cologne

I like french designers. and this one created a lamp on the principle of an organic body. lyon-based rémi bouhaniche has build a black skeleton which is the lampshade and a white surface which received the role of the skin. by pulling the rod down the light is switched on/off and can be also dimmed.

‘etirement’, which is french for ‘streching’ was part of the d3 talents exhibition, the young designers competition of the imm furniture fair in cologne, in janaury.

cologne

czech designer klára šumová has designed a lamp from a raw tree branch. the base is lathed into a clear baroque curve and equipped with a huge paper lamp-shader. ‘lamp love’ can be purchased in three species of wood: pine, ash or larch and was part of the 3d talents exhibition, the young designers competition of the imm furniture fair in cologne, last week.

berlin

last week I traveled to berlin to see some commercial brand fair and to have a look at the dizajn=design exhibition at the polish Institute. the show deals with polish design and gives you an overview of east european aesthetics.

michael okraj, graphic designer and curator of the show, has selected 10 product designer and 10 graphic designer to fill the space. the fact that you are allowed to touch all the objects in the show, gives the visitor an an additional experience. I am polish by myself and I know that polish people are just not that fussy with their stuff.

michael okraj at dizajn = design exhibition
(meanwhile a malafor trunk is stolen)

futu magazine

ori sto by jakub piotr kalinowski

madonna lamp by beata konarska and pawel konarski

ogryzki by karina marusinska

bolo acoustic man by malafor

cologne

german brand alape presented ‘betty blue’ a sink that makes the water disappear in the edges at the imm, furniture fair in cologne, last week. the brand says that ‘a bathroom is an architectural space’. mine isn’t but they have certainly convinced me that it could be. Im not sure why, but I like this washbasin, I stood there for 20 minutes mesmerized by the flowing water.

alape was presented within the cologne-based kap forum,
communication platform for architecture, technology, design

cologne

german designer robert haslbeck has designed a folding table with the name ‘under-koffer’. unused it has the shape of a flat suitcase. but when you unfold the product it becomes a table that reminds me of an ironing table. robert graduated with this project at the burg giebichenstein hochschule für kunst und design in 2009.

last week the ‘under-koffer’ was part of the 3d contest exhibition, the young designers competition of the imm furniture fair in cologne.

cologne

cologne-based grassland is into grass. absolutly all of their products and installations are made with real grass. when you buy a grassland product you receive a lush green object that transfers naturally into a dry straw-coloured object after a month or two. right now grassland is exhibiting at the designers fair in cologne till tomorrow.

orb – the grass ball

next – the grass subscription

don’t really know the name of this lamp

cologne

korean jungyou choi and joonsoo kim from studio joon & jung are presenting their ‘rocking on the beach’ chairs at the d3 contest at the imm furniture fair in cologne till sunday. the chairs are made of plastic pipes filled with sand. while using the chair a seashore sound appears.

joonsoo kim shows how one of the chairs works

cologne

the contain gallery has teamed up with veltins to make a special design lounge in the city center of cologne. maastricht-based fabian von spreckelsen and lisboa-based mathias witte were responsible for creating a matching interior for the new veltins image which shall point at a younger target group with a sense of style. yesterday they opened the lounge to the visitors of the interior design week in cologne. It is open till sunday from 11am – 11pm. beer is on veltins!

in the lounge

the gallery after the temporally redesign

fabian von spreckelsen and mathias witte
the designer of the veltins design lounge

ioanna paraskeva from the contain gallery +
markus gogolin from designspotter

essen

the thing with office chairs is that they mostly look hideous. but this prestigious red dot design award winner manages to pull it off. the ‘silver chair’ designed by architect hedi teherani for Interstuhl. the silver surface reminds me of my bread burner.

maastricht

today opened the ‘we were exuberant and still had hope, ettore sottsass: works from stockholm, 1969’ exhibition at the marres, centre for contemporary culture, in maastricht, netherlands.

the deceased italian designers warderobe from 1968 was the centerpoint of the exhibition. ettore sottsass (1917-2007) was renowned for unorthodox ideas in furniture.

wardrobe (also known as superbox), 1968
made by poltronova (agliana, Italy)
made of wood, plastic laminate

london

tomorrow is the last day of california-based artist john baldessari‘s ‘pure beauty’ exhibition at the tate in london.

I went there because a graphic design friend of mine, oliver klimpel, recommended it. I like baldessari’s graphical reflection on the nature of art. he made me grin. click here for more of his work.

everything is purged from this painting, 1966-68
at tate, london

I saw It (edition of 100), 1997

I haven’t seen marcel duchamp‘s ‘bottle rack’ in real live. I just saw it in a magazine and took a picture of the page.

the ‘bottle rack’ from 1914 was one of the his first readymades. with the so called readymades the artist and object creator has removed design objects from their context as functional objects and recontextualized them as objects of art.

made of galvanized iron