Christian Horisberger

Awarded

Christian Horisberger

Furniture collection 2005 – 2007 (diploma work)

Product and Industrial Design

Jury report

Highly individual furniture
Chris­t­ian Ho­ris­berger's entry for the Swiss Fed­eral De­sign Com­pe­ti­tion in­cludes three seats and a lamp. These are func­tion­ing mod­els that he has built him­self. Grouped to­gether, they look like an in­stal­la­tion. The fur­ni­ture ty­polo­gies are un­usual and the for­mal lan­guage moves away from the fur­ni­ture in­dus­try's usual clear lines. Some of the de­signs look heavy, rough and an­gu­lar. The struc­ture is em­pha­sized. For ex­am­ple, the con­nec­tion plates in the large 'Sit­zliege' (lit­er­ally 'Sit­ting Lounger') are painted yel­low and the screw-heads cho­sen are large and vis­i­ble. We have to get used to the ob­jects, and ac­cept their in­di­vid­u­al­ity. The jury did not like this fur­ni­ture im­me­di­ately, but the in­de­pen­dence of their con­struc­tion and ex­pres­sive qual­ity, and also the de­signer's work­ing processes, aroused the ex­perts' in­ter­est and en­thu­si­asm as time passed. The most strik­ing item, be­cause it is the largest and most un­usual, is the 'Sit­zliege'. As its name sug­gests, this piece of fur­ni­ture is a struc­ture of­fer­ing var­i­ous dif­fer­ent pos­si­bil­i­ties for sit­ting and lying down. The shape is de­rived from a va­ri­ety of strips of wood, an­gled in var­i­ous di­rec­tions. Own­ers can choose whether to use these sur­faces as stands or shelves, as a bench or lounger. The 'Schaukel­liege' ('Rock­ing Lounger') is a fold­ing lounger made of welded tubes bent in var­i­ous di­rec­tions. Two axes hold the frame to­gether and make it pos­si­ble to open the lounger or fold it up. Two fab­ric-cov­ered sec­tions, one for the back and the other for the legs, form a sur­face to lie down on, and also sta­bi­lize the struc­ture when it is open.
The 'Stehleuchte' ('Stan­dard Lamp') is made of brass tubes. Three tubes act as a foot, and con­nect up with the hor­i­zon­tal bar the light source is at­tached to. From the side, the lamp looks like a slant­ing let­ter T. The light source can be turned round its axis. The light is switched on and off by a rocker switch on one of the three legs.
Ar­i­ana Pradal

Biography

Christian Horisberger
Born in
1978
Education
Industrial Designer
Group name
CM Horisberger

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