VIENNA.- From Carlo Bugatti to Studio Superego. A Viennese "Würfeluhr" (cube clock) meets lamps by Serge Mouille. Joe Colombo's circular shelf tower competes with Ron Arad’s "Bookworm."
Dorotheum’s auction catalogue for the upcoming design sale on 17 June 2022 once again reads like a tour through the (mainly European) design history of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Unique pieces and prototypes can motivate even the laziest of collectors - because what’s better than rare and beautiful? The auction has plenty of that to offer. How about a Memphis icon? The MG3 armchair is one of three prototypes of the subsequently modified production. With this armchair, Michael Graves, the great architect and theorist of postmodernism, created a work that was both an early and exemplary specimen of this style (1984, estimate € 45,000 - 60,000).
Among the unique items of the sale are two pieces of jewellery by design legend Ettore Sottsass, which the Memphis mastermind designed for Milan-based Sawaya & Moroni in 1999. "La grande Foglina" and "Piccola Chissà" (tongue-in-cheek appellations translating as "Big leaf" and "Little who knows?"), to be worn as pendant and brooch, are tributes to nature and women, some say to eros itself. Sottsass’s predilection for archetypal forms defines his idea of ornaments as signs to be worn.Both objects are made of 20 carat gold. Originally, they were designed to be produced in silver, but never went into series production (€ 32,000 - 38,000 each).
James Bond tested
Many of the objects on offer are rare, like the writing desk mod. 901, made of rosewood, by Danish designer Bodil Kjær. This desk design is part of the only furniture series created by Bodil Kjær in the late 1950s. This model was used as a prop in the films ‘From Russia with Love’ and ‘You only Live Twice’ from the James Bond series. Prominent buyers of this model were, inter alia, the actor Michael Caine and Prince Philip of England (€ 8,000 - 12,000).
The use of a lamp element, which is rare in this model, makes the 2.2m high rosewood and aluminum shelving tower by Joe Colombo a veritable rarity. In this enemy of straight lines designed in 1963, the shrine is, of course, cylindrical (€ 8,000 - 12,000).
When Trash "kissed the future" in 1997, the result was the striking store concept created by style-savvy Brit Marc Newson for the eccentric fashion prodigy Walter Van Beirendonck, part of the legendary "Antwerp Six," and his label W.&L.T. (Wild and Lethal Trash). This included a rare coat-stand from the "Kiss the Future" series, which is represented in the auction in green and red dyed polypropylene, or plastic, versions (€ 7,000 - 9,000 each).
An original piece of Viennese history can be purchased with the cube clock. The so-called "Wiener Würfeluhr" (Viennese Cube Clock) was designed in the early 20th century for the city of Vienna by the Ing. Emil Schauer company and still marks the cityscape today. A historical specimen equipped with LED lighting is offered as a fine-tuned floor clock among the highlights of the auction (€ 11,000 - 15,000). It displays ‘Normalzeit’ (i.e. ‘standard time’). Can one ask for more?
