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