Black and white photo essay from the amazing mid-century modernist café in Cologne, Germany.

Hallmackenreuther at Brusseler Platz 9 in the center of the city, is the great place for every vintage design lover. Original interior decorations, graphic design and wonderful neon elegant lady are the highlights of this very friendly café.

Enjoy!

In these cold days around all Europe, we have to warm ourselves. Here is the selection of various interesting design essentials with the hot power!

Originally manufactured by Heinrich Kaufmann & Sohne, Indiawerk in Solingen, Otter-Messer Mercator K55K "Kat" Knife is the legend of Kaiser Wilhelm's Army in WWI.

Now manufactured again by Solingen Company, this simple, but robust knife represents beautiful functionalist design with the iconic cat logo of The Heinrich Kaufmann & Sohne, Indiawerk.

More from Paris and its design scene. During Maison et Objet, we have visited Bensimon gallery for the opening and surprisingly we have seen newest collection of furniture of our favorite, Eindhoven-based Max Lipsey.

We interviewed Max some time ago about his passion for bikes and his furniture collection called Acciaio, which is the Italian word for steel. Made out of Columbus tubes, the furniture is elegant as some of the best hand-made Italian bikes.

In The Bensimon gallery we took a closer look for Acciaio 2 series, collection of cabinets, lamp or screen. All the pieces are made out of the same technique as before. We like the details of joining, perforating and cubist like shapes of the collection which was launched this autumn with the help of The New York-based Matter design store.

Our good friend from Vienna, designer Marco Dessí, has presented his latest project called Frame.

Frame is the variable silver and perspex tray which Dessí designed for Wiener Silber Manufactur, traditional silver manufacture founded in 1882. The tray includes silver square tray and various colorful perspex circles creating the different plates. Very nice combination of tradition craft and contemporary design freshness.

Gilbert Poillerat (1902-1988) was a French master of the hand made steel furniture and decoration. His biggest part of his life-long career represents creations of all kinds of tables.

For this editorial we have found some of his spectacular creations to show his style evolution which is significant for whole decoration scene of that time in France, Italy or elsewhere. We have named tables after their style which represent to illustrate this stylistic changes in times. From the historicism, to the surrealist and biomorphic designs to the decorative modernism and finally to the new 1960s steel minimalism, which was very popular in France.

Poillerat was a great chameleon of the styles and shapes. But in his every creation we can find his ultimate production mastery.

The Another hot stand in the halls of Maison et Objet fair has prepared Belgian designer and producer Michael Verhayden.

His products are as abstract symbols of the big painting for us. We bring you these pictures of Verhayden`s stand as abstract compositions where colors and materials create wonderful world of decoration and craft.

In the style of many 20th century decorators, Verhayden creates delicate products and accessories using various materials, such as marble, leather, wood, brass or horn. The outcome is the ultimate luxury collection of daily things: combs, scissors, bowls, bags, as well as 1950s inspired 55 armchair or the minimalist stand lamp.

Verhayden makes all the things hand made and in the limited series. He is true decorator/maker of our time.

We have here some design news from Maison et Objet fair held last week in Paris. We start with the French legend in the new coat.

We love French design company Tolix which specializes in the production of the steel furniture. The company was founded in 1927 by Xavier Pauchard and became famous worldwide for its 1934 Model A chair. Their new re-branding production with the contemporary designs as well as graphics continues this year with the new collaborations from the intimate Sebastian Bergne or expressive, new Brazilian design star Zanini de Zanine.

Carlo Mollino was a great architect too. Last year we have visited his last masterwork: Teatro Regio in Turin finished in 1973. For this occasion we have made our own series of pictures and now we publish them with architectural chapter from our Mollino book. Find Mollino`s architectural legacy as well as details about this spectacular theatre in the center of Turin bellow.

Mollino’s significance in architecture can be seen not only in specific implementations, but also in his nonconformist views on it. Thus, his projects that have never been implemented represent for us an even more interesting chapter of his work, which started in 1934 when he finished the headquarters of the Farmers’ Association in Cuneo in collaboration with V. Baudi di Selve. This three-story building with rational foundations and a rounded quoin, designed in the period aestheticism reminiscent of Guiseppe Terragni, proves that Mollino was heading in a direction contrary to Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Thus, Eriche Mendelsohn, for whom Mollino briefly worked in his Berlin-based studio, Alvar Aalto, and Hans Scharoun became the key reference points for Mollino’s organically focused architecture.

The Turin equestrian association, built from 1937 to 1940, demonstrates Mollino’s organic line in a very convincing way. The large campus, which includes a riding hall, stables, and rooms for social events, represents a very original interpretation of an organic style. Purely white surfaces, combined with sharp geometrical facing and wavy mouldings, link period modernism with the inspirational source of Turin Baroque by Guarino Guarini. The spectacular stairway hall with broken glass railings and a rococo chandelier crowns Mollino’s exquisite style. Subsequent designs and implementations from the 1940s transform the architect’s expression into a free concept of form. An imaginary design from 1942 entitled “The House on the Hills” for Domus magazine presents Mollino’s perspective of a perfect private residence. Whereas the front side of the tall slender monolith is fully glazed, the three other walls are made from rustic stonework. The top floor is angular and equipped with a terrace finished by a wall in the form of a wave. This design represents Mollino’s complex intentions with specific solutions to individual details.
"The House on the Heights" from 1944 is also a hypothetic project of a modern house. Mollino combined formal archetypes of ancient and byzantine architecture and achieved a nearly post-modern source of inspiration in a villa that personifies a contemporary profane temple. However, the design is all along the lines of Mollino’s typical organic modernism, which does not lack a formally irregular atrium and a semi-domed glazed space. In 1947, the architect finished a very impressive design of a funicular station, as well as the Lago Nero guesthouse, which links a modernist ground floor and a large terrace on conical pillars with a top section made from wood with a gable roof inspired by traditional Alpine architecture. Mollina would later focus on this architectural style in this time and in all his architectural designs from that time onward. However, there is one exception from this trend – the design of a residential building on the sea coast in San Remo from 1948. This dynamical structure, complete with an elaborate interior, was to be embedded into the dramatic environment of the cliffs.

At that time, the architect coped with local architectural traditional and the most progressive construction trends at the same time. Be it the expressive design of the Fürggen funicular station, the re-design of the Garelli traditional Alpine chalet, the design for the suspension “Truss House” or the constructed Casa del Sole chalet and hotel in Cervinia, he always interconnected the post-war organic concept with mountain rusticity. The family house in Luin by lake Maggiore, built from 1951 to 1953, was also conceived in a very expressive way – the house is pushed above ground by means of concrete beams and equipped with a typical gable roof.
However, the most challenging assignments awaited Mollino towards the close of his life. The Turin chamber of commerce was built from 1964 to 1972 in collaboration with Carlo Graffi, A. Galardi, and A. Migliassi. The brutalist and futuristic expression of the building, which bears a geometrical grid of rounded windows, lacks Mollino’s characteristic features from the 1950s. Thus, the magnanimous extension of the Teatro Regio in Turin, finished in 1973, gives a more personal impression. The brick organic mass with large glazed surfaces refers to the radical architecture of Guarino Guarini. The interior of the lobby, furnished with a geometrical crystalline ceiling and geometrical brick reliefs, contrasts with the fluid space of the auditorium, in which Mollino achieved an unusual dynamic animation in collaboration with Carlo Graffi and A. Zavelani Rossi. The auditorium, constructed in the shape on an egg, is topped with spectacular lighting by Gino Sarfatti. Mollino could not have left behind a better architectural testament.

Featuring the famous Bisiluro car designed by Carlo Mollino for The 24 Hours Le Mans competition in 1955, our new t-shirt is the best product for all Mollino fans.

According to our new book about Carlo Mollino we have created a t-shirt with the graphic motive of the Bisiluro 750 car which Mollino designed with Enrico Nardi and Mario Damonte for The 1955 24 Hours Le Mans competition. Bisiluro is a fascinating vehicle in the shape of the aerodynamic styling inspired bw Mollino furniture designs as well as 1950s Italian bodywork mastery. However, the car was pushed away from the race after three hours only by winner of this competition, Mike Hawthorn with his Jaguar D-Type.

More about the story in our book.