02 Home Design
by Catherine Krantz
habitat Expo 2007
During May 17th through May 20th, the seventh annual Habitat Expo 2007 was held in Mexico City’s World Trade Center. For four days all manner of home-related goods were on display. Everything from fine furniture to kitchen sinks, Habitat Expo featured everything a home buyer could need for decoration or inspiration. A dazzling array of temptations delighted the crowds of interior design enthusiasts and serious shoppers. Habitat Expo showcased the latest high design trends alongside internationally noted firms and new up and coming Mexican Industrial Designers. In addition to 8,000 meters of display space chock-full of colorful booths, Habitat Expo also offered an interesting array of seminars, where experts in their fields, Architects and Interior Designers, discussed themes as varied as sustainable architecture, automated lighting systems, and ecological office environments. More information on this years and next years event can be found at www.habitatexpo.com
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Design Notepad
Industrial Design, the design of products to be manufactured, in general, and Furniture Design, specifically, with their small scale, ease pf prototype creation, diverse use of materials, and market-driven ingenuity, are often the fields that lead design movements, which then go on to influence everything else: From Interior Design and Architecture, to fashion, art and popular culture. The Annual Milan Furniture Fair, Salone Internazionale del Mobile, held in April each year brings together Industrial Designers and their buyers from all over the world. After 46 years, it has gotten the reputation for cutting edge design, where trends in home and office design first appear. Fresh from the Milan Furniture Fair, and appearing at Mexico’s own Habitat Expo, Tamara Kitain Talamas, expert in 20th century design and founder of Centro de Diseño Aleman in Mexico City, presented a Retrospective of International Furniture Design and Design icons of the 20th century, focusing on the long-lasting Influence of the Bauhaus school, and ending with a projection of the coming trends in Interiors.
The Latest Trends in Interior Design
1. White
2. Wood
3. White & Wood
4. Natural and Ecological Materials and Fibers; some unusual like cactus fibers, paper, card board, recyclables.
5. Multi-functional, convertible furniture. Way beyond the sofa beds of the past, these couches swivel, rotate, adjust, become beds, chaise lounges, desks, tables, and more.
6. Honoring Design Icons. Putting one furniture design icon in each space, to interact/play off other design elements. High design originals (not fakes) are selling better now than ever before, leading one to speculate if the public has been getting a better design education or if a more sophisticated design aesthetic has come into vogue.
7. Handmade elements, embellishments, intimacy in design.
8. Clean light spaces with one bold colorful lamp, in fun or dynamic shapes.
9. More focus on Home Offices and accessorizing the home for home offices.
10. Office spaces will have more shared spaces, less hierarchy in work spaces, and focus on better communication, more efficiency.
Design Icons of the 20th century
You have probably seen them before--in licensed and unlicensed forms--in shops and houses across the globe. These are the shapes and designs one thinks of most when they think of the furniture design of the last hundred years. Wildly innovative (or just wild), they have withstood the test of time to become modern standards. Here are a few of the design icons--and their iconic designs--that most define the 20th century in furniture design.
Mies Van de Rohe, Barcelona Chair, 1929. Barcelona couch, 1930.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies) (1886 - 1969) was a German architect who was widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. His style was based on simplicity and clarity and he used modern materials like steel and glass to define his spaces. Known for his methodical approach, he was prone to using sayings like, “Less is more,” and he contributed two of perhaps the most famous pieces of the simply elegant style of 20th century furniture design
Charles and Ray Eames, Eames Lounge, 1955-56
Charles Eames (1907–1978) and wife, Ray Eames (1912–1988), also architects, were joint creators of the Eames Lounge and ottoman, which they designed for the Herman Miller furniture company. It was built using the thoroughly modern material, molded plywood. Examples of their work are part of the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Eero Aarnio, Ball Chair, 1963.
Eero Aarnio (born 1932) is a Finnish interior and industrial designer who designs innovative modern furniture. Known for his whimsical and functional design, he is most famous for his Ball and Bubble chairs. Because his designs so captured the spirit of the 1960’s, his furniture become popular culture icons of that time period and many are on display in the world’s most prestigious museums. He continues to work and create new designs, mainly in plastic, with fun colors and shapes.
Salvadore Dali, updated version, 1970, of his Mae West Lips sofa, 1937.
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Pubol (1904-1989) was a Spanish artist , most known as a surrealist painter, and is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th century. A well rounded artist, he was known for his sculpture, contributions to theater, fashion, and photography, among other areas. One of the most popular objects of the surrealist movement was the Mae West Lips Sofa, completed by Dalí in 1937. This monochromatic Lips sofa is an updated version from 1970.
Frank O. Gehry, Easy Edges cardboard chair, 1972.
Frank Owen Gehry (born Ephraim Owen Goldberg, February 28, 1929) is a Pritzer Prize winning architect based in California. His buildings are so distinctive and famous many have become tourist attractions in their own rights, think the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao Spain, or Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, CA. Gehry continues to tackle very large and well-publicized projects, contributing to him becoming somewhat of an architectural celebrity. He is often considered to be one of the largest modern architectural icons, but he got his start designing furniture when he came to the attention of the public in 1972 with his “Easy Edges” cardboard furniture.
Le Corbusier, Chaise lounge, 1927
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (1887–1965), who adopted the name Le Corbusier in 1920, was a French pioneer of Modern Architecture. His career spanned 50 years in which he left a lasting impact as: architect, writer, urban planner, painter, sculptor and industrial designer. He had a very rigid philosophical basis to his design. Many of his urban design ambitions were controversial as he was a proponent of large housing projects, but his fluid and sleek furniture design always won him praise
