There’s nothing quite like a invitation to a vernissage to remind you that you really should get round to finishing of typing up an interview.

At Neue Räume Zurich in October 2011 we didin’t just speak to Nikolas Kerl and Jürg Scheidegger

But also with Moritz Schmid and Rebekka Kiesewetter.

And yes the last two interviews have yet to be published. We are working on them. Promise.

Back at Neue Räume, Rebekka told us that it was almost certain that she would be co-organising a “Depot Basel – Zurich Edition”

That is now reality and runs on Friday 17th and Saturday 18th February in the WÄSCHEREI, Kunstverein Zürich Dienerstrasse 70, 8004 Zürich.

For the Zurich Edition, seven Zurich based design studios were asked – if we believe the press release, which given our knowledge of the people behind Depot Basel, we do – what they eat for breakfast, how they live, what smell excites them and what they are working on right now.

Amusingly, for us the answer to all four questions would be exactly the same!

The answers from Livia Lauber, Tido von Oppeln, Milo Keller, Thomas Walde,Christian Kägi, Matteo Gonet and Aleli Leal &  Kaspar Fenkart will be revealed from 8pm on Friday February 17th.

And on the Saturday evening at 8pm cocktails will be served. Cocktails, naturally, designed by the participating designers.

Full details can be found at http://depotbasel.ch/

Depot Basel - Zurich Edition

Last week we, finally, made our first visit to Design Miami Basel.

Featuring 43 international design galleries, Design Miami Basel is a curious mix of those featuring “old” objects and those featuring new contemporary designs.

Those galleries who concentrate on new contemporary design generally make their money in that they organise limited editions of concept pieces by designers – which they then sell. Or they buy up “first editions” of pieces of new works that may, they hope, eventually go on to become design classics.

Fragile Future Chandelier 3.1 by Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta at Carpenters Workshop Gallery

The modern works on display in Basel ranged from those that are, if we’re all honest, more works of art than design, such as the truly monumental “Fragile Future Chandelier 3.1″ by Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta at Carpenters Workshop Gallery to pieces of high-class product design that genuinely impressed us, a wonderful example being the light sculptures “Well of Life” by Arik Levy at Priveekollektie.

Most entertaining was seeing works such as Oskar Zieta’s Plopp or Endless by Dirk vander Kooij, products which we can remember making their design fair debuts as revolutionary, if still faceless, wonders.

It’s always nice watching things grow up. Be they children, sheep or rocking chairs created from molten fridges.

Amongst the older designs on offer the two categories that most appealed to us were without question the architectural pieces and the one-off/location specific pieces. The older versions of products still in production not really floating our boats. See below.

In the second category Dansk Møbelkunst Gallery, for example, had some wonderful examples of non-series pieces from Arne Jacobsen, including a delightful Easy Chair created as part of an architectural project and some very simple, almost cheekily so, drawers made for, and salvaged from, his SAS Royal in Copenhagen.

In the architectural category we loved the Le Corbusier staircase on sale at Galerie Downtown – François Laffanour, And of course Galerie Patrick Seguin’s installation with the construction of Jean Prouvé’s 1944, 6×6 Dismountable House. Both wonderful reminders of the origins of the industry from which we now feed.

The only Le Corbusier we could afford at Design Miami Basel 2011

Despite the many, many high points at Design Miami Basel there were a couple of clouds.

And we don’t just mean those from Asif Khan. (Cheap gag. Sorry)

The first one was learning that museums are among the galleries most important clients.

For us that is wrong.

We understand that when someone wants to set up a private bus ticket museum that they should have to source their own exhibits.

But when we’re dealing with national museums that exist to preserve culturally and historically important artifacts for the common good: Shouldn’t they be given such things as a matter of course? Free?

Does a private collector really have an equal right to an early Mies van der Rohe chair as a museum?

Is the perceived market value of a lamp calculated on the basis of its provenance and raritey comparable with its historical value based on its cultural importance?

In such questions we simply cannot follow the “free market” arguments of galleries.

It is correct that museums shouldn’t have the right to simply expropriate owners as and when the mood takes them. But when something comes on the market should museums not have first bags? We say yes.

While accepting the impracticality of regulating such a system and of deciding which pieces should go to which museum.

We know the same argument exists in the field of art. And our opinion is the same.

Where something is culturally or historically relevant it must belong to the public domain.

And secondly, after several hours wandering round Messe Basel Hall 5 we reached the unavoidable conclusion: We’re not the collecting types.

Our passion isn’t owing the objects. It is the objects. The idea behind them. The personalities behind them. The story behind them.

If other people actually want to own them. That’s obviously fine by us.

We’re just glad they exist and glad that there are and were creative minds who made them possible.

And so Design Miami Basel simply isn’t for the likes of us. We really have no reason to be there. Design Miami Basel is for collectors. And for European collectors we can’t imagine a better place than Design Miami Basel.

That said, we’re very glad we went, glad we experienced it. It’s just not our world. But we’ll go back next year… just to see if the organisers have plucked up the courage to drop the “Miami” from the name.

You can see a few of our Design Miami Basel 2011 highlights in our facebook gallery.

Design Miami Basel 2011

Among the projects at Design Miami Basel 2011 that most appealed to us was without question Cloud by London architect Asif Khan.

Conceived within Asif’s tenure as one of the 2011 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award winners, Cloud can, at the most primitive level, probably be best described as floating foam.

But as with all good design Cloud hides its true genius behind a facade of primitive simplicity.

Cloud employs a mixture of Helium, soap and water to create irregular forms that rise upwards where they are collected in a net. The conglomeration of the artificial clouds creating one big cloud that provides an area of shade. Much like a cloud.

We do have a nice animated .gif – but we’re having difficulty integrating it :(  Watch this space!

To find out more about the project, we briefly spoke to Asif Khan about Cloud and the W Hotels Designers of the Future Award.

(smow)blog: Starting at the beginning, what is the background to Cloud ?

Asif Khan: The project is my response to the brief set by W Hotels which was “Conversation Pieces” and my aim was to create an experiment exploring the limit of what designates architecture and so to create a very primitive shaded space -  like a canopy under a tree – but which has the memory, texture and light diffusing character of clouds. And so that’s we’ve done, made clouds out of helium, soap and water – which are the most basic materials but they create a space and a sort of architectural ecosystem which people are invited to come and participate in.

(smow)blog: Is the project something that you have been working on for a while, or how long was the development phase?

Asif Khan: It all really started as I was playing with my son in the bath and realised that foam was a wonderfully mouldable and sculptable material and so I started researching this form of material language. But then translating that into a cloud was something that we did specially for this project, we started with the planning in January but then the real work was done in April in May.

(smow)blog: And is this an idea that you plan to develop further, or… ?

Asif Khan: Yes, on the one hand it is a piece in itself but it is also in a way a prototype for a new type of architecture that we may see at some point in the future.

(smow)blog: Your here in Basel as one of the 2011 W Hotels Designers of the Future Awards winners. What does that mean to you?

Asif Khan: It is just a real privilege. And its amazing to be put in this environment amongst all these other fantastic designers and to be endorsed by Design Miami as effectively a vision of the future. And so for me it’s a platform but also puts us in a place where we have to aspire to reach the next level: and so it really pushes you, which is great.

(smow)blog: And in that sense, what can we expect to see from you in the near future?

Asif Khan: I’m designing a restaurant in Borough Market London called Elliot’s which is opening in a couple of weeks and am also creating a pavilion for the British Council and the Royal Academy of the Arts for the Singapore Architecture Festival. Then in terms of products I’m doing some classroom furniture with Magis, and I’ve just launched a light with Danese. And so all different scales of projects, and also some huge, crazy stuff for next year. But more about that later.

(smow)blog: And final question, will we be able to see Cloud anywhere else, or is it a one-off for Design Miami Basel?

Asif Khan: We want to try to do it London, and we have had a lot of offers from visitors here to show it in various locations around the globe, and so I’m sure there will be other opportunities to see it.

Cloud by Asif Khan @ Design Miami Basel 2011

Lift off.....

... there she goes ....

... and so grows the cloud!

This year we are finally going to make it to Design Basel.

In the past something else always seemed to get in the way; be it illness, other appointments or a feeling deep in our stomachs that it was all just a touch too elitist and too far removed from the world of the normal designer furniture customer to justify the trip.

But this year we’re healthy, free and a little older and wiser.

It in its 6th year Design Basel features exhibitions from 43 international design galleries showing an impressive array of both “historical” design – i.e from the early 20th century – and contemporary works.

Now you know us, we’re not the sort who get excited and carried away ahead of an event.

It could all be rubbish.

However among those galleries we are particularly looking forward to are Dansk Møbelkunst who’ll be doing what their name implies and showing works by Danish designers; Paris based Galerie Downtown François Laffanour promise a few interesting works from Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Ron Arad; while Priveekollektie Contemporary Art | Design will be showing works by, among others, Arik Levy, Reinier Bosch and Rolf Sachs.

A further highlight promises to be two structures by Jean Prouvé: Jousse Entreprise will be presenting a section of Prouvé’s 1957 Ecole de Villejuif and Galerie Patrick Seguin will be staging a live show featuring the daily construction and disassembling of a 6 x 6 metre bungalow Prouvé designed in 1944 to house war victims in Lorraine.

We must admit to still having a slightly uneasy feeling about the whole adventure; however, we are looking forward to some long, detailed discussions with the gallery owners and hopefully learning a little more about the whole gallery circus, what they do all day and how they help and advance furniture design.

And we’ll probably also visit the VitraHaus and take a few squint photos.

Design Basel takes place from June 14th-18th and full details can be found at www.designmiami.com