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5 O’Clock chair by Nika Zupanc |
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In 2001 Dutch designer Marcel Wanders offloaded a few new designs in Milan’s Zona Tortona district – the inaugural collection, it turned out, of his brand Moooi. His presence attracted a whole gang of young designers to “pop-up” in the little-known area, and set a tone for experimentation and play during the week of the furniture fair. A decade of rent increases later, the young pack has moved to the outer suburbs and the Tortona district has a distinctly corporate tone. But that hasn’t stopped Moooi from laying roots in there with a permanent showroom. While its neighbours try to curry favour with the young with tacky euro-house music, it has invested in the next generation, presenting a collection that has the same energy as its first. Slovenian newcomer Nika Zupanc’s Five O’Clock collection of chairs and a table looks like your grandmother’s flowery china set, in furniture form. The collection sat incongruously next to Dutch designer Bertjan Pot’s bizarre Revolving Chandelier; the contraption uses the heat of its halogen bulbs to rotate four propeller-shaped, semi-reflective shades, causing an image of your surroundings to spin round in a blur. But our favourite of the new collection was Arihiro Miyake’s Miyake Light. Set on a multifaceted concrete base it allows the user to angle the light any direction they wish simply by rolling the base around. In three different sizes, the desk light seemed to work best in terms of proportions.
Miyake Light by Arihiro Miyake
The drawing of Miyaye’s light |
Words Anna Bates |
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