Photos: Manufacturer

I Tedeschi

By PETER-PHILIPP SCHMITT

May 13, 2023 · Finally a trade fair again – and then the largest furnishing fair in the world. Of course, many German designers were also present at the Salone del Mobile.


KONSTANTIN GRCIC

Konstantin Grcic, now based in Berlin, has designed a chair (Twain for Magis) that does not require screws. The spindles made of solid, natural or black-stained ash wood are held together under the seat by a lashing strap with ratchet. Stripes of leather form the armrests. The differently patterned scarves that form the seat and backrest were also designed by a designer from Berlin: the Dutch Hella Jongerius.

BECK DESIGN

Behind Beck Design is Norbert Beck, who founded his own design office in Markdorf not far from Lake Constance in his late 20s exactly 35 years ago. Later, he was joined by his wife Silja. Beck Design has been designing for Rolf Benz for a quarter of a century. The latest work is called Moyo, it is a Chesterfield-effect sofa that impresses with its stitching and piping highlighted in color.

PETER OTTO VOSDING

Light that shines upwards to illuminate walls or ceilings, for example, is called up-light. This is also the name of the design by Peter Otto Vösding from Cologne. The special thing about it is the material: its lamp is made of sand, which is 3D printed. The company Sandhelden in Gersthofen in the district of Augsburg has specialized in this special process. Vosding's prototype, for which he is still looking for a producer, has a graphite black color, but all other shades are also conceivable.

OTTO HOUSE

This year's collection of the German brand Dante – Goods And Bads is called in a nutshell: The Now. Among the products presented by Dante founders Aylin Langreuter and Christophe de la Fontaine was this armchair made of laser-cut curved aluminum. It was designed by Haus Otto, a young designer duo from Sindelfingen. Patrick Henry Nagel's and Nils Körner's work can be used both indoors and outdoors, and the wide armrests also provide a work surface for laptops, for example.

HOFFMANN KAHLEYSS

Shaped like a boat, the top of the BC 07 Basket table pays homage to the city from which the designer duo who designed it comes. Birgit Hoffmann and Christoph Kahleyss together form Hoffmann Kahleyss Design. Her office, in the middle of St. Pauli, has been in existence for ten years. The two have already designed many products for the Upper Bavarian furniture manufacturer Janua, including the Basket series with tables, all of which have a frame that is modeled on baskets with its slightly curved metal struts of different widths.

NYTA

For this pendant lamp with the appropriate name for the month you need a high ceiling. The room is then illuminated by May in three ways: with a flat pane that shines upwards and a cylindrical shade that shines downwards, as well as a glass sphere that also emits dimmable light on all sides. The individual luminaires, which were developed by Johannes Müller and Johannes Marmon's Nyta studio in Karlsruhe, can also be used individually.

WERNER AISSLINGER

Unmistakably Dedon: The outdoor brand has reinvented hand-woven fibre furniture, so to speak. The Dedon fibre defies all weather conditions. The chair by Berlin-based designer Werner Aisslinger lives up to its name Cirql Nu. Three concentric circles made of powder-coated aluminium form the seat. The inner circles are completely supported by the fiber woven in the Philippines. The collection also includes an armchair and an armchair, either with four legs or a stand, as well as a stool that can also be a side table.

KASHKASH

Cushion and shell should not form a unit in this armchair. This one detail, as a source of inspiration, so to speak, is particularly important to the Cologne designer duo Kaschkasch (Florian Kallus and Sebastian Schneider). And so the cushion only seems to rest on the seat shell of Kudo. The family-owned company Leolux, based in Venlo, the Netherlands, also offers the armchair with armrests made of solid oak or leather as well as with a low (One) or high back (Two).

MATHIAS HAHN

The Faye chair invites you to slouch. Because you can sit on the pouf with its upholstered backrest in many ways. For example, the backrest can become an armrest, or you can sit upside down on the armchair and rest with both arms on the cylindrical cushion supported by two wooden struts. The small serving plate was designed by the German-born and London-based designer Mathias Hahn for the Schönbuch brand, which is based in Bad Königshofen in Lower Franconia.

HANNE WILLMANN

At the Lemgo-based brand Freifrau, all products have female names. This little armchair belongs to a whole family and is called Nana Petite. You should "sit on it as if on clouds", according to the idea of its designer Hanne Willmann. She studied with Werner Aisslinger, among others, and has had her own studio in Berlin since 2015. Nana was Willmann's first work for Freifrau in 2021. In addition to a chair, armchair and pouf, the product family also includes a couch.

STEFAN DIEZ

Just over a year ago, Munich-based designer Stefan Diez presented the flexible lighting collection Plusminus, which he developed with Arthur Desmet for the Spanish lighting brand Vibia. Plusminus is based on a textile tape in which electricity is woven in the form of copper wires. Various lights can be attached to it like with a belt buckle. There are hardly any limits to the system, the straps can be stretched through rooms as desired and can also hang down from high ceilings. Now Diez has supplemented the series with Plusminus Solo, matching table or floor lamps.

JULIA HUHNHOLZ AND FRIEDRICH GERLACH

This piece of furniture is not yet one: Nevertheless, The Essence of Biocement was awarded "Best of Best" by the German Design Council in Milan. The work of Julia Huhnholz and Friedrich Gerlach (Bauhaus University Weimar) consists of 100 percent self-produced biocement. In combination with urea and calcium chloride, the bacterium Sporosarcina pasteurii combines recycled brick granules with calcium carbonate. The production does not require a firing process, nor is CO2 emitted in the production process. A project with a future – perhaps as furniture.

JEHS + LAUB

This sofa by the Stuttgart designer duo Jehs + Laub (Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub) is supposed to be a nook. Nook looks like an inflated seat cushion, which makes it look light and seems to float above the ground. A nice detail is the piping edge, which the family business Cor, founded almost 70 years ago by Leo Lübke in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, offers either in contrasting or tone-on-tone. The sofa includes a pouf and matching side tables.

GECKELER MICHELS

Definitely Bauhaus, one might say. In this respect, the new work of David Geckeler and Frank Michels is in good hands with the family business Tecta from Lauenförde. However, the design studio Geckeler Michels, founded in Berlin in 2013, only quotes the Bauhaus. Her F8 armchair, which is also available as a two-seater (F8-2) and three-seater (F8-3), is a clearly geometrically shaped sculpture in the room – with striking lines that are due to the corduroy cover.

CHRISTIAN HAAS

The shade of the Forma lamp, which was developed by the Porto-based designer Christian Haas for the Munich-based brand Classicon, is slightly inclined. It is milled from solid ash or walnut wood, has a dimmer switch in the base and an inserted satin glass pane as well as an integrated LED ring in the shade. In the classic way, the 34 centimetre high table lamp also has a cable.

SEBASTIAN HERKNER

The Onno side table should look like a lake from the air with its embankments. The top rests on a curved base, which is also made of smoked glass in either a bronze or cool shade of grey. The table by Offenbach designer Sebastian Herkner (for Rolf Benz) is available in two heights (37 and 43 centimetres), widths (53 and 39 centimetres) and depths (58 and 38 centimetres).

MARCEL BREUER

Who doesn't know it, the tubular steel cantilever chair S 32, which Marcel Breuer designed in Berlin in 1928. Since 1930, the chair with seat and backrest without rear legs has been produced by Thonet in solid wood and wickerwork. The company from Frankenberg in Hesse has now added another family member to the design icon, a lounge chair on which you sit five centimetres lower than on the original by Breuer (who, by the way, was born in Austria-Hungary) with a seat height of 40 centimetres. The new chair is also twelve centimetres wider and six centimetres lower.

Photos: Manufacturer

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