Helene Vonsild at Frue Plads

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The textile designer Helene Vonsild was at the market on Frue Plads with a wide selection of the designs that she markets through her company 1+1Design. 

As well as commercial designs for textiles she uses fabrics she designed for Kvadrat to produce a range of cushions and bags. 

A shoulder bag with an adjustable strap in dark grey rubber was interesting because it illustrates well an important aspect of good design that is not discussed enough. 

The straps for the bag, with a series of slots and with notches along each edge, is an industrial product used for tree ties … a robust strap to hold a young sapling against a supporting stake … so strong to prevent the tree moving and snapping in wind but soft so it does not rub the bark of the tree with any movement and adjustable so it can be moved outwards as the tree grows or as a new and thicker stake becomes necessary.

Fixed to the bag with the right size and the right colour of button it could hardly be better for an easily-adjusted shoulder strap. This is a designer using ingenuity ... seeing an existing product in a new way for new uses or identifying a problem and finding the best way to come up with a solution.

1+1Design

Refshaleøen - what's where + what's on

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There are good sign boards at Refshaleøen - one with a map showing the location of the main food stalls and the main buildings - including the new gallery space for Copenhagen Contemporary - and the other with the dates of main events here through the coming summer

maybe click / download / save / zoom ?

or information on line at REFFEN

 

annual market for craft and design on Frue Plads

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Danske Kunsthåndværke og Designere - the Danish association for Crafts & Design - have just released the poster for their annual craft market on Frue Plads in Copenhagen in August.

Generally, notes on this site about imminent events are often too close to the imminent for readers to make sensible plans to visit the city so this has been posted to give you a little more time to plan that trip.

This market is a great opportunity to see and to buy from a huge range of craft works from Denmark ... so not just from the city.

This year the market will be on Frue Plads in the centre of Copenhagen on the 9th, 10th and 11th of August

Danske Kunsthåndværke og Designere

 

Lives & Works in Fiskars ..... an event for June at Design Werck in Copenhagen

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On Thursday evening there was the launch of a special event at Design Werck.

In partnership with ONOMA - the Cooperative of Artisans, Designers and Artists in Fiskars - Design Werck will show furniture, art, textiles, graphics; ceramic works and glass made in the historic village that is 80 kilometres west of Helsinki in Finland.

Founded in 1996, the association now represents 117 members. Twenty members of the cooperative will be showing their work here in Copenhagen and the exhibition, with works for sale, will continue through until 30th June.

Design Werck, Krudtløbsvej 12, Copenhagen K

 

 
 

Artists, designers and makers showing their work:

  • Heikki Aska, cabinet maker
  • Marko Escartin, wood worker
  • Antrei Hartikainen, cabinet maker
  • Lulu Halme, graphic designer
  • Sonja Tuulia Halttunen, graphic designer
  • Elina Makkonen, goldsmith
  • Olli Kari, muscician
  • Petri Koivusipilä, cabinet maker
  • Minja Kolehainenen, cabinet maker
  • Ivan Kulvik, cabinet maker
  • Camilla Moberg, industrial and glass designer
  • Piitu Nykopp, visual artist
  • Deepa Panchamia, textile artist
  • Katja Öhrnberg, visual artist
  • Ari Turunen, jewellery smith
  • Arto Vuohelainen, photographer
  • Karin Widnäs, ceramist
  • Tuulia Penttilä, cabinet maker
  • Matti Söderkultalahti, cabinet maker
 

food for the opening event was by Restaurant Kuparipaja in Fiskars and iced cider, gin and akvavit was from the Ägräs Distillery in Fiskars

 

3daysofdesign

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3daysofdesign in Copenhagen is now a massive event where design companies, design stores and many of the manufacturers open their doors to show what the city does in the world of design. It's an opportunity to launch new designs or new versions of classic designs or to launch new companies or celebrate significant anniversaries.

There are events at Designmuseum Danmark and at other galleries and museums through the city and workshops and demonstrations are common but it is also a major chance for designers and makers and companies to socialise … it comes after the pressure of the big furniture fairs of Stockholm and Milan and really is a key point on the calendar to mark the start of summer.

This year there were some 90 venues across the whole city and even a cyclists, powering around the streets, would be hard-pressed to get to everything at the right time in the right sequence.

So the following posts are not the highlights but my highlights from the three days.

Reffen / The Reef

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On Papirøen - Paper Island - immediately south of the Opera House and opposite the national theatre - the popular food hall and the large gallery space of Copenhagen Contemporary closed at the beginning of the year because all the buildings here are about to be demolished for redevelopment of the area with plans for the construction of large new apartment buildings and a swimming pool.

However, a larger and much more ambitious version of the Papirøen food halls are set to open further out at Refshaleøen … an island at the north end of the harbour that was formerly the site of the B&W shipyards and engineering works and perhaps famous recently as being the venue for the Eurovision Song Contest.

The plan for Reffen is to attract here not just the sellers of gourmet food who were so successful on Papirøen but for this to also be a venue for cultural events and to attract crafts people and design people to not just sell out here but to have their workshops here. There will be a strong emphasis to reduce and reuse - to use local produce to reduce transport and of course recycle or reuse … so there will be a strong environmental agenda.

"The hope is thus to create a new place in Copenhagen that with a sustainable point of departure is a melting pot of amazing experiences that attract and inspire both locals and tourists - a place that can be seen, tasted, heard and felt both locally and internationally."

It will cover a large area - around 10,000 square metres - much larger than the Paper Island warehouses - and they are talking about leases for 10 years so this should become a well-established destination for both people from the city and for tourists.

Plans show three areas … a large market place, a covered hall in old machine shops and an open area  for events on the city side of the huge hall where music events and so on are held.

Refshaleøen is at the end of the harbour ferry line and through the summer there will be direct boat links from Nyhavn - the ferry terminal by the Playhouse - and tourists boats will also come out here … and of course you can get here by bike.

Søren Ulrich - Christmas market Saturday 16th December

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Christmas market ... in Esromgade so just across the park from Jægersborggade.

Bowls, ladles, spoons in wood plus furniture and of course the amazing selection of woodwork tools. There will be stalls for food and drink - including, I was told, 'warm vermouth' - in the courtyard and works from other artists. 

Tools, books and work can also be ordered online through the new web site ... follow link below

Søren Ulrich Esromgade 15, Copenhagen

 

Christmas market at Designmuseum Danmark

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This weekend - the 1st 2nd and 3rd December - is the Christmas market for crafts in the courtyard garden of the museum with stalls selling ceramics, textiles, jewellery and more with traditional drinks for this time of the year including hot chocolate and of course glög 

The marquee and market will also be open next weekend so on the 8th, 9th and 10th December

Finders Keepers

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This weekend there was a Finders Keepers event here in Copenhagen.

It was the usual mix of design, clothing and food and the usual and good mix of small independent companies … this is entrepreneurial Danish design at its best … but it was a rather different set up this time.

Normally there is a single venue - so somewhere like the Locomotive Works or the old Tap1 out at Carlsberg - but this weekend they took over two streets in Nordhavn with the design and the clothing companies inside - in what will soon be fitted out as retail or office space along Århusgade - and food stalls down the narrower side street of Travemündegade that runs back from Århusgade.

There was not much space for chairs for sitting down to eat but the odd bonus was that the smell of cooking and grills and barbecuing - trapped by the buildings - was absolutely incredible although I wonder what the people who have just moved into these apartments thought about it all.

Finders Keepers

 

Kunsthåndværkermarked

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Not in the normal location on the large square across the north side of Vor Frue Kirke in Copenhagen - because of excavation works there - but for this year on the other side of the church.

This is an opportunity to see - and to buy - some of the very best of Danish craft. And the weather seems to have improved just in time.

Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere

Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10-12 August

 
 

Design X Change

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… a design market held in the courtyard of Designmuseum Danmark on Saturday and Sunday 20th and 21st May. 

The focus is on design and sustainability with talks and demonstrations on reusing materials and encouraging people to repair rather than discard things that have broken. There are displays and demonstrations to encourage new strategies for sustainability through design … so that includes how we, as a society have to tackle the rapidly increasing demand for materials by reconsidering our priorities or coming up with solutions that do not, in themselves, accelerate the depletion of limited resources … so there is a display for a student project that explores the possibilities for a service where students, arriving in the city to study, can lease reasonable furniture which they can take with them from one rented apartment to the next and then either upgrade or return as an alternative to buying cheap furniture that is then discarded and there is a project by students from Aalborg University Copenhagen who for a project looked at the specific problem of how to deal with needles discarded into drains by drug users in some areas of the city.

Although there is a growing awareness of the need for us to behave more responsibly as consumers, designers who want to focus on sustainability have a new task … not only do they have to come up with the design solutions but in that process they have to educate and explain to consumers why sustainability is important and how and why these problems should and can be tackled. 

Alongside the displays and stalls there will be demonstrations outside on quilting, a talk on recycling cookware and workshops on repairing toys.

IKEA pops up on the walking street

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IKEA have opened a pop-up store on Strøget - the famous walking street in Copenhagen. They have a coffee stall, a good flower stall and even a DJ and you can see a selection of furniture and light fittings from the Swedish company. 

The store space is between tenants and has oddly exposed concrete walls and the remains of lighting and so on from the previous company where most fittings have been stripped out but actually the groups of IKEA chairs and tables look remarkably good … much better than in the IKEA store. The place was certainly crowded with a lot of curious people so it had a real hum and the lesson seems to be that piling it high and really doing little more than putting storage on display is not necessarily the best way to show furniture … that is absolutely fine when people know what they want and are just in a store to pick up and purchase what they need but not so good if you are looking for a bit of inspiration but actually not good at encouraging you to buy what you didn’t even know you wanted.

IKEA, Østergade 36 (Strøget or The Walking Street) … open until 2nd April

L1180434.jpg
 

Christmas Fair at Designmuseum Danmark

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The Christmas  Fair at Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen is over two weekends - the 2nd to the 4th and the 9th to the 11th of December 2016. There is a large marquee in the garden courtyard with traditional food and drink - gløgg - from Klint Café. Organised with the Danish Crafts and Design Association, the fair has a wide selection of work by some of the best designers and makers. 

Designmuseum Danmark, Bredgade, Copenhagen

 

Designer Space - first day

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This is a smaller venue than for FindersKeepers but Designer Space has a similar mix of designers and makers with furniture, ceramics and paintings and prints and there is a similar crowd ... maybe not quite as young and carefully fashionable but lots of young couples and young families and kids … Danes start taking an interest in this sort of thing at a frighteningly early age.

The building is fascinating as well - a good example of industrial archaeology now with a new role - the Old Pumping Station is south and west of the main railway station in Copenhagen, at the south-west corner of the Meatpacking District and just down the tracks from Dybbølsbro Station … in fact the rail tracks pass on either side of the building.

There are stalls inside the main hall and outside in the yards at either end of the buildings and of course there are stalls for food and drink.

Designer Space continues tomorrow Sunday 4th September

Kunsthåndværker Markedet

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Kunsthåndvæker Markedet - the annual craft fair on Frue Plads in Copenhagen - will open on the 11th August and continue on the 12th and 13th. 

Frue Plads is the square across the north side of Vor Frue Kirke in the centre of Copenhagen.

Organised by the association for crafts - K&D or Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - there will be more than 130 stalls at the market. The list of major designers and makers from across Denmark who are showing their work is strong for ceramics and glass and jewellery but there will also be work by basket makers, textile designers and graphic artists.

This is an amazing opportunity to see and to buy some of the very best craft work from Danish designers and makers.

Kunsthåndvæker Markedet, Frue Plads, Copenhagen

Thursday 11 August 12.00 -19.00
Friday 12th August 10.00 - 19.00
Saturday 13th August 10.00 - 16-00