Miami by Design
By
December 4, 2008
In the four years that the fair has been running, Design Miami finally feels like it’s part of Miami. Handcrafted wicker sculptures greet you at the entrance of the main tent of the fair, designed by this year’s Designer of the Year recipients Humberto and Fernando Campana.
Since its inception, the cast-iron Moore building has been the fair’s home; this year, NY-based architecture and design firm Aranda/Lasch set the stage, creating a modular construction system that can be packed, stored and reassembled in various configurations wherever Design Miami decides to set up shop over the next few years. The Aranda/Lasch structures housed a bevy of the best international furniture galleries, as well as various satellite installations. Our favorites include the Al Sabah Art & Design Collection satellite exhibition, a stunning collection of east-meets-west designs, like a 1960s swivel chair embroidered with vintage fabric from Tajikistan; handblown glass formations by Pieke Bergman applied to delicate mother-of-pearl inlay furniture from Damascus, the furniture scorched by the heat when married with Bergman’s hot glass addition. Mallet and Meta exhibition showcased selected works by Tord Boontje, Edward Barder & Jay Osgerby and Asymptote, among others.
In the main tent, galleries included Moss Gallery (New York & L.A.), where East Indian Bavarian screens juxtaposed the Campana Brothers’ glass and rope sculptures dangling from the walls. At Dansk Mobelkunst Gallery (Copenhagen & Paris) easy chairs from Bruno Mathsson were amongst our favorite pieces; and at Ornamentum Gallery (Hudson, NY), the Ted Noten Lady K Bag-gun-engraved with flowers and gold-plated, cast in an acrylic Prada handbag-and other handbags and luggage were the unbelievable lovechildren of Ian Fleming and Miuccia Prada.
