Issue 12 | More Space Asia
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Transcript of Issue 12 | More Space Asia
Ingo Maurer KartellKasthall Limited EditionLouis PoulsenMaxaltoMoooiPoliformSerralungaVarennaVitra
AcerbisB&B ItaliaBocciCarl Hansen & SonCassinaDriadeEmecoFiam ItaliaFlexformFlexform MoodFlosFritz HansenGiorgetti
Our vision to create one of the world’s iconic destinations for premium design is now a reality. Unveiling Asia’s hub of premium design: the new Space showroom at Bencoolen.
A seamless transformation of old and new, creating a new architectural icon and destination in Singapore and the region.
Experience the harmonious marriage of classic and contemporary, emerging and established and the pinnacle of design excellence from the world’s leading designers and brands.
We invite you to begin your journey of inspiration and see your vision of uncompromised beauty, sophistication and quality come to life.
Our vision is now complete. It is time to create yours.
Ingo Maurer KartellKasthall Limited EditionLouis PoulsenMaxaltoMoooiPoliformSerralungaVarennaVitra
AcerbisB&B ItaliaBocciCarl Hansen & SonCassinaDriadeEmecoFiam ItaliaFlexformFlexform MoodFlosFritz HansenGiorgetti
Our vision to create one of the world’s iconic destinations for premium design is now a reality. Unveiling Asia’s hub of premium design: the new Space showroom at Bencoolen.
A seamless transformation of old and new, creating a new architectural icon and destination in Singapore and the region.
Experience the harmonious marriage of classic and contemporary, emerging and established and the pinnacle of design excellence from the world’s leading designers and brands.
We invite you to begin your journey of inspiration and see your vision of uncompromised beauty, sophistication and quality come to life.
Our vision is now complete. It is time to create yours.
Ingo Maurer KartellKasthall Limited EditionLouis PoulsenMaxaltoMoooiPoliformSerralungaVarennaVitra
AcerbisB&B ItaliaBocciCarl Hansen & SonCassinaDriadeEmecoFiam ItaliaFlexformFlexform MoodFlosFritz HansenGiorgetti
Our vision to create one of the world’s iconic destinations for premium design is now a reality. Unveiling Asia’s hub of premium design: the new Space showroom at Bencoolen.
A seamless transformation of old and new, creating a new architectural icon and destination in Singapore and the region.
Experience the harmonious marriage of classic and contemporary, emerging and established and the pinnacle of design excellence from the world’s leading designers and brands.
We invite you to begin your journey of inspiration and see your vision of uncompromised beauty, sophistication and quality come to life.
Ingo Maurer KartellKasthall Limited EditionLouis PoulsenMaxaltoMoooiPoliformSerralungaVarennaVitra
AcerbisB&B ItaliaBocciCarl Hansen & SonCassinaDriadeEmecoFiam ItaliaFlexformFlexform MoodFlosFritz HansenGiorgetti
Our vision to create one of the world’s iconic destinations for premium design is now a reality. Unveiling Asia’s hub of premium design: the new Space showroom at Bencoolen.
A seamless transformation of old and new, creating a new architectural icon and destination in Singapore and the region.
Experience the harmonious marriage of classic and contemporary, emerging and established and the pinnacle of design excellence from the world’s leading designers and brands.
We invite you to begin your journey of inspiration and see your vision of uncompromised beauty, sophistication and quality come to life.
Sophie is in love with Ray and Contemporary Art. Ray is designed by Antonio Citterio. www.bebitalia.com
Col
lage
Stu
dio
www.bebitalia.com
DESIGN PORTRAIT.
Sophie is in love with Ray and Contemporary Art. Ray is designed by Antonio Citterio. www.bebitalia.com
Col
lage
Stu
dio
www.bebitalia.com
DESIGN PORTRAIT.
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10
Flexform Mood Scott sofa and Elliot coffee table designed by Roberto Lazzeroni
LOST IN THE MOOD
2162
10
Flexform Mood Scott sofa and Elliot coffee table designed by Roberto Lazzeroni
LOST IN THE MOOD
11_ more space_ issue 12_
Editor’sNote-
Opposite page, clockwise from top The winning illustration in the Kartell, limited competition by Zheng Meisi from Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore; portrait of Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen.
This page, clockwise from top Images from MermaidsMarcel Wanders and photographer Peer Lindgreen released during the London Design Festival; Pigxel by Randy Chan is part of the Singapore Art Museum’s 40 Everyday Objects collection; Gothic chair by Studio Job for Moooi; Space Asia Hub opens in Singapore; Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby of BarberOsgerby.
Editor_Heidi Dokulil
Contributing Writers_Anne Watson Antonia Williams Lim Sio Hui Peter Salhani Stephen Crafti
Copy EditorMonique Pasilow
Contributing Photographers_Danny Chong Deidi von Schaewen Karl Jefferies Nicole Marnati Patrick Bingham-Hall Peer Lindgreen
Illustration_ Tobias Röttger
Creative Direction & Design_ The Gallery
more space is a publication of Space Furniture (ABN 82 136 665 391), 84 O’Riordan Street, Alexandria NSW 2015 Australia. Tel 61 2 8339 7588 Fax 61 2 8339 7599 and Space Furniture Pte Ltd (Reg No. 200100785Z), 77 Bencoolen Street, Singapore 189653. Tel 65 6415 0000. ©Space Furniture. more space is printed on ISO 14001 Certified (text) and FSC Certified (cover) paper stocks. Printing and colour separations by KHL Printing Co Pte Ltd. No material may be reproduced without prior written permission. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, the Publisher accepts no responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions or resultant consequences including loss or damage arising from reliance on information in the publication. All views expressed in this publication are not necessarily endorsed by the Publisher, Editor, Contributors or Space Furniture.
Icon in the making
1114
17
19
Editor’s Note
Conversation Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby of BarberOsgerby recently launched the Ascent exhibition at the Haunch
with Peter Salhani about the ‘hidden design’ of things, the making of the Tip Ton chair and the importance of collaborating with craftspeople.
Opinion Antonia Williams explores a new movement in craft/design where the mashing up of ideas, history, skills and approach is producing some of the most interesting new products and collaborations right now.
Design News The Vitra+Space Summer Workshop, Chi Wing Lo for Giorgetti, Emeco and Coca-Cola, Kartell, limited competition, Voon Wong and Benson Saw, Poul Henningsen, Moooi and 40 Everyday Objects.
Cover Story
40
42
30
48
Space Furniture’s success over the past 10 years in Singapore is marked by its brand-new Space Asia Hub – a grand design by celebrated architects WOHA covering 4,000 square metres of showroom space – built in and around two historic conservation buildings to create Asia’s new design destination located in Singapore’s central arts precinct.
Archive Danish architect Arne Jacobsen was a true Modernist who designed buildings, furniture, interiors, tableware, cutlery and more, by bringing mass-production technologies together with his unrivalled ability for design minimalism.
Design Library The 2011 collections from B&B Italia, Giorgetti, Poliform, Kartell, Moooi and more…
Design Icon Singapore-based designer Jason Ong sees a ‘design icon’ as having reached a new level in technology, through material use and form. Here he explains his view on what makes an icon.
Con- tent- s Welcome to this special edition of more space
celebrating the launch of the new Space Asia Hub.There is a lot to celebrate as Space Furniture
Singapore opens the doors to its new 4,000 square metre showroom that engaged the architectural vision of WOHA and promises to be the design destination for Asia.
Nestled within Singapore’s vibrant arts quarter, the building’s new Glass Block juxtaposed with the site’s Heritage House and The Villa creates a natural design hub where Space can nurture some very interesting collaborations, from the President’s Design Award, to the 2012 Boisbuchet Summer Workshops program in partnership with Vitra and announced in time for the opening. For Space it is about design engagement, on all levels.
The Vitra+Space Summer Workshops program gives two students from Singapore the opportunity to spend the summer at the Domaine de Boisbuchet in France. Here designers can explore ideas and making through talks and workshops run by the design world’s best – recent participants including Fernando and Humberto Campana and Shigeru Ban. Syddal Wee, Space Singapore’s General Manager, sees this inaugural program as an essential part of his aim to foster relationships within the industry, and to broaden the design experience for everyone.
Design engagement is central to this issue of more space. From the ground breaking work of Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen whose democratic approach to design process has won him followers everywhere, to the work of the London studio BarberOsgerby who like nothing more than working with craftspeople and creating products that are sculptural and beautiful, and a group of inventive designer/artists who have a more poignant way of designing by blurring past and present to create a whole new genre – the design mashup. For Studio Job, Front, Hella Jongerius and Maarten Baas, a chair is no longer just an industrial process it also has operatic impact.
This new, more experiential, direction in design gives us all a platform to connect with one another, to smile and to have fun. And at once design has fresh meaning.
11_ more space_ issue 12_
Editor’sNote-
Opposite page, clockwise from top The winning illustration in the Kartell, limited competition by Zheng Meisi from Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore; portrait of Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen.
This page, clockwise from top Images from MermaidsMarcel Wanders and photographer Peer Lindgreen released during the London Design Festival; Pigxel by Randy Chan is part of the Singapore Art Museum’s 40 Everyday Objects collection; Gothic chair by Studio Job for Moooi; Space Asia Hub opens in Singapore; Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby of BarberOsgerby.
Editor_Heidi Dokulil
Contributing Writers_Anne Watson Antonia Williams Lim Sio Hui Peter Salhani Stephen Crafti
Copy EditorMonique Pasilow
Contributing Photographers_Danny Chong Deidi von Schaewen Karl Jefferies Nicole Marnati Patrick Bingham-Hall Peer Lindgreen
Illustration_ Tobias Röttger
Creative Direction & Design_ The Gallery
more space is a publication of Space Furniture (ABN 82 136 665 391), 84 O’Riordan Street, Alexandria NSW 2015 Australia. Tel 61 2 8339 7588 Fax 61 2 8339 7599 and Space Furniture Pte Ltd (Reg No. 200100785Z), 77 Bencoolen Street, Singapore 189653. Tel 65 6415 0000. ©Space Furniture. more space is printed on ISO 14001 Certified (text) and FSC Certified (cover) paper stocks. Printing and colour separations by KHL Printing Co Pte Ltd. No material may be reproduced without prior written permission. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, the Publisher accepts no responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions or resultant consequences including loss or damage arising from reliance on information in the publication. All views expressed in this publication are not necessarily endorsed by the Publisher, Editor, Contributors or Space Furniture.
Icon in the making
1114
17
19
Editor’s Note
Conversation Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby of BarberOsgerby recently launched the Ascent exhibition at the Haunch
with Peter Salhani about the ‘hidden design’ of things, the making of the Tip Ton chair and the importance of collaborating with craftspeople.
Opinion Antonia Williams explores a new movement in craft/design where the mashing up of ideas, history, skills and approach is producing some of the most interesting new products and collaborations right now.
Design News The Vitra+Space Summer Workshop, Chi Wing Lo for Giorgetti, Emeco and Coca-Cola, Kartell, limited competition, Voon Wong and Benson Saw, Poul Henningsen, Moooi and 40 Everyday Objects.
Cover Story
40
42
30
48
Space Furniture’s success over the past 10 years in Singapore is marked by its brand-new Space Asia Hub – a grand design by celebrated architects WOHA covering 4,000 square metres of showroom space – built in and around two historic conservation buildings to create Asia’s new design destination located in Singapore’s central arts precinct.
Archive Danish architect Arne Jacobsen was a true Modernist who designed buildings, furniture, interiors, tableware, cutlery and more, by bringing mass-production technologies together with his unrivalled ability for design minimalism.
Design Library The 2011 collections from B&B Italia, Giorgetti, Poliform, Kartell, Moooi and more…
Design Icon Singapore-based designer Jason Ong sees a ‘design icon’ as having reached a new level in technology, through material use and form. Here he explains his view on what makes an icon.
Con- tent- s Welcome to this special edition of more space
celebrating the launch of the new Space Asia Hub.There is a lot to celebrate as Space Furniture
Singapore opens the doors to its new 4,000 square metre showroom that engaged the architectural vision of WOHA and promises to be the design destination for Asia.
Nestled within Singapore’s vibrant arts quarter, the building’s new Glass Block juxtaposed with the site’s Heritage House and The Villa creates a natural design hub where Space can nurture some very interesting collaborations, from the President’s Design Award, to the 2012 Boisbuchet Summer Workshops program in partnership with Vitra and announced in time for the opening. For Space it is about design engagement, on all levels.
The Vitra+Space Summer Workshops program gives two students from Singapore the opportunity to spend the summer at the Domaine de Boisbuchet in France. Here designers can explore ideas and making through talks and workshops run by the design world’s best – recent participants including Fernando and Humberto Campana and Shigeru Ban. Syddal Wee, Space Singapore’s General Manager, sees this inaugural program as an essential part of his aim to foster relationships within the industry, and to broaden the design experience for everyone.
Design engagement is central to this issue of more space. From the ground breaking work of Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen whose democratic approach to design process has won him followers everywhere, to the work of the London studio BarberOsgerby who like nothing more than working with craftspeople and creating products that are sculptural and beautiful, and a group of inventive designer/artists who have a more poignant way of designing by blurring past and present to create a whole new genre – the design mashup. For Studio Job, Front, Hella Jongerius and Maarten Baas, a chair is no longer just an industrial process it also has operatic impact.
This new, more experiential, direction in design gives us all a platform to connect with one another, to smile and to have fun. And at once design has fresh meaning.
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97
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The Design Work of Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby
more space_ 14_
A day in the life of London-based design group BarberOsgerby might include working with a scull boatbuilder on the River Thames, heading to Venice to make
glass with legendary Italian glassmaker Venini, or developing an office chair that rocks with the Swiss furniture group Vitra. Here, founders Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby chat with Peter Salhani about the joy of making everyday things.
interview_peter salhani illustration_tobias röttger
Ascent
Ascent
15_
The Design Work of Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby
more space_ 14_
A day in the life of London-based design group BarberOsgerby might include working with a scull boatbuilder on the River Thames, heading to Venice to make
glass with legendary Italian glassmaker Venini, or developing an office chair that rocks with the Swiss furniture group Vitra. Here, founders Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby chat with Peter Salhani about the joy of making everyday things.
interview_peter salhani illustration_tobias röttger
Ascent
Ascent
Vitra Tip Ton chair by Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby
2153
12
more space_ 17_
Music loves mashups, and so, in the recent way of things, does design. Contradictory, often quite surreal, with shocking or a little surprising and/or amusing juxtapositions, this is the modern way to mix it up, to take a miscegenous point of view (the new random variable mixed marriages where designers can go wild). It’s about taking the past into the future via new technology, new materials, reimagining.
Certainly imagination is liberated with or without technology. Or craft. And there are fascinating stories to sit on, to eat at, and to stand back and love. And it’s not all about iconic revivals. It’s about reinvention.
There’s many a mashup. There’s design as chaos theory. So don’t throw back, mock up, bash up, mashup, tip up, strip back, thrash back, gnash on and posh up. Think of Carlo Mollino (he demonstrated that anything works as long as it is “fantastico”). And momentarily turn to that forebear of surrealism, the Comté de Lautréamont who wrote mid 1800s: “the association of two, or more, apparently alien elements on a plane alien to both is the most potent ignition of poetry.” Or great design. See what I mean?
heroine) whose book ( , Phaidon 2010) reveals her serenely inventive, ethical, visible art into craft path or vice versa. Take her major mashup Frog table. A large benign frog, part timber, part ceramic, is clambering upwards. Or her Polder sofa for Vitra, a blankety soft item of Dutch landscape for the interior.
Is this all about the Dutch? Not entirely. Look at the lovely yellow, rather Gothic chair, with knobs on, that Antwerpians Studio Job have just delivered. A suggestion for Shrek? Who cannot get over the glorious good fortune of
So where is the design throw back in the room? It may be something so mad and gestural, so pleasurably self-
important, so much fun you place a dozen round the dining table and lose your mind, or at least your appetite. So just take the one, and focus. Marcel Wanders might design this, or Bertjan Pot who worked with him on that original Knotted chair made of macramé carbon
favela, had both relevant and irrelevant materials at hand. What rich pickings for the kings of the mash pit. Then, of course, there is Nacho Carbonell who has placed a large chair in a
Inventive Maarten Baas can create a chair of smoky style (when he more than singed his graduation work), another of fragile resilience, a chair of apparently nervy limbs
room? One of his latest is The Empty Chair for Amnesty International (to support Chinese dissident artist Liu Xiaobo). Its ladder back reaches 5 metres towards heaven/sky/wherever. It’s a lark.
Front design collective, a close-knit bunch of women who, with Renée Padt and Ikko Yokoyama of Editions in Craft,
There is an intense creativity at work in current design with that extra pressure to perform, to be inspired because we live in such dangerous changing times. We may feel as wobbly as a Baas chair leg can look. But can we recognise the greater feel-good mix and mashup piece that is an inspiration for our particular tricky times? And have the nous not to confuse this with those tawdry at heart mishmashups? And live happily pro tem, if not ever after? Can we save the world and have fun?
Antonia Williams explores a new movement in craft that is an inventive, gestural mashup of ideas past and present.
Opinion-
Clockwise from top Smoke Chandelier by Maarten Baas for Moooi; the making of the Story Vases in Africa; Gothic chair by Studio Job for Moooi; Story Vase by Labollie Ximba + Front in collaboration with Editions in Craft.
Vitra Tip Ton chair by Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby
2153
12
more space_ 17_
Music loves mashups, and so, in the recent way of things, does design. Contradictory, often quite surreal, with shocking or a little surprising and/or amusing juxtapositions, this is the modern way to mix it up, to take a miscegenous point of view (the new random variable mixed marriages where designers can go wild). It’s about taking the past into the future via new technology, new materials, reimagining.
Certainly imagination is liberated with or without technology. Or craft. And there are fascinating stories to sit on, to eat at, and to stand back and love. And it’s not all about iconic revivals. It’s about reinvention.
There’s many a mashup. There’s design as chaos theory. So don’t throw back, mock up, bash up, mashup, tip up, strip back, thrash back, gnash on and posh up. Think of Carlo Mollino (he demonstrated that anything works as long as it is “fantastico”). And momentarily turn to that forebear of surrealism, the Comté de Lautréamont who wrote mid 1800s: “the association of two, or more, apparently alien elements on a plane alien to both is the most potent ignition of poetry.” Or great design. See what I mean?
heroine) whose book ( , Phaidon 2010) reveals her serenely inventive, ethical, visible art into craft path or vice versa. Take her major mashup Frog table. A large benign frog, part timber, part ceramic, is clambering upwards. Or her Polder sofa for Vitra, a blankety soft item of Dutch landscape for the interior.
Is this all about the Dutch? Not entirely. Look at the lovely yellow, rather Gothic chair, with knobs on, that Antwerpians Studio Job have just delivered. A suggestion for Shrek? Who cannot get over the glorious good fortune of
So where is the design throw back in the room? It may be something so mad and gestural, so pleasurably self-
important, so much fun you place a dozen round the dining table and lose your mind, or at least your appetite. So just take the one, and focus. Marcel Wanders might design this, or Bertjan Pot who worked with him on that original Knotted chair made of macramé carbon
favela, had both relevant and irrelevant materials at hand. What rich pickings for the kings of the mash pit. Then, of course, there is Nacho Carbonell who has placed a large chair in a
Inventive Maarten Baas can create a chair of smoky style (when he more than singed his graduation work), another of fragile resilience, a chair of apparently nervy limbs
room? One of his latest is The Empty Chair for Amnesty International (to support Chinese dissident artist Liu Xiaobo). Its ladder back reaches 5 metres towards heaven/sky/wherever. It’s a lark.
Front design collective, a close-knit bunch of women who, with Renée Padt and Ikko Yokoyama of Editions in Craft,
There is an intense creativity at work in current design with that extra pressure to perform, to be inspired because we live in such dangerous changing times. We may feel as wobbly as a Baas chair leg can look. But can we recognise the greater feel-good mix and mashup piece that is an inspiration for our particular tricky times? And have the nous not to confuse this with those tawdry at heart mishmashups? And live happily pro tem, if not ever after? Can we save the world and have fun?
Antonia Williams explores a new movement in craft that is an inventive, gestural mashup of ideas past and present.
Opinion-
Clockwise from top Smoke Chandelier by Maarten Baas for Moooi; the making of the Story Vases in Africa; Gothic chair by Studio Job for Moooi; Story Vase by Labollie Ximba + Front in collaboration with Editions in Craft.
Louis Poulsen PH2/1 table lamp designed by Poul Henningsen
more space_ 19_
Design News-
Summer Workshop program will offer two design students the opportunity to take part at Domaine de Boisbuchet’s summer design workshops in France in 2012, including camp fees, lodging, airfares, transfers and stipends.
First opened in 1986, the Boisbuchet concept was initiated by Alexander von Vegesack, Founding Director
of the Vitra Design Museum. Developing the idea over 20 years, von Vegesack sold his Thonet chair collection to buy the property and grounds in south-west France.
Product design, graphic arts, photography, exhibition design, jewellery and architecture are all explored during the workshops, which focus on design process, making, craftsmanship and design thinking. Emphasising practical, creative work, and complemented by lectures and discussions, the workshops are led by celebrated designers and thinkers from around the world and have involved Maarten Baas, Fernando and Humberto Campana, Jaime Hayon, Jasper Morrison and Shigeru Ban.
For further information on the Vitra+Space Summer Workshop program for 2012 visit more space magazine online.
In an inaugural partnership between Vitra and Space Furniture Singapore, the Vitra+Space
Vitra & Spa- ce
Clockwise from below The Boisbuchet Summer Workshops are run by the world’s leading design thinkers including Dutch designer Maarten Baas (image: Deidi von Schaewen); Sam Baron’s Porcelain Goes Green workshop (image: Deidi von Schaewen); Culdesac’s Made by human body workshop (image: Deidi von Schaewen). All images ©Vitra (vitra.com).
morespacemagazine.comboisbuchet.orgdesign-museum.de
to high creativity but also to many long-lasting international friendships between participants coming from all over the globe. It will surely become a memorable experience for the winners coming from the Singapore design schools.”
Patrick Guntzburger, Vitra
“The idea of this initiative is to support the international exchange of design students from Singapore during a six to 10-day workshop with the common goal of exploring various themes and quickly translating the new insights and discoveries. The Domaine de Boisbuchet in France is a very inspiring environment, which leads
Vitra+SpaceSummer Workshops in Boisbuchet2012
Project
Year
Louis Poulsen PH2/1 table lamp designed by Poul Henningsen
more space_ 19_
Design News-
Summer Workshop program will offer two design students the opportunity to take part at Domaine de Boisbuchet’s summer design workshops in France in 2012, including camp fees, lodging, airfares, transfers and stipends.
First opened in 1986, the Boisbuchet concept was initiated by Alexander von Vegesack, Founding Director
of the Vitra Design Museum. Developing the idea over 20 years, von Vegesack sold his Thonet chair collection to buy the property and grounds in south-west France.
Product design, graphic arts, photography, exhibition design, jewellery and architecture are all explored during the workshops, which focus on design process, making, craftsmanship and design thinking. Emphasising practical, creative work, and complemented by lectures and discussions, the workshops are led by celebrated designers and thinkers from around the world and have involved Maarten Baas, Fernando and Humberto Campana, Jaime Hayon, Jasper Morrison and Shigeru Ban.
For further information on the Vitra+Space Summer Workshop program for 2012 visit more space magazine online.
In an inaugural partnership between Vitra and Space Furniture Singapore, the Vitra+Space
Vitra & Spa- ce
Clockwise from below The Boisbuchet Summer Workshops are run by the world’s leading design thinkers including Dutch designer Maarten Baas (image: Deidi von Schaewen); Sam Baron’s Porcelain Goes Green workshop (image: Deidi von Schaewen); Culdesac’s Made by human body workshop (image: Deidi von Schaewen). All images ©Vitra (vitra.com).
morespacemagazine.comboisbuchet.orgdesign-museum.de
to high creativity but also to many long-lasting international friendships between participants coming from all over the globe. It will surely become a memorable experience for the winners coming from the Singapore design schools.”
Patrick Guntzburger, Vitra
“The idea of this initiative is to support the international exchange of design students from Singapore during a six to 10-day workshop with the common goal of exploring various themes and quickly translating the new insights and discoveries. The Domaine de Boisbuchet in France is a very inspiring environment, which leads
Vitra+SpaceSummer Workshops in Boisbuchet2012
Project
Year
21_
“To be submerged into water is to be in a place free from the constraints of gravity, free to explore a multi-dimensional universe. Here, like Atlantis, the world of Moooi is
state of being.”
Marcel Wanders
Busy hosting parties to celebrate 10 years and the launch some of Moooi’s best new things from Milan this year – the Extension chair by Dutch designer Sjoerd Vroonland and Studio Job’s Gothic Chair –
Creating an underwater world above London’s Grand Union Canal, Wanders’s mythical, visual manipulation takes the drama and spectacle of the Milan Furniture Fair to London, and also continues the important frisson between art and design. To accompany the work, an
was released in October. Visit more space magazine online to watch.
Moooi has also been working on new images for Wanders’s transformative art project Mermaids, recently launched during the London Design Festival.
Inside The White Building at The Dock, the Moooi showroom was taken underwater with projected images, each room washed with the blues and greens of the deep.
Marcel WandersMermaids Moooi 2011
Designer Project
Manufacturer Year
20_ more space_design news_
Moo- oi
Right Mermaids installation by Marcel Wanders and photographer Peer Lindgreen launched at the London Design Festival in 2011; the project involved both image projections at Moooi’s London showroom and the release of an
Nicole Marnati).
morespacemagazine.com spacefurniture.commoooi.com
21_
“To be submerged into water is to be in a place free from the constraints of gravity, free to explore a multi-dimensional universe. Here, like Atlantis, the world of Moooi is
state of being.”
Marcel Wanders
Busy hosting parties to celebrate 10 years and the launch some of Moooi’s best new things from Milan this year – the Extension chair by Dutch designer Sjoerd Vroonland and Studio Job’s Gothic Chair –
Creating an underwater world above London’s Grand Union Canal, Wanders’s mythical, visual manipulation takes the drama and spectacle of the Milan Furniture Fair to London, and also continues the important frisson between art and design. To accompany the work, an
was released in October. Visit more space magazine online to watch.
Moooi has also been working on new images for Wanders’s transformative art project Mermaids, recently launched during the London Design Festival.
Inside The White Building at The Dock, the Moooi showroom was taken underwater with projected images, each room washed with the blues and greens of the deep.
Marcel WandersMermaids Moooi 2011
Designer Project
Manufacturer Year
20_ more space_design news_
Moo- oi
Right Mermaids installation by Marcel Wanders and photographer Peer Lindgreen launched at the London Design Festival in 2011; the project involved both image projections at Moooi’s London showroom and the release of an
Nicole Marnati).
morespacemagazine.com spacefurniture.commoooi.com
22_ 23_ more space_design news_
Coca-Cola company consists of about 60 per cent rPET plastic and a special combination
consider that an estimated three million rPET plastic bottles will be recycled annually for the production of the 111 Navy Chair®.
Founded in 1944 for the sole purpose of making aluminium chairs for the US Navy, in 1998 Emeco expanded its offering and began working with Frenchman
Made from material sourced from the world’s largest plastic bottle recycling plant in South Carolina in the US, the 111 Navy Chair® produced in collaboration with the
Designworks, Norman Foster, Andrée Putman and Ettore Sottsass.
Emeco’s cradle-to-cradle philosophy has been embraced by Space Furniture Singapore, with the 111 Navy Chair® featuring at the showroom’s new outdoor cafe.
Philippe Starck, creating a series of products that drew from Emeco’s historic manufacturing capabilities and Starck’s clear and articulated design approach. Since then, and several GOOD DESIGN Awards later, Emeco has collaborated with Frank Gehry, BMW
Right The famous Navy Chair was originally developed for the US government in 1944; today Emeco draws on its traditional manufacturing skills to collaborate with designers and architects including Frank Gehry and Philippe Starck.
morespacemagazine.com spacefurniture.comemeco.net
111 Navy® Chair Emeco for the US Navy Emeco 2010 (from the 1944 original)
DesignerManufacturer
Year
Originally produced for the Langelinie Pavillonen restaurant on the Copenhagen waterfront, Poul Henningsen designed the PH Artichoke lamp as a decorative installation that was beautiful with its light on and off. In 2008, the PH Artichoke lamp celebrated
Left and below Portrait of Poul Henningsen, architect, writer, philosopher and one of Denmark’s great Modernists; The PH Artichoke lamp is Poul Henningsen’s most recognised designs and to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2008, Louis Poulsen produced a limited edition
Well known for his love of functionalism, politics and literature, Poul Henningsen studied architecture, but never graduated, and was renowned in the 1920s for his left-wing writings opposing cultural conservation and what he and his colleagues described as old-fashioned style. In the 1960s he became a member of the prestigious Danish Academy, and was by that time also well known as one of Denmark’s great designers.
its 50th anniversary, and to commemorate the occasion, Danish lighting group Louis Poulsen produced the largest lamp in a limited edition of 50 with 24-carat golden leaves.
Louis Poulsen’s golden anniversary edition was created by immersing each copper outer leaf into chemically pure gold, the leaves were then coated in clear varnish. The inner leaves were gilded and then painted white for optimum light distribution and illumination. The PH Artichoke Gold has been on show at the elegant Palazzo Madama in Turin, Italy, and from November 2011 will be on show at the Space Asia Hub.
Gilded Arti- chokePoul Henningsen Louis Poulsen 1958
DesignerManufacturer
Year
morespacemagazine.comspacefurniture.comlouispoulsen.com
22_ 23_ more space_design news_
Coca-Cola company consists of about 60 per cent rPET plastic and a special combination
consider that an estimated three million rPET plastic bottles will be recycled annually for the production of the 111 Navy Chair®.
Founded in 1944 for the sole purpose of making aluminium chairs for the US Navy, in 1998 Emeco expanded its offering and began working with Frenchman
Made from material sourced from the world’s largest plastic bottle recycling plant in South Carolina in the US, the 111 Navy Chair® produced in collaboration with the
Designworks, Norman Foster, Andrée Putman and Ettore Sottsass.
Emeco’s cradle-to-cradle philosophy has been embraced by Space Furniture Singapore, with the 111 Navy Chair® featuring at the showroom’s new outdoor cafe.
Philippe Starck, creating a series of products that drew from Emeco’s historic manufacturing capabilities and Starck’s clear and articulated design approach. Since then, and several GOOD DESIGN Awards later, Emeco has collaborated with Frank Gehry, BMW
Right The famous Navy Chair was originally developed for the US government in 1944; today Emeco draws on its traditional manufacturing skills to collaborate with designers and architects including Frank Gehry and Philippe Starck.
morespacemagazine.com spacefurniture.comemeco.net
111 Navy® Chair Emeco for the US Navy Emeco 2010 (from the 1944 original)
DesignerManufacturer
Year
Originally produced for the Langelinie Pavillonen restaurant on the Copenhagen waterfront, Poul Henningsen designed the PH Artichoke lamp as a decorative installation that was beautiful with its light on and off. In 2008, the PH Artichoke lamp celebrated
Left and below Portrait of Poul Henningsen, architect, writer, philosopher and one of Denmark’s great Modernists; The PH Artichoke lamp is Poul Henningsen’s most recognised designs and to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2008, Louis Poulsen produced a limited edition
Well known for his love of functionalism, politics and literature, Poul Henningsen studied architecture, but never graduated, and was renowned in the 1920s for his left-wing writings opposing cultural conservation and what he and his colleagues described as old-fashioned style. In the 1960s he became a member of the prestigious Danish Academy, and was by that time also well known as one of Denmark’s great designers.
its 50th anniversary, and to commemorate the occasion, Danish lighting group Louis Poulsen produced the largest lamp in a limited edition of 50 with 24-carat golden leaves.
Louis Poulsen’s golden anniversary edition was created by immersing each copper outer leaf into chemically pure gold, the leaves were then coated in clear varnish. The inner leaves were gilded and then painted white for optimum light distribution and illumination. The PH Artichoke Gold has been on show at the elegant Palazzo Madama in Turin, Italy, and from November 2011 will be on show at the Space Asia Hub.
Gilded Arti- chokePoul Henningsen Louis Poulsen 1958
DesignerManufacturer
Year
morespacemagazine.comspacefurniture.comlouispoulsen.com
24_ 25_ more space_design news_
Bernar- daud
In 1967, Bernardaud, a French porcelain maker with an international openness to design, recharged the Limoges porcelain industry, and the public’s appreciation of it, when it began working with the industrial designer Raymond Loewy. Known for his streamlined designs that revolutionised everyday objects in the 1940s, 50s and
First founded in 1863, today Bernardaud continues its collaboration with designers and artists creating utilitarian objects that explore the inherent beauty of porcelain. Bernardaud is well known for its range of simple,
everyday items for the home, including tableware, objects and the delicate Votivelight candles, and collections for hotels and restaurants. Notable collaborations include the Hotel Costes in Paris where Bernardaud was asked to create the Costes Collection by founder Jean-Louis Costes.
Since 2002 Bernardaud has run the Bernardaud Foundation, a cultural institution that supports craft, industry and art. Artists invited to work with Bernardaud are given free rein to, in the words of Bernardaud, “reinvent porcelain”.
60s, the original Coca-Cola bottle and the Greyhound bus are icons, Loewy created a bold new direction for the company with Ariès, a table service with a geometric pure line that moved far away from decorative pattern and, in the process, reinvented the craftsmanship and fabrication of a 2,000-year-old tradition.
Raymond Loewy, 5.5 designers & more Bernardaud From 1863
DesignerManufacturer
Year
Clockwise from bottom left Portrait of Pierre Bernardaud; the Ouvriers-Designers collection by 5.5 designers who were invited to take part in a residency at the Bernardaud Foundation; Self-Portrait in porcelain by Berlin-based designer Christina Doll; the Bernardaud Foundation workshop.
morespacemagazine.comspacefurniture.com
Above An illustration by design student Zheng Meisi from Lasalle College of the Arts was selected as the winner of the 2011 Kartell, limited design competition
morespacemagazine.comkartell.it
Kart- ell, limi- tedKartell, limited design competition Zheng Meisi, Kimura Mei and Williana 2011
ProjectDesigners
Year
Initiated by Space Furniture Singapore in partnership with Kartell Italy, the Kartell, limited competition invited students from Lasalle College of the Arts (Department of Design Communication) and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Department of Design and Media) to design a graphic interpretation of Singapore’s iconic Merlion, the mythical creature, half lion and
Like other Kartell collaborations, Barbie’s 50th anniversary for example, the transparent Philippe Starck Louis Ghost chair was selected, lending itself to the illustrative application of the designs. The winning
Merit prize winners Kimura Mei, from Lasalle College of the Arts, and Williana, from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, were commended for the detailing, design rationale and sheer amount of thought process that went into each entry. Zheng Meisi’s winning design will be produced as a one-off and presented in November this year to coincide with the launch of the Space Asia Hub.
design by Zheng Meisi from Lasalle College was selected by the judges for its unique interpretation of the Merlion. The vibrancy in colours representing the convergence of culture, the clean design details representing the orderliness of our society, and the bold use of colours in line with the Kartell brand, were seen by the judges as resonating locally.
24_ 25_ more space_design news_
Bernar- daud
In 1967, Bernardaud, a French porcelain maker with an international openness to design, recharged the Limoges porcelain industry, and the public’s appreciation of it, when it began working with the industrial designer Raymond Loewy. Known for his streamlined designs that revolutionised everyday objects in the 1940s, 50s and
First founded in 1863, today Bernardaud continues its collaboration with designers and artists creating utilitarian objects that explore the inherent beauty of porcelain. Bernardaud is well known for its range of simple,
everyday items for the home, including tableware, objects and the delicate Votivelight candles, and collections for hotels and restaurants. Notable collaborations include the Hotel Costes in Paris where Bernardaud was asked to create the Costes Collection by founder Jean-Louis Costes.
Since 2002 Bernardaud has run the Bernardaud Foundation, a cultural institution that supports craft, industry and art. Artists invited to work with Bernardaud are given free rein to, in the words of Bernardaud, “reinvent porcelain”.
60s, the original Coca-Cola bottle and the Greyhound bus are icons, Loewy created a bold new direction for the company with Ariès, a table service with a geometric pure line that moved far away from decorative pattern and, in the process, reinvented the craftsmanship and fabrication of a 2,000-year-old tradition.
Raymond Loewy, 5.5 designers & more Bernardaud From 1863
DesignerManufacturer
Year
Clockwise from bottom left Portrait of Pierre Bernardaud; the Ouvriers-Designers collection by 5.5 designers who were invited to take part in a residency at the Bernardaud Foundation; Self-Portrait in porcelain by Berlin-based designer Christina Doll; the Bernardaud Foundation workshop.
morespacemagazine.comspacefurniture.com
Above An illustration by design student Zheng Meisi from Lasalle College of the Arts was selected as the winner of the 2011 Kartell, limited design competition
morespacemagazine.comkartell.it
Kart- ell, limi- tedKartell, limited design competition Zheng Meisi, Kimura Mei and Williana 2011
ProjectDesigners
Year
Initiated by Space Furniture Singapore in partnership with Kartell Italy, the Kartell, limited competition invited students from Lasalle College of the Arts (Department of Design Communication) and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Department of Design and Media) to design a graphic interpretation of Singapore’s iconic Merlion, the mythical creature, half lion and
Like other Kartell collaborations, Barbie’s 50th anniversary for example, the transparent Philippe Starck Louis Ghost chair was selected, lending itself to the illustrative application of the designs. The winning
Merit prize winners Kimura Mei, from Lasalle College of the Arts, and Williana, from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, were commended for the detailing, design rationale and sheer amount of thought process that went into each entry. Zheng Meisi’s winning design will be produced as a one-off and presented in November this year to coincide with the launch of the Space Asia Hub.
design by Zheng Meisi from Lasalle College was selected by the judges for its unique interpretation of the Merlion. The vibrancy in colours representing the convergence of culture, the clean design details representing the orderliness of our society, and the bold use of colours in line with the Kartell brand, were seen by the judges as resonating locally.
27_ 26_
40 ever- yday objects
In late 2010, the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) took an interesting step. It released a range of Singapore-designed products in collaboration with local creative practice FARM, and co-curator Hans Tan, who together developed the design brief and selected 40 local creatives to take part. In tune with an international move for art
The brief from FARM asked for tote bags for everyday burdens, piggy banks that save, mugs with expression and
of WOHA (architects of the Space Singapore showroom), Dawn Ng, Donna Ong, Justin Lee, Josh & Shing of Lekker Design, Grace Tan of kwodrent, Jason Ong of Jienshu (Design Icon, page 48), and Jackson Tan of Black Design.
institutions to connect with their local arts community, the project brings together work that is a barometer of the state of play in the Singapore creative scene and a timely opportunity to re-think the everyday object.
Highlights include the Adapter + Cup = Pencil
unwanted items and invents new functions; The Pencil is Mightier than the Sword by Chris Lee and Yong, a pencil case that inspires writers; It’s not Broken by Cheryl Tan
Grace Tan that reveals the process of making.
and furniture designers, illustrators and photographers, have some surprising and poignant messages; some conceptual and playful, and others providing a voice for a new way of designing with less.
The 40 Everyday Objects collection is available at the Singapore Art Museum.
Made for SAM: 40 Everyday Objects FARM for the Singapore Art Museum 2010
ProjectCurator
Year
more space_design news_
Clockwise from top right Opinion bag by Jing Quek, Superhyperreal; Just Another Golden Mug by Lanzavecchia + Wai; Trophy Hunter badges by Justin Long & Jerry Goh, Hjgher; Hungry < Pig > Happy by Bassam Jabry, Chemistry; Adapter by Felix Ng, SILNT; I am Sam badges by Zann Wan & Kelvin Lok, Couple; Nose Job eraser by Jackson Tan & Tanny Wong, Black Design; Origami Leaf card by Grace Tan, Kwodrent; The Face Changing by Sebastian Chun, Superbear; The Itinerant Chrysanthemum ruler by Ash Y.S. Yeo; Mirrors card collection by Kenneth Chee, Antfarm Design; Pigxel by Randy Chan, Zarch Collaboratives; Mirrors card collection by Kenneth Chee, Antfarm Design. All images ©Singapore Art Museum and FARM.
singaporeartmuseum.sgmorespacemagazine.comspacefurniture.com
ChiWin- g Lo
Having helped shape the direction of Giorgetti since 1994, Chi Wing Lo has worked his timeless glamour on the company’s showroom at Space Asia Hub.
Armed with a Master in Architecture from Harvard University, Chi Wing Lo is respected as an architect as much as he is for the other design disciplines he has embraced in his career, from interiors to furniture. “The challenge is the same for all. They
published internationally, including Radio Television Hong Kong broadcasting a documentary of his life and work in 2007. Like Giorgetti’s signature for timeless design, Chi Wing’s creations build on his past designs. “Not many people could date my furniture to 1996 from my more recent designs,” says Chi Wing.
Chi Wing has
sensibility to the new Space Asia Hub, beautifully weaving the past with the present. “There’s a certain overlapping of fragility with boldness, ornate with plain, as well as the contrast between timber and brick versus glass and steel. The intention was to see the historical richness of this country and the cultural richness she bestows,” says Chi Wing, who describes the new Giorgetti showroom as having the
suspended between the glamour of Victorian charm
forms,” says Chi Wing, who has just completed the Giorgetti showroom in the new Space Asia Hub building in Bencoolen Street, Singapore (Cover Story, page 30).
Chi Wing started working with Giorgetti in 1994 at a time when founder Carlo Giorgetti was looking towards the East for his furniture collections. One of Chi Wing’s pivotal designs for Giorgetti was the REA bed, awarded the Best Bed of 2006 by Wallpaper* magazine. His architecture and designs have been awarded, exhibited and
and the simplicity of Le Corbusier’s purity’.The Giorgetti showroom is beautifully restrained,
with no partitions touching perimeter walls. The colour
detailing. Poetically conceived, Chi Wing describes
no music, yet it must sing; and no perfume, yet it must be aromatic’.
Chi Wing LoGiorgetti2011
DesignerManufacturer
Year
Clockwise from right Nou table and Ino storage unit by Chi Wing Lo for Giorgetti; rendering of the new Giorgetti showroom designed by Chi Wing Lo for Space Asia Hub.
spacefurniture.comgiorgetti-spa.it
27_ 26_
40 ever- yday objects
In late 2010, the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) took an interesting step. It released a range of Singapore-designed products in collaboration with local creative practice FARM, and co-curator Hans Tan, who together developed the design brief and selected 40 local creatives to take part. In tune with an international move for art
The brief from FARM asked for tote bags for everyday burdens, piggy banks that save, mugs with expression and
of WOHA (architects of the Space Singapore showroom), Dawn Ng, Donna Ong, Justin Lee, Josh & Shing of Lekker Design, Grace Tan of kwodrent, Jason Ong of Jienshu (Design Icon, page 48), and Jackson Tan of Black Design.
institutions to connect with their local arts community, the project brings together work that is a barometer of the state of play in the Singapore creative scene and a timely opportunity to re-think the everyday object.
Highlights include the Adapter + Cup = Pencil
unwanted items and invents new functions; The Pencil is Mightier than the Sword by Chris Lee and Yong, a pencil case that inspires writers; It’s not Broken by Cheryl Tan
Grace Tan that reveals the process of making.
and furniture designers, illustrators and photographers, have some surprising and poignant messages; some conceptual and playful, and others providing a voice for a new way of designing with less.
The 40 Everyday Objects collection is available at the Singapore Art Museum.
Made for SAM: 40 Everyday Objects FARM for the Singapore Art Museum 2010
ProjectCurator
Year
more space_design news_
Clockwise from top right Opinion bag by Jing Quek, Superhyperreal; Just Another Golden Mug by Lanzavecchia + Wai; Trophy Hunter badges by Justin Long & Jerry Goh, Hjgher; Hungry < Pig > Happy by Bassam Jabry, Chemistry; Adapter by Felix Ng, SILNT; I am Sam badges by Zann Wan & Kelvin Lok, Couple; Nose Job eraser by Jackson Tan & Tanny Wong, Black Design; Origami Leaf card by Grace Tan, Kwodrent; The Face Changing by Sebastian Chun, Superbear; The Itinerant Chrysanthemum ruler by Ash Y.S. Yeo; Mirrors card collection by Kenneth Chee, Antfarm Design; Pigxel by Randy Chan, Zarch Collaboratives; Mirrors card collection by Kenneth Chee, Antfarm Design. All images ©Singapore Art Museum and FARM.
singaporeartmuseum.sgmorespacemagazine.comspacefurniture.com
ChiWin- g Lo
Having helped shape the direction of Giorgetti since 1994, Chi Wing Lo has worked his timeless glamour on the company’s showroom at Space Asia Hub.
Armed with a Master in Architecture from Harvard University, Chi Wing Lo is respected as an architect as much as he is for the other design disciplines he has embraced in his career, from interiors to furniture. “The challenge is the same for all. They
published internationally, including Radio Television Hong Kong broadcasting a documentary of his life and work in 2007. Like Giorgetti’s signature for timeless design, Chi Wing’s creations build on his past designs. “Not many people could date my furniture to 1996 from my more recent designs,” says Chi Wing.
Chi Wing has
sensibility to the new Space Asia Hub, beautifully weaving the past with the present. “There’s a certain overlapping of fragility with boldness, ornate with plain, as well as the contrast between timber and brick versus glass and steel. The intention was to see the historical richness of this country and the cultural richness she bestows,” says Chi Wing, who describes the new Giorgetti showroom as having the
suspended between the glamour of Victorian charm
forms,” says Chi Wing, who has just completed the Giorgetti showroom in the new Space Asia Hub building in Bencoolen Street, Singapore (Cover Story, page 30).
Chi Wing started working with Giorgetti in 1994 at a time when founder Carlo Giorgetti was looking towards the East for his furniture collections. One of Chi Wing’s pivotal designs for Giorgetti was the REA bed, awarded the Best Bed of 2006 by Wallpaper* magazine. His architecture and designs have been awarded, exhibited and
and the simplicity of Le Corbusier’s purity’.The Giorgetti showroom is beautifully restrained,
with no partitions touching perimeter walls. The colour
detailing. Poetically conceived, Chi Wing describes
no music, yet it must sing; and no perfume, yet it must be aromatic’.
Chi Wing LoGiorgetti2011
DesignerManufacturer
Year
Clockwise from right Nou table and Ino storage unit by Chi Wing Lo for Giorgetti; rendering of the new Giorgetti showroom designed by Chi Wing Lo for Space Asia Hub.
spacefurniture.comgiorgetti-spa.it
2162
12
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Voon Wong and Benson Saw, the designers behind VW+BS, have just celebrated their 10-year partnership in business. Their practice started in 2001 when the duo displayed a series of lights at Designersblock in London. Their different backgrounds ensure a different perspective
to each project. “Benson’s engineering and product design background (Science in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University) makes technical problem-solving that much easier, while I come to the table with a spatial awareness of each project,” says Wong, who attended the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Architecture and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and worked for a number of prestigious architectural practices, including Zaha Hadid.
While Wong and Saw are based in London, they are often working in different cities, as well as countries.
One of VW+BS’s signature designs is the Loop lamp. This design launched the practice on to the international design scene in 2004 and was nominated for the prestigious Compasso d’Oro the same year. Conceived as two
However, irrespective of where they are working, each takes on separate elements of a project and they come together to critique each other’s ideas. “We have been working together for 10 years, so there is a lot of shorthand in our communication,” says Wong.
During their decade together, Wong and Saw have worked on architectural projects as well as products, including lighting. Their largest architectural commission was a renovation to a 19th century house in Berkshire, UK – De La Beche Manor – which included adding an extension that was designed as a contemporary barn.
steel discs that part to shed light, the Loop lamp is both a light and a sculptural object for the table. “It has really
combination of engineering and design has made this light so iconic,” states Voon.
VW +BS Voon Wong and Benson Saw Fontana Arte 2004
DesignersManufacturer
Year
Clockwise from left Loop lamp designed by VW+BS in 2004 for Fontana Arte; portrait of Voon Wong and Benson Saw (image: Karl Jefferies); the De La Beche Manor with its contemporary barn addition in Berkshire, UK (image: M Franke).
morespacemagazine.comspacefurniture.comfontanaarte.it vwbs.co.uk
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12
28_ more space_design news_
Voon Wong and Benson Saw, the designers behind VW+BS, have just celebrated their 10-year partnership in business. Their practice started in 2001 when the duo displayed a series of lights at Designersblock in London. Their different backgrounds ensure a different perspective
to each project. “Benson’s engineering and product design background (Science in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University) makes technical problem-solving that much easier, while I come to the table with a spatial awareness of each project,” says Wong, who attended the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Architecture and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and worked for a number of prestigious architectural practices, including Zaha Hadid.
While Wong and Saw are based in London, they are often working in different cities, as well as countries.
One of VW+BS’s signature designs is the Loop lamp. This design launched the practice on to the international design scene in 2004 and was nominated for the prestigious Compasso d’Oro the same year. Conceived as two
However, irrespective of where they are working, each takes on separate elements of a project and they come together to critique each other’s ideas. “We have been working together for 10 years, so there is a lot of shorthand in our communication,” says Wong.
During their decade together, Wong and Saw have worked on architectural projects as well as products, including lighting. Their largest architectural commission was a renovation to a 19th century house in Berkshire, UK – De La Beche Manor – which included adding an extension that was designed as a contemporary barn.
steel discs that part to shed light, the Loop lamp is both a light and a sculptural object for the table. “It has really
combination of engineering and design has made this light so iconic,” states Voon.
VW +BS Voon Wong and Benson Saw Fontana Arte 2004
DesignersManufacturer
Year
Clockwise from left Loop lamp designed by VW+BS in 2004 for Fontana Arte; portrait of Voon Wong and Benson Saw (image: Karl Jefferies); the De La Beche Manor with its contemporary barn addition in Berkshire, UK (image: M Franke).
morespacemagazine.comspacefurniture.comfontanaarte.it vwbs.co.uk
more space_cover story_
30_ 31_
The much anticipated opening of the Space Asia Hub in the arts quarter of Singapore marks an important moment for design in the region. First launching here in 2001 and now representing 14 of the world’s leading design brands, the 4,000 square
destination for all of Asia.
words_lim sio hui photography_danny chong & patrick bingham-hall
Icon i-n the ma-king
more space_cover story_
30_ 31_
The much anticipated opening of the Space Asia Hub in the arts quarter of Singapore marks an important moment for design in the region. First launching here in 2001 and now representing 14 of the world’s leading design brands, the 4,000 square
destination for all of Asia.
words_lim sio hui photography_danny chong & patrick bingham-hall
Icon i-n the ma-king
more space_cover story_
33_ 32_
“I am sure it will become a reference point, a window and a destination store for all [of] Asia, China included.”Giorgio Busnelli, President of B&B Italia
Previous page Inside the new
Moooi’s Raimond lights, with views through to Heritage House (image: Patrick Bingham-Hall).
Clockwise from rightcomposed Syddal Wee, General Manager of Space Furniture Asia, has spent the last 10 years planning for Space Asia Hub that promises to be the design destination for all of Asia (image: Danny Chong); view inside Heritage House looking towards the Glass Block (image: Patrick Bingham-Hall).
Step into the new Space Asia Hub in the heart of Singapore’s arts quarter and you will recognise international brands and a collected body of craft and industrial design that exhibit an undeniable ingenuity of form and function. Like the legendary Wishbone or Louis Ghost chairs, the Space retail brand itself displays
Take it from a man who knows his design icons: “Space Asia Hub is one of the most [architecturally] beautiful showrooms in the world,” praises Giorgio Busnelli, President of B&B Italia, who has been deeply involved in the project since the beginning, and feels very proud of the stunning multiplex that stands on Bencoolen Street today. “I am sure it will become a reference point, a window and a destination store for all [of] Asia, China included.”
It takes vision to create an icon, and credit has to go to Syddal Wee, General Manager of Space Furniture, Asia operations. To boldly imagine – with the aid of
separate historic conservation buildings wrapped around a contemporary block, cohesively forming a breathtaking design statement, is one thing. Another is translating the ethos of 14 of the world’s top luxury furniture brands to
of the systems.” It speaks volumes
that all the brands that came on board went far beyond simply providing marketing and public relations support, they also involved themselves in all parts of the planning process, including deploying their very best talents, such as the interior design services of architect Chi Wing Lo in the case of Giorgetti’s showcase in The Villa.
of market forces, spurred on by unrelenting standards of quality and integrity. Space Furniture’s phenomenal growth, against the backdrop of today’s global
back in 2001, the company has doubled its premises to 4,000 square metres, a venture involving the impressive outlay of $50 million.
With three extraordinary newly minted settings – The Villa, a stand-alone building, Glass Block and Heritage House – and a solid vision in place, it
of Poliform, Export Manager Marco Longoni was easily persuaded: “We are absolutely happy with the solution proposed by Space: The Villa is the perfect setting for our lifestyle brand. It allows a natural approach for the display, like a real house, which shows the power
more space_cover story_
33_ 32_
“I am sure it will become a reference point, a window and a destination store for all [of] Asia, China included.”Giorgio Busnelli, President of B&B Italia
Previous page Inside the new
Moooi’s Raimond lights, with views through to Heritage House (image: Patrick Bingham-Hall).
Clockwise from rightcomposed Syddal Wee, General Manager of Space Furniture Asia, has spent the last 10 years planning for Space Asia Hub that promises to be the design destination for all of Asia (image: Danny Chong); view inside Heritage House looking towards the Glass Block (image: Patrick Bingham-Hall).
Step into the new Space Asia Hub in the heart of Singapore’s arts quarter and you will recognise international brands and a collected body of craft and industrial design that exhibit an undeniable ingenuity of form and function. Like the legendary Wishbone or Louis Ghost chairs, the Space retail brand itself displays
Take it from a man who knows his design icons: “Space Asia Hub is one of the most [architecturally] beautiful showrooms in the world,” praises Giorgio Busnelli, President of B&B Italia, who has been deeply involved in the project since the beginning, and feels very proud of the stunning multiplex that stands on Bencoolen Street today. “I am sure it will become a reference point, a window and a destination store for all [of] Asia, China included.”
It takes vision to create an icon, and credit has to go to Syddal Wee, General Manager of Space Furniture, Asia operations. To boldly imagine – with the aid of
separate historic conservation buildings wrapped around a contemporary block, cohesively forming a breathtaking design statement, is one thing. Another is translating the ethos of 14 of the world’s top luxury furniture brands to
of the systems.” It speaks volumes
that all the brands that came on board went far beyond simply providing marketing and public relations support, they also involved themselves in all parts of the planning process, including deploying their very best talents, such as the interior design services of architect Chi Wing Lo in the case of Giorgetti’s showcase in The Villa.
of market forces, spurred on by unrelenting standards of quality and integrity. Space Furniture’s phenomenal growth, against the backdrop of today’s global
back in 2001, the company has doubled its premises to 4,000 square metres, a venture involving the impressive outlay of $50 million.
With three extraordinary newly minted settings – The Villa, a stand-alone building, Glass Block and Heritage House – and a solid vision in place, it
of Poliform, Export Manager Marco Longoni was easily persuaded: “We are absolutely happy with the solution proposed by Space: The Villa is the perfect setting for our lifestyle brand. It allows a natural approach for the display, like a real house, which shows the power
35_ 34_ more space_cover story_
top Inside the carefully restored Heritage House with two new lofts for the Maxalto and Flexform Mood showrooms (image: Patrick Bingham-Hall); the Giorgetti showroom inside The Villa (image: Patrick Bingham-Hall); the Verenna by Poliform kitchen showroom will host famous chefs from the region to enhance the culinary experience (photo: Patrick Bingham-Hall).
Leftinside The Villa leads to the Giorgetti and Verenna by Poliform showrooms upstairs.
“The initial success [of Space Asia Hub], and indeed the continued success, is related to the level of design and creative awareness or sensibility of the consumer in Singapore.”Syddal Wee, General Manager, Space Furniture Asia
“‘Life uncompromised’ is the motto of Space, and Giorgetti totally agrees,” shares the brand’s president Carlo Giorgetti.
While keeping ahead of the pack hasn’t been without its bumps – the initial two years were challenging due to settling of operations and SARS, admits Wee – it’s a mark of success that Space has today boldly gone beyond just being a retailer to being an indispensable and strategic brand partner for the furniture manufacturers, in a relationship that represents a close collaboration and joined pursuit of shared values.
in one place, to attract clients that might not come just for our products.”
Well-trained sales personnel and a carefully calculated level of inventory, coupled with the Space
give the company its unique success, believes Wee. “The Space model simply works; it is hard to replicate.”
But it is important to build on this, and 61-year-old Wee is not resting on his laurels yet. New initiatives for Space Asia Hub include ambitions to broaden the design
Summer Workshops in Boisbuchet, France, that will see two local students selected to take part in one of the world’s most sought after design workshops next year.
“The initial success [of Space Asia Hub], and indeed the continued success, is related to the level of design and creative awareness or sensibility of the consumer in
“It will not be of immediate
with time, as the awareness
to the industry in general, and Space in particular.”
experience for the local public, and to play a more active role in the design scene in keeping with the company’s location in the heart of the arts quarter. The complex will soon host an exhibition space for the upcoming President’s Design Award, while a series of student sponsorship programs are already underway, including a design competition in collaboration with Italian manufacturer Kartell and students from Lasalle College of the Arts and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and the Vitra+Space
From the impeccably styled displays to the cafe area with seating on a tranquil alfresco plaza, Space Asia Hub is positioned not as a retail middleman but, in Wee’s terms, as a premium lifestyle resource, “We present a look
and feel that our clients would like their homes to achieve;
For it is only this premium solution and a judicious product selection that allows Space Asia Hub to harmoniously place what would normally be competing brands side by side. “We grow the market for them,”
in agreement: “We do different things from what the other
35_ 34_ more space_cover story_
top Inside the carefully restored Heritage House with two new lofts for the Maxalto and Flexform Mood showrooms (image: Patrick Bingham-Hall); the Giorgetti showroom inside The Villa (image: Patrick Bingham-Hall); the Verenna by Poliform kitchen showroom will host famous chefs from the region to enhance the culinary experience (photo: Patrick Bingham-Hall).
Leftinside The Villa leads to the Giorgetti and Verenna by Poliform showrooms upstairs.
“The initial success [of Space Asia Hub], and indeed the continued success, is related to the level of design and creative awareness or sensibility of the consumer in Singapore.”Syddal Wee, General Manager, Space Furniture Asia
“‘Life uncompromised’ is the motto of Space, and Giorgetti totally agrees,” shares the brand’s president Carlo Giorgetti.
While keeping ahead of the pack hasn’t been without its bumps – the initial two years were challenging due to settling of operations and SARS, admits Wee – it’s a mark of success that Space has today boldly gone beyond just being a retailer to being an indispensable and strategic brand partner for the furniture manufacturers, in a relationship that represents a close collaboration and joined pursuit of shared values.
in one place, to attract clients that might not come just for our products.”
Well-trained sales personnel and a carefully calculated level of inventory, coupled with the Space
give the company its unique success, believes Wee. “The Space model simply works; it is hard to replicate.”
But it is important to build on this, and 61-year-old Wee is not resting on his laurels yet. New initiatives for Space Asia Hub include ambitions to broaden the design
Summer Workshops in Boisbuchet, France, that will see two local students selected to take part in one of the world’s most sought after design workshops next year.
“The initial success [of Space Asia Hub], and indeed the continued success, is related to the level of design and creative awareness or sensibility of the consumer in
“It will not be of immediate
with time, as the awareness
to the industry in general, and Space in particular.”
experience for the local public, and to play a more active role in the design scene in keeping with the company’s location in the heart of the arts quarter. The complex will soon host an exhibition space for the upcoming President’s Design Award, while a series of student sponsorship programs are already underway, including a design competition in collaboration with Italian manufacturer Kartell and students from Lasalle College of the Arts and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and the Vitra+Space
From the impeccably styled displays to the cafe area with seating on a tranquil alfresco plaza, Space Asia Hub is positioned not as a retail middleman but, in Wee’s terms, as a premium lifestyle resource, “We present a look
and feel that our clients would like their homes to achieve;
For it is only this premium solution and a judicious product selection that allows Space Asia Hub to harmoniously place what would normally be competing brands side by side. “We grow the market for them,”
in agreement: “We do different things from what the other
more space_cover story_
At the street level, a city plaza lends itself as a vibrant urban node and forecourt that aims to draw attention to the restored buildings.
Project in progress shots showing The Villa and the dilapidated state of the building’s interior before work commenced (image: Danny Chong).
Clockwise from above The site plan showing the dynamic interplay between the historic Heritage House, The Villa and the new Glass Block that allows interior and exterior spaces to form a vibrant urban plaza at street level; Space Asia Hub at dusk, showing The Villa and its connection to the contemporary Glass Block (photo: Patrick Bingham-Hall).
37_ 36_
Housed within a unique cluster of heritage buildings within a gazetted conservation area, the Space Asia Hub comprises two conserved buildings – a villa (The Villa) and a shophouse (Heritage
The areas carved out of the conservation buildings are redistributed to create a
unit and extends to the rear of the conserved villa. The new transparency of the curtain wall unveils new views that enhance the appreciation of the conserved buildings, while injecting the development with a contemporary façade that reveals its interior activities.
unit (Glass Block). Through adaptive re-use and calibrated architectural intervention, the redevelopment strives to create a contemporary retail showroom with expanded lifestyle facilities that retain the charm of its heritage stature.
The design strategy aims to play up contrasts between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. In the two conserved buildings, new free-spanning roofs are rebuilt in timber, to reveal high-volume, column-free showroom interiors true to their original form and architecture. Parts of the existing party wall are also taken down and new staircases introduced to open up, connect and mediate the different levels across the three developments as an integrated showroom. The improved visual porosity across the units reveals new volumes of varying scales and enhances the overall appreciation of the spatial richness inherent in the built forms.
The three units are given distinct interior expressions in response to their existing architecture.
attics held up by exposed steel trusses lend a warehouse expression to the conserved three-storey shophouse. The two-storey conserved bungalow (The Villa), the most intricate and ornate of the group, is conceived as an immaculate historic villa with white-
The large volumes and intricate timber works often associated with these villas
expression with open ceilings, exposed duct work and services impeccably planned and laid out as a deliberate design gesture.
At the street level, a city plaza lends itself as a vibrant urban node and forecourt that aims to draw attention to the restored buildings. The plaza is a woven tapestry of terracotta and pebble wash strips in varying hues reminiscent of traditional materials and regional ‘sarong’ textiles, giving the development a contemporary yet distinctive character that references its Asian
giving a perception of a large, continuous and inviting urban space that integrates the three distinct buildings, and provide generous spaces for events and activities.
Integrated landscape aims to enhance the appreciation of greenery from both inside and outside the development. Pockets of greenery are extended into the plaza and around the conserved bungalow with variegated planting edges that blur the boundary between the soft and hardscape. A courtyard with vertical greenery is a feature of the conserved shophouse. Two landscaped roof terraces
front and rear, stepping back as a response to the controlled envelope and introducing visible rooftop activities that further animate this unique cluster of heritage buildings.
Archi- tecture stat- ement by
more space_cover story_
At the street level, a city plaza lends itself as a vibrant urban node and forecourt that aims to draw attention to the restored buildings.
Project in progress shots showing The Villa and the dilapidated state of the building’s interior before work commenced (image: Danny Chong).
Clockwise from above The site plan showing the dynamic interplay between the historic Heritage House, The Villa and the new Glass Block that allows interior and exterior spaces to form a vibrant urban plaza at street level; Space Asia Hub at dusk, showing The Villa and its connection to the contemporary Glass Block (photo: Patrick Bingham-Hall).
37_ 36_
Housed within a unique cluster of heritage buildings within a gazetted conservation area, the Space Asia Hub comprises two conserved buildings – a villa (The Villa) and a shophouse (Heritage
The areas carved out of the conservation buildings are redistributed to create a
unit and extends to the rear of the conserved villa. The new transparency of the curtain wall unveils new views that enhance the appreciation of the conserved buildings, while injecting the development with a contemporary façade that reveals its interior activities.
unit (Glass Block). Through adaptive re-use and calibrated architectural intervention, the redevelopment strives to create a contemporary retail showroom with expanded lifestyle facilities that retain the charm of its heritage stature.
The design strategy aims to play up contrasts between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. In the two conserved buildings, new free-spanning roofs are rebuilt in timber, to reveal high-volume, column-free showroom interiors true to their original form and architecture. Parts of the existing party wall are also taken down and new staircases introduced to open up, connect and mediate the different levels across the three developments as an integrated showroom. The improved visual porosity across the units reveals new volumes of varying scales and enhances the overall appreciation of the spatial richness inherent in the built forms.
The three units are given distinct interior expressions in response to their existing architecture.
attics held up by exposed steel trusses lend a warehouse expression to the conserved three-storey shophouse. The two-storey conserved bungalow (The Villa), the most intricate and ornate of the group, is conceived as an immaculate historic villa with white-
The large volumes and intricate timber works often associated with these villas
expression with open ceilings, exposed duct work and services impeccably planned and laid out as a deliberate design gesture.
At the street level, a city plaza lends itself as a vibrant urban node and forecourt that aims to draw attention to the restored buildings. The plaza is a woven tapestry of terracotta and pebble wash strips in varying hues reminiscent of traditional materials and regional ‘sarong’ textiles, giving the development a contemporary yet distinctive character that references its Asian
giving a perception of a large, continuous and inviting urban space that integrates the three distinct buildings, and provide generous spaces for events and activities.
Integrated landscape aims to enhance the appreciation of greenery from both inside and outside the development. Pockets of greenery are extended into the plaza and around the conserved bungalow with variegated planting edges that blur the boundary between the soft and hardscape. A courtyard with vertical greenery is a feature of the conserved shophouse. Two landscaped roof terraces
front and rear, stepping back as a response to the controlled envelope and introducing visible rooftop activities that further animate this unique cluster of heritage buildings.
Archi- tecture stat- ement by
Fritz Hansen FAVN™ sofa by Jamie Hayón, EGG™ and SWAN™ chairs by Arne Jacobsen
2153
11
Fritz Hansen FAVN™ sofa by Jamie Hayón, EGG™ and SWAN™ chairs by Arne Jacobsen
2153
11
technologies. The house itself became the sensational launch pad for the innovative thinking that would characterise the rest of Jacobsen’s career.
A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1927, Jacobsen absorbed early Modernism’s ideologies, but soon forged his own response to the geometric discipline and social program of the interwar design agenda. During the 1930s, his designs – houses for himself and private clients, the Bellavista residential complex near Copenhagen, and the monumental Aarhus Town Hall – all adapted Modernism’s
severe boxy aesthetic to the Danish landscape and sensibility. Notable at Aarhus was the
‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ that Jacobsen would carry to sophisticated perfection 20 years later in the incomparable SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.
The occupation of Denmark by Germany during World War II forced Jacobsen,
thrilling midnight journey across the Øresund in a leaky boat with lighting designer Poul Henningsen and their respective wives. While for Jacobsen the war was a severe disruption, its catalytic role in redirecting the course of Modernism towards a more
organic design aesthetic was pivotal for his own work. It was during the 1950s that the architect created his now celebrated series of graceful, sculpted chairs, a legacy of the advances in plywood
building, these chairs were part of a range of furniture, lighting, tableware and textiles designed by Jacobsen to create a dramatic, integrated visual coherence. Sadly, the hotel’s interiors have since been ‘modernised’, although room 606 has been recreated in celebration of Jacobsen’s original design. It is well worth a visit, as is Jacobsen’s monumental National Bank of Denmark in Copenhagen.
Jacobsen’s design legacy is extensive and enduring. Since the early 1960s his seating furniture has been internationally available and recognised. In 1967 an Egg chair was central to an Australian Wool Board promotion set against the iconic Sydney Opera House. The symmetry of the Danish origins of the designers of both chair and building is telling, but so too is the longevity and appeal of each design. For Arne Jacobsen and Jørn Utzon the essential challenge was to create a universally understood
boundaries of time.
and plastics technology pioneered by designers like Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen. Jacobsen’s unique contribution, however, was his fusion of mass-production technologies with a design minimalism so perfectly tuned to style and function that it has not been bettered in over 50 years. There could be few chairs, for example, that rival the natural grace – and legendary status – of the Series 7 plywood chair, a development of Jacobsen’s groundbreaking, stackable Ant chair of 1952. Supporter of innumerable celebrity bottoms in countless photo shoots, the Series 7 has been endlessly reproduced – legitimately and otherwise – and has spawned scores of look-alikes.
The bending technology that made Jacobsen’s lightweight, one-piece plywood chairs realisable was developed in conjunction with the manufacturer Fritz Hansen. It was this same company whose experimentation with a new mouldable synthetic product, Styropor, enabled the body-hugging curves of the Swan and Egg chairs in the late 1950s.
words_anne watson
Denmark 1902–1971
Archive-
1929 housing exhibition in Copenhagen. Designed with Flemming Lassen, the House of the Future was an exercise in creative rule breaking and futuristic lateral thinking that engaged the young Jacobsen’s enthusiasm for the radical new aesthetic of Modernism and the seemingly limitless possibilities of future
It’s a classic case of the future catching up with the past. According to Samsung in a recent patent infringement lawsuit brought by Apple, the iPad wasn’t invented by Apple. Samsung has claimed that the concept of a small tablet computer originated in Stanley
2001: A Space Odyssey
Jacobsen’s particular genius: the enduring modernity and appeal of his timeless designs. In 2002, the centenary of Jacobsen’s birth, visitors queued to get into the landmark
retrospective of the architect’s work at Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
winning entry in a competition to design a demonstration House of the Future for a
where the two hapless astronauts peer at iPad look-alikes while eating their mushy space
are eating with cutlery designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1957. That the stainless steel AJ
more space_
Arne Ja- cob- sen
Arne Jacobsen: Approach to his Complete Works 1926-1949 Published by The Danish Architecture Press
Arne Jacobsen Published by 2G
Room 606: The SAS House and the work of Arne Jacobsen Published by Phaidon Press
Clockwise from right SAS Royal Hotel, Copenhagen, was the city’s
building and involved not only Arne Jacobsen’s architecture, but also his furniture, lighting, tableware and textiles; the Swan chair designed by Jacobsen for the SAS Royal Hotel; Swan Crowd; Jacobsen in his workshop; to celebrate 50 years of the Egg chair in 2008 Fritz Hansen produced a limited range of textiles by artist Tal R; portrait of Arne Jacobsen; the Fritz Hansen factory; the AJ cutlery also designed for the SAS Royal Hotel and manufactured by Georg Jensen.
architect and designer Arne Jacobsen, Anne Watson reviews the career of a true Modernist whose work was far ahead of its time.
technologies. The house itself became the sensational launch pad for the innovative thinking that would characterise the rest of Jacobsen’s career.
A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1927, Jacobsen absorbed early Modernism’s ideologies, but soon forged his own response to the geometric discipline and social program of the interwar design agenda. During the 1930s, his designs – houses for himself and private clients, the Bellavista residential complex near Copenhagen, and the monumental Aarhus Town Hall – all adapted Modernism’s
severe boxy aesthetic to the Danish landscape and sensibility. Notable at Aarhus was the
‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ that Jacobsen would carry to sophisticated perfection 20 years later in the incomparable SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.
The occupation of Denmark by Germany during World War II forced Jacobsen,
thrilling midnight journey across the Øresund in a leaky boat with lighting designer Poul Henningsen and their respective wives. While for Jacobsen the war was a severe disruption, its catalytic role in redirecting the course of Modernism towards a more
organic design aesthetic was pivotal for his own work. It was during the 1950s that the architect created his now celebrated series of graceful, sculpted chairs, a legacy of the advances in plywood
building, these chairs were part of a range of furniture, lighting, tableware and textiles designed by Jacobsen to create a dramatic, integrated visual coherence. Sadly, the hotel’s interiors have since been ‘modernised’, although room 606 has been recreated in celebration of Jacobsen’s original design. It is well worth a visit, as is Jacobsen’s monumental National Bank of Denmark in Copenhagen.
Jacobsen’s design legacy is extensive and enduring. Since the early 1960s his seating furniture has been internationally available and recognised. In 1967 an Egg chair was central to an Australian Wool Board promotion set against the iconic Sydney Opera House. The symmetry of the Danish origins of the designers of both chair and building is telling, but so too is the longevity and appeal of each design. For Arne Jacobsen and Jørn Utzon the essential challenge was to create a universally understood
boundaries of time.
and plastics technology pioneered by designers like Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen. Jacobsen’s unique contribution, however, was his fusion of mass-production technologies with a design minimalism so perfectly tuned to style and function that it has not been bettered in over 50 years. There could be few chairs, for example, that rival the natural grace – and legendary status – of the Series 7 plywood chair, a development of Jacobsen’s groundbreaking, stackable Ant chair of 1952. Supporter of innumerable celebrity bottoms in countless photo shoots, the Series 7 has been endlessly reproduced – legitimately and otherwise – and has spawned scores of look-alikes.
The bending technology that made Jacobsen’s lightweight, one-piece plywood chairs realisable was developed in conjunction with the manufacturer Fritz Hansen. It was this same company whose experimentation with a new mouldable synthetic product, Styropor, enabled the body-hugging curves of the Swan and Egg chairs in the late 1950s.
words_anne watson
Denmark 1902–1971
Archive-
1929 housing exhibition in Copenhagen. Designed with Flemming Lassen, the House of the Future was an exercise in creative rule breaking and futuristic lateral thinking that engaged the young Jacobsen’s enthusiasm for the radical new aesthetic of Modernism and the seemingly limitless possibilities of future
It’s a classic case of the future catching up with the past. According to Samsung in a recent patent infringement lawsuit brought by Apple, the iPad wasn’t invented by Apple. Samsung has claimed that the concept of a small tablet computer originated in Stanley
2001: A Space Odyssey
Jacobsen’s particular genius: the enduring modernity and appeal of his timeless designs. In 2002, the centenary of Jacobsen’s birth, visitors queued to get into the landmark
retrospective of the architect’s work at Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
winning entry in a competition to design a demonstration House of the Future for a
where the two hapless astronauts peer at iPad look-alikes while eating their mushy space
are eating with cutlery designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1957. That the stainless steel AJ
more space_
Arne Ja- cob- sen
Arne Jacobsen: Approach to his Complete Works 1926-1949 Published by The Danish Architecture Press
Arne Jacobsen Published by 2G
Room 606: The SAS House and the work of Arne Jacobsen Published by Phaidon Press
Clockwise from right SAS Royal Hotel, Copenhagen, was the city’s
building and involved not only Arne Jacobsen’s architecture, but also his furniture, lighting, tableware and textiles; the Swan chair designed by Jacobsen for the SAS Royal Hotel; Swan Crowd; Jacobsen in his workshop; to celebrate 50 years of the Egg chair in 2008 Fritz Hansen produced a limited range of textiles by artist Tal R; portrait of Arne Jacobsen; the Fritz Hansen factory; the AJ cutlery also designed for the SAS Royal Hotel and manufactured by Georg Jensen.
architect and designer Arne Jacobsen, Anne Watson reviews the career of a true Modernist whose work was far ahead of its time.
42_ 43_more space_
Australia Asia Design Library-
KartellMatelasse’ vase Patricia Urquiola
Limited Edition Etnik rug Katia De Witte
Limited Edition Patio rug Katia De Witte
Limited Edition Gipsy rug Katia De Witte
Limited Edition Sari rug Katia De Witte
Moooi Fata Morgana TJ One carpet Marcel Wanders
Moooi Fata Morgana TJ Two carpet Marcel Wanders
Moooi Firmship carpet Studio Job
Limited Edition Looping rug Helene Dashorst
Limited Edition Elite rug Katia De Witte
Limited Edition Mystic rug Limited Edition
KasthallFading rug Petra Lundblad-Friden
KasthallHappy rug Gunilla Lagerhem Ullberg
KasthallKarin rug Gunilla Lagerhem Ullberg
Serralunga
Joan Gaspar
SerralungaMing Extra High pot Rodolfo Dordoni
VitraL’Oiseau Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec
DriadeLeeon bed Ludovica + Roberto Palomba
Flexform MoodLauren bed Roberto Lazzeroni
GiorgettiLizzy bed Antonello Mosca
Poliform Aton bed Giuseppe Viganò
Poliform Rachel bed Carlo Colombo
B&B ItaliaBeverly armchair Antonio Citterio
B&B ItaliaDoyl chair Gabriele & Oscar Buratti
B&B ItaliaHusk armchair Patricia Urquiola
B&B ItaliaJean armchair Antonio Citterio
B&B ItaliaLandscape ‘11 chaise longue Jeffrey Bernett
Carl Hansen & Søn CH113 armchair Hans J. Wegner
Cassina LC1 outdoor armchair Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Cassina LC1 UAM armchair Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Cassina LC1 Villa Church armchair Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Carl Hansen & Søn CH111 armchair Hans J. Wegner
Carl Hansen & Søn CH112 armchair Hans J. Wegner
B&B ItaliaRay armchair Antonio Citterio
Cassina LC7 outdoor armchair Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Cassina LC8 outdoor footstool Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Driade Cape West outdoor chair Ludovica + Roberto Palomba
Cassina Tokyo outdoor chaise longue Charlotte Perriand
DriadeLou Read armchair Philippe Starck
DriadeMarguerite chair Borek Sipek
Driade Nemo outdoor chair Fabio Novembre
DriadePetitemadeleine chair Miki Astori
DriadePavo Real armchair Patricia Urquiola
FlexformAbbracci armchair Antonio Citterio
FlexformGuscio Alto armchair Antonio Citterio
FlexformMorgan chair Antonio Citterio
Flexform MoodAline chair Roberto Lazzeroni
Flexform MoodAstrid armchair Roberto Lazzeroni
GiorgettiBarry armchair Antonello Mosca
42_ 43_more space_
Australia Asia Design Library-
KartellMatelasse’ vase Patricia Urquiola
Limited Edition Etnik rug Katia De Witte
Limited Edition Patio rug Katia De Witte
Limited Edition Gipsy rug Katia De Witte
Limited Edition Sari rug Katia De Witte
Moooi Fata Morgana TJ One carpet Marcel Wanders
Moooi Fata Morgana TJ Two carpet Marcel Wanders
Moooi Firmship carpet Studio Job
Limited Edition Looping rug Helene Dashorst
Limited Edition Elite rug Katia De Witte
Limited Edition Mystic rug Limited Edition
KasthallFading rug Petra Lundblad-Friden
KasthallHappy rug Gunilla Lagerhem Ullberg
KasthallKarin rug Gunilla Lagerhem Ullberg
Serralunga
Joan Gaspar
SerralungaMing Extra High pot Rodolfo Dordoni
VitraL’Oiseau Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec
DriadeLeeon bed Ludovica + Roberto Palomba
Flexform MoodLauren bed Roberto Lazzeroni
GiorgettiLizzy bed Antonello Mosca
Poliform Aton bed Giuseppe Viganò
Poliform Rachel bed Carlo Colombo
B&B ItaliaBeverly armchair Antonio Citterio
B&B ItaliaDoyl chair Gabriele & Oscar Buratti
B&B ItaliaHusk armchair Patricia Urquiola
B&B ItaliaJean armchair Antonio Citterio
B&B ItaliaLandscape ‘11 chaise longue Jeffrey Bernett
Carl Hansen & Søn CH113 armchair Hans J. Wegner
Cassina LC1 outdoor armchair Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Cassina LC1 UAM armchair Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Cassina LC1 Villa Church armchair Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Carl Hansen & Søn CH111 armchair Hans J. Wegner
Carl Hansen & Søn CH112 armchair Hans J. Wegner
B&B ItaliaRay armchair Antonio Citterio
Cassina LC7 outdoor armchair Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Cassina LC8 outdoor footstool Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Driade Cape West outdoor chair Ludovica + Roberto Palomba
Cassina Tokyo outdoor chaise longue Charlotte Perriand
DriadeLou Read armchair Philippe Starck
DriadeMarguerite chair Borek Sipek
Driade Nemo outdoor chair Fabio Novembre
DriadePetitemadeleine chair Miki Astori
DriadePavo Real armchair Patricia Urquiola
FlexformAbbracci armchair Antonio Citterio
FlexformGuscio Alto armchair Antonio Citterio
FlexformMorgan chair Antonio Citterio
Flexform MoodAline chair Roberto Lazzeroni
Flexform MoodAstrid armchair Roberto Lazzeroni
GiorgettiBarry armchair Antonello Mosca
44_ 45_more space_design library_
GiorgettiDenny armchair Laura Silverstrini
GiorgettiFrida armchair Giorgetti R&D Centre
GiorgettiIdra chair Giorgetti R&D Centre
GiorgettiMobius armchair Umberto Asnago
KartellAudrey Soft & Audrey chair Piero Lissoni
KartellComback chair Patricia Urquiola
KartellMiss Less chair Philippe Starck & Eugeni Quitllet
KartellOK stool Fabio Novembre
KartellOne More, One More Please stool Philippe Starck & Eugeni Quitllet
MaxaltoFebo collectionAntonio Citterio
MaxaltoAgathos armchair Antonio Citterio
MaxaltoLutetia armchairAntonio Citterio
MoooiExtension chair Sjoerd Vroonland
MoooiGothic chair Studio Job
Australia Asia
Poliform Tokyo armchair Niels Bendtsen
Poliform Ventura lounge chair Jean-Marie Massaud
VitraGrand Repos armchair & Panchina Antonio Citterio
VitraHal chair Jasper Morrison
VitraJill chair Alfredo Häberli
VitraSuita Fauteuil armchair Antonio Citterio
VitraTip Ton chair Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby
VitraWaver armchair Konstantin Grcic
Bocci Series 14 Omer Arbel
Bocci Series 28 Omer Arbel
Flos Kelvin LED Green Mode light Antonio Citterio & Toan Nguyen
Flos Linea Delta light Ron Gilad
Flos Superarchimoon Green Wall
Philippe Starck
Fritz Hansen Kaiser idell lamp Christian Dell
Flos Superarchimoon Panama light Philippe Starck
Flos TSIH and TYL light Piero Lissoni
Flos Wall Rupture light Thierry Dreyfus
Flos Bibliotheque Nationale light Philippe Starck
Flos Mini Kelvin LED light Antonio Citterio
Flos Can Can light Marcel Wanders
Flos Net light Philippe Starck
Flos Chrysalis light Marcel Wanders
Flos Piani light Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec
Ingo MaurerBang Boom Zettel’z Ingo Maurer
KartellBloom light Ferruccio Laviani
KartellTaj light Ferruccio Laviani
Louis Poulsen OJ lamp Ole Jensen
Louis Poulsen PH2/1 table lamp Poul Henningsen
MoooiHeracleum light Bertjan Pot
MoooiMistral light Moooi Works
MoooiMiyaki lamp Arihiro Miyaki
MoooiPosition lamps Rooms
Moooi
Bertjan Pot
Pandul Opala lamp Hans J. Wegner
44_ 45_more space_design library_
GiorgettiDenny armchair Laura Silverstrini
GiorgettiFrida armchair Giorgetti R&D Centre
GiorgettiIdra chair Giorgetti R&D Centre
GiorgettiMobius armchair Umberto Asnago
KartellAudrey Soft & Audrey chair Piero Lissoni
KartellComback chair Patricia Urquiola
KartellMiss Less chair Philippe Starck & Eugeni Quitllet
KartellOK stool Fabio Novembre
KartellOne More, One More Please stool Philippe Starck & Eugeni Quitllet
MaxaltoFebo collectionAntonio Citterio
MaxaltoAgathos armchair Antonio Citterio
MaxaltoLutetia armchairAntonio Citterio
MoooiExtension chair Sjoerd Vroonland
MoooiGothic chair Studio Job
Australia Asia
Poliform Tokyo armchair Niels Bendtsen
Poliform Ventura lounge chair Jean-Marie Massaud
VitraGrand Repos armchair & Panchina Antonio Citterio
VitraHal chair Jasper Morrison
VitraJill chair Alfredo Häberli
VitraSuita Fauteuil armchair Antonio Citterio
VitraTip Ton chair Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby
VitraWaver armchair Konstantin Grcic
Bocci Series 14 Omer Arbel
Bocci Series 28 Omer Arbel
Flos Kelvin LED Green Mode light Antonio Citterio & Toan Nguyen
Flos Linea Delta light Ron Gilad
Flos Superarchimoon Green Wall
Philippe Starck
Fritz Hansen Kaiser idell lamp Christian Dell
Flos Superarchimoon Panama light Philippe Starck
Flos TSIH and TYL light Piero Lissoni
Flos Wall Rupture light Thierry Dreyfus
Flos Bibliotheque Nationale light Philippe Starck
Flos Mini Kelvin LED light Antonio Citterio
Flos Can Can light Marcel Wanders
Flos Net light Philippe Starck
Flos Chrysalis light Marcel Wanders
Flos Piani light Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec
Ingo MaurerBang Boom Zettel’z Ingo Maurer
KartellBloom light Ferruccio Laviani
KartellTaj light Ferruccio Laviani
Louis Poulsen OJ lamp Ole Jensen
Louis Poulsen PH2/1 table lamp Poul Henningsen
MoooiHeracleum light Bertjan Pot
MoooiMistral light Moooi Works
MoooiMiyaki lamp Arihiro Miyaki
MoooiPosition lamps Rooms
Moooi
Bertjan Pot
Pandul Opala lamp Hans J. Wegner
46_ 47_more space_design library_
Australia Asia
Pandul The Pendant lamp Hans J. Wegner
B&B ItaliaTufty-Too sofa Patricia Urquiola
B&B ItaliaCharles outdoor collection Antonio Citterio
Cassina LC2 outdoor sofa Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Cassina Moov sofa Piero Lissoni
Cassina Sled sofa Rodolfo Dordoni
Fritz Hansen FAVN sofa Jaime Hayón
FlexformGrande Mare sofaAntonio Citterio
GiorgettiDhow sofa & Siam pouf Andrei Munteanu
GiorgettiMorris sofa Antonello Mosca
GiorgettiSoi sofa Chi Wing Lo
KartellFoliage sofa Patricia Urquiola
Moooi Eyes of Strangers sofa Marcel Wanders
Poliform Santa Monica sofa Jean-Marie Massaud
Acerbis Parioli system Lodovico Acerbis
Cassina Veliero bookcase Franco Albini
AcerbisNewind storage system Gabriele & Oscar Buratti
AcerbisNoveemezzo cabinet Lodovico Acerbis
DriadeForest bookcase Nendo
GiorgettiAei collection Chi Wing Lo
GiorgettiDuet storage Antonello Mosca
GiorgettiIno storage Chi Wing Lo
GiorgettiOli storage system Chi Wing Lo
GiorgettiOscar sideboard Laura Silverstrini
KartellSundial bookcase Nendo
MaxaltoMida sideboard Antonio Citterio
Carl Hansen & Søn CH110 table Hans J. Wegner
Acerbis Axlon table Gabriele & Oscar Buratti
AcerbisBlok table Nanda Vigo
DriadeDidymos table Antonia Astori
Cassina LC10 outdoor table Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Fiam ItaliaEpsylon table Fabio Di Bartolomei
Fiam ItaliaGraph table Xavier Lust
FlexformDida table Antonio Citterio
FlexformFly side table Antonio Citterio
FlexformTris side tables Antonio Citterio
Flexform MoodElliot coffee table Roberto Lazzeroni
GiorgettiArgo table Giorgetti R&D Centre
GiorgettiLeo tableLaura Silverstrini
GiorgettiNou table Chi Wing Lo
KartellKing Top table Philippe Starck & Eugeni Quitllet
KartellOyster table Mario Bellini
KartellZooom table Piero Lissoni
MoooiWoood desk Marcel Wanders
Poliform Hector table Bruno Fattorini & Partners
Poliform Howard table Jean-Marie Massaud
Poliform Soori table collection Soo Chan
VitraMap table Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby
46_ 47_more space_design library_
Australia Asia
Pandul The Pendant lamp Hans J. Wegner
B&B ItaliaTufty-Too sofa Patricia Urquiola
B&B ItaliaCharles outdoor collection Antonio Citterio
Cassina LC2 outdoor sofa Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Cassina Moov sofa Piero Lissoni
Cassina Sled sofa Rodolfo Dordoni
Fritz Hansen FAVN sofa Jaime Hayón
FlexformGrande Mare sofaAntonio Citterio
GiorgettiDhow sofa & Siam pouf Andrei Munteanu
GiorgettiMorris sofa Antonello Mosca
GiorgettiSoi sofa Chi Wing Lo
KartellFoliage sofa Patricia Urquiola
Moooi Eyes of Strangers sofa Marcel Wanders
Poliform Santa Monica sofa Jean-Marie Massaud
Acerbis Parioli system Lodovico Acerbis
Cassina Veliero bookcase Franco Albini
AcerbisNewind storage system Gabriele & Oscar Buratti
AcerbisNoveemezzo cabinet Lodovico Acerbis
DriadeForest bookcase Nendo
GiorgettiAei collection Chi Wing Lo
GiorgettiDuet storage Antonello Mosca
GiorgettiIno storage Chi Wing Lo
GiorgettiOli storage system Chi Wing Lo
GiorgettiOscar sideboard Laura Silverstrini
KartellSundial bookcase Nendo
MaxaltoMida sideboard Antonio Citterio
Carl Hansen & Søn CH110 table Hans J. Wegner
Acerbis Axlon table Gabriele & Oscar Buratti
AcerbisBlok table Nanda Vigo
DriadeDidymos table Antonia Astori
Cassina LC10 outdoor table Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
Fiam ItaliaEpsylon table Fabio Di Bartolomei
Fiam ItaliaGraph table Xavier Lust
FlexformDida table Antonio Citterio
FlexformFly side table Antonio Citterio
FlexformTris side tables Antonio Citterio
Flexform MoodElliot coffee table Roberto Lazzeroni
GiorgettiArgo table Giorgetti R&D Centre
GiorgettiLeo tableLaura Silverstrini
GiorgettiNou table Chi Wing Lo
KartellKing Top table Philippe Starck & Eugeni Quitllet
KartellOyster table Mario Bellini
KartellZooom table Piero Lissoni
MoooiWoood desk Marcel Wanders
Poliform Hector table Bruno Fattorini & Partners
Poliform Howard table Jean-Marie Massaud
Poliform Soori table collection Soo Chan
VitraMap table Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby
Con
cept
and
Sty
ling
Col
lage
Stu
dio.
Pho
to F
abriz
io B
erga
mo.
MAXALTO IS A B&B ITALIA BRAND. COLLECTION COORDINATED BY ANTONIO CITTERIO. [email protected] WWW.MAXALTO.IT
more space_
Design Icon-
Jas- on Ong
words_stephen craftiphotography_danny chong
cover archetypes and even symbols of bad taste. Growing up in any country would yield a range of local icons.”
Ong considers Hans Wegner’s Wishbone chair, inspired by the traditional Ming chair, to be iconic. “I own one of these chairs. It’s still one of the most recognisable pieces of Danish Modernist design. Wegner reduced its form
Based in Singapore and focused internationally, Jason Ong is a designer who sees iconic beauty in the materiality of things.
In 2008, Singapore-based designer Jason Ong unveiled his Living in Clover pendant lamp, a light conceived in collaboration with Singapore fashion designer Ben Wu. Now produced by Driade, this multi-
adorned both the ceiling above a catwalk, as well
couture, with the hundreds of polypropylene petals draped around a model after being lowered from the ceiling. Trained in industrial design, but initially working as an interior designer in the architectural practice KNTA Architects upon graduation, Ong sees furniture and lighting in a spatial context.
Another of Ong’s designs, The Chair for Daydreamers, is a weightless, almost Salvador Dali-like expression in steel ‘perched’ in midair. “The Chair for Daydreamers
awards including President’s Young Talent Award in 2005 and Design Singapore Council’s 20/20 Designer in 2006.
Ong modestly attributes his success to his varied design background. Before studying industrial design, Ong was both a graphic designer, as well as a photographic assistant. Later design choices included set design and public artwork. Given Ong’s experience, it’s not surprising that his design process varies for each project. “I dislike
certain development processes used by other creative
music composition or I could as easily be inspired by 1960s conceptual artists. I’m a designer who is more interested in art than design,” says Ong.
Ong thinks carefully about the way he responds when asked about design icons. He considers a design icon to be more an image that’s recognisable by the masses. “A design icon has acquired its value [by] a breakthrough in technology, whether it’s through material, production or form,” he says. Ong also feels
and weight to a minimum,” says Ong, who is also masterful at reducing a design to its essence. “Like most icons, it’s heavily imitated. It’s ironic, as the Wishbone chair highly references the Ming chair
makes it a ‘copy’,” he says. However, the variety of timbers used by Wegner has created an entirely new feel from that of the Ming chair. “The timber makes the chair extremely sensual,” adds Ong.
Above Exploring material innovation and a reductive design aesthetic, Jason Ong considers the Wishbone chair designed by Hans Wegner in 1949 to be a true design icon.
48_
Con
cept
and
Sty
ling
Col
lage
Stu
dio.
Pho
to F
abriz
io B
erga
mo.
MAXALTO IS A B&B ITALIA BRAND. COLLECTION COORDINATED BY ANTONIO CITTERIO. [email protected] WWW.MAXALTO.IT
more space_
Design Icon-
Jas- on Ong
words_stephen craftiphotography_danny chong
cover archetypes and even symbols of bad taste. Growing up in any country would yield a range of local icons.”
Ong considers Hans Wegner’s Wishbone chair, inspired by the traditional Ming chair, to be iconic. “I own one of these chairs. It’s still one of the most recognisable pieces of Danish Modernist design. Wegner reduced its form
Based in Singapore and focused internationally, Jason Ong is a designer who sees iconic beauty in the materiality of things.
In 2008, Singapore-based designer Jason Ong unveiled his Living in Clover pendant lamp, a light conceived in collaboration with Singapore fashion designer Ben Wu. Now produced by Driade, this multi-
adorned both the ceiling above a catwalk, as well
couture, with the hundreds of polypropylene petals draped around a model after being lowered from the ceiling. Trained in industrial design, but initially working as an interior designer in the architectural practice KNTA Architects upon graduation, Ong sees furniture and lighting in a spatial context.
Another of Ong’s designs, The Chair for Daydreamers, is a weightless, almost Salvador Dali-like expression in steel ‘perched’ in midair. “The Chair for Daydreamers
awards including President’s Young Talent Award in 2005 and Design Singapore Council’s 20/20 Designer in 2006.
Ong modestly attributes his success to his varied design background. Before studying industrial design, Ong was both a graphic designer, as well as a photographic assistant. Later design choices included set design and public artwork. Given Ong’s experience, it’s not surprising that his design process varies for each project. “I dislike
certain development processes used by other creative
music composition or I could as easily be inspired by 1960s conceptual artists. I’m a designer who is more interested in art than design,” says Ong.
Ong thinks carefully about the way he responds when asked about design icons. He considers a design icon to be more an image that’s recognisable by the masses. “A design icon has acquired its value [by] a breakthrough in technology, whether it’s through material, production or form,” he says. Ong also feels
and weight to a minimum,” says Ong, who is also masterful at reducing a design to its essence. “Like most icons, it’s heavily imitated. It’s ironic, as the Wishbone chair highly references the Ming chair
makes it a ‘copy’,” he says. However, the variety of timbers used by Wegner has created an entirely new feel from that of the Ming chair. “The timber makes the chair extremely sensual,” adds Ong.
Above Exploring material innovation and a reductive design aesthetic, Jason Ong considers the Wishbone chair designed by Hans Wegner in 1949 to be a true design icon.
48_
