet Under Construction – or PUC. A glowing sphere made of orange construction cones, PUC was suspended from the underside of the Cahill Express Way at Sydney’s Circular Quay as part of the Vivid Sydney 2013 festival of light and ideas.
Tonight, PUC is up for an Australian Interior Design Award in the installation category. If we win, I will be accepting the award on behalf of my fellow team members Guillermo Fernandez, Young Lee, Danny Wehbe, Amanda Gore, Thomas Hale, India Collins, Sophie Bennett and Mohammed Khaled. Wish us luck!
A bookcase and sofa with moving parts for Vitra. A tile series with London themed names for Mutina – fog, lead and ink. A contemporary vase made of Venetian glass for Venini. The London Olympic torch. The new Ace Hotel in Shoreditch. A new £2 coin with an image of the London Underground. An exhibition called “In the Making” at the Design Museum in London.
Portrait of Jay Osgerby (left) and Edward Barber (right) by Mutina. Image: supplied.
The breadth of the work of London design duo Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby is impressive. Sitting down with Jay Osgerby at the Vitra stand at the Milan Furniture Fair in 2014, I ask if this breadth is a result of the thrill of the chase. “It is,” he confirms. “It really is. There’s something about the thrill of the chase which is really creative. If you have a design education you can apply it to anything, really.” Read more →
The story you tell yourself about your world, your life, so often becomes your reality. It’s the same at the Milan furniture fair. It is impossible to see the number of things that are on display during the citywide plus fairgrounds event – or to go to all of the parties. So, each fairgoer’s experience is necessarily different, though there is a lot of overlap.
On Dezeen last week, Marcus Fairs claimed that “The star of Milan this year was Instagram” and this was certainly the first year that I used Instagram as the main tool with which to share in real time the show, and check what my friends and fellow journalists were seeing and doing. The fact that it feeds directly to twitter and facebook is also handy. Read more →
As the Milan Furniture Fair ramps up, one of the common themes across the products from around the world is that of materiality – using materials in new ways, developing new material innovations and unexpected combinations of materials.
Me ringing a ceremonial bowl in brass
At the Triennale, a number of Asian design exhibitions were on display, including “Constancy and Change in Korean Traditional Craft” which displayed the work of contemporary Korean artisans working with traditional processes and concepts.
The ceremonial bowls of Master Lee Bong-ju are made in brass and each one, when struck, resonates at a different pitch. Lee Bong-ju is one of the last of a generation of artisans working in this way and has been named a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Treasure. There is a stillness to the vibration of the bowls which, combined with the beauty of the beaten copper, provides a sense of serenity and majesty. Read more →
Last year, Korean designer Jinil Park exhibited his Drawing Series chair and armchair – two chairs that look like drawings. They are so realistic it is difficult to believe the photograph of the chair is not a drawing. The designer created these one-off pieces as an experiment, wanting to see whether he could turn his rough drawings into actual three-dimensional objects that work as a seat: “I created the objects by hand without even a single CAD plan,” says Park. “Choosing the materials, refining and welding them together to make an object was very difficult. But simultaneously it is a difficult and a fun process.”
Janil Park Drawing Series
Also last year, the Canvas series, this time by Japanese design studio YOY, also plays with the idea of turning a drawing into a three dimensional piece of furniture. Hanging Canvas Sofa, which was shown at Salone Satellite during Milan Design Week 2013, is on first glance a print of a drawing of a chair (or sofa) on a stretched canvas. However, these pieces, whose frame is constructed out of wood and aluminium, feature an elastic fabric which allows the user to sit on the canvas – rendering the two-dimensional image of the chair, an actual chair that it is possible to sit in (and is apparently surprisingly comfortable). Read more →
