Archinect - News

Iconic furniture, art, tableware and even a sausage grinder: hundreds of lots from Philip Johnson's Four Seasons head to auction

2016-07-13T13:33:00-04:00

If you've got a few thousand dollars lying around and want to grab a piece of lunchroom history, now's your chance.

Perfectly summed up by Vanity Fair as “Absolute ground zero for power lunching”, Philip Johnson and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's iconic Four Seasons restaurant will end its lease in Mies' Seagram building this summer. While the designation from the The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission protects the interior of the restaurant from any structural changes, the Four Seasons still has to unload an awful lot of bespoke furniture and tableware—everything from salt cellars to wine glasses to barstools and serving carts.

Over 800 pieces and sets from the Four Seasons kitchen and dining areas will be auctioned off on July 26 in New York. Rifling off just a few of the items and estimated values, there are: Garth and Ada Louise Huxtable flatware and serving carts ($1,000-1,500 for a set for 12, same estimate for 1 cart), Hans J. Wegner chairs ($2,000-3,000 for a set of t...

IKEA recalls over 35 million MALM and other dressers and chests due to child fatalities

2016-06-30T18:30:00-04:00

Well that's a downer. In response to multiple child deaths resulting from their distinctive particleboard units tipping over, IKEA is offering a full refund or a free wall-mounting kit for any MALM dresser or chest, and additional models, made between January 2002 and June 2016. In total, that affects more than 35 million pieces of furniture sold in the U.S. and Canada.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the unstable units pose "a serious tip-over and entrapment hazard that can result in death or serious injuries to children." Last year, after two reported child deaths in 2014, IKEA announced that it would offer wall-anchoring repair kits to owners for free. Two additional deaths after the 2015 announcement prompted IKEA to go full-recall, asking consumers to stop using the units entirely, and keep them away from children.

According to the CPSC, one child dies every two weeks from furniture or TVs tipping over, and one is injured every 24 minutes. More i...

If "Ren and Stimpy" had a line of furniture

2016-02-23T17:59:00-05:00

Kahn’s material irreverence and cheeky sense of humor have already amassed him a following, with commissions from luxury clients like Dior. [...] Kahn’s creations, which range from inflated chandeliers to slouching concrete side tables, bring to mind the playfully haphazard aesthetic of ’90s Nickelodeon cartoons

Looking for more ... nontraditional furniture? Check out:

For those in New York City, Kahn has an upcoming show, "Return of Saturn, Coming of Age in the 21st Century", at Friedman Benda (515 W. 26th St.). The show runs February 25 - April 9.

Designing a transparent chair for toy storage

2016-02-17T17:05:00-05:00

The "Mom" chair is a kid-sized acrylic seat with an opening on top where kids can drop their toys. It makes the dreaded toy clean-up exceedingly simple—and looks damn good to boot—but the true genius is in its transparency. Unlike opaque storage systems, toys can be easily spotted and dug out from within its clear walls.

Anyone who has lived through the chaos of a child playing (the point of which can seem to be to maximally distribute their toys across a given floor area) will appreciate this inventive, highly functional design by Carlo Contin:

For more of Furniture February:

Finally, self-parking office chairs

2016-02-16T18:21:00-05:00

To demonstrate an alternate application of their "parking assist" technology, Nissan has outfitted a herd of office chairs to find their own way back to their desks. With a single clap, the chairs swivel and move into position, like the obedient office drones that they are – watch below:

Of course, this technological application is not setting out to solve the controversial issue of runaway chairs. It's an example of how ubiquitous the tech for autonomous vehicles could become (or is becoming, as regulations slowly allow it onto the highway), and a way to familiarize consumers with its very idea at a smaller, more accessible scale.

h/t Contemporist

Stockholm Furniture and Light Fair opens to the public

2016-02-11T16:57:00-05:00

If you're in Stockholm, you have until February 13th to head over to the Stockholm Furniture and Light Fair, which features designs and talks from Barber & Osgerby, among other furniture and lighting giants. Here are some pics of the fair in progress, courtesy the venue's Facebook page and Instagram account:

"Very refined; it’s like a jewel" – a look at former architect Jader Almeida's new furniture collection

2016-02-09T20:26:00-05:00

A joint venture with star Brazilian furniture designer Jader Almeida is bringing a new dimension to the luxury furnishings brand Artefacto. For Paulo Bacchi, the 47-year-old Brazilian CEO of Artefacto USA and brand advisor to Artefacto Brazil, the curvy seats, low round wood tables, minimalist lighting fixtures, and other iconic designs of the 35-year-old Almeida add a young, cosmopolitan flair to his company and its stylish, sustainably sourced, mansion-worthy wares.

Jader Almeida is a Brazilian designer born in the state of Santa Catarina in 1981, where he still maintains his office. Educated as an architect, Almeida has made a name for himself in the world of furniture design, garnering numerous awards.

In this interview, Almeida talks alongside Paulo Bacci, the CEO of the luxury furnishings brand Artefacto, about their new collaboration. We've put together some of the better bits of the interview between images from the new collection.

"The ambiance of Miami is close to my city, Florianopolis, an island in the south of Brazil. It has the beaches—it’s vibrant. My pieces are timeless. They can mix with the old and new Miami style."

"A chair is like a prosthesis—it extends the body. The lines follow the curves of the body. You can feel that when you use my product."

"The more time that passes, the more the people like [my furniture]. They get an emotional relationship with the product."

February is furniture month here on Archinect! Send us your furn...

For Alvar Aalto's 118th b-day, a museum extension + a few enduring favorites

2016-02-04T14:10:00-05:00

Fittingly for Furniture February, Alvar Aalto would have turned 118 this month, which has prompted Archinect to celebrate his paradigm-defining designs. We're not the only ones: the existing Alvar Aalto Museum and the Museum of Central Finland will be getting an extension (the winners of the competition can be viewed here: http://www.alvaraalto.fi/ruusupuisto). One of the proposals that didn't win features Aalto-specific materiality ("light color clay bricks in grid pattern for the floors and the circulation elements to the original masonry bricks walls in a way to match the colors but announce the new building with a different texture" according to a press release by the design firm Architensions). Here are renderings of Architensions' proposed museum extension:

And, just because we can, a quick tour through some of Aalto's masterful furniture work:

February is furniture month here on Archinect! Send us your furniture musings, interviews, reviews, designs, projects and investigation...

This app will make decorating a whole lot simpler

2016-02-03T16:54:00-05:00

Shanna Tellerman wants to help you redecorate your home. She’s not a designer, furniture aficionado, or personal shopper. She’s the founder and CEO of a company called Modsy that rolls all of the aforementioned jobs into one mobile app to make redesigning a room easier (and more fun) [...] What makes Modsy different from the handful of other home design tools out there is that it actually lets users see designs in the context of their own homes—and its renderings are utterly realistic.

The architecture of the app seems effective, if a bit out of touch with the on-demand expectations of today's digital consumer. After signing up, a user is asked to complete a quiz to figure out their aesthetic and then upload some photos of the space in question, along with its dimensions.

About 48 hours later, the Modsy team responds with a catalogue of renders of your own space, filled with new furniture. Like a piece? Click it and you'll be redistributed to the manufacturer's site. Modsy takes a percentage from every sale.

Apparently, the renders are super HD, and the long-term goal of the developers is to make the app more instantaneous.

February is furniture month here on Archinect! Send us your furniture musings, interviews, reviews, designs, projects and investigations for review to be featured on our site. The open call for submissions is effective immediately.

More details here.

And for some related coverage, check out these articles:

"Charles and Ray Eames, meet Freddy Krueger"...

"Charles and Ray Eames, meet Freddy Krueger": artist creates deformed furniture

2016-02-03T13:38:00-05:00

...the pieces in [Wurm's] latest show, Lost, appear as thought your living-room furniture took a nightmarish turn for the worse. Wurm modeled all of the objects in clay before distorting their form by stomping, smashing, or walking on them (the latter method can be seen clearly in the footprints on the torn-up chaise lounge). Wurm then cast the deformed pieces in bronze or polyester and painted [them].

A few pieces from the show:

More details here.

To satisfy your fix, check out some of Archinect's past furniture-related coverage:

Now is the time to invest in mid-century Scandinavian furniture, experts say

2016-02-01T19:58:00-05:00

Prices of chairs, tables, sofas and other pieces, particularly those of Scandinavian origin, from the late 1940s through the early 1960s have increased dramatically in recent years and show no sign of falling soon...[It] reflects an increase in overall real-estate activity, which in turn has driven a demand for furniture. The economy has been strong enough to drive the auction market for high-end furnishings and artwork to new highs...

More details here.

This February, Archinect is all about furniture – and we want your submissions

2016-02-01T06:01:00-05:00

Lean back in that Eames and rest your cup on that Noguchi – February is furniture month here on Archinect, and we're going to luxuriate in an overstuffed Fatboy of furniture-related editorial, including yours. Send us your furniture musings, interviews, reviews, designs, projects and investigations for review to be featured on the site. The open call for submissions is effective immediately.

Submissions can be either article- or project-based, and can be in the form of written pieces, designs or alternative media. If we decide to feature your work, you'll hear from us within two weeks of submitting.

For more information, and to submit your work, fill out this form.

We'll accept submissions through Sunday, February 21 at 11:59 pm (PST).

Still have questions? Ask Amelia.