Sam Chermayeff [et al.]: Creatures

Sam Chermayeff [et al.]: Creatures documents nearly two decades of experimental furniture and object-making by Berlin-based architect Sam Chermayeff — work defined by personal whim, daily utility, and the conviction that living with something is the only real design brief.

About This Book

This second edition — the first sold out in under a year — surveys the collaborative output of Sam Chermayeff and his rotating cast of contributors: furniture and objects whose form, use, or material logic has been reimagined from first principles. These are not gallery pieces. They are things made to be lived with, born from the radical premise that personal desire is a more honest starting point than programme or precedent. Edited by Moritz Küng, the book pairs photographs of the work with an essay by writer and curator Dieter Roelstraete, who frames Chermayeff's practice through the lens of "thing theory" — a critical discourse examining how humans and objects constitute one another. The result is a monograph that operates simultaneously as a design document and a philosophical inquiry into the nature of stuff.

Key Features

• 120 pages of object photography and critical essay
• Edited by Moritz Küng; essay by Dieter Roelstraete
• Published by Apartamento, second edition (ISBN 9788409327492)

What You'll Discover

• How personal whim — rather than client brief or typological convention — functions as a legitimate and generative design methodology
• Roelstraete's application of "thing theory" to Chermayeff's creatures, drawing on Heidegger, Francis Ponge, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Karl Ove Knausgård
• The tension between conceptual ambition and everyday domesticity in objects designed to be used, not merely contemplated
• A model of collaborative practice in which authorship is distributed across nearly two decades of making with others

About the Author

Sam Chermayeff is a Berlin-based architect whose practice encompasses furniture, objects, and experimental design developed in collaboration with others over nearly two decades. The volume is edited by Moritz Küng, with a critical essay by Dieter Roelstraete, writer and curator, who contextualises the work within broader philosophical and cultural frameworks.

Specifications

• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 120
• Dimensions: 210 x 290 mm
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9788409327492
• Publisher: Apartamento
• Publication Date: [Details available upon request]

Perfect For: Architects, furniture designers, and design theorists interested in the intersection of object-making, domesticity, and material culture — and anyone who thinks seriously about the things they live with.