Design News
June 2004

DesignMai 04 Berlin
by Human Beans

At Designmai, Berlin's growing, yet still intimate, design show, we caught a picture of design away from the client scene. Forget Milan's glitter—here is the show of designers, not design sellers. We opened the doors of studios, warehouses and cafés to be seduced by the lack of artifice and the honest simplicity of the work.

DesignMai celebrates the work of designers in a city where rent is low and creativity high. This year, with the show EU+ and Czechmania, the spotlight was turned on designers based in the 10 recently joined members of the EU—Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Malta among them. The European design scene just got bigger and more interesting. Old Europe now faces the challenge of the New European designers—a group that Berlin, situated at the edge of the old Europe, is ready to champion.

EU+

'Cradle for Genius' by Ieva Araaja, machined from coloured pencils and handbag by Rasa Baradinskiene, both from Lithuania. Radio by Sylvia Jokelova from Slovakia.

The communist period the eastern accession countries experienced certainly favored a more introverted, rational and functional style. For a long time they've been increasingly permeable to international influence, yet the work on show maintains a strong character and creative freedom.

Czechmania

Ceramics from the show Czechmania

Conceptual pieces such as Sylvia Jokelova's radio, Ieva Araaja's 'Cradle for Genius' and the ceramics on display at Czechmania revive vernacular shapes and manufacturing traditions with a critical attitude and a desire to define new territories of style.

The Skoda 'Ahoy!' concept car, also at Czechmania

Even commercial work, such as the Ahoy! concept car for Czech car manufacturer Skoda, creates the picture of designers looking to serve a purpose or convey meaning—rather than be dictated by selling style.

Starled

LED series "Starled" by Nina Jeroch in the dim St Johannes church lighting show.

It takes a few seconds to work out why the LEDs are flickering in Berlin-based designer Nina Jeroch's lights and jewellery, the outstanding work in a show of lighting design within a church. Eventually we concluded the LEDs seemingly randomly rearrange themselves in response to sound, changing when you talk and stopping when you're silent. In her lights the LED’s are encased in blocks of wax or concrete; in her jewellery they pulse behind coloured plastic.

Architecture per second

'Delta Wing' and 'Wide shut,' reactive achitecture by XTH-Berlin.

'Architecture per second' is a project by architectural group XTH-Berlin. They showed an impressive series of concepts for buildings reacting to elements like climate, weather, and frequency of use. 'Delta-Wing' is a gigantic sail-shaped skyscraper designed to inhabit the plains of the US and rotate with the prevailing wind. 'Wide-shut' is a responsive roof and façade system that controls light levels by automatically opening and closing a series of umbrellas, demonstrated in the show using a projector. The third concept, 'Shipping landscape' (not shown), is a self-sustaining habitable barge carrying its own vegetation as if it were a moving piece of land.

Stirred Steel

'Stirred Steel' is a project by designers Sebastian Summa and Hrafnkell Birgisson in collaboration with manufacturer Hugo-Braeuer.

We can't think of a better way to celebrate German craft and design history than by baking a cake from what might have been a 30's hub cap or component of a 60's nuclear plant. Each model bears the name of an ancestral German manufacturer: bake your cake in a Collatz, Bessy or maybe a Siemens.

Great Columbians

Export fuit by the Great Columbians

Not all design at DesignMai came from the East; there were shows from Australia, and this project from Columbia, by the appropriately named Great Columbians, caught our eye. The packaged and frozen fruit flesh would apparently be a more efficient way for Columbia to export its fruit to other countries, protecting its taste and nutritional qualities during the long journeys.

And finally

We’ve seen it before, but this time we got to play with Walking Chair's circular table tennis table with rotating net and boy was it exhausting. The cute plastic-bag rabbit with moving teaspoon ears was made by Peter Hils and Cajus Pietschmann in response to the Polish proverb, "Work is not like a rabbit, it doesn’t run away." And finally, the ugly mug award goes to the double wine glass by one of the winners of the Swiss Design Prize.