InTeRnATIOnAL STyLe

6
T h e g lo b e a n d m a i l
S AT U R DAY , o c to b e r 3 1 , 2 0 1 5
design
international style
The stuff we buy is as influenced by the countries we love as the country we’re in. Take a
#shelfie at home and many will spot something Italian, Swedish, Mexican or Japanese.
But Austrian? Ellen Himelfarb discovers some of the best designers coming up today are
from unexpected postal codes – and soon to be occupying prime real estate on your mantel
butterfly effect
Viennese firm
Mischer’Traxler was
commissioned by
Perrier-Jouët for the 2015
London Design Festival to
create an installation,
Curiosity Cloud, comprised
of 250 mouth-blown glass
globes that hung around
the Victoria & Albert
Museum’s Norfolk House
Music Room. Each globe
contained a variety of
hand-constructed insects.
welcome home
For Fabrica x Airbnb’s
Housewarming exhibition,
designer Marlene Wolfmair
interpreted the Austrian
tradition of Jause, an
afternoon snack enjoyed at
home or as a picnic; the food
is held in a Jausensackerl (a
picnic bag made of linen
cloth). Wolfmair created a
pattern inspired by the
surroundings of her
childhood. The region is full
of granite stone, and she
gave a modern twist to the
age-old idea by using
computer-generated images.
photos by Ed Reeve
photo by Marco Zanin/Fabrica
AUSTRIA
tower power
Devised by studio Moradavaga,
Vira-Lata is an interactive
installation located in a new
public square beside Porto’s São
Bento train station. Passersby
are encouraged to leave
messages on the tower facade’s
2,300 turnable cans, some
coloured yellow in reference to
the interior of a train carriage.
The few past decades have seen Europe’s class structure upended, followed by its power structures. Now, the
creative structure is seeing an upheaval with the most seemingly mundane populations on the continent
outshining their sexier neighbours. For example, Austria’s Vienna Design Week, a 10-day festival that ended
earlier this month, rolled out a series of household hits from nascent local studios like Chmara Rosinke and
Klemens Schillinger. The festival, now in its ninth year, has gradually become a must-attend player on the
design calendar – a highly cerebral cultural extravaganza that’s confined to one historic neighbourhood so it’s
easier to navigate than, say, London’s impenetrably vast event.
Austria’s millennials are coming out of Vienna’s Institute of Design – or coming home from schools in
London or Milan – to an increasingly contemporary city, one that’s tight-knit, affordable and welcoming to
other cultures (interiors designers Ania Rosinke and Maciej Chmara are Polish emigrés; product designer Talia
Radford is a Spanish Brit). They’re inspired by the city’s rich collection of classical art and design but compelled
to rebel against it.
For Schillinger, who creates pieces from lamps to candle sticks, it made sense to return after five years in
the U.K. to a shared studio in a former hair salon that costs a fraction of what it would in London. “Vienna
still has a lot of skill and craftsmen right in the streets of the centre,” he says, “and they’re easier to approach
than in a bigger city, where they’re often hidden in business park. You can walk right in to see a woodworker
and get something done. And it doesn’t really matter that I’m here in Austria – I can connect to any company.”
Recently Schillinger was enlisted to design for Swedish manufacturer Hem.
Less than a decade ago, the Vienna Business Agency launched a funding and networking program for local
creatives called Departure, which Schillings says has pushed a lot of recent grads into partnerships with traditional manufacturers.
Best known of this new guard of Austrian designers are Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler of
Mischer’Traxler, who virtually owned this year’s London Design Festival with exhibitions across town. For
Curiosity Cloud, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, they filled 250 blown-glass pendant lightbulbs with “insects”
wired to motion detectors, which caused the insects to fly around the bulb as visitors moved through the room.
On the fringes but poised for global success are Marlene Wolfmair, who designs bags, furniture and lighting
in 3-D, and the ceramicist Matthias Kaiser, whose stoneware vessels are shown across the continent.
stone bold
Matthais Kaiser’s portfolio includes pieces in
both porcelain and stoneware. This arrangement
of vases is created by a technique of treating
dark clay with slips, iron ore, sanding and repeat
firings to achieve a dilapidated effect.
TURKEY
Like other CIVETS countries (South Africa and Vietnam among
them), Turkey is experiencing the buzz of a booming, young
economy that’s affordable for young grads. And like its cohorts,
Turkey has a rich artisanal tradition that designers can both
learn from and rebel against. Its geographical position between
established Europe and the burgeoning East makes it open to
both radical ideas and exotic materials and motifs.
You can get anything made in Istanbul – makers are woven
into the fabric of the city and the creative industry plays out
in the centre, not the margins. This has been a boon to young
designers like Ezgi Turksoy, who makes her subversive silverware with the help of neighbour silversmiths but shows it in
London galleries. Ditto Yigit Ozer, a designer turning ancient
ceramic patterns on their head. Tamer Nakisci has used local
artisans from his father’s factory to reimagine the kilim and to
revolutionize traditional ceramics. “Because there’s a massive
number of workers hidden in the industrial corners, it’s easier
to produce, day and night,” says Nakisci. There’s an order to the
perceived chaos of daily life in Turkey, he adds. “The Turkish
approach to problem solving is to think outside the box. Everything is boiling, emotional. And when this meets creativity, it
can result in interesting projects.”
The biggest success story out of Turkey this decade has been
the interior design practice Autoban, whose clean, contemporary style with that tinge of Anatolian exoticism has helped
convince Turks to buy local again. Autoban is the go-to practice
of the Turkish establishment – not to mention club owners and
restaurateurs across Western Europe. “They were a milestone
for us,” says Nakisci. “Because they work on international
things, people are more design conscious, generally, and designers are more hopeful. There may not be many Turkish luxury
brands, but there are more working designers.” Autoban has
had a huge influence on younger designers like Bilge Nur Saltik,
who tread a subtler path in their aesthetic. Saltik studied in
London and now produces unusual faceted porcelain and handcut glass with kaleidoscope effects.
PORTUGAL
A country in recession can count on a creative boom, and
Portugal is no exception. The streets of Porto are crawling with
public art: see LIKEarchitects’ purple standalone balcony, and
Moradavaga’s interactive billboard, made from a thousand spinnable tin cans. Lisbon-based artist-designer Joana Vasconcelos
crafts her fantastical textile works for luxury fashion brands and
blockbuster museum exhibitions worldwide.
Lisbon’s young entrepreneurs have built design incubators
out of derelict factories and helped style a shopping and restaurant scene that gives pause to fashionable rival Barcelona.
The city’s affordability, along with the sunny climate, has lured
creative types from other countries too, lending it a reputation
as the New Berlin.
Pedro Sousa, a designer for the small festival favourite ByEdition, says the nothing-to-lose attitude of young designers today
means that “every year, new Portuguese brands appear.” Existing, effectively, off the economic grid in a small-town workshop
has given Sousa the freedom to create eccentric pieces in limited
editions that don’t require commercial appeal. “Maybe because
we belong to a small, southern and exotic European country, unknown by most people, that gives us something extra,” he says.
The collapse of traditional industries like Portuguese cork
has also left a surplus of materials for manufacturers like Alma
Gémea, which uses cork to create fashionable furniture and
tableware, and Around the Tree, whose head designer Alexandre
Caldas has resurrected an iconic 1950s café chair and reproduced
it in cork and ash. But the economic downturn also means that
as many designers are leaving Portugal as are coming in. Lisbon
native Rita Botelho designed her amusing Hub and Nothing To
Hide rugs from her atelier in Germany, and showed her handblown glass Jell-O moulds at a gallery in London.
Earlier this year Nancy Fernandes and Connie Freitas opened
the shop Saudade on Dundas Street West in Toronto to sell
Portuguese-imported items like hand-loomed wool blankets by
Burel and ceramics by Margarida Gorgulho. “When things get
bad economically, people have to get creative, so you’re now seeing experienced craftspeople collaborating with young designers
who want to learn those skills,” says Fernandes.
She says it was only a matter of time, though, before the
country’s vibrant design got its due. “Portugal is still a boutique
country where things are locally made, and Canadians are going
back to wanting quality homemade products, by workers who
are treated well.”
pattern test
Hand-painted tiles are part of Portuguese design
tradition, and to honour the craft, Boca do Lobo
designed their Heritage Sideboard. The piece has
a thoroughly modern shape but retains a sense
of history thanks to its hand-painted tiles.
match set
Saudade, a newly
opened shop on
Toronto’s Dundas West
strip, carries wares from
renowned Portuguese
porcelain manufacturer,
Vista Alegre. The motif
on this espresso cup
mimics those found on
the country’s sidewalks.
clear intentions
Architecture and interior firm
Autoban created a “transparent
library” at the centre of the
lounge area of the Savoy Ulus
Club House. Floor-to-ceiling
glass walls help the space
acheive the brand’s signature
shell-within-a-shell concepts.
photos by Ali Bekman
multiple choice
The Versatile ceramic
wall tile collection by
Yigit Ozer for Kutahya
Serami allows for
multiple interpretations
of pattern and use,
making it a truly novel
approach to decor. The
collection has received
several prestigious
nods including the Red
Dot Design “Best of the
Best” Award.
wave strength
Tamer Nakisci’s Relax tabletop collection is
comprised of a 14-piece bone china set that has a
gentle, irregular shape and have a biomorphic
effect when stacked together.