MatterMade: New America

(adam štěch) The ICFF trade fair was probably much more interesting than Design Week in Milan, at least as far as presentations of new designer brands are concerned. Two new brands were created in New York and represent a completely new face of designer branding and a typical American accent, which serves as a great alternative to the aesthetics of similar brands in Europe. Thus, MatterMade and Roll and Hill offer furniture and lights made along the lines of American nature and traditions combined with the most progressive young designs.

The New York-based Matter store – one of the most interesting designer stores in the USA – decided to present its own collection of furniture and lights, entitled MatterMade, created in collaboration with the most progressive designers from New York. Apart from selling designer objects from all over the world, the brand of Matter has launched its own production line, which the company presents by means of a vast collection of interior products. Thus, Matter can be currently perceived as synonymous with the New York designer scene. The first collection also corresponds with this notion. Matter has chosen mainly designers who are often linked with “the capital city of the world”. Artists such as Stephen Burks, Commonwealth, Paul Loebach, Silva/Bradshaw, the Chicago-based minimalist Jonathan Nesci, and Jonah Takagi from Washington present themselves with pure products. Most of them are fans of delicate minimalist workmanship with wood and an emphasis put on craftsmanship and processing. Thus, the work of Paul Loebach, Jonah Takagi and Silva/Bradshaw follow up American studio designers from the second half of the 20th century, such as Phillip Lloyd Powell and Sam Maloof. However, their designs are adjusted to contemporary functional demands and fit into small lot-produced collections, e.g. the collection by MatterMade.

Paul Loebach from Brooklyn presents several of his typical products as part of the collection. The Great Camp Collection, inspired by rustic American furniture of the 19th century, adjusts the style of North-American woodcrafting and camping to modern interior requirements. Jonah Takagi is represented by the Simple Machines series, in which wooden table legs have the form of big screws with threads. The designer has also designed the F/K/A table lamp for MatterMade. The designs are also complemented with objects designed by Stephen Burks, such as the Lantern collection of vases and lights, in which transparent glass was blown through a copper network frame, and the Circus storage systems that consist of wooden shelves and color wire partitions. The studio of Commonwealth has designed a duo of Truncheon lights with a distinctive tube-shaped wooden lighting fixture and a surface treated with CNC technology into an elegant geometrical relief.

Thus, MatterMade managed to assemble the most promising young American designers and created an authentic American collection of products, which reflects not only the current creative boom in New York, but also the tradition and cultural history of American fine-art, linked together with pioneering, as demonstrated in the Great Camp series by Loebach and the recent history of American craftsmanship design. Apart from the above-mentioned designers, many other designers contributed to the MatterMade collection. For the entire collection, see www.mattermatters.com

Next time, we will also report about another hot brand entitled Roll and Hill, which focuses on lights and was established by our favorite conceptual artist, Jason Miller.

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