Dec 3, 2012

Ambiente Talents Serve Up Fresh Creativity for Kitchen and Table

New concepts for seasoning, preparing and serving food: young designers are currently opening up the theme of cookery in a fresh, unconventional way. In the Dining area at the Ambiente fair, which will be held from 15 to 19 February 2013, there are a dozen talents just waiting to present their new ideas and surprising interpretations of table and kitchen themes.

“You can tell very clearly by the projects of the Talents 2013 just how strongly the theme of cookery has been accepted in the young designer community as a social and aesthetic subject. With their conceptual approaches and specific product ideas, they are assuming a pioneering role for the industry”, says Nicolette Naumann, Vice President Ambiente/Tendence and initiator of the promotional programme. All in all, the Talents area in Hall 4.0 will host twelve designers and design studios from China, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the Slovak Republic.

Musical Cooking
The joy of cooking together has inspired Korea’s Lee Sanghyeok, who lives in Berlin, into creating an unusual product idea. The ‘Joy of Cooking Together’ is in fact the title of his range of musical kitchen accessories, where the cutting board turns into a drum, the pan lid becomes a cymbal and the salt and pepper pots become shakers. When the cooks have found a common rhythm, cooking together turns into a lively percussion session.

For all the senses
Up and coming young talent Toni Baumann takes the act of seasoning food out of the kitchen and brings the flavours of fresh herbs directly to the table: his batterie de cuisine is made of natural wood and ceramics and consists of a herb mill for finely chopped herbs, a vase for decoratively serving basil, mint etc. plus a spice grinder together with a small bowl for dried ingredients. Fruit bowls for flavouring and refining food and drink are en vogue. The innovative ‘Peelpride’ range by Holland’s Rianne Koens covers the entire process from peeling, through drying to milling, sprinkling or sieving. The clear designs in glass and wood not only create ingredients that taste and smell good. They look good as well.

Delicacies for the eye
At Latimera, the Finnish design studio, the aesthetics of detail find expression in poetic designs in metal. The cold Scandinavian climate and the fineness of the snowflakes have been the source of inspiration for functional cutlery that is marked by elegance and a compellingly clear language of forms. In the designs by Raili Keiv on the other hand, industry enters into a dialogue with tradition. The designer from Estonia combines classical crockery with concrete, the building material, thus turning a field of tension into new forms and functions.

A uniqueness shared
The Czech studio De-sign.cz elevates everyday objects to the status of unique items. For their limited editions in glass and porcelain, they work together in groups with a variety of artisans, designers and artists, who in their authorial role provide their personal interpretations and motifs for a shared idea. Each item that results from the workshop remains unique. Among the items that De-sign.cz will be presenting in Frankfurt will be ‘PAAR’ a 30-piece set of glassware that was created in this way, and a set of bowls called ‘SUPERBOWL’.

Traditions rethought
Providing traditionally purely decorative forms with a new function is the idea behind ‘White Animal Life – aka WAL’ from ‘Piselli Projects’. To achieve this, Emilie Körner from the Netherlands turns her talents to tableware decoration that was modern in the 17th and 18th centuries and transforms horses, elephants or leopards into candlesticks, salt cellars or napkin holders. The two Chinese designers Junglian Ma and Lan Tian devote themselves to the original methods of manufacturing and using Chinese ceramics. They transfer them, with a different focus, to the demands of modern design and living styles.

Design greetings from Slovakia
With its ‘Flowers for Slovakia’, Ambiente is launching a young design initiative from that country. The initiators are Peter Olah and Lars Kemper. For the first project, ‘Handle with Care’, young designers have translated twelve Slovakian legends and fairytales into objects made of glass. The packaging, which is a reminder of the typical way valuables are stored in that country, is a pointer to the sensitivity and respect they have for their own tradition.

An overview of all the talents in Dining Hall 4.0 and the 18 participants in Loft-Hall 11.0 with future-pointing perspectives on furniture and accessories for the home can be found at: www.ambiente.messefrankfurt.com.

Talents promotion programme
At each of the Ambiente and Tendence fairs, Messe Frankfurt supports international university graduates, designers and design agencies by providing them with a special area of their own. “With our own curated promotional programme we help particular design talents to present their creative talents and skills to an international trade public, to establish contacts to manufacturers and to set up or maintain a network of their own”, says Nicolette Naumann. Since 2001, selected talents have not only been able to exhibit in Frankfurt free of charge, but also receive professional support for their presentation from a team of experts at both consumer-goods fairs.

Ambiente, the leading international trade fair
Ambiente is the leading international trade fair for products for the table, kitchen, household, giving and decorating, as well as for home and furnishing accessories. For five days at the beginning of the business year, around 4,500 exhibitors occupy 27 exhibition halls to show what consumers will be able to see in shops around the world throughout the year. However, Ambiente is a must not only for the range of products, which is unrivalled in terms of both depth and breadth. The world’s leading consumer-goods fair is also distinguished by a wide variety of events, promotional programmes for young people, trend presentations and awards ceremonies.

Background information on Messe Frankfurt
With a turnover of € 467.5 million and 1,725 employees worldwide, Messe Frankfurt is Germany’s biggest trade-fair organiser. The Messe Frankfurt Group has a global network of 28 subsidiaries and around 50 international Sales Partners, giving it a presence for its customers in more than 150 countries. Events ‘made by Messe Frankfurt’ take place at more than 30 locations around the globe. In 2011, Messe Frankfurt organised 100 trade fairs, of which more than half took place outside Germany Messe Frankfurt’s exhibition grounds, featuring 578,000 square metres, are currently home to ten exhibition halls and an adjacent Congress Centre. The company is publicly owned, with the City of Frankfurt holding 60 percent and the State of Hesse 40 percent. For more information, please visit our website at: www.messefrankfurt.com