The “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” installation simulates a residential house at the international furnishing show imm cologne. The trade fair erects an open stage measuring approximately 240 sqm in the middle of Hall 2.2 (Pure Editions) for this. Its layout and furnishings change each year in line with the plans of a new designer nominated by imm cologne. As the guest of honour, he or she decides on the architectural elements and also the interior and outdoor decor.
The project looks at contemporary furnishing trends but also the aspirations of the public and social change. Ultimately, everyone has their own idea of the perfect home. But how does it look? How can the dual function of the four walls that surround us – presentable living and intimate place of retreat – be resolved on an individ - ual basis? How can the aspects of on-trend, timelessly classic and individual living be married? And what does our home say about our character? “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” offers the ideal platform for such questions, giving a designer an experimental space in which to craft a creative statement for a modern living culture using the latest products.
The furniture, colours, materials, lighting and accessories chosen by the designer add up to an individually configured interior design. The integrated concept should not just be future orientated, but also practical, workable and above all authentic. “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” is therefore both a designer portrait as well as a visionary blueprint, an example of how we can create our own world as an expression of our personality.
The first installation of “Das Haus” was in 2012 and the Indian- British designer team Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien were nominated to introduce the new format. They installed an organically grown space, which enabled a communicative living together of inhabitants from different cultures.
In 2013, the Italian product designer Luca Nichetto introduced the next installation of the design event with an elegant ensemble, the construction open on all sides.
Louise Campbell’s imm cologne 2014 statement referring to the home as a place of calm as well as the balance she found for the conflicting needs and preferences of the genders and everyday requirements became a prime example of modern living with emotive design.
The chinese architects Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu (Neri& Hu) invited visitors to explore and reinvent the rituals of living with their installation at imm cologne 2015. In Neri&Hu’s “Haus”, rituals of living seem cast in furniture – archetypes of our living traditions are staged in a not quite conventional way in order to expose and question precisely these living customs. Neri&Hu have designed a course which respectfully embraces European design traditions in order celebrate and at the same time deconstruct them. They have thereby wholly fulfilled imm cologne’s expectations of them as this year’s Guests of Honour because they have actually brought a whole new perspective to the “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” series.
He is known as a mediator between traditional skilled trades and high-tech, between hedonism and purism. His designs give materials a voice and lend modern design a sensual, sometimes even humorous note. It is this sensuality, this colourfulness and the will to form not always bound by a purpose with which Sebastian Herkner is providing German design a new face.
His extraordinary feeling for material and his original, in spite of its simplicity, curiously enticing form solutions have quickly earned the 34-year-old high international esteem. Brands like Moroso, Fontana Arte, Sitzfeldt, Very Wood, Sancal, Böwer, Gubi, Leff Amsterdam, Carl Mertens, Pulpo, La Chance, De Vorm, Verreum (Art Direction), Rosenthal or Nya Nordiska assign him with the task of designing furniture, lamps, tableware, textiles, exhibitions and showrooms. He understands how to emphasise the value and character of the material and combine this expediently with craftsmanship and modern production technology. Many of his designs unfold their quality first and foremost through techniques of traditional craftsmanship, for example, the Bell Table (Classicon), the coloured glass stand of which is still hand-made in Germany.
Herkner finds inspiration in travel and visits to production halls. His shelves are full of travel souvenirs from Thai DIY markets, exotic bazaars and German flea markets. From the study of trades techniques he gathers ideas for his designs, like for the gigantic mouth-blown lampshade for his Oda light for Pulpo, which rests like a large balloon on a fragile, truly minimalist metal frame.
Herkner likes to work against the grain, to turn things onto their heads (like with the material of glass and metal with the Bell Table, the glass base of which bears a metal plate) and do the unexpected. In this way he creates an astonishingly beautiful moment of irritation with his products that keeps one hanging, only to then fall in love with his tables, lights, armchairs, clocks and vases, so it seems.
Herkner originates from Bad Mergentheim, a small city in the Franconian Tauber valley (south of Würzburg). During his programme of study in industrial design at the University of Art and Design in Offenbach he completed a one-year internship at the London fashion label Stella McCartney. Herkner still profits today from his experiences there with regard to the handling of paint and textiles, working with other dimensions and focus - ing on details, as well as from his inherent pleasure in improvisation and in the altering of materials, not only with respect to the development of furniture, but also for his interior designs. The wall elements of his most recent project, the designing of the living interior installation “Das Haus” for imm cologne 2016, thus consist almost entirely of soft materials, of transparent and semi-transparent, coloured and perforated curtains made of PVC film, industrial textiles and valuable residential textiles.
Even prior to completing his studies in 2007, Herkner went into business for himself in 2006 and already got off to a great start in 2009 with the Bell Table marketed by Classicon. In his studio in an Offenbach back court - yard, he now works with a small, multinational team and teaches as a guest instructor at the University of Art and Design in Offenbach. Herkner has been engaged in development projects like “Basket Case”, for which he took part in a workshop for the promotion of local craftsmanship in Zimbabwe in 2014. Since his successful participation in the [D³] Contest contest at imm cologne in 2008 and 2010, he has won numerous prizes awarded by magazines such as Elle Deco and Wallpaper, the red dot design award, the Design Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2011 as best newcomer, the German Design Award and, most recently, the Interior Innovation Award, also conferred by imm cologne.
The new edition of “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” stands in bold contrast with not only the compact installation from Neri&Hu at the last imm cologne, but in fact also with all living conventions. It is circular, more or less transparent and has almost no solid wall elements. Nonetheless, Sebastian Herkner's house promises to be a sensual experience – a house that is soft and aromatic, colourful and communicative, and which is able to change its form like a chameleon.
The design is vaguely reminiscent of tent-like yurts or traditional ring architecture in rural China, except that such traditional forms do not consist of transparent, colourfully opaque or perforated foils, industrial textiles and luxurious curtains, but are instead designed to provide more substantial protection against wind and weather, sun and curious glances. This is not the case for “Das Haus” 2016, which will be erected and furnished in January in the middle of hall 2.2 of the Koelnmesse. Here, in contrast, everyone is invited to look, enter, feel, communicate with others, gather impressions and insights.
A house that locks nobody out Panorama views of the surrounding landscape open up from any position on the various levels of the round living space. If “Das Haus” stood as a glass structure in a park, associations with Japanese pavilion architecture would come to mind. However, in Cologne the visitor won’t have a view of hills, but instead of the “platforms”: a newly designed, open fair landscape with presentations of furniture and living accessories.
