new_spaces_07_GB

50 Thinking the Future III
and pure cynicism? Starck explains: “I designed the lamps
because I’m a pacifi st. I wanted to highlight the excessive
violence in our society.” Fine — but whether you see it that way
is a personal question.
One thing that storytelling in design, including Starck’s
gun lamps, certainly accomplishes is a shift away from pure
functionalism to sensuality. This is also the lesson of the
funicular railway stations designed by Zaha Hadid in Hungerburg
near Innsbruck. Interestingly, an earlier creation by the
English-Iraqi architect is only a few kilometres away. Although it’s
only eight years old, the Bergisel Ski Jump is from another technological
age compared to the four funicular stations of 2007.
Here we see minimalist shotcrete, as compared to the futuristic
glass façades in Hungerburg, which are shaped like huge manta
rays and illuminated at night with high-tech LED lighting. Yet very
simple design can also tell a story. Take the feathery Icarus lamp
by Tord Boontje: A swan’s wing is wrapped around the light,
nothing more. The Dutch designer describes his work as a “delicate
marriage of design and emotion” and explains that “modern
design doesn’t have to mean minimalism.” Like the Campana
brothers, Boontje plays with different combinations: vases made
of paper, furniture made of pieces of old wood. Everything is
allowed, nothing is mandatory. Fellow Dutchman Maarten Baas
takes an equally relaxed approach. He fi rst achieved fame with
his charred Louis XVI furniture, which, set alongside the shiny
creations of the design galleries, looks like a relic from a
forgotten chateau. With ideas like “Hey, chair, be a bookshelf,”
Baas takes design one step further than pure storytelling, by no
longer importing stories into design, but rather creating stories
through design. Perhaps the simplest way to tell a story with
furniture is simply to plaster furniture with stories. That’s just
what Giuseppe Canavese did when he papered cupboards and
dressers with scenes from his favourite comic strip starring the
1960s icon Valentina. Bedroom furniture, appropriately enough,
is decorated with an alarm clock. The Italian designer has a
playful approach to the history of art and design, combining
Roy Lichtenstein’s use of comic strips with Gio Ponti’s 1950’s
retro chic. There are no limits to the kinds of stories that
design can tell, except perhaps the designer’s own imagination.
And when it comes to Ora-ïto, imagination knows no
bounds. As a young, inventive but still unsuccessful designer,
he dreamt up new products for Louis Vuitton, Swatch and Apple
without being commissioned to do so, and then posted them on
the Internet. The response was overwhelming: Thousands of
people tried to order his creations in the brands’ shops. Suitably
impressed, the brands promptly awarded him design contracts.
What started as a design story ended as a designer fairytale.
Today the talented young designer is involved in a range of
projects, including a kitchen that recalls the fi lm 2001: A Space
Odyssey. Or it does so, at least, when you look at it with your
eyes wide open. And that is really all you need to do in order to
read design stories.
Further information
www.tordboontje.com
www.maartenbaas.com
www.moooi.com
www.marcelwanders.com
www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/telling-tales
www.dillerscofi dio.com
www.demakersvan.com
www.piekebergmans.com
Twisted around its own axis
In order to construct Santiago Calatrava’s
“Turning Torso” in Malmö, Sweden (left),
new processes had to be developed
to produce the surreally distorted windows.
Light poured in a molten drop
Pieke Bergmans’ “Light Blub” (right).