Collection by Aaron Britt
London Design Festival: Day 1
Fighting a bit of jetlag and a few high-design, low-usefulness maps, I headed to the Brompton Design District for my first day of the London Design Festival. I started at festival headquarters, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and from there must have seen fifteen different exhibits. Here are the highlights.
One the best things I saw all day was in the Raphael Cartoon room at the V&A, a giant gallery housing Raphael's depictions of the Acts of St. Peter and St. Paul. On the floor of the gallery was a series of textile-covered panels the Bouroullec Brothers arranged into two gentle slopes. Visitors were encouraged to take off their shoes and do whatever they wanted on the padded installation—most chose to lay down and look up, though one girl I saw danced and rolled her way back and forth across the floor. She had the spirit!
Dedicated to Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, who died of typhoid at age 42, this high-Gothic memorial was one of the more impressive things I saw all day. After all, you can't come to London just to see the modern bits when you're constantly surrounded with such stunning architectural history. I took this photo from a path in Hyde Park on my way to the Serpentine Pavilion.
Another great furniture exhibit was Whiteout put on by the Danish Cabinetmakers. In it I saw 38 prototypes for chairs, each a shade of white. The head of the show, Thomas Alken of Format Design, told me that some of these seats, done by a host of designers, may go into production. The goal was not "to please the market," but to do something more intuitive and expressive. I was certainly impressed.
Stay tuned for more coverage of the
2011 London Design Festival.
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