Kostas Lambridis

CumLaude

Prizes: Gijs Bakker Award Nominee

Department: Contextual Design
Website: www.kostaslambridis.com

Elemental Cabinet

This piece of furniture aims to combine all creative forces, showcasing the dilemmas of the designer. The form is inspired by the legendarily expensive 18th-century Badminton Cabinet, a perfect example of sublime vanity. But this ‘Elemental Cabinet’, created by Kostas Lambridis, has many additional layers that address the choices of the maker. Instead of the original ebony with precious stones, each level of this cabinet is made of another material – ranging from stone to metal, wood, plastic and textile – to emphasise a non-hierarchical approach to design.
On a horizontal level, the two opposing forces that shape everything come to life: man-made creation versus the nature of things. The left side shows our wish to create order and beautiful objects, made with the utmost attention to detail. The right side displays the used materials in a more natural state: rough, melted or semifinished. It shows how matter has a will of its own and a resistance to being processed. There is even a third layer that adds the ‘making of’ to the equation: the rear side of the cabinet is constructed from the models and moulds used to create the casts on the front.