As many of you know we officially gave up reporting on private design awards a couple of years ago – for us the emphasis in such awards is more often than not too heavily biased towards generating income for the organisers rather than helping or otherwise furthering the designers and their works.

And as such don’t merit our support.

While some awards are obviously more honourable than others; we decided ignoring all would be fairest.

However as Angela Merkel continues to teach us: what is the point in clearly defining your position on something if you can’t alter it occasionally.

Especially for a design studio as congenial, convivial and charming as Delphin Design.

Sign by Delphin Design for Trendglas Jena (The tea lamp candle is in the base...)

At the 2013 iF Awards Thomas Wagner and Dirk Loff, aka Delphin Design, picked up product design awards for their S 160 and S 170 conference chairs for Thonet and their teapot “system” Sign for Trendglas Jena.

A well deserved hat trick of success for a design studio who continually produce high quality work – most recently of course their PS 07 Bureau for Müller Möbelfabrikation – but always remain just outwith the spotlight of public attention.

Launched by Thonet at Orgatec 2010, the S 160 and S 170 are families of multi-purpose chairs which can be used individually or en mass. Although in principle very simple objects the majesty of the S 160 and S 170 families lies in the carefully reduced, single piece seat shell. It’s not revolutionary, but has been realised by Delphin Design with an all too rarely seen ease and grace. More revolutionary is the mechanism that allows the chairs to interlock via the armrests. The result is a combination of technical innovation and clearly defined form that one has come to expect from Delphin Design.

We know absolutely nothing about Sign for Trendglas Jena other than what we have read on the website, and so can’t and wont comment any further on it.

The awards aren’t Delphin Design’s first ever success at the iF Awards. But three in one year isn’t the sort of thing that happens every 12 months.

The 2013 awards list features no Bouroullec, no Antonio Citterio, no Naoto Fukasawa, and just one mention for Konstantin Grcic

And three for Delphin Design.

Hence our congratulations.

As we said at the beginning, private design awards are not really our thing. As so often however we find ourselves on this point in a minority, and several of the truly international awards – such as the iF Award – have become established as industry wide indicators of quality and innovation. The industry looks at the winners and takes them as benchmarks. And that is what makes Delphin Design’s success ultimately so pleasing, it means their work has not just been formally recognised on an international scale in competition against similar pieces, but will now reach a much wider, specialist audience that may have been the case.

Which is the least it deserves……

Thonet S 160 by Delphin Design

As we’ve said before, and will never tire of repeating, the Thonet back catalogue harbours an unparalleled treasure trove of design classics.

And certainly enough interesting and challenging designs to keep half-a-dozen contemporary furniture companies in business for the next decade or two.

Fortuitously just as Iceland’s fisherman don’t try to maximise profit by catching as many fish as possible as quickly as possible, so to do Thonet choose not to raid the archive every couple of months in the hope of cashing in, rather treat it with great respect.

A strategy which means one never tires of the occasional re-issues.

At IMM Cologne 2013 Thonet are launching the S 1520, S 1521 and S 1522, a family of re-worked, updated, coat rack/shoe rack “systems” based on original Thonet designs from the 1930s

Developed as an in-house project by the Thonet Design Team, the S 1520, S 1521 and S 1522 are constructed from steel tubing combined with a highly durable netweave mesh and exude what one could, but probably shouldn’t, refer to as a “classic Thonet aesthetic”.

The S 1520 has a shelf/hat rack and 10 hooks hidden unobtrusively behind the lower tube, the S 1522 is essentially the same just with only 8 hooks and a chalkboard extension. For both the S 1520 and S 1522 an optional mirror is available which can be hung on the hooks. The S 1521 is two shelves which can either be used low down for shoes or higher up as a double-shelf system.

At around a metre long and 25 cms deep all three should pass in most hallways/porches, and at least the S 1520 could easily be used in an office/waiting room environment.

We could go on; however, the easiest is probably a few photos….

IMM Cologne 2013: Thonet S 1520 (top) and S 1521(bottom)

IMM Cologne 2013: Thonet S 1520 (top) and S 1521(bottom)

IMM Cologne 2013. The hooks on the Thonet S 1520 & S 1522 are "hidden" behind the lower tube.

IMM Cologne 2013: Thonet S 1522

IMM Cologne 2013: Thonet S 1522

At the risk of upsetting furniture historians, wood is probably the longest serving material in furniture design.

It is also one of the most deceptively complex and hard to work materials in furniture design.

For all bending, shaping and moulding pieces of solid wood is a process that has long fascinated and infuriated designers and architects in equal measure.

From Michael Thonet‘s ground breaking research in the 19th century, over the efforts of Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer or Charles Eames in the 20th and onto Christian Kuhn and Serge Lunin’s development of the dukta^* process in the 21st, the desire to shape and form wood as easily as one can bend metal or mould plastic has been a driving force in the development of popular design and architecture.

On Saturday November 17th the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur will open “Wood Loop – Auf Biegen und Brechen” a new exhibition looking at the use of wood in furniture design over the years, but for all the use of bent wood in it is multifarious forms.

The title is of course a reference to Michael Thonet’s singular maxim. Bend or Break.

In addition to an exhibition presenting a range of classic and contemporary examples of bent wood furniture, “Wood Loop – Auf Biegen und Brechen” promises an in-depth exploration of the dukta process and its development history, while for “Atelier dukta” seven architect and design studios have each developed a project specially for the exhibition.

We’ve not seen the exhibition yet and so obviously can’t make any comment on how well it achieves it goals or how deeply it explores the subject matter.

However as an idea for an exhibition we find it absolutely fascinating and certainly as subject it has the scope and depth to provide a truly rewarding experience.

And all who can make it to the the opening on Saturday afternoon are guaranteed a special treat; our old chums from the Thonet wood bending team will be on hand to present a live demonstration of Michael Thonet’s revolutionary process. And don’t be scared to ask if you can have a go. They usually say yes….

Wood Loop – Auf Biegen und Brechen runs at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur Kirchplatz 14 CH-8400 Winterthur from November 17th 2012 until April 21st 2013.

In addition to the exhibition the museum have also organised the de rigueur fringe programme. Full details can be found at http://gewerbemuseum.ch

*The dukta process was developed by Christian Kuhn and Serge Lunin in a joint project with academic and industry partners. It involves making small incisions in the wood in order to increase flexibility….

Biegen oder Brechen. Michael Thonet the father of all wood benders.

And the process developed by Michael Thonet is still practised today. (Here at the Thonet Factory in Frankenberg (Eder))

Moulded plywood furniture by Marcel Breuer for Isokon, London (1936)

This past week it’s been hard to escape images of a bentwood bike purporting to have been created by a London based artist for German furniture manufacturer Thonet.

We choose not to run the story. Something about it troubled us from the beginning.

The fact that only computer generated, rendered, images were available, for example.

Plus knowing what we know about Thonet, it just didn’t make sense. Didn’t feel like Thonet. Wasn’t right.

And now the confirmation from Frankenberg, it’s all a hoax. And not one Thonet or their PR agency were involved in.

See legal press for details, as it were.

That Thonet may have produced a bentwood bike was of course conceivable.

Marcel Breuer, as we know from our interview with Mathias Remmele, was, allegedly, inspired to construct his metal tube furniture by glancing down at his handlebars while riding his bike through Dessau. A bentwood bike would therefore be a nice way of paying tribute to the two most important aspects the Thonet story.

The Thonet chrome sledge S333 was an adrenaline-fuelled beast of a construction, and there must be motivation in Frankenberg to create a bike that offers an equally unique and memorable ride.

And the Thonet Museum in Frankenberg is home to several delightful wheeled objects from the turn of the century, including if we remember correctly, a bath chair. Or possibly a pram. Certainly has wheels.

But no. Thonet have not produced a bike. Nor are they planning one.

They have however promised us something very special at the forthcoming Orgatec 2012.

We’ll keep you updated.

And in general if you want facts about the contemporary furniture industry and not pretty images, probably better to stick with us…..

The S 333 Thonet sledge by Holger Lange. Not an object for the faint-hearted.

Was it not Pulp who in 1995 prophesied that the world would soon be dominated and controlled by mis-shapes, mistakes and misfits: the great silent majority who feel themselves intimidated by their alleged imperfections and deviations from society’s norm. If only they could realise that they were so numerous, that they have something to offer and that society’s imposed ideas of perfection were our modern golden calf, their future would be so promising…..

Under the title “Misfits Revisited” Vienna based design studio breadedEscalope have teamed up with Vienna originating manufacturer Thonet to explore in how far furniture mis-shapes, mistakes and misfits can help us better understand, develop and use materials, form, processes and tradition.

“Misfits Revisited” kicked-off at Vienna Design Week 2012 with a series of “Pimp my Thonet Waste” workshops.

The idea was very simple, Thonet brought a load of production waste from Frankenberg to Vienna. And design week visitors built new pieces of furniture.

With some truly excellent results. And an awful lof of works that even Victor Frankenstein would have problems loving.

But the workshops were of course about more than simply gluing faulty Thonet parts together.

They were about experimenting with form and function. Deciding yourself  how you realise a particularly functionality. Looking at a challenge and finding a solution. Demystifying iconography. Having fun with the creative process.

The workshops in Vienna were just the start of what is and should be a longer and more multi-faceted co-opertaion between breadedEscalope and Thonet. We’ll keep you updated.

And if we’ve read correctly between the lines the workshops will be repeated elsewhere soon.

Watch local press for details, as it were…

Much as Gerrit Rietveld‘s career is publicly reduced down to the Rood-blauwe stoel, so too is it all to easy to imagine Marcel Breuer spent his days doing nothing more than creating chairs and tables from bent steel tubing.

Indeed start typing the name “Marcel Breuer” into google and the all-knowing, all-seeing algorithm will only offer you “Marcel Breuer Chair”, “Marcel Breuer Wassily Chair” and “Marcel Breuer Biography” as searches.

That the public impression of Marcel Breuer should be so monotone is all the more surprising given that the Breuer biography is without question one of the better known Bauhaus biographies. He is one of the few Bauhäusler about whom a TV quiz show would consider posing a question.

The exhibition “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture” currently on show at Bauhaus Dessau not only introduces the visitor to less well known, less well publicly explored, areas of his work, but presents one or the other rarely seen or barely known object from Marcel Breuer’s oeuvre. But for all makes very clear that important as his steel tube work was for 20th century European design, for Breuer himself it was an early and short lived phase of his creativity.

Doing what it says on the tin, “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture” is split into two sections. One looking at his design work, the other looking at his… you get the idea.

The B3 Club Chair (Wassily Chair) by Marcel Breuer @ Bauhaus Dessau

The design section of the exhibition is arranged chronologically and so starts with Breuer’s initial wood pieces, including the unmistakably de Stijl influenced – and appropriately coloured – Lattenstuhl, and an epic, almost steampunk, dressing table and chair combination he created in 1923 for the Haus am Horn in Weimar.

In the mid-1920s Marcel Breuer then started his ground-breaking experimentation with steel tubing, and naturally the genre is well represented in the exhibition, be it the “Wassily” B3 Club Chair in its various forms, Breuer’s numerous and varied collaborations with Thonet or his cantilever chair designs. What is particularly interesting to see is the construction variations Breuer experimented with in his furniture. For example his B 35 chair for Thonet is shown in a welded and a screwed version; the one obviously being suited to flat pack delivery and a modular furniture family. The other is more aesthetically pleasing.

However, whereas the steel tubing is without question his best known, and most important, epoch, for us the plywood section is by far the more interesting.

On the one hand because it was a material he was more or less forced to work with – the company Isokon having little interest in steel tube furniture and wanting instead the commercially more relevant wood – yet was a material with which he was able to produce some truly wonderful furniture; with the organic form language standing very much in contrast with what the majority of us associate with the name Marcel Breuer. Admittedly one has limited options with moulded plywood, but what Marcel Breuer achieved is truly a joy to behold.

But also because it shows that Breuer had an understanding of the commercial furniture industry that few of his contemporaries could match. His 1936 stacking chair being a particularly powerful example.

Examples of Marcel Breuer's moulded plywood work with Isokon. In the foreground the stacking chair

In contrast to the chronological design section, the architecture section is thematically divided into “Spaces”, “Houses” and what the curators refer to as “Volumes” – monolithic, almost brutalist, constructions that seem determined to justify and enforce their right to exist through their presence alone.

Each of the sections is explained through models, photos and sketches of representative buildings.

The most interesting display for us is that devoted to the BAMBOS project.

As a thousand Japanese tourist a day can tell you, one of the most important features of Bauhaus Dessau is the Meisterhäuser – a row of villas built specially for the Bauhaus Masters.

Albeit built much to the annoyance of the “Young Masters” such as Breuer, Josef Albers or Herbert Bayer, who found it “antisocial” that while the Masters were given shiny new villas, the Young Masters – who at the time were doing the lion’s share of the teaching – weren’t.

In an act that stands in magnificent juxtaposition to the happy party people Bauhaus currently on show at the Barbican Art Gallery, the Young Masters rebelled against the plan and proposed their own series of experimental, prefabricated houses known colloquially as BAMBOS after those Young Masters for whom they were intended: Breuer, Albers, Meyer, Bayer, Meyer-Ottens and Schmidt.

Initially the plan was rejected, but with Breuer threatening to leave Dessau, Walter Gropius eventually conceded to the project. However, as with so much associated with Bauhaus, fate meant the project was never realised and much of the original documentation has long since vanished.

Consequently the presentation of BAMBOS is limited to a short text and a model of the BAMBOS House Type 1.

That said, the inclusion of BAMBOS is important as it acknowledges that Bauhaus wasn’t a train speeding towards an agreed destination along a unified ideological track, but rather a collection of individuals with opinions that they were prepared to defend. Even if that meant derailing the train.

In a similar vein we feel the exhibition would and could benefit from a little more information on the disquiet caused when Marcel Breuer started selling his steel tube furniture through his own “Standard-Möbel” label, without first clarifying that with the rest of Bauhaus. Or indeed on many of the other moments when Breuer and Bauhaus clashed. Despite the success it unquestionably brought all parties, the relationship wasn’t all sunshine and cocktails.

Regardless of this, for us, omission “Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture” presents a wonderful, very accessible, overview of the man, his legacy and his place in the story of 20th century design and architecture. One truly gets a feeling for the progression that occurred throughout his career.

But more importantly, and as with “Gerrit Rietveld – The Revolution of Space“, one understands that the public persona is only the introduction to a more complex and creative character. If you like, the invitation to explore further.

Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture is the perfect chance to do just that and can be viewed at Bauhaus Dessau until October 31st 2012.

A model "BAMBOS House Type 1"

Bauhaus Dessau: Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture

The Aula at Bauhaus Dessau, featuring seating designed by Marcel Breuer

Much like those who doubted that the Stone Roses would ever get back together; there are also those who doubt we will ever make it to a Depot Basel show.

Until now it was the case that the shows inevitably fell at periods when we were otherwise engaged. And the opening of Depot Basel No. 5 on March 23rd was no different.

However, this time we’re hopeful we can make it, because the show runs until May 5th.

Longer than usual, but then they are also showing more than usual.

The “main” exhibition concerns itself with seating, specifically with Enzo Mari’s D.I.Y. chair as popularised by his 1974 book “Autoprogettazione”

For Depot Basel No. 5 the Swiss designers Christian Horisberger and Sibylle Stoeckli have created contemporary interpretations of the “Autoprogettazione” classic. Created albeit by following Mari’s 1974 rules.

Not only are the results of their experimentation on display, but visitors can take a copy of the designer’s plans with them and so re-create the works themselves at home.

What amuses us in this context is when we met Enzo Mari in Berlin last summer we took the opportunity to ask him if, given projects such as “Autoprogettazione”, he was an advocate of Open Design.

He isn’t.

Maybe the Depot Basel project can win him over. We hope he drops by.

Enzo Mari's 1974 "Autoprogettazione" Chair

In addition to “Seats” Depot Basel No 5 is also showing results from the past three years of the “Take a Seat” project by Zurich design studio Aekae. Having been commissioned to redesign the cafe “Z am Park” Aekae also initiated a sort of revolving design-competition-sale-gallery-thingy. Every six months or so they send five designers four copies of perhaps the original Swiss cafe chair, the 1-380 from Horgenglarus to re-interpret and re-model.

The re-worked chairs are then used for three months in the cafe before being auctioned off.

A wonderful idea which not only creates a whole new sub-genre of gallery platform, but also is an interesting and innovative way to build up a discourse between the cafe and its guests.

Studio ZMIK's contribution to "Take a Seat". A "grown-up" bar version of the Horgenglarus 1-380 (Photo Sandra Kennel)

For us the fascinating aspect of Depot Basel 5 is that it offers visitors the opportunity to question the chair.

At the opening of “Stühle ohne Beine” Bauhaus Archive Berlin director Annemarie Jaeggi spoke passionately about the social and cultural importance of the chair and how no consumer item better reflects our current society than the chair.

Is that still he case ? Or was the once the case ?

Certainly, for designers chairs offer the perfect platform on which to experiment, because, at least in our western world, everyone uses chairs.

As such chairs are a cultural medium we can all understand and so are probably the only consumer item that is guaranteed to generate some form of response is us all.

We can’t all relate to the latest smartphone, car or digital camera. We all understand the chair.

But do we buy chairs because the material or form language speaks to some aspect our lives ? Or do we consume because of the advertising ?

Every year someone asks in a  pre-Milan text if we really need so many new chairs.

Maybe its about time more consumers asked what they want in their chairs.

Which of course is no more than Enzo Mari was up to in the early 1970s.

Using the chair as a symbol of his personal dissatisfaction with the state of the furniture industry and so through the chair challenging us all to take more initiative and responsibility for our consumption patterns.

Admittedly he has somewhat undone the good work by selling the license to Artek. But then even an Enzo Mari has to eat and pay bills.

As we say, unlike the impossible seeming Roses reunion, we’ve not made it to Depot Basel 5. Yet. But we will. And then we’ll bring you pictures and our impressions.

But despite having not seen it, we think for all who are planning being in Basel over the next few weeks, Depot Basel 5 sounds well worth checking out.

Depot Basel No. 5 runs at Schwarzwaldallee 305, Basel until May 6th 2012

In addition to showing “From Aalto to Zumthor Furniture by Architects” the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln is also showing off it’s new acquisitions: 10 early Michael Thonet stools and a rare work from Jacob and Josef Kohn.

Plus 2 monumental pieces of modern abstract metal furniture: “2 R Not” by Ron Arad and “Bell Metal Horse Chair” by Satyendra Pakhalé

The Thonet chairs are currently being displayed in a special showcase that wonderfully portrays the development of Michael Thonet’s work.

And is if to taunt the founder of industrial furniture production, the curators have placed “2 R Not” and “Bell Metal Horse Chair” directly in front of the Thonet exhibition like two menacing, futuristic, bouncers

Michael Thonet and Ron Arad. Juxtaposition of the year.

Michael Thonet. A man who had an idea. And never gave up on it...

Michael Thonet and his "Boppard Chair"

Michael Thonet and Ron Arad

If Christmas is a time for family, then Christmas is also surely a time to buy your gifts from a family business.

Currently being run by the 5th generation, Thonet have not only been responsible for the introduction and development of bent wood and steel tube furniture – two of the most important genres in the history of furniture design – but continue to support and develop young designers and so may just also discover the next big genre…..

The S 333 Thonet sledge by Holger Lange

Thonet S 333 by Holger Lange

Back in February while the (smow)boss was in a meeting with Nils Holger Moormann and his Moormänner in Aschau, we snuck up a near-by hill for some sledging fun with the Thonet S 333.

An experience we will never forget.

Not just because Holger Lange’s sledge goes like a rocket being chased by a pack of ferocious rocket powered dogs – but because steering is the Thonet S 333 is an art form that has to be learned before the first bend.

Fun, thrills and a genuine joy to use.

A sledge for adults the S 333 is proof that there is nothing boring and conservative about Thonet bent steel tubing.

S 43 by Mart Stam through Thonet - available in a range of colours

Thonet S 43 Classic by Mart Stam

A further development of Mart Stam’s classic cantilever chair design the Thonet S 43 mixes plywood with steel tubing to produce an unmistakable, reduced design that works just as well at a desk as at a dinning table. The S 43 is not only one of the most recognised works of the Bauhaus era, it is also one of the most copied. In 2009, however, a court in Düsseldorf decided that being a work of visual art rather than a piece of industrial design the S 43 was still under copyright and consequently could only be (re)produced by the license holder: Thonet. There are cheaper illegal copies out there, however none posses the quality of craftsmanship nor the visual unity of the Thonet original. The Thonet S 43 by Mart Stam is available in a range of woods and colours.

Thonet B 117

Thonet B 117 by Thonet

The thing that one must always remember about Thonet is that they began producing and trading in an era before furniture designers and industrial designers. As such a lot of the products in the Thonet archive were created by the Thonet in-house design team. Such as the B 117 side table. With its “floating” drawer unit and reduced form the Thonet B 117 is not only a classic example of early 1930s design but is a design that remains as contemporary and relevant today as then. Created from tubular steel and stained beach the B 177 can be beautifully employed , for example,  as a bedside table, hall table or an additional IT office table.

The Thonet 214 Minature by Vitra

Thonet 214 by Michael Thonet (Miniature) from Vitra

The Thonet 214 is not only the chair that initiated commercial furniture production, nor is it only the chair that paved the way for Swedish gentlemen to open large warehouses next to every motorway in Europe, nor is it only the chair that almost broke Michael Thonet. The 214 is all of these things. And the Vitra Design Museum Thonet 214 Miniature is all of these things in 1:6 scale. And as such is the perfect gift for all connoisseurs of good design.

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Vienna Design Week Opening -contemporary and antique in perfect harmony

For us the Wiener Palais Liechtenstein is a building with almost religious meaning.

For it was, in many ways, the place where Michael Thonet got his first big break – and so the point from where the Thonet story starts to turn and to become a success story.

Some have Mecca, others Bethlehem – and we have a 17th century garden residence in north Vienna.
All of which speaks volumes for the quality of our social lives.

For the Vienna Design Week, in contrast, the Liechtenstein Museum is the sumptuous and extravagant location for the annual Design Week Opening Party.

While we imagine such an opening ceremony could be just as successful with a couple less speeches – yes we know sponsors are important, but as all designers know so is proportion…. the real highlight of the evening was the opening of the exhibition “Barock Splendour and Stainless Steel”: three specially commissioned installations dealing with the theme “tableware with a past and a future.”

As a foretaste for the forthcoming exhibition on Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen’s ceremonial silver tableware, the designers Olgoj Chorchoj (Prague), Makkink & Bey (Rotterdam) and Claesson Koivisto Rune (Stockholm) were each given one room in the Liechtenstein Museum and free rein – or given the location that should probably be free reign – to interpret the theme.

Vienna Design Week: Part of the result Claesson Koivisto Rune's collaboration with J & L Lobmyer and the Wiener Silber Manufactur

An interesting observation for us was the fact that two of the works – independent of one another – echoed one of the central topics of the Vienna Design Week; helping traditional Austrian design manufacturers remain current without losing touch with their history and roots.

The results, however, could barely have been more different.

And so where Claesson Koivisto Rune collaborated with the Vienna crystal manufacturer J & L Lobmyer and the Wiener Silber Manufactur to produce a range of wonderfully elegant yet robust vesicles; Studio Makkink & Bey’s cooperation with the silversmiths Jarosinsky & Vaugoin and the former court confectioner Demel resulted in an apparently abstract and incoherent world of silver and sugar.

Olgoj Chorchoj tackled the theme a little more literally and in doing so produced without question one of the most interactive installations of Vienna Design Week. One of those wonderful creations that simply invites the public to react and play with it.

The success with which the three design studios tackled the theme is naturally a subjective question for each individual visitor; and clearly each work has its own strengths and weaknesses.

While for us such exhibitions are admittedly little more than a pleasant diversion from the rigours of the job; “Barock Splendour and Stainless Steel” is one of the more pleasant diversions we’ve enjoyed this year.

The opening party then went on until the wee small hours; however, we left good and early in preparation for the days ahead.

Honest!

“Barock Splendour and Stainless Steel” can be viewed until November 9th in the Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna.

Vienna Design Week - Opening Party in Liechtenstein Museum

Vienna Design Week : Not everyone understood Silver Sugar Spoon by Studio Makkink & Bey

Vienna Design Week: Back to the Childhood by Olgoj Chorchoj

Vienna Design Week Opening - Stuff memories are made of