Wanderlust: Architonic goes walkabout in Cologne for Passagen 2011

With the buzz around this year's imm cologne that it's rapidly returning to its former glory (let us not forget that the long-established furniture fair on the banks of the Rhine first opened its doors in 1949, a good ten years before the Milan Salone del Mobile, now widely regarded as the mother of all international design events, was launched), Architonic was there to report on the industry's current – and future – movers and shakers, and to check out the new products on show.

But we're never afraid of putting in some decent legwork and so hit the streets of Cologne, too, to find out exactly what this year's Passagen – the city-wide programme of design shows and events that, for a number of years now, has run concurrently with the imm cologne – had to offer fair visitors with a taste for discovery and a disregard for colder temperatures. Here are five stops on our peripatetic tour that took our creative fancy in particular.

Jerszy Seymour's 'Workshop Chairs' at Hallmackenreuther café
Love might often hold us together, but Jerszy Seymour's 'Workshop Chair', first presented last year, chooses blobs of wax instead as a joining technique. Proving its sound structural credentials, the Canadian-born, Berlin-based designer's concept chair was temporarily installed, en masse, at the Hallmackenreuther café in Cologne's design-conscious Belgian Quarter, where it replaced the venue's usual Eames seating. The overall aesthetic was do-it-yourself-meets-hard-times, which, given the times we live in, isn't such a bad thing.

'Back Room: Adults Only' installion by Mike Meiré at Meiré und Meiré
Subversion and provocation were dished up in Cologne's Ehrenfeld district this year by respected art director and curator Mike Meiré, who cocked a snook at the whole concept of exhibiting furniture and the reverence with which design is often treated by presenting a series of hallowed classic design pieces that had, in the spirit almost of punk, been pimped rather naughtily. Entitled 'Back Room: Adults Only', Meiré's installation took some of the greats of modernist design, such as Eileen Gray's 'Day Bed', Marcel Breuer's 'Wassily Chair' and Le Corbusier's 'LC2' and gave them the SM/bondage treatment, resignifying their black-leather upholstery through the addition of all manner of chains, rings and other fetish-like accoutrements. The concept was a strong one, encouraging visitors to think about the extent to which the notion of what constitutes 'good' design is itself constituted through the workings of opinion-making and marketing discourse.

Tokujin Yoshioka A&W Designer of the Year 2011 show at the Cologne Kunstverein
In stark contrast to Mike Meiré's backroom was Tokujin Yoshioka's light-filled exhibition at the Cologne Kunstverein, which, marking the Japanese designer's winning of the coveted title of A&W Designer of the Year 2011, foregrounded his long-held fascination with transparency and lightness. Replete with ethereal dry ice, the space, with its glazing on both sides and back-lit wall panels, underpinned the visual levity of the work on show: chairs and objects designed over the last ten year's of Yoshioka's career that, either through their form or material, occupy a liminal position between being there and gesturing towards a denial of their presence.

Artek 75th Anniversary Installation at DROOM
If we look as great as Artek does at 75, we'll be doing well. The Finnish design brand, with its impeccable modernist credentials, having been co-founded in 1935 by design legend Alvar Aalto, has stayed the course, treading a fine line between respecting its heritage and take an innovative approach to its products. Its emphasis on function and a paired-down aesthetic means that, for once, the application of epithet 'timeless' is a meaningful one. Artek's anniversary installation of classic pieces at the Cologne-based design label DROOM's showroom in the city's Belgian Quarter echoed the company's design values – visually clean and confident, without being overstated.

Designers Fair 2011 at the Barthonia Forum
Cologne. If the city's name doesn't make you think of Kölsch beer or carnival, then it might be the classic 4711 eau de cologne that comes to mind. The Designers Fair 2011 (no apostrophe) took place this year in the company's old building in the Ehrenfeld district of the city, lending, as it has in its previous two annual editions, young independent designers a platform to showcase their work. We particularly liked design collective JASD's (Jan Weber, Agnes Morguet, Stefan Zickert and Daniel Stoller) concrete and stone offerings, PSA Scherer's highly graphic 'Aluminium Chair', Stadtnomaden's formally reduced, flexible furniture collection and Pepe Heykoop's leather lampshades. Ah, the sweet smell of young design.

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