At Salone del Mobile we had the great honor to spend time with Marianne Panton (pictured with the DWR team, third from left), who shared personal insights and stories about her late husband, the masterful designer Verner Panton. The designer passed away in 1998, leaving behind a portfolio of work that is still unmatched in terms of innovative, beautiful and thought-provoking modern design. CONTINUED + MORE PHOTOS...
Tom Dixon didn’t just set up a booth at Salone del Mobile; he built a Multiplex. Defined as “a pop-up viewing theatre, broadcasting centre, restaurant, shop and gallery.” Dixon created an interactive experience, which was a refreshing change after two days of seeing furniture on pedestals. “Furniture displays are always so static,” said Dixon as we relaxed in the “viewing theatre” part of his space. CONTINUED + MORE PHOTOS...
Wondering what 111 people have to say about the 111 Navy Chair? Check out the responses we’ve received from architects, designers and other industry professionals. The response card above is from Tucker Viemeister, who is the holder of 32 U.S. utility patents, a graduate of Pratt Institute and, in keeping with his creative profile, named after the “car of tomorrow” called the Tucker 48. See additional responses.
Wondering what happens when Dedon -- the outdoor furniture powerhouse -- plays with Philippe Starck? Check out the new outdoor collection called Play and learn more about the collaboration in the Dedon Blogazine.
Celebrating what would have been his 85th birthday, we're featuring the work of Verner Panton today. Drawing on his architectural background, Panton designed ground-breaking domestic living spaces – fusing disparate elements such as floor, wall, furniture, lighting, and textile – into wholly original and indivisible interiors. The effects of these spaces, with Panton's characteristic preferences for geomatric shapes and intense colors, melded seamlessly with the emerging psychadelic sensibilities. Learn more about Verner Panton.
Through February 26, an exhibit at Hôtel de Ville de Paris is celebrating the famed French interior designer Andrée Putman. With a career spanning six-decades, Putman is known as “la reine du damier” (the queen of the checkerboard). Her signature graphics have been installed on everything from luxury jets to pianos to the rooms of the Morgans Hotel in New York. In her work with this hotel, she invented the boutique hotel concept and later designed the Morgans Chair.
Hans J. Wegner (pronounced VEG-ner in English and VAY-ner in Danish) preferred to work in solid wood, but occasionally he explored the use of bent plywood, and for that we are very thankful. Sometimes called the “smiling chair,” his Shell Chair (1963) achieves a floating lightness due to its wing-like seat and the arching curves of its tapered legs. Learn more about the Shell Chair at DWR.
After launching his Etch Pendant last year, designer Tom Dixon deserved to celebrate with champagne. So it is befitting that his newest creation, the Comet Lamp, was designed for Veuve Clicquot. The Comet will make its debut during Art Stage Singapore. We raise our glass to you Tom!
Oscar Niemeyer, who turned 103 last week, has a lot to celebrate. On December 15, Brazil opened the Niemeyer Foundation (shown above), located just outside Rio de Janeiro, and Spain inaugurated the Oscar Niemeyer Cultural Center located in Aviles. The Rio native, who was born in 1907, is known for creating buildings with free-flowing, sensual curves, which he finds “in the mountains of my country, in the winding course of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean and on the body of the beloved woman.”
Emerging as a pioneer of the “high tech” interior design movement in the late ’70s, Joseph D’Urso is interviewed here by Ms. Barbaralee Diamonstein (and her fantastic hair). It’s an engaging and informative conversation with this cutting edge designer, whose work for Knoll® is available at Design Within Reach. More about Joe will be posted to dwr.com later this week, when we add his bio to his product pages.
Naturally, Charles and Ray Eames would never have just any Christmas tree or holiday card. In 1946, they created their “tree” (left) out of molded chair legs and candles, and their holiday card (right) featured the two of them inside a snow globe. What’s especially impressive about this card is that it was created before computers. Charles didn’t have photoshop to help him. Fortunately, the Eameses also created a lot of beautiful furniture, and it’s all included in the Herman Miller® Sale, which ends today.
Anyone who’s seen the movie The Graduate is familiar with the scene when Mr. McGuire says to Benjamin, “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word … Plastics.” And while this suggestion is dated today (it was even a bit dated when the movie was made in 1967), the truth is that plastics were big business – a “wonder material” that emerged after WWII. Charles and Ray Eames, who started working with it for chair production, immediately recognized the possibilities of plastics.
And speaking of family gatherings, where do you think Alexander Girard got the idea to make his iconic dolls? I’m guessing there were some entertaining holidays at the Girard house. Enjoy, be safe and (unlike the tall center doll) stay warm.
Design Within Reach honors the life and work of Robin Day, who died November 9 at the age of 95. The British furniture designer was described by the Design Museum as “a deeply moral and highly principled designer, who was not interested in making a design statement, but in solving practical problems in the most rigorous, efficient and cost-effective way.” In 1962, the designer stated that “a good design must fulfill its purpose well, be soundly constructed, and should express in its design this purpose and construction.” His wife, the influential textile designer Lucienne Day, passed away earlier this year.
Alberto Alessi, who is the president of Alessi S.p.A., will be honored tomorrow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with Collab’s distinguished Design Excellence Award. On Sunday, November 21, the museum will open its exhibit “Alessi: Ethical and Radical.” Alberto’s grandfather, Giovanni Alessi, founded the family-owned and operated company in 1921 near Lake Orta in the foothills of the Italian Alps, an area known for highly developed craft traditions in wood and metal. In the 1950s, under the leadership of Carlo Alessi (Alberto’s father), the company began to commission products from outside designers, and it was through this strategy that Alberto Alessi brought the company to the forefront of international design.
The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a major exhibition: On Becoming An Artist: Isamu Noguchi and his Contemporaries, 1922–1960. One of the great sculptors of the 20th century, Noguchi searched for a better understanding of nature by recreating it. Whether through his large stone sculptures or the organic Akari lamps that he crafted or the spaces he created in gardens, theater sets and interiors. The exhibit explores Noguchi’s influential friendships with such seminal figures as Alexander Calder, Buckminster Fuller, Louis Kahn and Richard Neutra. Learn more at noguchi.org. Photo: Early promotional photograph of Akari, 1950s. Courtesy of Noguchi Museum.
“Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch’s architectural aesthetic has hit the luxury-recession sweet spot, and their firm, Roman and Williams, is behind many of the new New York spaces so reassuringly steeped in the old. Just don’t accuse them of nostalgia.”
Read more about this designer-architect team in an in-depth article from New York magazine. We guarantee that you will be seeing a lot more from Roman and Williams in the near future and we are very excited to announce that they are working on a line of furniture for us. Roman and Williams: coming soon to DWR.
In 1977*, Charles and Ray Eames made a nine-minute film called Powers of Ten that takes the viewer on an unforgettable journey. It starts with a sleeping man at a picnic, then takes you out to the edge of space, and then brings you back, and into, the hand of the sleeping man. Every year on the tenth of October, the Eames Office celebrates the Power of Ten. This year’s celebration includes an online streaming of the film. You can also purchase a copy for yourself in the six-volume Eames DVD Set, which includes nearly 400 minutes of films by Charles and Ray Eames. This DVD Set is included in our Semiannual Sale.
The Eames Office is also celebrating the Powers of Ten with the Penfolds Tenfold. It includes a limited edition Eames® House of Cards wine rack, commemorative box and a magnum of Penfolds 2007 Bin 389. To order, call 707.265.5107 or visit www.cellar360.com/eames. Enter EAMES at checkout for an extra 25% discount.
This week was the grand opening of the Vignelli Center for Design on the campus of Rochester Institute of Technology. The center houses a permanent archive of the work of Massimo and Lella Vignelli, whose projects included New York City subway signage, Heller Dinnerware, corporate identity programs for Xerox and American Airlines, packaging for Bloomingdales, and many other iconic works. The new Center, as described by RIT, is “a place for design education, research and critical examination. The key concept in all
From cognac to bouillabaisse, knockwurst to finocchi, the CBS Cafeteria Wall celebrates the world’s culinary traditions and is as renowned as its visionary designer, Lou Dorfsman. Spanning 33 feet in length, the sculpture consists of eight-foot-high panels covered with wooden words interspersed with three-dimensional objects like spoons, jelly jars and an egg beater from Dorfsman’s own kitchen. Dorfsman called his opus “Gastrotypographicalassemblage” and he produced it with design legends Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, who masterfully crafted the typography, which is set in a grid that is an homage to the days when metal type was stored in printers’ drawers.
