Furniture Pieces Inspired by Alpine Folktale | Alpine Rising

FDT Bureau

At Milan Design Week, German designer Markus Benesch showcased his colourful cabin-style home, which he called the Alpine Rising installation. Inspired by an Alpine folktale, the installation featured a vengeful doll named tuntschi made of wood, straw and cloth, who comes to life and takes murderous revenge on one of the herdsmen who objectify her. Here is a detailed report on FURNITURE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY (FDT).

Benesch’s design imagines what the doll might do in the wintertime when she is alone and he decided that she might enjoy skiing and pottery. To create the installation’s interior, Benesch and his company Curious Boy designed farmhouse-style furniture pieces that combined traditional Alpine woodcraft with colourful motifs, and created repeating patterns for wallpaper and textiles using images of wooden shingles found on Alpine chalets.

The cabin is divided into several rooms that adorn traditional Alpine woodcraft. For this, Benesch created patterns by inlaying wood with pigmented resin. The design of the cabin-style Tuntschis cabinet is crafted in ash wood that sits in the company of the Himmibed and the playful Stui dining chairs. The Splugen lamp is carved out of walnut to match the zigzag-patterned pine Hochzeitsschrank wardrobe. The wallpaper and textiles are created by repeating patterns using images of wooden shingles that typically clad Alpine chalets, which are then overlaid in various colours and tones.

He also thought the doll would take up pottery. This led him to the work of Austrian ceramicist Florian Tanzer, founder of the Vienna-based studio Luma Launisch. His ceramics showcase an epic unusual character. Benesch created vases and vessels with the face of tuntschi.

Image credit: Markus Benesch Creates