kias

ma

chai

r

VESA HONKONEN DESIGN

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

kiasma c h a i r

KÄLLEMO is a distinguished Swedish furniture manufacturer and well known blii blaa blii blaa ja niin edelleen Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. In vel purus quis elit tincidunt sagittis. Morbi et leo elementum diam auctor venenatis. Donec porta volutpat ligula. Quisque sed dui non urna luctus elementum.

Nam lobortis sagittis ligula. Nunc varius. Sed eu felis. In vitae elit. Morbi non nulla nec ligula pellentesque placerat. Nulla eget diam. Morbi sapien nulla, cursus nec, elementum vel, viverra quis, urna. Donec faucibus metus ac mi.Sed fringilla dapibus ante. Curabitur a justo. Sed non dui. Curabitur a ligula. Curabitur ullamcorper pharetra urna. Nunc ac arcu. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fa-mes ac turpis egestas. Praesent vestibulum, eros sit amet fringilla fermentum, dolor elit convallis tellus, vel pretium turpis sem nec metus. Maecenas non urna at mi laoreet imperdiet. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Donec eu dui ultricies ante suscipit dignissim.

Nulla congue. Pellentesque tristique suscipit magna. Nam tristique nibh vel eros. Vivamus ut dolor vitae turpis dignissim pulvinar. Morbi sem. Phasellus nec velit. Sed urna. Sed nibh. Quisque dui sem, sagittis quis, laoreet id, interdum in, magna.

VESA HONKONEN, Architect and Designer, works in his own offices in Helsinki and Stockholm in the fields of architecture, lighting design, and design. Currently he is also working and teaching in China, where he is a visiting professor at the Shandong University of Art and Design.

From 1993 until 1998 he worked with Steven Holl in New York and Helsinki as Kiasma’s project architect. Co operation continues still. Recently he won together with Steven Holl an invited competition in Taivallahti, Helsinki. Now his projects vary from design and urban design to large scale lighting commissions and even to interior design, public buildings and lighting fixture design.

Honkonen has designed lighting fixtures for many companies, such as Louis Poulsen, Blond, Philips and Fagerhult. He has ran projects in several countries like Poland, Turkey, Switzerland, Norway, China, Finland and Sweden. In Sweden he has designed the rebuilding of the Östersund Stortorget , “The Golden Plaza”, and in Stockholm he works on the reconstruction of the Nacka Strand Strandtorget. One goal is to find projects, where the architectural and lighting design skills could be combined. China Architectural Building Press published a book (270 pages) in December 2006 on Honkonen’s work 1998– 2006. The book is available in Chinese and English.

© VESA HONKONEN ARCHITECTS 2008 Layout Vesa Honkonen and Anja HämäläinenVesa Honkonen Architects, Fredrikinkatu 14 B 18, FI-00120 Helsinki Finland www.vharc.comtel: + 358 9 6842 7910, fax: + 358 9 6842 7911 vesa.honkonen@vharc.com

kiasma c h a i r

KIASMA CHAIR

In 2008, Kiasma Café’s original chairs designed by Steven Holl, became 10 years old. That is a long time for café chairs. I had personally assisted Steven in making these chairs come true. It was a long process with some artists, boat makers, casting experts helping us. Average age for a café chair is about 5 – 6 years, so in 2007 it was finally time to create something new. As usual, the budget was really small, enough only for standard chairs. So we had to find a new way to create something interesting, suitable for the Museum of Contemporary art in Helsinki, Kiasma. Finally I got the permission to design the chairs and Källemo, a Swedish furniture manufacturer was adventurous enough to join me. Steven Holl gave me just one advice, “Remember the Light”.

We were given only 9 months, but I thought that is a good time to give birth to something new. I started to make sketches as cartoons, since I did not want to force the form to become visible too soon. I wanted to first find the essence, the soul of this chair. With these cartoons, where the emptiness is talking with a person, the chair slowly found its form. It became clear that the chair itself is light and the leg part is earth holding the light.

The form wanted to have the movement as well. Asymmetry started to take over. It was interesting to follow this path. Few times during this process I was forced to change the form that I had found, but this discussion with emptiness guided me to find the new form surprisingly easily. During this process I became more and more convinced that in design, in giving form, the form itself is not so important. It is what is behind the form, the origin telling the story. It is about movement, space in between. In order to create a form, forget he form.

This process would not have been possible without the project group from Kiasma, Sven, Karin and Erik Lundh from Källemo and their skillful cooperators in Värnamo and Tiina Olli at my office who struggled through all the complicated drawings and 3D models in order to make this dream to come true.

Vesa HonkonenHelsinki 2008