Photograph by Andrew Bradley
Feature: Nation Building
May 1, 2006
CANADA
While the classical virtues—prudence, moderation, justice and
courage—have turned Canada into a stable nation, with rational policies and
hardworking citizenry, they are traits not especially conducive to creativity.
However, the Vancouver-based design and business collective BARK, whose upcoming
exhibition entitled All Terrain Cabin will travel around the world and serve as
a mobile showcase for Canadian design and technology, is doing a marvelous job
of showing just how big and bold the Maple Leaf can be.
Heading up Canada’s
emerging design elite is Ornamentum. Founded as a bespoke furniture source for
interior designers, architects and private clients in 1999, Ornamentum
launched its first collection in 2004 with bench-made, signed and dated pieces
by four designers: Barbara Bell, Victor Chan, Bradley Overbye and Grant
Wyllychuk. The company is also mission-driven: The collection will grow as the
company finds, licenses and promotes new designs from both established and
up-and-coming Canadian designers. What unites the collection—tables, chairs,
sideboards, beds, as well as commissioned pieces—is the common thread of
simplicity, the eco-certified woods and finishes, and that every piece is
made to order, allowing for scrutiny of detail and customization of
dimensions, materials and configuration.
The designs, while contemporary, also seem subtly different from their U.S.,
South American and European counterparts, a nuance not lost on designer Grant
Wyllychuk, who says, “We’re a diverse, multilingual nation with an enormous and
changing landscape, yet a Canadian thread keeps our cultural identity sovereign,
spanning distances, languages and mixed cultures. Where design is an expression
of the designer, Canadian contemporary design is quiet and clean, distinct from
other contemporary design by that immeasurably unique je ne sais quoi.”
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That sense of patriotism is also present at Bombast, founded in 1990 by Russell Baker and David Eichorn, which builds an impressive collection of contemporary furniture in a style that fuses minimal, even terse, profiles with soft, inviting surfaces. Baker, a boldface in the Canadian design community, is acutely aware of Canada’s role in the innovation of contemporary design, such as the production of the first one-piece molded-plastic chair in 1946. Bombast's functional designs buil on this legacy.
Furniture designer Lee Kline's penchant for working with innovative materials—including cast aluminum, synthetics and new varieties of coatings—leaves little mystery as to why his company Kline Furniture is in the vanguard of creative, contemporary design. Kline's bold, highly engineered pieces, specifically the metal-and-glass MiMi coffee table, the metal-and-wood Solito stool and the Merge table in machined aluminum, demonstrate how his work focuses not just on pioneering design but also on creative manufacturing methods.
Ornamentum, 877.215.7444, www.ornamentum.bc.ca
Bombast, 604.251.2092, www.bombastfurniture.com
Kline Furniture, 416.817.8769, www.klinedesign.com
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