Manhattan turns into a massive design party this weekend when the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) opens at the Javits Center on Saturday. Nearly 600 exhibitors from 40 countries are displaying contemporary furniture, seating, carpet and flooring, lighting, outdoor furniture, materials, wall coverings, accessories, textiles, and kitchen and bath for residential and commercial interiors. Special features include ICFF Studio, which focuses on up-and-coming designers; projects by students from ArtFuture, Konstfack, MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), Parsons The New School for Design, Pratt Institute, and YSOA (Yale School of Architecture); the designboom Mart with inexpensive objects; an opening night party at MoMA; and a series of panels, talks, and conferences.
The International Contemporary Furniture Fair is a design-addict’s Oz. If you made your way through the maze to the back of the Javits Center this Sunday, you would have found the Lion — a heavily bearded Michele De Lucchi — sitting down for a chat with Glenda, embodied in the stylish, shining Paola Antonelli. Manufacturers, fabricators, designers, and the PR people who support them filled the audience to hear Antonelli, senior curator at the Museum of Modern Art, speak with renowned Italian designer De Lucchi. Read More »
Amid the usual “clean” (despite all the scuff marks) white modernism at International Contemporary Furniture Fair this year was a new trend I’ll call woodwashing. It’s basically 1970s rustic den meets 2000s eco-luxe. We’re taking shelter from a torn-up world in a time when — we imagine — things weren’t so bad. Hence all the Victorian era–themed restaurants out there and the ubiquitous hunting lodge deer antlers of a few years ago. This year, we reached the apex, surrounding ourselves with so much lumber (“warm” is 2009′s design buzzword, replacing “sleek”) that ICFF looked like a Home Depot back lot. Read More »
