Maybe the gallerists at Design Miami/ had Don Drapper on their mind. What other way to explain the seemingly unending parade of mid-century style work on display at just about every other both? And if the booths didn't seem like sets from Mad Men, many took cues from the arts and crafts movement.
Though, even with all the retro influence, the star of the show was unmistakably a high tech floor that seemed like something out of a future Tron sequel.
Commissioned by fair sponsor Audi, and designed by the architecture studio Bjarke Ingels Group, the LCD floor installation was designed to showcase Audi's latest concept car. Unfortunately for the German motor company, all eyes were on the ground as the lights changed color from blue to white depending on who was standing where.
In a spiritually similar work, the Carpenters Workshop Gallery showed rAndom international's "You Fade to Light." Made up of mirrored OLEDs (Phillips brand, if you're wondering) the piece is meant to mirror your movement by brightening the mirrored squares. It was a bit confused by the crowd, but a better example can be seen in this video. If you were looking towards a techno-savy future of design however, these pieces were some of your few options.
Marc McDonald LTD specializes in mid century modern, and there booth was full of it, but they weren't alone in their love of the middle decades.
These chairs at the Dansk Mobelkunst Gallery booth were straight out of the '60s. The green is the work of Danish designer Hans Wegner, while the white lounge is the work of fellow dane Nanna Ditzel. Neither designer is no longer living.
Look, its that Pierre Paulin chair everyone's familiar with, but in a decidedly Austin Powers-ish print. The Demisch Danant gallery showed Paulin's work exclusively. His work was also on display at Jousse Enterprise booth.
Are you starting to get the point that there was tons of mid century modern? Yes, there were, as mentioned above, lots of arts and crafty stuff, but it bores us and we did not take many pictures. Let's move on.
I feel that if Lady Gaga saw the selection of Tod Price chairs at the Industry Gallery booth she would never sit on any other type of chair again.
Something about this Yard Sale Concept chair at the Todd Merrill Studio booth seems more Robyn than Gaga. More natural, but still quirky.
This spun me right round, baby, right round, and sadly I did not get the designer info on it.
The Fendi-commissioned piece this year, by Elisa Styozyk and Sebastian Neeb, playfully mixes furniture design with clothing design, which is quite appropriate for a fashion house sponsored project at a glorified furniture showroom.
And finally, here's Design Miami/'s traditional "giant thing outside that you're supposed to sit on." This year its by designer of the year, David Adjaye and looks like a really awesome treehouse. Thankfully, for variety's sake, it is not mid century modern.
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