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Text & Photos: Leonard Theosabrata
| It’s been 3 years since my last attendance at IMM Cologne, this time it was by default that I found myself amongst one of the largest and most important furniture show in the world. Seems like yesterday that I set foot on the same apartment on the same street around Brusseler Platz ( Belgium Quarter ), a once trendy and upcoming area in the city of Koln, for the most part things still look the same, the magnificent DOM Cathedral is still being renovated after 600 years, aside from the fair business this magnificent Cathedral makes Koln an important destination for visitor in and out of Europe.
The weather is always cold this time of year, and it’s part of what makes the IMM COLOGNE experience rather unique.
As the first to start in the ring of European furniture show, it is also the longest, it lasted 7 days with 4 days for business visitors and the weekend reserved for the public – where businesses can showcase their newly released products directly to the public’s eye. This time I’m here with the delegation of Indonesia Rattan Pavilion, a project that is spearheaded by the Ministry of Industry of Indonesia with AMKRI, the rattan furniture association in order to rejuvenate and stimulate the rattan industry for the next 5 years. In general the IMM COLOGNE show is known as the “serious one” compared to the French; Maison de Objet or Italian siblings; Salone del Mobile, where things seems to be more of a spectacle of endless presentation by companies in order to wow the media, public and buyers from all over the world. They presented a new concept of special presentation they call PURE, where designs are well presented with heavy curation by the who’s who in the furniture design world. The most interesting part is the D3 Design Talent area, where young designers showcase their work, with its endless of new discovery and atmosphere of excitement that exude from this area, where you see the designers themselves explaining their work and trying to secure a deal with companies who can see their vision and turn it into a real product. |
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I have to admit it brought back happy memories for me.
This year they also hosted the Living Kitchen show, a spectacular kitchen industry show, showcasing the latest in food and kitchen technology, from kitchen counter top to sink and oven, it’s all here, with celebrity chefs performing live cooking in the latest model kitchen designed by celebrity designers. Considering Germany as being one of the strongest economy in Europe now, at the most part it’s still a recovery process, after a big economic downturn, things are not back to where it was 5 years ago, you can almost read between the lines, companies are not
presenting much products, everything almost feel too safe, but it could also be that the companies who are not represented, reserved their new product launch for the Milan Show, for whatever reason, 2011 doesn’t look so optimistic for European furniture industry. |
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