Feeding Desire via Cooper Hewitt

Feeding Desire : Design and the Tools of the Table

A journey through the evolution of Western dining from the Renaissance to the present, Feeding Desire showcases objects from Cooper-Hewitt's world-class collections and the Tiffany Archives. The exhibition will address the development of utensil forms, innovations in production and materials, etiquette, and flatware as social commentary.

The exhibition will take place between May 5 through October 29, 2006 at Cooper Hewitt in New York City

May 22 , 2006

Droog Design Collective

Droog is a brand and a mentality: design of products that do what they should and think about why they’re doing it in the first place: function? fun? wit? criticism? All of the above?

Droog is a curatorial collection of exclusive products, a congenial pool of designers, a distributed statement about design as cultural commentary, a medium, working with cutting edge designers and enlightened clients, taking the production and distribution of its collection into its own hands, being unique in its conceptual and contextual approach towards design.
On this site you will find information on Droog Design, Factory and Outlet in a 100% hypertext® environment. This means that every word on this site is a link, which when clicked will generate associated information displayed on the right. A click on a sentence in this ‘concordance’ will open the associated text in this window.

Droog Design online

February 7, 2006

Spring is an exhibit space that works in the manner of a magazine. Spring is a collective, resource center, brain trust and think tank - the starting point for the active participation of a variable group to create stimulating exhibits that are not limited to one medium and look into the different possible development of a theme. Spring invites curators, artists, designers and writers to collaborate on specific projects. It is an ambitious and exciting idea that would like to promote thinking, explore new exchanges and provide a link to and association with innovative projects.

Spring plans three to four main issues per year and some smaller 'articles' or 'special issues'. Topics span through all aspects of Art, Fashion, Design, Music and include all mediums. Spring will tie in with existing shows and help in importing them to New York, giving exposure and creating a new exchange.

Spring 3d Magazine online

January 7, 2006

Marimekko’s visions for the future are being forged through young designers, just like in Marimekko’s early years in the 1950s. Marimekko has faith in young talented designers, both from Finland and abroad; and trust that they will boldly create something new and avant-garde. However, committed to Marimekko’s basic philosophy – design is inspired by beautiful everyday life. Marimekko's dual strategy: create top design, but the designs must also be financially profitable.

Marimekko’s objective is to grow and succeed in the international arena as a Finnish design company that has a strong identity. Business development primarily focuses on organic growth.

Marimekko online

January 4, 2006

Pisellino, the disarmingly cute cotton swab holder designed by Stefano Giovannoni for Alessi, has a name that means "little pea" in italian. we're not sure if this makes more sense in the italian translation, but one thing is for certain: it is the first anatomically correct cotton swab holder. it has the same storage format as the magic bunny toothpick holder: lift the head and cotton swabs pop out! available in 3 colors for alessi's fall 2005 collection. acrylic. dimensions: 2.75"dia x 6"h

Alessi online

December 29, 2005

Crafted by the world-famous designer Ora-Ïto, the new Brick expresses a ludic playfulness in a user-friendly high-performance hard drive. Stack & Play multiple LaCie Bricks together to brighten your desktop and your mood (they’re even stackable with LaCie Mobile Bricks). With Hi-Speed USB 2.0 interface, it offers the fast data transfer rates required for substantial jobs like downloading digital photos, saving MP3s or transferring home videos from a camcorder. Available desktop models are: 160GB (white), 250GB (red), 300GB (blue) and 500GB (red).

Lacie.com

December 19, 2005

Jasper Morrison was born in London in 1959, and graduated in Design at Kingston Polytechnic Design School, London (1979-82 BA(Des.) ) and The Royal College of Art for Post Graduate studies (1982-85 MA(Des.) RCA). In 1986 he set up an Office for Design in London. His work was included in the Documenta 8 exhibition in Kassel in 1987, for which he designed the Reuters News Centre. The following year he was invited to take part in “Design Werkstadt”, a part of the “Berlin, Cultural City of Europe” program, where he exhibited “Some new items for the house, part i” at the DAAD Gallery.

Jasper Morrison Ltd. currently based in London and Paris, have worked and in most cases still do for the follwoing companies: Alessi Spa, Italy; Alias Srl, Italy; Canon Camera Division, Japan; Cappellini Spa., Italy; Flos Spa, Italy; FSB GmbH, Germany; Magis Srl, Italy; Rosenthal AG, Germany; Rowenta, France; Sony Design Centre Europe; Vitra International AG, Switzerland; Samsung Electronics, Korea.

Jasper Morrison LTD

December 13, 2005

The name of this unlikely new restaurant in the Rivington Hotel is an acronym derived from the words The Hotel On Rivington. Thor also happens to be the Norse god of thunder, of course, and like so much on the Lower East Side these days, the Rivington, and the restaurant in it, seems to have been flung down among the old bodegas and unisex hairstyling parlors like some thunderbolt from the sky. The big, airy room is decorated by the Dutch designer Marcel Wanders in sleek, Euro-modern fashion. The wallpaper is patterned with tiny kaleidoscopic black, white, and yellow squares, and the rows of black café tables are set with tiny white calla lilies. A steady nightclub beat thrums ceaselessly from the dimly lit lounge area, and dinner proceeds under a giant skylight, through which you can observe the fire escapes of ancient tenement buildings, lit up in the night sky like old Greek ruins.

Read more in New York Metro review
Hotel on Rivington
Marcel Wanders

December 11, 2005

Designed by Mark Mckenna, the DEK (designer emulation kits) series is an homage to some of the finest lighting designs of the twentieth century. as mckenna states, "we revere these objects, but they are also a bane and a challenge. how can we ever measure up to the genius of castiglioni, or the sheer concentrated emotion of maurer? the truth is we can’t. we have to find our own voices, our own vision."

All designer emulation kits run off of your standard 9 volt battery. one 9 volt battery should last for about 120 hours of use. all DEKs use led lighting giving them the ability to stay relatively cool and also allowing for operation around room temperature. led lighting has a life expectancy of five and half years of constant use.

Buy them here:
Emulation Kit
Mark Mckenna's website

December 8, 2005

The Dutch designer HELLA JONGERIUS works on the cusp of design, craft, art and technology to fuse traditional and contemporary influences, high tech and low tech, the industrial and artisanal.

Standing in the Design Museum Tank on the riverfront was a wooden table laden with food and illuminated by five lamps with ceramic bases and silk shades. On closer inspection it was apparent that the 'food' - a loaf of bread, fish, fowl, sausages and artichokes - was made from hand-blown glass and the lamps were embroidered with images of the animals, inspects and birds printed on the silk. Stranger still, the floor was covered in rich brown soil.

It was The Silk Menagerie, an installation created for the Design Museum by the Dutch designer-maker Hella Jongerius. Inspired by a visit to Hermes' silk archive in Paris, it combines many of the themes that have dominated Jongerius' work over the past decade by juxtaposing the old and new, craft and industry, high tech and low tech.

Born in De Meern in 1963, she studied industrial design at the Eindhoven Design Academy and has since combined elements of that discipline with those of traditional craftsmanship in products, textiles and ceramics. Many of her early designs were manufactured by Droog, the influential Dutch design collective, and she now puts her own work into production through Jongeriuslab, her Rotterdam studio, as well as developing products for manufacturers such as Maharam, Royal Tichelaar Makkum and Vitra.

See Hella Jongerius' work at:
http://www.jongeriuslab.com

Interview on Designmuseum.org

December 4, 2005

On view December 9, 2005 - March 26, 2006
Organized by the Kyoto Costume Institute, Fashion in Colors explores color as a design element through 300 years of Western fashion.

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution is the only museum in the United States devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. The Museum believes that design shapes our objects, environments, and communications, making them more desirable, functional, and accessible. The Museum celebrates the nature of design and explores its impact on the quality of our lives.

Cooper Hewitt - Fashion in Colors website
Kyoto Costume Institute

December 1, 2005

Ingo Maurer's Snowflake

Ingo Maurer is well-known in the world for his unmistakable lighting fixtures: designs with strong emotional resonances and a seemingly universal appeal. Maurer, trained as a typographer and graphic designer, has long been fascinated by the bare light bulb. In 1966 he designed his first lighting fixture, titled "Bulb", which was, in fact, a bulb within a bulb. The bulb remains a recurrent theme in Maurer's work, as does paper, which Maurer considers the most becoming of all materials.

This year Ingo Maurer designed a Unicef Crystal Snowflake with Baccarat crystal.

Upon arrival in New York City on the weekend of November 19, the fixture will be suspended above the intersection of 5th Avenue and 57th Street and anchored by four of New York's most prestigious retailers: Tiffany & Co.; LVMH & Louis Vuitton; Bergdorf Goodman; and The Crown Building. It will be lit on November 28 during an outdoor ceremony open to the general public.

Ingo-maurer.com
Unicef Article

Nov 28, 2005

Issey Miyake

Miyake was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1938. He established the Miyake Design Studio in 1970 and started to show his line at the Paris Collections in 1973. Miyake's basic tenets for making clothes has always been the idea of creating a garment from 'one piece of cloth', and the exploration of the space between the human body and the cloth that covers it. His approach to design has always been to strike a consistent balance between tradition and innovation, handcrafts and new technology.

PLEATS PLEASE, which was born in 1993, is a radical but eminently practical and universal form of contemporary clothing that combines technology, functionality and beauty. PLEATS PLEASE is exhibited at the Pompidou Center, Paris as the firstexample of clothing design, currently on view as part of an exhibitionentitled: BIG BANG: Destruction et Creation dans l'art du XX Siecle show.

In 1998, Miyake embarked upon a new project called A-POC (A Piece of Cloth) with Dai Fujiwara and a team of young designers. He is challenging the way in which clothing is made using new process that harnesses computer technology to industrial knitting or weaving machines to create clothing beginning with a single piece of thread. Miyake established the Miyake Issey Foundation with the authorization of the Ministry of Education and Science, in February of 2004.

Issey Miyake
Pleats Please Collection

Nov 27, 2005

Fernando and Humberto Campana

05 Degrees of Separation
Presented by Moss Gallery, in conjunction with design.05 Miami
On view December 1-5, 2005

Establishing within the 16,000 foot space 5 distinct "theatrical zones", each containing numerous "stages" of varying dimension, Moss will present the work of 5 design artists/studios: "XXXL, Monumental work" by Gaetano Pesce (USA/Italy), special studio pieces from the "Sushi" and "Banquette" series by Fernando and Humberto Campana (Brazil), Tord Boontje's (France) one-off studio pieces and "couture" pieces created with fashion designer Alexander McQueen, the limited-edition, prototypical stereolithography "C2" chair by Patrick Jouin (France), and 14 one-off "burned" iconic classics from Carlo Molino, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Renee MacIntosh, Charles and Ray Eames, and Achille Castiglioni, from the evolving work entitled "Where There's Smoke", created by Dutch artist Maarten Baas.

The exhibition will be open for the duration of design.05 & Art Basel Miami Beach and all pieces are made available for sale.

Design.05 Miami
Sponsored by Moss
Campana Interview
Campana official website

Nov 25, 2005

SAFE: MoMA

On view October 16, 2005 through January 2, 2006 at the Moma in New York City
SAFE: Design Takes On Risk, the first major design exhibition at MoMA since its reopening in November 2004, presents more than 300 contemporary products and prototypes designed to protect body and mind from dangerous or stressful circumstances, respond to emergencies, ensure clarity of information, and provide a sense of comfort and security. These objects address the spectrum of human fears and worries, from the most mundane to the most exceptional, from the dread of darkness and loneliness to the threat of earthquakes and terrorist attacks.

The exhibition covers all forms of design, from manufactured products to information architecture. Featured products include refugee shelters, demining equipment, baby strollers, and protective sports gear. Designers are trained to balance risk with protection and to mediate between disruptive change and normalcy; good design goes hand in hand with personal needs, providing protection and security without sacrificing innovation and invention. SAFE redirects the pursuit of beauty toward the appreciation of economy of function and technology.

Organized by Paola Antonelli, Curator, and Patricia Juncosa Vecchierini, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.

Moma.org – Safe Exhibition
Momastore.org – Safe Exhibition Catalog

Nov 24, 2005