Art nouveau today

This week chapter was about art nouveau, I know that some people think is over the top and really exaggerated, but I like it, the sinuosity and flow that design from this time can reflect I think is amazing.

Art nouveau was a movement that didn’t last too long, from t 1890 to almost 1910 , like I said before it was really meticulous and take care from the shell of the buildings until such smaller things as door handles. They also took inspiration from art movements such as  post impressionism and symbolism, but his main characteristic was that took form from organic shapes, it wanted to reflect that design was born from nature using iron and wood as main materials. Victor Horta was one of the principal exponents of this movement, along with Hector Guimard,  Henry Van de Velde and Emille Gallé.

So for this week I wanted to find and see what can we see in contemporary design that reflects this era, I wanted to search how it evolved and see in what objects this movement is present and if it reflects, I personally didn’t knew what was waiting for me, would it be the same materials, which kind of designed objects was I going to find, and the results where infinite, so here I  will show you the most interesting discovering’s of my search.

I launched myself to our precious and most used search tool of this days , our dear Google,  and I typed “art nouveau inspired design”.The first picture that caught my eye, and also one of the first results, was this

It’s a contemporary living space in which we can clearly see the art nouveau inspiration in the chandelier and in the staircase mainly, we can also see that the furniture has sinuous lines  that may evoke this movement, sadly the website didn’t say anything about the designer or the materials, but as soon as I saw this I thought this is how art nouveau would look like if it was a movement in our time, although I think this space could be even more risky and get even closer to the movement

Then how could I not put this…

Of course, one of the most sold phones in these days, is the iPhone, and cases designs are pretty much unlimited , so it didn’t surprise me when i found this, and iPhone 5 case inspired in an art nouveau wallpaper design, what it did surprise me was that this pattern was actually from a french designer called Maurice Pillard french decorative artist that covered furniture, wallpapers, tiles, posters, ceramic, fabrics and more during her career and that this design was from a wallpaper called “Art Nouveau Buttercup” from 1896.

I continued scrolling down my page of results and the I found something that would have never crossed my mind, postal stamps, but you may think what it´s weird about found an art nouveau postal stamp, well it wouldn’t we so unique if it was because this postal stamps wich where inspired in art nouveau, where from Lana del Rey, yes the popular indie singer who is breaking the charts of music right now, and apart from that they look really good, the credits for this great work are for the graphic design student Jump Jirakaweekul from Savannah, GA, USA (www.jumpjirakaweekul.com) .

They are sold at http://society6.com/fiftyrantsperday  at 18 USD

 For my last findings , I wanted to be something related to my career of interior design but not something so obvious and traditional for this movement, as the first picture, so I selected too things that caught my eye

The first one is a luxury lounge chair , by the designer Kate McCreary with a handmade steal frame and the bolsters are made from density foam and gray wool.

I think that this looks like a well thought design about ergonomics, and I think is a good modern solution to evoke sinuosity and organic shapes to our homes, it’s something that evokes art nouveau but that doesn’t close the object to that period.

 And for my last founding I wanted to show you this case is also a furniture, a chair in this case by the designer  Daniel Widrig from London, I choose this one because this is actually something that its starting to be  pretty much in every design/furniture store, is the trend of now days, and its clearly based in an organic shape, this design is called “Brazil” and is made with plywood if you go to his webpage http://www.danielwidrig.com/index.php?back and see his works you will notice that most of them are from organic inspirational shapes.

Sadly I did see much things more but I couldn’t write them all, art nouveau is clearly still a used movement for design, you can find it in cases, stamps, light fixtures, even clothing, and it’s really taking new shapes like the last examples with the furniture design. Now we are seeing an even more close organic shape that has the sinuosity from the old times but it flows in a much better way taken in the ergonomic matter also.

F!

Sources:
  https://www.google.ca/search?q=art+nouveau&rls=com.microsoft:es-CL:IE-Address&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=rUs_UrXSK4WNqQHflYHoCw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1067&bih=519&dpr=1#q=art+nouveau+&rls=com.microsoft:es-CL%3AIE-Address&tbm=isch&imgdii=_ 
http://www.interiordesignpro.org/blog/art-nouveau-interior-design
http://www.zazzle.ca/vintage_art_nouveau_buttercup_m_p_verneuil_case-179288646428369124
http://www.behance.net/jumpjirakaweekul
 http://www.marvelbuilding.com/futuristic-modern-lounge-chair-inspired-art-nouveau.html
 http://www.danielwidrig.com/index.php?page=Work&id=Brazil_No2

My first alien, Exhibitions of furniture and design in the XIX century?!

Well, I started  Reading my required book for my class of Contemporary Culture and Design, it´s called Interior Design Since 1900 by Anne Massey, it was hard to deal with all these new names and dates, and seeing that there where so much history that I didn't knew.  I was really excited reading it and learning all this new facts  and almost finishing the first chapter , when suddenly I saw one of the illustrations and I was really astonished.

The illustration showed the Century Gold stand  at the Liverpool International exhibition in 1886 by Mackmurdo of slender forms and Japanese inspiration ,suddenly I was in shock 1886! wow... first of all I never would have imagined a design fair by 1886 and less an international one. I have lived in Chile all my life, and at least in there design is recently taking power , please don´t misunderstand me I don't mean that design has never been a part of Chile , bassicaly all furniture, work of art, wallpaper must have come from abroad, but design fairs with actual stands, showing the trends and styles of the time ,those at least by personal knowledge  in my country started only about 3 or 4 , decades at most!

I have seen Chilean design got stands for showing their designs in world fairs from chairs, tables, lamps, clothing, but this had made me realize how much have we grown in the design areas in such little time, I mean if you compare 1886 to 1988 that´s 100 years difference, interior design wasn´t something that was a topic in my country only until a few years ago, in 2000 I started to see the firs fairs of interior design one of the is called 100 showrooms, which shows international and national Brand products from lighting , to flooring, and more .Even my institution Duoc UC, which was actually the first institution to dictate this career ,only started in 1988.Another fact is that one of the biggest associations of  Chilean design called "Chile Diseño" was founded in 1994 and that we only have had a design biennial for only 5 years.

I guess we, and by we I mean Chilean designers, have a long way to go, we have to keep going at the same rhythm as we are now,   so we can reach international standards, as we are doing today. And that way maybe we will have more knowledge about design and its history and things like fairs from the 1800's doesn't seem like aliens for future designers.

F!

Sources:

institution website http://www.duoc.cl/edd/?page_id=4 

 http://www.chilediseno.org/