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Showing posts with label 2008 milan furniture fair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008 milan furniture fair. Show all posts

Funky Find Of The Week: Christian Astuguevieille's Mini Soft Sculpture Chairs




French born artist and designer Christian Astuguevieille, owner of Paris' Populus Alba (which designs luxury goods and jewelry) is also a Creative Director for Comme des Garcons parfums and a designer for Holly Hunt. In addition, he makes unusual items for Couturelab, two of which I have chosen as my Funky Finds Of The Week.

Limited edition miniature soft sculpture chairs by Christian Astuguevieille for CoutureLab. These two playful miniature chairs are meant for budding collectors. Handcrafted from chestnut wood, the chairs are covered in bean-bag toys, painted for a tactile effect.

Created exclusively for CoutureLab, these decorative chairs are part of a limited series of four. Please note: these chairs should only be used for decorative purposes and is not suitable for children.

Manta Ray Mini Chair




above: Manta Ray Mini Chair by Christian Astuguevieille for CoutureLab
Limited edition miniature wooden chair covered in soft toys
Pricing: £605 €647 (approx) $847 (approx)
Size: Small 45 x 38 x 53 cm

The Crab & Lobster Mini Chair




above: Crabes-Langoustes Mini Chair by Christian Astuguevieille for CoutureLab
Limited edition miniature wooden chair covered in soft toys
Pricing: £643 €688 (approx) $900 (approx) Product: CL2095
Size: Medium 45 x 38 x 53 cm

The Christian Astuguevieille exclusive collection at CoutureLab includes a unique jewelry selection as well as a series of mirrors and miniature sculptures. See them all here.

Vitra Editions: Encouraging Experimental Design




Above: Vitra Editions Showroom

Vitra Edition is a laboratory that provides architects and designers with the freedom to create experimental furniture objects and interior installations.

Their choices of materials, technologies, applications and formal concepts are not limited to the existing Vitra vocabulary, while they have full access to Vitra’s technical know-how. Working without the constraints of market and production logic has a liberating effect and results in surprising solutions and new ways of seeing design.


Above: Chair by Rolf Fehlbaum



Above: the Duke and Duchess by Greg Lynn


above: Cork chair and table by Jasper Morrison

Twenty years ago there was hardly a collector’s market for experimental design, and yet Vitra Edition was widely published and discussed.


Above: the very first Vitra edition, 1987

With the first Vitra Edition twenty years ago, their motivation then, as now, was to escape from the strict norms and conventions of the furniture industry.

Vitra presented seating objects by Frank Gehry, Denis Santachiara, Gaetano Pesce, Richard Artschwager, Ron Arad, Shiro Kuramata, Ettore Sottsass and Scott Burton in 1987. In the years that followed, Vitra Edition grew with contributions from Jasper Morrison, Alessandro Mendini, Borek Sipek, Philippe Starck and others.


Above: Rocs by Ronan and Erwan Bourellec



Above: Kimono chair by Tokujin Yoshioka

The process of creating the Edition was liberating for Vitra and important new designer relationships were established. In its industrial production Vitra works with some of the most talented contemporary designers and architects. Exceptionally gifted, they have antennas to perceive the shape of things to come. Still, they have to embrace the fact that industrial production is under great pressure from price, performance, production technology and regulations. Such constraints are beneficial and necessary for the development of good everyday products, but they make it difficult for experimental ideas to be realized.




Above: Mesa tables by Zaha Hadid




Above: Office Pets by Hella Jongerius

Truly radical concepts are developed with a different set of criteria from those of industrial production; they emphasize certain aspects and consciously neglect others. While these experiments may only interest a small group of people, their impact can be substantial as they provoke new sensations and insights.



Above: the Slow Car by Jurgen Bey



Above: Lo Glo by Jurgen Mayer H.


Experimental objects often do not want to solve a practical problem; they are manifestations of the designer’s and architect’s creative intelligence, an expression of a critical position, a utopian wish or a formal fantasy. Whether some of the concepts will eventually inspire the design of everyday objects remains to be seen.




Above: Chairs by Naoto Fukasawa




Above: Moreover by Ron Arad



Above: New Order Chair by Jerzey Seymour

Vitra Edition is both a process and a result. As a process it contributes to our ongoing design research; the result, instead, is a collection of extraordinary objects representing some of the most advanced positions in contemporary design.




Above: es screen by Alberto Meda



Above: Landen by Konstantin Grcic


They are made available to collectors as a limited edition. The limitation guarantees the aspect of rareness, while – as a direct consequence – the substantial costs of creation and development are distributed on a small number of objects. In this respect Vitra Edition follows a logic which is different from Vitra’s industrial production. The objects of Vitra Edition are as diverse as their authors and reflect the wide range of interests that is characteristic for a Vitra project.


Above : The Vitra Design Museum

After the initial presentation on the Vitra Campus during Art Basel 2007, the new Vitra Edition prototypes are being shown in museums and galleries worldwide and were a big hit at the 2008 Milan Furniture fair.

Special thanks to Vitra for the text and to Vitra, Dezeen and Designboom for additional images.

The Best of Milan's 2008 Furniture Fair Coverage: Links and Photos


So many great journalists and bloggers covered the Milan Furniture Fair /the Milan Salone Mobili / Milan's Salone Internazionale del Mobile/ Milan Design Week or whatever you prefer to call it. It would be redundant and pointless for me to do the same, so here are links to some of the round-ups, slide shows, video diaries, Flickr albums and more.

First of all, what is it?
The Salone Internazionale del Mobile together with the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition, returns - from 16th to 21st this year – at the Milan Fairgrounds at Rho with a huge range of superlative exhibits. This event that is unlike any other, anywhere in the world, is not just the leading event in the home/contract furnishing sector at global level, but also a matchless occasion for an international meeting of minds – not to mention business, image and communication.

As always, there is an infinite variety of goods on offer. The Salone Internazionale del Mobile, together with the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition is a showcase for excellence covering all types of domestic furnishing, from single pieces to coordinates, and every conceivable style, from classic to design to modern, not to mention trendsetters.

Beside the excellence of the commercial offering, the huge variety of new products, the choreographed display stands and the faultless arrangements that ensure that any visit to the exhibition complex is rendered easier and more user-friendly, I Saloni have put together an unmissable range of collateral events both at the exhibition centre and in the city.

The greatest surprise will be the event set against the backdrop of the of the Sala delle Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale, in which an internationally -renowned artist and an icon of Milan's and Italy's cultural heritage par excellence will take part, as well as one of the most famous works of art in the world.

The event's main site.


Links to great round-ups and images from the Milan

The NY Times Design Notebook slideshow

Architonic's Round Up

The David Report

Inhabitat's Milan Furniture Fair Reports


Inhabitat's Flickr photos


Metrosnapshots blog


Dezeen's Milan 08 (and they have video diaries)

Wallpaper magazine's guide.


Over 2000 images at Designboom's gallery

DesignWS report.



Be sure to see the best pieces from the 2009 Milan Furniture fair here.

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