Cologne Diary

An exhibitor's report from the [D]3 at imm Cologne.

Words: Emma Fox-Derwin. Images: Well-Groomed-Fox; Koelnmesse/Lutz Sternstein.

XY+Z Suit Rack, by Well-Groomed-Fox.

After 44 hours of travel, two-and-a-half months of plan­ning and copi­ous amounts of excited anti­cip­a­tion, we stepped off the ICE train at 6:45am at the cent­ral sta­tion in the city of Cologne, Ger­many. In the half light of a snowy mid-January Sunday morn­ing we were greeted by the Dom, the famed Cologne Cathed­ral, in all its Gothic majesty. This scene was a stark con­trast to the Wel­ling­ton sum­mer we had left, only days earlier.

A few months earlier, in Octo­ber 2009, myself and part­ner Nigel Groom, of Well-Groomed-Fox, a fledgling Wellington-based fur­niture, product and interior prac­tice, were plucked from global obscur­ity by the Ger­man Design Coun­cil to spend 10 days in the city of Cologne, exhib­it­ing as final­ists for the Interior Innov­a­tion Award in the [D]3 con­test at the imm Cologne Fur­niture and Interior Trends fair, as the first rep­res­ent­at­ives of New Zea­l­and in the pres­ti­gi­ous event, with our product the XY + Z Suit Rack.Occurring annu­ally in Janu­ary at the Koel­nmesse Events centre, the imm Cologne Fur­niture Fair is known as the ori­ginal fur­niture and interior trends trade show, the show and sur­round­ing events cul­min­ate to be Germany’s biggest yearly fur­niture and interior design event. Over the past 8 years the [D3] Design Tal­ents sec­tion of the fair has grown into a renowned forum for young design­ers to exhibit their work. The [D3] sec­tion of the fair is divided into three parts; schools, pro­fes­sion­als (not more than 5 years in prac­tice) and the contest.

D3 exhib­it­ors at imm Cologne.

On Monday morn­ing we made our way to the com­pet­i­tion judging. The judging was not dis­sim­ilar to that of a design school cri­tique. We went around the space and spoke in turn about our pro­jects. Dur­ing the judging the diversity between the 30 final­ist pro­jects became very appar­ent, there were pro­jects that focused on pro­cess, mater­i­al­ity, emotive exper­i­ence, found object and scale. Whatever the approach they were intel­li­gent, archetypal forms that were explored, chal­lenged and rein­ven­ted. This was par­tic­u­larly evid­enced by Adam Farlie’s Mourn­ing Light, a pendant lamp designed to address the uncanny, by keep­ing the user con­cealed beneath it in the shadow, as the shade illu­min­ates their sur­round­ings; and Elisa Strozyk’s Wooden Car­pet, a won­der­fully incon­gru­ous piece that is made from wooden ven­eer yet main­tains an uncanny fluid­ity when you touch it. Robin Grasby’s Home­work was a beau­ti­fully resolved and craf­ted cus­tom­is­able desk sys­tem which doesn’t have a single screw fix­ture; Pepe Heykoop’s Brick series is a chan­delier and chair that illus­trates the power of the mul­ti­pli­city of the found object when com­posed with intent. Rock­ing on the beach, by Stu­dio Joon & Jung, is a heart-warming piece that gives off the sound of ocean waves as you rock due to sand filling the chair's pipe struc­tures. At the con­clu­sion of the judging, por­traits and group pho­tos were taken, and the rest of the day was left to explore the city. We passed back into the city over the Rhine via the Hohen­zollern Bridge, which is whim­sic­ally adorned with lov­ers’ pad­locks, just as in the novel/movie Ho Voglia di Te.

Remi Bouhaniche's 'Etirement'.

Brick Series designed by Pepe Heykoop.

Home­work table by Robin Grasby.

Adam Fairlie's Mourn­ing Light.

Joon & Jung's Rock­ing on the Beach.

That even­ing was the award cere­mony and wel­come party, hos­ted by the Ger­man Design Coun­cil, Design Post and H.O.M.E. Ger­many magazine (who was cel­eb­rat­ing its 10th Birth­day). The win­ners of the award in our cat­egory were Jes­sica Hans­son with Cab­inet Filled with Shad­ows; Julien Renault with Hand-forged Alu­minum Series; and Etire­ment by Remi Bouh­aniche. It was a fab­ulous event, the food was amaz­ing and all the [D3] Design­ers drank the local Kolsch and danced the night away. Tues­day morn­ing saw the fair offi­cially open to a flood of media and pro­du­cers from all over the globe. By Thursday we had man­aged to see more of the fair out­side of the [D3] Design Tal­ents sec­tion, includ­ing new products from Ligne Roset and Knoll, and iconic work from Cas­sina and Cappellini.

First prize – Hand-forged Alu­minium Series by Julien Renault. "My aim was to source inspir­a­tion from the archetypal pro­cesses and tech­niques of for­ging steel and apply them to aluminium."

Each year along­side the offi­cial fair, Pas­sagen runs through­out the city of Cologne, with parties, exhib­its and events in show­rooms, fur­niture stores, gal­ler­ies, and spe­cial­ised loc­ales. One such Pas­sagen event dur­ing this year’s fur­niture week was held as the Velt­ins Design Lounge. This was a live DJ act per­formed by Karim Rashid. Another Pas­sagen high­light was an amaz­ing exhib­i­tion by Front Design of Sweden.

The clos­ing party on the Sat­urday marked the end of our week at the fair, with Flausen talks and awards for the Schools, held in the [D3] Design Tal­ents lounge. Over­all, the sheer expanse of the fair was incred­ible, there were so many people, pieces, brands and types of fur­niture from all over the world, from big names with huge spaces, to the non-branded mass-producers whose stands were so crowded they were more remin­is­cent of a
Hong Kong street mar­ket. In the end there were over 100,000 pieces of fur­niture at Cologne; a test­a­ment to how alive and well fur­niture design is. In my mind, the most excit­ing and inter­est­ing part of the fair was the D3 Design Tal­ents exhib­i­tion, although I may be more than a little biased. The exper­i­ence of imm Cologne was unfor­get­table, in the end this was due to the won­der­ful people we met; the other con­test­ants and the event organ­izers – next stop Salone Satel­lite at Salone del Mobile.

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