Luca Nichetto, designer of the IMM Cologne’s 2013 “Das Haus” installation.
As you make plans for 2013, one of the must do’s is a visit to the IMM Cologne furniture fair. Why? It’s a great place to see strong furniture brands made in Germany. Austria, and Switzerland debuting innovative product releases. Earlier this year we saw the launch of Konstantin Grcic’s Pro chair for Flötotto that was a hit at the show.
Germany’s robust economy means that strong German furniture brands like Walter Knoll, Dauphin, and E15 continue to showcase innovative products (the fair organizers estimate that around 1,250 companies from more than 50 countries will be in attendance). And if you are on the look out for the next design wunderkind, the fair’s d3 Design Talents is among the best-curated exhibitions of young designers from around the world.
A rendering of “Das Haus” by Nichetto.
But the fair has other reasons that make it worth visiting. The LivingKitchen, which is held in odd-numbered years, is a great place to learn about the latest kitchen and bath trends. The famous engineering and precision of German luxury cars can also be found in the work of many of the country’s kitchen and bathroom manufacturers, including Miele, Hansgrohe, Gaggenau, Dornbracht, and Poggenpohl. With 160 exhibitors from 18 countries, you’ll be seeing popular kitchen trends that continue the idea of open plan kitchens, smart appliances, and the use of material combinations of ceramic, glass, stainless steel and wood.
The IMM Cologne furniture fair is worth visiting because you get to see furniture made in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland that you might not see elsewhere, as well as product debuts by wunder stars like Stefan Diez or Konstantin Grcic. Moreover the fair’s d3 Design Talents section is among the best-curated exhibitions of young designers from around the world. And the organizers’ strong track record of presenting trends in furniture and interiors is bound to trickle down to the home section of your local newspaper in a few years time. All this makes IMM Cologne worth paying attention to. But it’s the organizers’ foresight in identifying new design talent, way before they become superstars, and commissioning them to create the Ideal House that’s become a most anticipated event in the industry. Through the years we have seen installations by Hella Jongerius, Patricia Urquiola, Naoto Fukasawa, and the Bouroullec brothers. After an absence of four years, the Ideal House concept, “Das Haus,” is back, showcasing this year’s guest designers, the London studio Doshi Levien.
I’m a sucker for the Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa. He is a master at stripping an object down to just a handful of details—its formal essence—and then resolving those details elegantly, simply, and, ultimately, poetically. His new Shelving System for the venerable Finish company Artek feels like a perfect match of designer sensibility and Alvar Alto–inspired brand. They’re made for each other. The painted MDF shelves snap snugly into the smoothly notched corners of the birch ladders. The zinc and aluminum wire cross-bracing prevents a simple object from appearing too simple—giving it depth—while at the same time allowing it to work as a space divider. It’s curious. The shelves have a warmth that isn’t fully conveyed in the photos. But that makes me love them even more.
There is no such thing as a perfect chair (or a perfect anything, for that matter) but Naoto Fukasawa’s Hiroshima dining chair is, if not perfect, then perfectly sublime. The chair is part of a larger collection the great designer did in 2008 for Maruni, the Japanese furniture company.
Every detail here is poetically resolved: the curve of the arms, the graceful tilt of the back rest where body meets chair, the subtly tapered legs, the ever-so-slight curve of the seat, even the small but perceptual space between the seat and front legs, which gives the chair a kind of visual lift. It feels grounded and graceful and light, simultaneously.
On Sunday morning at ICFF, as Asian music wafted through the ancillary hall where a terrific exhibition honoring Japanese design was installed, a small group of us stood around this humble beech chair, staring at it, wondering how something so simple and quiet could be this…powerful. And yet powerful feels like the wrong (Western) word here. “It doesn’t scream at you,” said Walter Hawkins, admiring the chair, “but it does speak to you.”
Since Gary Hustwit’s upcoming industrial-design documentary, Objectified, is all about products and the people who make them, here is a helpful (though incomplete) cheat sheet to what you’ll find in the just-released trailer: Naota Fukasawa’s hand, the wall-mounted CD player he designed for Muji, a Panton chair, an Apple laptop, a Mercedes-Benz (wild guess—it looks like the Stuttgart museum to me ) convertible, a Leica camera, a Braun radio, an Oxo peeler, Jasper Morrison’s Air chair being manufactured, a mess of cell phones, Muji and IKEA stores, Smart Design’s Flip Mino pocket video camera, and an ad for an Sanyo’s waterless Aqua washing machine. Oh, right, and Karim Rashid, too. God knows he needs the publicity.
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