Hasta La Ideas

Milan 2014: Werner Aisslinger, Martino Gampa and Robert Stadler are among 22 contemporary designers that have interpreted Danish textile brand Kvadrat‘s Divina fabric for a show in Milan this week (+ slideshow).

Known for its wide-ranging palette of colours, Kvadrat‘s felt-like fabric was originally created by Danish painter and graphic artist Finn Sködt in 1984.

“We didn’t choose the name for nothing, we used it because it gave some inspiration as to which colours we could put into the scheme,” said Sködt. “Every colour is divine if you ask me, every colour is nice. It’s only a question of using them right or wrong.”

The designers were invited to create their own one-off piece using the fabric, which comes in 56 colours. “Divina is so intense that it is almost like paint, or something that has been sprayed onto a surface,” said Anders Byriel, CEO of Kvadrat. “You could not have a colour that is more vivid or clearer than this.”

German designer Werner Aisslinger‘s Nesting Hexagons reference Joe Colombo’s 1969 Tube chair, a piece comprising hollow cylinder modules fixed together in different formations, which can be dismantled and used separately like cushions.

Here, Aisslinger uses the hexagon shape as a basis to create a piece designed for lounging, which can then be stored by slotting each hexagon inside of each other. “Our concept came from the idea of a picnic, with a blanket in the grass and pillows around,” said Aisslinger. “The hexagons are ideal for lolling around or relaxing on the ground, both indoors and outdoors.”

Working between art and design, London-based Martino Gamper has created Afternoon Nap, his second project with Divina, which features upholstered solid geometric volumes in various coloured triangulations of the fabric.

“For me, this simple shape, mixed with the complex and colourful fabric, creates a landscape where I could imagine having an afternoon nap,” said Gamper.

Austrian designer Robert Stadler‘s interpretation entitled Pli Bleu and Pli Violet uses two very similar shades of blue, emphasised by the folds in the piece. “My intention was to show the quality of the textile in the most pure and direct way possible,” said Stadler. “The two pleated monochromes catch the ambient light in a subtle way.”

New York designer Lindsey Adelman has created a chandelier comprised of thin brightly coloured strips of the Divina fabric layered on top of one another while London designer Max Lamb has designed a series of oversized smocks.

Richard Hutten’s Layers Cloud chair is made from 545 layers of the textile shaped in clusters of spheres. The fabric also hangs taut from pegs to create the triangular-shaped Divina Hangers by Klemens Schillinger. Francois Dumas’ Knapsack sofa fixes together horizontal lengths upholstered in a range of Divina’s colours.

Other designers to interpret the Divina fabric include Philippe Nigro, Peter Marigold, Bethan Laura Wood, Big-Game, Jerszy Seymour and Anton Alvarez.

The Divina exhibition will take place at Arcade, Via San Gregorio 43 in Milan from 9-13 April.

Photography is by Casper Sejersen.

Here’s some information from Kvadrat:

A special exhibition showcasing 22 contemporary interpretations of Divina by international designers

‘We didn’t choose the name for nothing – we used it because it gave some inspiration as to which colours we could put into the scheme. Every colour is divine, if you ask me – every colour is nice. It’s only a question of using them right or wrong.’ Finn Sködt.

In celebration of Divina, one of its most iconic textiles, Kvadrat has invited 22 international designers to reinterpret the fabric in the context of contemporary design and to create a one-of-a-kind piece. The exhibition will be presented in Milan during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, 8 – 13 April 2014.

Divina is known for its extraordinary range of colours, first created in 1984 by the Danish painter and graphic artist Finn Sködt and regularly updated by him ever since. It is a full-cloth textile with a smooth, directionless and uniform surface, very similar to the properties of felt.

Divina translates as ‘heavenly,’ or ‘divine,’ and the name has been chosen because of the way colours can be expressed in the material. It is one of the finest products in Kvadrat’s range for showing-off colours in all their glory. The textile comes in three different variations: Divina (56 colours), Divina Melange (25 colours) and Divina MD (27 colours).

Finn Sködt, now 70, still continues his practice from his studio in Denmark; he is most noted for his instinctive understanding of colour. Sködt first worked with Kvadrat in the 1970s on their visual identity, soon after the company was founded, and later designed patterns and colour ranges for textiles such as Divina.

Designers and Curators

Designers selected for the Divina exhibition include Lindsey Adelman, Werner Aisslinger, Anton Alvarez, Big-Game, Duangrit Bunnag, Gonçalo Campos, Jonas’ Design, François Dumas, Martino Gamper, Graphic Thought Facility, Richard Hutten, Silvia Knüppel, Max Lamb, Peter Marigold, Studio Minale-Maeda, Philippe Nigro, Klemens Schillinger, Muller Van Severen, Jerszy Seymour, Robert Stadler, Katharina Wahl and Bethan Laura Wood.

Curators include Njusja de Gier, Richard Hsu, Hans Maier-Aichen, Yves Marbrier and Constance Rubini. Kvadrat celebrates Divina during Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Milan 2014.

‘We are delighted to be celebrating our iconic Divina textile coloured by Finn Sködt, a great friend and collaborator who has lent his painterly eye to Kvadrat since our early days in the 1970s. Over 30 years Divina has continued to be one of our most successful textiles, with a texture that lends itself to an intense and vibrant representation of colour. It is exciting to see the interpretations of this diverse group of contemporary designers and to pay tribute to Divina’s incredible range.’ Anders Byriel, CEO of Kvadrat.

The Divina exhibition follows on from the success of the Hallingdal 65 exhibition in Milan in 2012, inspired by one of the company’s first and most popular textiles, designed in 1965 by Nanna Ditzel. A special book with an essay by Hettie Judah and edited by Henrietta Thompson will accompany the exhibition.

In addition to celebrating Divina a new collection of knitted fabrics by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec will be launched in Kvadrat’s Milan showroom. The company’s sister brand, Danskina will showcase a new collection of rugs created under its newly appointed Design Director Hella Jongerius; Kinnasand will open a new Milan showroom designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Toyo Ito; and the launch of Kvadrat’s new textile collection with Raf Simons (Creative Director, Dior) will be celebrated with the Italian retailer Spotti.

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French design duo Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec will introduce their first fabric collection of upholstery textiles knitted from jersey in Milan next month (+ slideshow).

The Canal, Moraine and Gravel collections by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have been created for Danish textile brand Kvadrat.

“At the very beginning of our research there was a fascination for the structural traits of textiles that, observed under a magnifying glass, can be interpreted like a lattice of threads – building marvellous architectures,” said the designers.

Each fabric is created using a double jersey knit, made from a front and a back layer that, when knitted together, show the elements of the internal structure on the surface.

The front layer is made from a mix of wool and polyester yarns that combine dark and light coloured fibres, while the back layer is made from polyester yarns in a single vivid colour.

“To reach this particular irregularity of wool colour, we chose to use a very soft dyeing treatment that resulted in a coloured surface made of diluted tones,” said the designers. “Polyester, as a synthetic material, provides an intense plain colour accent.”

The collection will be launched next month during the Salone Internazionale Del Mobile at Kvadrat’s Milan showroom.

Here is some information from the designer:

Canal, Moraine, Gravel for KVADRAT

Three collections of 3D knitted and stretch upholstery fabric.

Constructed using a double jersey knit, the collections reveal new surfaces of slightly quilted fabric combining the stretch flexibility and firmness necessary to upholster a wide variety of shapes with the possibility of less points of stitching.

The knitted front layer of the textiles is made from fine melange wool and polyester yarns, which combines dark and light fibres. This ensures that they have a sensuous touch and feature a rich play of warm, delicate and irregular colour nuances.

The knitted back layer is made from unicoloured polyester yarns, in accent colours. These provide firmness and structure.

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Product news: French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have come up with a DIY kit for making curtains using a hanging cord that winds up like a guitar string.

Launching at trade fair imm cologne this week, Ready Made Curtain is a collaboration between Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Danish textile manufacturer Kvadrat.

The curtain is designed as a flexible hanging system that users can adapt to fit any window.

The kit comprises a hanging cord, wall fixings, pegs and your choice of Kvadrat textiles.

The hanging cord can be adjusted to fit any width of window using its winding mechanism, which the designers say was inspired by the tension in a guitar string.

The cord can be wound tighter when needed in order to maintain the right length and tension, and is easily transferable to another window.

“Little skill and few tools are needed, margin for error has been considered and perfection isn’t an absolute requirement,” Ronan and Erwan Bourourllec explain. “In fact, the charm of the imperfect in opposition to the overly sanitised interior is something we believe in.”

The curtain is available in a lightweight, semi-transparent fabric and a woollen fabric, both of which come in three colours. There’s also a variety of colours for the winding mechanism, cord and pegs.

We’ve featured several projects by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, including a collection of cutlery for Alessi and a range of wooden furniture for a Danish university – see all our stories about the Bouroullecs.

We also featured a huge purple curtain installed as a room divider at the Venice Architecture Biennale last year.

See all our stories about curtains »
See all our stories about textiles »

Here’s some more information from the designers:

Kvadrat and designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have come together to solve the challenges posed by a little explored area of domestic interior architecture: the curtain. The result is Ready Made Curtain, an original and simple hanging system to suit every window. Kvadrat’s first direct to consumer product will launch at the IMM in Cologne, January 2013.

The Ready Made Curtain is the culmination of Kvadrat’s lengthy research into the world of the domestic curtain. Working with ReD Associates, an innovation and strategy consultancy firm, Kvadrat started by investigating existing curtain solutions and comparing them to the requirements of the homeowner. Based on their findings, Kvadrat approached Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec to create Ready Made Curtain a simple yet novel approach for consumers to introduce high quality curtains to their home.

The Ready Made Curtain requires the participation of the owner in its making. Everything one needs to fix the curtain is provided: a hanging cord, wall fixings, pegs, and a selection of Kvadrat textiles.

“The ambition was to create a new system that allows anyone to install a quality curtain in record time. Little skill and few tools are needed, margin for error has been considered and perfection isn’t an absolute requirement. In fact, the charm of the imperfect in opposition to the overly sanitised interior, is something we believe in,” note Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

The mechanics of the new hanging system have been refined over and over again by the designers until the absolute minimum required material and skill were achieved. This is a purposefully elementary product. The process of installation is straightforward as well. “We wanted to escape a hi-tech situation but we didn’t want to make something rustic or heavy either. We reflected on the popular method of fixing a poster to a wall, just simply with a staple.” Similarly, Ready Made Curtain is an enjoyably effortless method of fixing fabric to a window.

The ingenuity of the hanging cord – a replacement for the traditional curtain pole – is found in the winding mechanism that enables it to fit any window: “The starting point was a picture in a Japanese book from the fifties. The book was a catalogue of objects and in it was a guitar. From there, we began to explore the system of string tension in guitars.” The cord is an efficient and elegant solution to hanging a curtain. It can be rewound when need be, in order to maintain the right tension, and is easily transferable from window to window.

Anders Byriel, CEO Kvadrat, adds: “A curtain is, we believe, much more than something to keep light out and privacy in – a curtain offers the opportunity to control light and create or completely change the atmosphere in a room.” To that end, Ready Made Curtain is available in two different Kvadrat fabrics: a light, semi-transparent fabric or a woolen textile. Both are available in three different colourways and, in turn, a different colour palette of the mechanism, cord and pegs.

Ready Made Curtain is an evolution of previous collaborations between the Bouroullecs and Kvadrat in that it offers the customer the opportunity to adapt, change and enhance their interior through the use of textile. “One of the ambitions of our work with Kvadrat is to bring more fabric into interiors. The difference between this and previous products, such as Clouds and North Tiles, is that here we chose not to do any intervention on the fabric. The system is very simple, we have used the lightest touch.”

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