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trends interiors architecture fashion lifestyle

6 spring 2013 collector's edition

beautiful relations
collector's edition 6

collector's cover dressed


COVER BYby
KYUHYUNG
Jeremy Scott
CHO

2 Dzia

designalive.pl

DZIA 3

designalive.pl

4 contents

6
ARCHITECTURE
38 great houses Extramuros
This Portuguese villa teaches
stillness and synergy
48 ARCHICONS Japanese school
The brilliant renovation of
a school building
52 Lisbons fado
A house with vertical gardens

PLACES
56 Interior architecture
on creative Fogo island
86 Wellspring
The origin of Dornbracht

NEWSLETTER for a good start

THINGS
26 GRAPHIC DESIGN Coding
letters hidden in shapes
28 FASHION Depths and escapism
Olga Niecier about fashion
trends
90 PREMIERES review
Paris Maison & Objet
London Design Week
100 DESIGN ALIVE taking stock
20062013
from our collection of Polish
design
106 In the Saddle
The master of saddlery
110 MUST HAVE Little heroes
everyday
selected by Kompott

PEOPLE

SCRATCH
A new way of decoration. From
a new collection by Joost van
Bleiswijk. See more on p. 76

68 The Collector
Monika Unger and Brazilian
modernism
76 Paired autonomy
Kiki van Eijk
and Joost van Bleiswijk
82 What a beautiful catastrophe
Marcel Wanders
postmodernist

LIFESTYLE
66 Like Odysseus
My private school of
minimalism

ESSAYS
98 AGNIESZKA JACOBSONCIELECKA Can design
be beautiful?
104 KRYSTYNA UCZAKSURWKA Selection
Sit down, please
107 JANUSZ KANIEWSKI Drive
A Giulietta with a piercing
Plates typography on the
road

EVENTS
94 TRENDBOOK
Anthropocene in geology
From pyramid to pancake
changes in social structures
Trend forecasting a job for
today
Welcome to the era of design
writes Adam Swann of Gyro
New York
113 CALENDAR where to find
a good design

Photo: Studio Joost van Bleiswijk

DZIA 5

Interested in more information?


Discover more about the decor trends of Schattdecor
at www.schattdecor.com.
designalive.pl

6 editor's letter

beautiful
relations

hen I was planning this


issue, I wanted to show
how important it is to
build and nurture human
relationships. Whether
that means our relationships with our
families, our partners, or our relationships
at work. Because it turns out that the skill
of teamwork and mutual understanding
isnt restricted to our personal lives, its the
key to creative work and, interestingly, an
increasingly sought-after quality in business.
A sentence Polish journalist Tomasz Lis
heard in passing and jotted down became an
inspiration: In todays world the hierarchical model is being replaced by a model of interrelationships based on a spirit of partnership, community and trust. So the skills
of listening, being together and mutual respect are becoming a chance for a new society and an alternative to the rat race, which
clearly failed and led to a global recession.
Its difficult to decide which of the articles
defines this issue of Design Alive, because
the idea of the beauty of relationships
is infused throughout the entire magazine.
Its inherent in the words and images which
inspire, symbiotically and non-aggressively.
They suggest ways of becoming still, of
making all of our senses more acute and
of respecting others. Ultimately, in order to
find the beauty of the relationship we have
with our own self, with our own longings,
desires and emotions. For in order to trust
others, we first have to trust ourselves.

designalive
No 6 second edition
Collector's covers:

contact us
ul. Gboka 34/4,
43-400 Cieszyn, Poland
redakcja@designalive.pl
+ (48) 33 858 12 64
Editor-in-Chief:
Ewa Trzcionka
Design Director:
Bartomiej Witkowski, Ultrabrand
Publishing Director:
Wojciech Trzcionka
Marketing and
Advertising Director:
Iwona Gach

A psychedelic sense of
humour by Jeremy Scott
for Adidas Originals
See more on p. 28

International sale:
Mirek Kraczkowski
Editorial Staff:
Marcin Moka, Daria Linert,
Angelika Ogrocka, Anna Borecka,
Eliza Ziemiska, Jarda Ruszczyc,
Anna Dbska, Anna SkalskaBogucka, ukasz Potocki, Micha
Mazur
Columnists:
Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka,
Krystyna uczak-Surwka,
Janusz Kaniewski
Contributors:
Anna Dudziska Radio Katowice,
Dariusz Staczuk RMF Classic,
Adam Swann Gyro, Mariusz
Gruszka Ultrabrand, Jan Lutyk,
Dorota Gajewska

The Garden Kyuhyung


Cho typeface changed
a love poem into a fairy-tale pattern for us
See more on p. 26

Translators:
Edyta Szczeniak, Eleonora
Pawowicz, David French
Editing:
David French
DTP:
Ultrabrand
Logo and layout:
Bartomiej Witkowski, Ultrabrand
Printed in Poland
Advertising:
reklama@designalive.pl
+ (48) 33 858 12 64
+ (48) 602 157 857
Subscriptions:
prenumerata@designalive.pl
+ (48) 602 57 16 37
www.designalive.pl
Online editor: Marcin Moka

Editor-in-Chief

Publisher:
Presso sp. z o.o.
ul. Gboka 34/4,
43-400 Cieszyn, Poland
presso@presso.com.pl
+ (48) 33 858 12 64
Copyright 2013
Presso sp. z o.o.
Reproduction in whole or in part
without express permission is
strictly prohibited. Design Alive
will not return unsolicited materials and reserves the right to
edit received materials. The Publisher is not responsible for the
content of the featured advertising and has the right to refuse to
publish an advertisement, if its
form or content are in conflict
with the regulations or nature
of the magazine or portal.

designalive.pl

VitsLess
is More
TIMELESS DESIGN
Whoever doesnt know his maxim "Less is
More"? Who doesnt know his iconic designs
for Braun? But do we know his furniture?
This year we'll soon have the opportunity to
appreciate the timelessness of the work of
the design guru: Dieter Rams. The license to
manufacture his designs has been granted to
Vits, a Dutch brand operating since 1959.
Among the furniture to be manufactured will
be Rams famous classic designs as well as
the 620 Chair Programme and a modified
version of the 606 Universal Shelving System.
The furniture should be available later this
year. www.vitsoe.com
Marcin Moka

Good design is innovative


Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design makes a product understandable
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is long-lasting
Good design is thorough down to the last detail
Good design is environmentally-friendly
Good design is as little design as possible
designalive.pl

Dieter Rams
(Born 1932) worked
for Braun and later for
Vitsoe. He has created
hundreds of legendary
designs. He is the
author of the famous
"10 commandments
of good design"
(below)

newsletter 9

SIMPLY

Photo: press materials

A CZECH TABLE
Pure design, elegance and versatilitythese words
perfectly capture the Delta table created by Austrian
designer Kai Stania and signed by the Czech brand Ton.
Deltas minimalist look and distinctive base make it suitable for use in the kitchen, the dining room or the
office with many different types of chairs. Made from
solid beech or oak wood; it comes in versions for 4, 6 or
8 people, www.ton.cz

Iwona Piskorz

Introduction
To Pastoe
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Dutch brand
Pastoe, known for its consistent focus on the simplicity, functionality and modernity of its products. It was founded by Fritz
Loeb (1889-1959) in Utrecht. Today his successors are celebrating this full anniversary with an exhibition at Kunsthal Rotterdam (open until 2 June). Among the exhibits featured are early
and recent designs by Konstantin Grcic and Naoto Fukasawa.
The exhibition will also be shown in April at the 52nd edition
of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. In the photo:
Collection Introduction 125M, 1965. www.pastoe.com
Text: Deborah Nicholson
Photo: Jan Versnel

designalive.pl

10 newsletter

FERRARI ON
THE TRACK
AGV ITALO

Wojciech Trzcionka

GOURMET
MORSEL

keep YOUR
VITAMINS
NEW LINE OF OVENS

A STEP
FORWARD

CHARGING WHILE WALKING

Maybe at some point soon, instead of buying yogurts, cheese and juices in traditional
boxes and cartons, well buy food in healthy
and tasty WikiCells containers, inspired by
the natural skins of fruit and vegetables. And
so the saying I ate it all up will be justified
with care for the environment. Yummy! Prototype, www.wikicells.com

Prezio Samsung is an elegant black design


combined with functionality. Thanks to
a special dish and two generators, the steam
electric oven makes it possible to prepare
light, healthy meals without losing vitamins
or minerals. Samsungs offerings also include
other appliances whose design and colour
match the line of products including refrigerators, extractor hoods and hobs.
Ovens from 800 euros, www.samsung.com

Exercise is good for you especially when


it turns kinetic energy into green electricity.
Simply walking, running or jumping on floor
panels Pavegen generates power for street
lamps and school halls. A bright future is
also offered by Sustainable Dance Club, the
maker of power-generating disco dance
floors. Made to order, www.pavegen.com,
www.sustainabledanceclub.com

EDIBLE CONTAINERS

Micha Mazur

Daria Linert

designalive.pl

Micha Mazur

Photo: press materials

Its streamlined shape brings to mind a racing car, but it owes its title Ferrari on the
track to the company NTV, whose president
is Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. AGV Italo, reaching a maximum speed
of 360 km per hour, is Europes fastest train
of recent months. Maximum comfort reigns
supreme in its interior: ergonomic leather
Poltrona Frau seats, free Wi-Fi and TV. In case
of any delays, each traveller receives a text
message with the current time of arrival of
the train. The exquisite Eataly culinary concept from Bologna offers onboard catering.
Built by Alstom, the train consumes 30 per
cent less fuel than the previously fastest
train in Europe, the French TGV. Fares on
the Milan-Rome route (a distance of 630 km
is covered in just over three hours) start at
35 euros. www.italotreno.it

12 newsletter

ASHWOOD COLLABORATION
JOSEPH WALSH IN A COZY DECOR
Studio DiaDiMos Joseph Walsh is breaking new ground he has
created a sharp-edged line of furniture associated with the office,
in a cozy style. His collaboration with O'Donnell + Tuomey has
yielded Falling Dansu, made of solid ash wood. Its a new take on
the seventeenth-century bureau desk, secured to the wall. After
opening the front we discover a series of compartments, which
can be freely repositioned. The Irishmans second proposal is
a chair created in conjunction with Design Parters. The Historic
Chair is carved in ash wood and covered with a leather material
by Erica Wakerly. Made to order, Falling Dansu 14,000, Historic
Chair 3,000euros, www.diadimo.com
Text: Angelika Ogrocka
Photo: Andrew Bradley

designalive.pl

DZIA 13

www.bisk.eu

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CROSSBREEDS
14 newsletter
MOROSO HYBRIDS

London-based Italian designer Martino Gamper has created a series of reinterpretations


eight well-known Moroso designs for the occasion of the brands 60th anniversary. The
Metamorphosi Behind is a collage made from

parts of different furniture models, put


together in a coherent hybrid. The resulting designs are strikingly deconstructionist
at first and then refreshingly novel because although we are familiar with the original
furniture, the designer has completely transformed their look. Gampers new works
resemble his experimental designs such as the 100 chairs in 100 days. www.moroso.it
Eliza Ziemiska

NEW CARPETS FROM JAN KATH

What to do to become a world-famous carpet designer? Put simply,


it helps to have been in an emotional relationship with carpets for
three generations. Just like the German-born, Jan Kath and his work:
classic oriental rugs combined with modern, minimalist design and
dcor removed from the cool interiors of parlours and introduced to
everyday life. Add to that the manual techniques along with the use
of natural materials only (e.g. Tibetan wool, Chinese silk, nettle fiber).
Jan Kath, who hails from a family that has been selling carpets for
many years, has elevated the production process to a real art. He is
also uncompromisingly conservative in what he does, combining the
experience of extensive travel (Nepal, Tokyo, Beirut, Sydney) with the
industrial traditions of his native Ruhr area. And that shows in his
newest collection From Russia with Love, inspired by Southern
Russian carpets from the early twentieth century, whose leitmotif
are flowers. From 400 euros per square metre, www.jan-kath.de
ukasz Potocki
designalive.pl

10
Photo: press materials

From Russia with Love

11

newsletter 15

FOUNTAIN POT
ARIANE PRINS CLAY MUGS
A walk around the city can lead to
an idea for a singular technique of
manufacturing cups of clay, glaze
and pigment. That was the experience of French artist and designer
Ariane Prin, who visited a ceramics
workshop in Polish Design Centrum Kielce, last year. During her
stroll, she noted that people like to
gather around fountains. This gave
her an idea. She created a unique
appliance, consisting of 4 containers and 16 moulds used for the simultaneous production of 16 mugs.
Red coloured clay dripped from the
container spouts filling the rotating
moulds. Arianes work is a reference
to the bloody story behind the former prison buildings on the local
Castle Hill hence the use of red.
Thats how the Water Cups Fountain series was created. Prototype,
www.arianeprin.com
Daria Linert

JUST COOK AND SIT DOWN


POT FURNITURE
CooKIT flat items take their intended shape while well, while cooking. In a hot pot, the polystyrene filling swells up like popcorn. The
collection was created by Groomy Irit Cohen, a graduate of Jerusalem
Academy of Arts and Design last year. Prototype.
Micha Mazur

12
designalive.pl

16 newsletter

13

15
AXE

made of CARBON FIBRe


Kacper Hamilton combined state-of-the-art technology with the
experience of the Zai brand specializing in the production of ski
equipment, and created a wonder axe. The layered head was
made of
carbon fibre, a very light but robust material. It is set on an
ashwood handle. The axe weighs just over a kilo. The Zai CORE Axe
will hit the stores this year. www.kacperhamilton.com, www.zai.ch
Jarda Ruszczyc

designalive.pl

14

FLOWERPOTs anew

URBAN GARDEN FROM AUTHENTICS

The Urban Garden collection from Authentics, created by Patrik Nadeu, offers
textile sacks for growing houseplants. They do not require any additional saucers
to drain excess water. The sacks are filled with a clay water-absorbent granulate
so that the moisture is distributed evenly. This way plants in sacks need less
watering than those in traditional flower pots. These items are the very essence
of the Authentics philosophy based on a spirit of simplicity in the creation of
functional objects of everyday use. www.authentics.de, www.creativeproducts.pl
Olga Steliga-Dykas

YOUR PICK

FRENCHMAN, MILLIONAIRE,
TENNIS COACH, FIREMAN

The American company Ramblin Brands


has created a series of vibrators catering
to stereotypical female fantasies. A woman
can have her Frenchman, millionaire, tennis
coach or firefighter to choose from, and each
of them has different assets. Although at
first the idea may seem funny, this approach to erotic products for women is very
serious. The newly created Smile Makers
vibrators look more like drugstore items
than XXX toys. These sex shop boys are not
vulgar, boring or expensive, and they have
unique properties. Each one stimulates different erogenous zones, has three speed settings and a pulsation feature, 39,95 euros.
www.comeplaywithus.com
Eliza Ziemiska

photo: marie-pierre cravedi, nicolas genta, press materials, MICHAL FLORENCE SCHORRO & PRUNE SIMON-VERMOT

16

HEAVY WEIGHT

PTRIFICATIONS BOOKMARKS
Ptrifications are unusual bookmarks on which to leave books, newspapers or magazines. This collection consists of five triangular
geometric forms made of various kinds of stones, including marble, and designed to accommodate different formats of books or
magazines. My goal was to restore the nobility of marble, whose
applications are all too often limited to tombstones, and put this
beautiful stone in contemporary design. says Krzysztof J. Lukasik,
a Polish-born designer based in Lyon. Diploma project work at ECAL
in Lausanne, Switzerland. www.krzysztofjlukasik.com
ukasz Potocki

18 newsletter

17

TRAVEL
WITH
LOUIS
VUITTON

PATRICIA URQUIOLA,
MAARTEN BAAS, OKI
SATO, EDWARD BARBER
& JAY OSGERBY, FERNANDO
& HUMBERTO CAMPANA

What do all of the above accomplished designers


have in common? Certainly traveling long distances,
but recenty also collaboration with the iconic French
brand Louis Vuitton. Each of them has designed an
item for the luxury collection Objets Nomades. The
series includes both furniture and a variety of travel
accessories. Each of the items is made of leather and
most importantly, each is foldable and transformable. For example, a hammock or a portable chair can
be turned into a suitcase. This after all is their main
function in todays world, almost all of us are nomads
traveling from place to place.
The entire collection consisting of 16 items was recently
presented in Miami and Paris, where Design Alive was
the only Polish magazine given a special invitation.
www.louisvuitton.com

Japanese porcelain

How to take on a 400-year old tradition of


porcelain making and breathe into new life
into it? The Dutch brand Scholten & Baijings
proves its possible. The 1616/Arita Japan
Collection (1616 is when the Arita Japan
porcelain factory was established) is precisely a combination of four centuries worth
of tradition and the designers new vision.
The collection is exceptionally colourful. Its
component elements are in different shades
of glaze combined with porcelains natural colour, the worlds most unique palegray hue. The collection comprises plates,
cups, bowls, candleholders, vases and a tea
set. Prices range from a few dozen euros.
www.1616arita.jp
Daria Linert

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FRESH TRADITION

Photo: press materials, przemek dzienis

Marcin Moka

newsletter 19

POLISH CANADA

THE NEW NENUKKO COLLECTION


Canada is a new Nenukko collection for Spring/Summer
2013. The face of the collection is actor Kamilla Baar
whose intriguing beauty perfectly reflects the spirit of
the Polish brand. Canada is by far the most experimental of Nenukkos collections. It radically departs from
its streetwear character, moving towards less obvious
areas of design: the Spring-Summer collection features
elements inspired by camp and references to minimalism. www.nenukko.com
Daria Linert

19
taking ROME
BY STORM

NEO COUTURE COLLECTION


by pavluchenko

Amidst a loud ovation and great reviews, Natasha Pavluchenko was


hailed as the Conqueror of Rome.
With new feathers in her hat, she
returns from The Eternal City where
she presented a new collection
of Neo Couture Autumn/Winter
2013/2014. The Belarus-born Polish designer presented her work at
the prestigious AltaRomAltaModa.
And it is not easy to get there, as
designers from all over the world
go through a very complicated
procedure just to be given the
opportunity to be a part of it. On
top of it all they have to face Silvia
Venturini Fendi, the stern guru of
fashion. As soon as Venturini Fendi
saw her collection sketches, she
averred that Pavluchenko may be
Romes next big thing. The audience
agreed the runway was dominated by strong, liberated women. The
designer later confessed she was
inspired by the image of women
warriors and knights armour. The
colours black, white and beige reduced in favour of form, an almost
palpably architectural monumentality, as well as the collections internal tension make NEO Couture
the epitome of minimalist elegance
and haute couture refinement. This
effect was possible thanks to the
designers original technique of
creating her items. It consists in
shaping, rather than cutting, garments out of a single piece of fabric.
www.natashapavluchenko.pl
Daria Linert

20

DRAPE UP!

THE PATTERN CUTTING BOOK


It turns out an original and unique wardrobe does not necessarily
have to be difficult to amass. All it takes is to get hold of the Japanese
Drape drape a book containing 17 trendy pattern cuts and well,
get sewing. These very minimalist patterns whose only selling points
are their surprising drapes which are really simple to make, as the
book provides the reader with easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions
to take you through the draping process. Hisako Sato, the author of
this offering, graduated from the prestigious Bunka Fashion College
in Japan (Kenzo Tokada is also among its alumni) and headed a team
of designers for the Muji brand. She currently creates for her own
company. About 20 euro, www.laurenceking.com
Eliza Ziemiska

JAPANESE LAYETTE

AERU is a BRAND CONNECTING 21ST CENTURY


CRAFTSMEN WITH OLD JAPANESE CULTURE
Aerus idea is to bring back the tradition of celebrating
the coming of a newborn baby, a tradition forgotten in
todays hurried life. The AERU Layette contains a blouse, a face towel and socks, all of which are made from
organic cotton. The colour is obtained by the natural
fermentation of indigo tree leaves. This environmentally-friendly art of dyeing has been known in Japan for
centuries and is now making a come-back courtesy of
small manufacturers. The set is stored in a box, made of
fireproof paulownia wood. The brands philosophy was
honoured with the Kids Design Award 2012 in Japan.
About 200 euro, www.a-eru.jp
Anna Skalska-Bogucka

FAREWELL
TO PINK!
FLAWLESS FOR KIDS

The childrens clothing market is governed


by a conspicuous division of colour and
form. The girls' section is awash with pink
hearts and flowers, frills and sequins, while
the boys side of the divide is mainly blue,
red or green with numerous prints on top
of it. The Polish brand Flawless decided to
buck this trend. All trousers, blouses, snoods and caps are created from gray, navy
blue or brown fabrics. These simple and
comfortable clothes are devoid of buttons,
zippers, brocades, embroidery patches
or any other additions. Seams and tags
are the only decoration. Two collections
have been created so far: unisex for kids
from 1 up to 6 years and oldies for adults.
1240 euro, www.flawless.pl

23
Anna Skalska-Bogucka

designalive.pl

Photo: press materials, monika wickiewicz

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20 newsletter

Bespoke promotion 21

24
SORRISO

means smile in Italian

Distinguishing features of sorriso armchair include elegant, oval shaped shell seat and distinct, precise stitching.
The model perfectly suits the interiors of office rooms,
receptions and homes. It can serve as a practical and
stylish completion of open spaces, halls of public buildings,
cafes or private apartments. Interesting form of the chair
can be additionally enhanced by selecting different colors
of shell and cushion upholstery and also choosing from
four base variants: metal wire frame, round plate, swivel
or four-legged. Designed by Jarosaw Szymaski, Studio
1:1 for PROFIm. www.profim.eu

SEVEN

will add distinctive character to any modern interior. It is constructed


from high quality durable steel and available in several joyful colors
to choose from. Additional coat hooks in contrastive colors, imitating
colorful buttons enhance its originality. The hanger makes for an
excellent design element that fits into home as well as office spaces.
Designed by Tomek Rygalik for Profim. www.profim.eu

WALL IN

is a modular seating system characterized by


simple geometric forms, suitable for spacious
and modern interiors such as halls of public buildings and receptions. The collection has been developed to offer a highly versatile mobile sitting
configurations, easily rearranged and adjustable.
The family comprises poufs, armchairs, tables and
linking units (30 and 60 degrees) completed with
partition walls upholstered with structural fabric.
The wall fulfills a separating function marking out
a space perfect for a private conversation. Legs
finished off with esthetic, chromed plates are the
eye-catching elements of the furniture. Designed
by Tomek Rygalik for Profim. www.profim.eu

HOVER

was created to match modern, spacious, minimalist style interiors. Its seat-shell supported on a light frame, gives the impression of being suspended in the air. Looking at the
chair, it appears to be very subtle and delicate but in use it provides a feeling of stability
and solidity to the sitter. Hover is a fusion of an original style and hi-tech solutions. The
shell seat is designed to satisfy all essential ergonomic requirements. Thanks to the use
of the highest quality foam of meticulously chosen parameters, the sofa is exceptionally
comfortable. The system consists of an armchair, two or three seater-sofa and coffee
tables in different sizes. Combining two colors of fabric or leather upholstery will make
your chair even more unique. The seat cushion guarantees high comfort of use and
enhances interesting aesthetics of the furniture. Designed by Tomek Rygalik for Profim.
www.profim.eu
designalive.pl

22 newsletter
Dzia

25
French Tandem
the BROTHERS BOUROULLEC

Ronan and Erwan took the design world by


storm with their joint projects. As their joint
road to success was quite short, they didnt
have to wait more than two decades for their
own monograph. Works the books modest
title stands in opposition to the quantity and
quality of the brothers' projects. Their hallmark is the spirit of minimalism and organic
shapes, captured in each object in a distinctive, poetic way. One of their best-known
designs is Vegetal, a chair created for Vitry,
which has already gone down in the history
of design. The spectacular career of these
most influential designers of recent years,
has been organized by topic and projects
for leading brands and manufacturers such
as Alessi, Flos or Vitra. It includes everything from a series of interior design items
to limited editions. Stunning photographs
personally selected by the brothers, in addition to a wealth of previously unpublished
drawings from their archives, help us better understand their way of thinking. The
preparation of the book was a real drama for
designalive.pl

me, an internal struggle. After all, we had to


sum up our entire professional life, and this
requires rejection, selection, endless revisions of whats more and less important,
Ronan Bouroullec confided to Design Alive at
a London meeting with readers. Although
I enjoyed creating this book, I suffered each
and every time I had to make a choice.
The monograph also features interviews with
the brothers and their key co-workers, and
also includes a theory part developed by
Anniina Koivu, the research director at Vitra.
Another book signed by the Bouroullec tandem, Drawings was released this February,
presenting their daily work. Why this title?
Because drawings are the first and the most
essential tool in their work. The book includes drawings from the years 20042012.
The chronological order of the narrative helps
trace the way of the designers thinking, their
choices and rejection of various developmental paths, so that a given object could
attain perfection.
Eliza Ziemiska

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
DOMESTIC DESIGN
FASHION DESIGN
COMMUNICATION
DESIGN

NEW DESIGN SCHOOL IN POLAND


INNOVATIVE TEACHING METHODS
WELL EQUIPPED WORKSHOPS AND STUDIOS
DEDICATED TEACHERS
REAL LIFE CASE STUDIES

UNIQUE CURRICULUM
CREATED UNDER
CREATIVE DIRECTION
OF LIDEWIJ EDELKOORT

Oskar Zita

Wojtek Dziedzic

Agnieszka Jacobson

Bartosz Mucha

School of Form combines the worlds of design and humanities through


a unique, award winning curriculum. Design projects developed here are always
based on anthropological, psychological, sociological and philosophical
approaches to human needs. The curriculum created at School of Form was
awarded three times by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland.
School of Form in Pozna is a department within the University of Social
Sciences and Humanities (SWPS) in Warsaw, the best private university
in Poland. All graduates receive a BA Bachelors Degree.
All courses are full time and last 3.5 years (7 semesters). Classes start in
September and nish in June and are offered in both English and Polish.
Tuition fees are: 5 800 EUR for a course in English and
12 000 PLN for a course in Polish. We offer tuition fee scholarships,
see our website for details.

APPLY NOW: WWW.SOF.EDU.PL/APPLICATION.HTML


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26 graphic design

A print designed by
Kyuhyung Cho and
dedicated to Design
Alive. The pattern was
created by writing
the first paragraph of
the text below using
the Geometry Regular
typeface

coding
Text: Daria Linert

I deal with short stories, graphic


design and illustrating. I live in
Stockholm and Seoul this is
all that a young Korean man
writes about himself. Met one day
during an exhibition preview in
Spazio Orlandi, Milan, he looks
dreamlike as he modestly stands
in front of a fabric with geometrical patterns. These patterns
shall soon take a new meaning.
He politely asks whether he
may show us his latest work. He
approaches a computer, types
a few letters (each of a different
colour), selects them and chooses
a typeface named Garden. The
letters change into a fairy-tale
pattern; flowers overlap and
colours penetrate one another.
A casual observer would not be
able to decipher the colourful
picture. I wanted to allow the
text to penetrate our lives. I used
these letters to write my friends
favourite poem and printed it on
a silk scarf, says Kyuhyung Cho,
who created several other typefaces. The Creatures typeface (both
regular and in italics) changes

letters into acluster of strange


creatures. This boys favourite
fairy tale written down using those
letters decorates his blanket Kyuhyung points to aphotograph of
a little boy wrapped up in a white
blanket with golden linear patterns. The fabric with geometrical
patterns reveals its meaning as the
designer shows another typeface:
Geometry. This one changes each
letter into something which looks
like big pixels and each of these
additionally has ageometrical
pattern inside. When the text is
multicoloured, in spots where
characters overlap, the colours
and patterns penetrate one another, creating a space of colourful patchwork, densely covered
with writing. Cho thanks us for
our time, bows and gives us his
business card held in both hands
Deep in thought for a while, we
plan how many meanings we
could encode just for ourselves
and those for whom we have gifts
and our most genuine feelings.
www.kyuhyungcho.com

Depths
& esc
Asia Wysoczyskas
illusory stylisation

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s
escapism
stylist: Asia Wysoczyska, hair: Marcin Het
make-up: Katarzyna Sobura, model: Mag / MangoModels

Although were used to artificial speed and the popular,


seasonal hunt for trends, this way of understanding fashion
alone would be unfair to the deeper, cultural meaning
of changes we make to our appearance
Text: Olga Niecier*
Photo: Daniel Jaroszek

ascinating
knowledge results
from researching tendencies
over a longer
period of their
development.
Our complicated
human nature,
its evolution and
destruction, individualism and social
relationships, build the phenomenon
of fashion. Every few months, the arena
of the fashion market is filled with the
new offers of designers and companies.
Careful observation looks backwards and
logically understands the consequences
of the past and the present. An analytical and intuitive combination of facts
leads to predictions based on styles,
which concern wider transformations
and face the future, refusing to be bound
up in an artificial seasonal calendar of
premieres and shows. Anxious times
lead to serious and extreme searching, towards a long-lost harmony or primordial
wildness, towards unknown dreams and
fantasies, towards both elusive romance
and the chaos of cultural absurdity.

fashion 31

Photo: courtesy of Maison Martin Margiela

Woman as a revelation.
Maison Martin Margiela
reducing decoration to
an absolute minimum
on the runway

DREAMAWAY

REVELATION

An excess of defined and often unsatisfying reality inclines us towards a poetic


escape from consciousness. Entering the
world of dreams means vague, distant
visions, gentle softness and fluidity. Examining the border between the known
and the unknown, between impression
and fantasy. Breaking away and journeying into the distance, blinded by the sun
and air. The colours of fading memories,
the delicacy of illusions. A dream may
be bright and shimmering or suspended
at the edge of a nightmare precipice,
but yet remains light and elusive.
Dries Van Noten has discovered a lucid
multidimensionality, freedom and
extraordinary lightness in his spring
collection. His subtle creations have been
called the aftertastes of flower power and
the grunge generation; in a sophisticated
modern version. The new Danish talent,
Anne Sofie Madsen, composes her illustrations and outfits from her dreams. Her
clothes are delicate collages of impressions, lightly sketched pleats, drapery
and embroidery on ethereal figures.
The creations of Yiqing Yin, the young
haute couture designer, lead us into
a world of intensified fantasy. Breathtaking flowing dresses are conjured up from
interwoven or ruffled layers of shaded
transparent silk. They lead us into the
depths of oceans and magic. Dreams
are the main subject of the inspirational
Revs Magazine, where photographer
Daniel Jaroszek captured the stylisations
of Asia Wysoczyska like a dream. The
work of American photographer Jordan
Sullivan amazingly communicates the
transitoriness of feelings and memory;
breaking away on a distant journey.

The search for truth opens archaic paths


of simplicity, breaking away from matter
and corporeality. A direction aesthetically rooted in distant history, intensively explored in the 1990s and New
Age philosophy, returns in a luxurious,
contemplative and contemporary take on
the spiritual path. It plunges into the philosophy of distant cultures in the search
for harmony and revelation. The forms
become harmoniously simple, and serve
to shroud the body and the ceremony of
life. Time and space are the highest values. Meditation leads to conceiving of the
nature of life, clarity and concentration.
The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi talks
about the beauty in the imperfection
of nature, the beauty of transitoriness,
aging, experiencing. And Japanese
fashion, unlike its Western version, is
interested in the space between the body
and the clothes, the space of the spirit.
Yohji Yamamoto, the greatest philosopher of fashion, is searching for an
aesthetic of this kind. His designs are
timeless and divorced from commerciality or seasonality. His field of interest is the human soul and its darkened
labyrinths, his language a severe poetry
without embellishments. The current
avant-garde also strives for purity. Rock
n roll and jagged Ann Demelumester
sends puristic angels in a black and white
arrangement of yin and yang out on the
runway, with the flowing tails of long
dresses forming transparent wings.
The conceptual Maison Martin Margiela
reduce decoration on their silhouettes
wrapped in unblemished, pale leather
to an absolute minimum. In both his
mens and womens collections, Rick
Owens creates long, shapeless, floorlength tunics from delicate linen the colour of burnt earth. The opposite of what
is generally understood to be fashionable, his models more resemble monks
or priests communing with eternity.

designalive.pl

Photo: Fernando Lessa, courtesy of Any Rajcevic

Ana Rajcevics
accessories explore the
ideas of mutation and
evolution, crossing the
human body with animal
bodies: creating a more
wonderful creature

34 fashion

WILDNESS
In an era of untrammelled, overdeveloped technological civilisation, we
can observe a move towards the search
for ones primordial nature. A direction marked out some time ago by the
visionary genius of Alexander McQueen,
it evokes the most intimate contact with
our bestiality, with our core existence
and its link to the forces of nature. It rejects all social principles, roles, positions
and masks. Contemporary primitivism is
a call for freedom and integrity, oneness
with the earth, rooting our lost existence
in a socio-economic game. It calls out
to basic instincts, to survival, in which
it experiences vitality and energy. What
is primitively natural, imperfect, but full
of power, becomes attractive. Harmony
with the animal in us manifests through
a desire to become it, adopting attributes, horns, beaks, wings; a combination
of bodies and an exchange of souls.
Ana Rajcevics accessories, which
decorate the body with anatomical,
animal forms, cloak that way of thinking
in a contemporary aesthetic dimension.
This unusual jewellery explores the ideas
of mutation and evolution, crossing the
human body with animal bodies: creating a more wonderful creature. Rituals,
magic and mysticism are also a search
for ones roots. This tale beautifully
interweaves in the designs of Riccardo
Tisci, a deeply religious designer, for
Givenchy, with the courage to constantly
engage in discussions with spirituality
in his work. In his collections, we find
jewellery inspired by tribal decorations, made from intricately composed
stones, too brutally weighing down
the ears or making holes in the female
and male models noses. This decoration interferes with the body and our
sense of classical beauty, showing that
great fashion is tired of its superficiality and wishes to touch the truth.

designalive.pl

NEW ICONIC
ROMANCE
Fashion is also looking for romance in
its escapes. The desire for nonexistent
perfection and an ideal looks back at
history, to archetypes and heroines,
and icons of romanticism. Legends
are the inspiration. Past aristocracy
and kingliness offer symbols, ornamentation and decoration. Perfection
and strength go hand in hand with
seduction and sensuality. Recollections
of forgotten elegance, adornment and
attention to the meaning of the outfit.
The Valentino collection, designed by
worthy successors Maria Grazia Chiuri
and Pierpaolo Piccioli, delights with its
delicate romanticism; a hint of the belle
poque and innocence. White and cream
weave a spiders web of black lace. The
brilliant Tim Walker and his fairytale
imagination conjure up in Love magazine enchanted heroines played by, among
others, the ever-beautiful Kate Moss.
Balmain make liberal use of historical
court costumes, creating simply lavish
ornamentation on a delicate figure. Chanel decorate their white dresses similarly
with airy jewellery flowers. Dior dresses
men in bright, navy blue accompanied by
exotic animals and frames them in luxurious dark interiors. The Italians are decorating clothes even more intensely and
vividly this spring. Gucci and Dolce &
Gabbana are totally abandoning ordinariness in favour of the lavishness and decorativeness of embroidery combined with
jewellery. The Londoner Ziad Ghanen is
refreshing the haute couture scene with
his worryingly rich dresses. He writes
about himself as hopelessly romantic.

Photo: courtesy of Valentino

A longing for
nonexistent perfection.
The new collection
of the fashion house
Valentino delight with
a delicate romanticism,
a hint of the belle
poque and innocence

A psychedelic sense
of humour. Jeremy Scott
for Adidas Originals
means sport, folklore
and kitsch in a smart,
luxury edition

fashion 37

COLLAGE
TRANSFORMATION

AN ANATOMY
OF TREND
Trend-watching is a creative branch
of sociology, which applies the findings of research data to aesthetics and
design. Today it is a growing, respected
field. Its a source of observation, analysis
and conclusions which can be applied at the level of company business
strategy. It also offers endless inspiration
to designers. It confronts them with the
work of creators from other fields, linking information from various sources
in possible scenarios and directions.

Photo: courtesy of Adidas

A psychedelic, colourful sense of humour


is also a source of healthy detachment.
Designers who refuse to compromise in
their games with the absurd are becoming the superheroes of fashion. Their
main means of expression is controlled
insanity and their main technique, collage. They combine glamour with the
street in the name of a never-ending
experiment. Sport, folklore and kitsch
in a smart, luxury edition. Loads of
energy, mad colours, optical illusions, vibrations and childlike joy.
Leading this movement is Walter Van
Beirendonck, whose insanity is becoming a cultural classic. This designer-artist
used colour and sharp graphic design,
combining fashion with art, seasoning this blend with modern ethnicity.
His surrealism and playfulness with
the male form are simultaneously acute
observations of human personalities.
Jeremy Scott, whose talent Adidas are
making use of in colourful collaborations, uses kitsch similarly to provoke
and dazzle. Manish Aurora, who exploits
all of his Indian intensity and vitality in
his designs, suggests a total psychedelic
high-fashion trip. His last collection is
incredibly poised, and in spite of the
madness utterly functional. Kenzo and
Opening Ceremonys new collection is
a collage of ethnic and jungle influences
with powerful elements of street art and
youthfulness. In her latest collection,
Mary Katrantzou shows the potential
for playing with digital printing and
the form of clothes, weaving light and
graphically rich tales on her models.

* The author lives and


works in Tuscany. She
works as a consultant
and designer for brands
such as: Giorgio Armani,
Fratelli Rossetti, Burberry and Valentino. She
graduated from d
Academy of Fine Arts
and Polimoda in Florence, where she currently works. In Poland,
she is heavily involved
with her work at the
Viamoda Polish-Italian
Institute of Design and
Management, where,
as programme director,
she is responsible for
post-graduate courses,
and at the Viamoda
Industrial Fashion
School (featuring design,
technology and fashion
management)

designalive.pl

38 Dzia

The large patio offers


protection from the
heat and is a perfect
place for a siesta
designalive.pl

extramuros

DZIA 39

links the principles of ancient Roman villas


and medieval monasteries with the shapes of
modernism. The coldness of concrete with the
softness of cork walls. Intimacy with space. This
Portuguese villa teaches us stillness and synergy
Text: ELIZA ZIEMISKA
Photo: laxander gempeler, adria goula sarda

designalive.pl

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great houses 41

Y
In spite of the open
spaces, the house
is full of secluded
corners. Because of
this, everyone will
find a little solitude

ou can smell
the scent of
parched earth in
a valley between
hills lined with
olive groves. The
sounds of cicadas among ancient, stooped cork
oaks is hypnotising. Arraiolos, a
small town north of vora, is only
an hours drive from Lisbon. Apart
from its rich history, which extends back to the Romans, and its
architecture, which is a mixture of
classical and Moorish influences,
the region is well known for its
amazingly peaceful lifestyle, varied
cuisine and unspoilt nature. Two
Frenchmen Franois Savatier
and Jean-Christophe Lalanne
fell in love with the place. The
Extramuros Villa a remarkable,

friendly residence was built here


because of their desire to share
their passion with other people.
Not far from the castle hill, somewhat out on a limb, they decided
to build an oasis for anybody
who longs for peace, quiet and
to commune with nature. They
invited the Portuguese-Spanish
Vora Architectura, known for
their town square in Vilafranca
del Peneds, to join the project.
At first sight, the villa might seem
to be just another modernisminfluenced building, but in spite of
appearances it is strongly rooted in
the regions architectural traditions. The layout of the house isnt
accidental. The architects have
drawn on traditions of the ancient
Roman villa and medieval monasteries. Owing to that inspiration,

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42 great houses

The minimalist interiors


form the background to a
collection of design icons
and regional crafts. A chair
by American architect Eero
Saarinen on an Alentejan
designalive.pl
carpet
why not?

Our design is
material and
abstract at
the same time

the building was given a large


courtyard with a small water basin
and orange trees. Thanks to the
warm climate, that space becomes
a kind of outdoor room, where life
carries on as it does indoors. Its
not only a passage between the
various parts of the house, but also
a centre around which the life of
the house revolves, simultaneously
ensuring the comfort of privacy in
the apartments arrayed on the first
floor around the courtyard.
The pristine, white shape of
the building stands out against
the beige, sunburnt oaks and
olive trees, like a foreign object
among the gentle lines of the
landscape. That foreignness is
illusory, however. The shape,
which is strongly influenced by
Le Corbusiers architecture, only
serves to emphasise the beauty
of the surroundings; creating
a poetic, sensitive composition.
The huge expanses of glass,
linking the buildings inaccessible
structure to the outside world,
open it up to nature and are an invitation to enter. The ground floor
and patio form a shared area for
all the hotels guests. Guests can
use the living room, kitchen and
dining room, where they say that
Portuguese, French and Mediterranean cuisine taste the best. Importantly, the rooms are connected
to the garden by two wide terraces
concealed in the buildings cloisters. The land around the villa has
been preserved in its original form.
Visitors can watch wild rabbits
and a wide variety of birdlife.
As far as possible, locallyavailable materials were used in
the houses construction. Concrete
is the main building material;
in some places left rough and in
others given a smooth finish. But
what makes the greatest impression is the cork lining the interior
and the exterior facades. Apart
from their interesting texture and
natural colour, they guarantee
excellent acoustic and thermal

44 great
Dzia houses
Mutually complementing each
other, the raw and
cold shape of the
building is warmed
by the natural cork
lining

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46 great houses

When we create, we limit


ourselves, but simultaneously
search for the essence of things

The panoramic views


from the terrace give
the impression of the
horizon being framed
in a moving image

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DZIA 47

insulation. The famous Estremoz


marble known since Roman
times adds elegance to the
rooms. All of the rooms have been
personally furnished by the villas
owners. The raw expanses of wall
form the background to a collection of icons from the 1950s until
today. Apart from iconic furniture
by Jean Prouv, Charlotte Perriand
and Marc Newson, we can also
find Konstantin Grcics geometric
Chair One and designs by Pierre
Paulin. Objects made by local
artisans, such as carpets, blankets,
cork bowls and ceramics give the
interiors a regional, authentic feel.
The furnishings, however, are only
the backdrop. The interiors central
figure is nature, which penetrates
inside through the large windows.
This proportion works to the buildings advantage, giving it lightness
and framing the natural landscape.
The buildings upper floor has
been given over in its entirety to
five, spacious, minimalistically furnished guest bedrooms. Each room
has access to its own, individual
terrace with panoramic views
over the surrounding countryside.
Attention to the tiniest detail can
also be seen in the bathrooms.
Natural sunlight shines in through
skylights, Italian rain showers
have been fitted in the bathrooms,
and there is underfloor heating.
The architecture of the Extramuros Villa extends well beyond
its material structure, melding
into the landscape and drawing it into its interior. Relaxing
in a place like this is a pleasure,
which flows from the equilibrium
preserved between the relationship of remarkable architecture
and untouched, pure nature.
www.villaextramuros.com

48 archicons

Japanese
School

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The modernist school of the Japanese city of Yawatahama


served children for many years until 2004, when a typhoon
destroyed it. Rebuilt by the local community with attention
to original details, it has won several awards
Text: ANNA DUDZISKA*
photo: kitamura toru

he fifties. The
school building is erected,
inspired by the
achievements of
modernism. Children attend it for
several dozen years until a fatal typhoon hit the school and reduced
it to rubble. For two years the
fate of the school was uncertain.
Finally the decision to restore was
made and a consortium of architects, experts, researchers, representatives of the local community
including parents of children was
formed. The reconstruction plan
was a collective undertaking,
explains Weronika Rochacka,
a historian of art and specialist in
design management. Now the Hizuchi Elementary School of Yawatahama is teeming with life again.
One immediately gets the
impression that the building fits
the surroundings in a measured
and harmonious fashion. Its
a simple, geometric, wooden
structure with a terrace suspended
over the water, surrounded by
hills and greenery, says Rochacka.
This description would perfectly
sum up the beautiful temples
of Japan but it turns out that it
may also refer to a building with
an entirely different purpose.
Without a doubt, credit for this
goes to the architecture inspired
by Frank Lloyd Wright. The
famous creator, however, never
designed for or indeed even went
to Yawatahama. The man behind
the school project was Masatsune
Matsumura (1913-1993), a littleknown local architect. His name
later gained recognition when the
architectural gems of Japanese
modernism were rediscovered,
says Rochacka. The school was
built between 1956 and 1958. It
served the youngest residents of
the city for several decades, until
the 2004 typhoon struck the village and destroyed the building.
The building in its original

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archicons 51

Weronika
Rochacka
for several years she
worked for the British
Design Council in London,
being part of projects
related to education and
dissemination of knowledge about design among
British companies, centres
of science and technology,
as well as public sector
organizations.

form didnt meet modern safety


standards concerning seismic
hazards. The new team of experts
addressed these concerns in order
to find solutions. The school was
renovated between the years 2006
and 2009. Many of the original elements that survived the cataclysm
were reused in the process. The
original colours returned and the
windows and corridors were fitted with safety glass. A new wing
was also added to the building
in keeping with the original plan.
Thats how the Hizuchi Elementary School became the first
wooden modernist construction restored in Japan. Today the
school abounds with new life.
The children can run around,
learn, have fun and relax there.
Its form is not only appreciated
by the kids but also by experts
and lovers of good architecture
from all around the world. Last

year, the school was awarded by


the World Monuments Fund.
What is remarkable about the
building is not only its architectural shape, but the use of natural
light. A long corridor and large
glass windows in facing classrooms light up the interior. This
unusual implementation of light
is striking right from the start
when you consider Matsumuras
original plans. Bear in mind that
post-war Japan rationed electricity. Not surprisingly, the rational
architect thought of the most
efficient use of sunlight. Although
electricity is now widely available, Japanese tradition calls
for respect for the original idea.
Ideally, such an approach should
be advocated in Poland. Rather
than demolish monuments of
modernist architecture, we should
salvage them and use them for
new purposes, Rochacka adds.

designalive.pl

52 Dzia

Lisbons
Fado

During the day, the soothing cool of tiered


gardens; in the evening, the pleasant warmth
of a sun-heated terrace and the scent of port
in the nostrils
Text: ANGELIKA OGROCKA
Photo: Fernando i Sergio Guerra

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The 100
DZIA
53square
metres of the faade
has been landscaped with 4,500
plants. Each floor is
graced by a different
fragrance composed
out of the gamut of
25 Iberian-Mediterranean species

54 architecture
The building has
a narrow vertical layout
typical of Lisbon. On
the roof, some room
was found for a token
pool, a welcome retreat
on scorching days

ome head for Vasco da


Gamas homeland to
discover the secrets of
fado and savour port
wine. Others seek an
adrenaline rush on the
towering waves of the
Atlantic. The action of
all the 365 days of this
year will be here, for it
was named the best holiday destination of 2013. Portugal. With
its westernmost capital of Europe, Lisbon,
it is a cultural volcano, and a place of
dialogue with nature.
The Fountain this is the original
Arabic name of Lisbons oldest district
of Alfama, given to it by the Moors.
Apart from sections of Santa Maria de
Belm, it was the only part of the city
that survived a series of natural disasters
and retained its original architectural
beauty. The steep rocks that once shielded
Alfama from the elements are nowadays
designalive.pl

an ideal place for residence. The narrow alleys which offer shelter from the
suns heat and stairs stretching along
steep streets are dreamy postcard images
of the district and the city at large.
This picturesque spot was discovered
by the group Building with Art, which
chooses valuable properties in Portugal
in order to restore them in singular ways.
The challenge of revitilizing a building at Travessa do Patrocnio 5 has been
taken up by three Portuguese architects
Lus Rebelo de Andrade, Tiago Rebelo de
Andrade, and Manuel Cacho Tojal, who
invested the three-storey structure with
cultural traditions and the verticalism
typical of Moorish buildings. Constrained by limited spaces, they designed
a vertical garden taking up as much as
40 per cent of the faade. Thus, they
adjusted their building concept to meet
one of the postulates of ecological cities,
consonant with the idea that it is time
we treated nature as a lifelong partner.

The vegetation featured in the faade


is made up of 4,500 plants representing 25 Iberian-Mediterranean species.
This 100-square-metre carpet gives
off a different aroma on each floor. The
profusion of plants used may give one
pause about maintaining such a thicket,
but it actually requires little watering.
The integration between the floors is
a tribute to the district itself. A single
flight of stairs runs from the ground
floor up to the very roof, intersecting the subsequent levels very much
as it is on the streets of Alfama. The
ground floor houses service areas, the
living quarters are located on the first
floor, while the second includes a social
area along with a kitchen and a dining room. The roof serves as a terrace
with an unusual, narrow pool, more
suitable for the crawl than the butterfly, but certainly ideal for sipping port
and drifting to the sounds of fado.
bwa.com.pt

Alluding
the steep
DZIAto 55
streets and thousands
of steps of Alfama,
a long flight of stairs
leads from the ground
floor all the way up to
the roof, through all the
levels of the building

designalive.pl

56 Dzia

interior
architecture
In searching for inspiration and a new relationship
between a social performance and a look inside
yourself, visit the Canadian island of Fogo
Text: MARCIN MOKA
Photo: Bent Ren Synnevg
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DZIA 57

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Tower Studio

58 places

designalive.pl

collection of small studios


for creative residences have
been built on a small island
near Newfoundland. The
minimalist architecture
designed by Todd Saunders
allows screenwriters, architects, designers, dancers, artists and poets
to find themselves in the architecture of
their own interior and draw from it in the
process of creation.

An appetite for emigration

The great Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki made something of a retreat out
of the village of Lutosawice, where he
indulges one of his greatest passions: dendrology, planting hundreds of species of
trees in the park. His works, which are
later performed on all the continents, are
written in such an environment. The prose
writer and screenwriter Wojciech Kuczok
cherishes mountains and caves, where he
finds calm. Many other similar examples
can be found. The need to cut oneself off
from the daily grind, to slow down and look
deep inside is not only felt by artists. We
arent just converting to slow food, but
generally trying to slow things down. In
order to slow down, its occasionally necessary to switch off the world and its tsunami of stimuli. For that reason, in order
to work in silence and concentration, we
head off to some sort of mythical Arcady,
or at least to a retreat which will guarantee
us peace and quiet, at least for some time.
Jacek Santorski, business psychologist: We
have to recover the equilibrium between
extraversion and introversion. Lets look for
a new balance between the element of social spectacle, the external narrative, which
naturally has to shine and be superficial,
with the element of stopping and looking
inside. We are in that fantastic moment,
when we are becoming conscious, knowing
that we have to restore equilibrium. Right
now, companies highly value employees
who are capable of functioning efficiently
both on the outside and inside themselves.
They are people who are extremely soughtafter in the post-consumer market reality,
who can think strategically, are able to listen and synthesise. Creative, but also with
the ability to work in teams.

A Canadian patent

Long Studio

Whats the best place to look at ourselves


and the problems were facing? From
a mountain hut high in the mountains
or a studio on the top floor of a New York
apartment block? Is an escape from civilisation and submersion in total isolation
really necessary? Or perhaps theres some
kind of middle ground.
It looks like the Canadians have come
up with it. Everything began with Zita
Cobb. This businesswoman, born on the
small island of Fogo, 15 kilometres from
the north-eastern coast of Newfoundland,
wanted to breathe new life in an original way into her little homeland, with

its population of around three thousand.


She realised perfectly that making a living from traditional trades really fishery
would become increasingly difficult. She
decided that the key to rejuvenating the
island would be artists of various kinds. After beginning collaboration with Change
Islands, founding the Shorefast Foundation,
inviting investors (including the Canadian
government) on board, and investing over
20 million dollars, a remarkable place: Fogo
Island Arts Corporation a collection of
studios for artistic residences was built.

An artists colony

Today, Fogo Island Arts Corporation is


a genuine residence programme, lasting
from three to six months. On Fogo, the
residents know what kind of power resides in the fusion of work in solitude with
the opportunity to share knowledge and
experience with others. Its participants
can hole up in one of six free-standing
studios, focussing on their own projects
but simultaneously remaining in real not
electronic contact with people, which
is offered to them by the conference hotel (under construction). Some of the first
participants in a residency were a group
comprising architects, artists and designers
from Norway, Lithuania and Germany, who
gave themselves the task of creating medical clothing for the needs of the local health
centre. The artists described not only their
work on a blog which was compiled during
the residency, but also many other activities.
For example, a music playlist which best
corresponded to their mood on a given day.
A theatre festival of Ibsens plays by students
of the Canadian National Arts Center was
also organised on the island.
Ondine Cohane, a journalist for the New
York Times called the place an enclave of
culture. It was enough for NYT to write
about the island for Zita Cobbs telephone
to be ringing off the hook. Regular tourists also began to visit the island. People
are attracted to Fogos landscape and its
modern architecture. How could it be any
different, since the well-known architect
Todd Saunders who lives and works in
Norway, but grew up in Newfoundland
became involved?

Architectural gems

Todd Saunderss architects office wanted


to interfere as little as possible in the islands landscape and the human settlements already there. It was planned to build
a hotel with twenty-nine rooms and six
autonomous studios along the coast. Local raw materials, and the expertise and
labour of local specialists were used. Many
elements were constructed in local workshops. Each building is self-sufficient, with
its own compost toilet and power source.
The studios are not for year-round use;
the season begins in the spring and lasts
until the autumn. The structures are very
geometric: on one side they contrast with
the surrounding scenery and on the other
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Bridge Studio

places 61

62 places

Tower Studio

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1. Fogo Island Inn


2. Long Studio
3. Squish Studio
4. Short Studio
5. Bridge Studio
6. Fodo Studio
7. Tower Studio

Fogo Island
25 km long and
14 km wide. Total area
237.71 km2. It is inhabited by 2,706 people
(2006 census). The first
permanent settlement
took place in the 18th
century, although
migratory fishermen
visited it in the early
sixteenth century. The
islands residents are
mainly descendants
of the first permanent
settlers from England
and Ireland

2
1

3
6

7
5

1 km

64 places

Squish Studio

they convey its drama. Their shapes express


the changeability of nature in the different
seasons, but they also make one aware of
the changes which have taken place in lifestyle on the island. The buildings face the
sea, and are characterised by considerable
lightness; thanks to which the artists can
enjoy the sense of freedom so necessary
for their work.
The first to be built was the Long Studio,
which covers an area of 130 m2. The invited
artists reside in the living space, while there
are spaces for workshops, seminars, conferences, meetings and parties in the shared
area. The large windows and skylights provide plenty of natural light. The building is
supported on stilts on the seaward side, and
touches the concrete foundations on the
landward side.

A network of introverts
join forces

The new plans for Fogo Island is not only


architecture, but also a whole raft of
events and projects: exhibitions, theatre,
film, workshops, renovating old buildings
and many other activities which integrate
people. Our projects are based on culture,
unlike standard thinking about tourism.
Rather than lightning visits and quick relationships, we offer the chance to slow
down and focus on the task for a longer
period, says Saunders. In the same way,
hes breaking away from fast-tourism,
and offering something exciting instead.
When I think back, I can recall my grandmother and mom making quilts throughout
the entire winter, using various techniques.
We still have the quilts. My daughters use
them, he adds. This lengthy connection is
important for the islanders. After the residencies, material traces remain, if only the
old buildings renovated with the help of the
guests. And anyway, every guest can leave
the island not only with memories but also
with their own work.
The residents are also seeing Fogo with
fresh eyes. Zita Cobb wouldnt be herself
if during an interview she didnt refer
to literature and one of her favourite writers. An artist can look in a new way at old
things, she declared. And quoted Giuseppe
Tomasi di Lampedusa. For everything to
remain as it is, it will be necessary for everything to change.
www.shorefast.org,
www.artscorpfogoisland.ca

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Like
Odysseus
My father often used to tell me all we need to survive
is a ceramic bowl to scoop up water from a stream.
Because each of us has our own school of minimalism.
And its been like that for thousands of years
Text: MARCIN MOKA
with Eliza Ziemiska

67
When Odysseus set off to wage war against Troy, he promised
his wife Penelope he would return as soon as he could. He kept
his promise but it was ten years later. Thats how long the journey back from Ithaca took him. But it wasnt only a journey in
the geographical sense. He needed those ten years to return to
himself, to his real me. The knowledge he acquired is difficult
to overestimate, and today hes a genuine superhero, not least
for those of us whose deepest desire is to economise. Because
a wonderful lesson can be drawn from the Odyssey. Homer demonstrated that human beings are animals who are able to deny
themselves, and thats what makes us human beings. Not all
of Odysseuss companions were able to suppress their instincts,
desires and longings; and they came to a sorry end. It seems as
though more and more people today are setting off on a journey
to find their real me. All we have to do is look at popular blogs
where authors write about their struggles with cravings, and with
the mountains of objects they ought to throw out to be happy
and fulfilled. For many people, limiting the number of objects
needed to function is the point of departure, and the inspiration
is Dave Brunos 100 Thing Challenge, which he describes in the
book of the same name. But this project can cause problems. And
results in questions about the way things should be counted. For
example, should every book be counted individually, or should
an entire bookcase be considered as one object? Should all our
favourite kitchen utensils and cosmetics be included on the list
of essential items? There are also provocative comments of the
type: Why does it have to be 100 and not 108?

Moderation, please

Of course, is easy to find answers to those questions and also


valuable hints. But one minimalist guru, Leo Babauta, stresses that
the number 100 is not the goal in itself. And Dominique Loreau
describes a situation in The Art of Simplicity where a certain
individual complained to Gandhi that he couldnt part with his
books. Ghandi advised him not to do it if he felt they gave him support and comfort. Ghandi said we ought not to part with things
if we are doing it with regret, but also emphasised that its easy
to free oneself from cares connected with owning material possessions: its enough to get rid of them, says Dominique Loreau
perversely. She herself persuades us to take the trouble to limit
our state of possession. An excess of objects only causes problems.
Its better to organise the space around us, with fewer things;
because we waste less time looking for them or tidying them.
Feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of caring for our surroundings,
persuades people to seek harmony and set limits, in order not to
block energy. Getting rid of unnecessary burdens allows us to
increase the energy we have inside us. Becoming detached from
material possessions, stopping clinging on to them gives us energy
and vitality. Its the one thing we really have, convinces Loreau.
One can also seek inspiration in Japanese traditions, where we
achieve the state of kei (harmony, purity, equilibrium) on the
way of aesthetics. Lets take a tea house: the space for drinking
tea (chashitsu) is divided into areas with sliding doors, there is no
furniture with specific purposes, nothing has a permanent place,
and one can freely organise the space. Aesthetics of this kind help
us to achieve spiritual equilibrium.

The era of fixers is approaching

And if its still difficult for us to part with many of our possessions
which seem to be simply essential for living, perhaps well be
inspired by the words of Tim Jackson: We buy things we don't
need with money we haven't got to make impressions that don't
last on people we don't care about. They could be called words
of wisdom for a time of recession! But incidentally, the recession
has turned out to be a very effective method of returning to minimalism. One recipe for hard times is suggested by fixperts or
designers who fix things. Daniel Charny, independent curator, and
the man behind the extremely popular exhibition Power of Making at Londons V&A, is convinced its a powerful force. People
get pleasure from making simple things. By fixing something,

they get involved, and become more confident, he suggests. And


above all, the fixpert in spite of suspicions about having too
close an emotional relationship with the object (they fix, because
they dont want to get rid of it) doesnt run to the shop to get
a new one. The one they have is enough. Particularly, since fixing
also involves giving a unique, individual character even to massproduced objects. The key is to become a fixpert, not because of
the recession, but because youre convinced its worth limiting
yourself. It annoyed me when I had to keep getting new things,
because the ones I had kept breaking down, admits Jane N Dhulchaointigh, the inventor of Sugru, a flexible clay that air dries into
tough silicon rubber, which can be used to fix not only a laptop
charger but also... a cars wheel arch.

Life packed into a backpack

This is not just about a kind of asceticism and purging oneself, as


some people want. As early as the 1970s, Erich Fromm, the guru
of several generations of minimalists, observed in his cult book
To Have Or To Be: Today, consumption is emphasized, not preservation, and buying has become throw away buying. People for
whom minimalism is a necessity cope pretty well. People living
in small flats paradoxically feel much freer in them than owners
of sprawling residences. They buy fewer things, so as not to store
them. And not to throw them out.
Its unnecessary to search for philosophies, theories or advice.
The principle the less, the better applies always and everywhere.
We live in times when frequent changes of residence (for example;
uprooting to search for work) are becoming unavoidable. We
recall the advice given by the George Clooney character in the
film Up in the Air. He instructs people to pack their backpack
with their entire lives, from utterly tiny objects, through TV sets
and sofas to a car and a house. Is it getting heavy? But life is all
about movement, he tries to persuade. The principle the less,
the better can be applied at every step. We buy less food, we eat
less; were healthier, and we waste less. We use less water and
electricity; we have lower bills and we care for the environment.
We leave our car at home and take the bike or we walk. A bit
of exercise wont hurt us. Or perhaps we should also apply the
principle of limiting ourselves at work and stop working so hard?
Perhaps we should get used to sending fewer emails, not posting
every little trifle on social networking sites, and spending more
time in the real world and not the virtual one.

Not swans but sharks

The cinematic allegory of the backpack has a sequel. After things,


the time comes for people. Clooneys character, Ryan Bingham,
encourages people to put everybody: people theyve met by chance,
co-workers, right up to our close friends and family into their
backpack. And maintains that our relationships are our heaviest
load. We arent swans, created for a life in monogamous relationships. We are not swans. Were sharks, is how he finishes. Theres
no Hollywood-style and they all lived happily ever after ending
to this film. If we go too far with limiting ourselves and begin to
get rid of people too (although its always worth doing that with
the noisy ones and the complainers!), will we be happier? Would
Odysseus have returned to Ithaca if not for the knowledge that
Penelope was waiting for him? As you think about an answer,
throw out all your minimalist advice manuals, delete all your
links and turn off your computers. Do other people really know
better how we ought to live? How about a walk?

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68 people

THE COLLECTOR
Monika Unger the first years of her life in Warsaw, a culturally and
politically demanding city at that time. A forced escape from her
home country led her through Belgium and the USA to Italy. How was
one of the most interesting modernist collections in Europe created?
What was her father Leopold like? In what language does she think?
Monika answers all these questions in her Milan apartment
in aconversation with Ewa Trzcionka

designalive.pl

Monika Ungers apartment is like a continuously changing landscape


of contemporary and
modern curiosities.
Foreground: a Cappellini sofa designed by
Jasper Morrison, Italy;
a rosewood table, unknown designer, Brazil,
1960s; yellow armchairs,
unknown designer, Italy,
1950s; a green armchair,
unknown designer, Denmark, 1950s; aCostanza,
Luceplan lamp to the
right, designed by Paolo
Rizzato, Italy, 1986; a Fontana Arte lamp to the left,
unknown designer, Italy,
1954. Background: a Cappellini table designed by
G. Fronzioni, Italy, 1964;
Hans Wegner chairs, Denmark, 1950s; a Cappellini
lamp designed by Marcel
Wanders, Italy, 1998

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70 people

The objects in my collection


must have their own history:
I need to know where they
come from

do not know what language I think in. I went


from Poland to Belgium
with my whole family
when I was 12. In essence,
I am Belgian. That was the
time when the Jews were leaving
for Israel, but we landed in Brussels, where my mothers family
lived. We did not have passports,
so the return to our home country
was impossible. We all learned
life anew. My father (editors note:
Leopold Unger) was a journalist, so he had to start writing in
French. That was not easy because
he was 45 at the moment of leaving Poland. He was a tough and
determined person, so he took up
that language, but, like the majority of Poles from that emigration wave, he spoke French with
a horrible accent. Actually he had
a peculiar accent while speaking
any language, be it Spanish or
English. Still, he started writing;
they helped him with translations
at the beginning, but then he began to flourish incredibly. Nonetheless, he could not go to Poland
for 20 years. He wrote for Kultura
[Culture] in Paris and signed his
texts as a citizen of Brussels.
And yet your journey did not end
in Belgium.
In 1980, I went to USA for two
years and I returned to Italy, not
Belgium. After many years, when
things changed in Poland, so that
father could come back to Poland
and write for Gazeta Wyborcza,
designalive.pl

I was already apermanent resident


in Italy. I went to Poland in the
1990s with my father, when he
published his first book there: its
title was Intruz [The Intruder].
That was my first visit to my home
country after my departure, so
I found it hard to speak Polish
then. While my father could read
Polish, I could not. My French
was fluent and I finished school
in that language. Then there was
the USA, and it turns out that the
language which should be the
most important one Polish is
not the language I speak best.
I also have an older brother, who
lives in Hong Kong. It seems we
got scattered all over the world
How would you explain your
strong interest in the design of the
modernist period?
My love for all that, for modernism, for modernity, originated in
Poland. In our house in Warsaw
there was furniture by ad (a cooperative designing and producing
furniture in communist Poland);
actually, almost everyone had
them. We did not know classical furniture at all: we had no
grandparents or houses for us to
inherit anything. We did not have
a so called inheritance, either, so
it was normal for me that we had
small, simple pieces of furniture
made of pale wood, with a bit of
folk spirit. The objects by ad
were precisely like that. When
I came to Belgium, I realized that
people had no modern furniture

there: they had furniture from


specific periods, in Louis XV or
Louis XVI style. Those flats were
full of history, then; some objects
could be as much as 150 years
old. I experienced some sort of
culture shock because I realized that not everyone had new
furniture. Since we left Poland
with our own furniture, the flat
in Brussels still looks like the one
in Warsaw in Koszykowa Street.
While creating your collections, did
you introduce geographical limitations on purpose?
I was interested in the common denominator for that home
style of ours. In the 1980s I started
searching for similarity in thinking
of the future, for creators looking
at things the way I looked at them.
I became interested in Scandinavia
and began to buy furniture from
there; quite alarge collection was
created as a result. Then I started
examining Italian furniture more
carefully, though I liked it less
and it was always expensive. I was
also in touch with an acquaintance who was acollector and
showed me Brazilian modernist
furniture. I grew very interested
in that, too. A funny thing is that
Jorge Zalszupin, a very important Brazilian designer, was in
Romania during WWII, just like
my father and they knew each
other. What is more, my father
had some affair with Zalszupins
sister. Father was never interested
in visual arts painting, graphics

A collection of porcelain
vases; from the left: a Fischietto collection piece
(it forms a set with the
rightmost vase in the picture), Habitat, designed
by Ettore Sotssas, Italy,
1969; Habitat, unknown
designer, France, 1980;
a M18 Royal Tichelaar
Makkum model designed
by Hella Jongerius, Holland, 2007; Yantra Y31,
Bitossi, Ettore Sotssas,
Italy, 1969; Yantra Y15,
Bitossi, Ettore Sotssas,
Italy, 1969; Cappellini,
unknown designer, 1980,
Italy; Yantra Y28, Bitossi,
Ettore Sotssas, Italy, 1969

72 people
A Brazilian lunch suite
designed by Joaquim
Tenreiro. To the left,
aside-board made
of tropical jacaranda
wood and plywood

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74 people

Dear Ewa, we have just added some


very interesting and original objects by
Zalszupin. We paid a lot of money for
them in Brazil and had them renovated
in Italy. See for yourself I enclose
photographs for you. Regards, Monika

or architecture. He was involved


in music and literature. One day
I showed him a list of designers which I had created for the
purpose of an exhibition and he
exclaimed, I know Zalszupin! But
he is Jerzy [Polish for George], not
Jorge!. Father was still in touch
with his sister, but I have not managed to contact Jerzys daughter,
who now takes care of his collection. I must say that Zalszupin
has become very fashionable and
respected; sadly, I do not own
anything designed by him.
I guess that there are more European-Brazilian stories like that.
The connections of Europeans
with Brazil after WWII were very
intense. Many Poles, Germans and
Italians left in search of asylum;
numerous great creators landed
and worked there. That is why
the influence of European culture
in the Americas was so strong.
Those tropical modernism works
are very popular e.g. in the USA;
shops with those objects open
every now and then, for instance
in New York. It does not concern
design only because Brazil is
full of culture: they have excellent painters and sculptors, too.
Tell us something about your
collection.
My Brazilian collection includes
about 60 objects: by Joaquim
Tenreiro, Sergio Rodrigues or
Giuseppe Scapinelli. One can
compare this with Art Twenty
Century, a New York gallery which

has the largest collection of Brazilian design: they have gathered


500 objects. However, their prices
are absurdly high. My Scandinavian collection consists of nearly
200 showpieces, including those
by Hans J. Wagner, Arne Vodder,
Grete Jalk, Verner Panton or Finn
Juhl. Scandinavian vintage objects
are what I mainly sell; these are often cheaper than new furniture by,
say, Minotti. Italian vintage furniture is expensive because it is rare:
few people bought modern objects
in the 1950s and 1960s. Still, I have
quite a few of these showpieces.
How do you obtain your
showpieces?
The market is quite large, though
it is harder to get Brazilian objects
because they are less known and
more expensive. Brazilians did not
have a furniture industry: they
had pre-industrial plants. That
is why these objects are relatively few and hard to buy. I was
wondering whether I should sell
my Brazilian collection, but I am
still hesitating because it includes
rare pieces. When I sell Danish
objects, I know I will be able to
buy them again somewhere, even
the next day. It would not be that
easy with the Brazilian ones.
Where can we see your
collections?
I have a showroom just next to
this place. It houses Scandinavian
objects. Be Modern does not have
a gallery: we organize exhibitions where we show, for instance,

designs coming from Brazil. I work


a lot via the Internet it has
a global market for everything.
To you, what does it mean to
be modern?
It is a form of a mixture of
things, a lifestyle. I do not like
excessive extravagance. I reckon
that objects should be pretty and
functional, so I agree with the
whole modernist philosophy, especially with the Scandinavian one.
While Brazilians made modernist
objects for the rich, in Scandinavia one can feel that democratic
sense of design. The objects are
small, but comfortable, industrial and well-designed. They also
think of what a given object may
do with other objects, how they
can coexist and complement one
another, and that is visible, too.
I guess it is not just a job for you
Objects in my collection must
have their own history: I need
to know where they come from.
This is how various anecdotes are
born, like the one about Zalszupin
or Sergio Rodrigues, whom I met
and visited in Rio de Janeiro. I have
also been to Finn Juhls marvellous home in Copenhagen. He
used to live there and today it
is a museum. I am interested in
people who do it all with passion
and with society in mind. Maybe
the reason for this is that I was
brought up in a communist
country and something of communism has remained within me.
www.bemodern.net

Sofa Presidencial,
LAtelier, designed by Jorge
Zalszupin, Brazil, 1960

Monika Unger
Interior designer, architect and collector of modernist design objects. She
moved to Brussels with her family in
1968, where she graduated in architecture in La Cambre post-Bauhaus
school established by Henry van
De Velde. She also graduated from
the Environmental Design Department of MIT (Massachusetts Institute
of Technology) in the USA. Moving to
Italy was another big experience for
her: an architecture intership with
Giancarlo De Carlo and then working
for Olivetti in the corporate image
department in Milan where she lives.
In 1994 she established the Creative
Communications. She is also aco-founder of Creative Project foundation,
which promotes Polish design abroad. She is building the Modern project
with Cinzia Ferrara: they are creating
a unique collection of 20th-century
design, especially Scandinavian and
Brazilian design. She organizes and
arranges exhibitions, furnishes interiors, conducts research and works
as an advisor. www.monikaunger.it

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76 people

paired
AUTONOMY
Kiki van Eijk and Joost van Bleiswijk. She was born in 1978 two
years after him. They are both graduates of the Design Academy
in Eindhoven and are leading Dutch designers. They run a studio
and agallery together, but each of them maintains their own
independence in design. Is it easy to be together 24/7? Craft
paired with design is it good business? by Ewa Trzcionka

portraits: lisa klappe

pleasant hubbub
fills the usual day
of unusual people. Dusk light seeps
through big factory windows of the
postindustrial architecture, lighting Kikis fairy-tale objects and the
fruits of Joosts fascination with
technology. Separately and together no dominance, no pushiness. Family and friends surround
them as we meet in their studio. A thread of understanding is
evident as they finish each others sentences: just aglance is
enough. They are independent in
creation, occasionally making objects together, yet in their daily life they form the most exciting
couple in contemporary design.
Do you know that you have
quite a large circle of fans in
Central Europe? How would you
explain our passion for Dutch
design? What is it that attracts
us to you and does not let go?
Joost: The Dutch do not wait
for anyone to do our job. Production, promotion we take it all
into our own hands. When we

designalive.pl

begin, we are abit of artists, but


then we take care of production
and sales ourselves, so we can afford to do uncompromising stuff.
Kiki: I do not know Poland well
because I have never been there,
but I can imagine that, like us, you
are used to doing everything yourselves for many reasons your history, for example. We have that
in common. And the school, of
course! Li Edelkoorts school was
established in your country (editors note: Lidewij Edelkoort,
a highly regarded Dutch trend observer, is a mentor for the School
of Form a higher school of design in Pozna). Lidewij has told
us that there is a lot of interesting craft in Poland. That could create a strong bond between us;
it would be marvellous to start
working with Polish craftsmen.
It is true that in Poland we learn
craft from its masters, not from
books, but one can feel this is
the last moment to act. And how
did you master your craft skills?
Your studio is full of pliers, tools,
wire and vices it looks more like
a workshop than a design studio.

Kiki: During our degree courses we did not learn much of the
craftsmans trade, but we were
taught that one needed to know
how to search for ones own way
while making something. The
school had machines and we
knew how to operate them, but
we were allowed to experiment.
Moreover, we learned a lot due
to cooperation with companies
it helped us to find our own way.
As designers, do you feel that
learning a trade is important? That
requires effort; it is not easy to
create something on ones own.
Kiki: Our work is all about
ceaseless tests, workshops and
cooperation with manufacturers. We try artistic metalwork, carpentry and ceramics. We learn
a great deal about the process this
way. Having such knowledge, one
can think about a different material and try to translate it into
one technology or another. Your
steps become more confident.
Joost: Speaking of craft techniques that we use in our manufacturing methods, we sometimes
think of the standard ones, known

DZIA 77

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78 people

In these days of fast changes, it is important to create everyday articles with


love. In my work I value
autonomy the freedom
of being myself without
getting distracted by a clients wishes, as well as the
freedom to decide about
my own time. This way,
while creating a new series
of products, I can obtain
the best original effect and
the highest quality possible. I have chosen the path
of sustained development:
not only do I work with
durable materials, but
I also create products with
an eternal, timeless image.
Kiki van Eijk

(Floating Frames Clock)


(One More Time Clock)
na stole Heavy Metal (Joosta van
Bleiswijka)

Floating Frames Clock

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When creating new techniques I use construction
methods which function like dogmas in my
design. The form follows
the structure! The objects
receive a classic and iconic look because I draw
inspiration from the past,
embracing hundreds
of years of a products
design, which is when
archetypes emerged and
conclusions about shapes
such as desk, clock,
hourglass or chessboard were reached.
When the only trend is
the lack of trends, people
do not buy things urged
by fashion. They buy
those things because
they simply fell in love
with them! That is when
objects become timeless.
As a designer I know this
is not something to strive
after. It just happens.
Joost van Bleiswijk

One More Time Clock

80 people

for centuries. Some other time,


however, we develop entirely new manufacturing methods.
Which object shows your
own techniques?
Joost: These are best visible in
Kikis design which she has called
Floating frames. She took some
wire, bent it into an outline of
an object and then wrapped this
sketch with coils of the same material. Nobody had done anything
like that before her, so it was an
entirely new discovery for that
material. The beginning was not
easy, though. The first versions did
not satisfy us, so we did many tests.
We started using matrices, forms
and whole systems. We perfected
the manufacturing process, thus
creating a totally new technique.
Speaking for myself, I invented a new method of decorating in
the Scratch collection: I covered
the furniture surface with white
paint, then I put blue paint on and
finally I scraped off the latter one,
thus scratching a pattern. I had
not seen anyone do that before.
You can be called craftsmen of
the new era: you are designers
and entrepreneurs at the same
time. The conviction that craft
is not profitable is still widespread. Is combining these several
skills a good model of business?
Joost: Yes, it is a great, economically sensible symbiosis, but such
is the future of production and the
whole economy. In recent years,
we have noticed that the transport of goods is becoming more
and more costly, both financially and environmentally. That is
why local manufacturing, as well
as manufacturing of more durable
and sustainable goods, will soon
be very important. Sustainability
here means not only appropriate
designalive.pl

materials or similar factors, but


also emotionally sustainable goods.
We are beginning to create products which are more sincere and
sentimental, so that people love
them longer. Of course, mass production will not disappear altogether, but a large portion of
manufacturing will be taken over
by local craftsmen-manufacturers, who will make personalized
products specially for their clients.
Kiki: At the same time, one
more aspect of workshop activity can be developed, so to say. This
sofa and these textiles, made for
Bernhardt, are an example. Patterns of the fabrics were created here, in the workshop. They are
a record, a sort of processed photograph of scattered wood pieces, sawdust and paintbrushes. All
experiments and tests of sofa prototypes were also done here, manually, blandly, like craftsmen do.
It was here, too, that we conducted the process of design, research
and development. Still, the final
product was translated into the
industrial language and is presently manufactured in North Carolina.
For you, such a method of
manufacturing is intuitive and
obvious, but will the majority
reflect on this the same way?
Joost: I feel we lost focus some
100 years ago. We lost the path.
We forgot that it used to work perfectly in the past: someone round
the corner a blacksmith, a shoemaker, a potter could make for
us precisely what we needed in a
given place, time and situation. We
received tables, shoes and pots and
needed no big brand to be sure
that they were good products. The
craftsman himself and his reputation were the brand itself.
Kiki: And this is just how it

works here with us, today! People who buy our products directly in our studio are more involved
and interested in the very event of
purchase and in us. They are glad
to see the place where the product is made, the workshop, and us,
the creators. I think this is becoming widespread, hence the falling popularity of galleries which
only act as sales agents. Personally I am curious about the future of art galleries and design...
You work together on a daily
basis, but you are also a couple
in your private life, arent you?
Joost: Yes, we are and we sometimes work together, but usually
on our own.
Kiki: We try to do our best!
Life together 24/7 is that easy?
Kiki: Working simultaneously in
the same place makes many things
easier. First of all, we can discuss
solutions as we search for them.
Joost: Luckily, such a way of life
seems rather logical to us. At least
to me (laughs). Even in our mutual
designs one can clearly see which
of us did what. For instance, in our
mutual design for Laikingland (editors note: Light a moment), the
soft and ceramic base is Kikis,
while the geometrical frame with
mirrors has my name all over it. So
there you have them: two different
looks in one object. And take these
two clocks: both of a similar type,
mode of operation, colour and size,
both made of anodized aluminium,
and yet entirely different Though
the initial archetype was the
same, the results are totally different. And this is what we call being
honest to oneself. We do not cooperate we only work close to each
other. Each of us has autonomy.
www.kikiworld.nl,
www.joostvanbleiswijk.com

DZIA 81

designalive.pl

What
abeautiful
catastrophe
This Dutch eccentric is capable of putting on a clowns
nose, hounds tooth patent leather shoes and a shirt
unbuttoned to halfway down his chest, allowing him to
put joy and fun more effectively into the often po-faced
world of design. A smart, level-headed postmodernist
removes his clowns mask
interviewed by Ewa TrzcionkA
Photo: Erwin Olaf

Marcel Wanders
Dutch product and interior designer. He designs
for such leading brands
as: Alessi, Puma, KLM
Royal Dutch Airlines,
MAC Cosmetics, Cappellini, B&B Italia and Moroso. Apart from running
his own design studio,
hes the co-owner and
artistic director of the
Moooi brand (2001). His
projects can be found
in the important MoMA
collection in New York,
the Stedelijk Museum
in Amsterdam and the
V&A Museum in London

designalive.pl

is designs are on the cusp of kitsch,


tradition and jokes, and nothing gives
any hint about how clever what Wanders
does is. But actually hes a very responsible thinker with a clear mission. A long
time before the interview, I asked Gosia
Mozolewska what it was like to work
for Wanders. Particularly since many
people treat him to put it mildly with
a dose of scepticism. He has a clear,
intelligent vision of what he does and
what is important, said Gosia. I admire
him. I like him a lot as a designer, but
also as a person. He really is a bighearted guy. Its great that youre writing
about him. He can inspire people!
We meet at Portobello Docks in
London, near his showroom. Before Ive
even asked him a question, he puts down
his telephone and begins to start talking
animatedly: We live in a postmodern
time. But ninety percent of designers
dont know which it means and are
still stuck in modernist thinking.
And what does postmodernism mean
to you?
If we want to create a more sustainable
world, we have to stop creating a world
where we look for the new every day.
Modernism is rational and rule-bound.
It seems to us that technology and innovation are the solution to all the worlds
problems. For me, its a direct route to
a catastrophe. Modernist ideas assume
we are making something for the future,
not looking back at the past. In this way,
we create objects like orphans children
without parents. If we bring them to life
tomorrow, they wont be new the day

after. And well be needing something


new once again. Which means that the
things we create and even worse, our
psychology are totally at odds with
sustainable development, at a time when
its the one thing we ought to be doing.
Sustainable development and recycling
are not immediately associated with your
name and designs.
Ill begin at the beginning. The world
today is egocentric and negative. Thats
a mistake. We keep creating modernist
ideas. We try to make new always new
things. We say: OK. Now well change
the material, and now well change
the technology and now the output.
But that isnt important, that isnt the
essence of the problem we have to face
in todays world. The really important
thing is to begin to think sustainably
and not to manufacture sustainably. We
have to change psychologically. For the
last fifteen years, Ive personally been
trying to get into the markets head that
design can be between the past and the
future. It may be between my mother
and my daughter and may function
for both of them. I dont need design
which struts around saying: Look at
me Im new; I was made today! No.
Let it be something we already know
from our surroundings, something that
already functions in our consciousness,
maybe a little bit unclear when its made.
It can last forever like that. So engineers who make all that technical
gear and we designers, and poets,
and the cultural people of this world
all have to change the psychology of

NEGATING THE PAST


EVERY DAY HAS NO
FUTURE

Up:
glass handmade mozaic
designed by Wanders for
Bisazza
Bottom:
kitchen accessories
named Dressed, Alessi

designalive.pl

people 85

our consumers and our own psychology, because right now we are behind
them. Our culture is quicker than us,
the designers, and we are hanging back
towards the non-sustainable side. Were
training lots of designers now, who create
products with recycling in mind. Why?
Why not just make things that people
simply wont want to throw away?
Whats the point of recycling an antique
Chinese cabinet? There isnt any, because
no one would even think of throwing it away, when its so beautiful, so
wonderful! So as you can see, somethings not right with our psychology.
So whats beauty to you?
That cabinet is beautiful. But its
not old beauty, or futuristic beauty,
or todays beauty. Its simple something
we like, because it demonstrates the
skill of the craftsman who built it. Its
said that were standing on the threshold of a new culture. Digital printers,
the fashion for DIY. What will happen
to style, trends and beauty then?
What will happen if beauty becomes
democratic? Or chaotic?
Do you think people will only design something because they can?
Its tempting, since they have the
opportunity.
But they have now. To give you an
example: making your own clothes.
People have been able to do that for
years. But is there a mass movement
of people designing and making their
own clothes? The fact that people can
design something is not new. People can
design and even make themselves a little

candlestick. Or make themselves a nice


skirt. But that doesnt change the idea
of fashion. There are designers, there is
fashion and trends. Perhaps people really
are more interested in fashion, are paying more attention to what they wear.
but that doesnt change much.
Exactly. Lets say Im a dentist. I dont
want to think what my table should
look like. I need someone to tell me that
table is great and I ought to have it. For
that reason, I have an interior designer
who will decorate my house. For the
same reason, when I look for music
I turn on a radio station, because I know
that someone has made a selection, has
suggested what I can listen to, what has
just come out. Hes my adviser. I dont
have to listen to the entire contents of
a music shop. I have an authority in
the field of music. And that is precisely
the role of a designer. To give advice
in the field of design. I mean, people
dont have to design their own chairs.
A dentist can be a dentist and an insurance salesman can be an insurance
salesman. And they want to be designer
they should have studied design.
So we assume he has a vocation, he
will get an education and the tools are
secondary?
I also have a dictaphone. So what?
I can run an interview. And do you think
Ill do it? No, because I dont like to. Just
because I have the tool, I dont have to
do the job. I can also buy scissors and
needle and thread. But I wont make
myself a suit. Im happy that someone
does it. Because they love doing it.

Unless, like the theoretical dentist, you


decide to change your profession.
Of course, thats always the case. Anyone can say they want to be a designer.
They can always do that. But believe
me, they dont need 3D computers
or 3D printers, which are incredibly
complicated. To be honest they are so
complicated that I as a designer dont
know how to operate them. But there
are people working in my studio who do.
And believe me, they arent designers...
theyre operators.
Thats right. My little daughter
can design her own online girl: she
chooses eyelashes, hair, legs and
clothes for it. Theres a limited number of combinations. Perhaps thats
how people will make their own
chairs in the future, but that doesnt
change anything. Its unimportant.
Is it hard to be a designer?
Not at all. Its the most wonderful job
in the world. But, when I think about the
need to change the thinking, I confess its
sometimes hard for me to live in a world
of ignorant people, who dont want to
solve their problems. Im really tired of
that. We have to put more pressure on.
A world of permanent novelties is unacceptable. Negating the past every day
has no future. We have to slow down.
Do you believe it will happen?
Yes, because it has to. We have
to keep pressing. We have to stop
throwing away what is best every
day. Children without parents.

The concept behind


Performing Water
emanates the experience of Dornbracht
in the design of
bathrooms, where
water is a gift which
assumes the form of
a pure spring, a soft
rain or a powerful and generous
stream
designalive.pl

places 87

Wellspring
They are a family company, currently managed by the third
generation. They design and manufacture only in Germany,
cooperating solely with companies within a distance of
70 km from Iserlohn, often for many years. Still, they sell
successfully worldwide. Dornbracht is true glocalness

I
photo: press materials

Text: WOJCIECH TRZCIONKa

serlohn is a small town


in western Germany.
A few years ago a huge
explosion took place in
one of the local plants
and a major part of the
production line in the
neighbouring company
Dornbracht was destroyed. The
company was threatened with
bankruptcy because of the inability
to complete orders. It was then that
Andreas Dornbracht, its president,
started answering one phone call
after another: all the cooperating
companies and neighbours offered
their help in reconstruction. The
employees themselves suggested
that their salaries be withheld...
Though the downtime lasted several months, the company regained
its position. That was a very difficult time, but that crisis revealed
great human solidarity and showed
us that it is worthwhile to rely on
localness, Andreas Dornbracht
tells me during a visit to the companys new factory. The Dornbracht plant produces high-quality

bathroom fitting as well as bathroom and kitchen accessories; it is


composed of modular halls which
were erected after the memorable
explosion. If a similar event took
place today, the downtime would
concern just one module, while the
remaining ones would continue
working. We can access only the
exhibition parts; the production
line and the testing hall are closed
to visitors. Austerity and minimalism are omnipresent the interiors
reflect the companys philosophy.
The enterprise was established
in 1950 by Aloys F. Dornbracht
and his son Helmut; the latter
is currently 86, but you can still
meet him in the companys corridors. The Dornbrachts began
their production in agarage and
advertised the fittings on trains
because people could not escape
from them. Visitors hear this
anecdote, commonly known
here, from smiling employees.
In the post-war period, the bathroom did not constitute a separate
room; its function was fulfilled by

a tub full of water placed in the


kitchen. Dornbrachts invention,
a removable kitchen spout with
a hose, facilitated everyday life and
was a great commercial success.
At the beginning of the 1960s, the
economic boom in Germany began
to change the situation, so bathrooms became common. Dornbracht was acting confidently also
in these new circumstances, introducing increasingly innovative
products: a shower with a thermostat, awashbasin with a lever
tap and mirror cupboards with
shelves and lighting. In 1969, the
company presented Edition 2000,
the first de luxe bathroom fittings
line, which created an entirely new
market segment. Thus, the company from Iserlohn has become
a specialist in unique first-class
bathroom fittings. Nonetheless,
the most famous one is still Tara,
a minimalist two-handle mixer
characterized by truly simple lines,
designed by Sieger Design in 1992.
It quickly became aprototype for
modern bathroom fittings: one

88 places

designalive.pl

Water changes the


surroundings, creating unique places.
This elementary
force is reflected in
the architecture of
Elemental Spa, a line
by Dornbracht

million Tara mixers have been sold


to date and the company itself estimates that as many as 270 pirated
versions of Tara have appeared!
In mid-1990s, Dornbracht strategists decided that, in order to distinguish itself on the increasingly
competitive market, the brand
needed to take anew direction.
They placed a bet on culture and
set up the Culture in the bathroom project in cooperation with
artists, photographers, musicians
and designers. The project features
thematic events related to rituals and culture in the bathroom,
and it benefits both parties: the
artists have funds for creative
activity and the manufacturer of
the fittings utilizes their potential.
One should know that the artists
often suggest interesting ideas
which are later applied in manufacturing the fittings. In the course
of this project Dornbracht has
learned that the bathroom is no
longer just aplace for body care.
It is often a place where we
search for peace and quiet, for
example by reading, or, just the

opposite, we strengthen family ties bathing our children and


talking to them. This way the
ritual bathroom was created,
with separate areas for relaxation, bathing, massage, putting
on make-up, washing feet...
Novelties are introduced on
the market every three years.
Dornbracht does not hire popular
foreign designers: Sieger Design
has been the companys partner
for years. Stars do not fit us.
We value long-term cooperation
with family companies because
family ties are very important to
us, Andreas Dornbracht claims
and Mike Meir confirms his
words. Mike is the owner of Meir
und Meir creation agency from
Cologne, which has organised cultural events for Dornbracht for 20
years. The Dornbrachts are amazing people with incredibly open
minds, the 49-year-old states.
Our strength lies in the fact that
we are a fully German family company who specialise in premium
class products. What distinguishes
us is that we do not manufacture

whole bathrooms and thus let the


architects show off their skills;
individual orders are completed as
well. We use the latest technologies, but we can operate like a preindustrial plant. Moreover, our
distribution is very selective: we
do not have to be everywhere. Our
best markets are Germany, the USA
and the UK. And Poland? It is developing well, the president adds.
Dornbracht is an enterprise
which has made bathroom style
the main theme of its activity.
The Iserlohn plant is still working on new cultural projects and
searches for innovative solutions.
They have recently developed
ashower under which the bathing person lies on a warm stone.
The share of electronics has been
increasing. Such is the general
trend and we cannot alter that,
but electronics in bathrooms
is not going to change as fast
as our mobile phones. A bathroom must look fashionable
and function well for 25 years,
Andreas Dornbracht concludes.
www.dornbracht.com

90 things
1. MANGAS SPACE
This time, Patricia Urquiola designed for the Spanish brand
Gan not only beautifully woven wool carpets, but also sets
of multicoloured pouffes. The modular collection allows
for creating various compositions. Pouffes from 870 euros,
carpets from 780 euros, www.gan-rugs.com

The Maison & Objet fair in Paris is pure


chic and elegance. This event takes place
twice a year and always features many
premires. Below, we present a few of
those from the January edition of the fair

Par

2. TABOURET TOUL
A stool created by Joran Brian, a design student, as part of
the VIA scholarship programme conducted by the French
government. The seat is made of jute mat mixed with resin.
The design was created in Bangladesh, where jute fibres are
used to make traditional mats. Prototype, www.via.fr
3. BYZANCE LALIQUE
A new collection of crystal household accessories by the
famous French brand, inspired by Gothic, Baroque, Venice
and Byzantium. The collection includes objects made of
white and black crystal. From 1,000 euros, www.lalique.com

4. AOYAMA
A table made of tempered glass, from a new collection named
Ligne Roset and designed by No Duchaufour-Lawrance.
Aoyama (Blue Mountains) is on the outskirts of Tokyo, where Japanese culture and Zen meets modernity. On demand,
www.ligne-roset.com
5. COLOURED VAPEUR
Mustache is a young French brand which is becoming increasingly recognizable owing to products with an interesting
look created by well-known French designers. One of them
is Inga Sempe, who made the Coloured Vapeur lamp two
years ago; this time, she gave it entirely new colours. Prices:
unknown, www.moustache.fr
6. DROPIT
One of the many novelties of the Dutch brand Normann
Copenhagen is the Dropit hanger designed by the Asshoff
& Brogrd duet. You can create any wall composition using
these oak hangers. A set of two hangers costs 26 euros
(small) or 34 euros (large), www.normann-copenhagen.com

7. Eclectic
Last year, Tom Dixons British studio showed a new collection
named Eclectic, comprising household accessories made of
noble materials. This time, the collection was extended by
adding new elements such as atea making set, a mortar and
candle holders. Individual elements were made of copper,
brass, cast iron and, for the first time, a hundred-million-year-old fossilized tree. Prices: unknown, www.tomdixon.net
8. EDA
A cutlery set by Tusbame, a Japanese company which combines tradition with modernity and craft with new technologies.
The cutlery and the whole new collection were designed by
Ken Okuyama, former head of the famous Pininfarina design
office and chief designer in General Motors and Porsche, as
well as the creator of Ferrari Enzo and Maserati Quattroporte. Prices: unknown, www.kenokuyamadesign.com
9. FAZ
A summer couch by the Spanish brand Vondom, designed
by Ramn Esteve, who claims that he was inspired by the
form of the crystal. The couch is fitted with hidden audio
equipment controlled via a smartphone, as well as with
lighting. When sunrays get too strong, you can tilt the small
roof. Price: unknown, www.vondom.com

designalive.pl

Photo: press materials, Noboru Murata

riS
2

designalive.pl

92 things

Enoki
Tables designed by Philipp Mainzer for e15: a clever
play with form, colour, size and shape. You can
choose a marble table top to match an adjustable
metal base, which is available in a wide range of
colours. The table is delivered as two flat parts.
452 euros, www.e15.com

Bolon by Missoni
An excellent cooperation of a Swedish producer
of woven fitted carpets and the Missoni texstile
brand from Italy. Now you can have Missonis
characteristic fabric patterns on the floor! The
series included 9 types. Please place orders,
www.bolon.com, www.marro.com.pl

Lond
From ceiling to floor, the London Design
Festival has left behind fascinating novelties:
fewer this time, but much more intriguing

Slingerlamp
Designed by Richard Hutten for the Dutch
brand NgispeN, the lamp is incredibly simple
in production: it is cut from a small metal
sheet. The lampshade does not retain the
light, at the same time creating apleasant
atmosphere above the family table. 650 euros,
www.ngispen.com

Emma & Daniel


They come from Adelaide, Australia and
their design motto is simply pleasant.
These small desk articles are simple solids,
but the colour and material is different for
each of them. That enables you to arrange
them into your own compositions serving
as boxes, candle holders or paper-weights.
www.daniel-emma.com

Spiral Box
An inconspicuous spiral object
turns out to be a jewellery
drawer. The surprising box
with an intriguing form was
designed by Laszlo Tompy from
Hungary and is an example
of diligent carpentry work
in cherry wood. On demand, www.tompakeramia.hu

photo: press materials

don
4a Chair
Instead of empty runs due to
decreased demand for production, machines in China serve the
designers in their experiments.
That was how Michael Young
created the EOQ brand and
its first product the 4a chair.
The production utilized both
advanced technologies of aluminium injection moulding and
cheaper, recycled raw material.
From 420 funtw,
www.eoq-design.com

Pelt i Tenda
Two novelties by Benjamin
Hubert. The first one is
a chair made from one plywood sheet with a simple
structure of legs, prepared
in collaboration with De La
Espada. 12 months of tests
produced a stable, simple
seat. Price: on request.
The second novelty is
a lamp being a combination of glass fibre used
to produce kite frames,
sports Lycra, high stretch
mesh used in manufacturing underwear and the
structure applied in tents.
This attractive result of
searching for new solutions is available in four
sizes. From 500 euros,
www.benjaminhubert.co.uk

Jubilee cabinet
An inconspicuous piece of furniture for precious
objects. Designed by Cees Braakman in 1952, it has
become a showpiece of the Pastoe brand. Today
it shows us a new face. www.pastoe.com

94 trendbook

FROM
PYRAMID
TO PANCAKE
social

changes in social
structures
Josephine Green is a woman whom no
CEO or director of any structure should
ignore because her vision of the world
could shake the present hierarchy in
society. Every day, on behalf of the British
organization Beyond20, she helps companies and organizations to think and
implement the human-centered approach to innovation and development. Her
speech entitled A commitment to the
future in another way: from pyramid to
pancake is a new look at the present
and future assessment of the world and
its structure of functioning. According to Green, we live in an apparently
ordered and predictable world, whose
views are based on linear, materialistic
and industrial thinking. They are also
present in each discipline, from preschool education to government. On

the top of the pyramid there is always


a boss a president, chair or director; in
the course of our history he has in turn
represented God, Science and Money.
Lower layers feature employees of various
ranks, i.e. the better and worse ones.
Work in such a team lacks a healthy flow
and creativity, and thinking is narrowed considerably because people mind
their own business. That system has no
right to exist because it heads for self-destruction. Several times during her
lecture Green stressed that the world was
chaotic, unpredictable and fluid. To be
able to act, we need to depart from the
hierarchical system, the pyramid, and re-

environment

ANTHROPOCENE
Whether we want it or not, we live
in a new geological era. What is
more, some scientists claim that
it has lasted for over 200 years.
Though the most important scientific institutions (including the
International Commission on Stratigraphy) have not acknowledged
this era yet, one feels that there
is something to this idea. Ladies
and Gentlemen, we live in Anthropocene. In short, Anthropocene
has not been filled with geological
activity, but with human activity.
Such a bold thesis has been made
possible by an analysis of climate
data. Scientists, mainly those from
the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies in New York, have stated
that one indicator of the new era
is the increase in the average temperature by several tenths of a degree in comparison to Holocene,
which began over 13 000 years ago.
designalive.pl

Other features of Anthropocene are


the accumulating layers of deposits
documenting the use of technologies created by humans (such
as plastics!) and transformations
on the Earths surface, visible to the
naked eye: garbage dumps or enormous islands of floating plastics
falling to the ocean bottom are
but a small portion of our activity.
Some scientists begin to warn us,
saying that the human species may
disappear as soon as within the
next 100 years if the temperature
increases by 56 degrees. The Earth
is expected to survive, just as it did
thousands of years ago after being
hit by a huge meteor which ended
the era of the dinosaurs. A change
of thinking and rejection of civilization afflictions may, however, prove
a rescue for us.
text: marcin moka

place it with anew one, flat as a pancake.


In this new system we are no longer the
masters of a structure: we are only part
of it. According to Green, if we want to
ensure a good future for ourselves, we
should start supporting and respecting
different ways of thinking, living and acting from today. These forms are already
visible via new technologies and social
networks because an increasing number
of people are becoming individualists:
they create their own music, films and
recipes. Passive consumers transform
into active organizers of their own
lives. www.pyramids2pancakes.com
text: anna skalskabogucka

Forecasting
WORK

Trend forecasting focuses on a deeper understanding of markets, products and services


in order to help us comprehend as best we
can the spirit of the times or thestructure
of organizations or companies. In the current
multilayered world it is more important to
grasp the essence of an undertaking than
focus on the latest tendencies and simply
follow them. This is the wrong track, forecasting specialists thunder and advise us to
keep our wits about us. If you are interested
in scientific research, technologies, social and
political development or even poetry, these
specialists wish to give you tools which will
help you find a way in the infoglut and draw
the most important conclusions. The Trend
Forecasting School is a special course of forecasting trends, which could in fact be viewed
as a kind of screenplay writing. Organized by
the Second Sight school, the course started
in Amsterdam in March. The classes are
conducted by specialists in various disciplines,
among them Truus Dokter a well-known
trend forecasting expert. www.secondsight.nl
text: jarda ruszczyc

trendbook 95

Welcome
to the Era
of design

All businesses, no matter what they make


or sell, should recognize the power and
financial value of good design

text: Adam Swann


head of strategy at Gyro New York

bviously, there are


many different
types of design:
graphic, brand,
packaging, product,
process, interior, interaction/
user experience,
Web and service design, to name but a few.
In this article, I am referring to design
as a broad and deliberately applied
discipline, with the aim of creating
simpler, more meaningful, rewarding experiences for customers. You see,
expecting great design is no longer the
preserve of a picky design-obsessed
urban elite that aesthetically sensitive clique whod never dare leave the
house without their Philippe Starck
eyewear and turtleneck sweaters and
buy only the right kind of Scandinavian
furniture. Instead, theres a new, mass
expectation of good design: that products and services will be better thought
through, simplified, made more intuitive, elegant and more enjoyable to use.
Design has finally become democratized, and we marketers find ourselves
with new standards to meet in this new
era of design. To illustrate, Apple,
the epitome of a design-led organization, now has a market capitalization
of $570 billion, larger than the GDP
of Switzerland. Its revenue is double
Microsofts, a similar type of technology
organization but one not truly led by
design (just compare Microsoft Windows
with Apples Lion operating system).
Every day my Twitter feed populates
with astounding growth facts about
the likes of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Pinterest and the more recent
designalive.pl

travel site, AirBnB. It is no coincidence


that these successful brands seem
to really value design and utilize it
to secure a competitive advantage.
Even the UK government has issued its design principles, naturally
on a clean, easy-to-navigate website.
But why have people become so
design sensitive? Why does that credit
card mailer look so bad and dated
now? Why cant you access my account details? Why does airport signage
seem so unhelpful? Why doesnt
that technology plug and play?
Perhaps Apples global dominance
has elevated our design expectations, or Ikeas vision to bring great
design at affordable prices to everyone on the planet has finally taken
effect, or perhaps the Internet has
taught us what well-designed user
experiences and good design really
are. Likely, it is a combination of all.
What is certain is that the design
bar has been raised and designoriented businesses are winning.
Think how swiftly and strongly a design experience shapes our opinion of
that brand, company or store, for good
or bad. For instance, we know quickly
when a website is bad. And we associate that feeling of frustration, or worse,
disappointment with that brand.
Design-oriented organizations
invest in thinking this stuff through.
They put design at the heart of their
company to guide innovation and to
continually improve products, service
and marketing. They recognize that
a great design leads to differentiation,
customer loyalty and higher profits.
First Direct, a UK bank, has designed
all its service touchpoints so carefully

that it has become the most referred


financial brand in the UK, with over
82 percent of customers happy to
recommend it to friends. Its a joy to
use via any channel, and despite being
a bank, Id happily recommend it.
When you buy Apple Care, instead
of receiving the standard bland letter
or email, you receive a nicely designed
box containing the paperwork, guidance and all the information you need.
You have questions? No problem. There
are clear user diagrams and a simple
section on the website to help you.
The impact on brand is that customers see these brands as both progressive
and customer-centric. Thoughtful and
innovative design makes us feel good.
It is no surprise that we are happy to
advocate them, talk about them in social
media and can be fiercely brand loyal.
As Michael Eisner, former CEO of
Disney, once said, A brand is a living
entity and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the
product of a thousand small gestures.
That thinking still holds true, but it
all happens a lot faster now. Thanks
to the Internet and a hyperconnected,
social-media-fueled society, brands
can be instantly undermined and that
experience shared with millions.
So this is a call to action for executives to recognize this new era and make
the effort to transform even a mundane
product or service into something more
rewarding and more memorable. Try
to assess each element of your service
or product and better it to see design
not just as a marketing thing but as a
genuine source of competitive advantage,
customer and employee satisfaction
and, lastly, a route to higher profits.

trendbook 97

Customer

nowadays needs well-designed products and services. Well thought


out, simplified, more intuitive, elegant and pleasant in use.

Brand

is a living being, enriched or damaged by the passage of time, says Michael Eisner,
a former general director at Disney's. Today, everything happens a lot faster.

Like it!

The reputation of a brand can be undermined immediately, and a negative opinion can
spread by word of mouth through a network of users numbering in the millions.

Design

is a real source of the competitive edge, customer's


satisfaction and the way to a higher profit.

$600 billion

is what the design-conscious brand Apple is currently worth on the


market. This is twice the value of Apple's competitor Microsoft.

82%

of customers would recommend First Direct to a friend. This is thanks to


the British bank's careful design of its entire customer service.

98 agnieszka jacobson-cielecka Can design

BE BEAUTIFUL?

n discussions concerning what


design is and what it is not, as
well as what it is for and what it
can do, the issue of aesthetics is
often omitted or disregarded. One
can frequently hear that perceiving design in aesthetic terms makes
it trivial and oversimplified.
One could draw a conclusion that an
objects beauty is embarrassing. This is
just as true as the statement that a beautiful woman cannot be smart. We know
this is false. We also know that at the
outset beauty is often enough, but it can
be an obstacle in realising ones intellect
and virtues. However, research proves
that we trust beautiful people more than
those who are unattractive, disabled or
too eccentric. Still, faced with a pretty
person and an exceptionally beautiful
person, we will more readily approach
the former, classifying the latter as
self-centred, big-headed and standoffish, features that are usually aprojection of our own fears and anxieties.
The situation is the same with objects. We choose a chair with our eyes
and test it with our bottom. A pretty
yet uncomfortable one we soon replace, or change its label from functional to decorative. A pretty and

designalive.pl

*The author is a winner of Design Alive


Awards 2012, journalist, design curator and
director of the School of Form, a higher
school of design in Pozna

comfortable one we recommend to


others. We most likely never discover
the advantages of afunctional eyesore
like the advantages of a chair made
of an eccentric, unknown material.
In discussions about design we encounter a mixture of notions. We speak
of a process, research, needs and
audience. We use the same words, but
we think of different things. We mix
categories of design as aresearch, humanist, social, industrial and conceptual

discipline. In discourse about whether


nice is a compliment or an insult we
speak of industrial design, i.e. of widely
available products or goods, massproduced and addressed to the masses.
If we arrange it all this way, everything
becomes fairly simple. One just needs to
ask oneself a few questions: What does it
mean when an object is nice? Does it
equal well designed? What is an icon?
Is the icon a well-designed an object?
Let us use the teapot as the basis
for our considerations. What is anice
teapot? One we like. Type nice teapot in your browser... You do not like
every single result this query produces,
do you? Thus, the notion of nice is
relative, but it is also absolute: nice
does not mean the one which best
fulfills our needs or is the most comfortable, the cheapest or the handiest.
Nice is not even the one which fits
best... Nice is nice. To each his own.
Each of us has quite a large collection
of such nice objects, but they are not
necessarily nice for us. These are usually gifts. Following the Commandment
saying Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself, we buy for others things we
would like to receive ourselves. Sometimes the empathy is more noticeable:

photo: wojciech trzcionka

Real design means objects which are timeless and,


to a certain extent, invisible. Their beauty is not
evidenced by appearance or price, but by functionality,
proportions and aging with grace. By being ordinary

school of form 99

One could draw a conclusion


that an objects beauty is
embarrassing. This is just
as true as the statement that
a beautiful woman cannot
be smart

Proportional, functional chairs by Michael Thonet: since the 1830s,


they have been made in all possible variations, of all possible materials, copied, interpreted and stylized. They do not plan to grow
old unless with grace, that is

we buy for someone what they like


most or what they are interested in:
something from the automotive industry, a Garfield cartoon, a frog... perfect
inspirations for (not) handy and (not)
pretty gifts. Unfortunately, a designer
object often equals weird, expensive, fashionable or useless. Just
a gadget. Do not be surprised, then, that
to a designer the words nice object and
designer object sound like insults.
Take the Hot Bertaa kettle, designed
by Philippe Starck for Alessi in 1989. In
those days it was just as obligatory during interior photo sessions as Pantons
chair (still) is today. It was also a best
seller, an icon and astatus symbol. Today
it is hardly used or sold. Why? Well,
it has aged and ceased to be fashionable it has ceased to be an object of
desire. The return wave of the style of the
1980s has not helped. Even worse, the
kettle has proved not to be functional.
Starck himself speaks of it with aversion: this is one of those objects of
which I am ashamed the most. Still,
it has not disappeared without a trace.
It has earned aplace in museums and
design textbooks because Starck not only
attempted to amaze the world: he also
took the challenge of questioning the

ever-present functional layout of the kettle/teapot. The dynamic object without


a lip, handle and lid was an attempt to
solve an old problem in a new way. In the
functional aspect, though, the attempt
was unsuccessful. Thus, the once nice
and designer Bertaa proved to have
been up in lights only for some time; its
beauty is not timeless. Maybe, then, real
design means objects which are timeless
and, to acertain extent, invisible? Nameless objects because nobody remembers
who designed them and when. Finally,
objects which undergo stylistic modifications and last without losing their
character. These are frequently usual
forms, too simple and decent to deserve
aadjective designer. They are often
treated with disdain: Is this supposed
to be design? Just a table, thats all,
one hears. Or even a table. Their beauty
is not evidenced by appearance or price,
but by functionality, proportions and
beauty which ages with grace. By being
ordinary. Ordinary tables and chairs,
ordinary pots. Chinese bowls from
the times of long-dead dynasties. Clay,
enamel, porcelain, cast iron, brass and
silver teapots. They have handy handles
and lips which pour the drink evenly.
They bear lids which do not fall when

the teapot is tilted and do not let the tea


out. They are neither too heavy nor too
light. They are comfortable. Functional.
Proportional. Available... well, nice. That
is why they were or have been manufactured for 100, 150 or 200 years.
An example? Michael Thonets bent
chairs. They have enjoyed constant
popularity since the 1830s. Made in
all possible variations, of all possible
materials, copied, interpreted and stylized, they do not plan to grow old.
Let me finish with a quotation from
Richard Buckminster Fuller, the American architect and philosopher, a great
engineer and construction engineer,
who cannot really be suspected of love
for gadgets, showing off or sentimentalism: When I work on a problem, I never
think in terms of beauty. I only think of
how to solve the problem. However, if
the solution does not prove beautiful at
the end, this simply means it is bad.
That fits all: Thonet, the Ming dynasty
and Starck. Even Garfield. The works
of Fuller himself are the best proof of
this suitability. Those words do not fit in
where design has a more philosophical,
conceptual, narrative, critical or speculative function. But that is another story
www.sof.edu.pl

DESIGN ALIVE
TAKING STOCK
20062013
We often dont realize how much weve accumulated over
the years until we start packing to move. Leaving the old
Design Alive warehouse for a new one proved to be the
perfect moment for reflection
text: ewa trzcionka Photo: mariusz gruszka/ultrabrand

Termo armchair

Nel lamp

May o coffee table

stool Trefl

Fireplace Small

design: Tomek Rygalik


producer: NOTI

design: Mikoaj
Wierszyowski
i Wojciech Baraski
producer: IKER

Design: Magosia
Malinowska, Filip Ludka
i Tomek Kempa
producer: Tabanda

Design: Piotr Kuchciski


producer: NOTI

design: Arik Levy


producer: planika

Flai sofa
Design: Magorzata
Bronikowska
producer: NOTI

carpet Moro
Design: Micha Biernacki
Moho Design

things 101

AlVerd B lamp

Maple chair

Comma chair

Design: Sonia Sabo,


Monika Brauntsch
producer: Kafti

Design: Gernot Oberfell


i Jan Wertel
producer: Iker

Design: Renata Kalarus


producer: Noti

Slim armchair
design: Grzegorz Niwiski,
Jerzy Porbski
producer: NOTI
Spider chair
Design: Micha Biernacki
producer: Iker

designalive.pl

102 things

Kosmos lamp

Plopp stool

Design: Ewa Bochen


i Maciej Jelski

Design: Oskar Zita


producer: Zieta
Prozessdesign

designalive.pl

A-1840 stool

Falon stool

Moho Hej Dia carpet

producer: Paged

Design: Magosia
Malinowska, Filip Ludka
i Tomek Kempa
producer: Tabanda

Design: Magdalena
Lubiska, Micha
Kopaniszyn
producer: Moho Design

Messy tablecloth
Design: Anna Kotowicz,
Artur Puszkarewicz
producer: Aze design

Siadanie na trawie
stool
Design: Marta Niemywska

Photo: Mariusz Gruszka Asystent: Dawid janik Aranacja i produkcja: ULTRABRAND logistyka: micha hanus

or the past seven years


the most interesting Polish products
have come our way.
Whether mass produced items, small scale, custom
made, unique specimens, simple copies or prototypes.
Designers and makers wanted
to put themselves to the test, to
seek our opinion and listen to
constructive comments. Some of
the objects didnt pass our exacting tests and went back to the
drawing board before they could
eventually hit the market. Most
of these items became symbols
of Polish contemporary design.
This is where we the start the
stocktaking of Design Alive.

DZIA 103

Diamonds coffee table

emblem blown

Lemming sofa

lamp Puff

toy Soofa

design: Bashko Trybek

Design: Bartosz Mucha


producer: Poor

Design: Tomek Rygalik


producer: iker

Design: Anna Siedlecka


i Radek Achramowicz
producer: PuffBuff

design: Krzysztof Kubasek

Antistress chair
design: Bashko Trybek

104 Krystyna uczakSurwka selection

SIT DOWN
PLEASE
We spend a major part of our days, and sometimes also nights,
sitting. We sit while eating, working, studying, listening to music,
drinking coffee, talking to friends... This is one of the most
democratic processes of our everyday life, a big space for design
and therefore my next excavation site of Polish design archeology
dr Krystyna uczakSurwka*

itting down is so common


that we hardly notice
it. The 20th century,
marked by mass production, consolidated our
awareness of social equality also in the sphere of
everyday articles. We no
longer ask ourselves why we sit, but
we will always ask questions concerning what we want to sit on and by.
The table is viewed as the heart of the
home. We feel the beat of the daily life
as we gather around it like blood vessels
joined in one organism. The table and
chairs designed by Rajmund Haas have
performed that function for over 60
years; today they serve another generation. They are an element of the type
1329 combined suite a very popular solution in Poland at the end of the 1950s.
The suite comprised a table with 6 chairs,
a sectional bookcase, a small table with
3 stools, acouch-divan and a small table
with a newspaper holder. Manufactured
by Bydgoska Fabryka Mebli [Bydgoszcz
Furniture Factory] of solid wood (with
Scotch elm veneer), it cost 12 500 Polish
zlotys in 1960. It allowed the multifunctional arrangement even of a small
interior. Skilfully chosen proportions,
asymmetry, line angles, rounded edges,
soft seat shapes such is the work of that
Pozna school of furniture representative, one of the most outstanding designers of post-war furniture manufactured

*A historian and design critic, a lecturer at The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and a specialist in Polish
design. Visit her blog at designby.pl

in a large series. Haas created a lot of


furniture with a simple structure, which
matched the requirements and capabilities of Polish industry, but at the same
time had an individual character. It
can still be found in Polish homes and
sometimes also on the second-hand market, but few people know that its utility
value hides the history of Polish design.
I wanted to stay true to Haass style,
so I chose objects from the same period
to accompany his furniture. The service
and the fruit bowl on the table remind
us that sitting down to drink coffee has
enjoyed increasing popularity from
the second half of the 1950s. Services
intended for that purpose feature smaller

cups and have become a fixed element


of the Polish home landscape despite
the poor coffee quality at that time. The
vividly red Elbieta coffee service (form
design: W. Grski, 1958), manufactured
in Zakady Porcelitu [Stoneware Plant]
in Chodzie, and the fruit bowl with
an image of a couple sitting at the table
(signed W, 1960s) are examples of
porcelain decorated using the sprayand-scrape technique. That decoration
method, very popular in the 1950s and
the 1960s, gave series-produced objects
individual character. Porcelain was first
covered by spraying and then an image was created against atemplate by
scraping off the paint. Creators mention very simple but precise tools used
to reproduce those images: needles,
razor blades or scalpels. That is why my
friend once said with a hint of doubt in
her voice: I have a fruit bowl identical
to yours, and yet somehow different.
The background of the photograph
shows porcelain statues of three women:
Sudanka [Sudanese] and Dziewczyny
siedzce [Sitting girls], designed by
Henryk Jdrasiak for the mielw factory (1958). They remain further away from
the table and the chairs because they sit
cross-legged, like they do in the East.
The chair belongs to the Western cultural
circle and it has had a staggering career
here. We sit everywhere, though in different ways, but that is another story,
worth joining its storyteller at the table.

105

designalive.pl

intheSADDLE
This is the story of a leatherworker who has
achieved world-class mastery in his craft
Text: ANNA DBSKA

t is hard to say if leatherwork and equestrian


sport are a passion or
rather a family tradition
for Bogdan Dbrowski.
In professional sport, Dbrowski
is a brand a name of competitors and trainers. Bogdan has
practiced sport since childhood
and he has dealt with saddles since he was 16 as he ran a
leatherwork and saddle-making
company with his father. The
young riders trademark was the
participation in competitions
in saddles made by his family.
At the end of the 1990s, the
market was flooded with cheap
Asian products and second-hand
saddles of well-known brands. The
family company fell into decline,
so Bogdan went to England, the
cradle of horse riding, where he
worked in a saddle service centre.
designalive.pl

He familiarized himself with nearly all models, including the most


exclusive, custom-made ones. He
returned to Poland and got a job in
another company, but carried out
his designs after hours. Those saddles were very carefully made in
terms of comfort for the rider and
their horse, but made of cheap,
plain materials. Though their quality became evident in everyday
use, they were difficult to sell.
Dbrowski handed over his first
saddle with a refined look for testing to his acquaintance Wojciech
Rowiski, a competitor and
trainer. The saddle was a monoflap
a difficult-to-make minimalist
construction allowing for better
horse-rider communication. The
surprised rider found out that the
no name craft product was as
good as his previous professional
saddle produced abroad. A day

A HB-Contact
saddle costs
1,1001,900 euros.
For a comparable
custom-made
saddle produced
abroad one needs
to pay 2,9004,800
euros. Work on one
saddle may take
up to one month

later, he took part in athree-day


event, avery demanding discipline, riding on Dbrowskis
saddle. One can compare that
to a situation where a ski jumper
leaves behind his Fischer skis and
puts on skis of an unknown brand
just before the jump. That day, the
leatherworker from Pleszew realized that he could compete with
the best producers in his field.
Bogdan established HB-Contact
the first Polish company producing only custom-made saddles.
He and his wife Honorata staked
everything on one roll of the dice:
they aimed at a segment previously reserved for big and strong
players. Imagine a market of
custom-made suits, dominated by
companies like Armani and Herms, witness an emergence of an
unknown designer and tailor, who
is incredibly able and wants to
convince the demanding clients
that his products are worthwhile.
Still, the company was a success
and the list of satisfied clients grew
longer; today it includes professional competitors and trainers.
The latter recommend the saddles
even to beginners because they
make a noticeable difference in
working with pupils. One should
remember that a saddle always
has two users: man and horse.
The latter expresses its opinion
very clearly: if the equipment
fits well, the horse works willingly and effectively. That is
why HB-Contact devotes alot
of time to fitting the saddle to
the build of both users bodies.
The schedule of the company
from Pleszew is full about a year
ahead of time and the order list is
growing longer. However, Bogdan
Dbrowski, who is 38 years old,
does not want to increase the
production speed at the expense
of quality. He wants the product
to always be unique and compliant with all the clients wishes,
comfortable while working and
impeccably finished. The saddle is made by the same pair of
hands from the measurement to
the last stitch. In the future, the
saddles are going to finally cost
their worth that is, quite a lot.
I am really glad that I bought
Bogdans saddle earlier on, when
not everyone understood that HBContact actually was a functional
work of art in the leatherwork
craft. I guess that in the near
future I will not be able to afford it
but this is what I sincerely wish
Bogdan, Wojciech Rowiski says.
www.hbcontact.eu

photo: press materials

106 things

drive janusz kaniewski 107

A Giulietta
with a piercing
Its been confirmed.
Fiat and Mazda are
working on a joint
project

xpectations are high, because


the future cars DNA will be
drawn from experiences of the
cult roadsters the Mazda MX-5
and the Alfa Romeo Spider.
Itll be a joint construction. The Japanese
version will offer the pleasure of the
ride and the Italian one, the aesthetics
and style. And whatll that style be? For
quite a while now, the Milanese brand
has been searching for a conceptual way
forward. A lot of interest was stirred up
by the most recent prototypes: the 8C
Competizione and the Dueottanta from
Pininfarina. But where will we find the
current style of models like the Giulietta on the map of those experiments?
A delicately sculpted form. Discrete
musculature. Zero geometry. The car
looks best in dark and metallic shades:
casual threads tightly hugging a typical,
five-person hatchback possibly leaves
too much smooth, empty space the

He designs specialised vehicles, train interiors, cars,


petrol stations and architecture. He works for Ferrari
and Pininfarina and advises local governments.
He lectures at the RCA in London and IED in Turin.
High in the ranking list for innovativeness (Forbes)
and creativity (Brief) in Poland. Co-organiser and
curator of the Gdynia Design Days 2012.
www.kaniewskidesign.com

cars sides are somewhat banal. To make


things worse, the sports version of the
Quadrifoglio is equipped with spoilers and side skirts which additionally
raise the profile optically. This dubious
compromise is rescued by tasty details:
the lights, air intakes, the design of the
rims, the attractive, opulent interior, the
difficult-to-keep-clean but easy-on-theeye dials, controls, the sexy seats, the
sophisticated note of the engine. And
a controversial peculiarity: a sentimental
return to the past, with the front number
plate once again positioned off-centre.
Which looks good with a short, Italian
plate, but awful with a big, long British
one, which sticks out like a snowplough.
When we look at the beautiful prototype
of the Dueottanta and we imagine the
production roadster we cant avoid asking the question: isnt that sophisticated
body being harmed by a piercing in the
form of a large, mottled rectangle?
designalive.pl

Plates
Ive never heard of anyone judging the appearance
of a car on the basis of the number plates
Photo: mariusz gruszka / ultrabrand

France, 1970s.

Charm et chic

One of the most elegant in Europe. Aluminium, embossed like the old British ones, using technology
which retains sharp, straight edges, so the letters
look as though they were cut from sold metal on
that shiny, black background. One of the reasons
why films shot on the streets of Paris during that
period charm us with their discrete elegance, even if
its a comedy with Louis de Funs. Found in a street,
probably in Paris.

Italy, contemporary
Front
Short, with unnaturally narrow letters and numbers. The rear one is a little longer.
The letters dont refer to the city where its registered but the chronology of registration. The citys symbol is set on a blue band: TO Turin, MI Milan, NA Naples
etc. the symbol of the city only appears if the owners are brave enough, because
cars from TO were scratched in NA and vice versa. And rides from MI were damaged everywhere except in MI. The design is fairly new, because Italians, as youd
expect, follow fashion and change the designs of their number plates, stamps, and
the logo for the Post Office and railway every ten years. I got this number plate
from the bottom of the River Cesano after a catastrophic flood, which devastated
the entire region and destroyed the bridge.

Nepal, contemporary

Italy, 1980s.
Scooter
In Italy, the number plate is registered to the vehicle irrespective of changes of owner. To compare: in
Belgium and Switzerland its registered to the owner
and passes to successive cars. Unfortunately, a friend
made an unsuccessful suicide attempt. He fell from
a window onto my scooter. He ended up in hospital
for two weeks, the scooter went to the Land of Eternal
Buzzing, and the number plate to Poland as a souvenir.

USA, 1955

Motorcycle

Tractor number plate

A thick, steel number plate, with hand calligraphy. During an expedition to Kathmandu I was descended upon by a gang of kids offering local titbits, crafts or
simply begging. My attention was caught by a smart little boy, perhaps five years
old, holding his runny-nosed little sister by the hand. He spoke English pretty
well, and advised me seriously that he could sort anything out. Laughing, I said
to him: Not, anything. He didnt give up. I told him about my collection. Follow
us, he instructed. Imagine my astonishment when after wandering down some
backstreets we reached a basement, where dextrous scribes were hand painting
number plates! What a star! His expression said: When I say anything, I mean
anything. I bought a number plate and paid my guide a tidy sum.

A solid, embossed steel plate, with


dimensions a little smaller than
contemporary ones. I was given
it by a Mennonite farmer in Pennsylvania, who I worked for for several months.

United Kingdom, 1980s.


Plexiglas letters
Dug out of a junk heap in Oxford. Legibility
faultless. The freedom to choose the font occasionally reduces legibility. The use of such
a gaudy element on stately Jaguars and Bentleys makes me uneasy. A row of parked dark
limousines in an elegant avenue and a row
of shining rectangles like black and yellow tape from a building site In the 1960s,
British number plates with letters identical
to todays were black with aluminium letters.
It was even possible to order a sticker with
the number for the bonnet in order not to
spoil the noble line of Jaguar E-Types, Lotuses,
Daimlers and Bristols.

designalive.pl

lates
drive janusz kaniewski 109

Poland, 1980s.

Before the reform

Yugoslavia, 1980s.

Made from steel plate. Aluminium ones were introduced in the 1990s. Although
we were used to black number plates like we were to the Peoples Republic of
Poland, and we greeted the white ones like a swallow heralding modernisation,
I regret the passing of the old ones. What do I mean? In an intelligently designed
car, three colours occur on the outside: the colour of the body, shades of black
and grey, and the red casing of the rear lights. Theres almost no white: a For Sale
sign, a fine or a price tag can be white. And the white rectangle of a number plate
is precisely that kind of dissonance. Being excessively inspired by the calligraphy
of ones rich neighbours turned out to be treacherous. On becoming independent,
the select Eastern European society of Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Lithuania,
Latvia etc. emphasised their links to Western civilisation by cribbing the design of
number plates from Germany. And the Germans played a prank on us and introduced their own very interesting typeface, which cant be forged. Just remind
yourself what you think when youre behind an articulated lorry from the East and
or behind a Swedish tourist. Go figure. Seemingly a nuance, but the number plate
is a document and represents prestige. It says more about you than you think.

With a red star

Registered in Belgrade. Narrow,


shorter than standard European
ones. The shapely font indicates
the proximity to Italy and the size
to Austria. A friend brought me
the number plate from Belgrade,
the first Balkan War broke out
a short time later and Yugoslavia
ceased to exist.

USA, 1980s.
The state of Illinois, The Land of Lincoln
Federal Republic of Germany, 1970s.
Sample
A unique, oval, embossed aluminium plate, with
pre-war lettering. During communism a symbol of
seasonal work and a better world, like Grner Apfel
soap and Aldi carrier bags. I got this number plate as
a child, from an older cousin, who, of course, came
back from working in Germany in a green Passat,
and it hung in a special place next to, of course, my
collection of foreign drinks cans.
One summer I drove to a forest. Coming back, I found
two German plates on the ground, which hadnt been
there before. Just like that, someone had swiped
a motor from Germany and changed the plates. As
a decent, teenage citizen, I took them to the police
headquarters in Mostowski Palace, Warsaw. I handed
them over, submitted a lengthy explanation and
rashly added that judging from the letters the car
might have been from Oranienburg. And because of
the dirt (one clean but covered in flies, the other very
dusty) it might have been a Golf II, which had such
an unfortunately shaped rear that it got dirty very
quickly. The policeman looked at me suspiciously,
then ordered me to wait and went to call somebody.
I waited for three hours and was then asked tricky
questions for another hour to see if I really hadnt
seen the car. A Golf II with those number plates had
been reported stolen in Oranienburg! The policeman
looked at me even more suspiciously. But I was only
interested in the shapes of cars

In the United States, the slogan of a given state is often written at the bottom
of the number plate. In various states, various colours of background and letters
are required by law. A front number plate isnt always. Personalised number plates
are permitted. I saw a photograph from the 1980s of a car with the number plate
WALESA. Steel plate, embossed, found in a street in Philadelphia.

Italy, 1980s.
Found
The symbol of the city of registration still features here. The
five-pointed star doesnt symbolise sympathy for communists like the Yugoslavian one,
but is just the emblem of the
Italian Republic and the seal of
all documents it issues.

Italy, 1970s.
Caravan
Tiny, of a similar size to front car number plates of that time. It cant be called
a plate as its pressed out of plastic. The concentration of characters on such a small
area seriously limited its legibility, the Mafia would love it. Found on a scrap heap.

110 must have

LITTLE HEROES
EVERYDAY
This is what we call objects which facilitate daily life
or simply give us abit of pleasure. We like them for
their durability, quality of material and workmanship, and of course for their charm
selected by:
Maja Ganszyniec i Krystian Kowalski
designers, founders of the Kompott studio

Oire Nomi

Pina Espresso

Technics SL1200 MK

Honda CB 550 Four Super Sport

Less table

Red Wing Iron Renger

Hand-forged, special-purpose carpenter chisels: they


are used to make dovetail joints. Designed by Kohozo
Iyoroi, a Japanese master blacksmith.
From 36 euros, www.dluta.pl

A light piece of furniture with a simple form and


a homely characterthis is the way I designed
it. As I fix my eyes on the beautiful rings of ash
wood, every day I discover this charm anew.
www.lovekompott.com

The perfection of this turntable is evidenced by


the fact that it was produced from 1972 to 2010 in
unchanged form. My exceptional affection for it is
connected with my first journey to New York and
the unfulfilled dream of becoming a famous DJ.
225550 euros, www.ebay.com

Boots manufactured since 1905 for miners working in


iron ore mines in Red Wing, Minnesota. Perfectly made
using doubly strengthened leather, which gradually adjusts to the shape of the foot. 250 dolarw,
www.redwingheritage.com

photo: press materials

An excellent motorcycle from the 1970s: pure minimalism and efficiency. You can virtually disassemble
it using only two tools! When you do, it turns out that
this machine doesn't have a single unnecessary part!
Bought second hand, www.ebay.com

A coffee maker designed by Piero Lissoni for Alessi.


It changes making morning coffee into an incredible
pleasure. From 70 euros, www.alessi.com

designalive.pl

must have 111


Biay jele

It is so retro that it is actually avant-garde. The soap


manufactured in Poland since 1921 using traditional
methods still proves good: it is hypoallergenic, which
makes it perfect for those allergic to aromatic soaps.
0,75 euros, www.bialyjelen.pl

La Cie CooKey

Ottagonale

Kindle Paperwhite

6 degrees

Tolomeo

Bernhard Willhelm X Camper 2012

The USB data carrier designed by 5.5 Designers is an


object which I have used for over two years, several
times a day. Attached to the keys, it is exactly what
it should be. Price (depending on storage capacity):
1540 euros, www.lacie.com

A suite designed by myself: a bookcase, a sofa


table and a bedside table. It has wandered around my flat for several years and still gives me joy.
Modules made of natural oak are definitely my
cup of tea. Price of one module: from 92 euros,
www.majagan.com

When someone feels like buying me a gift, please


make it this one: ateapot from the Ottagonale set
by Carlo Alessi. Designed in 1935 and manufactured
again from 2010, it is an example of design which
remains fashionable despite the passage of time.
112 euros, www.alessi.com

A lamp designed for Artemide Michele De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina in 1986. One hobby of
mine is following this lamp in movies it is hard
to count films in which it has appeared! In real life
it stands on my desk and works with me. I have
particular affection for this particular lamp I received it from Ernesto Gismondi himself. 300 euros,
www.artemide.com

It combines all the advantages of contemporary


e-book readers with the naturalness of paper. The
display was made with the use of E Ink technology,
owing to which it delivers a perfect image in any lighting conditions. The device is incredibly energy-saving.
Moreover, you can select the typeface and font size,
so important for the elderly and people with poor
vision. To me, it is the closest cousin of the book.
From 160 euros, www.kindle.amazon.com

I value them for comfort and durability. They were


my payment for work on the interior of the Camper
shop at Bond Street in London on the occasion of
introducing the 2008/9 collection. I still wear them.
A result of Bernhard Wilhelms 2012 design is the eclectic Wilhelm collection and a line of sports shoes
named X. From 215 euros, www.ebay.com

designalive.pl

DESIGN
ALIVE
AWARDS

EXHIBITION AND TALKS


ON TOUR 2013
Animator 2012

Creator 2012

Strategist 2012

Agnieszka
Jacobson-Cielecka

Robert
Konieczny

Wojciech
Szczurek

director of School of Form architect

president of Gdynia

honourable mention

honourable mention

Aleksandra
Gaca

Zdzisaw
Sobierajski

designer

entrepreneur

0914/04 Milan Design Week, Milan


1012/05 About Design, Gdask
0509/06 DMY International Design Festival, Berlin
0514/07 Gdynia Design Days, Gdynia
0622/09 Wawa Design Festival, Warszawa
Partners:

www.designalive.pl/awards

photo: jan lutyk (1), rafa placek

Meet us at:

events 113

CALENDAR
aprildecember 2013
APRIL
Salone Internazionale del Mobile
9-14/04
Milan
www.cosmit.it
The most important furniture fair in the world: it is
at iSaloni in Milan that the greatest brands present
their hottest novelties, up-and-coming talents are
discovered and new interior trends appear. The
fair is taking place for the 52nd time; last year it
attracted over 330,000 visitors and almost 3,000
exhibitors from all over the world. The main programme, created with the interior decoration sector in mind, is accompanied by solution seeking
and conceptual exhibitions and presentations.

Design Miami/Basel
11-16/06
Basel (Switzerland)
www.designmiami.com
Every year, this event connects two distant
continents, Europe and North America, because it
has two parts: in Miami (December) and in Basel
(June). Each edition has the following slogan: The
Global Forum for Design. Design Miami/Basel
features presentations by galleries and museums
from all over the world, and the exhibition part
is accompanied by panel discussions and other
events. This event is especially important for collectors from all over the world because it is in Basel
that one can encounter exciting and often unique
designs from small offices, workshops and studios.

MAY

SEPTEMBER

Clerkenwell Design Week


21-23/05
London
www.clerkenwelldesignweek.com

Helsinki Design Week


6-16/09
Helsinki
www.helsinkidesignweek.com

Every year CDW strengthens its position among


British design events. It is located in the office
district of London, among showrooms of many
companies dealing with design, architecture and
trends. All these offices and studios open their
doors for visitors for the three-day festival because
the whole district lives and breathes the event.
Last year CDW had over 30,000 visitors and approximately 150 brands from all over the world
presented their achievements.

Professionals talk about design and its role in the


capital of Finland. The festival is going to take place
a year after the events connected with the World
Design Capital, into which Helsinki transformed
for 2012. This year, the Design Weeks motto is
Action!. As always, during the event we shall also
learn the names of the Best Of Helsinki competition winners. The festival is taking place for the
9th time.

International Contemporary Furniture Fair


18-21/05
New York
www.icff.com, www.designweeknyc.org
This year ICFF is celebrating an anniversary:
it will take place for the 25th time. The organizers
expect 500 exhibitors from 30 countries and over
26,000 visitors, all involved in the design sector.
The following brands have already confirmed their
participation: Artek USA, Bernhardt Design, Brizo,
Fermob, Jake Dyson LLP, molo, Rich Brilliant Willing, Tom Dixon and Vitra. The fair will be accompanied by meetings, conferences and workshops,
as well as the events of Design Week New York City.

JUNE
Belgrade Design Week
3-9/06
Belgrade (Serbia)
www.belgradedesignweek.com
For 8 years, the capital of Serbia has played host to
the biggest design event in the Balkans. The invitation to the Design Week is accepted not only by
designers from Serbia and neighbouring countries,
but also by creators from other parts of the world.
DMY International Design Festival
5-9/06
Berlin
www.dmy-berlin.com
For the 11th time the German capital will transform into a platform for contemporary design.
As always, we can expect many pioneering
solutions and a multitude of conceptual designs
created worldwide. The festival is located at the
closed Tempelhof airport. Beside exhibitions,
DMY features panel discussions, meetings and
workshops. It has several sections: DMY Exhibitor,
DMY New Talents, DMY Universities, DMY Market
and DMY Satellite.

Paris Design Week


9-15/09
Paris
www.parisdesignweek.fr
A festival where design, fashion, graphics and
art all have equal rights. The event plays host to
European brands and designers, but a significant
number of premires are prepared by French
designers. This years edition is the third one; last
year, the festival had well over 50,000 visitors.
London Design Festival
14-22/09
London
www.londondesignfestival.com
11th edition of Great Britains most important
design event. Every year the festival presents
amultitude of novelties in all its locations, including the 100% Design and Tent London fairs. Pay
attention to Global Design Forum, too introduced
last year, it plays host to the worlds most outstanding personalities, who talk about design.
Vienna Design Week
27/09-06/10
Vienna
www.viennadesignweek.at
The festival in the capital of Austria is taking place
for the 7th time. During the Design Week, Vienna
advertises itself as A City Full of Design, and so
the festivals events are scattered all over the city, in
a few dozen locations. Each year VDW has tens of
thousands of visitors, too.

OCTOBER
d Design Festival
17-27/10
d (Poland)
www.lodzdesign.com
Polands most important design event is taking
place for the 7th time. It is devoted to various
aspects of design. A significant part of the festival
are competitions, including make me! for young
creators.
Dutch Design Week
19-27/10
Eindhoven (Holland)
www.dutchdesignweek.nl
The small Dutch city of Eindhoven is the source of
the latest trends. You will leave no other event with
so many ideas. The Design Week is eagerly followed
by designers from all over the world and over 1500
designers and artists present their works here
every year. This edition will be the 12th one.

NOVEMBER
IDA Congress
15-17/11
Istanbul
www.idacongress.com
A large forum not only for discussions, but also a
fair and exhibitions. This years main theme is Design Dialects with two subtitles: confrontation
and collaboration. Turkey will receive speakers
and exhibitors from all over the world.

DECEMBER
Miami/Basel
4-8/12
Miami (USA)
www.designmiami.com
This is the American part of the festival which
takes place on two continents. The European part
is held in Basel in spring, while in autumn the lovers of unique design must travel to the American
coast. It is here that actors and other famous people buy exceptional objects. This year the event will
feature Global Forum for Design: the worlds most
eminent minds are sure to come to Miami.
Business of Design Week
2-7/12
Hong Kong
www.bodw.com
Designers, brands and companies from all over
the world participate in this conference. Beside
the presentation of achievements from Asian countries, the organizers focus on showing the capabilities of countries from other parts of the globe; this
year, Belgian design will be the special guest.

Maison&Objet
6-10/09
Paris
www.maison-objet.com
The fair takes place twice a year; the first edition
this year was organized in January. The event
mainly concerns interior furnishings; the September edition shall be linked with Paris Design Days.
The fair reaches beyond France: it has already been
held in Moscow and next year it is taking place in
Shanghai.

designalive.pl

114 Strong back

LIGHT
SHOW

Let them fall in love, inebriate themselves with sweetness


Let them agonise, suffer bitter punishment
Let the emotion cut through the heart
like a ray of Proxima Centauri

Light Show at the Hayward Gallery in London,


is the first European
exhibition that showcases distinguished artists
and their works created
since the 1960s to the
present day. As one
critic put it,
a dazzling light show
that takes visitors to the
Moon. Each of more
than 20 works explores
a different aspect of
light such as colour,
intensity, duration or its
perceptual phenomena.
The photo: Carlos Cruz-Diez's Protect-mosaturation (2008).
Photograph: Linda Nylind

designalive.pl

www.parisdesignweek.fr

designalive.pl

Part of

* Next meeting: 8-14 September 2014. preview, Getty Images, GraphicObsession. SAFI organisation, a subsidiary of Ateliers dArt de France and Reed Expositions France

116 Dzia

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