Milan furniture fair 2011: The wonderful, the weird and oh-so-much in between

We blogged a lot on the Milan furniture fair, the world's largest home design exhibition, where companies premiere their new collections at events throughout the city. We saw dining tables topped with giant ceramic tiles, chairs made from ax handles, chests of drawers crafted from vintage suitcases and a whole lot more. Now the coverage from Milan design week has been compiled in one convenient photo gallery. Enjoy.

-- Craig Nakano

Collage photos, top row, clockwise from left: Gervasoni's InOut table designed by Paola Navone, Casamania's Loop chair designed by Sophie De Vocht, Magis' Tom & Jerry stools designed by Konstantin Grcic, and one of the Icons chairs by Jan Plechac. Credits, in same order: Franco Forci / For The Times, Franco Forci / For The Times, Magis, Kristina Hrabetova.

Collage photos, bottom row, clockwise from left: Magis' Cyborg chair by Marcel Wanders, Moroso's Moon chair by Tokujin Yoshioka, Axechairs by Floris Schoonderbeek, chests of drawers by Jamesplumb. Credits, in same order: Magis, Moroso, Franco Forci / For The Times, Franco Forci / For The Times.

Photo: The Kartell booth at the Milan furniture fair, where more than 2,700 companies showcased products across about 2.3 million square feet of exhibition space. Credit: Franco Forci / For The Times

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The 2011 show: trends and standout

New looks for the home office: Which desk is your cup of tea?

With the Milan furniture fair behind me, it's almost time to start thinking about real work again. Sigh. As a bit of a mental preparation, the Milan show included some interesting desk designs, many departing from the angular, glass and powder-coated metal models filling so many modern decor stores. The pieces premiering in Milan introduced shapely curves and organic materials for decidedly softer, warmer looks.

The Italian firm Ceccotti Collezioni introduced Omaggio, above, whose stack of four drawer boxes pivot, so they can be accessed from different angles. An open storage cubby lies on the left side. The wooden top rail angles away from the work surface, heightening the effect of a floating glass top; an aerial view photo is at the end of this post.

Need to block out distractions? Ligne Roset premiered the Rewrite desk, above, which enshrouds you in a soft, cloud-white dome of privacy.

 

Arco took its design for pivoting drawers and added a work surface to create the new Pivot desk, above, a space-saver with nesting storage compartments that pull down for access. The photo here shows the desk in lighter shades, but at the Milan show, Pivot looked better in walnut.

At an exhibition at the Triennale, Milan's design museum, the press check-in desk for Ceramic Tiles of Italy was a rainbow of teacups set under an acrylic work surface, above.

Getting modular in Milan: Zaha Hadid's Wave shelf for Magis, Arik Levy's Fold lights for Vibia

Architect Zaha Hadid created a modular wall system called Wave that Magis showcased nicely at the Milan furniture fair. The pieces, above, can be arranged to different effect, creating free-flowing lines or abrupt transitions, open voids or enclosed spaces.

The Fold lights designed by Arik Levy, below, also take a modular approach, allowing customers some freedom in deciding how to arrange little pieces into a larger whole. The fixtures are LED, and the folded-paper motif echoed origami-like designs seen elsewhere in Milan. The manufacturer of Fold is Vibia, a name that most American consumers probably do not know. But at Euroluce, the lighting exposition held in conjunction with the Milan furniture fair, Vibia had the most impressive offerings, along with the Flos and Foscarini.

-- Craig Nakano in Milan, Italy

Photo credits: From top, Magis, Vibia

PHOTO GALLERY:

Highlights from Milan furniture fair 2011

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Story vases from Front, Siyazama and Editions in Craft

 

The MegaPhone, an iPhone speaker unplugged

Think of the MegaPhone as an iPhone speaker for the analog sentimentalist. Or as co-designer Enrico Bosa declared, "It's a digital Gramophone."

Indeed, as Bosa demonstrated his music amplifier, a Ferdinando Buscaglione tune crackled with the tone of a days-gone-by music player, charming passersby in the Salone Satellite area for emerging designers at the Milan furniture fair last week in Italy.

Bosa and Isabella Lovero, who design under the name En & Is, have created a ceramic piece that looks less urinal-istic and more like minimalist sculpture than the photo here might imply. It falls into the cute-and-clever category, and I easily could imagine it playing on an L.A. patio some summer evening.

Bosa said the MegaPhone will sell for 250 Euro, or about $360. I'm not sure how large of a market he will find for speakers that make digital music sound like vintage recordings, but in terms of sheer novelty, the design was a hit.

-- Craig Nakano in Milan, Italy

Photo: Franco Forci / For The Times

PHOTO GALLERY:

Milan furniture fair 2011 highlights

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Moroso's Paper Planes fly higher a year later

I heard grumbling last week at the Milan furniture fair that firms were showing fewer new designs and instead were just rolling out 2010 looks in new colors and materials. That's true, to a certain extent, but it's also true that consumers can benefit from the editing.

Take Moroso's Paper Planes, designed by Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien. When I first saw the chairs, they were upholstered in a graphic pattern punctuated by crystals, right. This year in Milan, the chairs were shown in solid colors minus the sparkle, and dare I say, I think these Paper Planes fly higher. The lack of decoration better emphasizes the form that makes the chairs special in the first place.

I was less enthralled by Moroso's new looks for the Klara chairs by Patricia Urquiola. I do think the 2011 display, below left, probably will be easier to sell, but what made the 2010 look so fantastic was how the Pop red and blue played off the traditional cane back, below right. That original Klara was one of the pieces I remembered best from 2010. 

-- Craig Nakano in Milan, Italy

Photo credit, Paper Planes detail: Moroso

Photo credit, all others: Franco Forci / For The Times

PHOTO GALLERY:

Milan furniture fair 2011 highlights

RELATED:

Starck lamps doubles as iPad dock

Porro's best in show

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Story vases from Front, Siyazama and Editions in Craft

 

Porro premieres a geometric beauty from the design studio Front

By the time the Milan furniture fair closed Sunday, one of the clearest trends to emerge was a renewed love of wood. Oak and walnut replaced powder-coated steel as the materials choice, as booth after booth showcased upholstered chairs and glass tables set on wooden legs, ceramic side tables set on wooden bases, and bookcases and bedroom furniture in natural wood finishes.

One standout: a new chest of drawers from the Italian firm Porro. Oak inlays in four shades created a gorgeous geometric puzzle. The design, by the Swedish studio Front, looked angular yet soft, and the play of the wood grain and the offset position of drawer pulls added a touch of irreverence.

PHOTO GALLERY:

Milan furniture fair 2011 highlights

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Story vases from Front, Siyazama and Editions in Craft

Molo's lighted bag for Japanese relief

Konstantin Grcic shows off his new Cape

-- Craig Nakano in Milan, Italy

Photo: Oak inlays in four shades create a gorgeous geometric puzzle in a chest of drawers from the Italian firm Porro, designed by Swedish studio Front. Credit: Franco Forci / For The Times

 

Philippe Starck's Net lamp for Flos doubles as a docking station for iPad and iPhone

 

Flos' new Net, a table lamp that doubles as an iPad or iPhone dock, was the most interesting design at Euroluce, the lighting exhibition held every other year at the Milan furniture fair. The design, by Philippe Starck with Eugene Quitllet, has a docking connection atop the LED fixture. A small vertical stand behind the devices keeps them propped up.

Net offers the sheer functional beauty of recharging devices without cluttering the desk. But it's easy to imagine customers using their phones or tables as digital picture frames. An iPad user might even get a wireless keyboard and have an instant work space: task lighting, keyboard and screen.

PHOTO GALLERY:

Milan furniture fair 2011 highlights 

RELATED:

Why Milan matters

Story vases from Front, Siyazama and Editions in Craft

Molo's lighted bag for Japanese relief

-- Craig Nakano in Milan, Italy

Photo: Flos' Net table lamp could be set up as an instant iPad work space. Credit: Franco Forci / For The Times

 

 

At Ventura Lambrate, a rocking horse for big, big kids

Among the amusements during the weeklong carnival of design in Milan: the giant rocking horse created by Fabian Von Spreckelsen, a German student at the Academy of Fine Art Maastricht in the Netherlands.

Von Spreckelsen built his horse with quarter-inch-thick sheets of steel, brown leather and more than 5,000 stitches. His goals were twofold: to reduce the silhouette of a horse to a minimum, and to make the rocking motion look realistic. (It is.) Von Spreckelsen said a scout from Louis Vuitton already had been by and expressed interest in the piece.

The photo was taken on the first day of the Ventura Lambrate exhibition in what's emerging as Milan's third design district. Milan's high-end showrooms have long been in the Brera district, and though the Zona Tortona neighborhood used to be where emerging designers could exhibit their work in low-key, low-rent quarters during design week, Tortona has gone the way of West Hollywood and Silver Lake.

In 2010 the younger designers began to show in Lambrate, and this year the area seems to be gathering steam, with emerging talent showcasing their ideas in empty factories that once produced motorcycles and coffee makers.

In the same industrial hall where Von Spreckelsen was rocking, Leonie Aretz was exhibiting with her fellow design students from Kunsthochschule Kassel in Germany. Aretz's piece was 42K, right, a table anchored by a limestone base that weighs 42 kilos. The ash stick sits in an angled well inside the stone, allowing the aluminum table to pivot without actually moving the base.

More reports from Milan via Twitter: @cnakano.

-- Craig Nakano in Milan, Italy

Photos: Franco Forci / For The Times

Swedish designers, South African crafters team up to create Story vases

What I love most about these Story vases made of beaded glass: Although the collection was organized by a nonprofit and proceeds advance a social good, the vases stand on their own as compelling pieces of design.

It helps that the vases are lighted like a museum display, and it also helps that the venue is Spazio Rossana Orlandi, the celebrated Italian gallery that is exhibiting no fewer than four dozen designers during Milan's design week.

The Story vases are holding their own just fine. The collection, organized by the nonprofit Editions in Craft, pairs the Swedish design studio Front with the Siyazama Project, a program aiding marginalized women in rural South Africa.

To create the glass vases, the designers of Front interviewed five Siyazama women and compiled personal stories that included their dreams — dreams of flying in an airplane for the first time, of owning a house, of getting married, of having their work appreciated in other parts of the world. The Siyazama women then spelled out portions of their stories in beads wrapped around a wooden mold. When the beads were set, the mold was removed and a Swedish glassblower filled the void, created a transparent page for the women's stories.

The results are one-of-a-kind objects: The irregular silhouettes, the varied thickness of the glass and the occasional bulge protruding between letters create a wonderful effect. Because the piece is transparent, the portions of glass that fall between letters can look like a series of lenses, each refracting light with subtle variation.

Editions in Craft co-founder Ikko Yokoyama said the projects helps to revive a traditional art, to form a collaboration where both designers and fabricators are celebrated, and to generate income for the craftswomen. Each vase is 1,440 euros, about $2,100, and Yokoyama said a "tiny" fee goes to the designers and the bulk of the proceeds will go to the Siyazama women directly.

For a few more images from Spazio Rossana Orlandi, keep reading ...

Milan furniture fair 2011: Early looks from the show

The Milan furniture fair officially opened Tuesday, and so far I've seen only a fraction of the world's most important showcase for new furniture design. It's also the largest: Imagine walking a maze of furniture inside all four exhibition halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center, then walking it again. And again. We’re talking 2,265,803 square feet of furniture displays, a space larger than 39 football fields or 482 pro basketball courts. I'd calculate how many CB2 stores that might be, but I'm too tired.

The show continues through Sunday, but here are some early headlines: The free-spirited patterns that were a trend last year -- florals, geometics and free-form abstracts -- have disappeared almost entirely, replaced with a striking barrage of solid hues, as though manufacturers expect consumers to approach decorating as an exercise in color-blocking. In white, the Ploum sofa pictured above, designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for manufacturer Ligne Roset, does indeed feel like you're sitting on a cloud. In solid red, it has a completely different effect, like a piece of Pop art.

Designers continue to invoke new technology, using advanced materials and fabrications to create silhouettes that are thin and light yet structurally sound. Others, including Fernando and Humberto Campana, have done the opposite by premiering over-scaled chairs and sofas covered in upholstery that has been bunched up or crinkled to an extreme. It's a rumpled look that is sheer torture for the tidy minimalist. For example, there's the Campanas' new Grinza chair, right, at the Edra booth.

For me, the surprise of day 1 was the collection from the Italian firm Porro, which had a dynamite design from the Swedish studio Front. It's so new that Porro had not yet photographed the chest of drawers and cabinet, both with stunning geometric inlays in four earthy shades of oak. I'll be making the rounds with a photographer on Thursday, so we'll have images soon. In meantime, keep reading for more first impressions ...