"Not surprisingly, there weren’t many clear trends or stellar products. The most interesting development was the emergence of what could be called superleggera — super light — style. Fluid, lithe and angular, these pieces looked like technocratic takes on the 1950s work of Italian designers like Franco Albini and Gio Ponti, one of whose chairs was called Superleggera. Typical were the chairs by Martino Gamper, Konstantin Grcic and Jerszy Seymour for Magis, as well as one by Industrial Facility for Mattiazzi, and the elegant copper objects by Aldo Bakker for Thomas Eyck. Other examples included Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s spindly aluminum tables for Magis and their Lighthouse light for Established & Sons.

“We felt it was time for something gentler and quieter,” Ronan Bouroullec explained. “I heard a French perfumier talking about how 30 years ago, women wanted powerful scents to announce their entrance to a room, but now they prefer them to be subtler. I feel the same way about furniture.”

Another area of innovation was lighting, where advances in energy-efficient LED and OLED technology are enabling manufacturers and designers to invent new products. (Traditional LEDs produce a small, intense point of light, but OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, can be fashioned into thin — even flexible — panels.)"read the complete article New york Times





 
Top