Magazin

“Belleville” by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra

The chairs are light, the tables stand there with gravitas, sturdily grounded.

Given their sheer immensity, you need to plan your visit to the Salone and the Fuorisalone in Milan quite carefully. Find out below which events, places, shows and symposiums are the real musts.

: live the European idea and take a contemplative approach

“Klapp” by Steffen Kehrle for Area Declic

It may be challenging to design a chair. Even more so if it’s a folding chair.

“LEDS Clay” by Maarten Baas and Bertjan Pot for DGPH

The two have little truck with Mainstream. What they do like is atavistic fun.

Leonardo da Vinci at Palazzo Reale

Just in time for the Salone, Palazzo Reale right next to the Cathedral is hosting the largest exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci the country has ever seen.

“Side Comfort” by Formstelle for Zeitraum

Anyone possessing a sufficient number of modules can create forever new settee worlds.

Jaime Hayon showcases a “Réaction Poétique” at Cassina

Le Corbusier, not to mention Joan Mirò and other artists are secretly along for the ride when Jaime Hayon ironically evokes the spirit of Surrealism.

Members of the furniture industry will soon be flocking to Milan again to worship the novelties cult at the Salone. What can we expect? Or is the furniture fair merely the appetizer before the Expo?

“Melt” by Front for Tom Dixon

The British design company is hosting its Milan events in an abandoned theater, where novelties such as the “Melt” luminaire by designer-trio Front can be purchased on site.

“Anemos” by Antonio Facco for Cappellini

There are things that are mysterious and yet very practical for precisely that reason.

Inga Sempé for Golran

Following Bertjan Pot and Raw Edges, Inga Sempé got the chance to dream up rugs for Israeli manufacturer Golran. We asked the French designer what she has in store for us.

The “Bentwood Sofa 2002” by Christian Werner for Thonet

You need a grand gesture if a famous café chair is to morph into a state-of-the-art settee.

Hans J. Wegner at Carl Hansen & Son, colored or round

You can always rely on someone like him – and there are said to be as many as another 3,500 furniture designs in his archive.

“Juicy Salif” by Philippe Starck for Alessi

It provides fresh juice and a lot of fresh material for conversation: Philippe Strack’s lemon squeezer is available in white and in bronze to mark its 25th birthday.

“Edge” by PearsonLloyd for Modus

There’s always life around the table. PearsonLloyd have created a gathering space of compelling simplicity.

David Chipperfield designs and then thinks of e15

Originally, the Grand Master designed them for a country home in Buckinghamshire. And now e15 is bringing out the bench, table and stool as a series – in walnut or oak.

They’re back in fashion – small, light armchairs with a wooden or tubular steel frame. In the 1950s and 1960s they came to fame as “easy chairs”; now they’ve morphed into “lounge chairs”. For the office or the home.

Vitra Design Museum is devoting not just one, but two exhibitions to Africa. While the one suggests the "re-maker culture" is a blueprint for design in the Global North, the other explores how to achieve architectural independence.

: cast their cosmopolitan lifestyle into tasteful luminaires

Coinciding with this year’s CeBIT exhibition, Kunstverein Hannover is examining “Digital Conditions” – and contemplating whether the user in front of the screen will soon be redundant.

In revamping 250-year-old Haus Thuneke, architect Peter Grundmann concentrated on making just few specific changes – albeit to great effect. Now the stodgy farmhouse structure proudly boasts a delicate extension.

“Spirit” is the name of the competition entry submitted by designer Youyuan Zhao: a dancer enters into dialog with water. Adeline Seidel spoke to Youyuan Zhao about his idea.

Brandherm + Krumrey interior architecture is one of the three finalists in the “Axor Inspiration Project” competition. Sara Bertsche talked with Susanne Brandherm and Hannah Stüber about their entry.

Jens Wendland and Andrea Weitz of Raumkontor seek to transform the usually hard world of the bathroom into a soft, textile world for water. Adeline Seidel talked to the two interior designers about their “Soft Revolution”.

Anyone entering the “Energy” section of the Frankfurt trade-fair halls during the ISH is met by a broad range of different heating systems. Countless brands and technologies may leave the non-trade visitor somewhat nonplussed. The sector: between chaos and self-confident design.

Florian Kallus of young designer duo Kaschkasch shared his impressions at the ISH with Stylepark‘s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. An unadulterated look at water basins, pipes and open fuse boxes.

In Portikus on the mini island in the River Main in downtown Frankfurt Philippe Grohe presented the prizes to the winning “Axor Inspiration Projects”.

The ISH is the world’s leading trade-fair for innovative bath design. Wellness, hygiene and health are the elements from which the physical experience in bathrooms of today are formed.

From “flush melodies” through medical urine test units to monitoring alcohol levels: The new high-tech WCs offer all manner of technical refinements. And above all in Japan they’re exploiting the digital potential pretty much to the full.

Nano-coatings make it easier to clean toilets, and also make lime-scale as good as a thing of the past. As does a design that eliminates the flush rim.

A lot is expected from modern wood burning stoves today. Not only are they supposed to look good, but they have the additional task of feeding into the heating circuit of an entire building. Uta Abendroth spoke with Stefan Diez about the wood burning stove he designed for Buderus/Bosch.