London based studioilse, run by Ilse Crawford, has transformed the loft of Herzog & de Meuron’s VitraHaus in Weil am Rhein into the home of a fictitious Finnish-German couple, Harri and Astrid. In this fantasy world, he is a musician, she is a set designer and their home is filled with objects that tell the story of their lives – who they are, what they do and how they live – to communicate the shared values of Vitra and Artek. I paid a visit while on the campus last week, fell in love and got snap happy.
The styling-cum-art installation by studioilse shows the furniture of both brands being lived with comfortably, as it would in real life. The pieces on display are design classics or perhaps even museum exhibits, but the couple are not afraid to use them and make them part of the everyday. An Alvar Aalto tea cart is used for messy paint brushes, while an extensive mood board has been created on a cork wall, with pages torn out of magazines and tatty ends of fabric. It reminded me of Elmgreen and Dragset’s similarly fantasy installation for a fictional, elderly architect at the V&A.
Crawford herself says:
Our starting point was to consider the shared culture at the heart of both Vitra and Artek. We wanted to think beyond the furniture and lighting and beyond the bland commercialisation of design, to convey real life in all its layers and eccentricities. It was vital to bring out the intellectual spirit of the minds and hands that made these things. These pieces are stories of real life and courageous intentions to raise the quality of everyday living. To see them as museum exhibits or sales units is a profound injustice to their creators.
All images my own
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