(smow) blog compact Budapest Design Week Special: Entrance Hall at Palmetta Design Gallery

Established in 1998 by the artist couple Anna and István Regős as a gallery/shop in the cellar of their house in the Hungarian town of Szentendre, since 2013 Palmetta Design have operated a second gallery in Budapest where, in addition to offering a selection of international design items for sale, they present a regularly changing programme of art and design exhibitions. For Budapest Design Week 2014 that of course meant a design exhibition and specifically “Entrance Hall” a showcase of works by contemporary Hungarian designers focussing on the one room of a house everyone uses but only the fewest of us give the attention it deserves.

One of of the biggest problems with the contemporary “Entrance Hall” is of course that most of us don’t have an Entrance Hall, we have, “The corridor behind the front door”: a space that generally not only lacks space but also is required to utilise this failing space for numerous, unrelated, and invariable space requiring, functions.

Many of the works on show at the Palmetta Design gallery reflected this unhappy constellation in objects that attempted to bring not only order to the chaos, but a touch of joy to the contemporary Entrance Hall.

Among the displayed works one of the highlights for us was without question the bench/coat rack system Avignon by Győr based Codolagni Design Studio. Presenting an otherwise unassuming 19th century agrarian aesthetic what really impressed us was the way Avignon benevolently dominated the exhibition. It made clear it was in charge without intimidating or crowding the other objects. And if it can do that in gallery space, it can do it in your Entrance Hall. To be completely honest Avignon reminded us greatly of Grant Wood’s 1930 painting American Gothic. Not sure why, think it’s the rake like coat rack and the strict yet homely geometry.

Elsewhere it was nice to catch up with the Möbio lamp by Blum & Wolf to which we were introduced at madeinhungary, the Banda side table “system” by Juhos Lehel intrigued and beguiled us while exhibition “host” István Regős’ “Back to nature” concept largely interested us on account of the possibilities offered by the innocuous looking stool he included. Fake grass clad walls obviously not being our thing. Nor should they be anybody’s. And invariably AU Workshop were represented, specifically by a very neat three part folding stool and a very simple coat rack.

However what “Entrance Hall” did most convincingly was once again underscore the interesting, high quality work currently being undertaken by Hungarian furniture designers and furniture architects. A few impressions