Otthon Design Budapest 2024 Compact: Bold Collection by András Kerékgyártó for Brave Home
smow Blog Interview: Line and Round – It is a bit of a mission impossible to try to make a career as a furniture designer in Hungary
Line and Round, I O, was established in Budapest in 2017 by Annabella Hevesi, a Masters graduate from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and Gábor Bella, a Masters graduate from the “School of Life”, with a background in carpentry and numerous years experience in a variety of construction/interior/design fields, including the creation, development and realisation of escape room games, a concept that enjoys a particular popularity in Hungary, and in which context Annabella and Gábor met and began their professional cooperation.
A cooperation that in the six years since it has been staged as Line and Round has seen Annabella and Gábor develop and realise a variety of interior and furniture design projects including, for example, the creation of a locker room and press conference space for the Sopron Basket basketball team, numerous hotel and private interior projects, and the Burnt Geometry collection, Line and Round’s first self-initiated furniture collection, and part of that presentation at the 2023 Grassimesse, Leipzig, that saw Line and Round win the inaugural smow-Designpreis, or more accurately co-win the inaugural smow-Designpreis alongside Nürnberg based glassmaker Cornelius Réer.
Following their success in Leipzig we caught up Annabella and Gábor, virtually, online, to chat about their work, approaches and the realities of life as designers in the contemporary Hungary, but began by asking how Line and Round came to be, how Line and Round liberated itself from the escape room game industry…….
Grassimesse 2023: smow-Designpreis Co-Winners – Annabella Hevesi / Line and Round IO & Cornelius Réer
Let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be smow if it followed the rules and did that which you’d expected it to.
Thus it should have come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that the inaugural Grassimesse smow-Designpreis produced not the expected one, but two, joint, co-winners: Budapest based designer Annabella Hevesi and her studio Line and Round I O and Nürnberg based glassmaker Cornelius Réer…….
Vienna Design Week 2023: Design Without Borders at Collegium Hungaricum
Established in Budapest in 2004 by textile designer Szilvia Szigeti and her interior designer husband Tamás Radnóti, Design Without Borders understands itself, and summarising to the point of inaccuracy, as a platform for international design dialogue across, or perhaps more accurately indifferent to, not only national borders but borders of genre, scale, approach, position et al.
By way of preparing for the platform’s forthcoming 20th birthday a showcase of projects presented, hosted, by Design Without Borders over the past two decades is being staged in context of Vienna Design Week 2023.
A presentation that allows some insights into the aforementioned understandings of itself, and also access to some reflections on the realities of contemporary design in Europe…….
smow blog Interview: Architecture Uncomfortable Workshop – We don’t believe form and function are closed, there is always a degree of personal freedom and personal interpretation.
As we’ve noted in the past, Hungarian architects and designers made a valuable contribution to the development of post war
smow blog 2015. A pictorial review: November
November 2015 was a month of exhibitions, including Konstantin Grcic at the Grassi Museum Leipzig and Anton Corbijn at C/O
smow Blog Interview: András Kerékgyártó – We need a more open, honest discussion around design in Hungary
The history of furniture design has an unignorable, if subtle and background, Hungarian accent; Marcel Breuer was one of the driving forces at Bauhaus and through his work with steel tubing, moulded plywood and sheet steel he helped advance ideas of contemporary furniture design, and continues to inspire; Paul László was one of the genuine pioneers of American industrial design and contributed to George Nelson’s first Hermann Miller collection in 1948; and while Ernő Goldfinger may be best known for his brutalist architecture, and being the name giver for James Bond’s most aureate and alluring adversary, his experimental furniture works very neatly predict the development of post-modernism.
More recently Hungarian designers have had less to say, have been conspicuous by their absence on the international scene; however, as we noted in our post from the exhibition madeinhungary at Budapest Design Week 2014, that may be slowly changing.
Or rather Hungarian designer András Kerékgyártó noted that things may be slowly changing. We merely quoted him.
Budapest Design Week 2015: Tapas – Spanish Design for Food
As many of our regular readers will be aware, we don’t like food design. We would say “we can’t stomach
smow blog 2014. A pictorial review: October
……and continued over Budapest and on to Berlin – where amongst other delights we partook of the exhibitions Sensing the
(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
(smow) blog Budapest Design Week Special: Segítő Vásárlás – Design Dates
In 2010 the spectacularly sinister sounding Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities launched a programme to help promote products made in
Budapest Design Week 2014: Biela by András Kerékgyártó
The history of furniture design is famously also a history of experimentation, re-configuring, re-thinking and often of designers changing materials
(smow) blog compact Budapest Design Week Special: Lola Women’s Boudoir by Helena Dařbujánová
Ever since Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec released their Alcove Sofa for Vitra in 2006 ever more furniture objects have appeared
(smow) blog compact Budapest Design Week Special: Cardboard Room Divider by János Terbe
Much like crisps, cardboard furniture is something with which we have a very troubled relationship. However whereas with crisps the
(smow) blog compact Budapest Design Week Special: Table and Desk Chair by AU Workshop
Just to be clear: Despite posting twice about them in little over week, we’re not paid to do PR for
Budapest Design Week 2014: Design Without Borders – madeinhungary + meed
In 2014 the exhibition “madeinhungary” celebrates its 10th anniversary. What began as a presentation of contemporary Hungarian product design hosted