Trends of the Trade from Design Miami/Basel

From pre-fabricated gas stations to responsive chandeliers, 2015’s Design Miami/Basel was a wonderful mix of modern edge and traditional extravagance

You could hardly hang a gas station on the wall or put it on a pedestal, but you might want to add it to your art collection. Visitors to this year’s Design Miami/Basel were certainly encouraged to think big: a huge Total gas station, complete with a roof like a spoked wheel, by French designer Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) was the centerpiece of an exhibition of pre-fabs curated by hotelier André Balazs.

Palais by Pierre Gonalons 2015 at Galerie Armel Soyer. Photograph courtesy Galerie Armel Soyer

Upstairs on the sales floor, meanwhile, in his gallery space, Patrick Seguin showed off his own Jean Prouvé 6×6 Demountable House, curiously not for sales as “it’s priceless”, although he has some 20 Prouvé architectural projects on offer for €1.25 million-€10 million ($1.38 million-$11 million).

This year’s fair also proved that a one-time corporate commission can be a modern-day dream collectible: Harry Bertoia‘s Money Trees (made for the First National Bank in Miami in the 1950s) were on sale at Moderne Gallery for $295,000 each.

Vincent Dubourg's Bhanga Bronze (Gold) cabinet. Photograph: Adrien Millot

Elsewhere, the focus was on the new and dazzling. Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery, for example, showed Vincent Dubourg’s Bhanga cabinet, a brazen beauty covered in bronzen Post-it Notes instead of knobs (price upon request), and Marc Newson‘s torso-like Orgone chair, its sunny white sheath encasing a scarlet lining (€480,000/$528,000).

The Orgone chair by Marc Newson takes a design cue from one of his earlier and most famous works, the Lockheed Lounge, a riveted aluminum and fiberglass chaise longue.

A mosaic Swatch table by Hella Jongerius that was all splashes of painterly color (€54,000/$59,400), appeared in a limited edition of eight at Galerie kreo, where her chair for the United Nations Delegates’ Lounge is on sale in a limited edition of 50 (€12,000/$13,200). Equally extraordinary was Max Lamb’s Urushi Low Table II at Gallery Fumi. More stolid were Pierre Gonalons’ marble Palais tables at Galerie Armel Soyer.

Urushi Low Table II 2015 by Max Lamb at Gallery FUMI. Photograph courtesy Gallery FUMI

One newcomer to watch was Lebanon’s Karim Chaya at Art Factum Gallery, for his camel-leather rocker on American walnut skis in a limited edition of 20 ($8,600). And who knew that wolf-whistling at a bundle of dropping feathers on ropes threaded with Swarovski crystals would cause them to gather together their swirling skirts and bunch up around a cane rod, turning into a bejeweled turban worthy of a maharaja? The designer of these sound-responsive Sundew biometrics is Hong Kong-based Elaine Yan Ling Ng, one of Swarovski’s three Designers of the Future presented at Design Miami. Brilliant.

The Arlette Rocking Chair by Karim Chaya, who says of his ongoing series of rocking chairs: "Rocking evokes a moment of peace. The recurring rhythm of movement creates a retreat from active life." Photography courtesy Art Factum gallery