• Review of Material Vision 2007

An interview with the designer Lars Contzen of contzentrade

Page 1  Page 2

I detect the same characteristic in your furniture, plus, additionally there, textures.

Yes, it’s always about tactile qualities, too, not only design, in furniture. These PU coatings – take these shelves, for instance – if you think of them in 2D, they could be typical Contzen décors. We’ve just sort of extended them into three dimensions and thereby they acquire a function. We wanted to show how furniture could look that match our décors, as this often unsettles even interior designers: the décors are so strong, how do they leave space for furnishings? That’s how our work profile started to include furnishings, incorporated into an overall design or compositional concept. We offer plenty of different materials like wallpaper, carpeting, laminate, printed glass, all with a consistent design. If the interior designer builds a sales counter, he or she can use our laminate and then, for the reverse side, if he or she wants to work cheaper there, we’ll supply matching wallpaper. Our goal is that you can have an overall concept for the whole space.

How do you distribute your products?

You can buy them from us, under our label “contzentrade”, which coordinates the different industrial enterprises that collaborate with us.

Resopal is one of those companies, but we also work with A.S. Création, a wallpaper manufacturer, the biggest in Europe. They produce our collection as wallpaper. Resopal produces the laminates. We, contzentrade, make the designs and do the printing. We also print on special materials which are then used in a second step in Resopal’s production. And we also produce on wallpaper material ourselves. Kai Peters and myself are the label contzentrade: I design, he prints. And with the intermediary product on paper, we go to the industry.

And for the furniture, it’s yet another partner?

Yes. For that, I do the designs and we look for partners who can process certain materials. Currently, we work with a foam plastic manufacturer, they do PU coatings, and we do the distribution of the products that come out jointly.

2D made 3D: the Park range of polyurethane coated furniture

How do you discover new materials? Did you have that idea while working with the PU producer or did you specifically look for someone who could process PU?

Yes, we looked for one. Furniture items having a polyurethane skin already existed before that. A popular example is the cactus clotheshanger by Italian manufacturer Gufram. Such products existed thirty years ago. We have kind of rediscovered it, but with a view to making new things. But, generally I try to look around for what’s new at fairs or in trade journals. My starting point is the graphic reworking of surface.

What new kinds of coatings or surface finishes are possible?

There are a lot of new developments in the industry. Also at Resopal, for instance, there’s a high-gloss surface for floors that won’t scratch: you can walk on it with pebbles in your shoes and it will remain like a mirror – it’s a titanium surface. So, in combination, the result can be a laminate floor that does not imitate another material, but that functions purely in a graphic way. Such a product is on the way for 2008, a floor as graphic décor. Previously, we have also worked with Parador, the floor manufacturer, and those products are still available. Now, we think we can totally redefine floor surface with this mirror finish floor and the graphics.

Two examples from the Resopal flooring range: Linear Landscape and Jardin des Plantes . Click on the pictures to open larger versions.

What are your predictions concerning trends?

Generally, I think there will be multiple styles coexisting. It’s already a bit like that now, there’s no unified trend, like in the 70s, when all trousers were bell-bottomed. Now, some wear them wide, some tight, it’s not uniform. So, things will run parallel. Then, I think art and design will merge more and more. It is the case now a little, but the boundaries will dissolve even more. Design will not be so serious, there’s going to be more humor and originality finding its way into the products – viz. the skull example.

There will be more playfulness...

... and products can be sexy without being too serious. Just fun! But good and original. This type of thing will increase. At the moment, “artificial” colors are rather trendy – maybe in a few years, things will want to be close to nature again. So, for the moment, I would say: technical, futuristic and humorous. If you take the Gothic scene, where everyone dresses in black, has long, black hair and black make-up, this will be interpreted in a humorous, or baroque way ... it’s interpretations of parts of culture that result in a crossover and, finally, in everyday products.

Page 1 | Page 2