London Design Festival 2008
LDF: the Design Embassy
London Design Festival 2008
Like base camp at The Eiger, the London Design Embassy was this year fortuitously positioned mid way between the two extreme outposts that together make up the Design Festival. At Somerset House, it was also North of the river, so slightly better placed than last year’s Southbank Centre when Ross Lovegrove waved his magic wand over its design.
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Also last year, Zaha Hadid and Amanda Levete created ambitious outdoor structures, which later sold at auction reasonably successfully through Phillips de Pury. Sandwiching the mammoth Southbank Centre, the pair, one black concrete (Hadid’s) and the other white Corian (Levete’s), looked as if they had fallen from the sky onto the Brutalist platform of the 1950s architecture (built in 1951 to the Labour government’s drum, the Centre, refurbished and re-branded last year, is the only structure that still exists in London built for the Festival of Britain). Two pieces of sculpture by two London-based women architects; it was a statement for sure.
This year I so much preferred the inclusion of the Embassy into the quietitude of Somerset House and its kindly architecture (albeit hundreds of years older – it used to house Nelson and his cronies – a naval office before becoming the more prosaic tax office until its newest incarnation as arts centre and exhibition space). It also holds the Admiralty, a favourite dining spot for Wallpaper* senior staffers and their guests, or juniors with flexible friends). Altogether a welcome retreat for those in need of an office home from home.
I waited until day 4 to approach. The Design Embassy has its place as respite from the crowds for masses for design journalists and designers – VIPS they say - needing to turn on a laptop and do some proper work. I do not have need for this being utterly mobile with all sorts of equipment about my body (the Xperia newly), kitted out with gadgets in a manner more arcane than the Matrix itself. In addition I have my own office relatively central.
However, I took my pilgrimage on Friday, day 4, knowing it closed that day and because the sun was shining. Oh, how it was shining. Also, there felt to be a lull with many of the design affected going home. The fair says it begins on the Monday with the LDF opening party, but frankly this is a bit of a misnomer since new design itself, actual product, is not on offer until Thursday. So by Friday there had been 5 days of parties and only 2 of actual design voyeurism. 100% Design was always 2 days professional followed by 2 days public, so no great shakes – it’s the preamble that gets longer and longer.
The Design Embassy itself, taking up an enfilade of ground floor rooms, was empty when I arrived. Monochrome but with beautiful Ingmar Bergman light, it was a special place. Curated by Brit pair BarberOsgerby (Wallpaper’s very early darlings circa ’96) and supported by the London Development Agency ‘Working for the Mayor of London’ along with a host of global furniture firms: Poltrona Frau, Cappellini, Gebruder Thonet, Classicon, Flos Transmec, Magis and Established & Sons, it was billed as a sumptuous business resource, and I suppose it was. It was certainly stylish, classic, modern and chic.
Outside on the riverside was the pinnacle of the fair, and the raison d’etre for the party on Tuesday that Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard had, I thought, omitted to invite me to. I now know (from yesterday’s podium at 100%) the invitation had been hand written and sent to my own home, just prior to my house move. Oh, how wrong I had been. Such a shame, I would have been there in a flash.
Public sculpture is often tricky and can go so wrong. Thomas Heatherwick has been about the most successful in this country so far for producing sculpture that is at least durable stylistically speaking. But scale can be a problem. Our buildings are not as pretty as in Paris where surrounding buildings are smaller, nor as spaced out as in Chicago where I think public sculpture is a huge hit, for it has room to breathe.
In the UK we are good at statement bridges (Pawson’s in Kew for example) but sculpture alone can look a half-arsed diminutive attempt. Hadid’s and Levete’s were temporary and probably not a bad idea since they would both benefit from being elsewhere but, if anyone wants my opinion, the new Somerset House Fredrikson Stallard piece entitled “Portrait” and heartily sponsored by Veuve Cliquot, should be there to stay.
Its scale, a long shallow laser cut steel rectangle, sits calmly between the building and the river and its raw texture and orange and rust hues are unpolished gems against the backdrop of the Portland stone of Waterloo Bridge. I sat for ages on the wall waiting for Arik Levy to arrive so I could accompany him to Designer’s Block in Covent Garden. ‘It looks like finger prints,’ he said. ‘It is meant to be wood grain,’ said I. We both loved it.
Designer’s Block had its new location this year in Covent Garden’s Piazza where we saw a show during Frieze in October last year and again the space worked very well for the content on offer. The inner courtyard became Norwegian, apparently, full of bales of straw, and the eco/wood/thoughtful designs throughout the rest of the building were perfectly suited to the raw but proportioned space.
For me though, it was all a bit busy in many ways, so I scanned the rooms and left quickly spotting a few mates attempting to leave London and the Design Festival behind them at 5pm on a Friday. I smiled in sympathy, waved furtive goodbyes, and sloped off to the Soho Hotel to meet Gaye from Gaia and Gino to find out what happens next.
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