I was in Milan last weekend for the Salone del Mobile. Visiting the most important week for (furniture) design world-wide is a great way to get an idea what this industry is all about. A friend of mine is a project manager for many of the Dutch studios and arranges the locations and the logistics related to some of the expositions and parties and it was also nice to see what it al really meant she’s always talking about.
To give you an impression of some of the exhibitions, I’ve put some pictures up on the web. I saw a lot of cool furniture design, of which I found the light blubs by Pieke Bergmans one of the most impressive ones. These quick snapshots don’t communicate the whole thing very well, but it at least gives you an idea. More info on www.piekebergmans.com. Pieke Bergmans has more blub products but I like the lamps the best, especially the desk lamp.
Marcel Wanders, a famous Dutch designer had pieces exposed all over the fair and he had even designed his own cocktail with raspberry and rosemary for his own party, finally mixed by Bombay Saphire. I thought the presentation of his
lamp and cradle at the exhibition of ‘Poliform and Marcel Wanders’ was simply the best thing I saw at the entire exhibition. The atmosphere with the oversized lamp and the cradle was just too good to be true. According to play me design a baby was crawling around in the room while they were visiting. Unfortunately I didn’t see this, although without the baby it was still incredible.
Alissia Melka-Teichroew showed her two series of glasses, one called inside out and another, that in total fits a bottle of champagne. Pouring the champagne in the first-most glass will slowly fill the other glasses as well. At the moooi party we had a little chat and she appeared to be from Utrecht originally, the town I currently live in. There was a lot of cool stuff on display, including a ceramic. gramophone (phonograph) amplifying the sound of an iPod, by connecting the earbuds to it. It works completely without electricity. Classy! You can get it through Charles and Marie.
Another interesting place was Maarten Baas’ Milanese ’studio’. His exhibition was pretty much modeled after his studio and was located in a garage. He had a few very interesting new pieces, of which I thought the Sculpt desk was the best. The Chankley Bore was another very interesting piece, done in assignment for Established & Sons.
Other than that, we had a good deal of parties as well… On Thursday night there was a party organized by moooi. Friday night we went to a club called Plastic and Saturday night we had dinner with Giorgio’s nonno, who in the meantime turned 96. We had fun!
[update: added URL to Charles and Marie.com]
doesn’t it?). It’s got magnets and all you know! (for those who are not into computers: the power adapter had a magnetic connector that keeps it attached to the computer instead of you having to ‘plug’ it in). Even if after a few beers (or more) I stumble over the power cord (which happens about five times a week), I don’t ruin my Mac. It’s simply great!