Design At Its Best…

By Sumaya Samarasinghe

A Design Exhibition from Germany titled Conscious, Simple — Consciously Simple, The Emergence Of An Alternative Product Culture, is taking place till March 2nd at the J.D.A Perera Gallery in Horton Place, Colombo 7 .

This exhibition has been traveling to 29 cities over a time span of 10 years. Up to date it is the largest design exhibition to have been held in Sri Lanka.

The styles of the exhibits are inspired by the Bauhaus and Ulm School of Design.

The Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Gropius, an architect, in 1919 following Germany’s World War I defeat and fall of the German Monarchy. This was the beginning of an era of experimentation and openness of arts which were previously suppressed.

The exhibits of the 40 German designers are innovative and though they are simple when you first look at them, their durability and serviceability are two key components in their creation. None of the materials used are costly nor luxurious.

The exhibits were created between the early ’80s and mid ’90s and most of them have a dual purpose.

One of the key exhibits is the Consumer’s Rest Lounge Chair which can be used by exhausted shoppers if they need to take a rest while shopping or an expandable table  Tabula Rasa.

Most of the pieces symbolise a reaction against an orthodox and conventional way of thinking and seeing design “out of the box.”

The first impression one may get if you are not a design connoisseur is that these creations are uncomfortable and not functional, well the great thing about this exhibition is that you can sit on the chairs, touch the tables, hold the bookcases, basically test them if you wish to and realise for yourself that not only are they esthetically beautiful, they are practical and comfortable too.

Something different and new has come to Colombo; it would be a shame to miss it.