Entertainment And Art

Keeping an eye on the latest furniture design fads? Industry publications and websites may be the best source of fresh gossip, but when it comes to furniture design, it fails terribly. To find out about the current crazes, visit design festivals: they are still the far best place for people of your interests. For over a week London will be hosting again one of the most infamous design festivals in the world – London Design Festival, starting on 19th of September. Even if it can hardly be considered traditional (since it was founded in 2003), this festival attracts massive attention from design professionals from all around the planet. London Design Festival involve over 200 events taking place on different stages around the city. It’s a real festivity of design creativity and cultural freedom. You would need hundreds of hours to visit and enjoy all the events, so unfortunately you have to choose cautiously. To help you with this task, as a Toronto furniture professional I have put together a short list of the most interesting events that shouldn’t be missed by anyone who is planning on vising this festival.

Modern-day furniture

The New Modernists
Viaduct, the most important UK agent for the leading top European furniture making companies, celebrates their 20th birthday with this unique exhibition. Huge names like Maarten Van Severen, Bertjan Pot, Studio Job, Stefan Diez, Arik Levy and so many others will be involved. This is most likely one of the best places to learn about current furniture. I would go as far as saying that it’s my personal favourite.

Molteni & C
Molteni & C have partnered up with Foster + Partners to create exceptional quality furniture with attention to design and engineering, materialized especially in the Arc Table. Also, to spur a debate and to celebrate Italian design and designers, Moletny & C have decided to launch Sofa Chats on 24th September at LDF.

Exclusive furniture

Armani/Casa
Armani/Casa are fighting back against the modernist by presenting a wide range of luxuriosu pieces of furniture. It’s also an ideal time for the introduction of a new collection of fabrics, created in cooperation with Rubelli. This would be a great exhibition to start with, if exclusive interiors are what you are looking for.

Natuzzi
Italian design has always been one of the most respected in the world of furniture, which once again is proven by the fantastic exhibition of Natuzzi. This year’s choice is leather, but don’t expect leather sofas only. In this their 50th year, Natuzzi will be presenting a huge selection of leather products featuring items from photography to sculpture.

National furniture design trends

Eyes On Spanish Design
9 Spanish designers offered their creations to present the selection of Spanish attitude to furniture and decoration trends. Combinations of a variety of nontraditional manufacturing processes, shapes and unusual materials will be a main feature of this exhibition.

100% Norway
Looking North to Norwegian designers, this exhibition should chill you out with their cool designs and innovative products which have been organised with the help of the Royal Norwegian Embassy and other Norwegian institutions. At this display, you will be able to see a selection of modern commercial products and also some prototype designs that have yet to be introduced to the open market.

Experimental furniture

Grassworks
What is Grassworks? Visit Jair Straschnow display and be amazed by his very unusual creations. It will not be a waste of time! Self assembly furniture consisting of bamboo shoots that uses minimal glue + screws. After so many previous displays of various shapes and sizes, this will be a nice and relaxing experience.

Working On Time
A new range of innovative furniture will be launched by Lamm, which will be hosted by The Segal Group. ‘Folding chairs’ are the idea behind the ‘on-time’ concept. They provide a high degree of comfort and a high degree of flexibility which we all hope will replace the nightmarish things we had to sit on while at University. ‘Working’ will be represented by a totally new concept of a table that is designed to ‘fold-n-store’, there-by creating a working environment that is very flexible.

Installations

White Light
Even excellent interior designs are useless when not seen properly, therefore lights are one of the keys for every home staging professionals. White Light installation combines lighting, furniture and film. Slamp, AVMazzega, Varaschin and Fratelli Boffi decided to come together to present the best.

Colour Creativity and Verner Panton
Peter Lassen produced a system called ‘Montana’ which is probably the best storage system in the world and has thousands of combinations. With the help of Verner Panton’s lighting, he is going to display the juicy color palette of his system. More details and all other events can be found on the official site of the London Design Festival.