Giovanna Castiglioni on the stairs to her father’s studio

Today at 6 pm Marco Lorusso and me will close the doors to our Achille is watching us exhibition. We hope that everyone enjoyed the assortment of objects we presented here during the Milan Design Week. When we decided to do the show, we got in touch with Giovanna Castiglioni, one of the daughters of the Italian designer Achille Castiglioni, who we dedicated the show to.

Achille is watching us stickers and leaflets in the studio

Castiglioni had what is missing in most of today`s designers nature: feelings and fun. He always gave attention to the things he was surrounded by without taking himself too serious. Visiting my 6th Salone del Mobile I always felt disappointed that there were no feelings involoved in the shows I attended. The focus on fame and money was too huge to feel connected to most of them. Marco felt the same.

One of the well-know pictures of Achille
by Jean-Baptiste Mondino

This time around I was most of the time at our exhibition but we took some time to go to the studio and meet Giovanna, who is giving the tour in the studio, that is open to the public from Tuesday until Saturday. Giovanna’s and her mother’s aim is to present Achille´s exceptional nature that has led to a series of good designs. I asked almost everyone during the whole week if they ever visited the studio and mostly I recieved negative answers. I bet all of them were at Bar Basso at least two times. Giovanna told us that they don’t even know if they will be open next year. Until now the initiative was supported by the La Triennale di Milano, but the contract runs out soon and they don’t know how to finance the studio after that. Castiglioni’s family is trying to transform the Studio Museum into a Foundation Achille Castiglioni. After this step they plan to look for support by companies and donations by private people.I really hope that Giovanna will have the strength to keep it up, because unfortunalty the warmth of her personality is not enough.

Andreas Neubert & Jan Hartmann, founders of Designers Open

I spend 10 days in Leipzig because Miriam Hartwig and me were invited to host this year’s Designers Open dinner for all the participants. We did a Polish dinner called ‘Kolacja’ for about 220 people on Friday and used the last 2 days to sell everything from the event in our ‘Polski supermarket’.

Tomorrow I will leave the city and go back to Maastricht. It is probably the first time that I didn’t have time to have a proper look at all the exhibited design. Today I finally had some spare minutes but when I walked upstairs to the Hotel de Pologne, I just watched how people pack their projects. Next year I will be back and be on time!

Next to being the host of the dinner, I was also asked to become a member of the jury of the MDR Trend cafe design award. I choose ‘R2B2‘ by Christoph Thetard. The German designer came up with the idea to reduce private electric waste production. Nice design and good thinking.

the connecting passage between the Hotel de Pologne and Kretschmann’s Hof, the core of this year’s Designers Open

Sam cracks me up

I haven’t published anyone in the ‘fancy you’ category since a while, but Sam Jacob, director of FAT, Fashion Architcture Taste, an architectural practice based in London, changed that. During the Vienna Design Week I spend half a day with Sam, who is also the curator of the ‘Design Criminals – Or a New Joy into the World’ show at the MAK in Vienna. The show is about the idea that Designers should be challenged to probe into the tradition of decoration and to place it in a social context with every day issues. Sam chose contributions by breadedEscalope, Nina Levett, Sebastian Menschhorn, Patrick Rampelotto, Andreas Pohancenik, among others. The show runs till 14th November 2010.

In this video by designguide.tv you can watch Sam and me (1:48 min) having dinner at Studio Olgoj Chorchoj‘s installation at Liechtenstein Museum. The title of the work is ‘Back to the childhood’ (see previous post). Does children drink wine these days?

Tilman Appel at ‘Appel Vintage’, a next door space where he sometimes shows also design classics. He is holding: ‘Hello There’ by Jeremy Harvey from 1978. The chair is made of molded aluminum.

This guy is the owner of the Appel Design Gallery in Berlin. People say that Appel was the first gallery to present contemporary design in Berlin, opened in 2005. Tilman, who studied economics, is in his Thirties. His Grandparents were collectors and are probably one of the reasons why the he decided to become a gallery owner. How nice that life does not always dependent on what we have studied.

Here are some of the names of the chairs above:

‘Montreal’ stacking chair by Frei Otto, 1967
Ash, canvas, metal. Manufactured by Karl Fröscher & Co

‘Landi Chair’ by Hans Coray, 1939
Chromium plated steel Seat and backrest: perforated aluminium sheet, natural anodised

‘Sandows Chair’ by René Herbst, 1928
Nickel-plated steel tube and elastic rubber cord

‘Stacking Chair’ by Roland Rainer, 1955
Beech base with brown plywood seat

Jane and her work: both complement each other perfectly

English Jane Bowler is specialised in Mixed Media Textiles. Her graduation collection is called ‘Fusion’.

Shortly before I ran into her at the RCA Show, I admired Lucy and Bart‘s recent work for AnOther Man on Showstudio. Jane’s outfits were used in the project.

Photograph of one of Jane’s pictures

Today opens the graduation show 2010 of the Academy of Fine Arts Maastricht (my old academy). On Monday I had a sneak preview on what you can expect this weekend. Unfortunately a lot things were not on display because the ‘Timmerfabriek’ was in the state of a building site.

In the back of the building, in an area with some small rooms, Nicole Michniewski was about to be ready with her set-up. The young artist created 4 pieces which are all part of her graduation project. One of them is pictures below.

Femke Agema

I saw your work last weekend at Fashionclash Maastricht and now you are my favorite dutch fashion designer. I think you need to know.

Faithfully yours – lalala, Matylda

Femke Agema

Femke Agema

After I met Monica and Marcus again today I knew they deserve to be in the ‘fancy you’ category.

Together the New York-based couple found lighting design studio Treluce. They basically do everything together. The team exhibits the 2nd year at Spazzio Rossana Orlandi.

See the Drawn Interview with Marcus here

I just got back from georgie and james who moved to their new apartment in north-east london 1 month ago. they definitely belong to the ‘fancy you’ category I neglected for so long. at a single glance on the picture below you will understand. check also their kredit krunch katwalk krew blog!

theda at the new studio

yesterday I visited my friend theda schoppe at her new studio. theda is currently working for maarten baas. in her spare time she and 2 other young designers are trying to establish a design workplace, studio 33, for product and interior in maastricht. all of them are recent product design graduates of the academy maastricht. more about the upcoming studio soon.

max lipsey lives in eindhoven. the american designer was exhibiting his coathooks at spazio rosana orlandi last month during design week.

this is his mud lamp. a lamp made of sand, mud and recycled paper. the idea was to make a product that uses as little as possible energy in production and transport. and to make a product that fits into the current hype of ecodesign.

rest area – highway 40 between bochum and essen, germany

vera berg and petra kather in their temporarily (just for that weekend) showroom in maastricht

hello ros(i)e

josh meyers from Idaho, usa

tokyoflash watch

lukasz czarnecki, tony pellicci, nevio pellicci – polish-italian power

pellicci london – since 1900

the art deco interior

liver, bacon, onions, sweetcorn and some gravy – that’s what I like

Alexander Winterkamp is a german actor. From 4 – 20 th September the barbican, europe’s largest multi-arts and conference venue, in London presents ‘Helium’ by yorkshire-based theatre company Slung Low. (It’s the first time Slung Low has mounted a production in London). Today is the premiere. The special feature of the show is the individual experience: only one person may enter at a time!