IAD in Moscow: New luxury with deep roots

The exhibition ‘Less and More: New Luxuries in an Age of Austerity’ in Manezh displays 41 objects of Dutch conceptual designers from Droog Studio. Most of these pieces are highly recognizable as they were published in almost every book about design.

Renny Ramakers, co-founder of the Droog design studio, created this project to support young designers and introduce their works to the world design community. Today objects made by Droog Studio are a part of collections in all biggest museums. And are currently shown in Moscow.

The exhibition is organized in austerity manner: spacious field, rare pedestals made of pallet boxes, spot lights, wide interspace - it has a magnificent atmosphere which embraces you into the world of new thinking design.
During first minutes you don’t understand where is luxury? Ancient chinese vases turn out to be 3d printed models, furniture is made of chipboard or old clothes tied together in a form of a chair. But all objects are so smart and intelligent, they are full of joy and make you smile, that you realize - individuality of things is a core of value.

You become deeply engaged with Renny Ramakers main idea:

‘In Moscow many people like to show off with luxury goods. In this exhibition we want to show that luxurious goods do not have to be about precious materials, elaborate handcraft and exclusive labels. They can also be made of the most ordinary materials with simple means. Our exhibition reveals the luxuries of imagination and pleasure.’

And actually that is quite unique opportunity to meet so many great ideas in one space. Designers mostly use worn goods and recycled materials and create new sense of traditions with new technologies. Such as knotted chair in which elegance of wickerwork is united with high tech carbon and aramid fibre. With this chair the fame of Marcel Wanders started in 1996. He is now working for the biggest European contemporary design manufacturers and his designs have been selected for the most important design collections around the world.

And to my mind the exhibition should have displayed more of his work.

Supporting video tells more about designers philosophy and creating process: ‘Design is concentrated on young people too much, - says Wanders, - Nothing becomes old-fashioned faster than new. I want to do things my mom would like’.

As an outcome of this approach Wanders has very gentle and sensitive objects. In his design and through the exhibition in general we can see how new materials bring new life for old things. As a result we can see modern things with deep traditional roots.

Olga Lyatifova

IAD BHSAD, Level 4

2 comments:

UnknownTuesday, December 17, 2013
I find this question as to what 'luxury' actually is very engaging. Luxury in the old sense of being expensive and ornamental has somehow taken on a new meaning. We can no longer deny how this luxury is hurting our environment. And so these previously 'luxurious' objects or spaces or whatever have become fraught with anxiety. For me anyway. I can no longer engage with anything luxurious without feeling sick that I am indirectly (or even directly!) hurting the earth. So much that I can no longer find pleasure in these objects. And yet I know that 'luxury' or 'quality' is something I do not want to abandon. What a relief then that there are designers such as at this exhibit!! Beautiful, thoughtful objects that are guilt-free! I find the comment about appealing to his mother's tastes over the tastes of the young interesting. Design must be shocking if it is to be appealing to the young which is a type of design he is not interested and has bypassed. Young can mean either in age or in taste. Young does not necessarily mean 'new' though and I'm glad he has bypassed this type of design in favour of the more traditional. Again traditional does not necessarily mean 'old' and in this design climate of 'young' taste (gimmicky, shiny etc) is actually quite 'new'!! Especially the idea of luxury and tradition combined with the use of technology that promotes ecological sustainability. It is innovative, pleasurable and I am impressed!
UnknownWednesday, January 08, 2014
Nowadays, a good design is defined by reflecting the joy of life. Luxury has already lost its traditional meaning; it is no more a precious thing in material but in meaning. I agree with Natalia that today, luxury goodies are classified by the fun that they produce and the way that they surprise us. As the exhibition underlines, recycled materials are more popular than ever and as the mentality of people is changing and people are more aware of their environment and their responsibilities, moral values are changing also. I think, Droog Studio’s designs are good examples of the consequences of this big change in minds and understandings.