magis at milan furniture fair 2010

gosh, some of this work is dreadful. Naoto fukasawa, your lazy, pointless habit of treating design as a pseudo-religious cult is so dated. But I have to say I think some of it is absolutely brilliant. Normally I really hate Thomas Heatherwicks over-earnest bodge jobs (yes, seed pavilion Im thinking of you) but I really LOVE this chair. Cant wait to see it! And I really never thought Id say that... Even tom dixons effort isnt bad - a bit bland, but crikey!
Marcel wanders, pretty close to the design antichrist in my book - cant believe I actually like his green chair - quite a lot...whats going on here?!!
And the best thing of all...nobody mentions anything about the 'environment'.. HALLELUJA!! For goodness sake, everyone know that making anything new, especially plastic chairs is never going to be eco friendly.
Magis, like your style.
I am defo buying some of your goods...

a fan   03.20.10

ma ce la fai? ti rispondi in italiano. Osservazione! tutti critici a questo mondo

mario   03.20.10

"fun"?!! ...in a recession?!! Alessi take note, Magis are showing the way..maybe there are no new 'chair one's' here but at least something to make you smile..:-)

also a fan   03.20.10

pseudo religiuous cult??? .....HALLELUJA???? friend, take a sleep, have a coffe, take a breath anddd think twice..

maninyourmind   03.20.10

hey man, dont hold the fans back, maybe theyre just a little excited..Isnt that what designs all about?!

dave   03.20.10

masses of plastic!
yeeehaaaw!

ladybird   03.21.10

fan might be a bit over-zealous but I guess I kind of agree with most of his comments. the best of this stuff at least looks different and not boring.

Steve Aranda   03.21.10

oh boy, I'm so NOT convinced!

modular   03.21.10

last one reminded me of this exhbition I saw abouw performance in design

http://www.ilovebelgium.be/blog/design-by-performance/

et voila   03.21.10

more chairs, more plastic - must we still live in an age of shallow aesthetic ignorance. MAGIS = BLAH, BLAH BLAH

2 Points:
1. There's more chairs in the world than people.
2. Petroleum based products are the cancerous legacy that we leave behind to our children.

kg   03.21.10

kg, hope ypu have study the different kind of plastics and the different treatment/process to obrain, waste and recycle them. So please go googling a bit and find what PET it is.

shameit   03.21.10

Shameit,

Plastics commonly used in furniture:

1. PET - Ingredients Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and Bisphenol A (BPA) are endocrine disruptors/high eco-toxicity ratings/human carcinogens.

2. LLPE (Low Linear Polyethylene) and HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) - used for roto-molding, off-gas benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene adding to the phenomenon of sick building syndrome within enclosed areas with a high eco-toxicity rating.

3. ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) - high flammability, requires twice the amount of polymer material to create the refined product with a high eco-toxicity rating.

4. PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) high dioxin emissions during manufacture and incineration.

Most of this I already knew, but the more "googling" I did the more it became clear that these petroleum-based polymers greatly reduce our quality-of-life and impede our health. Also there is an immense difference between "recyclable" and "recycled". Most plastics end up being mixed together and become difficult to recycle, requiring extra virgin material to create a product with similar strength/characteristics to its previous cycle.

kg   03.21.10

Kg, i understand your concern and interest in eco-sustainability, asked me if this is the point in this discussion. I sincerely appreciate the efforts of Magis to push new technologies and use of material within the context free and relive design, what emerges is just a subjective point of view

shameit   03.21.10

kg stands for Konstantin Grcic, annoyed by the fact Magis didn't publish anything by him this year? :D

Jokes apart...briefly, I don't see the irony in Troy chair, Fukasawa confirm his laziness and the Heatherwick effort is so schoolish, imho...
The other products are really "Magis" and they have a great appeal. Just one thing: Magis discovered the gas injection moulding to avoid the use of great mass of materials and now...this? Well, at least it makes me laugh and, as someone said, in crisis time this is a great thing.

PS   03.21.10

My point is that for a company such as Magis who have pushed the boundaries in terms of manufacturing in the past, I'm still stunned that they're not procuring alternative material technologies other than the ones that have appeared for years. Even Tom Dixon has ventured into reverse engineered cellulose-based polymers, and there are companies out there that have product compatible with the above mentioned molding techniques.

On another note it's been nagging me all day, but I've realised where Wanders got his idea for the sparkling chair - Ikea's Mammut range of childrens furniture:

http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/categories/series/11779/

Gee times must be tough if a major designer has to copy Ikea, maybe it's the GIC (Global Ideas Crisis). P.S. I really believe that the Magis Me Too dog is the biggest blight in design/consumer history and should be sent to the recycling pound.

kg   03.22.10

I want to see the Sparkling chair live, I'm curious to see how the idea has been realized. The rest could forever remain as 3D renderings and we would loose nothing.

dsgnr   03.22.10

'sparkling chair' by marcel wanders
blow moulding process for PET, the form of the legs remind us of "soda bottles"

More like the including:
Ribbed Condoms
A Sex Toy
Those really awesome balloons with faces on them

piratedesign   03.22.10