On March 4th 2012 the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig opened the final part of their permanent exhibition.

An exhibition very close to our hearts.

Now you know us, we ‘ve nothing against baroque or ancient Japanese furniture and objects.

But our hearts do beat a little faster when we get to the late 19th century.

Mies van der Rohe bending metal. Alvar Aalto bending wood. Verner Panton bending plastic. Axel Buether bending light.

It’s all there in “Art Nouveau to Present”

Plus a monumental bedroom ensemble by Ron Arad constructed from scaffolding poles.

A 1980s bedroom/study ensemble by Ron Arad. As see at the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig

As the name tends to imply “Art Nouveau to Present” starts in the late 19th century before continuing over Art Deco and the uncontrolled pomp of the early 20th century until Functionalism, Bauhaus and Modernism rip everything back down to the bare bones.

The second world war is then poetically skipped via the most delightful staircase.

Aside from the collection of porcelain coffee pots, the first thing that attracts your attention on the ground floor is the Charles and Ray Eames‘ RAR. And then a table and chair ensemble by Eero Saarinen, perfectly illuminated as they are by an AJ Royal hanging lamp from AJ. Arne Jacobsen.

The exhibition then continues over the uncontrolled pomp of pop art and post modernism before ending with Sinneslandschaften, a multi-media room installation by Axel Buether and a team of his students from Burg Giebichenstein Halle.

Among the numerous highlights in “Art Nouveau to Present” one real star is the re-creation of Lilly Reich’s display stand for Wilhelm Wagenfeld‘s Vereinigten Lausitzer Glaswerke (VLG) glassware collection as seen at the 1936 Grassimesse. Fascinating as the works themselves unquestionably are, for us the principle interest is how the display beautifully underlines that the principle role of museums is documenting.

In this context a further highlight is the numerous “room set-ups” scattered throughout the exhibition. Although not especially large, they do allow one to view the furniture in situ; a little detail that really helps in understanding the relation of the pieces to one another.

What “Art Nouveau to Present” also does very well is to mix design from “East” and “West” and so one finds, for example, a 1962 vacuum cleaner from VEB Elektrowärme Altenburg sitting next to a Braun SK 5 by Dieter Rams and Hans Gugelot. Or the aforementioned Eames RAR next to Erich Menzel’s “Model 50642″ for VEB Sachsenholz Hellerau. A mixture that works. Because it simply ignores the political situation in which the works were created and concentrates fully on the objects and their relevance.

Kinder Schaukelwagen by Hans Brockhage & Erwin Andrä. If you'd been in our office in the past six months you'd understand why this amused this....

Where for us the exhibition does suffer is the curators less than successful attempt to deal with the depth of the subject. The Grassi Museum obviously have a wonderful collection of objects. And equally obviously don’t have the space to display them in a fashion that allows for a dialogue of any real depth.

And so for “Art Nouveau to Present” they have brutally compromised with a very old fashioned exhibition concept that sees the majority of the objects simply placed in a room with a description of what it is. A concept that crams an awful lot into too small a space and as such overpowers the visitor. Even we found our interest occasionally waning on account of the monotity and lack of genuine interaction.

As we said in the context of “From Aalto to Zumthor Furniture by Architects” for a permanent exhibition one can get away with such a concept. The question is of course if one is satisfied with having gotten away it.

Or if as with having gotten away with cheating on your partner, you shouldn’t at least have the decency to feel a permanent twinge of guilt. And possibly eventually admit the error.

It will be interesting to see how the forthcoming special exhibitions redress this situation.

That said “Art Nouveau to Present” remains an exhibition that we recommend viewing

Because aside from the obvious joy at the individual items, it truly does “close” the Grassi Museum’s permanent exhibition in that it allows one to follow the development of design and so to understand where modern design comes from. And how “modern design” is to be understood in the context of “historical design”.

Eero Saarinen & Arne Jacobsen in Art Nouveau to Present @ Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig

Hofmobiliendepot Vienna Sixties Design

On Wednesday February 29th the Hofmobiliendepot Vienna open their 2012 spring exhibition.
We had hoped to make it to the opening; but life being what it is. We wont.

Sadly.

Not least because the exhibition explores, for us, one of the most interesting periods of design – The Sixties.

Not interesting as in, “Wow! Look how bright, spacey and groovy everything is!!!” Obviously.

But interesting in terms of what it brought into the design vocabulary and the doors that it opened. And because it offers a chance to show how misunderstood the decade often still is.

Divided into ten sections Sixties Design starts in the 1950s before moving over “space age design” and pop art and on to anti-design and features works from the likes of Vico Magistretti, Joe Colombo, Verner Panton and  Eero Saarinen.

But for us what sounds much more interesting is the placing of the exhibition in the context of two cultural revolutions that defined the 1960s; the rise of consumerism at the start of the decade and the counter revolution at the end.

The “consumer revolution”  was driven to a large extent by the increasing social and financial security of the age combined with the speed at which new materials were being brought onto the market. New materials that not only made ever more possible, but challenged the designers of the day to push the limits even further.

In an interview we conducted with the Susanne Graner, Head of Collection at the Vitra Design Museum – an interview that we really must get round to publishing – she speaks about how one of the biggest problems with restoring 1960s furniture is that often no-one knows exactly what the material is. What it is composed of. So rapid and impulsive was the development of new materials they were often being used before the research was properly completed. Its not just the case that if you can remember the 1960s you weren’t there, but also if you can remember what the construction materials are composed of, you probably weren’t involved in creating the object.

Or put another way the early 1960s saw the beginnings of designers experimenting; of designers seeing their function as being more than just creating attractive, practical objects.

And the public of the day were ready and willing to spend their extra disposable income on everything that came on the market.

Selene by Vico Magistretti from 1968. Seen here during the exhibition Zoom at the Vitra Design museum

In 1966 the logical conclusion of this new found freedom, both creative and commercial, finally exploded in the form of Anti-Design

Initiated by Florentine collectives such as Archizoom and Superstudio, collectives who spent their days questioning everything about everything, the Anti-Design movement saw themselves as a counteraction to the over commercialisation of design as represented by the pop furniture and bright colours of the early 1960s. Of making design socially and culturally relevant rather than simply a mass market product.

And, completely ironically, in doing so helped contribute to today’s over saturated market by making design something fashionable rather than just desirable.

Despite the apparent contradictions of the two movements, they are very closely related; and not just in their common desire to break away from the all enveloping modernism that had dominated European design and architecture for so many decades.

Although both dominated by architects they opened up the field to other professionals, they both encouraged practitioners to find their own voice, to develop their own form language and to take responsibility for their work

And they both made fun look easy. Which brings us back to misunderstanding the era. A Cone Chair by Verner Panton, for example, is amusing. And an awful lot of work.

As we say, we’ve sadly not yet seen “Sixties Design” at the Hofmobiliendepot Vienna, and so we can’t comment on how well the exhibition deals with and discusses the numerous topics involved with the decade.

But if your in Vienna in the coming months it certainly sounds worth checking out.

Not least because the Hofmobiliendepot Vienna houses the most fantastic collection of late 19th early 20th century Viennese furniture including some outstanding works from Michael Thonet, Josef Hoffmann, Otto Wagner et al….

Sixties Design at the Hofmobiliendepot Vienna runs until June 17th 2012.

Full details can be found at www.hofmobiliendepot.at

Flowerpot Lamp by Verner Panton from 1968 Seen here during the exhibition Panton in the Danish Embassy Berlin

As tradition demands the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln (MAKK) have organised a furniture themed, special exhibition to coincide with the Cologne Furniture Fair.

Under the title “Von Aalto bis Zumthor: Architektenmöbel” (“From Aalto to Zumthor: Furniture by Architects”) the MAKK is presenting over 120 examples of furniture designed by professional architects.

Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln: From Aalto to Zumthor Furniture by Architects

As older readers will have long since accepted, the “Furniture Architect” is a pet subject of ours. Not just because the architects involved have created some truly fantastic works, often just out of a pure passion for their occupation and with little or no regard for any potential financial gain. But also because we believe that through understanding why “Furniture Architects” are important to the development of the furniture industry we can rediscover the basics of creating good furniture. And help improve the contemporary designer furniture industry.

In the press notes the MAKK state that many of the architects started making furniture for their projects because there was nothing suitable on the market.

We’re genuinely not in the habit of contradicting long established and respected design museums.

But.

We’d argue that while that may have been a factor in occasional cases, more important was the desire to control a whole project and to ensure a formal unity throughout. Inside and out.
We’ve got a nice quote somewhere, for example, about Egon Eiermann only agreeing to build a house in Berlin if he was also contracted to do the furniture.
And Arne Jacobsen made similar demands before accepting the commissions for the SAS Royal in Copenhagen and St Cahthrine’s College in Oxford.
And Le Corbusier certainly didn’t kit out his 1950s social housing with his own furniture designs just because IKEA had yet to be founded.

For us the distinction is important as it defines the motivation for creating the furniture and as such underlines the way the acteurs thought and worked.

What is beyond question is the importance of the works.

10 Unit System by Shigeru Ban. A modular, endless extendable, chair system

Using items from the museums own collection complemented by items borrowed from third parties, “From Aalto to Zumthor: Furniture by Architects” tells the story of a century of “Furniture Architects”. Starting with works by the likes of Hoffmann, Wagner or Emil Beutinger who is represented by the most delightful kitchen ensemble from 1903. An ensemble that includes a seat bank unit that could be straight out the Atelier Moormann Haute Couture collection.
Should they ever decide to produce such.

In comparison to the understated elegance of many of the early pieces, we couldn’t help feeling that a lot of the more modern pieces were simply screaming look at me. But in that far too obvious way we know from people whose attempt at finding personal gratification through the medium of “Celebrity” has failed to such an extent they feel compelled to go into an Australian jungle to eat kangaroo testicles on live television in the hope of being remembered for what they contributed to modern society.

We could just have written soulless and unattractive.

We must clarify not all modern pieces were such. Just some.

Sitting here writing this post we can’t think of any early pieces by the “Pioneer Furniture Architects” that would also fit into such a category.

One could argue the reason why a lot of pre-war furniture design is all so conservative and “normal” is that was how society was.

There hadn’t been any major, or indeed minor, attacks on accepted norms.

Post post-modernism, dadaism and punk we have that experience and, yes, it is valid to challenge conventions. Especially in the context of furniture created for a building that has been designed to meet modern challenges.

Which brings us back to the reason the architect designed the furniture….

However, we suspect that the architects placed by us in this category don’t want to be considered “Furniture Architects”. We suspect that they want to be considered artists. And the works as creations. Or even worse “statements”

Which could lead us to ask if they belong in the exhibition? Art, design and architecture are different disciplines that can and should freely intertwine and fuse. The question is always which part is dominant. In selecting works for such an exhibition we say design. Design created with the training, eye and understanding of an architect.

Which of course raises the further question of where is System USM Haller? A furniture concept extrapolated directly from an architectural concept.

Jean Prouvé and Alvar Aalto at "From Aalto to Zumthor Furniture by Architects"

“From Aalto to Zumthor: Furniture by Architects” is a nice enough exhibition. But for us the main problem is that it simply doesn’t explain enough. It simply shows.

And for a special exhibition in a specialist museum that is too little. You can get away with it in the permanent exhibition; but a special exhibition of this kind should offer more. You should leave with the impression that you have learned more about the subject.

We’re fairly well clued up and enjoyed the chance to examine the works at close quarters and compare pieces.

But most people aren’t. And can’t.

And although there were nicely conceived and delightfully illustrated notice boards for some exhibits. For the majority there was what resembled an archive data entry card with a name and a little bit of information.

And then of course the decision to place some chairs 5 metres above the ground, half hidden in boxes so that no one can see them.

Daft.

Despite the, for us, somewhat lacklustre exhibition concept the works remain important; and indeed the idea of the “Furniture Architects” remains central to the development of what we now understand as the designer furniture industry. And as we say important in understanding where the modern industry could improve

And so in that sense “From Aalto to Zumthor Furniture by Architects” is well worth a visit.  Especially during Cologne Furniture Week 2012 when entry is free.

“From Aalto to Zumthor: Furniture by Architects” runs at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln until April 22nd 2012

Design for Use, USA. The cover of Alexander Girard's catalogue.

“Wooden spoon for pickled vegetables by John F. Kennedy”

? ? ?

John F. Kennedy. Green Mountain Woodcrafters, Vermont.

And no relation of Teddy or Robert.

Still cheered us up.

From March 20th until April 25th 1951 Stuttgart hosted the first post-war exhibition of modern American home furnishings and appliances in Europe.

Organised by the New York Museum of Modern Art under the title “Design for Use, USA”, the exhibition featured a cross section of American domestic design.

And a Who’s Who of mid 20th century American designers: Charles Eames. George Nakashima. Ray Eames. George Nelson. Eero Saarinen. Isamu Noguchi. Etcetera.

All presented in an exhibition concept and catalogue designed by Alexander Girard.

Aside from the very appetising list of objects displayed, the exhibition was and is interesting for a number of reasons.

Firstly because it took place some two years before Willi and Erika Fehlbaum made their fateful trip to New York; from which they returned with the seeds of Vitra in their hand luggage.

Imagine. Just for a second. If someone in Stuttgart had shown a little more entrepreneurial spirit.

No Vitra.

Which is an important lesson in grabbing the opportunity when it presents itself.

Secondly, the exhibition arguably kick-started the designer furniture industry in post-war Europe.

In her article “The “Advance” of American Postwar Design in Europe: MoMA and the Design for Use, USA Exhibition 1951–1953″¹ Gay Mcdonald argues that the whole exercise was simply concerned with promoting Americana in Europe in the context of the Marshall Plan. And when you read the original 1951 MoMa press release² its hard to disagree.

Doesn’t interest us.

As far as we’re aware Americans have always been obsessed with exporting their culture to the rest of the world. Be it blue jeans, hamburgers or oppressive security concepts in the name of freedom.

And of course they famously invented their own sports rather than assimilate those from other cultures.

But we trust that most Europeans, and indeed most Americans, are intelligent enough to form their own conclusions and opinions.

And so regardless of the motives, we find the exhibition was the right thing at the right time. At that period America, untouched by the war, was the motor of world product design. And MoMa was unquestionably the institution playing the biggest role in promoting American design innovation.

In 1951 most of Europe was busy re-building and was greatly in need of quick, efficient housing and furnishing solutions.

Ergo, let MoMa bring the best America has to offer to Europe. And let us take inspiration from those bits we like.

"Upholstered chair" by George Nelson for Herman Miller from the Design for Use, USA catalogue

Gay Mcdonald quotes a source as stating that some 60,000 visitors attended the exhibition. That may not sound much; but one must remember that it was 1951. There were no budget airlines offering 20p flights to Stuttgart. And also a lot less “design industry”.

The aforementioned Vitra was still an inconsequential shop fitting company in Basel.

And so 60,00 is fantastic.

What is sadly not documented is who went and what they took away with them.

For just as every important and influential Manchester band of the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s can trace their origins back to 4th June 1976 and the Sex Pistols concert at the Lesser Free Trade Hall; we romantically hope that “Design for Use, USA” shaped European furniture design of the 50s and 60s.

However, without the documentation one can only conject on the long-term effect that the exhibition had on those who visited.

After Stuttgart the exhibition continued through Europe with stops in London, Paris, Zürich and the Milan Triennale.

The fact that no-one took the opportunity to organise European production licenses indicating that, maybe, it was all just too new. Too different.

However, it conceivably began a sensitising process that paved the way for Vitra to successfully launch the works of Eames, Nelson, Noguchi et al in 1957.

And indeed for Wilde + Spieth to successfully market Egon Eiermann’s chairs. Egon Eiermann began publicly working towards mass market furniture when he participated in the “Wie Wohnen ?” exhibition that took place in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe in 1949/50. Many of his designs however originated from the mid-1940s, and Eiermann was undoubtedly influenced by what he was reading from America in the specialist publications of the time.

We’re not saying he was copying. But Eiermann and Eames were certainly researching and experimenting in similar directions. Eames albeit a little quicker and more successfully.

Yet in 1951, only few industry figures would have been aware of this, and indeed in 1951 Eiermann’s SE 3 (the current SE 42),  allegedly, only sold some 153 times. And principally to architects. ³ Over the next decade however not only did the sales figure dramatically improve; but Eiermann’s chair designs – with their undeniable “Hint of Eames” – advanced to become European design classics.

But again we can’t actually prove that Design for Use, USA helped.

A RAR and and ESU Bookcase by Charles and Ray Eames as depicted in the Design for Use, USA catalogue

In addition to paving the way for a new understanding of home furnishings, “Design for Use, USA” also introduced Europe to new technological and business model initiatives; we started moulding plastics and established designer furniture producers in the style of Hermann Miller. But we did it in European way.

We, for example, have no confirmed information that Arne Jacobsen attended the exhibition; but undeniable is how passionately he embraced the use of synthetic materials appearing on the market throughout the 1950s and 60s. And how expertly he fused them with the best traditions of Danish handwork. The Egg and Swan perhaps standing as the best examples.

And so while we admittedly lack the documentation, there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to indicate that without “Design for Use, USA”  it would have taken the European furniture industry a little longer to find its feet.

And with potentially less interesting products.

What we can’t predict however is how the Kennedy dynasty would look today if they had concentrated on pickle spoon design rather than politics.

The Slinky by Richard T James: was also part of the Design for Use, USA exhibition

1. Gay McDonald “The “Advance” of American Postwar Design in Europe: MoMA and the Design for Use, USA Exhibition 1951–1953″ Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 2 Spring 2008. Pages 15-27

2. “MUSEUM’S “DESIGN FOR USE, U.S.A.” EXHIBITION SAILED FOR EUROPE JANUARY 5″ http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/1483/releases/MOMA_1951_0001_1951-01-04_510104-1.pdf

3. Arthur Mehlstäubler “Egon Eiermann – der deutsche Eames?” in Egon Eiermann (1904 – 1970)

Vitra Eames DSR

Da vi for nylig var på en lille rejse fik vi øje på en ægte Eames fiberglasbænk fra Herman Miller i en lufthavn.  Tager man stedets ret begrænsede faciliteter i betragning, forekommer betegnelsen ‘lufthavn’ faktisk noget optimistisk, og vores hektiske fotografering af bænken og Herman Miller-klistermærkerne resulterede også i en del latter fra folk omkring os – altså folk, som bruger deres tid på at fotografere fly!!

Herefter, da vi var faldet lidt ned efter den hektiske fotografering, begyndte vi at reflektere lidt over Charles og Ray Eames og deres glasfiber/plaststole.

I mange år var Charles og Ray Eames optaget af idéen om en sædeskal som støttede kroppen optimalt, og efter flere forgæves forsøg med krydsfinér og aluminiumsplader vendte parret tilbage til fiberglas. Charles havde sammen med sin ven og mentor Eero Saarinen skabt ‘Organic Chair‘, også kendt som ‘The Conversation Chair’ (‘Samtalestolen’), i forbindelse med konkurrencen ‘Organic Design in Home Furnishings’ i 1940 på Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) i New York.

Det var dog først i slutningen af 1940′erne at produktionsteknologien kom til at fungere således at det kunne betale sig, rent økonomisk, at fremstille stolene i et passede stort antal. I 1950 blev de to fiberglasstole, begge revolutionære for deres tid, tilgængelige på markedet – A-skallen med armlæn og S-skallen uden.

Vitra Eames PACC

Det helt geniale ved Charles og Ray Eames og deres design kommer dog først i deres næste designfase. Efter at have designet de to sædeskaller, fremstilles der herefter en række basisstel til at placere skallerne på – et wirestel, et træstel, et ‘X-stel’ af forkromet stål, samt et stel på kuglehjul, og i 1955 blev samlingen udvidet med et stålstel der var egnet til stabling. Således skabte Charles og Ray Eames en familie af stole, hvor stellet kan tilpasses efter både hvor og hvordan stolen anvendes, mens selve sædet forbliver den samme velkendte model.
Eames skabte ligeledes en vidunderligt simpel terminologi for deres fiberglasstole. Eksempelvis har ‘Eames DSR – Dining height Side chair Rod base’ og ‘Eames DSW – Dining height Side chair Wood base’ samme S-skal, men forskellige typer stel. Tilsvarende kan steltypen hos DSX, PACC eller DAW ligeledes udledes af navnet.

I 1957 fik Vitra licens til at producere Eamesmøbler i Europa, og på dette tidspunkt var rækken af glasfiberstole allerede på vej til at blive en ægte møbelklassisker i det 20. århundrede.

Vitra Eames RAR

I 1992 skiftede Herman Miller og Vitra produktionsmaterialet ud, og gik fra glasfiber over til i stedet at fremstille stolene i det miljøvenlige plastmateriale polypropylen. Design og form forbliver uændret, mens de miljømæssige konsekvenser af produktionen reduceres. Med deres høje, fleksible rygstøtter, dybe ‘sidelommer’ og vandfaldslignende frontkant tilbyder plastikstolen fra Eames en komfortabel siddeoplevelse, både hvis det blot drejer sig om et par minutter på kontoret, ved spisebordet under aftensmaden eller ved et længerevarende arrangement.
Charles og Ray Eames kunne gennem denne stoleserie realisere et af deres vigtigste mål for design: “Det meste af det bedste, til det største antal mennesker, for så lidt som muligt”  (“The most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least”)

(smow) tilbyder følgende udgaver af plasticstolene fra Eames:

Eames DSR : Dining Height Side Chair Rod Base (Spisebordsstol med wirestel)

Eames RAR : Rocking Armchair Rod Base (Gyngestol med armlæn og wirestel )

Eames DSX : Dining Height Side Chair X-Base (Spisebordsstol med X-stel af stål)

Eames DAW : Dining Height Armchair Wooden Base (Spisebordsstol med armlæn og træstel)

Eames DAR : Dining Height Armchair Rod Base (Spisebordsstol med armlæn og wirestel)

Eames DSW : Dining Height Side Chair Wood Base (Spisebordsstol med træstel)

Eames DAX : Dining Height Armchair X-Base (Spisebordsstol med armlæn og X-stel af stål)

Eames DSS-N/DSS : Dining Height Side Chair Stacking Base (Spisebordsstol med X-stel af stål, kan stables)

Eames PACC : Pivot Armchair Cast Base on Castors (Kontorstol med armlæn og kuglehul)

Eames PSCC : Pivot Side Chair Cast Base on Castors (Kontorstol uden armlæn, med kuglehjul)

Just as the Man in the Corner Shop was famously satisfied with his life until the Boss from the Factory turned up to buy cigars – so too were we content with our life until 00:42 this morning.

Because then we received the invitation to Frank and Oliver’s next exhibition in Zürich: „Schöne neue Welt – American Mid-century Design“

On their many trips through North and Central America Oliver Müller and Frank Landau have acquired a unique collection of objects. In the exhibition „Schöne neue Welt – American Mid-century Design“ they wonderfully demonstrate just how much post war American design was influenced by European designers.

Others dream of travelling Route 66 on a Harely – we just want to be Oliver Müller and Frank Landau.

The exhibition „Schöne neue Welt – American Mid-century Design“ focuses on furniture and domestic items from the past 60 years and includes early works by designers such as Charles und Ray Eames, George Nelson and Edward Wormley.
Which if we’re honest sounds like 100m2 of design porn.

Among design historians the chicken egg question in terms of whether post WWII American designers influenced Europeans or vice versa is the most common reason for after-dinner arguments. The second most common disagreement being if Eero Saarinen was American or European.

Despite Frank and Oliver’s bold claim, we don’t expect „Schöne neue Welt – American Mid-century Design“ to answer the question – because the connections between the continents were too close and boths sides profited from the experiences of the other. Then there’s the whole post-colonial theory issue – but lets not go there. Not today.

However for all with an interest in contemporary design and in the development of furniture design since the 1940s „Schöne neue Welt – American Mid-century Design“ certainly promises to provide a wonderful opportunity to better understand the products, their development and for all their relevance in the context of contemporary furniture design.

„Schöne neue Welt – American Mid-century Design“ opens at Frank and Oliver, Forchstrasse 179  CH-8032 Zürich on December 2nd at 17:00.

The ESU 400-N by Charles and Ray Eames part of „Schöne neue Welt - American Mid-century Design“ at Frank and Oliver, Zurich

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Danish Design Prize Winner: VELUX lystunnel by Ross Lovegrove

Timely to the end of our rantings against the current state of Danish design – the Danish Design Centre in Copenhagen recently hosted the Danish Design Prize awards 2010/11

In his introduction the Danish Design Centre CEO Christian Scherfig asks ” … what is good design in the 21st century ?”

The DDCs answer is 11 prize winners from 17 nominations in 4 categories.

Whereas most would have also been good design in the 20th century, and a couple even in the 19th, all of the featured designs certainly show a lot more innovation, creativity and understanding of what “design” is meant to be than most of the tat we saw at CODE.

But much more importantly, the Danish Design Prize amplifies an unmistakable truth.

A truth most of the exhibitors at CODE 10 need to learn.

Traditionally furniture design is a branch of product design which is branch of industrial design.

Furniture design, however, isn’t what it once was: and in the separation of the categories “industrial design” and “lifestyle” the Danish Design Prize indicates that it understands that.

Because by “lifestyle” they mean furniture.

Furniture design per se has very little left to offer. Tables, chairs, beds can’t be re-invented, they can only be improved.

Back in the day furniture design was an active branch of product and industrial design because of the seemingly endless stream of new materials that were being invented, and the need to find ways to incorporate these new materials in furniture production. Today’s “new” materials are largely variations on existing materials and one of the main challenges now is to use these materials to improve the furniture we have. Be it economically, ergonomically or ecologically.

The days of furniture design as pure product design are numbered.

NAP by Kasper Salto for Fritz Hansen being a wonderful example. The concept of the moulded synthetic shell chair effectively began with Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames in the 1940s.

That was the product/industrial design phase.

NAP takes the concept and evolves it to include the fact that sitting is an active process and the shell needs to maintain its comfort in numerous sitting positions.

In designing NAP Kasper Salto has not only created a delightful, ergonomic, affordable chair but wonderfully demonstrated his understanding of products and the modern furniture design process.

Danish Design Prize Clouds by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Kvadrat

Clouds by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Kvadrat, another prize winner in the category “lifestyle” ,is more analogous with graphic design than product design. With Algue for Vitra the Bouroullec’s created a new form of room division, with Clouds they play with our perceptions of textiles and their uses.

Clouds is a wonderful and interesting piece of concept design; but it isn’t product design or industrial design.

And as such is a beautiful example of the reality many Danish furniture companies have yet to grasp.

What the Danish Design Prize 2010/11 also shows, however, is that “real” Industrial Design in Denmark is every bit as healthy as graphic, interactive and multimedia design; something the exhibition “Denmark by Design” in the DDC cellar also wonderfully demonstrates.

An exhibition of the Danish Design Prize 2010/11 winners is on display at the Danish Design Centre, HC Andersens Boulevard 27, Copenhagen until April 25th

Danish Design Prize NAP by Kasper Salto for Fritz Hansen

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Eero Saarinen, 1910 - 1961

August 20th marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Finnish architect/designer Eero Saarinen.

Eero Saarinen had – in all probability – very little career choice other than that of architect: Not only was his father Eliel Saarinen one of Finland’s most celebrated architects, but two of his uncles followed the same profession. In addition his mother, Loja Gesellius Saarinen, was a sculptress and textile designer.

Eero Saarinen spent his first 13 years in his birthplace, Kirkkonummi on the outskirts of Helsinki. In 1923, following the positive feedback to Eliel Saarinen’s entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition, the family emigrated to the USA – initially to Evanston, Illinois before in 1925 Eliel Saarinen was commissioned by G.G. Booth to build the new Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

The Cranbrook Academy Campus, designed by Eliel Saarinen

A commission that was later to have a large influence on Eero’s career.

In 1930 Eero travelled to Paris where he spent a year studying sculpture at L’Académie de la Grande Chaumière before enrolling at Yale School of Architecture from where he graduated in 1935. After a year travelling Europe and North Africa, Eero Saarinen returned to America where he began working in his fathers office at Cranbrook; and where he met Charles Eames for the first time. The young Eames both studying at the college and being employed in Eliel Saarinen’s office.

The meeting was to be the start of a lifelong professional and personal relationship; Saarinen even naming the first son from his second marriage “Eames”.

Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen at Cranbrook Academy (photo © Cranbrook Archives)

The professional careers of Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen were equally close and both effectively started with joint projects; the 1940 “Organic Design in Home Furnishings” competition and the 1945-49 “Case Study House #9″ for Arts & Architecture Magazine.

In response to an increasing boredom in the USA with the minimalist steel/leather/glass objects of the Bauhaus School, the Museum of Modern Art in New York organised in 1940 a competition entitled: “Organic Design in Home Furnishings” to find the best new American furniture design concepts. The competition rules called for designs that were functional, affordable and based on new, modern production processes.

Eames and Saarinen submitted an entry comprising eight designs based largely on their early experiments with moulded synthetic furniture and that included, amongst others, the Conversation Chair or as it is more popularly known today, the Organic Chair.

The jury, including such luminaries as Marcel Breuer and Alvar Aalto, awarded Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen first prize.

The Organic Chair by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen through Vitra

While the award brought the pair recognition, the mass production of the Eames-Saarinen designs was still impractical in the early 1940s. The technology simply not being rife enough to either produce the chairs nor the machines required to produce the chairs. The approach used, however, was to be important in both designers later furniture design work. Charles Eames employing it for his fibreglass/plastic chair series; while Saarinen used it in his works for Knoll International, most notably the Womb Chair and the Tulip Chair – arguably his two most important designs.

Eames and Saarinen’s architectural careers also involved an early joint project. In January 1945 the US Magazine Arts & Architecture publisher John Entenza wrote an editorial calling for greater use of mass production technology in house building. In the following years a series of leading architects were commissioned to design and build their vision of the industrial mass produced house of the future.

In 1949 “Case Study House #9″ by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen was completed. Showing the typical quadratic nature of most of Eames and Saarinen’s early work,”Case Study House #9″ is filled with fixtures, features and furniture that illustrate both mens belief in the unity between architecture and design and the importance of the relation between a building, its contents and its user.

Next door to “Case Study House #9″ is “Case Study House #8″ the so-called “Eames House”: officially accredited to Charles and Ray Eames, but where one also detects the influence of Eero Saarinen.

For both Saarinen and Eames, their participation in such a prestigious project was to bring the two, still relatively young, architects a greater public and greater authority.

In 1946 another of Eero Saarinen’s “Cranbrook Connections” lead to the start of his collaboration with Knoll International.

Tulip Chair by Eero Saarinen for Knoll International

At Cranbrook Saarinen had met Florence Schust. In 1944 Florence married the young German furniture producer Hans G. Knoll and became the Knoll International “in-house interior designer”; and it was Florence Knoll who approached Saarinen to ask him to develop his moulded chair concept for the company.

In total Saarinen developed over a dozen products for Knoll International, many of which have been in continuous production since their launch.

Despite the importance of his work, for Eero Saarinen furniture design was a side project to his architecture career; a career which saw him build, amongst other buildings, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St Louis, the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport New York and Dulles International Airport, Washington. That said it was never a lesser value work for Saarinen, who was fascinated by the concept that each part of a work could reflect and compliment the others, that outside and inside could be united as one entity.  In that sense Saarinen’s furniture designs can be seen as a direct extension of his architectural work. And his architectural work as an extension of his furniture design.

On September 1st 1961 Eero Saarinen died following an operation on a brain tumour.

Despite dying young, in his 25 year career Eero Saarinen created a canon of work – both architectural and furniture designs – that not only helped redefine architectural theory and shaped future thinking, but also laid the foundations for much of the modern designer furniture industry.

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.

Eero Saarinen, 1910- 1961

The familiar nature of Group D was continued with this meeting of two grandees of the international designer furniture circuit: Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard.

With both still having an outside chance of qualifying for the semi-finals the start was edgy and imprecise.

Alexander Girard however was first to find his rhythm and came close with an intricate Names fabric. Eero Saarinen responded with a clever Grasshopper chair, a move which produced the most delightful Millerstripe Multicoloured bright and neutral combination response from Alexander Girard.

And the 1:0 lead.

And with his travelling army of Wooden Dolls cheering him on Girard held on for  deserved victory.

The Group D table and all Group D results can be found here.

After the strenuous match against Alexander Girard, France decided to rest Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for the match against Eero Saarinen.

Their replacement, the enfant terrible of contemporary French design Philippe Starck however failed to match the old Finnish master; too often Philippe Starck strove forward with fairly predictable and poorly considered approaches.

Eero Saarinen was able to make use of the gaps produced by Philippe Starck to good effect scoring with his Tulip Chair and a pedestal table for a thoroughly deserved 2:0 victory

The Group D table and all Group D results can be found here.

Philippe Starck failed to get the better of Saarinen's Tulip Chair through Knoll International