Design Affairs: Shoes, Chandeliers, Chairs

Why should architects restrict their abilities and creative faculties to buildings and rooms? A closer look reveals that many of them are also active as creators of objects - often of furniture in the context of their own buildings but also of products of all types, independent of their architectural projects. There are even architects who are better known for their product design than for their buildings, such as Philippe Starck for example, a star of the design scene. This book shows how architects translate their architectural style into product design or modify it to suit the task at hand. It is fascinating to observe how the vaulted walls in a piece of parametric architecture influence the design of a pair of shoes or how a minimalist building convolution is echoed in a chandelier. The 50 examples presented here convey the remarkable diversity of contemporary architects in the world of product design and reveal how the art of architecture can generate new perspectives in other creative fields.