(2006; 2004 below)

Cheeky twists on tradition

By Janet Eastman

May 25, 2006

FLORAL teacups, curlicue-trimmed highboys, formal candelabras. Did the wrong crates get delivered to the floor of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, the nation’s most prestigious showcase of modern design?

The four-day exhibition that ended Tuesday proved that contemporary designers are continuing to go more traditional, largely eschewing stark minimalism and instead dressing up furniture, lighting, walls and floors in classic motifs. Many of the 600 exhibitors at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center introduced products bearing the decoration, materials or production techniques of years past. After years of fierce futurism, retro made its return.

“The pendulum is swinging back, done in the spirit of play,” said Jill Canales, vice president of design at Salt Lake City-based 3form, (www.3-form.com), which introduced floral patterns and pink Capiz shells in its resin wall panels and room dividers.

While the Tomas Frenes Design Studio of Miami (www.tomasfrenes.com) exhibited spare ebony benches and bureaus, its booth was dominated by 5-foot-high nickel-plated candelabras that were classic in every sense. “No one wants just one style anymore. That gets boring,” Frenes said. “And even lovers of contemporary will always go back to a classic for the glamour.”

Designing for Baccarat (www.baccarat.com), Philippe Starck paired a Versailles candlestick with a jaunty smoked glass lampshade from Flos. “Dramatic tension is created when intertwining history and whimsy, and that accentuates the environment,” says Michael Belleveau, Baccarat’s chief executive for North America.

Tobias Wong, one of many California designers making a strong showing at the fair, exhibited a cheeky version of a standard crystal chandelier for San Francisco-based furnishings firm Citizen:Citizen (www.citizen-citizen.com). White industrial rubber softens the facets of the crystals and can be peeled off, revealing the sparkler beneath it and creating a customized look.

Other new riffs on old ideas included a French club chair made of teak and then sheathed in hammered copper and a seven-drawer dresser plated with 27 pounds of silver for New York-based Odegard (www.odegardinc.com).

It was almost impossible not to spot tradition in most of the show’s designs, said John Kelsey, co-editor of the book “Tradition in Contemporary Furniture.” Familiar forms – even when made of anodized aluminum, glass or tangerine- and lime-colored fabric – provide a sense of reassurance and continuity, especially to the estimated 80% of U.S. buyers who still prefer the kind of furniture their grandparents had, he said.

Provocative treatments of old designs were conversation starters. Douglas Homer of Lancaster, Penn. (www.douglashomer.com), hired Bronx graffiti artist Robert Michael Provenzano to tag 18th century highboys with slashes of purple, red and yellow – an irreverent stunt that just might work in a stark room. The company also put a twist on Harry Bertoia’s Diamond chair by covering it with black, white, red, yellow or green plastic tubes for a shaggy effect: the Hairy Bertoia chair.

Old-fashioned lace was given new life by San Francisco designer Karl Zahn (www.karlzahn.com), who duplicated the classic ornamental pattern on clear tape that can be used as a border on walls or furniture. Zahn said that he’s focusing on reintroducing forgotten manufacturing techniques. Case in point: his $150 pendant lamp, the Protea, made of metal strips that spread open when heated by the light bulb. The thermally reactive metal is a midcentury discovery, “ignored in our ever-shrinking world of electronics,” he said.

PadLab of Los Angeles (www.padlab.com) adopted centuries-old glass blowing techniques from Sweden to trap air bubbles in panels used in doors, windows and and light fixtures. The company also showcased its honeycomb Flexicomb pendant, made by assembling 6,500 plastic drinking straws.

Not everyone, however, was interested in marrying the old with the new.

“Design shouldn’t be referential to the past but relative to this time,” said San Francisco-based industrial designer Yves Behar. His company, Fuseproject, introduced LED fixtures called the Leaf for Herman Miller (www.hermanmiller.com) and a baby’s highchair for San Rafael, Calif.-based Fleurville (www.fleurville.com) that seems to ignore all of its predecessors. Mixing traditional with modern design, he said, “doesn’t connect if it was done to be humorous, an inside joke for other designers.”

When Behar collaborated with Fleurville owners Catherine and Steve Granville, the result was a complete rethinking of the highchair.

“I wanted it without corners, a big, round, friendly space where kids can wave their hands and parents can get in close without hitting their knees on the legs,” Behar said.

His Calla chair has a Saarinen-like pedestal that bows outward to make room for parents’ knees or table legs to slide underneath it. The aluminum base is a Saturn-like ring, with polyurethane wheels that allow the chair to roll when the brakes are off. A tilted rail circles the seat and has a “utility toolbox” with clips for bibs, cloths and toys; the tray pops off for dishwasher cleaning.

Another design that attracted big crowds: a portable polyester spa that looks a bit like a psychedelic witch’s caldron and is heated by fire (www.dutchtub.com). Only 165 pounds when empty, the spa can even be tossed on top of a car and brought along on your vacation. Now there’s an idea traditionalists and modernists alike can embrace.

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2004

DESIGN DISPATCH

Mirth and girth

A major New York show of contemporary designers showcases bold, fun colors and the unexpected -- modern furniture with a little more heft.

By Janet Eastman

Thursday, May 20, 2004

New York City -- Modern furniture -- revered or reviled for its skeletal lines and anemic colors -- has been putting on a few pounds. At the International Contemporary Furniture Fair that ended here Tuesday, thin bands of stainless steel were paired with hefty hardwoods on chair arms, and upholstery shed its bland neutrals for can't-ignore citrus orange and piercing pink.

Things were downright homey and cushy as the usually sleek contemporary designs bulked up.

There were soft-as-cashmere alpaca pillows hand-embroidered in sky blue and salmon; a polka-dotted cranberry and yellow-squash resin table illuminated by a paper-thin light sheet; and a crescent moon-shaped bench in espresso-finish maple with creamy Ultrasuede cushions, all by first-time exhibitors.

The four-day furniture fair, the largest show of its kind in the nation, was a mix of polished high performers and newcomers hoping to grab the attention of the 17,000 showgoers, mostly architects and interior designers hunting for high-end Modernist furnishings. Contemporary design may take in only 6% to 10% of the North American pie, but that slice, which includes inexpensive lines at IKEA and Target, added up last year to $7 billion, according to the American Furniture Manufacturers Assn.

Those long devoted to sparse, functional style sought out the show's big players for one-on-one conversations. Leif Petersen, a San Francisco distributor for several lines including Magis, greeted old friends and showed that his newest product, Konstantin Grcic's Chair One, a red, bare-boned die-cast aluminum seat on a solid concrete cone, had a fun side: it could swivel.

Reps of Herman Miller, the 81-year-old company that is the U.S. granddaddy of classic contemporary design, reintroduced its Eames' black Soft Pad Management office chair, which has been jazzed up for home use. It now comes in 700 choices of dyed leather, from silver rattlesnake to pink ostrich.

Henry Hall Designs of San Francisco, another show veteran among the 500 exhibitors, previewed a modular outdoor sofa that won't be available until next year. Pure Sofa by Andrei Munteanu has a minimal teak frame and an armrest that looks as if it's floating in space. Hall says it can be cushioned in traditional ivory and terra cotta, or his choice, bright Marimekko leaf prints.

KnollTextiles received positive reaction to its new upholstery, drapery fabrics and wall coverings that capture, in jumbo blue exclamation points and orange-red commas, the chatter of the information age. Some of the plush fabrics absorb sound.

Unlike other high-profile design shows such as the twice-yearly market in High Point, N.C., the exhibitors from 24 countries here didn't have to compete with buyers looking for French country. "We go to lots of shows and people either get us or they don't," said Catherine Minervini of Prince Street House & Home in the City of Industry, which has a new residential line of carpet.

"This audience got us right away."

Of the more than two dozen California companies exhibiting, most were show novices. The former set designers, lawyers and sheet metal workers who have set out on their own were looking for reassurance as much as future orders.

Richard Holbrook said it was lonely inside his Pasadena studio where he uses guitar construction techniques to make slim but sturdy tables of rubber wood and stainless steel. Compliments from this group of top-tier designers, marketers and critics "reinforced my evaluation of my work."

A cork-cubed lounge chair and ottoman that first-timer Reza Feiz of Phase in Studio City brought to New York were touched by so many passersby that he joked that if he had charged a penny it would have paid for his $25,000 expense of being here. His walnut piece was wrapped in burnt orange and persimmon upholstery. His work is at Twentieth in L.A. and Troy in So-Ho , but he gathered a handful of crisp business cards from "the hottest, hippest" retailers in other big cities.

Zele Co., a design and manufacturing studio in Carpinteria, also had a successful launch.

The company, which began as an architectural and home construction firm then branched out to doors, windows and towel racks, attracted second and third looks with its new Riva chair. Weary aisle-loopers who were encouraged to slink into the chair were reluctant to leave. The chair has a stainless steel arm enveloping unpolished ebony and a sling seat of stretched English saddle leather that comes in natural colors of charcoal to light cream. Knobs at the top and bottom adjust the seat's slope.

"We're not trendy," said Nurit Adizes of Zele, who pulled all-nighters with her small staff to burn CDs to pass out at the show, "so the people looking for 'hip-hop, what's new today?' pass us by, but those educated in exposed structure and clean lines appreciate what we've done. We got the right attention from the right people and they were already comparing us to the big guys."