The 2013 Kartell range was launched inside a series of ’boutiques’ designed by Art Director Ferruccio Laviani and dedicated to each designer and their new collection, complete with logotypes to represent the most famous of luxury signatures. With a cool sense of irony and a nod to the exclusive Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, the expansive installation highlighted how far Kartell has taken plastic – a place that is finer and more precious and light years’ away from it’s origins in the lab.

Kartell’s ‘best in show’ included Japanese designers Nendo and Tokujin Yoshioka. Nendo’s new bookcase, called Cliff, is made from modules of matt white and black polyethylene that allows individualisation and a playful modular approach to the sometimes static bookshelf. While Yoshioka produced the Sparkle stool and table that true to form flashes a brilliant iridescent light (think topaz and diamonds). It proved to be another great R&D challenge for the group and an example of how impressively far down the technology road Kartell is prepared to go with its designers.

Having formed a very fruitful relationship with the Kartell group over the past 5 years, Spanish designer/architect Patricia Urquiola appeared again this year with a new line of armchairs. The Clap armchair in a range of muted hues coordinated between the seat and the legs, joins the Foliage sofa and armchair of 2012 and the new rocking version of the very popular Comback Chair.

Another regular, Philippe Starck, introduced a new family called Aunts and Uncles for indoors and out that includes the Uncle Jack sofa, the Uncle Jim armchair, the Uncle Jo chair, the Aunt Jamy table and the Aunt Maggy console. Exploring both formal and functional innovation. the Uncle Jack sofa is made of transparent polycarbonate and takes Kartell’s daring in single-mould transparent polycarbonate injection technology to new heights.

While fellow French designer Christophe Pillet joined Kartell for the first time. His elegant line of mix-and-match vases and bowls, called Shibuya, are beautiful colour and form combinations in transparent PMMA with a perforated lid that allows the transition from vase to bowl to table centre.

Following the launch of Grace with Living Divani in Milan last month, Italian/English design duo Cristiana Giopato and Christopher Coombes have received a Young e Design Award for their kimono-inspired Kiru.

Presented by Living Divani during the Milan Furniture Fair in 2012, Kiru recently took second place in the 26th edition of the Young e Design competition in Italy. Its name drawn from the Japanese word kimono, meaning to dress, Giopato & Coombes has created a chair that is soft in form with sartorial details and invisible stitching. With its bold yet quietly decorative feel, Kiru is a refreshing rethink of a chair’s traditional upholstery method and meticulously wrapped like one of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s installations.

“The exhibition is articulated around a wide central space, the Arts Décoratifs nave, in which we imagined a gigantic textile architecture that hosts an installation presenting our works on partitions (Algues, North Tiles, Twigs, Clouds). Then, on one side of the nave, a more intimate set up shows about one hundred objects and furniture organized in sequences and paired with a large number of original models. The opposite aisle, on the side of the Tuileries Garden, is dedicated to the collective and work environment with the presentation of the furniture collection designed for the University of Copenhagen and office systems such as Joyn, and more recent works, WorkBay and CorkTable. Momentané showcases all aspects of what we do and it is indeed the opportunity to present research models, as well as about 300 drawings and also films and photography.”

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, April 2013

Momentané, Ronan et Erwan Bouroullec
Les Arts Décoratifs de Paris
26 April – 1 September 2013

Practically inventing the design festival, every April the furniture fair Salone Internazionale del Mobile opens as a citywide celebration of design conceived as a bustling social calendar of product launches, special installations and above all parties. After all, it’s the Italians with their passion for good design, food and wine that give events like fashion week and design week a life and flamboyance all of its own.

Italian designer Francesco Binfaré, Cassina’s art director of design and communication at the time the fuori salone started, remembers the early days well. It was 1973 and Cesare Cassina and Pietro Busnelli’s thriving furniture brand C&B Italia had just split to create B&B Italia. The space at the furniture fair was too small and “Cassina had the necessity to assail the market in an exceptional way so it created the Salone del Mobile in the city centre showroom,” Binfaré says. “It gave life to a Salone with a big party and with the use of the first videotapes showing the magnificence of the events that were taking place in the showroom.”

The success of Milan’s Fuori Salone (Italian for the fair’s satellite events) has created an unprecedented situation where contemporary brands scramble for position, this year Milan drew 320,000 visitors from all over the world. Unmissable for visitors on this design pilgrimage are destinations such as the semi-industrial areas of Zona Tortona and Ventura Lambrata, Spazio Rossana Orlandi’s eclectic treasure trove of emerging designs, La Rinascente department store for workshops and discourses that are consistently pushing the envelope, as well as the legendary drinking hole Bar Basso, where designers come together to wind down the night and spark off new collaborations. “We cannot work within a vacuum, you need to work with the world,” remarks Rossana Hu of Shanghai-based design practice Neri & Hu Design and Research Office. “Milan is definitely important for us as the centre of the furniture and design world.”

In tune with its success as a design destination, the city itself continues to revitalise with high profile and ambitious design projects. The upcoming World Expo 2015 is one to watch and projects signed by leading architects Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind for Citylife, while Porta Nuova, a mixed-use development whose central piazza pays homage to architect Gae Aulenti, aims to create a contemporary destination for Milanese locals to gather and stroll.

For the full report, read Milan News here.

After 10 years with Norway Says, Torbjørn and Espen launched Andersen & Voll in 2009 and have since penned projects as diverse as a bicycle for Alta Bike and a mobile phone concept for Nokia, and a range of products for the home including textiles, glass, furniture and lighting. Yoko is their first project for the Italian lighting group Foscarini.

Launched at Euroluce during the Milan Furniture Fair this year, Yoko was conceived in response to the etherial Northern White Lights of Scandinavia and developed after extensive research with technicians at Foscarini’s HQ. The final design is constructed using an advanced PMMA blow molding technique, its clear bubble-like shade resting and intersecting with an illuminated base and although the transparent bubble seems delicate, its PMMA material cleverly limits the possibility of breakage. In the accompanying interview, Torbjørn and Espen discuss their approach to the design and the meaning of the name Yoko.

The recipients of awards including Wallpaper magazine’s IF Award and an Honorary Award for Design in Norway, Andersen & Voll is definitely a design group to watch.

One of their biggest years at the Milan Furniture Fair yet, Moooi has prepared an entire collection of refreshing new designs and surprising experiences revealed in a special location inside an industrial warehouse at via Savona 56. Here 1.700 square metres transports you to another world with wild patterns and colours, portrait photography by Erwin Olaf, products by their creative collaborators and, in the words of Moooi, ‘an irresistible blend of exquisite richness, nurturing warmth and colourful playfulness.’

For all the latest releases take a walk through the world of Moooi here, and look out for more updates from the fair over the coming weeks.

]]> http://www.morespacemagazine.com/2013/04/11/new-x-moooi/feed/ 0 http://www.morespacemagazine.com/2013/04/10/eames-house-tour/ http://www.morespacemagazine.com/2013/04/10/eames-house-tour/#comments Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:15:33 +0000 heidi http://www.morespacemagazine.com/?p=5405 Continue reading →]]> Taking a tour of one of the world’s most famous houses is both surreal and surprising and one of the best ways to spend a warm summer afternoon in LA.

So much has been written about the Eames House by the American designers Charles and Ray Eames – both online and off – films have been made, photographs taken and exhibitions held. It’s a very well loved house by two very well loved designers. Sitting high above Santa Monica beach in Pacific Palisades, the house was an experiment in ‘off-the-shelf’ components selected from a steel fabricator’s catalogue, and also part of a larger program of case study homes conceived by architecture editor John Entenza (Arts & Architecture magazine) and built in California during the 1950s and 60s.

Visiting the Eames House for the first time feels strangely familiar. Maybe it’s all the images pored over in books and magazines or the Australian connection; gum trees define the site and were the starting point for the design by Charles and Ray which followed the first sketch by Charles and Eero Saarinen. Or maybe it’s the scale and the details and the interior that’s brimming with objects designed by the pair and also collected over time and travels during a life thoroughly lived. Stories and objects are intertwined here too; a dinner shared with Isamu Noguchi, a hand carved tiger collected in India, rugs from Mexico, books, the famous Eames House Bird, Hopi kachina dolls, shells and the painting by Rothco that was presented to Ray as a thank you after one of their famous parties. Ray and Charles are still very present, their ideas so relevant today and maybe even more so.

Of all the twenty-five Case Study Houses built, the Eames house is probably the real success story both as a design statement and a functional home. Testament to this, the house remained the home and studio of Charles and Ray until the death of Ray in 1988. To celebrate 5 years living in the house, the two made the film ‘House’ in 1954 with some epic music by Elmer Bernstein. It’s just as if you are visiting today.

Chairs, tables and accessories by Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson and Jean Prouvé are given a new freshness without forgetting their roots. Trained at art school and not in design, Dutch designer Hella Jongerius understands the significance of colours and surfaces in contemporary design and in her work – across textiles, ceramics and furniture. Here she demonstrates that colours and colour combinations can have surprising results.

In the accompanying interview, Hella discusses her approach to design, the meaning of the term ‘misfit’ in her work, which is also the name of her latest book by Phaidon, and her move to the city of Berlin. During the launch of Vitra’s new pieces in Milan, Domus magazine also interviewed Jean Prouvé’s daughter, Catherine Prouvé, about her father’s own view on colour, and the 14 year quest by the Prouvé family to collate the thousands of drawings, pictures and models that were recently donated to the Centre Pompidou collection in Paris.

A visit to Villa Necchi Campiglio with its Rationalist architecture, extraordinary level of detailing and large collection of decorative arts (including Claudia Gian Ferrari’s early 20th century art and Alighiero De’ Micheli’s 18th century paintings), is a good way of understanding the cultural roots of Milan, a city built by industrialists and shaped by artistic patronage.

Completed between 1932 and 1935 by Milanese architect Piero Portaluppi, and later expanded with a modernist addition by Gio Ponti collaborator Tomaso Buzzi, the sumptuous residence in the heart of the city is nestled between vast gardens, tennis courts and a swimming pool. Not only the central figure in the 2009 film I am Love, Villa Necchi Campiglio is also closely connected to the Milanese design scene. In 2010 furniture brands including B&B Italia and Edra were chosen to show a selection of their key designs alongside the traditional furnishings inside the villa – pieces including Edra’s Brasilia table by Fernando and Humberto Campana, Mummy chair by Peter Traag, and B&B Italia’s Grande Papilio by Naoto Fukasawa.

In 2001 the villa was bequeathed to the Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano by Gigina Necchi Campiglio and Nedda Necchi and is now open to the public Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm. Joining Milan’s network of historic house museums – Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Museo Bagatti Valsecchi and Casa Museo Boschi Di Stafano – Villa Necchi Campiglio is an absolute must see and a fascinating distraction during the Milan Furniture Fair.

When asked to name his number one furniture classic, many iconic designs come to Peter Tay’s mind, but he finally singles out the Easy chair by famous Brazilian modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer, simply because “every architect knows it”. To the celebrated Singapore-based interior designer and avid furniture collector, an iconic design is one that lasts decades like good architecture and defines the identity of a period.

In particular, the postwar 1950s and countercultural 1960s are his favourite periods, as they saw the birth of the modernist masters who represent a significant movement and style of design to him. Other design icons that strike him are Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, Marc Newson, and Jean Prouvé. A particular favourite of his is Perriand’s Three-legged stool, which he acquired as a student at London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture in the 1990s and now keeps at home.

A brief tour of one of his collections (Tay has two offices and collections in Singapore) is a walk through mid-century Modernist to contemporary industrial design. Perriand’s Bibliotheque bookshelf snuggles with a Mies Van der Rohe Barcelona couch and Serge Mouille floor lamp, overlooked by a Moooi Horse lamp and Poul Henningsen’s Artichoke lamp, at the awe-inducing entrance. The collector – who mentions he has acquired almost everything in 1000 Chairs (Taschen, 2000) including Charles and Ray Eames, Hans J. Wegner, Verneer Panton, Philippe Starck, Marcel Wanders, and Ron Arad – loves and collects these items as pieces of art. Yet, the Easy chair is coveted by Tay because it’s no longer in production.

Unsurprisingly, Tay’s love for furniture plays a big role in his interiors. Although Tay studied architecture and later had a stint working for architects Stefano De Martino and Raoul Bunschoten in the UK, when he returned to Singapore about 10 years ago, he decided to “follow his heart” and pursue a career in interior design instead. He sees these fields as natural complements. “Architecture needs to be complemented by interiors, and interiors need to be complemented by furniture.”

With a modern aesthetic, Tay has established a niche for himself in luxury interiors predominantly designing private residences, apartments and showrooms, and is currently working on a number of bungalows in Singapore’s famous Bukit Timah and homes in The Marq and Sentosa Cove. A believer in form follows function, he explains that while form is actually very simple, design stems from a clear function. Instead of decoration, interior design is really about creating spatial quality. As for furniture’s role in this, “One furniture [piece] can tell the whole story.”