Museum of Design in Zürich, Switzerland, currently shows another angle to the oeuvre of the architect and designer Charlotte Perriand. She is often mentioned in the same breath as Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret and we will immediately think of the trio's joint furniture designs, such as "Fauteuil à grand comfort", "Siège tournant" and "Chaise longue à réglage continu". But Perriands achievement is far from reduced to tubular steel furniture designs.

Charlotte Perriand in her studio in Montparnasse, ca. 1934, photo: Pierre Jeanneret, © AChP / ADAGP

The current exhibition's aim is to do justice to Perriand's comprehensive legacy, showing some lesser-known photographs and graphic art works. The curators were granted unlimited access to Charlotte Perriand's photo archive. Here, they discovered numerous pictures used by Perriand in the 1930's as a basis for collages measuring several meters tall. Thanks to these finds, it was possible to reconstruct some of the collages on a one-to-one scale. They are currently on display in the exhibition. Aside from showing these works, the exhibition provides the long-overdue opportunity of getting to know Perriand not only as a pioneer in modern furniture and interior design, but also as the politically and socially engaged woman she was.

Charlotte Perriand studied interior design at Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. On the occasion of the "Salon d´automne" exhibition in 1927 she received major attention for her design of a bar exclusively made of copper and aluminum. In the same year, she began to work with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. During this time, she specialized in furniture and interior design. Her political involvement began in 1931, when she joined the Association of Revolutionary Artists and Writers, members of which also included André Breton and André Malraux. However, she distanced herself from the association again at the beginning of the 1940s.

Charlotte Perriand's joining the Association of Revolutionary Artists and Writers reflected her belief that it was necessary to fight for a better future. Not only did she strive for new forms in design, but she also sought to improve social conditions through design and architecture.

With this exhibition, the Museum of Design paints a clear picture of Charlotte Perriand's social and political activism. As illustrated in documentary photographs, some of her reconstructed collages, such as "La grande misère de Paris", are arranged in relation to one another, as in the original exhibitions. A smaller scale model gives a spatial impression of the agriculture pavilion as it was displayed at the Paris World Expo. The collages are juxtaposed with photographs, furniture designs and objets trouvés, enabling viewers to put the former into context.

The exhibition "Charlotte Perriand - designer, photographer, activist" is open until 24th Oktober 2010. Read more here

“I often think that with design you have to look to the past in order to move forward. Like fashion, the trends in home are circular, and midcentury modern is still on the uptick" says Glenn DeStefano president of Dansk.

The housewares company has reintroduced a selection of Jens Quistgaards salt and pepper grinders, and an ice bucket will follow this month. Fashioned after the original 1960's shapes, the grinders bear the original names — Henrik, Lisbet and Jasper — but are today made of acacia instead of teak.

I prefer the originals, of course. This week Deconet presents 9 objects for sale by Jens Quistgaard.

Teak staved lemon board, Jens Quistgaard, 1960's

"Congo", Ice bucket, Jens Quistgaard 1955

If Austrian born architect and designer Josef Frank was still alive, he would have turned 125 years last month.

Although most famous for his legacy at Svenskt Tenn, with his numerous designs of classic, modern furniture and characteristic botanical expressionist textiles, Josef Frank dealt early on with housing estates. Contrary to most other architects of the interwar period in Vienna, he took the idea of settlement and not the creation of so-called super blocks in the municipal housing. He also rejected facade decor and clearly preferred functional forms. 

Between 1924 and 1936 Josef Frank built five summer houses in the pittoresque beach community of Falsterbo, in the very south of Sweden, for friends and family. Villa Claëson is renown as one of the first functionalist houses in Sweden, designed for Frank's brother-in-law Axel Claëson and his wife and was finished in 1927.

Villa Claëson is now for sale. Find more images and information here.

Tiffany & Company is introducing six small vases inspired by pieces made by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios between 1906 and 1913. Four bone-china vases (picture) were introduced recently; two sterling-silver ones will be available in September.

The vases are not replicas of the originals according to Jon King, an executive vice president at the company. “We don’t do reproduction work from the archives,” he said. “We rescaled some of the original pieces, which were slightly larger.”

Though Tiffany is best known for his works in glass, he and the studios produced more than 2,500 pieces of pottery from 1900 to 1915. The new vases have names like Tulip, Orchid and Magnolia.

Architecture is part of our everyday experience. Yet architecture exhibitions, with their emphasis on drawings, models and photographs, sometimes deny their audience an engagement with actual buildings. The worlds greatest museum for design, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, wants to give us another experience with the current exhibition "Architects Build Small Spaces".

Using the landscape of the museum as a test site, the V&A invited nineteen architects to submit proposals for structures that examine notions of refuge and retreat. From these nineteen concept submissions, seven were selected for construction at full-scale.

The exhibition shows how small-scale structures can afford architects a testing ground for a more creatively led and experimental type of practice, much like furniture designers who step out of the system of industrial production to create one-off pieces.

If you visit London before the end of August, pay a visit. The exhibition closes on the 31st.

Rintala Eggertsson Architects' 'Ark', situated at the bottom of the National Art Library stairs; commissioned by the V&A, © Rintala Eggertsson Architects 

Do you whish to reduce shipping of your design finds to a minimum?  - buy from a dealer close to where you live!

On Deconet it is easy to browse by region, category or style. Use the menu on the start page in order to find what you search for.

 If you live in the Vienna area for example, our galleries in the area this week offer 144 beautiful objects for sale on Deconet. Among them:

Flavio Poli, vase

Hovmand Olsen, easy chair

The exhibition "The Essence of things” at Vitra Design Museum illuminates the influences and motifs of a principle whose impact on design transcends time and place. The diversity of this phenomenon is documented in such examples as the legendary Thonet chair No. 14, furniture and product design by Gerrit Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, Max Bill, Dieter Rams, Shiro Kuramata and Jasper Morrison up to the iPod.

Dieter Rams "System 606"

In the exhibition, these objects will be complemented by photos from the fields of architecture, fashion and art. Despite all the rationalisation of method and material, concentration on functional essentials and abstraction of shape up to the very disappearance of things, the principle of simplicity demonstrates its great complexity.

A couple of months ago, Deconet launched the possibility of placing ads also as a private indivdual. Many happy sellers have taken the opportunity to list their items for free. Among the private ads this week, I find Jimmy in Belgium offering Arne Jacobsen cutlery and Barbara in South Africa advertising a rare Josef Hoffman vase. The Willy Guhl chairs listed by Klas in Stockholm would look nice in my garden...

AJ cutlery, Arne Jacobsen

Vase, attributed to Josef Hoffman

Pair of Loop chairs, with table, Willy Guhl

Do you have furniture or other decorative arts that you would like to sell on Deconet? It is free of charge during summer. Welcome to list your items here.

I am about to get a pet. Primarily, my son is getting one. A kitten. It has been his dream for the last four years and within a few weeks she is moving in. The children are enthusiastic of course, and so am I. My husband is not yet convinced about the greatness with animals IN the house. It is going to be lovely though, I am sure.

But I am aslo thinking of scratches on brown leather Swan-chair and ded mice dragged to the entrence door. And the litter box...

Some animal lovers have created their own animal-friendly design solutions to complement their human-centric décor. Bill Hilgendorf and Maria Cristina Rueda turned their Brooklyn apartment into a bright playground where their two cats can get indoor exercise.

 Credit: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Sue Golmanavich of Osterville, Massachusetts, had a niche for her cat's litter box (with an exhaust vent) built into her bathroom when she renovated the space. The rest of the bathroom was planned around it. Ambitious...

 Credit: David Cicconi for The New York Times

In Toru Hirose's living room in Kobe, Japan, his basset hound has a hidden snack bar, restroom and nap spa.

Credit: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

New Designers is an annual London showcase for recent design graduates, returning this month for its tenth year.  Over 3,000 graduates showed their work in Business Design Centre. The event ran for two weeks, with nine design zones and two prestigious awards evenings.  From animation to architecture, graphics to glass and fashion to furniture.

The New Designer of the Year award went to Tortie Hoare, a furniture, design and craftsmanship student from Bucks University, for her project "Leatherwork Furniture Collection".

Judges Comments:
The judges celebrated Tortie’s "innovation, personal passion and an incredible sensitivity to materials which has reinvented a lost process from medieval times to produce an outstanding collection of contemporary furniture".