A keen sense for opposites: Sebastian Herkner
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Sebastian Herkner, from Offenbach am Main, is one of the shooting stars in German design. Since winning the Newcomer Prize of the German Design Award he is now also in high demand among well-known clients. Sebastian Herkner is certainly on the way up. Advancing from one of the many young designers who try to attract the attention of the public, press and producers at trade fairs and in design blogs, to a highly sought after designer who renowned manufacturers are keen to engage. Herkner, born in 1981, still works on his own with the assistance of a design intern in his Offenbach studio - a former leather workshop in which he also lives. For some time now, the work area has been gradually expanding and now takes up much of the living quarters. The times when Herkner spent weeks making prototypes of his designs in the workshops of the Offenbach Design Academy, to then present to interested people, will no doubt soon be over. |
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This is where he once studied and still has a teaching appointment. Since winning the young talent prize of the German Design Award in 2011 he is getting calls from more and more renowned customers. At the design award’s presentation ceremony he was given a big hug by Patricia Urquiola – probably the most influential designer in the world today. “I kept my fingers crossed for you“ she said. Several of his new contacts came to him through Patricia Urquiola, and now, Herkner adds, he is working on eight projects at once.
Characteristics turned upside down
The key element of his success is, of course, the quality of his designs. While his furniture and lighting may first appear to be very different, it is striking to see how seemingly contrary elements connect. Herkner combines different materials, colours, functions, manufacturing techniques and also models from completely different contexts without creating just an effect or design stunt. For his floor lamp Bell-Light, for instance, he combined a squared timber stand with a cylindrical lamp body that is adjusted using a handle and rather resembles an industrial spotlight. This comes with a changeable lampshade made of copper braid, steel or felt; the lampshade can be fastened using a clip ring like those used for sealing paint tins. Then again, his top-selling Bell-Table design has a base made of tinted glass and a funnel-shaped brass upper part that is mounted flush on the base to support the table top. “I wanted to turn the typology around“, Herkner explains. “Normally a side table features a heavy metal base with a glass plate on top, here the base has a lightweight and fragile appearance.“ It was no easy job finding a glass manufacturer who was able to hand-blow tinted glass in this dimension. But von Poschinger in Frauenau, in the Bavarian Forest, could. The brass element was formed in the desired shape by the metal spinner Cloos from Bad Vilbel. “I really enjoy working with traditional methods“, Herkner adds. Not only because he has discovered how he can particularly benefit from the know-how and the flexible approach of the craftsmen, but also because his has an eye towards sustainability and wants to support traditional manufacturing. The fact that Herkner repeatedly draws on and reinterprets things that already exist actually underscores this sustainable approach. The paint tin clip that he uses as a ready-made object, for example, the wonderful shape of a bell jar that forms the lampshade, and the small lamps for children’s rooms that he discovered in Greece and now plugs into a twelve-sided ring of safety sockets: creating a chandelier that can also be used to power a toaster at the dining table. Herkner really likes to work with contextural shifts and models from different domains: he transports the design of a classic wooden barrel to a table leg made of aluminium strips, the diagonal bends of coverings from ventilation shafts to a sideboard casing, the special changing room used by miners to store their clothes into a hanging basket for the kitchen with perforated plate and hooks for hanging cups and kitchen towels – just like the original it can be pulled right up to under the ceiling on a cable. Here Herkner is still on the lookout for a manufacturer. |
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Learning from fashion design
Just six of his designs are currently in production. These include the Clip Chair of the Dutch company De Vorm. This chair is based on the design of a simple kitchen chair but features rather special details: the complex geometry of the frame cut out by a five-axis CNC milling machine and the two black PVC clips that connect the backrest and the legs. Here again Herkner convincingly combines and contrasts different materials and colours. The sense of how to balance such combinations developed during his internship with the British fashion designer Stella McCartney. “Now”, he says, “I find that I often behave like a fashion designer when choosing colours. Instead of using a RAL colour fan, I select my colours from photos.“
The RAL fan is a standardised colour system used in architecture, construction and industry.
Translation: Sally Habel |
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