Hasta La Ideas

Handmade fruit bowls. Each one is unique one-off piece.

Milan 2012: Slovenian designer Nika Zupanc presented a set of outdoor furniture and lamps like huge pink bubbles at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan.

The Summertime collection includes folding chairs with metallic pink frames and black leather seats, and a table with turnkeys at the sides so the top flips upright to become a blackboard.

The Bubble lamps are blown from pink glass with black holders and come in 45 or 60cm diameters.

See more work by Nika Zupanc on Dezeen here.

Bubble lamps were also presented by Swedish designers Front at Spazio Rossana Orlandi, although theirs blow actual soap bubbles every few seconds – check it out here.

The Salone Internazionale del Mobile took place from 17 to 22 April. See all our stories about Milan 2012 here, and check out photos on Facebook and Pinterest.

Top image is by Saša Hess. Product photos are by Dragan Arrigler.

Here are some more details from Zupanc:

Another year, and a bunch of new poems for taking Milan out of its comfort zone. This time, Nika Zupanc is bringing with her a squat of innocent looking pieces that mindfully explore the limits of the industry when it comes to emotional effect and the juxtaposition of materials.

Zupanc has no intention of taking anything lightly so she makes something as forgiving as summer a hostage for the quest of finding novel expressions to transgress the rationalism, utilitarism and practical common sense. To accomplish this, she uses her poetic judgment, inner battles with stereotypes and long-lasting affairs with technologies.

The ultimate design repertoire, consisting of a lamp, a chair and a table, are now taken into a completely wild territory: the summery outdoors. Numerous interpretations of their generic nature equip the objects with a disturbing beauty and defamiliarization of collective summer memories brings an uncanny allure to the Summertime collection. The Bubble lamps are made of an extraordinary pink glass, produced by Vistosi brand with centenary tradition in glass of Murano for Nika Zupanc. But the flourish blow up of rosa antico is what makes them an intruder to the mise-en-scène of dying glory of Lord Byron’s Venice. Foldable Summertime chairs with their red gold embroidered seat cushions are unsettlingly engaging, while the Summertime table in its noir surface and toy-like winding mechanism hides the potential of an impromptu blackboard or a mirror, your own private vanity fair.

Summertime

The sweet feeling of forever and the permanent bitter lack of nowness are the main characteristics that Nika Zupanc extracts from summer and multiplies in her objects du jour.

The Summertime pieces are stripped down to pure form, to their utilitarian value only to be inflated with poetic longing.

In the quest of finding new ways to transgress the practical common sense and to test its limits of emotive effects, Zupanc argues technologies and ways predominantly associated with the so called boys club and their playground. To accomplish this, she uses her poetic judgment, inner battles with stereotypes and long-lasting affairs with technologies.

The repertoire with which Nika Zupanc likes to play hard consists of a lamp, a chair and a table. A true classic is this time taken into a completely wild territory: the summery outdoors, resulting in numerous interpretations of their generic nature. The iconic summer elements and sounds of seagulls have to survive in a new context. Defamiliarization of viewer’s perception of these memories is something that brings an uncanny allure to the collection.

The Bubble lamps are made of an extraordinary pink glass, produced by Vistosi brand with centenary tradition in glass of Murano for Nika Zupanc. But the flourish blow up of rosa antico is what makes them an intruder to the mise-en-scène of dying glory of Lord Byron’s Venice. Foldable Summertime chairs with their red gold embroidered ancors and tubular metal frames are unsettlingly engaging, while the Summertime table in its noir surface and toy-like winding mechanism hides the potential of an impromptu blackboard or a mirror, your own private vanity fair.

Bubble lamp – a natural born intruder

Taking Venetian street lamps for a hostage of its poetic needs is what you will come to expect from this illuminator of the most mischievous kind. That it unprecedentedly blows up the proportions of Murano glass and does so in pink implies its role of an invader to the mise-en-scène of Lord Byron‘s Venice. Perfectly shaped, it silently glows with no buzz or fuzz, like it is just waiting for the next vaporetto. Its misplaced beauty is noticed instantly, even from across the room.

Materials: glass, metal
Glass blowing produced by Vistosi brand with centenary tradition in glass of Murano.
Colours: pink glass, black lamp holder
Lamp diameter: 60 and 45 cm

Summertime chair – the disruption of the outdoors

With its strong foldable tubular metal frame it could have been just another well-behaved object, resisting the demanding life in lush gardens, however, it has a more subversive role to play. Dipped in red gold colour it brings an uncanny allure to the sweet tackiness of summer memories. In the meantime the embroidery of an iconic summer visual, an anchor, stirs up a palette of novel connotations, finally allowing you to have an affair with this post-suburban bad boy gone red gold.

Materials: tubular metal frame, shark outdoor textile, embroidery
Colours: black upholstery, red gold frame

Summertime table – an afternoon painted noir

Designed as a surface of purification and temptation, it makes a staggering first impression and a lifelong obsession. Of course it can take all the challenges of a sleek coffee table, but its toy-like winding mechanisms hint at the potential of switching perspectives. On the one side it is, how very cerebral, an impromptu blackboard for taking down emotional bits and bobs. On the other, your own private vanity fair with a full length mirror, waiting for the first blink of an eye.

Materials: tubular metal frame, enameled tin plates, mirror foil
Colours: blackboard, red gold legs