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The Audi Talents Awards prize was awarded at the close of the 10th Designers Day’s. From the four shortlisted entries, Constance Guisset was selected for Métamorphoses, a range of five designs, characterized by fantasy and lightness. The designer, an ENSCI graduate, confirms her ambition to promote fascination and offer a brief instant of illusion. Mission accomplished. With works such as Fiatlux and her floating orb switch, Constance Guisset takes us to the world of Lewis Carroll. Having been selected as one of the 10 designers of the year by MAISON&OBJET, this prize represents further unanimous acclaim for the designer. Fully deserved – well done.
25 juin
2010
2010
Category : Discoveries, Focus, Web review
As Mathilde Bretillot has been saying for 25 years, creativity is a collaboration, a meeting between several people. So why is it that these encounters produce unique works?
It may be this thought which led the designer, interior architect and set designer to organize the “Objets siamois” (Siamese objects) exhibition. The title speaks for itself – the focus of the exhibition is duality.
« Because pairs are the return ticket, the self-regenerating cycle, the reflecting mirror, Noah’s ark or the portrait of Dorian Gray.” Can’t wait for the work on relationships of three.
15 juin
2010
2010
Category : Discoveries, Encounters, Focus, Schedule, Web review
Designer’s Days is only 10 years old, not yet an adolescent but already with a keen sense of quality – which is why we are invited to discover the work of Normal Studio. Perfectly timed with the Arts Décoratifs which is ending its series on contemporary minimalism with creations by Normal Studio. This is an opportunity for us to turn the spotlights of our admiration onto these two designers, the duo behind the name which has become synonymous with good taste and simplicity: Jean-François Dingjian and Eloi Chafaï. The former was born in Valence and began his career by founding a design magazine and developing a program for the Rhône Alpes region on the relationship between design and SMEs. Original. Just like his accomplice. Eloi Chafaï is Parisian and he discovered design and creativity through graffiti. He started out as an intern with Jean-François Dingjian, but soon the master could not do without his pupil.
Founded four years ago, their Normal Studio is an example of reality. With its foundations in industrial production, they subvert forms, simplify them and return their creations to the assembly line. It is true that craftsmanship always has a poetry welcomed by design lovers. But Jean-François and Eloi prefer beauty to be produced en masse for the masses. This is a long way from unique items which are only sold under the hammer at astronomical prices.
Normal Studio is the antithesis of window dressing. Nothing is for effect, materials are employed for what they are. Objects can be easily understood, their curves reveal themselves naturally. Normal Studio is women’s beauty before the invention of photo retouching. The two men are certain that it is enough to remove the superfluous in order to find beauty. And when Philippe Starck asked them, along with nine other designers for the MAISON & OBJETS show, what we are lacking today, they answered: “Nothing. We simply need to learn to look. » And that is their entire philosophy in a nutshell.
Another original creation from the Maison Martin Margiela and its line 13 – Objets & Editions. With the powerful revival of trompe-l’œil or the art of decorating your interior without losing any space. Characteristic of unusual creations for the home, these trompe-l’œil doors printed in black and white on fabric are half way between design and conjuring. The new catalogue contains two other objects. Magnifying glasses: a magnifying lenses for a frame which is half glasses, half magnifying glass. The wax candlestick: a cascade of wax which is transformed into a candlestick, producing a unique object.
09 juin
2010
2010
Category : Discoveries, Encounters, Focus, Web review
Some would say that recycling through design is in fashion, others that it is the symbol of a period, whereas in fact recycling is the very soul of design. Converting the form and nature of objects, revealing the world through new standards, that is the task of designers and it is one in which Caroline Petit and Jonas Mason excel. The French woman and the American crisscrossed America in their pick-up collecting a whole assortment of objets trouvés. They dismantled them and put them back together with a sense of magical aestheticism.
A subversion worthy of the road travelled by Kerouac. A temporary store in Paris is displaying 4000 of these brilliant pieces until June 30th. Not only is it beautiful, it is also intelligent: “It is as if we were looking for our voice between the world we inherited and the urgent need to change certain instincts and mechanisms which shaped our education.” Bravo.
08 juin
2010
2010
Category : Discoveries, Encounters, Focus, Schedule, Web review
Gilles Belley, the planet in your living room
Gilles Belley is 34 years old and has his future in front of him. He is among the new generation of designers for whom a name needs to be found quickly. In the footsteps of Mathieu Lehanneur, this generation opts for a politically-aware design without ever forgetting aesthetics.
Having graduated in 2001 from ENSCI – Les ateliers (the French national institute for advanced studies in industrial design), with an end of course study in ennui, he went on to work with Les Bouroullec before finding his own wings – and not losing a single feather. Last year he won the Agora design prize for his Fabrique Végétale, a study into agromaterials – the agricultural residues intended to be substitutes for plastic – in collaboration with the Toulouse agro-industrial chemistry laboratory. The result is beautiful, intelligent and educational.
Use of these creations inspires a rediscovery of the natural cycle. The Colline, for example, is a stone to put in your plant pot. Using the principle of erosion, every time you water, a little more rock is worn away, freeing up nutritional organic materials. And then there is the Brindille in a small dish which releases aromatic particles on contact with a small amount of water.
A remarkable work of simplicity. « I think of myself as such an amateur in the field of design that the notion of aesthetics is foreign to me. I am only beginning to explore the question. » This is difficult to believe when he pursues his work according to an axiom worthy of Oscar Wilde, “I have, however, understood that beauty is the ultimate stage in the meaning and consistency of things.” What has changed with this new generation is perhaps the understanding of beauty.
Today nature is beautiful and mankind’s influence must be more and more discreet. This sets a whole agenda for design. Far from the resigned clairvoyance of the master, Philippe Starck, « design is nothing, it is Christmas presents”, now design is useful. It re-educates and finally answers the question of a whole generation: how can I preserve nature without sacrificing comfort and beauty? And to think that we thought it was impossible for so long.
Now we have introduced you to all the Now!design à vivre 2010 designers of the year, we shall end with Designer’s Days (10 years old already) which begins this week and which we will be sure to tell you more about… So watch this space.
Imagine that you are wandering through the labyrinth of memory. No chronology, moving from one memory to another, an illogical maze that, in the end, defines the poetry of a person. This is, to sum up, what Alessandro Mendini and Pierre Charpin have designed. Thanks to them, Milan Design Museum Triennial has decided to tell the tale of Italian design.
This permanently changing and “anti-museum” laboratory upholds its values. You will thus move from a Gino Sarfatti lamp to a Geox shoe. If you turn around, you will admire a painting by Morandi next to an Abruzzi shepherd’s stick, right next to an imitation David and a poem by Catullus. A superb scenography that matches the place and the theme. Because, after all, history is written like Italy itself: multiple, inconsistent but well-bred and poetic.
What do you think is the most representative designer object? Undoubtedly the chair. The object which, if forgotten, is a success. The design metronome. An object remodelled thousands of times because it has no set personality. Royal when it is a throne, popular when placed next to a wooden table, fatal when it is electric, an enemy in the classroom.
Elusive and designers’ best friend, the V&A Museum asks questions about the use of the chair in everyday life via a scenography taken from Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Everything is covered from Charmes Eames to the El Ultimo Grito cabinet, from Gerrit Rietveld’s high chair, to Peter Murdoch’s sixties cardboard chair. And if you like the exhibition, you can even design your own chair – after all, we are all in a fairytale.
Designer’s Day, the association set up to publicise contemporary design and promote design to a wide public, celebrates its tenth anniversary. No nostalgia, no partying… just forward-thinking This year, like the previous ones, you can wander around Paris and meet modern design. And this year, owing to the anniversary, the theme is “Dis moi dix”.
Each designer is asked to answer this question: ten what? Baccarat invites you to visit the ten mysterious and poetic beds of the Jardin sous la Lune by Yann Kersalé. Lafayette Maison showcases the ten objects that made an imprint on the last ten years. Roche Bobois imagines the ten design commandments. Another strong point, on 14th June at the Hotel Potocki, the CCIP is organising a round table, “Dans dix ans” (In ten years’ time). An anniversary without looking backwards which, in our opinion, is what design is all about.
The latest temple of design is in Germany. To be precise, in the Weil am Rhein. Vitra has decided to call on two Swiss architects, Jacques Herzog and Pierre Meuron, to build its “house”, the Vitrahaus. And the two designers certainly had fun doing it.
They decided to keep the typical architecture of the suburban home. How can you be original in this case? Easy. Just stack them. The result: 3,300 m² for this absolutely amazing showroom. The dream barn by Ken Kesey. Halfway between the freedom of the stacked volumes of our childhood and the practicality of a segmented showroom.
