Studio Makkink & Bey Dexter & Sinister

2015

The national public commission for design furniture and arrangement of the International University Research Centre of Orléans (Hôtel Dupanloup) was entrusted to Dutch designer Jurgen Bey, who proposed furnishing not only the main room, but also the 23 working and meeting rooms of the building, a listed historical monument. The project’s approach encouraged 21st-century design in dialogue with works of art, and involved students from the city’s art and design academy, as well as links with the building’s recent restoration projects. This diminutive yet colourful and richly illustrated book recounts these efforts in full, with added perspectives from numerous contributors.

Ted Noten - Ubiquist

2015

Ted Noten is one of today’s most original, radical designers. His transparent acrylic bags – containing objects ranging from animals, jewels and cocaine to pistols – have seduced collectors, confused the establishment, inspired fellow artists and challenged students all over the world. Beauty and violence, perfection and decay: these are themes that have never been absent from his oeuvre since he made his famous pendant featuring a mouse wearing a pearl necklace. This book illustrates the pitiless precision of each separate design. At the same time it documents the immense playing field in which Noten operates.

Irma Boom - Ibo

2015

Since 1991, Irma Boom always had one or two assistants working at IBO (Irma Boom Office): young, budding designers of different nationalities. This publication was initiated by Akiko Wakabayashi, at IBO since 2013, on the occasion of exhibitions in Japan. Ten former and current co-workers were asked to put their personal views on the IBO design practice to paper – in their own words, design, and imagery. Together they present a remarkably intimate portrait of Irma Boom and her philosophy on work and design.

Jasper Morrison: A Book of Things

Lars Müller, 2015

[Englischer Text] Jasper Morrison hat die Begabung, Dingen ein unverkennbares Gesicht zu verleihen. Man erkennt seine Handschrift an vielen Objekten des täglichen Gebrauchs. Einfachheit und Komplexität, Poesie und Humor sind das Repertoir seiner verbindlichen Gestaltung. Morrison arbeitet im globalen Massstab und ist einer der einflussreichsten Produktgestalter der Gegenwart. A Book of Things versammelt Produkte und Projekte aus dem breiten Spektrum seiner Tätigkeit und belegt die Kontinuität seiner Interessen und seiner Arbeitsweise, die er in prägnanten Texten beschreibt. Nach Everything but the Walls (2002) ist A Book of Things die Fortschreibung von Morrisons leidenschaftlicher Untersuchung der Welt der Dinge, die unser Leben begleiten und unsere Umgebung prägen.

Gewn-ichiro Yagyu - Nasenlöcher [Nasenloecher, Nasenlocher]

Eileen Gray - Leben und Werk (Sonderausgabe)

2014

Jahrzehntelang war sie so gut wie vergessen. Erst in den 1970er Jahren entdeckte man sie wieder und feiert sie seitdem als Pionierin des modernen Design. Eileen Gray (1878-1976), höhere Tochter schottisch-irischer Eltern, studierte Malerei in London und zog 1906 für den Rest ihres langen Lebens nach Paris. Dort begann sie ihre Karriere mit ungewöhnlichen Lackmöbeln, die die Pariser Hautevolée ebenso begeisterten wie ihre intellektuellen Bewunderer, darunter Somerset Maugham und Gertrude Stein. Zeitgleich mit Bauhaus und De Stijl entwickelte sie sich in den 20er Jahren zu jener Repräsentantin einer streng den Gesetzen von Funktion und Material folgenden Moderne, als die sie heute gilt. Ihr eigenes, selbst entworfenes Haus in Südfrankreich - das angeblich Le Corbusier vor Neid erblassen ließ - setzte seinerzeit Maßstäbe für einen radikal modernen Lebensstil, ein Hauch von Luxus inbegriffen, und ihre "Klassiker" - etwa der Tisch E-1027 - haben inzwischen Kultstatus. Peter Adams große Monographie, die 2009 bei uns erschien und zum weltweiten Eileen Gray-Revival beigetragen hat, legen wir jetzt, leicht verkleinert, in 2. Auflage vor.

Charlotte Perriand - Complete Works, Volume 2: 1940-1955

2015

Charlotte Perriand is among the foremost figures in twentieth century interior design. Together with her contemporaries and collaborators Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier, she created many pieces of furniture we now consider classics, including the instantly recognizable LC4 chaise. Her pioneering work with metal was particularly instrumental in paving the way for the machine-age aesthetic popular throughout the 1920s and ’30s. The second volume in a planned three-part series, this lavish book covers the years between 1940 and 1955. Beginning in the 1940s, Perriand traveled extensively in Japan by invitation of the Japanese government with whom she worked as an advisor to modernize the country’s design. During this period, she took many photographs documenting traditional Japanese culture, many of which are published here for the first time. From 1952 to 1955, a fruitful collaboration with the Ateliers Jean Prouvé provided for the first time the technical means for Perriand to mass-produce her designs while also further improving Prouvé’s own work both aesthetically and practically. A number of emblematic masterpieces came about as a result of this collaboration, including the Tunisian and Mexican dormitories at the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris. Covering these important moments and many others, including Perriand’s work in Vietnam, in founding the Formes Utiles movement, and in further collaborations with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand continues the three-volume exploration of this key figure, complete with annotations and a bibliography for further research.

Rob Parry (English Version)

2015

This is the first monograph on the work of Dutch industrial and interior designer Rob Parry. Parry is best known in the Netherlands for his innovative design, together with Emile Truijens, for the red and grey mailbox for the PTT. This piece of industrial design was part of the nation’s streetscape from 1960 until the 1990s. As a prolific and versatile designer, Parry worked on a large number of varied projects: furniture, shop interiors, houses, offices, and a large number of exhibitions and exhibition stands for trade fairs.

Otl Aicher: analog und digital

2015

Otl Aicher (1922-1991) war einer der herausragenden Vertreter des modernen Designs. Was er seit den 1950er Jahren, seit seiner Zeit an der von ihm mitbegründeten und heute legendären Ulmer Hochschule für Gestaltung, etwa auf dem Gebiet des Corporate Design, geschaffen hat - erinnert sei hier nur an die Erscheinungsbilder für die Firma Braun, die Lufthansa, das Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen und die Firma ERCO, gehört zu den ganz großen Leistungen der visuellen Kultur unserer Zeit.

Otl Aicher: Die Welt als Entwurf

2015

Otl Aichers Texte sind Erkundungen einer "Welt als Entwurf". Sie gehören substantiell zu seiner Arbeit. In der Bewegung durch die Geschichte von Denken und Gestalten, Bauen und Konstruieren versichert er sich der Möglichkeiten, die Existenz menschlich einzurichten. Nach wie vor geht es um die Frage, unter welchen Voraussetzungen Zivilisationskultur herstellbar ist. Diese Voraussetzungen müssen erstritten werden gegen scheinbare Sachzwänge und geistige Ersatzangebote. Otl Aicher streitet gern. So enthält dieser Band neben Berichten aus der Praxis und historischen Exkursen zu Design und Architektur auch polemische Einlassungen zu kulturpolitischen Themen. Mit produktivem Eigen-Sinn streitet Aicher vor allem für die Erneuerung der Moderne, die sich weitgehend in ästhetischen Visionen erschöpft habe. Noch immer sei der "Kultursonntag" wichtiger als der Arbeitsalltag. Wolfgang Jean Stock

Otl Aicher

2015

The first monograph on German graphic designer and educator Otl Aicher (1922–1991), a key international figure in postwar design and a pioneer in the field of corporate identity and visual communication systems

Christien Meindertsma - Bottom Ash Observatory

2015

Following a tour through the largest and most energy-efficient waste-to-energy plant in the world, Dutch artist and designer Christien Meindertsma became intrigued with the dark residue leftover by the process of incinerating municipal solid waste. Using a 25-kilo sample of raw bottom ash, as it is called, she demonstrates the rich properties and versatility of this resource by successfully gleaning numerous materials from it by hand – among them valuable reusable ones such as zinc, aluminium, copper, and silver. Meindertsma commissioned photographer Mathijs Labadie to document every step of this exhaustively precise process in a surprisingly scientific inquiry.

Cochae - Kyoto Origami

This origami card book of Kyoto-style folded paper designs is light-hearted and brimming with pop and kitsch. Conceived by graphic designers Cochae (Yousuke Jikuhara and Miki Takeda), who busy themselves with exploring the design of play, and received the Good Design Award in 2008 for another of their origami works, the book is indeed both playful and innovative. Closely follow Cochae’s folding designs and patterns to produce fun objects, or create your own origami figures by drawing faces or other pictures on blank templates and colouring them in. Be imaginative!

Kneeling - Five Years Of Carpet Making

2015

The first retrospective of work by We Make Carpets (Marcia Nolte, Bob Waardenburg, Stijn van der Vleuten) covers five years of expression through repetitive processes of precision, working by hand, and hours upon hours of arranging the most banal categories of objects into richly woven yet temporary tapestries. To produce their pieces, which comprise large quantities of the same things painstakingly laid out in a systematic method, the three must literally be on their knees much of the time. These mandalas of toothpicks, chocolate bars, plastic bottles, sponges, toy soldiers, deflated balloons, and more are testaments to patience: a process both mechanical and meditative.

Lumen #05: Street View / Line - Hideki Nakajima

A celebrated graphic designer who has worked for the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Hideki Nakajima has presented a body of original abstract works for this edition of Lumen. Supposedly in part a reaction to a remark by Daido Moriyama about the longevity of graphic designers, the works come presented in black and white, one to a large-format page, in a publication that takes the form of a newspaper.

Otto Neurath: The Language of the Global Polis

The Austrian sociologist Otto Neurath was a seminal figure of twentieth-century modernist thought. Member of the Vienna Circle, founder of the Museum of Society and Economy, inventor of the famous Isotype pictorial system and champion of the Unity of Science movement, Neurath espoused a vision of a "global polis" that put him in contact with the leading intellectuals, architects and artists of his time, from Adolf Loos to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, from Sigfried Giedion to Le Corbusier, from graphic designer Gerd Arntz to architect and urban designer Cornelis van Eesteren.

Optimum

2015

Selected by Naoto Fukasawa of the Japan Design Committee, the various objects included in the exhibition ‘Optimum—The Designs of Original Forms’ are presented as exemplars of their types. In seeking the optimum form, which differs from original forms that are subject to individual creativity, the efforts their designers have undertaken to discover the absolute origins of forms becomes apparent. It is an insightful, minimalistic and inspiring collection of things and typologies from a range of notable designers. Besides texts and short explanations for each by Fukasawa, the book includes a conversation about the selection process and the intentions behind it.

Vitra: Everything is Connected

2015

The world of Vitra in images. "Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects... the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se." Charles Eames's quote opens Florian Böhm and Annahita Kamali's purely visual book in which the designer is a key link between the images. Vitra's Everything is Connected thoughtfully compiles photographs conveying the essence of connectivity. The Swiss interior design company's book echoes the game when, as a child, we learned to be visual detectives by looking for hidden objects in puzzling images. Here, the hidden object can be a color, a shape, or a motif. Patterns travel effortlessly through the twentieth century like a time machine, yet instead of limiting itself to a linear approach, Everything is Connected shows the evolution of a piece of furniture such as the iconic Eames Lounge Chair through situational sequences. Ads, snapshots, portraits, and sketches demonstrate the prevalence of such objects with elegance, subtle wit, and sometimes blatant humor. This book was conceived as a window into the world of Vitra, allowing viewers to catch a glimpse of the infinity of connections between the featured objects.

Nils Holger Moormann - Werkbericht

2015

Werkbericht presents 51 pieces of furniture from the current collection of Nils Holger Moormann, one of the leading protagonists of "New German Design."

Ugo La Pietra - Disequilibrating Design

2015

Text: English + Italian This book accompanies an exhibition at the Triennale Design Museum, and is the first major monograph on unorthodox designer Ugo La Pietra. A humanist and eclectic designer, an architect by training, artist, filmmaker, musician, cartoonist and teacher, La Pietra successfully identified new relationships between design and crafts, the culture of ‘making’ and design. Theoretician of the “genius loci”, he rediscovered the value of craftsmanship at a time when almost everyone was celebrating the “magnificent progress” brought by industrial mass production. Often using humour and even sarcasm, La Pietra places at the centre of his work the relationship between man and environment.