Interact

Furniture Designers at Dublin Contemporary

20.10.2011

The former UCD Staff Common Room at Earlsfort Terrace is home to Dublin Contemporary 2011’s stylish Lounge Bar, where visitors have relaxed over a glass of wine or attended some of the informal talks and meetings that have been taking place throughout the exhibition, never failing to remark on the beautiful contemporary furniture in this lovely sunny 19th century room.

Reflecting the show’s curatorial aim of offering a platform for young Irish artists alongside home-grown and international established peers, Dublin Contemporary 2011 sought out key emerging Irish furniture designers and established design stores for their help. Thanks to their wonderfully diverse pieces, the Lounge has proved an elegant and comfortable place for visitors to relax and muse over the electrifying art they have just experienced.

John Walsh of Made* is the man behind the angular elegance of the charcoal V5 one and two-seater sofas, while his cheerful Urban felt couch in pale grey with blue and yellow cushions is now on every Dublin Contemporary staff member’s wish list. A lecturer and award-winning designer, Walsh works with The Sofa Factory in Dublin, keeping manufacturing local too. Made*’s other creative brain is Peter McCann, whose simple Causeway bench – happily liveried in Dublin Contemporary orange – has offered many a weary visitor some welcome respite. McCann’s geometric Causeway tables are not hard to live with either.

Martin Gallagher is a graduate of GMIT Letterfrack with a passion for wood, and his incredible hand-crafted Arú console table with its delicate maple ‘ribs’ and glass top allows the piece’s intricate assembly to be seen from above. Gallagher also loaned his clever 3D coffee table and stools, neatly constructed of interlocking circles of wood and pale leather.

Directional store Minima has been a treasure trove of international design since its inception in 1998, and has kindly loaned beautiful lights from Foscarina – including the fabulous geodesic Rock light by Diesel for Foscarina, the springy Twiggy floor lamp, Moroso’s Ripple chairs (looking for all the world like gigantic sweeties), B&B Italia’s giant pouf in supple lilac leather, and a pair of Gerrit Reitveld classic Modernist Utrecht chairs in blue and grey felt.

Completing the lighting in the lounge is Unleaded’s wall mounted PL-Y light, a series of Y shapes concealing halogen bulbs which wash the surrounding wall with diffused light. The lighting system already graces a groovy new hotel in Mexico (they ordered 16 of them). A second Unleaded light, the quirky B-Con, resembles a emergency beacon, and rocks gently on its cast concrete base while giving the bar a soft orange glow.

Sasha Sykes is the force behind Farm 21, a company that fuses the rural and contemporary with its use of natural materials suspended in resin and acrylic. The technique brings to mind those paper weight making kits that were all the rage in the 1970s, albeit on a much larger scale.

Three recent DIT graduates are also on show, with Deirdre Hanrahan’s graceful bent wood and glass table holding its own in the lounge, while the bar is home to two very different mirrors. Kathryn Payne’s Growing Shadows piece echoes dappled light with fragments of reflective glass escaping the mirror’s boundaries, while Gráinne Lyons’ mirror nods to the Art Deco era with its fanned layers of timber.

Our final thanks goes to two residents of The Malthouse Design Centre in Dublin, a hub for young Irish design with workshops and a showroom that must be seen. Sticks ff loaned a selection of their ingenious ‘flat pack’ brightly painted birch table and stools, while Locker 13 custom-made a large version of their Johann stool, fabricated from heavy duty cardboard tubing and coiled felt.

Dublin Contemporary 2011 offers a heartfelt thanks to all of these designers and stores for their generosity. Visit their websites for more information and commissioning details, and look out for their work during Design Week from 31st October - 6th November.

* Congratulations to John Walsh and Peter McCann, both of whom are shortlisted in the furniture category of this year’s IDI Design Awards - see the full shortlist here, winners to be announced on 27th October.

Anne Mullee
Writer, former TV producer, occasional filmmaker, and now art-botherer, Anne recently completed an MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management and is Dublin Contemporary’s Corporate Events, Sponsorship and Fundraising intern.

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