A Miniature Faberge Chair fetched US $ 2.28 Mio

Miniature Faberge Chair 01

In April 2007, at a Sotheby’s Los Angeles auction this stunning miniature Faberge Chair was sold at US $ 2,28 mio.

Miniature Faberge Chair 02

If you are interested in Faberge, check out: Mieks Fabergé Eggs of fellow Dutch woman Annemieke Wintraecken.

Junkyard Clubhouse wrote:

It’s the work of Faberge workmaster Michael Perchin, and is based on furniture designed in 1839 by Leo von Klenze for Tsar Nicholas I for the new Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It’s crafted out of gold and enamel, with the surfaces ground to resemble the grain in mahogany. The front is a removable drawer. Miniature furniture by Faberge is very rare; other similar pieces, including a miniature table and desk, are in the collection of Queen Elisabeth II.

Libeskind Diamond Chair


Photo © Studio Libeskind

As every architect with some self esteem Daniel Libeskind designed a chair. I coined this chair The Diamond Chair, but its official name is Spirit House Chair. It was especially designed for the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada. Libeskind designed a new extension to the museum with the name The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. I really believed they missed an ad possibility “The Diamond Chair in The Chrystal”, n’est pas?

Libeskind Chrystal Chair in ROM
Here is the chair in The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal

Production is by Nienkamper… Oops they call the chair the ….. Michael Lee-Chin Crystal.

What do you think?

Lupita, a Peeled or Loop Sofa by Victor Aleman

Loop Sofa
The Lupita

Thanks to a fellow Trend Hunter, Ben Preiss, I found this funny peeled sofa, the Lupita.

This unique seating arrangement is constructed from a single piece of red oak, cushioned with pleather-covered, high-density foam. The possibilities are great for modular combinations: side-by-side and end-to-end offer some interesting options, but I’m sure you could transform your living room into a veritable jungle gym of loopitas, limited only by your imagination (and funds, perhaps).

Inventor Spot said:

The latest concepts in on-floor seating have quite literally taken a turn. The Loope Lupita, designed by twenty-one year old Victor Aleman, reminds me of a cross between some kind of fruit peel remnant and a mini racetrack my brother used to have (a Scalextric, I believe it’s called?).

The Lupita is a design of Victor Aleman. Here is Victor’s portfolio at Coroflot

BASF Presents Myto, the First Plastic Cantilever Chair at K2007

Myto 1
Myto, Photo © Basf
Myto 2
Myto, Photo © Basf

Via Design Spotter I came across this innovative chair: The Myto Plastic Cantilever Chair, designed by Konstantin Grcic, a possible threat to the infamous traditional monobloc plastic chair and presented at K2007, the German International Trade Fair for Plastic and Rubber

From the BASF Press release:

Today, October 24, 2007, upon the occasion of the opening of the world’s largest plastics trade fair in Duesseldorf, Germany, Dr. John Feldmann, member of the Executive Board of BASF, will be at the BASF stand to unveil the MYTO chair in the presence of its creator, Konstantin Grcic, acclaimed industrial designer and recipient of many international awards.

MYTO: a cantilever chair made entirely of engineering plastic

This innovative piece of design furniture is a cantilever chair made entirely of BASF’s novel, especially easy-flowing engineering plastic Ultradur ® High Speed. The high flowability, coupled with the strength of this plastic, allows an elegant transition from thick to thin cross sections. Even though the chair is manufactured as a monobloc and has a sturdy frame, its net-like perforations integrated into the backrest and the seat give it a graceful appearance.

Record-breaking development time

The MYTO project was completed within record time. It took just a bit over a year to go from the original idea to the tool for serial production. The Italian furniture manufacturer Plank came on board at a very early stage of the development and was put in charge of manufacturing the serial part as well as of selling the chair. Before the first serially produced chair could be shown in Duesseldorf, the final optimization steps had to be carried out: the plastic had to have just the right ratio of elasticity, stiffness and strength in order to meet the requirements made of a comfortable, sturdy and yet shapely cantilever chair.

Design and designfabrik

The collaboration with Konstantin Grcic and the MYTO chair are the impressive outcome of an expanded marketing concept adopted by BASF Plastics: in order to tap into new markets, BASF is increasingly concentrating on the topic of designing with plastic. An integral part of this concept is the designfabrik, the design factory founded in Ludwigshafen, Germany in May of 2006, where industrial designers can consult with BASF plastic experts and receive advice ranging from the initial idea to the product concept, all the way to color and tool design.

Project Partners

Myto 3
Left Konstantin Grcic and right Martin Plank
Photo © Basf

KGID:
Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design (KGID), established in Munich, Germany in 1991; Konstantin Grcic (*1965) is currently Germany’s most successful industrial designer. He designs furniture, products and lighting for several of the leading design companies in the world. Many of his products have been awarded prestigious prizes for their design and can be found in the permanent collections of major design museums (Museum of Modern Art in New York, Centre George Pompidou in Paris), e.g. his multi-functional lamp MAYDAY (Flos 1998). His clients include Authentics, ClassiCon, Flos, Krups, Lamy, Muji, Plank and Vitra. In 2007 Konstantin Grcic was awarded Designer of the Yearâ„¢ by the German magazine Architektur&Wohnen and also by the Stockholm Furniture Fair in Sweden as well as by the trade fair Maison et Objet /NOW! in France.

Plank
This Italian furniture company can look back on a history spanning more than a hundred years. For generations, its name has stood for the highest quality. Plank works together with renowned designers. Together with Konstantin Grcic, Plank introduced the MIURA bar stool (2005) to the market, which was recently added to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

BASF
BASF is one of the world’s leading chemical companies. BASF has approximately 95,000 employees and posted sales of Euro 52.6 billion in 2006. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN).

B&B and Zaha Hadid: Moon System

B&B ZAHA HADID MOON SYSTEM BLACK
Moon System Black
B&B ZAHA HADID MOON SYSTEM GOLD
Moon System Gold

Architect Zaha Hadid designed this sofa for B&B Italia.

B&B ITALIA PROFILE

B&B Italia has been founded in 1966.
It has its headquarter in Novedrate in the Como province of Italia.
Its offices are in a building designed by Renzo Piano in 1972.
It has turned from a family-run small-scale business into a company with separate divisions for design, manufacturing and sales. The Company has two branches: B&B Italia Home Division and B&B Italia Contract Division.

About Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid is an architect who consistently pushes the boundaries of architecture and urban design. Her work ranges from urban scale to interiors and furniture.
Best known for:
– Vitra Fire Station
– Land Formation-One
– Innsbruck Bergisel Ski-Jump
– Strasbourg Tram Station
– Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati
– BMW Central Building in Leipzig
– Hotel Puerta America (interior) in Madrid
– Ordrupgaard Museum Extension in Copenhagen, and
– Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg.
Her central concerns involve a simultaneous engagement in practice, teaching and research. Hadid was born in Bagdad in 1950. She studied architecture at the Architectural Association from 1972 and was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977. She then became a partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, taught at the AA with OMA collaborators Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, and later led her own studio at the AA until 1987. Since then she held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois, School of Architecture, Chicago; guest professorships at the Hochschule fŸr Bildende KŸnste in Hamburg; the Knolton School of Architecture, Ohio and the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York. In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fellow of the American Institute of Architecture and Commander of the British Empire, 2002. She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria and was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

See further for an impression of her work this YouTube impression: