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New household furniture selection celebrates Vladimir Kagan
Curated by Vladimir Kagan Style and design Team director Chris Eitel, in collaboration with Holly Hunt, the furnishings assortment presents ten items developed by Kagan among the 1940s and 1980s, discovering the essential themes of his get the job done
Holly Hunt and Vladimir Kagan Design Group present a new 10-piece collection of furniture styles by the late designer Vladimir Kagan, discovering the recurring themes of his operate among the 1940s and 1980s. Curated by Chris Eitel, director of style and design and manufacturing at Vladimir Kagan Design and style Group (and former protégé of the late designer), the assortment capabilities devoted replica, preserving the designer’s legacy with negligible functional or content adjustments.
Eitel joined Kagan’s studio in 2013 and, about the many years, he labored intently with the designer to enable build some of his constrained-version items, for the likes of Ralph Pucci and Carpenters Workshop Gallery. The collection of home furniture reissues demonstrates some of the crucial themes recurring all through Kagan’s operate, with a concentration on organic and natural kinds and linear architecture.
Vladimir Kagan furnishings rediscovered
‘Biscuit’ sofa and ‘Branch’ espresso desk
‘We started out by likely by [Kagan’s] Classic Selection,’ states Eitel, referring to a massive overall body of furnishings do the job comprising sofas, chairs, tables and lights, component of the structure studio’s ongoing manufacturing. ‘We started revisiting all the pieces and the way that our craftsmen have been earning them in the woodshop. [It] really served me seem at more historical parts from different many years.’
Together, the items in the collection form a map of Kagan’s visible inspirations and the inventive actions that informed his work, but as a result of their materiality and sorts they also advise a visual record of home furnishings structure. The 1950s ‘Upsilon’ coffee desk bears things of midcentury modern-day furniture layout, when the ‘Roll Back’ couch, from 1967, introduces Lucite in combination with minimally formed upholstered elements. The 1970s ‘Ellipse’ lounge chair, with its circular metal base and ruched seat upholstered in blue velvet, and the Lucite ‘Lotus’ chair are imbued with a sophisticated disco spirit, though the composition of the 1980s ‘In-Flight’ side tables was a reference to postmodernism.
Chris Eitel posing on the ‘Barrel’ couch in the home furniture workshop
There is a great deal of modularity all over the collection, like in the snake-like forms of the ‘Biscuit’ couch, and references to cubism, located in the composition of the ‘Cantilevered’ desk that exquisitely combines glass, metallic and wood. ‘Vladimir would always say he experienced two models: an organic and natural, curved design and style and 1 much more architectural and linear,’ notes Eitel. ‘We felt like we have been telling a whole lot [about] the organic and natural [in the Classic Collection], and not more than enough [about] those linear models that he established all over distinctive decades.
‘We needed to just examine his job a little little bit and pull from a long time, see what his influences have been from the 1940s as a result of the 1980s, discover some items that people might not have experienced access to for a long time, and decide on issues that we had been captivated to, and that we assumed we could convey ahead in a modern and fashionable way.’
The collection was developed in collaboration with furnishings company Holly Hunt, which obtained the studio in 2016 and has because been supporting its operate. ‘Vladimir Kagan’s function embodies a lifelong perseverance to the handcrafted and exquisite,’ suggests Jo Annah Kornak, SVP and govt imaginative director at Holly Hunt. ‘[We are] honoured to proceed that legacy, and perform with Chris and the Vladimir Kagan Design Studio to generate heirloom items that answer to the modifying present day earth.’
When asked to pick a person piece from the assortment, Eitel is hesitant. ‘I definitely consider there is not just a single piece that defines Vladimir’s vision,’ he says. ‘I feel what you are observing is a scope of eyesight that he had, by bringing the archive pieces back again, we continuing a eyesight of the business and studio and exhibiting its evolution. The pieces in the selection display the background of Vladimir Kagan by design and style.’ §
