The exhibition Metalworks-designing & Making, which opened at the Esch Museum of Contemporary Art in Luxembourg in August, can be said to be a physical textbook of metal raw materials and processing techniques: from manual techniques (casting, hammering, cutting) to advanced techniques (machining, superplastic molding) to digital technology processes (additive manufacturing) and new creative processes (electroforming, inflatable), can be seen in the exhibition of 40 design works born in the 21st century. Through these designs, the exhibition shows the development and changes of technology in today's social life.
The title of the exhibition also speaks of a history: the Luxembourg city of Esch sur-Alzette, once known as the "Iron Metropolis", and the mining basins in the south of the country, have It is an industrial center and plays an important role in Luxembourg's economic, social and political history. The closure of Luxembourg's mining industry in 1972, followed by the oil and steel raw material crisis two years later, coupled with the large-scale deindustrialization of Europe, led to a major transformation of the social structure of Luxembourg's cities. According to the exhibition materials, the Luxembourg primary school curriculum also taught blast furnace operation. Until the last blast furnace metal work in the city: evoking the original intention of manufacturing the "Steel City" Although the factory buildings of the past can still be seen everywhere in the industrial landscape, their functions and craftsmanship have been forgotten. In the early 2000s, a re-use program initiated by Luxembourg was a turning point in the revival of Esch. The government first built a university on the former industrial site, kicking off an urban renewal movement in the area. In the context of the "museumization" of the Central European Industrial Zone, the two blast furnaces on the site have also been preserved, and have become a cultural and artistic hot spot in Esch.
Metal has always been in the blood of the city and has now been rediscovered by curators Georges Zigrand and Charlotte Masse for this "Metal"-themed design exhibition , also a tribute to the city’s industrial history: “When we use contemporary designers’ metal designs to tell the character and production of this material, not only will the public better understand the craftsmanship and practice in the field, but also It's about reconnecting today's design to its industrial historical context," they explain.
The participating British designer Max Lamb is famous for his metal designs. He excels between the traditional and the contemporary, not only proficient in Forging and Cutting, but also frequently using high-tech Electroforming. "Tradition" is reflected in his work "Ali Bar Chair", in which he forgoes the use of mandrels, hydraulic presses or other mechanical formers, and only uses ordinary "force" to bend solid aluminum strips to shape the chair's structure; in creating the Metalware Armchair Copper, he used only laser-cut brass and copper tubing, and finished it by painting it with solder paint after assembly.
But when it comes to visual impact, the Nanocrystalline Copper Chair is better than traditional castings. The piece uses a metal electrodeposition process that allows nanocrystalline copper to "color" it. First, the designer sculpted the chair shape out of clay modeling wax, then sprayed conductive silver onto the surface. The dried chair prototype is then dipped into a tank of copper sulfate solution, during which nanocrystalline copper particles slowly grow on the structure until a 0.8mm copper layer is formed. Once electroformed, the original wax core of the structure melts away, leaving behind a light, strong, hollow copper chair. Although such an "experimental" approach is not mass-produced, Lamb doesn't care at all. He believes that the manufacturing process better reflects his design ideas and aesthetics.
Experimenting with only a single material like Lamb is a common way of working in metal design, where designers can master the physical and scientific properties of a material and transform it in a variety of ways. However, when metal design products are put into mass production, they need to be standardized by industrial designers. Therefore, designers with reverse thinking instead pursue craftsmanship and are committed to changing the traditional concept of metal manufacturing and application. Designers play tricks on product functions.
Sigve Knutson's "Hammered Aluminium Cloud" is one such work. This cloud-shaped metal object creates a visual sense of "expansion" by hammering. What exactly does it do? Is it a pendant, or a coffee table? The traces of production are clearly visible on the surface of the work, so perhaps it is the designer's craftsmanship that attracts viewers to "pay" for it.
The designer who also created the "inflated" but in a different way from Sieger's "Inflating" is Oskar Zieta from Poland. His most famous design is the Plopp low stool, which was launched in 2009. Tin foil-thin patches are welded into shape and then injected with liquid—using an air-pressure forming technique called "FiDU", which allows the otherwise flat metal to expand as lightly as a balloon. The finished product looks light and durable, and can be easily mass-produced at low cost. This "inflatable" technique not only became Zelta's "signature style", but also prompted him to set up his own brand.
FiDU technology is already widely used in automobile manufacturing, and the famous designer Tom Dixon's Hydro chair is also inspired by this field. When manufacturing chairs, high temperature blow molding is required first, and then laser cutting is used to shape them. The superplastic molding process used is generally used in the automobile industry to manufacture difficult and complex shapes. The designer used this technique to give the chair a balloon-like shape, as well as added solidity, which imparts a soft, contemporary feel to the light, shiny metal. Its stackable nature also makes it a favorite designer chair for all kinds of spaces, especially outdoor spaces.
The 40 pieces of design presented in the exhibition seem to be few, but the metal technologies covered are very diverse. It even feels like the possibility of metal is comparable to that of plastic. At a time when there is so much focus on the sustainability of design materials, durable and recyclable metals evoke the city's former manufacturing aspirations. This vivid design exhibition puts a poetic coat on the metal, adding a bit of softness to its tough body.
Article Source:艺术与设计
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