Each year, we dream of being unanimously chosen as the best show in Milan. Promising newspaper headlines rattle around in our heads beforehand: Eek steals the show with simplicity in times of overabundance, creating designs that will withstand the ravages of time… and so on and so forth. But, so far, the attention has been limited to a few attractive photographs in interior decorating magazines and in the occasional newspaper. This year, however, in all our enthusiasm, we truly believe that we have come up with and produced the most beautiful designs and have the best story to tell (without, incidentally, any knowledge whatsoever of any other presentation in Milan, so, in that sense, we can’t offend anyone).
We are represented with no fewer than two presentations: a chair exhibition in the Science Museum with Tom Dixon and a beam presentation in our home base at Rossana Orlandi.
We’ve published a ‘chair book’ to accompany the chair exhibition. Or actually, it’s the other way around: the exhibition accompanies the book. It contains nearly all of the seating pieces we have ever created. A story is presented for pretty much every chair, as are sales figures. The sad conclusion that virtually every single one of my designs is doomed to oblivion due to a lack of sales is not far from the truth. All the same, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience of pulling out the chairs one by one and remembering how, at the time, we thought this was the best chair ever. Looking back, the lack of sales pales in comparison to the joy of creation. Fortunately, a number of chairs have been very successful. Whether or not this is simply wishful thinking, we believe that the latest designs are more attractive, more monumental and better than the previous ones, which dovetails with my conviction that designing is something that needs to be learned. Since the book is all about chairs, from my very first chair designed at the age of thirteen to the last one in 2012, and no topic is avoided, it offers insight into all aspects of a self-producing designing company.
For the first time, we’ve chosen a theme for our presentation at Rossana Orlandi: beams! The choice of material as the theme is not arbitrary: the material, combined with the possibilities already available or that spontaneously arise, form the basis of practically all of my designs. A huge batch of beams that we bought in 2007 and has haunted us to this very day is what sparked an entire series of beam furniture, the last pieces of which we are presenting. Once again, the presentation is accompanied by a book, this time in which we share our beam adventures. It is a book about not discarding, not giving up, making something from next to nothing, and making do with what you have. In other words, we are not only presenting our products, but our working method as well.
Piet Hein Eek will be on hand at Rossana Orlandi from Tuesday through Thursday.
Click here to download the PDF of Saloni 2013.
CHAIR EXHIBITION
MOST / Tom Dixon
Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia
Via Olona 6B
20123 Milan
www.mostsalone.com
The CHAIR
€ 20,- to order through –this link–
Also for sale in the Piet Hein Eek Shop
359 pages, 110x180x27 mm
Dutch edition: ISBN 978-90-817185-4-7
English edition: ISBN 978-90-817185-5-4
Twenty years of designing chairs and the resulting more than 200 chairs form the heart of a journey that takes you along all the setbacks and failures, but also the opportunities and successes that have crossed the path. It gives a glimpse behind the scenes of a self-producing designing company and the mindset and way of thinking of designer Piet Hein Eek.
BEAMS PRESENTATION
Spazio Rossana Orlandi
Via Matteo Bandello 14-16
20123 Milan
Ph. 0039 (0)2 4674 471
www.rossanaorlandi.com
BEAMS
€ 8,- to order through –this link–
Also for sale in the Piet Hein Eek Shop
95 pages, 110x180x9 mm
Dutch edition: ISBN 978-90-817185-7-8
English edition: ISBN 978-90-817185-6-1
The rash purchase of a mind-boggling amount of beams and the necessity to get rid of them led to a series of designs that in turn led to a book and presentation in Milan. The material is the point of departure for virtually all Piet Hein Eek designs and the ‘beam adventures’ are the perfect example of his approach.
This post is also available in: NL
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