specifications: International Trade Fair for lifestyle, decor, interior, housing and design
organizer: MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE of the Czech Republic
Cooperation: The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague
venue: exhibition grounds PARIS NORD VILLEPINTE
Czech Selection at the International design show Maison et Objet in Paris 2014
Maison et Objet is one of the international festivals helping to spread knowledge about designers and companies from the former Eastern bloc. The Czech Republic is participating for the fifth time with the exhibition collection Czech Selection. This time nearly half of the 15 companies represented have expanded their co-operation with top-name foreign designers such as Arik Levy and Karim Rashid. Thanks to this strategy, Czech companies and their products are finding their place on the map of worldwide design where Czech design has not belonged for more than fifty years as if it had not even existed behind the Iron Curtain. The unavailability of information about design in the Eastern bloc, whether due to an official ban on contacts or the language barrier of texts written solely in Czech or Russian (the international language of the socialist bloc countries), is highlighted by the British design historian Jonathan Woodham in the just released book Design: From Idea To Implementation, edited by the head of the design studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Jiří Pelcl. He addressed five European designer colleagues who chose interesting design projects in terms of the creation process. As the title of the book suggests, the mental process of the creation of a useful item essentially has a transnational dimension marked by a footprint of local tradition.
In the case of Czech companies the co-operation with foreign designers enriches their own possibilities, testing of technologies and other options of utilitarian and decorative objects. Arik Levy, a designer of Israeli origin living in Paris, has become a partner of two particular Czech companies. We learn that Lucie Koldová, a promising talent on the Czech design scene who later established her own studio in Paris and in 2012 won the Designer of the Year Award in the Czech Grand Design Award competition, worked in his studio. Arik Levy designed the Labyrinth lamp for LASVIT, a young dynamic company with 9 international offices specializing in luxury and conceptual lamps, lighting objects and installation. In the new collection from LASVIT Arik Levy's lamp came together with objects by Maurizius Galante, the postmodernist of Czech origin, Bořek Šípek and the classic of Czech art glass, René Roubíček, along with lamp concepts by the youngest generation, Jan Plecháč and Henry Wielgus. LASVIT, with its diverse approach, creates an expanding galaxy of lighting objects for public and private spaces, and among other things, realized the winning trophy for the Tour de France in 2013.
For the young Prague company, Space Cz’s VERREUM brand, Arik Levy created the flower container, Drops, which captivated both the professional as well as the general public at the Maison et Objet in 2013. The exceptional technology of the silvery glass and manual processing bestow this brand with an exclusiveness of simple elegance and luxury. And for the new collection, Love, based on their love towards this unique technology Arik Levy designed a series of candleholders, Karim Rashid a table lamp, the London based designer Sebastian Bergne a wine set, the German designer Sebastian Herkner a tea set, with the collection being completed by a coffee set by the Italian designers Defne Koz and Marco Susani. This extraordinary collection fascinates with its purity of shaping, respecting the unique technology and function of the object.
PRECIOSA, a North Bohemian chandelier manufacturer following the Baroque tradition and in the second half of the twentieth century the main Czech concern for the production of lighting, has joined forces with the Japanese Design Studio Spin. Since 1993 the Preciosa Foundation, which supports scientific projects and in the form of competitions searches for young designers, has been working side by side with the factory. Preciosa also participated in the first year of lighting design in the Prague Signal Festival in the autumn of 2013 with a lighting installation by Jaroslav Beyvl, the chief designer at Preciosa.
TON which in its 150 years still uses the traditional technology of bent wood has had a long-lasting relationship with foreign designers. It is gratifying that the Merano armchair by the Italian designer Alexander Gufler and Tram by the Austrian designer Thomas Feichtner were this year nominated for the German Design competition. TON has also recently introduced an electric powered wheelchair by the Czech designer René Šulc in response to the demands of ergonomics and hygiene. In the field of furniture, a young company, BOHEMIAN WORKS, specializing in furniture made from solid Czech oak has been engaged in co-operation with foreign designers. Perfect material processing is obvious in the tables and furniture by the designer of Greek origin, Tina Mavriki and the talented Dutch designer, Osiris Hertman.
Other companies represented in the Czech Selection were founded directly by designers and architects. Phenomenal global success has been seen by the company MMCITÉ established twenty years ago by two graduates of the Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, Radek Hegmon and David Karásek, specializing in street furniture. Today, it takes pride in the realizations in the Euro-American urban area and has won Czech and foreign awards such as Good Design Chicago and Red Dot Design. BOA DESIGN studio with a wide range of activities and a small lot production, preferring an original approach, shape and quality design of seating furniture or lighting can also boast the Red Dot Design 2012 award for its flower stand.
The Brno company, A.M.O.S. DESIGN, whose chief designer architect Vladimír Ambroz was an important figure on the conceptual art scene of the 70s, successfully presents office furniture and lighting and in an exceptional manner refurbished the Brno Tugendhadt Villa by the architect Mies van der Rohe. DAD studio, owned by the architect Helena Dařbujánová, presents limited editions of pieces of furniture for feminine interiors based on local craft work.
Specific local craft and manufacturing traditions are used by other companies represented in the Czech Selection for the co-operation with local designers, where they achieve excellent results such as, for example, the Prague joinery firm PROCESS CZ which scores at international shows with impeccable processing of atypical progressive furniture designed by Jiří Junek, Lucie Koldová and Maxim Velčovský. The Brno-based company ATEH, which specializes in the production of type lighting for public and private interiors also co-operates with leading Czech designers and is the winner of major awards such as the Chicago Good Design Award. The BOMMA brand conceals a connection of the latest technologies of automatic cut crystal glass and the current design of designers of all generations associated with the Academy of Art, Design and Architecture in Prague. Unique co-operation is presented by the STUDIO DEFORM students of the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design, Václav Mlynář and Jakub Pollág, and the glass factory KAVALIER GLASS, historically specializing in industrial glass.
We hope that the exhibition collection Czech Selection arouses the interest of the foreign lay and professional public thanks also to the installation solution by the studio OLGOJ CHORCHOJ, whose founders Jan Němeček and Michal Froněk head a product design studio at the Prague Academy of Art, Architecture and Design. This leading Czech design studio nutures the continuity of gilt-edged design work, the search for new talents and their application in industrial production.
Iva Knobloch
Curator of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague
