The Zoo by Jaime Hayon for Baccarat

“The Baccarat Zoo reinvents the art of collecting animals while giving them a real function. Receptacle or Art Toy, every character exudes its optimistic narrative strength, full of magic and imagination.”
– Jaime Hayon

The Zoo , by Jaime Hayon, for Baccarat

Alvar Aalto: In the Master’s Home

NOWNESS invited Finland’s top contemporary design talent to showcase their work in the home of the country’s greatest most celebrated aesthete, Alvar Aalto. Today preserved as an atmospheric museum, the Alvar Aalto house, which was the architect’s domicile and studio from 1936 until his death, is an intimate memorial to the modernist master. The clean lines, functionality and unpretentious nature of classic Finnish design pioneered by Aalto, Ilmari Tapiovaara and Kaj Franck still permeates much of the work by the discipline’s current stars. Here we select our top Finnish designers for further scrutiny.

Jussi Takkinen “Untitled” folding chair and “Osio” wall clock, Matti Syrjälä “Riuku” stool and “Loiste” storm lantern, Hannu Kähönen “Kapeneva” bench, Ville Kokkonen “White 4″ table lamp, Ilkka Suppanen “Kaasa” lantern, Klaus Haapaniemi “Rabbit Throw”, Marko Nenonen “Lounge Chair”, Harri Koskinen “Remain in Light”

Alvar Aalto: In the Master’s Home, via: NOWNESS

Ceramics by Harumi Nakashima

Japanese ceramic artist Harumi Nakashima is most well-known for his free-form sculptures with spotted polka-dots. At once both stoic as well as tortured, the organic forms are reminiscent of some type of odd plant this claims it’s home in a science fiction novel. Nakashima is a member of the modern Japanese ceramics movement Sōdeisha. As is apparent from his own work, the movement was a reaction against the hegemony of folk-craft style and philosophy that claimed dominance in Japan.

L’exposition Ceramics by Harumi Nakashima, Gallery Nilsson and Chiglien, Paris, October 14 – November 26. via: Spoon & Tamago

Heima Series by Francis Cayouette for Normann Copenhagen

It’s time to spice things up. Its time for colors — and lots of them. Got a candlelight with a white candle. Let them burn down and get your hands on color-candles. Can’t get hold on colored candles! — add some colors around the candlelight.

The Heima series is designed by Francis Cayouette which consists of five products.

Heima Series, Heima Candlestick, by Francis Cayoutte, for Normann Copenhagen

Hirsaki Knife Box by Keiji Ashizawa Design

Hirosaki Knives have been around for approximately 1000 years. The cases for the knives are made from paulowina wood, and apple tree wood. These woods are used not only for the unique look of the design, but also the efficiency of the protection of the knives. Paulownia is unique to the history,and culture of Japan. Finally, the apple tree, that is used as the rail and connection, comes from the apple tree in Hirosaki which is the most famous producer of apples in Japan.

Hirsaki Knife Box, by Keiji Ashizawa Design, Photography by Takumi Ota

Jug by Aldo Bakker

A new porcelain water carafe by Aldo Bakker in five colours. This carafe is born with its own traditions. It demands the user to handle it like no ordinary carafe.

Jug, by Aldo Bakker, at Particles, Photography by: Erik and Petra Hesmerg

Clock for an Acrobat by Daniel Weil

Daniel Weil’s new clock explores parallels in the way time moves in space and an acrobat moves along a wire.

“Just as gravity is the medium of the acrobat, so it is the medium of ‘Clock for an Acrobat,’” says Daniel Weil. Second in a series to his “Clock for an Architect,” Weil’s latest design revisits themes that have interested him for over 25 years.

The materials are ash and nickel-plated brass and silver. For the movement, Weil sought parallels between the way time moves in circles and in space, and the way an acrobat moves along a wire: both precarious, both precise, both balanced. As the wheel turns on its track, gravity steers the glass bearing to six o’clock. This prompts the user to reset the dial, acting as an active re-arranger of time.

The battery is held in midair by positive and negative power lines that feed the clock’s movement. Appropriately, it is the only part of this gravity-defined clock that defies gravity.

Clock for an Acrobat, by Daniel Weil, Pentagram

Notchless Tape Dispenser by Mamoru Yasukuni

Notchless is an adhesive tape dispenser which leaves clean, straight edges without zig-zags on cut tape, simply by tearing it on the edge of a blade in the same easy way as with conventional tape dispensers. Adhesive tape without zigzags has an attractive appearance, and it does not break up when peeled as does tape cut with conventional dispensers. It thus has the advantage of not causing stickiness or dirtiness at the cut edge, increasing the utility of adhesive tape. This patented blade technology cuts adhesive tape with a straight edge in an easy and safe manner.

Notchless Tape Dispenser, by Mamoru Yasukuni, Kikuchi-Yasukuni Architects

Cronotime Desk Clock by Pio Manzù

The Cronotime clock was designed by Pio Manzù as a promotional item for Fiat, later produced by Ritz-Italora in 1966. It was re-issued by Alessi from Italy. The shape of Cronotime is toric (part of a circular section ring) totalling a 1/6 of circumference. The shape in turn separated into two equal parts which swivel, allowing you to modulate the direction in which the dial is pointing with respect to the support surface. Part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Cronotime by Pio Manzù

Antic biotec by eliumstudio and Duende Studio

eliumstudio was invited by Duende Studio to reconsider the “vinaigrier” (french for vinegar maker), an accessory that’s common to country kitchens.

Antic biotec blends the wine bottle and the pipette, common to oenologists and scientists, to offer a new “noble tasting ritual, highlighted by the delicacy of the blown glass and porcelain.”

“Vinegar is one of the very first biotechnology applications developed by man using acetic bacteria to change wine into a completely new product.”

“A preciosity of the often ignored vinegar that Nick Toshes was already pointing out in the opening of his mythical Confessions d’un chasseur d’opium (Confessions of an Opium Hunter): ‘Those people who know that the true soul of wine is vinegar, hold the key to the only worthy knowledge concerning wine. The wonderful taste becomes apparent by drinking shots of these mature and rare vinegars labelled da bere: the real thing is a far cry from the industrial crap masked with pretentious epithets.’”

Antic Biotec Vinegar Maker, by Duende Studio, and eliumstudio
via: MoCo Loco