The American architect understood what contemporary furniture designers are putting into practice with their inspired designs – designs which are now a permanent fixture in the world’s modern art galleries.
But do bookshelves and lamps with such aesthetic value fall down on utility? And can tables and chairs designed for maximum usage make a simultaneous style statement?
We meet the designers whose sculptural chandeliers and animated drawers blur the boundaries of form and function. Their answers to the question “should furniture be functional or beautiful?” is all in the design…
Japanese design duo Azumi effortlessly combine oriental minimalism with an element of surprise. Their Table = Chest piece begins life as an apparently simple drawer set and folds out into a long wooden table. The function is instantly notable in the seeming straightforwardness of the unit; the form and aesthetic appear in the element of playfulness and surprise which friends Shin and Tomoko attempt to invoke in all their work. ‘Objects should always give us pleasure – not just when we look at them but when we use them’. More.
Disappointed by the glossy, slick designs which surround us and which he refers to as “global blandness”, Dutch-born designer Tord Boontje transcends pure function with a series of lighting installations based on magic and romance. His works Blossom Chandelier and Wednesday Light combine abandoned materials like broken bottles and the ethereal qualities of crystal. In doing so he creates the sense of ‘dappled light in forests, and the glitter and sparkle of ice’. A cheaper, mass-produced version of his designer lighting range has been created for Habitat. More.
Brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec combine high tech form with industrial aesethic, most notably in their new millennium bed – or rather, the Lit Clos Sleeping Cabin. Steel supports raise the bed which has to be accessed via a ladder, invoking childhood memories of tree houses and bunk beds. This enclosed sleeping space isn’t just about aesthetic – the designers refer to it as ‘a practical response to the way that we and our friends like to live (in open place spaces but still desiring privacy)’.
Their Brick Shelving unit is another example of practicality meeting romanticism, designed specifically for the twenty something generation who require both a new take on a traditional form of furniture, and items which they can easily dismantle and take with them as they move from place to place. More.
Rubber hose, string, furry toys and tissue paper – not the most usual ingredients for a designer chair, but all true in the case of brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana. By attempting to turn something poor into something decadent, their designs remain fairly standard in terms of shape and structure, but are nevertheless utterly original. Their Sushi Chair is comprised of strips of brightly coloured plastic and carpet underlay woven into a very basic frame. ‘We always say that first comes the material, then the form and finally we elaborate the function of the product by studying its ergonomics, limitations and capabilities.’ More.
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