Design Miami/Basel

For the third time international design and art galleries are presenting much sought-after design classics and exclusive products as part of the 'Design Miami' exhibition at the Art Basel fair.

In comparison to previous years there was this time an especially strong increase in limited editions of contemporary works. This confirms a development of which there have been indications for a number of years and which has now become an established fact: design has gradually managed to penetrate the art market. No other subject receives so much comment in the specialist press as this development and its consequences, and there are now few designers who don't offer their works for sale in art galleries or auction houses:

Archiduchaise is a poetic creation by the Belgian aluminium specialist Xavier Lust, who has already created a stir with his ingenious designs for MDF Italia. Elegant as a baroque crinoline, the lower structure of this cantilever chair stretches well beyond the seat, which gives this sculpture its figure-like appearance.

Tom Dixon's recliner consists of an interwoven polyethylene rod which is apparently briefly heated and then draped over a mould like a net – a one-off product in which the biggest challenge is very likely to be the craftsmanship and skill required to make it.

'Designer of the Future' is a grant which enables young designers to create a project and then put it on exhibition at Design Miami. Candidates have to observe certain specifications, which this year involve the materials of concrete and wool.
The designs of Julia Lohmann, one of the four recipients of the grant, are inspired by the rigid and brittle characteristics of concrete as a material, in particular as displayed by cracked headstones and floor slabs. "Cracked concrete represents disaster, war, the forces of nature and destruction. By temporarily subjecting the material to these forces I give it new qualities and design potential", states the German designer. Grants have also been awarded to Britain's Max Lamb for a series of stools shaped by rotation, and to Martino Gamper, an Italian designer living in London who presented a range of terrazzo tables. Further recipients are the designer duo Clemens Weisshaar & Reed Kram, whose installation 'Vendôme' is the product of design software which generates an endless number of form suggestions within a specific framework. The installation consists of concrete shapes whose geometry is composed of vectors in the form of threads of wool stretched between ceiling and floor.

However, what could at first sight be regarded as an exciting collection of design experiments leaves a strange after-taste when we think about it a little more closely. Traditionally and by definition the aim of design is to create things for mass production. This is the significant aspect which differentiates design from the craftsmanship manifested in art. The aim of designers is the series manufacture of a product, even if they seek to achieve this by indirect and experimental routes. If the results of such experiments in the shape of prototypes or studies of form have the effect of motivating design enthusiasts pay a little more for them, this is still understandable. But artificially restricting supply by turning products which are ready for series production into so-called limited editions gives the impression that it is the name of the designer which is being marketed here purely and simply to create a new form of financial investment. This development is a highly logical one now that design is being traded by those in the know as an investment which provides extremely reliable yields, and it is therefore all the more farsighted of the HSBC Private Bank to recognise the trend and to function as the principal sponsor of Design Miami.

For designers on the other hand, this ambivalent development represents an opportunity to enter into the kind of direct marketing of their prototypes and to benefit from the value which is suddenly being attached to their experiments. The ability not just to work without being shackled by the cost/benefit calculations of the manufacturer but also to be paid for doing so in the process provides many designers with the opportunity to put into practice highly unusual and even perhaps utopian ideas. Let's hope that this freedom from production-specific restrictions also leads to some trend-setting innovations.