3daysofdesign - UKURANT OBJECTS

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UKURANT was founded in October 2019 by Josefine Krabbe Munck, Kamma Rosa Schytte, Kasper Kyster and Lærke Ryom and they describe themselves as a community and a platform to provide support for young designers across disciplines.

They are questioning the mass production of design where large and well-established companies aim primarily for low manufacturing costs or rely on a back catalogue where an old designs can be given a new life.

The exhibition has “Experimental furniture and design objects by 24 young designers showing how a new generation challenge traditions, experiment with materials and technologies, question cautious aesthetics and challenge commercial design.”

Some of the aims of the group are set out in the catalogue for the exhibition so "UKURANT acknowledges design objects as functional and sculptural. We find that the industry undermines this statement. UKURANT insists on combining an artistic practice with commercial products and challenge the biased notion of commercial design." 

Many of the designs challenge conventional forms and all experiment with materials either by using standard and well-established materials in less conventional ways or by using new materials for different outcomes for standard design products such as chairs. Several designers here are doing what all good designers should do and that is working with a specific material to understand what can or can't be done and to experiment with new techniques or new tools to push that material to new possibilities.

What is common to most of the works is a move towards strong textures and the use of bold and solid shapes that are a clear rejection of minimalism in recent Danish design where the aim so often seems to be to pare down or reduce structure so that designs, for furniture and household objects, can become thin or flat so appear to lack bold confident form or distinct character. Many of the works in the exhibition have a sense of drama and a scale that occupies space in a way that is closer to the theatre and closer to the baroque style of the 17th century than to the rationalism of Danish design from the 1820s or the functionalism of modern Danish design since the 1950s.

The exhibition was designed by Emil Qvist for the basement space of Nyt I bo in Store Kongensgade in Copenhagen and was one of the major events of 3daysofdesign that was moved on to early September from the Spring because of the pandemic. Normally, through 3daysofdesign, this design store makes space available throughout the ground-floor shop area for smaller design companies to show their products but this was a major exhibition and establishes Nyt I bo as a significant gallery venue.

photographs and basic information about the designs

3daysofdesign
UKURANT
Nyt i bo

When Waters Retract - Lars Ryom
Smoke Cloud Chandelier - Christian and Jade
Artificial Formations - David Ronco
Illusory Functions - Margarida Lopes Pereira
No. 13 - Therese Hald Boesen

 

Foame - Bonnie Hvillum

Nyt i bo for 3daysofdesign

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This independent furniture shop on Store Kongensgade actually shares a courtyard with Frederiksgade 1 - see below.

They sell a good and carefully-chosen range of modern furniture and rugs and lamps and so on. For 3daysofdesign they clear much of the ground-floor showroom for companies to show specific ranges or specific pieces.

This year there were two companies in particular that stood out for highlighting two very important ideas that have to be considered now if Danish design and Danish furniture production are to thrive actually in the country together … not about Danish design as a concept or as a style but Danish design and Danish manufacture thriving and moving forward together in Denmark.

Anton Assaad was there to represent the company Great Dane that he established in Melbourne in Australia in 2002. His store sells top of the range Danish furniture including cabinets by Kai Kristiansen and the large leather-covered armchair V11 by Illum Wikkelsø that are made in Denmark. The key to his business formulae seems to be identifying and appreciating major designs that are no longer in production and then, working with the families or the old companies, he gains licences to restart production to a very very high standard with quality being the paramount consideration.

 

 

At almost the opposite end of the commercial spectrum were two cabinetmakers who are together Risskov Møbelsnedkeri. They showed furniture designed and made by them but the main design for 3daysofdesign was their arm chair also designed by Kai Kristiansen in the 1960s so again a classic chair. This is a typical form of chair that was relatively common in the catalogues of several manufacturers through the 60s with a simple frame of wood with wooden arms and with simple square cushions for the seat and back. France & Son produced several variations by Ole Wanscher and Illum Wikkeslsø designed Lænestol Nr 4 in 1959 and Poul Volther designed Model 390 in 1961.

This particular design by Kai Kristiansen is very close to what we had at home when I was a kid and my parents called 'contemporary' design.

 

 

the original form for the seat with loops of wire and the new support for the seat cushion

 

The important thing here is the quality of the work and the appropriate technical changes that have been made by Risskov Møbelsnedkeri to bring the chair up to date … so the thin coated wire springs under tension that formed the support of the seat cushion in the original chairs have been replaced with taut material that does not stretch and where the original chair was shipped as a flatpack that, to some extent, compromised the strength of the frame, these chairs are completely assembled and finished in the workshop.

The materials for the upholstery is quite-rightly from Kvadrat.

nyt i bo

3daysofdesign at Frederiksgade 1

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working drawings shown by Overgaard & Dyrman along with many of the tools that they use to make their metal and leather chairs

 

The large apartment building at Frederiksgade 1 is close to the Marble Church and has been hemmed in by engineering works for the new metro station so for several years the front entrance has been reduced to a sort of narrow alley fenced across by high dark-green hoardings and has had a ‘temporary’ wooden ramp over the front stone steps. 

But this building is home to an amazing group of design companies. In fact it connects through to the furniture store nyt i bo that is sort of across the courtyard at Store Kongensgade 88 … sort of because at upper levels all the apartment spaces, all round the courtyard and above nyt i bo, are occupied by design companies. For design in Copenhagen it is - to use a word I hate using - a hub.

Here there are offices or studios or display space for House of Finn Juhl, File Under Pop, Helle Flou, Overgaard & Dyrman, PLEASE WAIT to be SEATED, Vibeke Fonnesberg Schmidt and others … and, of course, across the top of the whole thing, Getama.

For 3daysofdesign nyt i bo hosted a number of pop-up displays and demonstrations by companies including dk3 and Sika-Design.

One of the entries in the programme for 3daysofdesign describe the place as a “creative society” and packed out with visitors on the first evening I guess that is a much better description of the place than as a hub.