Konstantin Grcic is one of the most influential designers of our time. Serious and functional, unwieldy and occasionally disconcerting, his works combine an industrial aesthetic with experimental, artistic elements. Many of Grcic’s creations, such as Chair_One (2004) or the Mayday lamp (1999), are widely acclaimed as design classics. Opened this Sunday at Z33, “Konstantin Grcic – Panorama”, developed in collaboration with the Vitra Design Museum, is the largest solo exhibition on Grcic and his work to date.

Specifically for this exhibition, Grcic has developed several largescale installations rendering his personal visions for life in the future: a home interior, a design studio and an urban environment. These spaces stage fictional scenarios confronting the viewer with the designer’s inspirations, challenges and questions, as well as placing Grcic’s works in a greater social context. The highlight of these presentations is a 30-metre long panorama that depicts an architectural landscape of the future. A fourth area of the exhibition takes a focused look at Grcic’s daily work. This section presents many of his finished objects, but also prototypes, drawings and background information along with artefacts that have inspired Grcic – from an old teapot and an early Apple computer to works by Marcel Duchamp, Gerrit Rietveld and Enzo Mari. In the shift of perspectives between larger and smaller scales, the exhibition demonstrates how design is more than mere problem solving for Grcic, but a highly complex process that integrates coincidences, ruptures, chance discoveries and a profound engagement with the visual culture of our time.

With “Panorama”, Grcic enters new territory. Never before has he so fundamentally reflected on his own work and so thoroughly disclosed his own understanding of design in general. The exhibition is based on an extensive analysis of current technological shifts, innovations and upheavals in contemporary design. It was developed over three years of close collaboration between Grcic, Vitra Design Museum and Z33. The result is a striking presentation of narrative and visual intensity, situated on the cusp between present and future, reality and fiction.

There are few contemporary designers that can take on such complex, diverse and challenging tasks as Konstantin Grcic. From über-technological furniture, to small everyday objects, from warm apartment interiors to experiments with unsual materials and production techniques, Grcic constantly re-affirms himself as one of the boldest and bravest contemporary designers. And, in fact, a new exhibition at Galerie Kreo, the hub of uncompromising contemporary design, demonstrates his ability to tackle and examine production processes, materials, systems and finishings in creating objects that are between functionality and appearance, conceptuality and reality of everyday use.

Borrowing its title from the Kraftwerk album, “Man Machine” is an exhibition that explores the duality between a fragile material and sturdy mechanical components that make it both practical and functional, by showcasing a series of glass objects produced in collaboration with a workshop established in Frankfurt in 1829 from industrial float glass identical to that used in architecture.

Each piece exhibited in the show – a round table, bookshelves, a chair, a side table, a large table, single and double chests, a vertical cabinet – is operated by a simple mechanism that not only meets contemporary design’s demand for scaleability but also truly performs its function. By means of pistons, hinges, cranks and knobs, and through the use of black silicone that allows plates of glass to move whilst highlighting their design, each piece is dynamic and lends itself to human movements.

Cold yet sensual, transparent yet somehow elusive and ethereal, structurally and functionally explicit yet, at the same time, delicate and poetic, “Man Machine” appears to be an exploration into the inconsistencies and discordancies of design production, challenging the way we view our material reality, the way our everyday objects are produced, used and, ultimately, understood.

“Man Machine” runs through May 17th 2014 at Galerie Kreo in Paris.

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This year’s selection includes international design stars such as Zaha Hadid, John Pawson, Stephen Jones, David Chipperfield, Miuccia Prada or Konstantin Grcic, alongside crowd-funded start-ups and student projects, for a total of 76 nominations. Shown in an exhibition that is due to open on the 26th of March and will culminate with an awards ceremony to be held later this year, the most iconic of the selected projects include a floating school in a Nigerian lagoon, a table that weighs just nine kilograms, a mobile phone made of detachable blocks, a calendar made of Lego, an arts centre at an old shipbuilding warehouse, a dome made by a robotic arm and live silkworms, and a range of tools for producing homemade cosmetics.

Covering a wide range of disciplines and an impressive number of undoubtedly exceptional projects, Designs of the Year should stand as representative of the current developments of ‘creative’ practices. In fact, this year the ubiquity of the smartphone is particularly apparent, as is the disruptive effect of crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter, with designers seeking to blur boundaries between the digital and physical worlds. Nevertheless, should it really be representative of design’s evolution through the years, in 2014 we feel a little disappointed in seeing the list of the nominees and can’t help but wonder whether Designs of the Year shouldn’t be confused with good designs of the year.

One of these designers is Konstantin Grcic, impossible to define through a single object and its aesthetics, and his work spans from iconic furniture to simple objects like umbrellas and pens, window designs for fashion companies or utility items such as pots and garbage cans. The complexity and richness of Grcic’s opus is the subject of an exhibition soon to open at Vitra Design Museum. Titled Panorama, the exhibition will feature several large-scale installations rendering Grcic’s personal visions for life in the future: a home interior, a design studio and an urban environment. These spaces stage fictional scenarios confronting the viewer with the designer’s inspirations, challenges and questions, as well as placing Grcic’s works in a greater social context. The highlight of these presentations is a 30-metre long panorama that depicts an architectural landscape of the future, while a fourth section of the show takes a focused look at Grcic’s daily work, presenting many of his finished objects, but also prototypes, drawings and background information along with artefacts that have inspired Grcic – from an old teapot and an early Apple computer to works by Marcel Duchamp, Gerrit Rietveld and Enzo Mari.

With Panorama, Grcic enters new territory. Never before has he so fundamentally reflected on his own work and so thoroughly disclosed his own understanding of design in general. The exhibition is based on an extensive analysis of current technological shifts, innovations and upheavals in contemporary design. Grcic’s thorough reflection on design process, skills and tools, might be the key in understanding the versatility and continuous evolution of his work. In fact, as Grcic once stated: “Skills, for me, mean a way of thinking, but they also mean very real talents in terms of craftsmanship and experience. So that probably makes us experts, but there’s always something we don’t know. We make mistakes. I think something very human happens there. Imagine a world of perfect objects: It would be terrible. We’d be bored, and it would be soulless.”

Panorama will be on show at Vitra Design Museum from 22.03. to 14.09.2014.

Enzo Mari‘s perpetuate calendars for Danese are a timeless classic that you should already have in your homes. For those of you who don’t, this is the perfect occasion to get them, one for you and one for your loved ones.

Another essential classic is Konstantin Grcic‘s Mayday lamp for Flos. Simple and linear, with a delightful and witty hook that allows to use this portable lamp both hung up as well as leaning on the floor or table, it bears all the distinctive traits of Grcic’s designs that we have learned to love.

Since it’s Christmas time and we should only give the best presents ever to our beloved ones, here is another great designer and another wonderful series of objects. Produced by Olgen, Japan, this range of cast iron kitchenware is already sold out on Morrison‘s web shop, but if you try really hard you might be able to snatch that lovely pot somewhere.

What would a Christmas gift list be without a book. Even though this time of the year is supposed to be relaxing, thus not include any heavy reading, we warmly suggest a book that is as challenging as it is astonishing. Written back in 1971 by Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World is a mandatory read for any design fanatic that doesn’t go for style but substance.

Tom Dixon : Faye Toogood = Konstantin Grcic : Pauline Deltour

Who are the protagonists? Dixon and Grcic are perhaps among the most famous designers of the early fifty-year-old generation. The first is English, the second is German. In more detail, they both stand out for the consistent development of their projects, always capable to fulfill the needs of the end users without renouncing to innovate with originality and wit the interiors they contribute to furnish.

Nevertheless, it’s not only their personality to divide them – anarchic for Dixon, functionalist for Grcic -, but a cultural background which reminds us of a crucial chapter in European history of ideas: the dialectics between English and German philosophical traditions, empiricism and rationalism. Dixon, ethereally self-taught by his own intuitions, keeps on reinventing himself when he designs his beloved, iconic lamps, as well as when he founds a new design showcase (as it’s the case with Most). Grcic, instead, has an undisputed talent to synthesize a problem solving attitude with a rigorous aesthetics, as for Achille Castiglioni’s Parentesi restyling in 2013, or for his most venerated product, iconic Magis’ Chair One.

And what about Toogood and Deltour? They both worked side by side with the other two designers in their own studios, getting acquainted with their masters’ methodologies and approaches. Then, they both chose to work as freelancers, emerging on the European scene as two of the most innovative young voices in the design field.

In her installations (La Cura, The Batch Room, Natura Morta), Faye Toogood privileges the spontaneity of a rough, impulsive taste: the experiences she’s used to offer to her customers, or to her public, are developed every time according to the specific context she’s involved in, always in the quest to reshape her objects through an immanent approach. The process is always refocused, and self-expression can’t be but an inescapable requirement. Pauline Deltour, on the contrary, doesn’t overstep the physical boundaries of her products, neither she reconsiders their terms of usage. Instead, she prefers to provide cost-effective yet fit-for-purpose solutions for everyday living needs (Alessi’s “A Tempo” collection, Discipline’s “Roulé” collection), designing affordances with an emphatic, familiar touch and working with materials through a clear-cut resolution.

In fact, Giò Ponti describes the success of the project on Domus’ pages with the following words: “Le Corbusier’s premise? Locate a building in a beautiful place (like ancient Romans with the sites of their monasteries, and the aristocratic their castles and villas – also “unité d’abitation”) which, with green space, air, sunlight, perfect orientation and day- and sun-lighting, acoustic insulation and perfect visuals (freedom), creates carefully designed and independent housing units in a complex offering all kinds of services and facilities (garage, kindergarten, schools, physical culture, guest rooms, infirmary, medical and pharmaceutical assistance, restaurant, shops, postal service, etc.) All of this is done by using the modern means and methods, both in terms of design and construction, used (in a purely industrial analogy) for the realization of the great ocean liners, other “unitè d’abitation.””

Even though years have passed and even a destructive fire has damaged the building last year, one of the apartments, namely unit number 50, has been almost entirely preserved in its original setting. Privately owned, this apartment is open to the public during the summer months and has, for this year, been entirely furbished by Konstantin Grcic. Following a project that initiated in 2008 with Jasper Morrison’s designs and continued in 2010 with the Bouroullec brothers, Mr. Grcic has used exclusively furniture designed by him in creating a contemporary vision of Le Corbusier’s vibrant project. Grcic’s utterly functional furniture has been complemented with large prints of pages taken out from a punk fanzine. The designer himself explains this powerful visual ambivalence: “The punk motifs are tempting a slightly devious link between two completely unrelated worlds: Le Corbusier’s architecture and punk rock. Without forcing the idea of common grounds, I find that both have a rawness and uncompromising spirit which I have always found compellingly beautiful,” ultimately proving that Le Corbusier’s visions won’t yet fade away.

Muji is a worldwide known brand famous for denying having a brand identity at all. Or at least, hiding it. The power of the un-branded, almost thirty-year-old company has always been the strong focus on the product quality. The quality pairs with extreme simplicity, a ‘supernormal’ quality – as Naoto Fukasawa, a company associate, and Jasper Morrison would put it. 
The designs Muji has put on the market have never been publicized by its famous designers’ names, although the company wouldn’t have hard time showing off, seeing the impressive list of its collaborations.

Among the designers working with Muji, you can read names like Konstantin Grcic, Enzo Mari and the two design superheroes mentioned above. These pop-stars of design have conceived some of the simplest objects of our everyday use such as an umbrella or a mug. Not quite a posh assignment for this elite of creative engineers.

As we may argue endlessly about how this un-branded strategy has actually created one of the most powerful contemporary brands, Muji has moved forward to developing a new project. Muji has taken the role of the collector and the distributor of some of the finest local crafts, thus promoting a kind of design heritage handed down to us from the tradition of our popular culture. 
The found collection comprises a series of jugs, brooms, toys, ceramic sculptures and gardening kits among others, all so essential and well conceived that they might have actually been designed by some of the Muji’s creatives. The utmost proof of the importance this concept represents for the no-brand company is the opening of the Found shop at the first ever Muji Tokyo store in Aoyama.