The Italian design firm Sawaya & Moroni often commissions new furniture pieces by guest designers who are primarily artists or architects. Many design firms follow this strategy, but for some reason most of the really original design commissions come out of Sawaya & Moroni. I’m not sure why. I’m not a fan of all their work (especially the Zaha Hadid benches), but they take chances. What I find interesting about these two pieces in particular is that they’re tipping over into the realm of art and fantasy, or even the weird, without seeming jokey or childish (like Karim Rashid or Alessi) or too arch. Above is by Marcello Morandini, Italian designer and architect, Chair, 1991, from here. Below is “Sit-Sat” by artist/architect Massimiliano Fuksas (video here) with Doriana Mandrelli, who works for Alessi. I’m really not a fan of Alessi, but nearly 20 years later this object still seems quite arresting. I wouldn’t want either of these at home, but I’d like to see them in a public space.

“Sit-Sat” is a giant seating sculpture made of painted multilayered plywood. Photo from dezeen. “The piece “invites you to find new ways of sitting,” according to Sawaya & Moroni, who compare it to an ancient eroded rock, sacred Aboriginal mountains and Dogun earth dwellings.”

Jewellery by Dina González Mascaró, an Argentinian Vancouverite. Her shop on Main Street in Vancouver, Jeweller Bau, is itself a sculpture. Website, blog and Flickr. And this is her CV:

It would be nice to have a mural like this in Vancouver. It was designed by B.C. artist James K-M. Information on the mural, and on the collaborative community work of producing it, is here. Click below for a video interview with one of the coordinators.

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Takashi Iwasaki’s March show in Vancouver was postponed, so we’re doing our own little show here. Iwasaki, who was born in Japan and studied in both Japan and Canada, also produces paintings and drawings but it’s his embroideries that are particularly interesting, not just because it’s nice to see embroidery being done by a male artist, but also because of their unconventional, non-fussy style – he somehow bends the medium to make embroidery lines appear loosely hand-painted or drawn, so that there’s an interesting disjunction between method and effect. The embroideries are also reminiscent of the work of many artists who have worked in a similar candy-coloured palette: Takashi Murakami, Brian Wildsmith, Paul Klee and others.

This is artist Donald Judd’s loft in Soho, maintained as a museum but only open infrequently. It was one of the first artist’s lofts in Soho – not to mention in New York – and is now almost the paradigmatic example of loft living. Judd bought the entire 1870’s industrial building for 70,000 in 1968 and moved in with his family. One of the central figures in minimalist art, Judd clearly lived his own aesthetic. His interest in industrial materials and engineering methods is evident here in the lack of any attempt to domesticate the space as well as in the simple, unadorned furniture he built for it. The NYT ran an article a while ago which included an interview with Judd’s son Flavin, who was 6 months old when he moved into this loft and who nostalgically described the Soho of the 60s and 70s as a small town smelling fragrantly of the cigars manufactured nearby. These days there’s a certain huffiness out there about modernism and minimalism’s supposed kid-unfriendliness, but Flavin Judd remembers this space – ground zero of minimalism – happily and even nostalgically (there’s a small image of the Judds at home, below). “There were “the best Swedish breakfasts on the second floor — 50 people would come over — ham, cheese, weird flatbreads, salmon,” Flavin Judd said. “It was a great place to grow up.” To read the whole story, which includes information on the heritage restoration of the whole building, see the NYT. See also this blog’s previous post on minimalism.vs. maximalism in interiors. There’s a good shot of the a reproduction of Judd’s famous daybed on AT , and lastly, Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change by Sharon Zukin provides a really fascinating portrait and social history of artist’s lofts, including 101 Spring Street. According to the Judd Foundation website, tours of the Spring St. building and loft are suspended during restoration but will start up again in 2010.

Photos from the NYT and from DiscoContinental on Flickr. Take a fun quiz (is it a Judd or a piece of cheap furniture?) here.

Joe Colombo, 1930 – 1971, a prolific Italian architect, designer, artist and filmmaker, produced a substantial, instantly recognizable body of work before dying far too young at 41. 60s space age design owes much of its look to Colombo, who seemed to innately understand the capabilities of new injected molded plastics and other contemporary materials and who innovated with them to explore ergonomics and a kind of  space age psychedelia. The Tube Chair above, like many of his pieces, is an art object as well as furniture. The small selection of his work below is from Flickr.