Hasta La Ideas

German industrial designer Konstantin Grcic has created a series of futuristic scenarios as part of the largest solo exhibition of his work at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany (+ movie).

Grcic worked closely with curators at the Vitra Design Museum to create a series of installations that depict environments for future living based on his personal vision of design’s role in modern society.

“We consider Konstantin Grcic to be one of the most influential designers of our time – his approach and his aesthetic is probably the most advanced and radical,” Vitra Design Museum director Mateo Kries told Dezeen.

“He is at the peak of his career, but still he has never staged an exhibition that conveys the visual world, the themes and the narratives that inspire him. These were some of the reasons why we decided to work with him on a large solo exhibition,” Kries added.

The installations include a fictional home interior, design studio and urban environment featuring several of Grcis’s iconic designs, such as the Mayday lamp for Flos and Chair One for Magis.

The first of the installations, called Life Space, resembles a typical home featuring everyday objects including some of Grcic’s own designs, which are arranged on a raised platform.

The Work Space section presents some of Grcic’s products and prototypes on a long table in front of a wall clad in artificial rock that create the feel of a futuristic subterranean workshop.

A projection on the opposite wall displays scenes from a typical work day at Grcic’s Munich studio, including CAD models being manipulated, a 3D printer in action, and everyday objects or prototypes being inspected.

The third area, called Public Space, features a huge panoramic collage depicting aspects of contemporary urban and rural society alongside imagined futuristic architecture.

A chain-link fence separating the image from the rest of the space is intended to create the feeling of a safe environment in which visitors are encouraged to interact with examples of Grcic’s furniture.

The final section, Object Space, features a museum-style vitrine displaying a range of Grcic’s products alongside inspirational objects he has collected over the years.

In a video interview with the exhibition’s curators, Grcic spoke about the changes he has witnessed in the design industry throughout his career, including evolving attitudes towards mass production.

“Industry, meaning standardisation churning out many of the same products for everyone, is an old concept,” the designer suggested. “The beauty is that industry now produces diversity, variety and is able to customise a project but still on an industrial scale.”

He added that his own products are not always immediately accessible but that he believes design’s role is to produce challenging and divisive objects.

“I sometimes hear that it takes time for my products to be understood or liked,” he claimed. “I think it’s quite good or necessary for products to challenge an opinion because we don’t want to live in a bubble where everything is beautiful or comfortable. The power of an object that makes you think is something that I want to explore.”

Konstantin Grcic – Panorama is on show at the Vitra Design Museum until 14 September 2014. It was co-produced by the Z33 House for contemporary art in Hasselt, Belgium, where it will be presented early next year.

Photography is by Mark Niedermann, courtesy of the Vitra Design Museum.

Here’s some more information from the Vitra Design Museum:

Konstantin Grcic – Panorama
22.03.2014 – 14.09.2014
Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein

Konstantin Grcic is one of the most influential designers of our time. Serious and functional, unwieldy and occasionally disconcerting, his works combine an indus- trial aesthetic with experimental, artistic elements. Many of Grcic’s creations, such as Chair One (2004) or the Mayday lamp (1999), are widely acclaimed as design classics. With »Konstantin Grcic – Panorama«, the Vitra Design Museum is now presenting the largest solo exhibition on Grcic and his work to date.

Specifically for this exhibition, Grcic has developed several large-scale installations rendering his personal visions for life in the future: a home interior, a design studio and an urban environment. These spaces stage fictional scenarios confronting the viewer with the designer’s inspirations, chal- lenges and questions, as well as placing Grcic’s works in a greater social context. The highlight of these presentations is a 30-metre long panorama that depicts an architectural landscape of the future.

A fourth area of the exhibition takes a focused look at Grcic’s daily work. This section presents many of his finished objects, but also prototypes, drawings and background information along with artefacts that have inspired Grcic – from an old teapot and an early Apple computer to works by Marcel Duchamp, Gerrit Rietveld and Enzo Mari. In the shift of perspectives between larger and smaller scales, the exhibition demonstrates how design is more than mere problem solving for Grcic, but a highly complex process that integrates coincidences, ruptures, chance discoveries and a profound engagement with the visual culture of our time.

Konstantin Grcic (b. 1965) was initially influenced by the minimalist designs of Jasper Morrison under whom he began his career in the late 1980s. Soon he developed his own distinctive stylistic idiom and has become a driving force of formal and technical innovation within the international design scene. Today, Grcic works for many leading design companies, including Authentics, Flos, Magis, Vitra, ClassiCon, Plank, Krups and Muji. With his widely published designs, he often develops surprising solutions that avoid cliché and derive their radical aesthetic from Grcic’s intensive investigations of materials, technologies and production processes.

With Panorama, Grcic enters new territory. Never before has he so fundamentally reflected on his own work and so thoroughly disclosed his own understanding of design in general. The exhibition is based on an extensive analysis of current technological shifts, innovations and upheavals in contemporary design. It was developed over three years of close collaboration between Grcic, the Vitra Design Museum and Z33 –House for contemporary art in Hasselt, Belgium. The result is a striking presentation of narrative and visual intensity, situated on the cusp between present and future, reality and fiction.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 320-page catalogue that comprises a catalogue raisonné of Grcic’s work as well as essays by such authors as s Richard Sennett, Peter Sloterdijk, Paola Antonelli, Mario Carpo and others. In conjunction with the exhibition, Vitra Design Museum will organize a
wide-ranging event programme.

Konstantin Grcic – Panorama is an exhibition of the Vitra Design Museum and Z33 – House for contemporary art, Hasselt (Belgium). W.I.R.E. – Web for Interdisciplinary Research & Expertise at ETH Zurich was a major scientific collaborator. The exhibition will be shown at Z33 from 01.02. to 24.05.2015. Further exhibition venues will be announced in due course.

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at Vitra Design Museum solo show appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: industrial designer Konstantin Grcic’s Traffic seating collection for Italian design brand Magis has gone into production.

First shown as a prototype in Milan earlier this year, this range designed by Konstantin Grcic is the first collection of upholstered furniture by Magis. It includes an armchair, a two-seater sofa, two benches and a chaise longue.

Simple rectangular cushions slot into grid-like tubular metal frames. The collection comes in seven colours and the cushions are available in leather and a number of fabrics by textile company Kvadrat.

“The correlation between the three-dimensional line drawing of the metal rod and the geometric volumes of the cushions marks a significant shift from the common connotation of wire furniture,” Grcic said.

Magis president and founder Eugenio Perazza described the collection as “a set of various elements conceived as simple rod cages in which the cushions for the seat, backrest and armrests are easily accommodated”.

This is Konstantin Grcic’s fifth collaboration with Magis – others include Magis 360 family, a range of office furniture including a chair that’s designed to be straddled rather than sat on.

See more designs by Magis »
See more designs by Konstantin Grcic »
See more furniture designs »

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for Magis appeared first on Dezeen.

Movie: Designer Konstantin Grcic tells Dezeen that American furniture company Emeco had to industrialise its production methods to produce his new Parrish chair in this video interview filmed in Milan. 

Grcic originally designed the Parrish chair as part of a range of furniture for Herzog & de Meuron’s barn-like Parrish Art Museum on Long Island, completed in 2012.

The chair was launched by American furniture company Emeco as a commercial product at Milan earlier this year.

In the movie, Grcic explains that he approached Emeco to produce the chair because of its experience of working in aluminium, most famously with the iconic Navy Chair, which Emeco has produced since 1944.

“I felt we needed a company to support the development of the project,” says Grcic.

“Emeco stands for chairs in aluminium and aluminium was the perfect material for the chair that we had in mind because the [Parrish Art Museum] is very open [to the elements].”

Unlike the Navy Chair, in which each piece is welded together by hand, the legs, armrests and backrest of the Parrish chair are all locked together by a single joint under the seat.

“Everything is mechanically joined to a central core, a piece of die-cast aluminium, which is really the heart of the chair,” Grcic explains.

“So we have one moulded piece that solves all of the structure of the chair and the seat is exchangeable. You can have an upholstered seat, a plastic seat or a wooden seat.”

Grcic says that he deliberately wanted to move Emeco away from the time-intensive production methods involved in producing the Navy Chair.

“I felt we should actually change the way [Emeco] makes chairs,” he says. “Industrialise it, simplify it, eliminate all the dirty work, all the hand labour. That’s what really informed the concept of the chair.”

He concludes: “Emeco will always produce the Navy Chair in the way they produce it, but I think now we’ve established another form of production inside their company.”

See all our stories about Konstantin Grcic »
See all our stories about Emeco »

See all our Milan 2013 coverage »
Watch our Dezeen and MINI World Tour video reports from Milan »

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makes chairs” – Konstantin Grcic appeared first on Dezeen.

Milan 2013: a collection of furniture designed by Konstantin Grcic for Herzog & de Meuron’s Parrish Art Museum in Long Island has gone into production with American brand Emeco.

Presented at Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the Parrish collection of chairs and tables by Konstantin Grcic for Emeco was originally created for Herzog & de Meuron’s barn-like Parrish Art Museum, completed last autumn.

The pieces are made from tubular recycled aluminium, held in place under the tractor-inspired seat by a component with six connecting points referred to as “the heart”.

The range now includes a lounge chair and side chair plus tables in two heights, made of sandblasted aluminium with clear, red or black finishes.

Chair seats come in wood harvested close to the Emeco factory in Pennsylvania, upholstery in leather or fabric, or reclaimed polypropylene like that used in Philippe Starck’s Broom chair shown last year.

Emeco is famous for aluminium furniture, having created the much-copied classic Navy Chair for the American armed forces in 1944. In recent years they’ve produced chairs with top international designers including Jean Nouvel, Philippe Starck and Michael Young. See all our stories about chairs by Emeco.

Other products by Grcic in Milan included a remake of Achille Castiglioni’s iconic Parentesi lamp for Flos, and angular wooden stools and tables for Italian brand Mattiazzi. See all our stories about design by Konstantin Grcic.

See all our stories about design at Milan 2013 »

Here’s some more information from Emeco:

Detailed to perfection with a classic appearance, the Parrish Collection by Emeco and German designer Konstantin Grcic was first made for the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York.

The externally modest building of the Parrish Art Museum holds an internal complexity, just like the Parrish Collection – a set of chairs and tables with a subtle design and a heartfelt technical core. “Developing the mobile interiors for the Parrish Art Museum brings us to the peculiar psychology around chairs used in public spaces – exploring the idea of comfort using very little material.

Considering the public self-awareness in a museum seat, the Parrish chair was given a generous seat and a round tube, forming a belt that defines the space around you – a space where you can feel protected,” says Konstantin Grcic.

The Parrish lounge and side chairs are part of a modular collection, featuring three frames with four optional seats. The recycled aluminum sandblasted frames are available in clear anodized, red or black powder coated finishes.

The frames can be combined with different seat types; reclaimed polypropylene, locally sourced wood from Lancaster, PA, Danish fabric from Kvadrat or three luxurious leathers from Spinneybeck. These choices enable different combinations, creating a versatile family. All chairs with reclaimed polypropylene seats are suitable for outdoor use. The table bases are available in two recycled aluminum sandblasted finishes, the clear anodized aluminum finish or the black powder coated finish, in two different heights as café and side tables, which can be combined with two alternative Trespa table tops in pastel grey or black.

“The collaboration with Emeco was always an important part of the project, something I had in mind as an obvious choice for the kind of furniture we needed. It is simply the only company I could think of who could bring a nice mix for this interior concept, specialists in aluminum, delivering another kind of material appearance, environmentally sound, perfect for the both indoor and outdoor and being such a truly American company – it was a perfect match,“ says Grcic.

“When Konstantin asked me if Emeco would be interested in collaborating with him on the Parrish Art Museum I was thrilled. Konstantin is one of the most innovative and original industrial designers of today,” says Emeco’s CEO Gregg Buchbinder. “Konstantin’s degree of perfection combined with his analytical rigor made the product development process deliberate and thoughtful. He managed to leverage our heritage and at the same time push Emeco into the future. The Parrish Chair reminds me of something Le Corbusier might have designed in the 1920’s; yet at the same time, it looks fresh, modern, and original – it’s a real artifact of our current culture, a future classic,” Buchbinder continues.

“I have always had a fascination and admiration of the hard physical labor of the production of the iconic Emeco Navy chair. My ambition for the collaboration was, therefore, to do something that uses the same aluminum work but makes the process more effective, less physically challenging. I think the design of the Parrish chair comes from a close understanding of what Emeco can really do,” says Konstantin.

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for Emeco appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen and MINI World Tour: designers including Marcel Wanders, Yves Behar, Tom Dixon and Konstantin Grcic discuss the importance of Milan design week, which ended in the city yesterday, and whether it can retain its title as the world’s leading event.

Each April, the world’s leading designers descend on the city for the fair still regarded as the most important in the world. “I come to Milan every year,” says Yves Behar. “It’s the obligatory stop.”

“It’s a moment I can’t miss,” agrees Stephen Burks. “It’s the most important week in the design calendar.”

They are joined by hundreds of thousands of international visitors including students, journalists, buyers and younger designers trying to get their work noticed.

“It gives lots of young designers a great thrill to come here and get discovered,” says Ron Arad. “My entire design team comes here to suck up new ideas and ensure they’re seeing the latest and the greatest,” says Anders Warming, head of design at MINI.

The fair owes its importance to the emergence of Milan as the world’s key centre for the design and manufacture of both furniture and products after the devastation of the Second World War, playing a key role in Italy’s economic recovery. “All of the important history of post-war furniture design happened here,” says Konstantin Grcic.

The official fair, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, as well as the Fuori Salone events around the city, grew over the years into the sprawling citywide festival it is today. “There was a lot of excitement around [the fair], starting in the early eighties with Memphis and [Studio] Alchimia,” says Arad, citing two of the most influential Milanese design studios of the last century.

However the economic crisis of recent years and the emergence of rival design centres combined to make this year’s fair a more sober affair than recent years. “I feel like there’s a return to the reason why we are all here, which is the actual commerce of the fair,” says Johanna Agerman Ross, editor-in-chief of Disegno magazine.

“It’s certainly got much, much more competition these days,” says journalist and curator Henrietta Thompson. “The London Design Festival is fantastic these days but also Stockholm and Paris.”

Milan-based designer Fabio Novembre touches on the reasons why the city might be losing its edge: “It’s hard to take a group of Italians and make them all go in one direction,” he says. “That explains why we’re in a big crisis and why we are almost losing the importance of Salone del Mobile.”

Joseph Grima, editor-in-chief of Milanese design magazine Domus, agrees. “The city is really in need of someone who’s going to have a vision for the future,” he says.

“Milan remains the only place where you can still see everybody in one go,” says Tom Dixon. “Whether it can maintain that top spot … is hard to tell. It becomes impossible to navigate the city, you can’t get a taxi, you can’t get a hotel room and you can’t afford space to show your goods.”

Look out for more reports from Milan as part of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour in the coming days. The car featured in the movie is the MINI Paceman.

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the design calendar” appeared first on Dezeen.