DESIGN UNLIMITED OCTOBER 2016

BIANNUALLY PUBLISHED, DISTRIBUTED FREE OF CHARGE. AUTUMN 2016, YEAR 1, ISSUE 1

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design

INSPIRED BY NATURE “It’s that combination of finding comfort – with the light, sea, place, vegetation and topography – and at the same time using technology to compliment the sensation of luxury, so people here can enjoy every kind of comfort and feel very at ease.”

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Kaplankaya Canyon Ranch Living Architect - CARLOS FERRATER (Office of Architecture in Barcelona)

Bodrum/Milas Airport

10min 30min 50min

www.kaplankaya.com

Yeni BMW 740Le xDrive iPerformance

Edito Dilek Öztürk

www.bmw.com.tr

PHOTO: DILEK ÖZTÜRK, AUTO-PORTRE, NOISY-LE-GRAND, PARIS, 2016

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We are living in an era where process take over the power of outcome. Open source sharing, evolution of production techniques and the sharing economy models are taking our lives upside down, breaking our reality perceptions. Fortunately.

The new experiences in the changing spatial, social and cultural contexts really matter. We witness that physical environment definitions or traditional ways of collaborating are no longer exist. Today we develop spontaneous networks which create communities and opening new topics in the world.

As Gilles Deleuze states that design should not be materialised but its should be considered as a way of thinking. This idea can be seen as a reflection of today’s constantly changing world where only the content becomes the matter. ‘Content’ is the keyword of the new age. You influence the environment you are in and you exist in the new environments as long as you filter the current information and curate it through an idea.

When we meet with Alessandro Mendini, one of the most important design figures in the world, in his atelier Milan, we mostly talked about how the content production becomes a routine of documentation. Defining himself as a journalist rather than an architect or a designer, Mendini acclaims that the information became so easy to reach that we do not manifest an idea anymore. Mendini also says that we are living ‘project lives’. Everything we have in our lives are part of a project and the miserable situation of the world today lays out in the project of politics. We may need to construct a new moral value.

What do we have now? We should concentrate on our current situation rather than generating future assumptions. We are not going to save the world. What about thinking back to 200.000 years when the human being existed on earth. This is what the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial is interrogating: the evolution of human being from the beginning of its existence to today

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with an archaeological sensitivity.

The first issue of Design Unlimited is published as the special issue of the 3rd International Istanbul Design Biennial in collaboration of VitrA. Timing is just right. Design Unlimited takes the design criticism a step forward, opening up new titles by filtering the existing design scene, bringing the opinion leaders together.

The first issue of Design Unlimited features the connections between life and design, the architectural legacy of design events, analogue technologies, urban reflections of design by bringing local and international renowned and emerging creatives together.

The personal interaction is an irreplaceable topic. We think publication is a medium which constantly presents new outcomes and brings various voices together.

We believe that this meaning will get stronger as long as we speak, discuss and stand next to each other.

Greetings from Design Unlimited.

Contributors: Hazal Alıcıgüzel, Engin Ayaz, Formafantasma, Benjamin Hubert, Richard Hutten, Gökhan Karakuş, Şule Koç, Atilla Kuzu, Salih Küçüktuna, Sinan Logie, Eray Makal, Faruk Malhan, Alessandro Mendini, Aziz Sarıyer, Türkü Şahin, Ziya Şanlı, Nazar Şigaher, Gökberk Tektek, Marcel Wanders, Umut Yamaç.

Translation: Müjde Bilgütay, Hande Zeynep Erbil

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GELECEĞE YOL GÖSTERENLERİN YENİ OTOMOBİLİ.

YENİ BMW 740Le xDrive iPERFORMANCE PLUG-IN HYBRID. Lüks için elektrik çağı başlıyor. BMW TwinPower Turbo Motor ve şarj edilebilir elektrikli motorun mükemmel uyumuyla 326 beygir gücü üreten Yeni BMW 740Le xDrive iPerformance Plug-in Hybrid, eşsiz performansı ve üstün teknolojisiyle şimdi Türkiye’de.

Sheer Driving Pleasure

Content

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#UNLIMITEDYEAR A year’s review in design scene

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Intersections between city and design

28 32 36

Biennial map What to do, where to find?

Where the human begins and ends?

Beatrice Colomina, Mark Wigley File Form follows what?

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Abstraction, materiality and pattern in Turkish Design Gökhan Karakuş

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The Maker Alessandro Mendini

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Design memory of a brand Erdem Akan

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Vital aspect of design Ayşe Birsel

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Day, light, night Özlem Yalım

#Unlimitedyear A year’s review in design scene

TAC/TILE, LASVIT+ANDRE FU, 2016 PHOTO: COURTESY OF LASVIT

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Dilek Öztürk

I will try to conduct an annual review of one of the industries that primarily stimulates the consumption culture. The reason I selected the hash tag as the title is because I wanted to gather everyone who has something to say about the outputs of the past year. On the other hand, the lexical meaning of the hash tag was rather noteworthy; what we have seen this past year is not limited to that year.

I prefer to make an assessment of the past year on the design stage, leading from my notes that I found to be significant of the design events I was invited to and I got a chance to visit, as well as of the publications I follow, and the press releases falling in my inbox.

This year we had the chance to observe a few brave, risk bearer works where the trust zone between the master and the novice were redefined, brands that did not want to stay in their comfort zone, and young names, and collectives which raised the level of expectations from the new.

During the year, we watched similar presentations of the same brands and designers in different cities. At this point, the curated authentic content always carried the day. Conceptual exhibitions and curatorial selections gave way to new discussions.

We observed that kinetic and analogue solutions were preferred especially by the young generation designers. Products that accomplished their function, and achieved their mission via simple kinetic interventions like processes or movements on material, gave way to promising and new solutions. We observed that brands with long years of production experience on a given area, sustained the prestigious projects with master designers as if they’re in a trade of tradition. Strong collaborations where both sides demonstrate their own tradition and signature fit in the definition of safe zone on the design stage. On the other side, the resulting refined works already took their place on the chronological flow of the history of contemporary design.

Practices where material is fateful by determining the function and the area of use of the product, and opening new titles for it drew attention especially in terms of innovation. Designers who got to use the possibilities provided by the material, followed by a careful period and filter of research, were able to add new habits to the industry.

In the late years, we preferred non-spatiality in the living, working, and resting spaces, and tried to fictionalize the resulting new habits. The reinterpretation of the state of mobility, gave the greatest acceleration in

the design sector after Memphis. The freelance culture developed by the Y generation, led the previous and the following generations to adapt to the space, situation, and the moment. The industrial revolution separating the office from the living space, and the posterior machine age, had defined the working action, as within the office phenomenon triggered by skyscrapers, and dashing office structures, inside the grid structures. I cannot tell whether the office structure will continue to exist in the following years but as was elaborated by this year’s Milano Triennial’s authentic living concepts exhibition, the interior architecture discipline considered to be the foundation of invention in the world, will discover new concepts for the ever-changing human motives.

Wallpaper Handmade’s interpretation of mobility with a hotel concept, was also valuable as an assessment of the last couple years in that it presented the state of mobility in a content curated by different designers and collaborations.

Lotta Agaton interpreted Note Design Studio’s works via our ways of consuming design. In order to also demonstrate the variable consumption forms, Agaton depicted the studio’s works in rooms stylized with different furniture, objects, fabrics, and colours. Agaton’s underline of how ‘composition’, as one of the most important elements of the designer’s creation process, was used to consume and communicate in the design world, was one of the outstanding contents of this year.

The Barbie exhibition in Les Arts Décoratifs, depicted the state of Barbie dolls being an international phenomenon, by adapting to social, cultural, and political changes since 1959 to our days, with an excellent chronological work of 700 baby dolls, and in the background of designed exhibition space.

While I am writing this, we have in front of us the London Design Biennale, followed by the design festival, the Istanbul Design Biennale a month after that, and numerous other design weeks and days before the year comes to an end. It is inevitable that these events follow or repeat each other at some point When we think that everything around us is a designed object that gave or took reference from one another in this forest of designs, the events that are commercialised in this wide selection present us with a warning. These mediums open their doors to established brands as much as to designers who want to be known; and that is excellent for the young designers to be discovered. Of course, as long as the necessary filters

are in use… The essential question must be: Should it be this easy to participate to design events? The poorness of the criteria creates the aforementioned forest. Hence, it becomes inevitable that all designers easily launch themselves as international designers. We consume the production as it suits our book, with appetite, rapidly.

When we will slow down the production, reflect, share less about ourselves, tell more about ourselves when and if the time comes; in a couple centuries, we will speak of this period with a characteristic language. Otherwise, you will design something, I will write about it. Let alone forming an identity, we will alienate from ourselves.

A great example to this situation was the Korean artist Bora Hung’s work exhibited in Milano this year, in reference to the ever-exploding plastic surgery phenomenon in Korea. Hong caricaturized the plastic surgeries that ordinary furniture go through in order to become iconic objects like an Eames or Rietveld chair. The chairs could not go beyond becoming a cheap Eames imitation, even when the original pieces were articulated on the product like a bandage.

There is a work that I will leave apart from my selection from among a thousand other works. It’s a work that I am defining as either a product of subtle wit or a simple stance against.

Maarten Baas, who was recognized with his Smoke Chair design for the moooi collection, had decided to continue his work in his studio outside the city, and maybe even to reflect a little on himself. This year, Baas quietly exhibited his concept garden design that he proposed for 200 years later, in Via Savona across the moooi exhibition. How would you comment on this designer, who was among the outstanding designers of his generation, who then decided to produce less, and created this idea of an island in Holland, which will gain its shape with different kind and colour seeds that need to be planted 200 years in advance?

I prefer to close the year with this question. Can we create an alternative word for ‘design’, as one of the most consumed words? Can we address fictions that we laid the foundation of, and which the next generation will shape and bring to an end or maybe change its shell?

I ask the question to all of us; you may state your opinion on Twitter and Instagram with the following hash tag: #unlimitedyear.

#Unlimitedyear Kinetic +

analogue

Systems functioning with simple kinetic interventions

Surfaces sensitive to movement

Day light panel

Dangling Grid, Alissa + Nienke

Semenova focuses on the natural rhythms of daily communication tools and a person’s emotional comfort as well as living with nature in the urban landscape.

Ekaterina Semenova is still studying her master degree at Design Academy Eindhoven. Chronic is a proudct that reminds us how the nature acts. The power of nature lies in its variability. Nature moves and changes, in this I see charm and uniqueness. Nothing is perfect.

Nothing is finished. Nothing is eternal. Chromica resembles the way nature works. Using the principle of reversible transformation daylight will show another side of Chromica.

Dangling Grid is a product functioning with the most analogue methods caused by the material’s speciality. Dangling Grid is actually a separator made of thin metal plates, interacted by air and movement.

Dangling Grid is a flexible, interactive -but analoguesurface, sensitive to air movement. Every gust of wind enables the structure to move, creating an ever-changing pattern with an almost digital feel.

Dangling Grid’s play with reflection and translucency is triggered by wind or a person moving by, making it an ideal application for both interior and exterior use.

Field, John Hogan & Lasvit Hogan’s chandelier was constructed by applying polarising foil to panes of water-jet-cut glass, placed perpendicular to each other in three tiers and suspended from the ceiling on polished metal rods. The design for the ‘Field’ chandelier followed an intense period of research into polarising foil – optical films that allow light oscillations to be shifted from 360 degrees into one direction.

The chandelier that splits the light waves as they shine through the glass from above, causing different colours to appear as the viewer moves around it. ‘Field’ chandelier is the first time Hogan has created colour through filtration.

Materializing magnetism

Kinetic state of lighting The new analogue Perch Light, Umut Yamaç

MPO1 / Punkt, Jasper Morrison

Magnetica Lamp, Vittorio Venezia

Umut is an architect, interrogating the mathematical perception in between the sculpture and the object. The Perch Light is a balancing sculptural light made of folded paper and brass. The lamp takes the form of an abstract bird which appears to be delicately balanced on its metal perch. The bird is illuminated through contact with the perch and this lets the bird balance and swing without any cables whilst maintaining luminance. The design was inspired by nature and in particular, the elegance and beauty of a bird sitting on its perch.

The Punkt. MP 01 Mobile phone integrates unique hardware and software design to achieve a new level of simplicity. Created with a focus on call making, with direct keys and an intuitive text-based interface, the handset offers unhindered access to all functions, without complex navigation keys and menu systems.

Finished with a high specification finishes, the handset has a soft-touch texture with a moulded pattern on the rear making the MP 01 is comfortable to hold and easy to place on any surface.

A forgotten levels of battery life, combined with modern features such as USB charging, Bluetooth pairing and easy SIM access, enhance this rediscovery of the mobile phone.

A promising kinetic lighting design amongst all the objects of light we have seen before. Magnetica is a pendant lamp that combines LED technology and permanent magnets. Two bodies machined from blocks of solid aluminium, one polished and the other lacquered in matt black, are supported exclusively by the force of attraction of magnets at the extremities. The constant magnetic field thus generated gives the lamp a sense of lightness, making it susceptible to external vibrations.

The part containing the LED produces a spotlight, that becomes a diffuse glow when close to the upper body mirror. Magnetica, instead of a conventional lamp, can be defined as a kind of installation that invites reflection both on space and light.

Breaking the light Radyan, Şule Koç

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Chromica, Ekaterina Semenova

New dimension of glass

Radyan Lighting Series defines a product family with the sculptural standing and adaptability to any living space as an accessory.

Radyan Lighting Series explores the materialization of the light through glass. The series consists of a variety of cut-glass forms which capture the light, radiate it, shape or hide it. Glass becomes the body of the light within geometric forms. The units come with alternative colors and usages such as table lamps and wall lamps.

‘Natural’ attitude of mechanism Secant, Daniel Rybakken The mobile moves in counter poise and is constructed from crystal glass discs, anodized aluminium and rope to show the strength, utility and refractive qualities of glass used in a way that both builds on and usurps the tradition. It is lit from a single point above and functions both as an installation and light piece.

Secant is about visual and semiotic contrast; the crystal disc communicates something pure, fragile and elevated in value, whilst the machined metal parts and the pulley communicate the industrial. Using the Secant Mobile and crystal discs as a point of departure Daniel has designed three lights – wall, floor and table.

Restrained and minimal, this modular design allows crystal glass to be appreciated without any overbearing interventions.

The rhythm of light

SECANT, DANIEL RYBAKKEN, 2016

DANGLING GRID, ALISSA+NIENKE, 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF J. HILL’S STANDARD

PHOTO: COURTESY OF ALISSA+NIENKE

RADYAN, ŞULE KOÇ, 2016 PHOTO: DILEK ÖZTÜRK

MAGNETICA LAMP, VITTORIO VENEZIA, 2016

CHROMICA, EKATERINA SEMENOVA, 2016

PERCH LIGHT / MOOOI, UMUT YAMAÇ, 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF EKATERINA SEMENOVA

PHOTO: ANDREW MEREDITH

PHOTO: FRANCESCA FERRARI

Sundial, Marteen De Ceulaer Marteen De Ceulaer designs Sundial, a chandelier inspired by sundials. The anodized aluminum disks are floating in space like planets in the universe, and the strong glow of the light makes them look almost spherical. One strong light source (led) on top of each disk brightly illuminates the surface above it, and each led casts a striking sharp shadow of the central rod in a different direction, as if it were illuminated by 6 different suns.

The shadows in this first version spiral down the piece to end where they started, like a perfect loop in time. It’s all about rhythm, and since the possible variations with this piece are endless, each version will play a different song, with the shadows dancing in different ways.

MPO1 / PUNKT, JASPER MORRISON, 2016

SUNDIAL, MAARTEN DE CEULAER, 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF NILUFAR GALLERY

FIELD / LASVIT, JOHN HOGAN, 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF UNKT

PHOTO: JAKUB SKOKAN

#Unlimitedyear Brand - designer collaborations

Exchange of master designers and manufacturers

moooi + Paul Cocksedge Designed for Moooi, Compressed Sofa is a celebration of two entirely different materials – foam and marble - allowing each to come up with the final shape. Through sheer pressure, an angular block of foam becomes curvaceous and comfortable, a perfect marriage of opposites: soft and hard, humble and grand, light and heavy. Its sister piece simply switches the two materials around, in perfect and mirrored harmony.

Lasvit + Andre Fu

Thomas Eyck introduced “the copper collection”, a new collection designed by Aldo Bakker. “The copper collection” consists of different objects based on the contemporary handwriting of Bakker in perfect harmony with traditional and new production techniques.

Bakker allows his products to take shape on the basis of analysis so that they can question their usage and, where necessary, give rise to new rituals or break existing patterns. This fresh and innovative approach

by Aldo Bakker to very old and new techniques like moulding, galvanising and lacquering has resulted in an astonishing collection comprising a stool, watering can, soy pourer, candleholders, mixing bowl, and saucepan.

Celebrating Fu’s signature language of ‘relaxed luxury,’ this collection is an ode to a truly tactile material that embodies religious, institutional and monumental architecture.

TAC/TILE was inspired by the 1932 Maison de Verre (a.k.a. House of Glass), Czech metropolitan passageways, traditional Chinese tiled roofs, the Flatiron Building, as well as modernist glass blocks. The purist triangular profile became the core form adapted into a spectrum of applications - from table lamps and floor lamps to suspended pendants.

Classicon + Konstantin Grcic The ClassiCon/Grcic Edition marking the 25th anniversary of the successful collaboration has given a makeover to Konstantin Grcic’s most striking designs for ClassiCon, transforming them into a mono- chromatic series in black. With surfaces of glossy lacquers, black- burnished metal and fabrics with colour depth such as the velvet from the Raf Simons for Kvadrat collection, the furniture obtains a timeless elegance and is newly united as a monochromatic ensemble.

The lacquers and fabrics used for Diana A, B and C, Pallas, Chaos and Orcus were especially selected for this anniversary edition – each of the products is limited to 25 numbered copies.

Kvadrat + Bouroullec Brothers Ready Made Curtain is an adjustable curtain kit, which has been designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, in collaboration with Kvadrat.

Simple and elegant, Ready Made Curtain is based on minimal components. Each kit contains two wooden wall fixings, pegs, a hanging cord, and an opaque or translucent curtain textile. Both fabrics come in three colour variations.

The project follows the Ready Made Curtain do-ityourself kit that the Bouroullecs designed for the brand in 2013. Bourellac brothers treat this everyday object with decency and respect.

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Georg Jensen + Zaha Hadid In one of her last completed projects, globally renowned architect and designer Zaha Hadid collaborated with Georg Jensen on a collection of sculptural, sensually expressive rings and cuff bangles. Each is created in both sterling silver and black rhodium plated set with black diamonds.

The jewelry collection of five rings and three cuff bangles were inspired by the Wangjing Soho near Beijing, an approximate 4.2-million square-foot retail and office complex of three curvilinear asymmetric buildings that appear to circle one another and change appearance with the light of the day and the angle they are viewed.

SILVER TEA SET, GEORG JENSEN + MARC NEWSON, 2016

TAC/TILE, LASVIT+ANDRE FU, 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF GEORG JENSEN

PHOTO: COURTESY OF LASVIT

Iittala + Issey Miyake Iittala X Issey Miyake collection is a collaboration between two masters of timeless design from two sides of the world, Finland and Japan. One vision of a home with harmony. Iittala X Issey Miyake is a unique collection of high quality ceramics, glass and home textiles that enable you to pause and enjoy the moment. Iittala X Issey Miyake collection brings your home a new kind of harmony by combining Scandinavian and Asian craftmanship and ambiance.

IITTALA+ISSEY MIYAKE COLLECTION, 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF IITTALA AND ISSEY MIYAKE

ZAHA HADID COLLECTION, GEORG JENSEN, 2016

Valerie Objects + Maarten Baas Maarten Baas’s style is instantly recognisable in his cutlery set he designed for Valerie Objects. The sketchy, nearly childlike shapes can be seen in many of his works (such as the Sculpt series 2007, The Haphazard Harmony service set from 2010 and various free works). The knife, fork, tablespoon and teaspoon seem to have gone directly from sketch to the factory. Baas: “There is often a great deal of beauty in a rapid sketch, but those spontaneous lines often get lost in an industrial process.” A characteristic feature of this cutlery set is the irregular zigzag edge of the knife. An ostensibly simple intervention, which is precisely the most difficult part of production.

Georg Jensen + Marc Newson

PHOTO: CHRISTIAN HÖGSTEDT

Representing the first significant partnership with a contemporary artist since Georg Jensen’s collaboration with Verner Panton in 1988, the tea service will be offered in a limited edition of 10 sets, stamped with a distinctive Marc Newson makers mark.

Bearing the familial qualities of a reductive sculptural approach, which is realized through the craftsmanship of the Silversmithy, the service is comprised of 5 pieces: teapot, coffee pot, creamer, sugar bowl, and tray. Sculpted with the designer’s signature mastery of exquisite proportions, Newson’s shapes evoke an impression of nature, as did Mr. Jensen’s inventive ‘organic’ forms, created a century earlier.

The teapot, coffee pot, and creamer are embellished with responsibly sourced mammoth handles, while the tray’s perimeter is wound in natural rattan. Newson exercises his affinity for the biomorphic outline by adding an almost invisible cut-out with sliding door to the tops of the tea and coffee pots.

INGE RYANT & SENNE VAN DER VEN

The Italian designer Achille Castiglioni had a passion for re-designing, re-inventing and re-conceptualizing. Traditional interior design objects would pass through his Milan based studio and end up perfected.

Castiglioni is said to ponder a lot on lost space.

Empty inches and square meters that could be led with beautiful design – but for some reason just never were.

Due to this thinking he did many designs intended specifically for the corners of the homes. Trio from 1988 is one of those.

Trio is a practical corner shelf system designed in collaboration with Giancarlo Pozzi – intended to take full advantage of the available space in your corners. A clean multipurpose unit in wood with three triangular shelves.

T.E. + Aldo Bakker

MAARTEN BAAS COLLECTION,, VALERIE OBJECTS, 2016 PHOTO:

Karakter CPH + Achille Castiglioni

PRESSURED MARBLE SOFA, MOOOI + PAUL COCKSEDGE, 2016 PHOTO: ANDREW MEREDITH

TRIO, KARAKTER CPH, 2016 + ACHILLE CASTIGLIONI AND GIANCARLO POZZI PHOTO: COURTESY OF KARAKTER CPH

DIANA C, CLASSICON + KONSTANTIN GRCIC 2016

READY MADE, BOUROULLEC BROTHERS + KVADRAT, 2016

PHOTO: SHIRANA SHAHBAZI

PHOTO: COURTESY OF RONAN AND ERWAN BOUROULLEC AND KVADRAT

ALDO BAKKER COLLECTION, T.E., 2016 PHOTO: COURTESY OF THOMAS EYCK

#Unlimitedyear Material experimentations Materials defining the product’s fate

A Fin Ecole: The ash tree exam

Hussein Chalayan’s melting collection

Optic fiber lightness

This year Aalto University students had the most holistic approach at the Greenhouse under the Stockholm Furniture Fair. The fourteen furniture design masters students have designed and built 14 chairs, accompanied by tableware — coffee cups and ashtrays, are displayed in a café setting. Each student was restricted by the use of stained-black ash – with sections of eight- by 24- millimetre and 24- by 24- millimetres – but was given freedom to experiment with shape and pattern. The café is a culturally significant place for it is here, where people regardless of their social standing can meet, share, and develop daring, artistic or political ideas.

Hussein Chalayan wanted to pursue his militant attitude he had at the cuban Collection with his Spring 2016 collection, but adding a little bit of play. This year Chalayan presented his Spring 2016 collection, locating two models in the middle of the runway, wearing white jackets made of paper. And we have witnessed that with the shower, the jackets dissolved under the water, leaving a dress underneath.

Chalayan has collaborated with Swarovski as milestones in his career. This time he designed a series of clothes, dissolving under the water and leaving a surprising pattern.

Shinya Ito & Kaori Yamamoto is a design studio based in Tokyo Japan. They have released Shower Light at Stockholm Furniture Fair this year. The lighting object stands out with its material mix&match such as LED, optical fibre and acrylic. This lamp is inspired by water falling from the shower. Their design philosophy is focused on liberation of the design from everything restricted and it aims to achieve the most simple and the most functional form with the material.

Textile innovation in furniture

Spontaneous state of oxidisation

Changing routines of the bag

Cradle, developed by Benjamin Hubert’s LAYER and Moroso, draws inspiration from materials technology now common in footwear manufacture The new family comprises a high-back chair, a lowback chair and a room divider, each of which are inspired by the studio’s research into the construction of mesh materials and how traditional product typologies can be re- imagined to enhance performance.

The knitted backrest conforms and supports the sitters body shape delivering a comfortable experience through exibility and tension. The 3d knitted technology and approach utilised in Cradle’s backrest reduces the amount of material whilst increasing comfort can be paralleled to Flyknit technology found in the upper of Nike footwear.

The Cradle collection utilises a new three-dimensional stretch textile developed by Layer with Austrian textile factory. The knitted textile has high strength but low density, meaning it can o er the necessary support using a fraction of the material of a traditional mesh.

At EuroCucina, Dutch designer Lex Pott has experimented with oxidisation for his model for luxury French oven manufacturers La Cornue, taking their brass wares to a new level described as a cross between alchemy and art.

Lex Pott transforming the classic solid brass faces of a La Cornue Château 150 cooker into fascinating oxidised and polished brass textures of electric blue is quite remarkable.

The idea here was not to work on the effect, but above all to find original colours, to work with oxidation without sinking into traditionalism, to find an approach which was both poetic and contemporary at the same time.

Tomás Alonso together with e15 developed a multifunctional bag that can flexibly expand or reduce its volume. Foldable, lightweight technical nylon is combined with firm vegetable-tanned leather to create additional stability, resulting in a distinct material mix.

The most important feature that provides the always on the profile in the metropolitan is, different materials define different functions. By the end of 2016 will be available as part of the e15 collection of accessories.

Flexible light

through collaborations with different designers. Alcantara presented an exhibition in experimentation at IMM Cologne by giving the four designers the brief to Rethink Alcantara. The exhibition, entitled ‘Touching Tales’, saw four different designers called on to utilise the diverse textile in different ways. Formafantasma paired the soft material with glass, marble and metal, repositioning Alcantara as solid matter.

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Project of metal fabric weaved to reflect light. It can be modelled into various shapes, forming perfect texture for light to play with. It can take the form of lamps, room dividers or decorative objects. The fabric, while made in metal, achieves quite an organic expression.

Front and back side of this fabric are different. Glimmering with colors is achieved through the process of steel galvanization. All the production is made in Poland by local artisans.

Collection includes: table lamp, floor lamp, ceiling lamp, room divider in stainless steel, copper, brass, zinc, nickel colour options.

CRADLE, BENJAMIN HUBERT + MOROSO, 2016 PHOTO: BENJAMIN HUBERT VE MOROSO IZNIYLE

SUPERWALK, FORMAFANTASMA, 2016 PHOTO: COURTESY OF SPORTMAX AND FORMAFANTASMA

16 AND 19, 2016

CHAT NOIR, ANNAMILA SUOMINEN, 2016 PHOTO: ANDRE POZUSIS

MULTIFUNCTIONAL BAG, TOMAS ALONSO + E15, 2016 PHOTO: WILLEM JASPERT STYLING: JASON HUGHES

PHOTO: COURTESY OF 16 AND 19

Sensitive textile objects A guerrilla material at Alcantara is for sure can be defined as the Italian fashion week: PVC textile expert experimenting the material innovation

Fluid glass Three free-form hand blown glass resemble a group of suspended waterfalls. The glass, illuminated by LED, are of different sizes, patterns and positions. Thanks to mechanics and motors, the patterned glass is able to create the illusion of water falling down.

The glass was hand blown using an optical mold in which the ridge patterns can be adjusted to reach desired results. Due to the imperfection and randomness of each production, bubbles and scars are visible, adding up to the realistic of the water illusion.

For the Sportmax spring summer collection Formafantasma was asked to define the set design in Palazzo Delle Poste which has a typical early XXth century facade while the interiors are a recent intervention with a large dominance of stainless steel and gray nuances.

The set design reference the work of Russian Cubo Futurism artist Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster. The intervention is based on two main materials: terracotta and a selection of three colored pvc films. The films are defining the catwalk and expanding in the space almost as a infinite loop.The team wanted the space to feel not as a scenography but more as a deconstructed architecture.

The main inspirations for the color pallet and material are both very sofisticated houses such as the ones designed by Pietro Lingeri by Como lake and but also Italian ‘summer houses’ built between the 60’s and 70’s characterized by a large use of terracotta solar shadings.

EYE OF THE LIGHT, MALGORZATA MOZOLEWSKA, 2016

PHOTO: SONIA SZOZTAK

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN, SPRING SUMMER 2016 PHOTO: DAN LECCA

STRATA, FORMAFANTASMA + ALCANTARA, 2016 PHOTO: MANFRED WEGENER

CHÂTEAU 150 COLLECTION, LEX POTT+LA CORNUE, 2016 PHOTO: COURTESY OF LA CORNUE

WATERFALL LAMP, STUDIO BEY, 2016 PHOTO: COURTESY OF STUDIO BEY

#Unlimitedyear Mobility Free form space

New meaning of ‘waiting’ Designed by Derin Sarıyer, Mod which has been awarded with Bronze Prize within International Design Awards this year, presents mobile solutions for the common areas in office.

Mod presents a user scenario independent from the symmetry which is a must for all the modular systems in the world and adds surprises to the space. The mathematics of the product reveals a non-dissolved asymmetry, starts from one way and creates an illusion as if there are more than one form.

Multifunctional furnitures fit for alternating demands CNVS is a furniture brand established by ATÖLYE Labs, which provides creative, dynamic and multifunctional design solutions to meet the demands of new generation work and learning spaces.

The multidisciplinary designers of the ATÖLYE Labs team work with local fabricators to create products with flexible usages, which provide the necessary infrastructure for different types of spaces.

CNVS uses local and natural materials to create multifunctional furnitures, lighting products, separators and regulatory systems. The CNVS products enable flexible working methods and production, through increasing interaction between users.

CNVS, ATÖLYE LABS, 2016

Table for one Even the most humble of travel essentials deserves an elegant rethink. Design studio Yabu Pushelberg has upgraded a bento-inspired, cypress-wood box (lunch kit) by coating it in the fine leather of fashion brand Want Les Essentiels. The studio teamed this with chopsticks, and a porcelain water bottle by ceramicist Alissa Coe, with a case in the same leather, and slotted them together for a perfectly compact mealtime on the go.

AIR KITCHEN, TOM DIXON + CEASERSTONE, 2016

PHOTO: YERÇEKİM

PHOTO: PEER LINDGREEN

New extensions of office Launched at NeoCon 2016 in Chicago, Zones is a comprehensive new workplace furniture collection for Canadian brand Teknion designed by London based studio PearsonLloyd.

The boundaries between traditional and emerging work space is breaking down. People don’t just work in offices; hotels, public transport, cafes and home have become an extension of the office. Thus, Zones responds to this mentality by embracing and facilitating today’s dynamic work ethos.

Zones – is focused on creating spaces for privacy, collaboration and relaxation within a flexible environment.

The collection features a semi-private pod combining two sofas, as well as seating, tables, screens and easels.

MOD, DERIN SARIYER, DERIN DESIGN 2016 COLLECTION PHOTO: COURTESY OF DERIN DESIGN

SEFERTASI, YABU PUSHELBERG + WANT LES ESSENTIELS, 2016

PHOTO: BAKER&EVANS

STYLING: LUNE KUIPERS

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Tracing pattern in living Mobile kitchen Known for presenting memorable, interactive inspaces stallations in Milan, quartz manufacturer Caesarstone At the NEOCON 2016 Dutch design duo Scholten & Baijings presented a family of etched + printed glass gradient patterns for skyline design. Kullanıcının kişiselleştirebileceği tasarımlar mekanda hareketlilik convey ediyor. Gridvari doku, mekanın çeşitliliğine göre, mekanda oyun ve kişiselleştirmeyi teşvik eden birer mimari eleman görevi görüyor.

The collection showcases the materials transparent properties which have been achieved using a variety of innovative techniques.

The graphic markings reveal a new spatial context transforming different interiors in new and unexpected ways. The customizable designs convey a sense of surprise and movement — concealing or revealing any given space. The grid-like patterns act as an architectural element which encourages play and personalization within a given set of variables.

has collaborated with British designer Tom Dixon on a multi-sensory creation. ‘The RESTAURANT by Caesarstone & Tom Dixon’ consists of four conceptual kitchens inspired by the elements – Earth, Fire, Water and Air for this year’s Milan Design Week.

Inspired by urban architecture, the AIR kitchen is providing an open area for the user by giving the vertical and horizontal choices. Created with thin, vertically-placed Caesarstone slabs and cut-outs serve as cooking counters. Caesarstone’s Raw Concrete and Noble Grey create an urban, light background for the culinary experience.

ZONES, PEARSON LLOYD + TEKNION, 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF TEKNION

GLASS GRADIENTS, SCHOLTEN&BAIJINGS + SKYLINE DESIGN, 2016 PHOTO: JOHN BOEHM

#Unlimitedyear Milestones

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Events opening up new topics in design world

The hotel state of mobile life: Hotel Wallpaper* 2016

Examining the essential question: “Why beauty now?”

This year, Wallpaper Handmade has re-interpreted the most popular topic in the design scene for the last couple of years: “Mobility”. Now in its seventh year, Wallpaper* Handmade is an annual exhibition dedicated to the marriage of craftsmanship and contemporary design. The exhibition series is paying a tribute to important topics in the design scene and thus deserves to be followed. It features one-of a kind pieces by designers, artisans, craftsmen and manufacturers, specially commissioned by Wallpaper* and showcased during Milan Design Week. We observed mobile furnitures and adaptable units, temporary solutions as well as customised accessories designed for on-the go profiles. It is an important value created with curating a popular theme which is on the agenda for the last decade with different designers and collaborations and to be able to see the tangible outcomes of this idea under one place.

Working with the theme of travel and hospitality, Wallpaper* has turned to the design world’s sharpest creative minds, engaging David Chipper eld, Alfredo Häberli, Aesop, Artek, Cerruti 1881, Carlo Brandelli, Beatrix Ong, David Rockwell, Hay and many more to envision the ultimate home away from home for the design-savvy traveller.

Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial is the fifth installment of the museum’s signature contemporary design exhibition series. With a focus on aesthetic innovation, Beauty celebrates design as a creative endeavor that engages the mind, body, and senses. The exhibition features more than 250 works by 63 designers and teams from around the globe, and is organized around seven themes: extravagant, intricate, ethereal, transgressive, emergent, elemental, and transformative.

“Why beauty now?” stands out with its multi sensory experience that guides the visitor through a dramatic procession of the individual works. With projects ranging from experimental prototypes and interactive games to fashion ensembles and architectural interventions, Beauty presents works of astonishing form and surprising function while examining the essential question: “Why beauty now?”

Permeable state of architecture

Barbie: An iconic doll marking the sociocultural history

In tandem with the 16th Pavilion in 2016, the Serpentine Galleries has expanded its internationally acclaimed programme of exhibiting architecture in a built form by commissioning four architects to each design a 25sqm Summer House. The four Summer Houses are inspired by the nearby Queen Caroline’s Temple, a classical style summer house, built in 1734 and a stone’s throw from the Serpentine Gallery. The Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), is an ‘unzipped wall’.

Bjarke’s design for Serpentine has been criticised by its almost the same form as his previous projects such as 8 House. The similarity which is obvious at the shelf of the structure, could also be seen as the sign of the architect. If we consider the dynamics this project represent, we can easily say that the project draws sharp lines for its three dimensional feeling created with light material usage.

It is a structure that embodies multiple aspects that are often perceived as opposites: a structure that is free-form yet rigorous; modular yet sculptural; both transparent and opaque; both solid box and blob.

BIG decided to work with one of the most basic elements of architecture: the brick wall. The wall is erected from pultruded fibreglass frames stacked on top of each other. The wall is then pulled apart to form a cavity within it, to house the events of the Pavilion’s programme. This unzipping of the wall turns the line into a surface, transforming the wall into a space. A complex three-dimensional environment is created that can be explored and experienced in a variety of ways, inside and outside.

More than just a toy, Barbie has mirrored a culture and its evolution. She began by embodying the “American way of life” before adapting to social, political and cultural changes and taking on a more universal dimension. Evolving with every new modern comfort, embracing new causes and challenging stereotypes, she has been loathed for her embodiment of the idealized woman and yet, always autonomous and independent, she has adopted all the new dreams and ambitions of contemporary life.

This is the first time that Barbie has received such an unconditional invitation by a French museum.

Known for its design, fashion, toy and advertising collections, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is the ideal venue to pay tribute to this iconic doll, whose story has many dimensions and has made an indelible mark on the socio-cultural history of toys in the 20th and 21st centuries. 700 Barbie dolls are thus deployed on 1500 m2, next to works from the collections of the Museum (dolls, gowns), but also works by contemporary artists, documents (newspapers, photos, video) that contextualize the « Barbie’s lives ».

Drawing on Mattel’s archives and highlighting this still little-known historical heritage, this exhibition provides two possible insights into “Barbie’s lives”: for children by evoking the pure jubilation of a universally known toy, and for adults by placing this emblematic figure in her historical and sociological contexts since 1959.

Ways of consuming design Every year Residence Magazine awards the Designer of the Year prize to a designer or studio that propels the Swedish design scene forward. In 2015 this prize went to Note Design Studio. The exhibition is presented at the architecture museum ArkDes in Stockholm and is curated by Lotta Agaton, one of Sweden’s leading stylists.

In this exhibition we experienced the situation on how we use well styled images to consume and communicate design.

How does the expression of a piece of furniture change in a new setting? Today, it is almost impossible for a designer or company to launch a new piece of furniture without a well-styled image. It has become so essential that it is now a part of the designer’s creative process. A piece of furniture or a project is not complete until it has been depicted in an image. The way in which we consume images has changed greatly in recent years, primarily through social media, and this has affected how we package and sell furniture. We will become even more selective in the future and place greater importance on the composition of an image.

SERPENTINE PAVILION 2016, BJARKE INGELS

PHOTO: IWAN BAAN

Novel living concepts On the occasion of the XXI Triennale di Milano International Exposition, Triennale di Milano presented the exhibition ROOMS. Novel Living Concepts.

Of all the many design practices, interior architecture is still the prime field of exploration, study and reflection in terms of its direct impact on people’s everyday lives. Interior architecture has a particularly special remit: we all live in houses, and much of our life is spent inside these spaces. Everybody lives inside houses, and inside those spaces our life takes place for most of it.

We rest there, we regenerate there, we read, we think, we study, we eat, we sleep, we live together with our families, we welcome our friends.

The exhibition begins with a brief historical overview, introducing the subject and placing it historically through stories about the great achievements of past great masters for whom interior architecture was their first professional sphere and a privileged place for their observations on architecture with the leading architects such as Umberto Riva, Alessandro Mendini, Manolo De Giorgi, Lazzarini and Pickering, Marta Laudani and Marco Romanelli, Andrea Anastasio, Fabio Novembre, Duilio Forte, Elisabetta Terragni, Carlo Ratti and Francesco Librizzi.

BEAUTY EXHIBITION, COOPER HEWITT DESIGN TRIENNIAL 2016

PHOTO: MATT FLYNN. COOPER HEWITT İZNİYLE

NOTE DESIGN STUDIO “DESIGNER OF THE YEAR” AWARD EXHIBITION, COLLABORATION OF RESIDENCE MAGAZINE AND ARKDES PHOTO: KRISTOFER JOHNSSON

“NOVEL LIVING CONCEPTS” EXHIBITION, TRIENNALE DI MILANO, 2016 PHOTO: COURTESY OF TRIENNALE DI MILANO

BARBIE LAGERFELD, ‘BARBIE’ EXHIBITION, LES ARTS DECORATIFS

‘BARON BAR’, GLENN SESTIG AND DINESEN, HOTEL WALLPAPER* 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF MATTEL

PHOTO: CARL KLEINER

Milano

Rotonda della Besana

Design and city

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Milan Design Week creates many attraction points in the city and increasing users’ awareness of space, beyond being a design fair. The commercial activities that promote consuming culture, may create interactions and positive dynamics in the city scape.

We examine the ways how we evaluate and renew the architectural legacy of the city in the exhibitions taking place in design weeks.

ROTONDA DELLA BESANA

EARTH KITCHEN, RESTAURANT CONCEPT BY TOM DIXON AND CEASERSTONE

PHOTO: PASQUALE FORMISANA

PHOTO: PEER LINDGREEN

The venue Rotonda della Besana is located a bit far from Milan city centre. At first glance the structure doesn’t give an idea about what it is. It looks like an arena with its circular shape and hexagonal arches. Today the building is used for various activities by the citizens of Milan.

Built in 1732, Rotonda della Besana consists a church from the late Baroque period and an old cemetery. Today, the function of this sacred space effects various user groups in the city. The garden and all the other common areas are in public use and the church hosts MUBA (Museo dei Bambini di Milano) Milan Children Museum. MUBA organises events and workshops for children, aiming to increase their creativity and awareness. The area transforms into an open air theatre at summer times.

The exhibition Tom Dixon focuses on creating an experience through spatial design during Milan Design Week.

This year he teamed up with Caesarstone for an experience focusing on food and how the food presented with four different kitchen concepts.

Dixon’s kitchen concepts can be seen as radical interpretations about how we prepare and consume food, how the kitchen area becomes an interaction space.

The story of the exhibition presented new perspectives between our senses and the perception of space.

Each of the four sections of the complex introduced a different range of Caesarstone and Dixon collaboration.

Inspired by the ancient Roman aqueducts, the Earth kitchen is produced with a colour palette reflecting the

elements of earth. The kitchen concept is focused on ancient European vegetable cooking methods by using wood and fire that enhance the natural flavours of the products.

Inspired by charred wood and smoke, the Fire kitchen uses blackened beams and hints of gold in combination with Caesarstone’s black and dark grey marble surfaces.

The water kitchen reflects the natural surface of frozen ice with using Caesarstone grey and white marbles and natural stones.

The Air kitchen is based on the urban architecture, placed vertically in Rotonda della Besana. The Caesarston’s raw concrete and noble grey surfaces are hanged vertically so that the user can shape his/her own culinary experience.

Milano

Milano

Wellness couture

Design chronology from 1930s to today

ARTS ON CRAFTS, GEORG OEHLER & MADS PERCH, 2016 PHOTO: COURTESY OF ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA

ALBERGO DIURNO, PORTA VENEZIA

FOTOĞRAF: FAI IZNIYLE

DIY RACK SYSTEM, PHILIPP

A-CHAIR, THOMAS VE SCHMIDINGER

DIVITSCHEK AND PHIL DIVI

MOEBELBAU, 2016

PRODUCT DESIGN, 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF ADVANTAGE

PHOTO: COURTESY OF ADVANTAGE

AUSTRIA

AUSTRIA

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VILLA NECCHI CAMPIGLIO, MILANO

VESTAE EXHIBITION, ALBERGO DIURNO, MILAN DESIGN WEEK 2016

VESTAE EXHIBITION, ALBERGO DIURNO, MILAN DESIGN WEEK 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE CREATIVE ACADEMY

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE CREATIVE ACADEMY

The venue Albergo Diurno, meaning daily hotel in Italian, is one of the most well preserved architectural sites in the city of Milan.

If you have a look at the ground at Piazza Oberdan in Porta Venezia neighbourhood, you can see holes covered with glass. This is the sign of the life underground. The daily hotels hidden underground below Porta Venezia and Duomo square, built between 1923-26 by architect Piero Portaluppi. The hotels were one of the most favourite spots in city back then. The space was only open on the day time, giving various services to travellers and citizens of Milan.

As an unexpected and surprising destination in the city, the Diurno was a spot where citizens and travellers could find restrooms with bath tubs, a barber shop, a manicurist, a laundromat with ironing service, a travel agency, a photographer like a XX Century Pompei. These services located on the column-lined hall, giving an architectural reference to Pompei’s structure. The spa becomes an extension of this hall illuminated by the glass holes located above the structure.

The floor coverings, furnitures are very well reserved and still remains the same. Albergo Diurno closed in 2006 after serving to city for 90 years. The space was brought to life again as a museum by FAI (Fondo Ambiente Italiano).

FAI collaborates with different institutions and research centres to support the usage of space.

Albergo Diruno stands out with being actively used as an exhibition area in Milan Design Week when the city population increases two times more. The space hosted Sarah Lucas’ INNAMEMORABILIAMUMBUM exhibition consisting of site-specific installations before the Vestae exhibition.

The exhibition Vestae exhibition merged textiles and objects with the memory of the space by giving reference to its previous function.

Vestae collection produced by a collective group with an almost sacred feeling in a sacred space once functioning as the temple of Milan’s daily routine.

Vestae means the Goddess of domestic life. The exhibition has been realised by Creative Academiy in collabora-

tion with Cologne Foundation for the Métiers d’Art and Maison Van Cleed&Arpels. 20 students of the Creative Academy designed a collection of objects reflecting the bath and recreation culture for Eligo. Eligo is an Italian manufacturer, working with the oldest artisan workshops like Busatti, Cose della Natura and Valobra, producing natural bath accessories.

The students have developed the brief entirely, not only designing a capsule collection enhancing the texture, fragrances, colours and expressive potential of the materials, but also concentrating on the packaging, the exhibition setup and the graphics related to the communication of the project. The idea has opened new topics in terms of communication with its audience, focusing on the wellness couture. The table placed in the middle of Albergo Diurno’s courtyard presented the natural soaps, personal wellness concepts, spa and shower accessorises with a laboratory sensitivity. The humidity of the space combined with the wellness couture products and created an experience of recreation culture between today and a century ago.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF FAI

The venue In 1930’s, the machine age manifested itself in different directions both in Europe and America. In America, The Rockefeller building became a symbol with its steel construction as a masterpiece. The building was also an important social case, providing employment in the age of economical depression. In Europe we see different reflections of this age. In Milan, the machine stand out with the civil and monumental structures, especially in the interiors, furniture and objects. Milanese architect Piero Portaluppi was one of the most important figures who followed the path of Art Deco style at that time.

Villa Necchi Campiglio, famous for the I am Love movie starring Tilda Swinton, designed by Piero Portaluppi. The villa was a symbol of the spatial and social transformation of a city in between the two world wars.

Located in Via Mozart in Porta Venezia, the villa was built for Angelo Campiglio and Gigiana&Nedda Necchi sisters between 1932-35. The residential complex consists of the main building where the family resides, the green house, winter garden, swimming pool, garage and tennis courts.

Villa Necchi Campiglo was representing the Aristocratic lifestyle of 1930’s Milan. We can observe the traces of the aristocracy not only in the architectural structure but also in interior design, furniture and art collections. Today the

building is governed by FAI (Fondo Ambiante Italiano) a foundation working on preserving the Italian cultural heritage and transformed into a museum-home.

Villa Necchi Campiglo was a milestone for Piero Portaluppi’s career. The architect’s interior and exterior interventions had one thing in common: Emphasising the symmetry in equal sizes and gaps. The staircase, the geometric surface on dining room’s door, the heater curtains and windows shaped like a star can be described as the sign of the architect.

The exhibition It was impossible to avoid ‘the memory’ for an exhibition taking place in a structure reflecting many important features in architecture&design history.

The exhibition, aiming to open new perspectives in Austrian design, took place in the winter garden of the building, right next to the iconic swimming pool. Focusing on the idea “No future without past”, the exhibition reinterpreted the traditional Austrian design to a series of contemporary furniture and lighting objects. The products taking place in the garden became a reflection of Art Deco with a contemporary interpretation in a place with a hundred year of history. Designed by Georg Ohler, the exhibition brought together 60 different works of designers and companies.

Going back to the first quarter of the 20th century, we can

see that the Austrian Wiener Werkstätte (Wien Workshop) created a movement that also effected the Bauhaus. Here is a selection of works reflecting a society’s memory of design.

Designed by Thomas Feichtner and manufactured by Schmidinger Moebelbau, A-Chair is giving reference to well known Side Chair of Thonet, a milestone in design history.

A-Chair is using the mobility references of Side Chair but putting a contemporary touch with less material and without bending technology.

The open display unit designed by Georg Oller&Mads Perch and manufactured by Arts on Crafts, criticises the engraved surfaces of the Wien Workshops’ furnitures and creating a light and mobile display unit by using wood and metals.

Creating a contrast with the Wien Workshops, DIY Rack system is designed by Philipp Divitschek and lets the user to change design as they wish.

Designed by Karin Binder and manufactured by ka ma Interior Design, the 3D Light product is creating a light illusion with the LEDs located in the back of the product.

The Hearts tableware accessories are manufactured by a Wiener silversmith maker Wiener Siber Manufactur. The organic shaped objects are creating a bridge between the hand craftsmanship and the digital technologies.

Milano

Milano

New tradition preserving the design culture

Soft technology in the age of Tesla

FACET, MORITZ WALDEMEYER, 2016 PHOTO: COURTESY OF LASVIT

ELLE DECOR SOFT HOME, PALAZZO BOVARA CONCEPT GÖRSELI, 2016

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PALAZZO SERBELLONI, MILAN DESIGN WEEK 2016

PHOTO: COURTESY OF LASVIT

The venue Palazzo Serbelloni is one of the symbols of Baroque and Rococo era architecture located in Corso Venezia, neighbour to Palazzo Bovara and Villa Necchi Campiglio.

Palazzo Serbelloni was built for Milanese aristocrat Gabriel Serbelloni by architect Simone Cantoni in the 18th century. The palace hosted General Bonaparte and Josèphine Beauharnais for three months in 1796. Even this limited time of stay renewed the art pieces furnitures and objects taking place in Palazzo Serbelloni.

At the end of the 18th century, Lombardia region experienced a period which transformed not only the social and political scene but also the living standards of citizens.

In the direction of these transition the palace rebuilt at the end of the 18th century. During the Second World War in 1943, air-raids destroyed extensive sections, including the famous library with its 75.000 books.

In the end, the palace succeeded to survive even after the attacks. Today the palace adapts to the current de-

mands of the society. Now the palace is functioning as a luxury residential, working and meeting areas. The hall where Via Lucis was exhibited used as a dance and music room at Napoleon’s time and now it is being used for special events and runways.

The exhibition Each year at Milan Design Week, we are always curious about some exhibitions taking place in terms of the new and promising experience. Lasvit is definitely one of them.

This year Lasvit presented Via Lucis, a journey through unique and contemporary projects by the experience and skills of master glassmakers at the Sale Napoleoniche of Palazzo Serbelloni where Napoleone Bonaparte resided during his stay in Milan.

The exhibition opened new topics in terms of location choosing because the designers were commissioned with a brief to bridge design with the palace’s history. The Bohemian crystal lights designed for Napoleon renewed thanks to Lasvit and Fondazione Serbelloni’s team.

VISUAL: MARCANTE TESTA, UDA ARCHITETTI

ICE, DANIEL LIBESKIND, 2014 PHOTO: COURTESY OF LASVIT

Via Lucis exhibited contemporary interventions of the neoclassical style chandeliers with the perspective of Czech glass craftsmanship.

Lasvit exhibited a tableware collection with major designers, including Daniel Libeskind, the Campana Brothers and Arik Levy. Lasvit also commissioned young designers from Czech Republic and designers emerging in the industry such as Andre Fu, Moritz Waldemeyer and Maurizio Galante.

One of the most interesting works of the exhibition, Moritz Waldemeyer’s Facet was redefining the systematic of the chandelier making tradition. Facet is taking the geometrical shape of the classic chandelier outline and turned it into a diamond-like hexagonal glass building block.

Designed by Stanislav Libensky, Praha was actually a light sculpture in Hotal Praha, prominent architectural project completed during the 1980’s. The hotel was later demolished. Efforts to preserve it as a cultural monument failed and the lights are among the few remaining artifacts.

The venue As an important figure of neoclassical period in Milan, Palazzo Bovara was built in the second half of the 18th century by architect Carlo Felice Soave.The simple façade of the palace is actually misdirects you comparing to the interiors of other palaces around the region. The staircases on the right and left of the entrance take you to an area of frescoes, neoclassical styled furnitures and objects. The wide courtyard and garden is rising up between the two rectangular building blocks like an oasis in the city.The palace was the residence of the French Embassy Cisalpine Republic in 1700s. The young count Giovanni Bovara took the power later in 1800s. Palazzo Bovara is being used more actively comparing to other palaces in the neighbourhood because the palace belongs to the Italian Chamber of Commerce.

Thus public and private events are hosted most of the time for a global scene.

The exhibition This year we have seen the box in a box ideas of showcasing the products of changing living and working culture such as: Note Design Studio’s exhibition taking place at Ark Des during Stockholm Design Week and Novel Living Concepts exhibition hosted by La Triennial di Miano. We will be seeing more examples of that in the future. Elle Decor Italia exhibited a collection of ideas for the changing state of the living culture, with the concept of room in a room. The spatial design of the exhibition integrated with the original plan of the palace. The exhibition route was taking the user from the gate of the palace, providing the experience in the first floor before the garden and then to the courtyard to relax and have recreational activities. The Soft Home theme refers to soft technology as well as a comfortable and welcoming home. The interiors becoming a digital experience, questioning the infinite ways of interaction. The

route starts from an indoor garden to Galleria Squillante, an audio space reflecting the materials voices, then ends up in Cucina Croccante a customised kitchen with artificial menus.In between the kitchen, garden and Galleria Squillante, there were rooms reflecting the idea of Soft Home by using the advantages of technology for today’s user to be able to use comfortable and functional spaces. The living rooms taking place in the exhibition gave us some clues on the objects surround us are actually directly related with the memory of its user. The exhibition experience has turned out to be an immersive journey through DavideRapp, Muse and Francesca Molteni’s animation videos and sound effects.

Soft Home project still continues as an online platform.

Here is the link:

Milano

An attitude towards the past

TASARIM HARİTASI GELECEK

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ARTIGO, PALAZZO LITTA INSTALLATION, 2016

PHOTO: MAX ROMMEL

The venue Located on Corso Magenta in Milan, Palazzo Litta has always been an attraction point for its neighbourhood with various events taking place in its wide courtyard.

Known as Palazzo Arese-Litta, Palazzo Litta’s history is going back to a time when Milan was under the Spanish power. The late Baroque and early Rococo structure is a symbol of the enlightenment era of Milan.Palazzo Litta was constructed for Bartolomeo Arese by Milanese architect Francesco Maria Richini between 1642-48 and hosted important figures of the history like Mozart and Napoleon. The palazzo became a landmark of Milan’s social and political life. Litta family has taken the control of the palace at the first half of the 18th century. After that time the palace achieved its characteristic Baroque features coming to these days. The characteristic staircase built in 1740 by Francesco Merlo and Giovanni Antonio Cecchi’s still remain in the palace.

The exhibition This year Belgium based design magazine DAMN° hosted A Matter of Perception: Tradition & Technology, in

collaboration with Belgium is Design collective in Palazzo Litta. The exhibition aims to promote the new Belgium design. The exhibition is matching a designer with a traditional manufacturer to achieve a new context in design rather than the classical industrial way.The participants were based in three different regions in Belgium: Brussel, Flander and Wallonia. The collection is focused on confrontations and commonalities between designers and manufacturers. The common thing in the exhibition was to use a range of materials (bluestone, leather and wood) or techniques (glass blowing, tapestry and tanning) with different degrees of familiarity.In the exhibition, the manufacturer-artisan-designer collaboration experiment turned out to be a product of collaboration. Each project reflects the process of making and mutual learning, and the dialogue of designers and manufacturers as crafted relationships. Skafaldo project created by Unfold and Materialise, is analysing the alternative methods of production by developing a technical knowledge in using 3D-printing.Mathias van de Walle teamed up with Ralph Baggily for the Wall-boxes project, creating a sculpture like bags

hanging on the walls. The objects are made from leather, clad and wooden volumes that provided this structure.

Mathias van de Walle usually designs modular and flexible objects using geometric shapes. Wall-boxes project is an example of how his work can be adapted to a manufacturer’s state of mind.Celebrating its 80th anniversary, Van Caster is a family business specialised in contemporary rug production. Designers Marie Mees ve Cathérine Biasino are working in the textile sector for a long time. The designers and the manufacturer came together to share a passion for high-quality and natural textiles. Mees and Biasino largely work with monochrome colour palette, using grey, white and black but they have experienced different colours after paying a visit to Van Caster’s production site.

One of the most outstanding work of the exhibition was Neverending Evolution by Studio Ragani and Artigo. The installation was placed on the characteristic Baroque staircase of the palace, focusing on Artigo’s constant change as a company. Different types of floor covering materials were installed on the stairs as they represent the diversity of Arigo company.

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TASARIM HARİTASI GELECEK

TASARIM HARİTASI GELECEK

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TASARIM HARİTASI GELECEK

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Where the human begins and ends The third International Istanbul Design Biennial is putting “Are we human?” as an urgent question and investigating the human’s relationship with design in an archaeological point of view.

The curators of the biennial, Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, state that we are historically in such an incredible moment in which the entire planet is engaging with design. It is a biennial that activates a whole new conversation, not proposing an unknown future but researching the current state of the human and taking it back to 200.000 years, where it all started.

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Words Dilek Öztürk Photos Elif Kahveci

Dilek Öztürk: The 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial is going to be different than the previous biennials because of its theme and especially your approach. It is not just about showing design, or having a “designed object exhibition”.

Why is it different this time?

Beatriz Colomnia: This time the biennial is more welcoming for different kinds of people - a wider range of venues, contributors and visitors. The idea is to think about design in an expanded sense. Design discourse has been far too narrow, zooming in on a small set of objects exactly when design has exploded out to every dimension of physical and mental life. We think that design is what we have been doing all along as humans. That is why the biennial has also a temporal dimension that goes back 200.000 years to the beginning of humanity and the beginning of design.

The first tools have usually been understood as functional objects. In fact they are not that functional, they have to do more with decoration, language, communication, etc.

They are already designing in this more cultural sense.

Mark Wigley: Why would anybody go to a biennial that is full of perfect objects? Maybe in the past, a biennial could get together all the objects of the world, as in the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. Now all the objects of the world are getting together in your cell phone. When you go to a biennial you are looking to see objects differently, to see yourself, as if in a mirror. The question “Are we human?” is a real question – an urgent question.

DÖ: The Venice Architecture Biennial has just started and nowadays we are asking what is a biennial for? Is it for opening a discussion or is it for solving a problem? What do you think a biennial is for in a broader context?

BC: Nobody is very surprised if an art biennial is more philosophical and asks questions about the state of our humanity. Why design can’t address these issues? I don’t think that architecture solves many problems. It creates problems. This is also very interesting from a human point of view. Because humans are maybe the only species who design things that do not work. When other animals figure out the best way to do something they keep doing the same thing. But the humans are always trying to do things differently and they often get into trouble.

MW: People might think they know what the problem is and call in design to address it. But this idea of design as problem solving is not so interesting. Design is more about seeing things differently, opening a space for speculation.

In recent times, designers seem to have been left behind as design went viral. We said yes to do the design biennial in Istanbul because in this moment design itself has become a huge question. It is not simply like okay let’s call on design to address issues. What if the issue is design? What if the biggest issue facing us is design itself ?

DÖ: Maybe by saying and doing so, you would like to pause all the discussion and make people to just see the big

picture.

BC: Yes. We are in such an incredible moment historically in which so many people, the entire planet, is engaging with design. Even not just the planet, there are efforts to preserve the footprints of Neil Armstrong on the moon.

This is design preservation in outer space. We have design objects in outer space, even in the spacecraft Voyager 1 we sent beyond the solar system.

DÖ: it was a really wise decision to make the first press meeting in the archaeology museum. Just being present there would be enough to understand the idea of the biennial.

MW: This is so important for us. It was a great honour because if design really does capture humanity then design is what somehow ends up in archaeological museum.

In reverse, we think of the biennial as an archaeological show. Instead of saying what might design be in the future, we say what was it in the last 2/200/200.000 years. If you think in this way, design is not simply the shape of your coffee pot; design is what you are standing on, what you see, and your genome.

DÖ: People curate their own life. You choose your path, your profession, what to wear, it is a creation…

BC: Yes, social media is amazing in that sense. Everybody is designing their life, constantly choosing images, curating these images and making a display of them and interacting with other people, inventing things together.

DÖ: It is not real, it is fiction, and it is designed.

MW: Yes, but fiction becomes real and now you can design life itself. We are designing new organisms and new forms of artificial intelligence. It is a new kind of biology.

BC: We are designing absolutely everything. Even the weather!

MW: Finally the question is design itself. We thought we have to do a biennial that activates a whole new conversation. We would like to think a new set of ideas comes from this amazing experiment in Istanbul. We also have very strong feeling that this idea about design that has become so normal is no longer good enough. It was invented 200 years ago and we need to redesign design.

DÖ: I was actually coming to that point because when I first read your statement, I remember an exhibition in London Design Museum in 2012: Superhuman. It was asking that as humans, are we the greatest design project?

As we want to run faster, see and hear better… There are some gadgets that improve the performance of the human.

MW: Yes, but we see it differently. As you know, all that is true. The human capacity is being continually redesigned. It was already true with the very first designs hundreds of thousands of years ago, such as the first decoration and jewellery. We completely transformed ourselves just by wearing strings of beads. People think that only today we are a kind of superhuman. But we were superhu-

man from the very beginning. That is why we are asking: Are we human? Were we ever human? Will we become human? Do we want to be human? Actually being human is quite horrible. I mean what is this human? We think the question “are we human?” is the same as the question “What is design?”

DÖ: Where the human begins and ends is the point that design begins and design ends.

MW: Exactly. If you look around the world, it is very frightening, very sad. I think it is time for asking the big questions of us. It is funny to say it but we are sure that the visitors to the exhibition are more interesting than the exhibition. Each of us is an amazing work of design.

BC: This is one of the aims of the exhibition. To make the visitor realise that he or she is also a design, the most designed thing in the exhibition. The exhibition is like a mirror to all of us. In the face of all these terrible situations, we need to think about how we are actually the only species that has been able to systematically design its own extinction.

DÖ: Could you please explain the process of inviting participants and open call for 2 minutes videos?

MW: We thought we should write kind of a manifesto and invite a very interesting group of designers, artists, thinkers, film makers, historians, anthropologists, archaeologist and scientists to react to that manifesto in the exhibition and give them a lot of freedom in the materialization of their response. This idea hopefully produces a wonderful set of thoughts in the exhibition. But we also wanted to go beyond the people we choose and invite anyone to send in a video. Inviting somebody you didn’t know, never met, somebody very old or very young, from different countries, means that something can happen beyond what we could have imagined. Our main idea is to multiple the voices. 2 minute is also a long time today.

DÖ: Before releasing the two minutes video call, you already chose participants; invite architects, designers, thinkers or artists for this exhibition, right?

BC: When we made the call for videos, we were still in the process of inviting people. We wondered what is the best open call because for the exhibition we are not inviting just designers. There are designers and architects but there are also all kinds of people: theorists, writers, artists, historians, filmmakers, and scientists.

DÖ: This time you wanted to change this procedure of open call of the biennial? This is the first time we see this different application process in the design biennial.

BC: Right. The video is a medium anybody can access.

If we look at social media, people constantly make videos and upload them. Kids do stunning, thoughtful videos.

We thought it was a democratic medium versus the typical open call for design when only the design community would have felt that they were the ones to submit.

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DÖ: This is why you invited different disciplines and you made an open call for videos.

BÖ: Yes, design is no longer the private domain of designers.

MW: Almost 200 videos came in from 37 countries.

That’s very exciting. Then we did another experiment with e-flux to invite more than 50 writers from around the world to address the theme. Artists, scientists, thinkers…

Rather than the usual two or three writing for the catalogue... The whole biennial is all about building up layers and layers and layers. For us the idea of a biennial has a long history. What is beautiful about the idea is bringing a lot of people together in one place for an intense conversation. But this conversation should not be limited to one month in Istanbul and should keep going in different media. One project that we started for the biennial will go for ten years. We think the two years frame of biennials is a bit boring.

DÖ: I agree with you. Every year events are almost the same. I always keep asking that do we need to have a design week every year? But it is a trade show.

BC: We wanted more than anything else to go against the idea of the biennial as a trade show.

MW: The 10 year project is on the history of design and industry in Turkey for the last 200 years. There is already about 50 Turkish researchers working on that. The project with e-flux has more than 50 writers and will go for around 2 years, so it is a very global kind of multimedia, trans media conversation. It takes advantage of the fact that Istanbul is so unique. We feel strongly that we could not have this conversation in London or Paris or Milan or New York. Because in those places everybody thinks they know what design is.

DÖ: Yes, the context is quite wide as you mention in your statement: going back to 200.000 years ago when the human begins.

BC: Yes, Istanbul is one of those cities that have this sense of deep time.

MW: All the problems are here in Istanbul of course and also all the amazing things are here. It has always been that way. You have to think archeologically in this city. If you dig a hole in Istanbul you will find another civilisation.

Design is sedimentated here. We developed a very strong partnership with the Istanbul Archaeological Museums and we will exhibit part of the biennial inside the museum and also some of the objects of the museum will be part of the biennial. This is the most exciting relationship for us.

We are looking forward to it.

DÖ: The exhibition in the Archaeological Museum sounds quite exciting.

MW: Yes, very exciting because if you can understand there’s something about yourself that is related to the very first tools, the very first designs, the very first decorations, if you can really understand yourself in deep time, then we think you can have a different relationship to contemporary objects and to your fellow human.

BC: We already sent signals to the audience that this is not a typical biennial, that we are taking an archaeological point of view. I think this is also very important for us because it will bring different kinds of public into the biennial that normally doesn’t go to biennials. We are opposed to the idea of design as an exclusive cultural and economic practice.

DÖ: What were your criteria for choosing the participants?

MW: It’s a kind of a spectrum of different kinds of thinkers and artists. We are inviting more or less 70 projects from all over the world. In every case we only want them to ask themselves this question: “Are we human?”

They all ask it in a different way. The list of the people in the exhibition is not the list of the most famous people in the world. It’s the list of different kinds of voices that can open up this question. The main criterion is not to be boring. The responses have been really amazing.

DÖ: Maybe, this time you wanted to control the participants to be able to get the real idea of your theme.

BC: The people we chose are already addressing this issue of design in a more interesting, intellectual, more comprehensive way. Many of the people in the exhibition already had works that are consistent with what we are asking but we want to push them further.

DÖ: Can you tell us some other hints about the exhibitions?

MW: We are in five different venues. Each has a differ-

ent atmosphere. The Greek School is a school. The Studio-X is a laboratory with many experiments there. DEPO space is a broadcast studio next to the radio station. We think of Bomonti as a time machine because it deals with 200.000 years to 2 seconds. The archaeological museum is like a museum of course. We have organized the participants in four clusters, or “clouds” of overlapping projects so the visitor can see all of the interconnections. For example, in one moment you can see the human object which is the further away from us, the Voyager 1 spacecraft that is the piece of human design travelling away from the planet earth at a million miles a day. But a few meters away you can look at Neolithic footprints of the occupants of this place, or you can look into the human brain. And you have a strange sense that the journey is similar. Maybe if we go into the human brain it is even a further journey then to go beyond the solar system. Just try to understand that the human figure is kind of fragile, envelope, suspended in a cosmos of design.

BC: A team of five scientists with their latest research on brain will be a part of the exhibition. They actually produce really amazing and beautiful images.

MW: There is a professor from Columbia University who is one of the great scientists in the exhibition. Her thesis is that what makes the human brain unique, and cannot be duplicated by computer, is curiosity. So she is an expert in curiosity. What if design is just curiosity?

DÖ: Take the robots; they act as they learn the things from the environment. They develop an action, behaviour.

MW: Everyday life has become like science fiction.

That is why we thought to do a biennial that does not think about the future but tries just to understand the present, how we are living today. One of the things that we are really excited about is the early automata from the 13th century of the Islamic renaissance. Much earlier than Leonardo, there were unbelievable sophisticated robots in the Islamic world.

DÖ: Our existence is pure design.

MW: For example, when you look at the mirror in the morning and you do some little adjustments before heading out. All of these adjustments are design. Design is about constructing a sense of you.

DÖ: This is an important point to express what the design is not for. Some designers intend to save the world but there are some other dynamics in between; politically, socially, even culturally. People still have the difficulty to find clean water. It is a huge issue.

MW: Exactly. That’s why this is not a show of chairs and lamps. One of the projects in the exhibition, for example, is called The Museum of Oil. A London based group called Territorial Agency says that if we want to survive as a species and we want the planet to survive, then we have to stop taking the oil out of the ground. We have to keep it in the ground; we have to make a museum of oil. It is a fantastic research done with Greenpeace. As long as we keep taking the oil out of the ground we are finished, the planet is finished. What kind of design of human relationships will allow us to keep the oil in the ground? What would be designed without fire, since without oil there is no fire?

These are the big questions.

DÖ: Redesign is a big topic in this biennial. What do you think of the idea of redesign as our way of living?

BC: The question we are asking about rethinking design is also a redesign, a redesign of design. Redesign is basically the concept of the biennial.

MW: The human that you design for is not some fleshy bag with two legs, it is much more complicated. Right here in the space behind us at the roof of the Greek School, there will be a section of the exhibition called Homo-Cellular which will deal with the idea that we all became a new kind of creature with the mobile phone integrated into our body and brain.

DÖ: We even changed physically, developed new skills and postures for our body. For example, stretching our little finger to reach all the buttons of our smart phones.

MW: Everything changes. Again we just wanted to allow the visitors to see themselves like a mirror. To make an exhibition about design that raises very important theoretical and philosophical issues does not mean it is an abstract exhibition full of very complicated ideas. It is almost the opposite.

DÖ: What are your observations in Turkish design in general?

MW: There are exciting designers in Turkey in almost

every area. But to be honest, we don’t even necessarily care about that because we have never been interested to come to Istanbul to judge the situation. On the opposite Istanbul is an amazing place to start an urgent conversation about design in the world.Anyway, we want to start a collaborative project to rebuild the whole conversation.

Who knows what a good designer would be? How do you know? How boring it is to give certain designs or designers a seal of approval. More interesting is to wonder how, why and what anyone could judge? What is a new way to think about design? This is what we think a biennial should be. Biennials should ask questions. This project is about opening people’s minds, especially our own. Otherwise we would not be here.

HAM : M MAD D E NO. 07

Yarının antikasıdır; Yaşadıkça güzelleşir, eskidikçe yaşar.

H A M : M TO P H A N E | TO M TO M | N İ ŞA N TAŞ I | C A D D E B OSTA N

Form follows what?

FOUNDING PARTNER AND DESIGNER, ZOOM TPU & OZON DESIGN PHOTO: COURTESY OF ATİLLA KUZU

Atilla Kuzu

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There have been many periods in time when form followed the function or vice versa. We may state that form follows the direction of technological opportunities of its time in architectural or product-oriented design. Periods when technical possibilities contribute to the seek for form like in the case of the thonet chair marking a generation with wood bent under heat and glue, or of Marcel Breuer’s Vassily chair, still exist today.

Today, we observe that each form that can be achieved with 3D printers can be repeated with support from materials that allow seeking for organic form like in architectural or product-based examples. While doing this, the features of the geographical location, and its history, and of course the presence of a strong scenario behind the philosophical background making up the concept are crucial beyond the function. Similar criteria for interior architecture and product design now orientate and shape design with their weight on the point where the conception of form merges with function.

Looking back since the 1950’s, the abundance of buildings bragging solely about their heights, and the scarcity of buildings with sculpture-like forms, it is possible to state that today the gap is getting closed up, and organic and sculpture-like forms now generate a language. One of the most important factors in the generation of this language is the fact that nature itself and the living creatures are some of the first steps of the parametric design phenomenon of this process starting with the imitation of form passcodes. When all of these processes are taken into account, I can say that in our days, form has a greater weight in design, yet function is not fully ignored, but that it is not as influential as it was during the Bauhaus period.

ANDREA TRIMARCHI & SIMONE FARRESIN, FORMAFANTASMA PHOTO: COURTESY OF FORMAFANTASMA

Formafantasma For us either process or ideas matter. We are not in a post-war society anymore in Europe. Then we think we are not anymore interested in just producing objects. In the moment designer needs to design for a good reason.

When we start to design all that we are thinking is con-

sideration. Needs are a good reason to design. It can be relative to innovation, a newly discovered material but we are not interested in polluting the world with our design. When we start our design process we look what has been done before. Not as a form of inspiration but we also look at objects that has already a better story.

Why do you need to start from zero? There has been civilisations with the same topics. Most of the time we just try to go through history which has the better form to express that idea. We never design frequently. We don’t sit and design, first of all, we investigate the topic and then the form comes real at the end where we have all the elements to design. Form comes all the time at the end of the process.

AZIZ SARIYER, FOUNDER&DESIGNER, DERIN DESIGN PHOTO: COURTESY OF AZİZ SARIYER

Aziz Sarıyer Technology is advancing at full steam in the world.

People must live in virtual reality in Silicon Valley in order to sustain their lives in the cyber world. Life with smart robotics has started in automobiles, homes, and offices. As the price for this progress, it is obvious that in the future the environment in the world will not allow all creatures to live. For this reason, scientists are for the mid-term in search of life outside Earth.

Although these are the real conditions, the desire for people to reunite with nature, and their delusion to gearing towards low-tech solutions can be explained as such: It is like humans running back to their villages during the journey in their space crafts for the sake of surviving in another planet, in the opposite direction of the vehicles.

The source for this desire lies in the need for trust.

What’s more rational is to face with our time and costand with it.

When designing the ergonomics of the function, function partially defines itself as a raw form. Function and form make up a whole. Like the lyrics and composition of a song… It is not right to separate them.

Form elevates the features of the function without damaging its criteria, and adds new dimensions to function.

Successful designs are the divine marriage of function and form.

Formun neyi takip ettiğini Bauhaus’tan beri soruyoruz. II. Dünya Savaşı’ndan sonra yeniden şekillenen modernist ideolojinin en kalıcı yapı taşı: ‘Form Follows Function’ savını bugün farklı açılımlarda yorumluyoruz.

Yaşadığımız dünya koşullarına göre trendler değişiyor ve şekilleniyor. Dünyanın gelgitleri sonucu yeniden doğaya dönüyoruz, low-tech çözümlere yöneliyoruz, malzeme ve form arayışındaki gereksinimlerimiz değişiyor. İnovasyonun, hikayenin, konseptin formu takip ettiği bir çağdan bahsedebilir miyiz? Formun meselesi size göre nasıl ve neye bağlı olarak değişiyor?

eco-friendly materials, the designs that visually give the same message and the formation of public opinion with a message of closeness to nature are important attitudes that stand in front of us.

To solve the problem, in the end, the alternatives presented to us by technology in form and in material, clearly free us up. This way, today, we live in a period when pluralist designers’ personal approaches can co-exist simultaneously.

FARUK MALHAN, ARCHITECT, FOUNDER OF KOLEKSİYON FURNITURE AND DESIGN FOUNDATION PHOTO: FARUK MALHAN IZNIYLE

Faruk Malhan Data, skills, themes, and concepts; all of them are subsets of the scope; form is an existence in this abstract configuration. Form is not there to tell about the product, nor to carry it out; if it is so –and in our times it is generally in this setup- design remains as an object. Objects are unintelligent, soulless, non-intuitional, withdrawn; they are like bullets sent to the target, owned since birth, systematized to serve their possessors. More important than the core and the form existence of the design, is its position in the space and time dimension in which it will take place, and its expression. Here, space is the geographical and cultural webbing belonging to the place, beyond the physical space.

Form is an object-based existence; it is configured with its material, mass, and dimensions. It is my belief that design should separate its ways from object design, and steer towards subject design. What is being aimed here is to achieve the object to unfold from its material, and to exist in the imputed content. Then design’s value propositions will find voice. Design that takes the past, and the present in the coverage zone will be relational to the future. Design must carry the values of internality, experimentality, conceptuality, documentality; so that the relationship network that the core structure builds up with its exterior and its period will be a form of that design.

Design should carry the features of being inter-disciplinary, pictorial, poetic, experimental, formative, spatial, and contextual. These values of design should fill in this context, and the context should become the content.

Such an ontological configuration would carry design into timeless, spaceless dimensions. Design to own such a reality, would take its core and form to an inter-subjective existence, such that it will be elevated to clear and meaningful values that can be questioned by anyone; it will be positioned to find an expression rather than to express. Such expansions carry towards more liberated, contingent, emancipated bearings rather than deterministic positions; it clears the way for being an open design.

The denial of the solid starts here, it gains a position open to participation and creativity. The deterministic configuration between the core and the form ties the existence of the moment with its future; the thinker or the creator shall leave this track of the game. To be beyond object, is to be able to configure the scope of the design in its spread over time and space; it will let design to get out of the market economy, and be carried beyond human stages. Hail to all the wanderers of the journey of creation from the very beginning!

ALESSANDRO MENDINI, EDITOR, FOUNDER&DESIGNER, ATELIER MENDINI PHOTO: DILEK ÖZTÜRK

Alessandro Mendini Form has to follow physiology and utility but the object has to be emotional. Form arrives from emotion.

I prefer to change this manifest of form follows form.

The object has to be kind of a friend of the person. If you are not connected with an object in an anthropological way or romantic way then the object becomes an enemy of you. It becomes detached from your personal life. The connections between the object and human has to be intimate. When I try to put eyes into an object, I must create a dialogue with it.

I like the novel of Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence. The real life is connected to the history and the emotion of the object.

NAZAR ŞIGAHER, FOUNDING PARTNER&DESIGNER, DAEDALUS PHOTO: ELIF KAHVECI

Nazar Şigaher The constant mission of design is solving problems.

The ties of the form with the function decided by the designer, is relational to what the period or the designer perceives as a problem.

Today, protecting the equilibrium of nature, and the civilization created by humanity, and sustaining its permanence is on our agenda. We have been observing the collaboration between design and technology in order to solve the problems created by our civilization, and to configure a system in harmony with nature.

About form, I shall state that a figural de facto approach in complete harmony with the aforementioned design approach to sustainability does not exist. For example, we know that a lineally classic furniture, produced with new age biodegradable polish and nano-tech textile (unstainable, unfading, incombustible, etc.) can be considered as ecologically conscious if not in looks, and this is making the product more contemporary in terms of production.

Today, we also observe an approach in terms of a return to natural materials. The use of natural or

BENJAMIN HUBERT, DIRECTOR, LAYER

PHOTO: COURTESY OF LAYER

Benjamin Hubert

ŞULE KOÇ, DESIGN DIRECTOR, ŞULE KOÇ DESIGN PHOTO: ELIF KAHVECI

Şule Koç Today we may think of the form issue as a discourse issue.

The responsibilities that come with a new product coming into life are more clearly detected. The product gets in touch with so many places –so much that we could not have previously imagined- in its endless lifecycle becoming harmful during its transformation phase, contrary to the organic, just like the prosthesis performed on nature. A product coming into shape today does not only carry its own functional and aesthetics needs but the effects of a whole system in which it will exist. The product is like a body, a soul, and thinking, transforming character. What’s different in our days is that products are the outputs of decisions created by a project bigger than itself, by concepts, stories and problems long before transforming into forms.

To develop a product is a part of an experiment that seeks to be created, of a new language that seeks to be learned and spoken, the shortcomings that the market should feel, and our exuberance in technology. Most of the time, the story goes past beyond the product itself.

While our brain works for abstraction and association, the products that do not stimulate our educated brains in most ways, are nothing but stacks of material. This brings the development process far beyond finding a form against a function. This sometimes means a stack of products dragged behind the preposterous speed of technological progress. Today the notions of ‘progress’ and ‘technology’ feel equivalent. What is really progress? Is it doing what has not been done before without thinking its damage on the nature, or should we talk about a healing, sustainable transformation, minding the effective use of resources? Some of the questions asked by our century, are shaped around this selfish relationship that we have with the world we live in. The reflections of this in the product decisions, should maybe go as far as sanctions rather than choices, raising awareness through design, and if possible not designing at all.

Traditionally you would say that it follows function but I probably argue it follows research. I think things can be very beautiful and have limited functionality as well as being highly functional and being very beautiful. For me it is more about appropriateness, research and finding the reasons why you are creating something with form. It’s about research, it’s whether talking to people or whether it’s about understanding behaviour treats or rituals or about different values of materials might have or might view on a product. In all of these things, influence and decisions as to why you create a form of something. On the other hand the form is incredibly important, it’s the thing that makes somebody fall in love with an object. I think things have to work really well and be high performance and be better that its predecessor unless you can kind of wrap that in a beautifully styled object, then it’s difficult to convey the value of that object to the max.

ENGIN AYAZ, FOUNDING PARTNER&DESIGN DIRECTOR, ATÖLYE LABS PHOTO: ELIF KAHVECI

Engin Ayaz Form follows attention.

In our contemporary world, attention has become our new collective goal. With ever-increasing artificial need for consumption, post-war asceticism framed by ‘form follows function’ is long gone. Instead, we have an exponential curve of desires on all fronts, nourished by the genie of advertisement.

Brands are constantly fighting for the attention of prosumers, and vice versa. All entities are trying to attract gazes, approvals and comments, advertisement is no longer a monologue. Objects, photos and places help create marketable identities. People are becoming brands themselves, more and easier than before.

The designer is not the sole author anymore, he/she is just the first piece of a complex lifecycle. Remembering Baudrillard, the designed ‘thing’ is not only the territory, but also the map. Communication and dissemination methods now surpass the thing’s actual function and performance. Story matters most, who cares about reality?

With the abundance of such content supply, our attention spans are shrinking, both online and offline. We are living through attention deficit disorder.

Meanwhile, objects stay alive as long as they can seek and get attention.

Looking forward, hopefully, this collective hysteria will be dwindled by a new generation of system designers, who still understand the attention game, but use it to create not objects of desire, but effective systems of intervention for a more equitable, resilient and ecologically sustainable future.

MARCEL WANDERS, MOOOI FOUNDER&ART DIRECTOR AND DESIGNER OF NEW AGE PHOTO: MARCEL WANDERS IZNIYLE

Marcel Wanders

Salih Küçüktuna In the foreword of his book entitled The Function of Form published in 2009, Farshid Moussavi quotes from Louis Sullivan’s long script including the following phrase: “Form always follows function”, and emphasizes how modernists misunderstood this approach in adapting it to the 20th century. I more or less agree with this; we have witnessed that the motivation and the dynamics generating modernism were misunderstood in the following periods by the modernists, and mis-transmitted; their actual content were emptied up and turned into slogans considered to be modern architecture’s principles, and finally turned into popular culture material.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, innovation started to become a determinant for competition in many fields. In fact, all that mattered was to develop our skills of adapting to progress. This skill turned into being an obligation rather than a necessity. While quantity increased, the need for quality arose and architecture became a multi-disciplinary entity.

The idea of accepting form as the power diagram of an object, and integrating it into function, earned a new direction to design. The architect started to develop new alternative/experimental methods that can compose the language that will set up, through senses, the identity of a structure via the knowledge of material and detail in this complex hierarchical structure, and the communication with its user via the knowledge of form/geometry. The process developed by producing performative models revealing the potential power harbored by form’s geometry with a structure program, and the structure’s carrier system, achieved the potential of transforming into a poetic form beyond a rationalist, functional diagram produced by the structure program, shaped and perfected by the simultaneously developed material and detail relationships with the knowledge and calculations produced by all disciplines. As a result, the search for form for us, is the adventure of production of a structure, developed by experiments in a performative way with its story and knowledge, and finally perfected in the technical sense, rather than creating a mystical unknown by pragmatically transforming it into an object.

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May I start with a little giggle just because the function of this text is to make us think and so I can prove my point.

Form follows function, a classic modernist dogma.

Who needs it today? Will it lead us to innovation, to a better understanding of our material world? It will not!

The world of design has been producing multiple versions of this dogma over the years and the intention of this wonderful and appreciated survey is to find THE new one.

I think form is just not important enough to have its own overarching dogma.

Form is completely irrelevant when it comes to the real qualities of our man-made environment, it is only a result, only a consequence of….

Proof of which can be found in all the existing versions of the form follows function dogma and all the new versions of this dogma that will follow.

What has been proven over time by all different versions of the quote and will be proven every time again is that FORM ALWAYS ONLY FOLLOWS! Good to know. Let’s stop debating the one non-subject in design and take the chance to talk about the subjects that really drive the future position of our contribution to the world. Let’s debate the things that lead design, not those that follow.

SALIH KÜÇÜKTUNA, ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER, PIN ARCHITECTS PHOTO: ELIF KAHVECI

UMUT YAMAÇ, ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER PHOTO: UMUT YAMAÇ IZNIYLE

Umut Yamac

Confessions During an Art class at Secondary School I came across an image of the Vitra Fire station by the Archi-

tect Zaha Hadid. I was 17 years old at the time and I had very little awareness of the field of design and architecture. I was so struck by the image, so intrigued by my unexplainable excitement at the form, that at this moment I decided to study Architecture. If Architecture could trigger this type of emotional response, I wanted to find out more.

Of Love Ultimately I did become an Architect, and I do practice Architecture and Design in the widest possible sense. I am also still equally excited by certain forms – could this be a purely superficial appreciation for design? Should I not be more rational and considered in my critique of design now that I have a formal training? & Intuition I would argue that there is in fact a deeper intuitive instinct which is at play. A primal or gut response to the sense of a thing. “Go with your gut instinct” we are often told. Your intuition is perceived to be your most honest response. A response that one assumes has more of an overview, that can see the bigger picture, whilst at the same time remaining somewhat intangible and hard to define. My gut tells me that form is only one part of a larger whole. A whole that when guided by intuition is sure to produce interesting, unexpected and engaging outcomes.

RICHARD HUTTEN, DESIGNER PHOTO: COURTESY OF RICHARD HUTTEN

Richard Hutten The expression Form Follow Function lead to many good products but even more bad and boring products.

In the beginning of my career, in the early nineties I used to say Form Follows Concept. For me the idea, the concept, was and is a very important aspect of a design. But what’s even more important than the concept, is what you want to express with it. Later I discovered that I’m a Homo Ludens, after an essay by Johan Huizinga, and I changed the expression into Form Follows Fun. Because thats what I wanted to express in my work: I wanted to have fun, and I wanted to give fun through my work. Nowadays I say Form Follows Freedom. Design traditionally is explained as a problem solving job. I don’t solve problems. Problems are negative. I create possibilities. Possibilities for the user to use my design the way they want, not the way I tell them to do so. Only when you’re free you can truly be happy. I want to express that through my work. So the form of the work is very important. The form of the work has to tell the message. Since my designs can not talk they have to tell their story through the only language they can speak: It’s form.

Abstraction, Materiality and Pattern in Design from Turkey

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Gökhan Karakuş

The nature of form in art, design and architecture in the East is completely different from that of the West. Ever since the Renaissance when visual perspective, pictorial and sculptural realism became priorities in art in the West the divergence between eastern and western modes of art became clear. In architecture and design this transformation also occurred through a neo-classicism that redirected architectural form away from material and craft towards the visual language of ancient Greco-Roman examples.

Whereas Romanesque, Byzantine and Gothic architecture along with vernacular examples were focused on the union of form, materiality and decoration, neo-classicism largely separated architectural form from the physical reality of its indigenous base. Overall art and architecture became discrete and separate activities that took their meaning primarily through individual expression aligned to economy and politics. From Renaissance patrons to Baroque and Enlightenment royalty up to the 19-century imperialists and first industrialists, realist, perspectival art and the associated Neoclassic architecture were at the service of the political and economic imperatives and hence cultural tastes of these groups up until to the onset of Modernism.

In Eastern cultures such as Turkey in the Ottoman Period the division between art, architecture and design never occurred in this way. All types of form making in visual creative practices came out of a unitary understanding of the world that connected human expression to a larger cosmological worldview. In this way Eastern forms of making in the geography of the Ottoman Empire were closely aligned to functional needs tied to a mix of local material conditions based on Eastern belief systems. While the role of the individual did exist it was always as a vehicle for a larger philosophy bringing together man, nature and the universe. What the West knew as science, art, religion was up to the 19th century in the East simply the manner in which man created meaningful relations between himself and the world in material reality. This connection between objects and the association to larger universal principals through the act of making continued through into the 20th century in Turkey in the material culture of artisanal production in for example textiles, ceramics and metalwork. Later in the 20th century the union of the artisanal with the aesthetic of monderism would be successfully expressed in the art/design work of figures such as Bedri Rahmi Eyuboğlu, İlhan Koman and Sadi Diren.

The generation of new forms by these modernists in line with traditional aeshetics attested to the signifiance to the underlying and long standing currents of Eastern based abstraction in the production of form.

It is here that we turn to the role of abstraction in architecture and design in the East as a critical tool in the

creation of knowledge and form. Abstraction played a key role in this process of creating profound relations between man and his environment in the Eastern and Ottoman world. The application of abstract geometries and patterns tied in part to mathematics was the visual form of expression that generated works as buildings, interiors and objects that surrounded mankind in Eastern cultures such as Turkeys. Here we can point to the vast architectural works of the Ilkhan, Seljuk, Timurid Empires that later coalesced into the more expansive projects of the Ottoman Empires as examples of this modular geometric and mathematical design approach of the East. Visuality while important was much like personal vision subsumed into the greater Ottoman cosmology combined with material reality. The role of the individual practitioner was to adapt local techniques to these abstract geometries with the application of geometric pattern being an important feature of this approach. In this way, geometry, pattern and material underpinned by the Ottoman cosmology mixing epistemology and mathematics were central to a form of creativity that was at the center of the eastern culture and world view.

For centuries the masters of Eastern form making relied on this method. For example, in the Turkish Ottoman Empire this unity between geometry and pattern can readily be seen in the 98-foot-long Topkapı Scroll, a compendium of 114 individual geometric patterns for wall surfaces and architecture. Used by craftsmen responsible for building in the Islamic world, the scroll illuminates the role of geometry as a primary design conceit for the area’s hybrid Eurasian culture. Up until the 20th century despite the propagation of neo-classicism and then modernism in architecture these geometric and pattern based forms of abstract composition still were important in Turkey. Especially in what we know of as craft, traditional arts such as textiles, ceramics, pottery, basket weaving, metalwork and jewelry relied on the geometric pattern in the “design” of this work. The method of composition often abstract yet tied to handcraft, technique and material remained in existence in these arts into the 21st century albeit in a mutated form that we will now explore.

Pattern as symbol The geometric design approach as kitsch representation of the “East” In the 20th century in Turkey the sweeping changes in culture that transformed the Ottoman system towards the modernist principals of the Republic of Turkey had profound effects on the nature of form making in architecture and the nascent idea of design. The artisanal modes of making tied to the traditional Ottoman guild system and craft would be slowly replaced by industrialization and factory based manufacturing. While traditional arts con-

tinued to be practiced their impact artistically and functionally were lessened by the conditions of modern life. In the face of this transformation these traditional arts and craft ways declined in creative importance as they were now separated from their functional and epistemological basis. The result was that traditional crafts became ossified as “performative crafts” as symbols of culture disappearing in the face of modernism and industry. Traditional arts such as carpet weaving, woodworking and stone carving became stuck in their traditional past never able to take part in the modern spirit of the contemporary present.

More so seen as culturally retardataire by Turkey’s western looking elites and artists, the practitioners of traditional and decorative arts in the second half of the 20th century were pushed away from contemporary culture increasingly towards kitsch cultural backwaters of ersatz commercialism or into hybrid urban vernaculars of the lumpen urban working classes of migrants from rural areas.

Geometry from System to Symbol Intriguingly it was at this juncture that a certain idea of design emerged in Turkey in the 20th century. But before we delve into this first important application of modern design in Turkey a review of the historic background is required. While decorative arts and material culture had since the 19th century in the Ottoman Empire produced a number of styles such as neoclassicism, Art Nouveau and Art Deco, these styles were concentrated in architecture and interiors in urban centers such as Istanbul and Izmir outside the scope of the traditional arts dating from the classical Ottoman period. We can point here to the Art Nouveau of Raimondo D’Aronco or the Art Deco’s geometric decorative design as applied by Turkish architects such as Seyfi Arkan and Sedad Hakki Eldem.

But perhaps most importantly within the scope of the later development of design in Turkey were the beginnings of the Westernization of Ottoman architecture in the early 18th century with for example the so-called “Ottoman Baroque” and the stylistic and symbolic variances around the notion of form caused by this transformation in knowledge systems from East to West. The architectural style of the “Ottoman Baroque” as defined by the architectural historian Doğan Kuban was the first stage in a mannerism that would continue until the 21st century that would see the self-conscious integration of European forms into the decorative schemes of Ottoman architecture. This mannerism, a mix of architectural styles of Ottoman/Eastern origin and those from Europe, created the basis for the semiotic reading of architecture and design that continues until today. Divorced from its material and technical basis Ottoman and eastern architecture and design would become in this way a play of symbols based on ideologi-

SADİ DİREN, CERAMIC MURAL, ISTANBUL UNIVERSITY SOCIAL CENTER, BEYAZIT, ISTANBUL, 1972 Ceramicist Sadi Diren was an artist, designer and producer of ceramics during the highpoint of modern artistic ceramic production in Turkey from the 1950-1970s. His designs of ceramic tiles and murals with Vitra and Eczacıbaşı during this time integrated motifs and patterns from traditional Anatolian decorative arts into a modernist iconography of patterns and shapes. This mural from the social center of Istanbul University from 1972 combines the abstraction of geometric tiles with abstract naturalistic motifs inspired by the traditions of Anatolian decorative art in ceramics, rugs and textiles.

traditions in decorative art, material culture and design.

A DETAIL FROM GORBON’S PANEL, CARLTON HILTON, YENİKÖY, ISTANBUL, 1960S This ceramic panel from the Istanbul based ceramic producer, Gorbon, is from the Carlton Hotel in Yeniköy, Istanbul. Dating from the 1960s it shows the influence of Anatolian geometric patterns partly influenced from traditional arts such as ceramics, rugs and textiles merged with a modernist design aesthetic. The 3 dimensional relief surface in ceramic emphasizes color

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and depth in a mode of geometric abstraction closely aligned with the aesthetic of the international Modern Art of the period.

cal determinants. In other words there was a wholesale change into a Western approach that pushed the decorative aspects of Eastern forms forward as symbols divorced from their geometric modular system of design. Later in Turkish Architecture, the first and second National styles of architecture in Turkey can be seen as a product of this mannerist approach to the application of style where ideology in the symbolic representation of specifically “Turkish forms” was an index of Turkishness. The application of Ottoman forms in these Turkish Nationalist Architecture movements was an important phenomenon of a top down application of symbolism and ideology to architectural form that continues today in the NeoOttoman kitsch architecture replete with the symbolic use of Ottoman and Selcuk patterns geometries that has been in vogue in Turkey since the beginning of the 21st century.

Abstraction in Modern Art and mid century Modern design in Turkey Intriguingly though in design in Turkey there has been a steady yet vague presence of the geometric and pattern based approach in the modernist design primarily since the mid-20th century. While early 20th century designers such as Arkan and Eldem attempted a decorative synthesis between the geometries of Turkish origin and modernist design styles such as Art Deco, the mid-century emphasis in abstraction in Modern art and design had a serious The basis for this new approach in line with Turkish cultures traditional interest in abstraction, materiality and pattern did not just originate only from architecture but rather more so from the post WWII Modern Art of Europe and

North America. In the second half of the 20th century in Turkey as a result of the influence of global modernist art and architecture there was a renewed appreciation for geometry and pattern in the work of a series of modernist practitioners as a result of the global expansion of abstract Modern Art. In the post WWII period in Turkey there would be a number of artists and importantly architects and later designers who focused on geometric abstraction in a way that featured a new appreciation of geometry and pattern within a modern focus. Figures such as artists Mubin Orhon, Bedri Rahmi Eyuboglu, Sadi Calik and Ilhan Koman mixed geometry, pattern and abstraction with materials and techniques. In architecture Turgut Cansever, Hayati Tabanlioglu, Behruz Cinici, Sedad Hakki Eldem and Cengiz Bektas applied geometry, pattern and module to large architectural projects. But perhaps most dramatic was in the traditional art of ceramics as practiced by modernist ceramicist artists such as Sadi and Belma Diren, Atilla Galatali, and Hamiye Colakoglu. For example, for these architectural settings these Turkish ceramicists from the 1950s to the 1970s designed murals with Turkish iconography or they developed original combinations of relief tiles that resulted in large, geometrical interior surfaces that complemented the space and light of modern architectural settings. Utilizing the traditions of creating abstract forms through patternmaking in Turkey these designs realigned these craft based traditions to design to a completely new modern synthesis of form and material that we can consider to be one of the foundations of modern design in Turkey at the same time as the continuation of Turkish

The modernist Turkish artists and in part architects of the late 20th century interested in abstraction set the stage for an renewed appreciation of abstraction, material and pattern as away to generate form in modern design becoming a basis for further work. While practice areas using traditional methods such as textiles, ceramics, mosaic and glasswork have been taken up by modern designers in Turkey in the late 20th century it was in furniture design from the 1960s to 1980s in the works of Sadun Ersin, Sadi Diren, Danyel Ciper and later Yildirim Kocaciklioglu, Azmi and Bediz Koz, Aziz Sariyer and most recently Adnan Serbest that geometry, abstraction and materials were fused into a unified system similar to the premodern forms of the Ottoman era. In fact for some of these designers because Turkey is not completely modernized many aspects of the pre-modern that are still in existence albeit in subtle ways have become an important basis for contemporary design in their work. Each used a form of geometry, abstraction and pattern in coordination with material technique to drive their design ethos.

It is in this framework that the notion of “Turkish Design” has become an interesting case study of the role of abstract geometry, materiality and pattern in the Eastern context. The themes that have appeared in design in Turkey for the past 15 years largely occurred within this 1000 year old dynamic. The material culture of Turkey in its architecture, art and design has proposed for designers a condition which has approached the problem of form creation in the same way as the Ottoman and Selcuk past, as a hybrid way of making that is art, design and architecture mixed into one. The importance of this approach should be seen in these designers primarily the ceramicists and furniture designers ability to directly apply in the modern mode of art these methods of production in Turkey and the East. That is to say with geometry and pattern as a basis the generation of form is realized within the material production of design, its techniques and material constraints, resulting in what we can loosely term as the idiom of Turkish design. In the face of the kitsch application of “Turkish looking” design using geometry and pattern determined by symbolic and ideological dictates the modernist approach as practiced by the likes of Sadi Diren, Atilla Galatali, Danyel Ciper, Azmi Koz, Aziz Sariyer and Adnan Serbest is more true to Turkey’s traditional past. This work centered design in Istanbul has put this work in the position of developing an Eastern way of producing things that is very much an adaptation of these arts successfully into the modern world.

The maker Interview: Dilek Öztürk

From Alchemia to post-modernism, Alessandro Mendini is a witness of the last half century’s creative scene with Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Rossi and Andrea Brandi by standing together and opening new discussions.

ALESSANDRO MENDINI, MILAN, 2016

PHOTO: TÜRKÜ ŞAHIN

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“We were the architects of physiological space with Andrea Brandi and Massimo Moronzi. I was also interested in the phenomenon of kitsch with Aldo Rossi I. We were trying to understand the positive quality of kitsch.”

Dilek Öztürk: Why we cannot criticise design in our time?

Alessandro Mendini: The critic of design does not exist today. Because all the magazines are focused on delivering the information and they are all very good at it. In the web everybody can have a lot of information but criticism. This is a big problem. The attitude became very superficial, we are not going into the deep of the problems. If I would do a magazine now, I would do it with an holistic approach.

DÖ: What would you publish if you started a new magazine?

AM: I would publish very various subjects from music, environment, ecology and nature to experimental architecture, design. I also would like to publish the makers and big manufacturers like Apple and Samsung. And after all, I would study the perspective of the humanistic utopia.The story of the critic is actually about digging the history and search for a better future which seems impossible today.

DÖ: Do you think that a beautiful future is impossible?

Yes, exactly. Today, the situation of the world is very bad. There are wars and violence. We always try to be positive as designers and architects but it is very difficult now.

DÖ: So at this moment, maybe the world needs to break apart to re-born, re-create, re-design?

Now we are so down that it feels like all the world has come to an end. All we need is to change to grow again. I think that we are living in a political project and we have no morality left. So we have to start a project, defining a ‘new moralism’ in a radical way.

For example the activity of the makers is kind of a new age, a new mentality to approach to design. I think with the makers and the traditional activity of the arts&crafts, we will find new and positive possibilities.

DÖ: As you said, we don’t have filters anymore.

I think we can see the reflections of this situation in design practice as well. Designers started to create almost the same things. What do you think about the authenticity?

AM: How many design school there are in Istanbul?

DÖ: The number of the design schools are increasing every year.

AM: This becomes a problem. Korea has the same problem. They try to be international and they forget their tradition. It is a very big mistake.

DÖ: I would like to talk more about the makers.

To me, from Bauhaus to today, the makers were always there.

AM: Now there is a big difference between the Bauhaus’ and today’s makers. Now the makers are isolated and most of the time they are connected to the world with a screen. In the Bauhaus, the makers were all in a school, speaking, discussing and making together.

DÖ: The idea of making by doing has re-born in our times. What do your think?

AM: Yes, exactly. But the traditional way of producing is going down. Lets take the famous Italian factories as an example. Cassina, Zanotta and many others are all going down because everything is changing. The makers have the possibility to change the way of producing. To me, the makers are very important figures of our time.

DÖ: Lets talk about your collaborations with Ettore Sottsass and the school of Alchemia. You mentioned speaking, working or standing together with a group of people really matters. How was the world and the design scene back then?

AM: My personal experience is connected with three magazines where I was working as an editor for 15 years. The first one was Casa Bella where I worked for five years. The second one was Modo and then the very big ship: Domus.

They were three precise ideological magazines.

Case Bella was about the radical design, Modo was about mixing disciplines and Domus was all about post-modernism. Casabella was connected with Arte Povera. Modo was the time of Alchemia. I became a friend of Sottsass when I was working for Casabella. Alchemia was an international movement because we were connected with Archigram in London. There was a very magic moment with a lot of discussions together. When Alchemia movement went down, all the people of radical design slowly started to change the style of their work.

During the time of radical design, the projects were very violent. We were all communists which was against the industry. Our ideas was based on using only our hands to work, without any computer. Then everything changed. Sottsass and me, we started using the colours for our projects which was connected with futurism. It was futurism for

me but for Sottsass it was about pop-art.

DÖ: Maybe also pointillism for you?

AM: Yes, it was also pointillism for me. Because when I was a student my idols were Gaudi, Rudolf Steiner, Eric Mendersen. We were the architects of physiological space with Andrea Brandi and Massimo Moronzi. I was also interested in the phenomenon of kitsch with Aldo Rossi I. We were trying to understand the positive quality of kitsch.

Now I am working in this very complicated area. My work is kind of a patchwork now. Mixing new and old things, materials, many colours, many styles.

DÖ: When you were working as an editor for Casa Bella, Modo and Domus, you were also practicing design. In which ways this experience effected you life and career?

AM: When I became an architect I was 40 years old. I didn’t want to be an architect in the beginning of my career. I slowly became an architect. My attitude was always based on drawing and writing. I could have changed my life and became a writer. When I became an architect I started to work in Casabella because I was interested in criticism. I started in the archive section of the magazine where I was organising projects. Then I became the chief in editor in two years. I got in contact with a lot of factories, manufacturers, designers, architects as a journalist, not as a designer. During the 3 magazines period of 15 years, the %70 of my work was magazines and the last %30 was design.

I was doing the art direction of companies such as Alessi and Swatch. I was involved in the projects as a coordinator, still not as a designer. Then they started asking me to design something for Alessi and Swatch. Mr Alessi also asked me to design his personal villa. Then I was asked to design the new museum in Gronningen, Holland. Then I opened my atelier where I still work in Milan.

DÖ: After the art direction and the magazine work, did you feel comfortable designing things and spaces?

AM: My approach is always literary. I start all my projects with writing. I write thesis and work with sketches. I am still writing as a journalist.

Now we edited a book of the last 10 years of my writing. The title is “Scritti di Domenica” (Written on Sunday) I live here upstairs of my studio and I write on Sundays.

We spoke to VitrA Design Director Erdem Akan on their work towards creating a design culture and a design memory with a scientific yet intuitional approach to design at their core, and on the forms these works will be shaped into in the future.

Design Unlimited: Erdem, how long have you been working here at VitrA? How was the journey together?

Erdem Akan: It has been two years and a half.

Frankly, even long ago, VitrA has always been a brand I have been following with love and respect. First, we had a consulting period together for about two and a half years. We undertook topics like design processes, design politics, and innovation, which then turned into collaboration where we designed projects like the Innovation Center.

Therefore, I cannot give an accurate answer to when and how exactly I started working with VitrA. It was a soft transition for the both sides. The question of whether a designer can work in the corporate world has always been there. I didn’t expect it to be easy but VitrA and my relationship to VitrA made it a whole lot easier. I think that this soft transition made it a whole lot easier for them to work with an out of the box designer like myself.

DU: Can you tell us a bit about the design process that started out with the consulting stage?

EA: Design has always been in the seeds of VitrA, in its DNA’s, a concept at its core. The questions of how much it was expended, opened out, or how it came to life flat out can be discussed but for me it has always been one of the most important design brands.

I always believe in working with designers outside the company. I am always for opening these doors, and sustaining these collaborations, talks, discussions, projects -successful or not-, and trials. It is very positive in that sense, because you always remain fresh; you get a chance to fecundate and cross breed your ideas with others’, going around in different places.

Yet, the internal composition helps with persistency.

Otherwise it is very difficult to create memory. Part of this memory can be situated in marketing, part in finance, and another part in the production units. If you do not possess a design memory in your company, you cannot collect the compilations, the cross breeding that you obtain through collaborations in the right pool. If I have a contribution to VitrA, I think it was for the creation and the recuperation of the memory. Looking at my work here, I do not believe it was all part of a plan. I observe, now, that what I was really intuitively, and intuitionally doing in determining which tools to use in terms of design management in scientific terms, was exactly this; mere efforts to create

a design culture and memory in the company. Before in the company, tile designers and bathroom products designers were working in different sections. Display teams and architecture teams were not in relation with the latter. The grouping of all these teams together created new sparkles. The increase in the synergy in order to look after the past, and establish the future; in short this explains why you need a design director in the company.

DU: VitrA is an institution that feeds the design culture and reflects this on daily life in terms of creating a design memory. In that sense, are you doing a chronological study by way of VitrA’s previous iconic products?

EA: Yes, to tell about VitrA, we documented what it produced as design icons in the past and we tried to visualize these icons. This was in fact done with two main purposes. First, it was done with the worry of how we can tell about VitrA in and out of the company.

VitrA has a wide array of products in its portfolio. We are talking of hundreds, thousands of products that we produced over the years with the customers we worked with, third parties we collaborated with, and works we did with designers. In this archive, some products may be separated from the others. These are separated in their design value, in their long time durability, or their humanization of technology.

DU: In some way you curated the archive.

EA: Exactly. When you look at it, all of these icons have their own stories. This study includes the first story of on-off in Turkey, how digital toilets have become less scary and more human, or the iconic products in the Istanbul series with Ross Lovegrove. This is not a narration from the designer but from the product itself. Therefore we do not have the pictures of designers on the posters. We are used to talking about the design by the way of the designer. We have seen that the visual scenery that we created is like the landscape of the past twenty years. When we questioned this in terms of which values we can gather this under from a design point of view, this study was the end result.

DU: The creation of memory is an example study in terms of memory reassignment. Will we be able to see this in an exhibition or another medium?

EA: We will use this study first to tell about VitrA in the fairs. It is very effective to use a design tone when we tell the first words about ourselves to someone who doesn’t know about us.

What I love most about VitrA is that it is not a conservative, but rather a modern brand. A modern brand does not mean an inconsistent brand, which will do as it pleases today and change it tomorrow. In Turkey

modernity can be perceived as the sacrifice of all values, and all accumulations. This is not the case at VitrA, it can all be questioned. We look at ways to update.

There is no enslaving in that sense. This is very good.

On the other hand, one needs to look out for these. In the ICONS project, we looked out for these from a design point of view. Therefore, when working with new designers, I believe the ICONS project is the right way to tell them what VitrA is all about.

DU: You mentioned that modernity might not be well understood in Turkey; institutions may have different reactions to this. Sometimes all values can be put aside, sometimes vice versa. In that sense, the Bath Time Good Time exhibition that took place at the Milano Design Week this year is a good reflection of VitrA’s understanding of modernity.

EA: Right. This is how I see it; Bath Time Good Time was at first a design study. The exhibition project was the sharing of the results of this design research with honesty and sincerity. And again, this happened at the Milano Design Week where the design aficionados were there to see “what’s new, where is the world headed to”. I am not so sure how many companies in Turkey can make a project without showcasing products but this year the exhibition in Milano was quiet interesting.

VitrA is a big company that produces in large quantities, that has a mass way of thinking, and makes its sales to different geographies in the world. All of these geographies have differences about the taboo of “what we do in the bathroom”. It is hard to produce in mass and to exist in different countries and markets with different socio-economic conditions, and sets of values. This is not an easy operation. Cultural and mental infrastructures need to be researched for this. This is no just a commercial activity, but a configuration to open dialogue for the projects to come. It is not so common to talk about the toilets. Therefore we want to start a dialogue. And this was one of those dialogues.

DU: There were also individual stories on the bathroom habits and memories. Will Bath Time Good Time remain a concept project both as a space and a product on its own?

EA: In fact yes, in that sense, it has a conceptual percept but the project will not remain the way it is in two senses. First, how can the minds, and the projects here can turn into products? This is no easy standard application. Honestly put, this is a new application, a new approach. To turn into product from design research, is what big companies, big design oriented companies can achieve.

The usual approach is like this: marketing teams

“If a designer, only deals with design, I am not so sure how well she can be in design. We are also obliged to perform the writing, the drawing, and the thinking activities around design.”

PHOTO: ELIF KAHVECI

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We experiment the reflections of the era we live in, via different cultures in different geographies shaping daily life. While each culture creates its own icons, the institutions that introduce these icons to the collective memory, generate a memory archive in their own right.

oldest mall in the world. We first need to back that up, and need to understand how it can be improved. But that is not the case for an Italian. Italians really ride Vespa’s, wear those suits, and drink that Espresso. When they design a coffee mug they design the coffee mug that they will use while drinking. Our designers do not drink that coffee, eat that lokum, go to that bazaar. Sincerity originates the pursuit and the continuity of culture. A similar example is observed in design education. I had an application that I loved doing while teaching at Eskişehir Anadolu University. I asked the student: “Do you love this product?”, who would reply “yes, I love the product that I designed”. Let’s say it is a lamp. Then I’d say: “OK then I will produce this for you, and you will live with it for a year. Your friends, your girlfriend will come and see that, and you will wake up to that lamp every morning.

Would you live with that for a year?” Then they’d say: “Let me redesign it.”

The designer can easily say: “I will not be using this, I will give it as a present, and I do not know what they will do with it.” Design is a matter of creating value. We need to be sincere in understanding those values and in recreating those values. You cannot create a value when you are not sincere. It is that simple. Therefore all those projects are valuable in understanding our values. Therefore we do projects like Bath Time Good Time. How can the value created by Bath Time Good Time be commercialized, or how can we use more valuable products when we exhibit them commercially; this is our main problematic.

DU: It is actually about creating a sincere language that everyone will understand.

EA: Yes. It is imperative in an operation that the workmen who produce the ceramics see the visual, know that they will produce the next icon, feel that excitement, know that they are involved in the process, and that they say they remember a letter in this alphabet.

ERDEM AKAN, VITRA DESIGN DIRECTOR

Creating memory through our life style

determine the gaps in the markets, and the opportunistic spaces due to competition, share their views on this, and following on these briefs, design teams design in order to hit the targets. You may think conceptually during these processes, and have a more conceptual approach, but at the end of the day you walk towards the goal. Here there is no goal; there is a project that started from scratch, and that was achieved through tedious work with designers outside VitrA. This is a first in that sense. Therefore I agree that the subject of how conceptual will turn into practical is not easy. This is a heavy duty and I am glad I am not in the marketing section. At the end of the day this is a commercial entity, these researches and studies are conducted to commercialize and make a difference in design. Therefore, I will remain a follower of the subject on how these can be commercialized in the name of my company.

DU: In the end we are talking about research, production, design stages. You have both a designer and a curator identity. I feel like designers should also be good curators.

EA: Yes, they can be curators or something else. If a designer, only deals with design, I am not so sure how well she can be in design. We are also obliged to perform the writing, the drawing, and the thinking activities around design.

DU: At this point, there are promising occurrences that keep us together. There are communities that trigger each other in a domino effect.

EA: I think our mission is tough here. By us I mean the companies, and designers of my generation. We are the most active generation, and we are somehow in effective and critical points. In the end, we need to open new ways and doors for the young designers for them not to go through the difficulties we have been through.

DU: And we are somehow. Our generation has an educative role right now; those who have a professional life apart from the academia, those who transform their knowledge and experience in a more effective way…

EA: I believe this has a huge effect for the designer who teaches as well. I have not studied design that much; I have tried to teach more than I studied myself. To teach is a better form of education at least for the teacher. In the Medieval times, when there was an increase in the number of Islamic scholars, this was their method of education: The teacher would come in the class, and let the student teach. The teacher would not tell anything, would listen and then they would discuss. This is an active way of teaching; I did the same. I mean for personal education. It is very important to be able to explain how you do the design. For a moment, I come in the classroom, and I hear things about design process being painful.

I disagree. I believe that next to the intuitional side, there are antique methods that need to be shared and discussed. I am for discussing, talking and developing the subjects of how something is designed, and how we discuss over a design. Therefore I underline the importance of dialogue here. For instance Mendini is a figure worth mentioning here.

Mendini is an impressive figure for me. I think the Italian design philosophies of that era are very impressive. The trials of that era, the errors, and the effort to create a language from this; in short this effort to speak with design is very exciting. I believe utopias were looked for, and Mendini himself is a utopia. I have respect for Mendini. I always try to think “what would Mendini do?”. Sometimes I try to ask myself what would a designer I have respect for do in my shoes, I try to feel like she would, and try to empathize.

There is a certain serious language in the ICONS project; I tried to bring that language in front of my eyes.

Then I thought how others would see this language, this graphic, and how we can create an alphabet. Just like the alphabets by Mendini. Pluralist in itself, rather than a singular design uniform.

DU: This is very important. One needs to reflect critics in the physical sense. The alphabet and the material presented as a company’s stance and critics are very imperative. I’d wish this could be seen as an example in design schools.

EA: I think what we need in Turkey is sincerity. We live some things just to show off. Tourists come, we serve them apple tea but we don’t consume that. We serve lokum, but we don’t eat lokum. We take them to Grand Bazaar, but we do not go there to shop; we rather prefer commercial malls. I am not against malls but we have the

Good news!

Sinan Logie

One and the many exhibition examines Turkey’s cultural memory through daily routines between 1955-1995 and enlightens how different industrial areas shape our lives.

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“BETTLE” TOURISM VEHICLE DESIGNED BY JAN NAHUM JAN NAHUM ARCHIVE

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PAŞABAHÇE’S FIRST STORE IN BEYOĞLU, 1957, ŞİŞECAM ARCHIVE

SÜMERBANK PRODUCTION SITE, 1978 TUDİTA ARCHIVE

This fall, SALT’s curatorial team is on the scene again, in SALT Galata, with a research exhibition: Tek ve çok. The research project, led by Meriç Öner, with a large team, is part of the five-year program The Uses of Art – The Legacy of 1848 and 1989, organized by L’Internationale. The exhibition focuses on the artifacts of Turkey’s industrial production during the 1980’s with a larger look to the socio-economic and politic mutations of the country between 1955 and 1995. It is important to note that the two years research process has included interviews with personalities from the industrial field, frontline witnesses of the concerned years’ effervescence.

At the first sight, the exhibition reveals a light taste of nostalgia, due to the presence of mass production items, belonging to the years where Turkey shifted from a state controlled economy towards a liberal model. Indeed, the clever selection of artifacts covers a wide range from car industry to fashion production, food or home appliances. Some of these items definitely are today part of the contemporary Turkey’s collective memory. Nevertheless, the presence of some vintage Turkish movie fragments, such as Dünyayı kurtaran adam (1982), largely inspired by some famous American blockbuster, questions pertinently the visitors on the concept of “genuine copies”.

Beyond the critic of the “copies” of western products, made by the Turkish industry, the exhibition gives a new key to read the layers of creativity behind this process. And the notion of “copy” suddenly shifts into a

İNCİ DERİ’S STORE IN FATİH, 1960S İNCİ DERİ ARCHIVE

more complex process of re-appropriation of models by a young republic still trying to invent its position in a globalizing world. At this point, a form of sadness may occur in our hearts, when we compare, the inventiveness lying in these “copies”, to the contemporary neo-ottoman fury that encloses us in a narrow and fallacious past. Happily, Bedri Baykam’s work titled This has been done before (1987) dominates the space and contributes to the debate on copyrights with a sweet sense of humor.

The exhibition criticizes copy production by investigating Turkey’s background and dynamics about the copy.

For an exhibition in an art center such as SALT, the only presence of Baykam’s artwork or Galeri Baraz’s catalogue might be surprising to some visitors. We are here in a scenography language, familiar to SALT, which blurs the limits between artworks and curatorial interventions. In this frame, the exhibition seems to cope with French art critic Nicolas Bourriaud’s theories as stated in his book Relational aesthetics (1998): a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human re-

lations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space. “Tek ve çok” doesn’t miss this axis, by proposing a series of workshops open to undergraduate and graduate students. These workshops will be led by Sait Ali Köknar, Berkay Küçükbaşlar and Murat Tülek. Their results will be a dynamic part of the exhibition, in the same way as the “copy table”, inviting visitors to create their own copies. Good news!

SALT is still an art center!

This similarity of approach, to the content, with SALT’s other recent exhibitions is indubitable. But more than just a work of archive, the addition of exhibitions such as: Modern Denemeler 5: Aşı (Curated

by Aslıhan Demirtaş), Nerden geldik buraya?, Yazlık: Şehirlinin kolonisi, and Tek ve çok; SALT seems to have started a section through Turkey in the anthropocene age. A new epoch, enunciated by geologist and stratigraphers, as the one where the geological and ecological mutations are due to human activity.

To conclude, by its multilayered reading Tek ve çok will certainly fulfill the curiosity of a lot of visitors looking for nostalgia or for a deeper understanding of history. But, even if history is an important toolbox to understand our contemporary situation, we shouldn’t forget to invent possible futures for all, because, as Rem Koolhaas said: “The past is too small to inhabit.

We really need a new Dünyayı kurtaran adam.”

Vital aspect of design “ If you are going to deconstruct you also need to reconstruct.

Put it back together knowing that you can’t have everything.

And then you have to make some choices.”

Deconstructing each dynamic in our lives and reconstructing all the pieces together make us to judge our lives and have a perspective we have not experienced yet. Ayşe Birsel emphasises that our lives are our biggest project and she makes us to think like a designer with her book Design The Life You Love.

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Interview: Dilek Öztürk

Dilek Öztürk: Dear Ayşe Birsel, you say: “I used to be designer of products but now I am a designer of life.” Could you tell me the difference between being a product designer and being a designer of life?

Ayşe Birsel: I think that my life is my biggest project and once I developed my own process the Deconstruction:Reconstruction method, I decided to experiment and see if I could apply my process to my life.

Then I started Design the Life You Love workshops with people of all backgrounds and this has changed my perspective immensely.

I realized that our clients are very focused on products. However, for people, products are only a portion of their lives, their overall experience is really what matters. So this perspective shift really shaped how we design today with our users and our clients. Our goal is to bridge that gap between life and products and to help our clients see the experience of users as an integral part of their life.

DÖ: Yes, we are the curators of our lives. We pick things that reflects us consciously, sometimes unconsciously. It changes from what we prefer in life to who we are standing with. So your method makes people aware of how to pick or how to reconstruct?

AB: Deconstruction: Reconstruction is what I call my design process that I developed upon many years of designing products from office systems to kitchen tools, automobiles. It has four steps. Deconstruction is taking something apart and the second step is point of view, looking at those parts from a different perspective. 3rdtep is Reconstruction, putting the pieces back together in a new way to create new value and last step is expression, through a concept, product, service design, strategy etc... What is really important here is Deconstruction helps us break our preconceptions and the connections between things that we take for

granted or assume automatically. Once you deconstruct something, you are already thinking differently about it. I often say If you are going to deconstruct you also need to reconstruct. Put it back together knowing that you can’t have everything. And then you have to make some choices.

DÖ: Do you plan to spread this methodology to different areas in different countries or cultures?

AB: Definitely. I have been teaching and developing Design the Life You Love for 6 years now, and the biggest lesson for me has been how extraordinarily creative people are. We don’t need to be designers to be creative. That has become my purpose to teach peo-

Thinking like a designer provides us to use the values we would like to have in our lives in an effective and productive way. ple of all ages, how to think creatively and create the coherence between who they are, what their values are and the life they create for themselves. Take a pause and take stalk of our life. I’m thinking creatively with optimism. Thinking like a designer gives us an openness. I often think that life comes at us.

DÖ: People always judge themselves and their decisions. They usually end up with this question: What could have been if I did the differently. Jumping into the water or not...?

AB: I think it depends on the person and what their values are. For some people jumping into life and taking risk is who they are. That is a priority to them.

Like you said I find that we often judge ourselves, myself included. But designing your life reminds you of values you can create a coherence and sometimes your values are not about risk taking. They are about being calm and having a very simple life creating rituals and that could be a perfectly beautiful life.

DÖ: Apart from all these, could you please tell us about your current and future projects?

AB: Design the Life You Love is definitely the foundation for how we think with my team and we think of our purpose. We do this on different levels: Design the Life You Love book, the workshops and the conferences... This is about teaching everybody how to think like a designer. We all have a life so it gives me a shared project to be able to teach this way of thinking. But then we also teach Design the Work You Love which is more for organisations. Design the Experience You Love is the core design methodology that we developed. It is about co-creating with users and understanding their insights and the experiences they can th imagine which is very powerful. Then the 4 one is out of that, designing product and services to products and services.

DÖ: The process became more important than the outcome. Especially designers became much more experimental.

AB: I think design is a transformation where it used to be very much about industrial de- sign. Today, it is more about designing businesses and designing user experiences, apps or more interactive services.

Experience design has really become kind of like Design the Life You Love. It is about applying design, thinking like a designer for many problem solving

AYŞE BIRSEL, FOUNDING PARTNER BIRSEL&SECK, AUTHOR OF “DESIGN THE LIFE YOU LOVE” PHOTO: GREG ENDRIES

opportunities and sometimes could be even government projects; issues in terms of governance, could be education it could be industrial... So it is great time to be a designer. But also it is never easy to be a designer.

DÖ: You work with different people from different disciplines and ages. What do you observe about them on defining their values? Is there a common behaviour?

AB: I have a specific exercise around inspiration which is all about defining your values. In design, when you are creating, inspiration is a key step. I place that with their point of view. Inspiration helps you to see things differently and when you are looking for inspiration, you look at other examples, you go to museums, try to immerse yourself in art, design and architecture. Inspiration is about the values that you are collecting. They are not your idea but they have pieces of your idea and they are embedded with the values that you want to have in your design. Similarly when you design your life, other people become your inspiration and you develop exercises around that. It helps me asking people who their heroes are and then

connect their heroes to their values. It is just like in design. It’s getting people to think about their values in directly an being inspired by it. Then those values become the foundation of their design. If you want to create something light, you might research light weight materials, light architecture, perception of lightness and that become value system you transform into your idea in same thing.

DÖ: People are looking for simplicity in their life in a broader context. Consuming less, expressing themselves with less words etc...

AB: Reconstruction is really about that. I think simplification is also knowing what to focus on and understanding you can’t have everything. I have the same desire and challenge, simplifying my life. It is a kind of a epidemic of our times, we are pulled in so many directions, and Reconstruction is really about picking what matters most.

You see in Design The Life You Love book, I ask you to imagine three things that you want to focus on.

And you have to converge your whole life in the three things and then the next step is the same way you

do deconstruction. You reconstruct across emotion, physical, intellect and spirit, you have three circles each of those. So you define what are the three most important things emotionally, physically, intellectually and spiritual for you. It becomes like a foundation. Being aware of those things, lining these values that becomes your life design. Once you have clarity, you can draw something, you can model something and you are so much closer to make it happen. It is the same thing with your life, this is really about visualizing an idea and if you can visualize your idea for your life, you will make it happen.

DÖ: You should also let go of some things.

AB: Exactly. You can change your design. This could be three things for six or 1 month then you can say that’s done. You have the flexibility. I always tell people it is just pen and paper, you can redesign it.

TEPTA Lighting celebrates its 25th year with a light exhibition which will be held for the first time in Turkey. Curated by Ulrike Brandi, TEPTA is teaming up with architects and designers and the world’s leading glass manufacturers. Day, Light, Night exhibition will take place in Istanbul Modern Museum between 19 October 2016 - 22 January 2017.

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PHOTO: COURTESY OF TEPTA

We interviewed TEPTA brand director Özlem Yalım on the process of global collaborations and the subject of lighting design in Turkey.

Design Unlimited: You celebrate TEPTA’S 25th year with an exhibition, book and panel series. Can you tell us about the milestones of TEPTA in terms of national and international lighting and architectural lighting design scene? Özlem Yalım: As Robi Ebeoğlu, the founder of TEPTA, said 25 years ago, the brand was established on the special interest about the aesthetic aspect of lighting. Since then we developed almost 30 different collaborations starting from iGuzzini brand. In this 25 years, we constantly developed ourselves with various products and projects. We provide product and service from technical lighting to a decorative chandelier.

Moving to Levent in 2010 was one of the most important decisions for us after our first location Cihangir.

Here, we can provide a wider range of services to our customers and solution partners. Our project team works with architects from the begging of a project and try to find custom lighting products parallel to their budget limits.

DU: Day, Light, Night is the first lighting exhibition in Turkey. How did it all started? ÖY: The year of 2016 is our 25th anniversary and we wanted to share this in every possible way. We thought what we can do with the brands we represent, the profile who stands with us and follows us for years. But the main factor of this exhibition idea was the support of Istanbul Modern Museum. We also support the museum lighting products for a long time.

During the process, we researched the leading figures in the lighting industry and get to know each other with our curator Ulrik Brandi. We invited Refik Anadol, Christine Brandi, Bilgehan Şenel, Melkan

Gürsel, Murat Tabanlıoğlu, Emre Arolat, Enzo Catellani, William Brand, Tanju Özelgin and Önder Kaya to develop new projects for our exhibition. On the other hand, iGuzzini, Lasvit, Aqua, Catellani & Smith, Brand van Egmond supported us for the exhibition. We also got the support of Simes brand for our book project. Architects and lighting designers participated to our book project with articles.

DU: We are talking about an exhibition taking place on a space which became a vital point as an harbour for cultural and commercial events. Can you tell us the relationship between this specific region, city and the works taking place in the exhibition. ÖY: We aimed to bring all the participants together under one concept defined by our curator Ulrike Brandi. Ulrike has a strong and comprehensive background in lighting design. We analysed how the Bosphorus view changes during the day under different circumstances with different images. Then, we sent Ulrike Brandi’s text to all participants with all these images. Thus each work taking place in this exhibition is reinterpreting the situation of light in Istanbul.

Apart form the urban connection, all the projects are emphasising the accessible production sites and methods like glass blowing taking place in the city.

DU: You will also be exhibiting solo projects from artists around the world. How the works of Refik Anadol and Christine Brandi will be articulated with the rest of the exhibition? ÖY: We especially wanted to have an artistic point of view rather than just architects or designers. This is why we invited artists. Refik lives and works abroad and he already represent the age of technology with very successful projects. On the other hand Christine is a naive artist with inherent experiences. She stands out with her works of lighting products, created for

theatre stages. She takes human on the centre of her work She designed a special work for the exhibition, taking the audience as the leading profile.

DU: It is a long process form design to production and exhibition. How would you summarise this process? ÖY: I can say as a person experienced similar or wider projects, it was a hard process for us. You need to make long term plans and bring many important figures together.

When you try to achieve this point in an international platform, you come across with the difficulties of different time zones and travel schedules. In time, you can become an undesirable person but everything has its obligation. Then there comes the time when the dreams come true, the sketches start to become tangible. You work on the details and the materials, meeting with manufacturers to finalise the process. You also need to develop and manage different processes of metal, hot glass, textile production or graphic design and LED mapping. Although it is important to be a designer in this process, the keyword is the team. Two words are very valuable and important in such a procedure: Communication and collaboration.

DU: How do you compare Turkish lighting design sector to other countries? ÖY: As TEPTA,we provide design and aesthetic for architects, investors and last users. We offer customised solutions with different brands and products.

In Turkey, there is no problem in terms of accessing to design. You can find any product group specialising in different segments. This doesn’t mean that every product have unique quality. In Turkey, our biggest problem is to invest the less amount but expect the higher quality. A technical area like lighting cannot bear this situation. Lighting is an investment business rather than a business of joy. We don’t have this perception yet in Turkey. The world has an approach to value the material, brand policy, design and quality we cannot see here it here in Turkey and unfortunately it is getting worse.

www.tepta.com

ÖZLEM YALIM, BRAND DIRECTOR OF TEPTA

Fungo - Campana Brothers

Day, light, night

Nispetiye Mah. Aytar Cad. No: 24 Kat: 1-2-3 1.Levent - İstanbul / 0212 279 29 03

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