Virtuoso Design: Where Simple Materials Meet Luxury

At the beginning of the month, I attended the opening of the TAAD design exhibition, a new and first-of-its-kind initiative in Israel: a commercial exhibition displaying diverse items designed by leading designers and artists from around the world and Israel, curated by Maria Nasimov, art historian and curator, and the esteemed design curator Maria Cristina Didero, the curatorial director of Design Miami, who has previously curated various design exhibitions worldwide, including exhibitions at the Design Museum Holon. Although the exhibition is commercial, most of the items are one-of-a-kind or produced in small series, and are sold at high prices. This is elite design for those who can afford it, and for others, an opportunity to be exposed to the imagination and creativity of the designers and the visual and material richness that such an exhibition offers. This event is considered significant for the design community. From the perspective of a material innovation expert, it was even more interesting to see how the play with materials and technologies is a primary tool for the exhibiting designers, where in many cases, the material application was deceptive, which is precisely what created the interest.

The "Dino" chair series by American designer Daniel Arsham particularly caught my eye. The volume and abstract form of the chairs were born from their creation process, which took place during the coronavirus lockdowns and was based on free play with plasticine to create quick sketches of objects for the home environment. What is interesting about these chairs lies in their materiality, which tells a completely different story. The bold colors of the chairs come with a degree of transparency that allows one to see the surface pattern of the material underneath the paint. The pattern shows that the chairs are actually made of wood, and not just any wood, but poplar plywood, which is considered mainly an accessible, reliable, and useful material.

The use of plywood, a material that was widely used in the twentieth century, and in its early days was innovative but quickly became a basic building material, has begun to re-emerge in recent years as an interesting raw material for design. Along with the increase in the accessibility of advanced digital processing and manufacturing technologies for small design firms, independent designers, and even design students, this technological accessibility has led to more creative experiments with accessible materials, such as plywood. These experiments have in turn contributed to the expansion of the range of materials used to create various design items, especially items and objects produced in small series or as a single unit, known as one-of-a-kind. Among other things, this occupation led to the creation of advanced connection, milling, cutting, and machining techniques for wood plywood, which reveal the colors of the various wood layers in a way that somewhat resembles the layer appearance characteristic of solid wood.

Left to right: Matthias Bengtsson, Zsuzsanna Horvath, Netta Ashrey

Returning to the "Dino" chairs, prominent signs of mechanized processing on the surface hint at digital manufacturing, CNC milling, but here too the designer chose to give them a somewhat deceptive look by presenting a topography of layers (as if in "low resolution") reminiscent of another characteristic form we have come to recognize in recent decades, that of objects produced by thermoplastic polymer 3D printing. However, the technology to 3D print wood while preserving its characteristic layer appearance does not yet exist, and of course, the chairs were indeed produced using CNC - Computer Numerical Control technology.

These chairs demonstrate how, with knowledge of a variety of materials, technologies, finishes, and formal virtuosity, designers can send viewers, and their clients, on a material detective game created from an unfamiliar combination, stimulating thought and generating playful curiosity. What is the value of this design-material playfulness? First, like good art, good design knows how to evoke emotions and influence our feelings, and even beyond that, researchers have found that design also affects our personal identity, especially in the current era. Second, the chairs were produced in a limited edition of 250 units. In a world of increased consumption, unique and high-value items constitute the exception and to some extent do not respond to the dictates of rapid consumption and replacement. If you were looking for the price of the chairs in the word "value," it is $9,500, excluding shipping.