Blickfang 08 Zurich

From 21 to 23 November 2008 Zurich's Kongresshaus opened its doors for the twelfth time to Blickfang, Switzerland's major design exhibition. With «Espace Romandie» it provided a clear focus this autumn and for the first time devoted a special exhibition to design from western Switzerland. Designers from Lisbon had also been invited to the show and displayed their creations to the public at the so-called 'Städtecorner'. On the large exhibition area of 4'500 m2 many of the 220 exhibitors from the fields of furniture, lighting, fashion and jewellery many were taking part for the first time, which did not however visibly raise the level of innovation.

stockwerk3, founded as a cooperative studio by Matthias Bischoff, Christof Sigerist and Lukas Wick, has made a name for itself in recent years with lamps which have won awards from a number of institutions for their energy efficiency, design and functionality. Their lamp 'hangover_no.4' consists of a number of white plastic discs which are flexibly connected to each other by bullet magnets and can, as a result, assume a wide range of shapes and arrangements. These can be positioned and arranged to create small or large, closed or open, energetic or quiet forms, with the light adjusted in a corresponding way.

Christian Deuber's lamps are special because of their dreamy technical simplicity which harmonises wonderfully with the home or working environment. In his lamp 'Tube Pendel Vertikal' the light from the fluorescent tubing is evenly scattered through an opaque acylic glass tube. The fluorescent tubing and its electronic ballast are integrated into the tube and form a compact unit.

«Konkret» is an interesting young label for concrete furniture which is designed and produced in Switzerland. The furniture consists of combinable elements made of concrete and glass with non-absorbent, easy-to-clean surfaces. The feet are fitted with felt pads in order to protect the floor.

We found attractive everyday objects at the Pfyl Produkt exhibition, for example the «Bern» recliner, a solid wood frame made of chestnut with a cotton sling and neck roll. The products produced by Pfyl Prodkut also tend to have unconventional names, which are often derived from places in Switzerland.

The label of the brothers Adrian and Beat Schnidrig from Visp, which has developed from an 80-year old family company, is named after a tightly fitting, traditional wooden tongue and groove joint. At Blickfang «Nut + Grat» showed the sideboard 'duna', made of domestically produced solid wood and veneers. The simple formal idiom in combination with striking veneer patterns creates the character of the piece.

The one-off pieces of furniture made by the small workshop «Wood and Ceramic» impress with their simplicity of form, which brings out the natural character of the wood in an effective way.

Oloom from Lausanne successfully presented 'Bulb C', an elegant pendant lamp reduced to basic essentials. The spun aluminium sections supplement the bulb and highlight the fluidity of form.

MOX AG specialises in storage furniture and offers a range of aesthetically pleasing products which are astonishingly simple and manage to combine functionality with beauty of design while at the same time radiating airiness and elegance.

The firm of rephorm designs balconies and offers innovative solutions for converting this architectural attachment into a green living room by means of witty accessories.

The three designers Luzia Vogt, Stephanie Hensle and Natalie Luder, one of them a convinced vegetarian, the others unreformed carnivores, have controversially occupied themselves with the subject of meat, a process which they describe as follows: «We all developed our own designs on this theme, and then set them in a kind of shared dialogue». Brooches, dangling earrings and rings from fragments of porcelain show representations of animals, pieces of jewellery are made from animal teeth and salami and mortadella have been moulded out of epoxy, and then cut into slices which can then be worn on the lapel.

How do we finally lay ourselves to rest and who do we have to contact when we want to cash in our chips? Answers to these and other questions are provided by R.I.P. – Rest in Pieces. Rest in Pieces immortalises itself in appropriate terms and exhibits products which are literally dead sure to be remembered. Transience becomes the issue here, the ephemeral nature of things becomes a subject for design and death becomes a trend.
The project was developed specially for Blickfang over a five-week period.

The stand of Friends of Carlotta, a gallery for contemporary jewellery design in Europe, stylishly presented the jewellery in suspended plastic globes.

As every year Blickfang also treated visitors with a fashion show, in which 13 designers from Switzerland, Germany and Portugal paraded their latest collections on the catwalk and presented their new creations. Sibylla Lustenberger's show was staged with LED strip lighting and backed by music from Oliver Scotoni, founder of the radio station Rundfunk.fm.
In addition to the city's well-known labels such as Beige, Ida Gut and Markant, fashion designers from western Switzerland and Portugal were also invited this year in line with the credo of «L'espace Romandie» and «Lisbon Corner».

A strong impression was made above all by make-up provided by MAC Cosmetics and hairstyling by Mad friendly hairstyling.
The Zurich label Markant by Mike Kobel displayed men's fashions with simple styles in brown, beige and berry shades in the fashionable nerd look, with accessories by PARK in Stuttgart.

An exciting cross section of the Portuguese design scene was shown by «Lissabon Corner», including the label aforest-design - unisex fashions which find their optimum expression in an urban environment and demonstrate a great passion for fashion.

A year ago the German designer Christina Krämer founded her label of the same name in Switzerland. At Zurich's Blickfang she showed a lot of wide-mesh knitted designs, suitably designed for winter wear in styles reminiscent of the Nineties.

By now, Blickfang offers a worldwide platform to it's exhibitors: Besides Zürich the fair also takes place in Stuttgart, Vienna and Tokyo.