Hrafnkell created several objects for the Icelandic-Norwegian brand Dwarfware.

The all-purpose mouth-blown crystal glass tumbler Glasið is the fruit of an intense collaboration with Krosno Glassworks in Poland.

Hrafnkell was eager to challenge the crafts with his design, refering to the design of the iconic Savoy vase by the Finnish designer, Alvar Aalto in 1936.

After months of development, the skilled craftsmen in Krosno succeeded to convert the asymmetric design into a seamless shape which perfectly fits the palm of your hand.

In the Norse mythology the dwarfes were the best designers, who developed and manufactured the hammer Mjölni and Freyja’s Brísingarmen (necklace) among other precious things. The Icelandic word hanna which means to design is derived from the name of the dwarf Hannar.

Few years ago Hrafnkell met the proponent of the Hurstwic Association Reynir A. Óskarson and they have since worked together to invent and develop ideas for products inspired by ancient Nordic culture and imagery.

Dwarfware is for those who appreciate storytelling within contemporary design.

The Flying Cups aka Hoch die Tassen were initially created for the Design Bazaar at the Art Academy / HBK Saar, Saarbruecken Germany in 1998. Selected second hand porcelain is reclaimed and repurposed. The original object is transformed into a hybrid ready-made object, both visually and in its functionality.

The Flying Cups are not to be consumed as yet another stylish design object, created to feed the design market. They are to be perceived for their potential, as a consum critical object, consisting of different elements and reclaimed archetypes from the past and the present.

For Hrafnkell the use of reclaimed items in contemporary and conceptual design should evoke critical curiosity both toward design history, mass production and the life-cycle of objects.

“The collection introduces a new aesthetic for tableware objects. “Hoch die Tassen” which means “Let’s raise our cups”, invite the consumer to an informal but at the same time sophisticated way to drink… each of the delicate vessels encourages elegant drinking. Smart, ironic and stylish, the “Hoch die Tassen” cups represent the beginning of new era for products that can still be original and exclusive even made out of second hand elements.”

p. 51, Retro-Scapes Trend in Storytelling: Living Trends, 2005 Libri Scheiwiller, Milano ISBN 88-7644-473-4

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"We've all had that dreadful realization when 10 or so of our closest friends are over for an evening of fine wine and good conversation. They trickle in, one by one, two by two. We take their coats into the bedroom, show them to the living room, offer them a drink. Red, white? Sure, no problem.

Then Andrea finally arrives, as tardy as ever - and very thirsty. So it's off to the kitchen to retrieve some pinot. We reach into the cupboard for a glass and ... nothing. Out of proper glasses.

Poor Andrea has to settle for her drink in the mug that says, "Working hard? Or hardly working?"

So the classy wine-in-mug routine doesn't work, but keeping a huge store of stemware doesn't work either. It's not practical to have dozens of glasses sitting unused for the 353 days of the year we're not entertaining.

Icelandic designer Hrafnkell Birgisson wouldn't have this problem - he'd just have cupboards full of his High Cups.

Birgisson takes old teacups - he finds beautiful vintage ones, most often with floral prints - and affixes a wine stem to the bottoms. Voila: teacup stemware.

"It's a sophisticated way to sip tea," says Dimitra Doufekas of Up To You Toronto, a boutique that sells the cups in Canada. "But if you want to brighten up your next cocktail party, you could use them for wines or drinks."

Cliff Lee, www.theglobeandmail.com

Imagine that: By day, a cup for tea that'll wow Grandma when she drops by. By night, a one-of-a-kind glass for beverages that'll charm even Andrea. And a bonus: Say goodbye to those dusty wineglasses that have taken over every nook and cranny of the kitchen."

The reclaimed porcelain saucers are transformed into candleholders adding a brass component and vases by a joint venture with handblown glass.

The Flying Saucer Vases were made in three different sizes/heights - 18cm, 25cm & 40cm (with soup & dinner plates).

In late 2004 Hrafnkell gathered four fellow designers and started a collaboration with the Icelandic knitwear producer Víkurprjón. Within few months the brand Vík Prjónsdóttir was born and a unique collection made of pure Icelandic wool. In the first years the collaboration involved designers Brynhildur Pálsdóttir, Egill Kalevi Karlsson, Guðfinna Mjöll Magnúsdóttir, Hrafnkell Birgisson and Þuríður Rós Sigurþórsdóttir.

The mutual interest in integrating form and magic of everyday items into the designs is evident in Vík Prjónsdóttir’s products. The designers see their work as a mission in making use of the natural materials and conditions found in Iceland.

Today, Vík Prjónsdóttir is currently owned by Brynhildur, Guðfinna and Þuríður who have taken the project to different heights.  

“Vík Prjónsdóttir is an example of new ways of conceiving and producing fashion, exploiting the interconnections between global perspectives and local small businesses, an example of the injunction to “think globally and act locally.” At the time of Vík Prjónsdóttirs formation, the Icelandic wool market had been steadily declining and export of woolen goods had virtually stopped after the collapse of Cold War markets. As a result of this economic shift, only three knitting factories remained in Iceland including Víkurprjón, according to Vík Prjónsdóttir’s website. The project thus links ecological principles including sustainability and the use of local resources. Here too, their designs make reference to the specificity of Iceland’s nature, culture, and folklore, manifesting a playful and innovative approach to materials and a relaxed attitude to everyday uses. The result is practical, but at the same time experimental, as can be seen in the Helm of Disguise (2010), the Sealpelt (2005), or the Beardcap (2005). The Snow Blanket (2010; Figure 3) is aimed at protection in daily life and relates strongly to the notion of domestic warmth. Even though all their designs are grounded in ancestral sartorial traditions, manifest in forms of helmets, caps, and cloaks, and inspired by folklore rather than material tradition, this design trend is not a nostalgic sublimation of national traditions. Rather than representing a romantic revival, the invocation of survival and protection is self-consciously ironic, linking mythical and heroic narratives to comfort garments and rugs in an entirely contemporary way.” 

Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir (2011) The New Nordic Cool: Björk, Icelandic Fashion, and

Art Today, Fashion Theory, 15:2, 239-258

For more information:

www.vikprjonsdottir.com

The Tools You Light pendant is a continuation of the Tools You Bake series - highlighting the ancient crafts of metal spinning. Hollow metal shapes are created in a spinning lathe by pressing metal sheets over a turned massive wooden form.

Available in aluminum, powder coated and browned steel, copper and brass they can be combined randomly for an individual composition of shapes.

Created in 2016 in collaboration with Pop Corn Design.

www.pop-corn.fr

Wallastic is a series of elastic wall organizers for contemporary nomads with limited living space - inspired by designer Victor Papanek.

The original version was developed during a workshop with the title fast, cheap, clean and light held at the HBK-saar University of Arts and Design in Saarbrücken, Germany in 1998.

Another early version called Hab can be found in the permanent collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

www.imamuseum.org

"Hrafnkell’s Hab cupboard is a play on a type of bourgeois, eighteenth-century cupboard (and its countless reproductions) often seen in traditional middle-class homes. But in contrast to a massive piece of furniture, Hab is a sheet of trompe l’loel poured polyurethane with straps for holding objects. It is designed to be hung on the wall or rolled up if one is moving: nomadic furniture, if you will."

R.Craig Miller, Penny Sparke, Catherine McDermott: “European Design since 1985-shaping the new century”, Merrell 2009

The Tools You Light Table lamp is designed and manufactured in collaboration with two craftsmen in Berlin and Brandenburg, Germany who specialize individually in wood and metal, respectively.

The idea was to epitomize two traditional crafts techniques - wood turning and metal spinning - in one object. A lampshade is created by spinning an aluminum sheet over a tool in the positive form which is turned in beech wood. In the spinning process the grain texture of the wood is transferred onto the soft metal.

The Tools You Light table lamps combine traditional crafts with new technology and design, complementing the Tools You Bake project which also highlights the story behind the process. Both projects celebrate and support local craftsmanship in the Berlin-Brandenburg area.

Made of nylon-coated aluminum and beech wood. The comes with an integrated 12V transformer and 5W warm white LED angel eye head light.

Ancient craft meets modern technology.

Designed by Hrafnkell Birgisson

These aluminum baking mold series are produced with the ancient technique called metal spinning. It takes place during rotation in a lathe where sheet metal is shaped around solid wooden or metallic molds to create hollow bodies.

Innumerable wooden molds have accumulated over four generations in the stockrooms of the 100-year-old Hugo Brauer factory in Berlin. Their original intended function as molds for making hubcaps, lids or shades has long since been forgotten.

Sebastian and Hrafnkell were inspired by the hundreds of dusty, wooden molds stacked on shelves in the workshop, and they began thinking about how to tell the story of this ancient process. All of a sudden they pictured the molds as cakes. The contours of cakes baked in these pans depict a piece of design history from the beginning of industrialization until the present day, with users recreating a shape from an old mold. 

The names of the different shapes are lent from some of Hugo Brauer clients: Collatz, Wiesner, Eltoga, Sturickow, Stubbak, Nieke, Hüttinger and finally Bessy - a company which manufactures electron storage rings for synchrotron radiation!  Bessy is the smallest tin with only 15 cm in diameter whereas Hüttinger is by far the biggest tin with 35 cm in diameter.  

The Tools You Bake are a contemporary reference to the craft and history of the Hugo Brauer Metallwaren company, a pure service provider and supplier in its day. 

Designed by Sebastian Summa and Hrafnkell Birgisson

Tools You Bake

Farmer's Gold
Productive Preservation of Straw Craft

Designers and artists:
Hrafnkell Birgisson (IS/DK); Company: Aamu Song & Johan Olin (ROK/FIN); Studio Formafantasma: Andrea Trimarchi & Simone Farresin (IT/NL);Katrin Greiling (SE/DE); Cordula Kehrer (DE);Katja Petterson (SE); Sagovolvo: Jonas Nobel &Bella Rune (SE)

Straw craft people:
Eje Aren, Christina Axelsson, Eva Bryntesson, Mai Flognman, Ann-Christine Gustafsson, Anita Harnell, Anna-Lena Ingemansson, Christina Johansson, Lisa Järnberg, Doris Karlsson, Christina Lundin

The project Farmer’s Gold explores the relationship between craft and design and unites local tradition and culture with contemporary practice. Challenging traditional distinctions between design and craft, Farmer’s Gold is an investigation into the preservation of a marginalized cultural heritage.

Straw has existed as a raw material as long as people have cultivated soil. Straw craft is universal and has strong roots in farmer cultures. In earlier times, straw was readily used as a material for a variety of functional items for the household, such as carpets, baskets, hats, blinds, and roofs. Besides its domestic use, straw often symbolized folkloric agricultural myths and customs, such as fertility and harvesting, and was also used for ceremonial ornaments. 

The center for straw craft in Sweden is, and has always been, Dalsland. Straw has deep roots in the local peasant culture and straw was even known as “farmer’s gold.” Straw work was commonly performed by women in Dalsland the production of items made of straw was at its height at the end of the 1800s. The straw hat popularly known as the “Ärtemark hat” became an international success and was exported to many European countries and sold by the hundred thousands. At the beginning of the 20th century Ärtemark hats declined in popularity, and the business vanished. At about the same time, straw craft stopped being used for functional items. From then on, straw craft was sought almost solely to make Christmas ornaments and seasonal decorations.

Today, straw craft is one of the most threatened crafts in the Nordic countries. Due to high production costs, straw work is usually outsourced to countries where manual labor is cheaper. As a result, the skills and knowledge in straw craft are rapidly disappearing from the region but straw has many advantages. It grows locally and is widely available. It is a cheap raw material and there are multiple ways to use it. Moreover, it is environmentally friendly. It is thus worth exploring what straw and straw craft could mean today.

Farmer’s Gold was organized in the form of a workshop in which Swedish and international designers and artists worked together with local straw craftspeople. By exchanging ideas and techniques, they experimented with straw and developed new products that challenge the effects of the global market economy.

The workshop took place in Dals Långed (Dalsland) in June 2011. 

www.editionsincraft.com

TGI-Technical Glassworks is based in the town of Ilmenau, Germany and is one of the few independent full-system suppliers of specialist technical glasses on the global glass market. TGI produces laboratory beakers for everyday work in research and development laboratories throughout the world. These beakers feature an archetypal shape and are made of thermal shock-resistant borosilicate glass. The originals are then silk-printed using white industrial dishwasher-safe color.

BERLINORD collaborated with designer Mervyn Kurlansky on new graphics for the beakers to create a multifunctional household glass that preserves the universal feel of the original.

Designer Mervyn Kurlansky was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1936. He studied in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now known as Central St. Martins). In 1969 he joined Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes and in 1972 he co-founded the design consultancy firm Pentagram. In 1993 he resigned from Pentagram to live and work in Denmark. 

www.kurlansky.com

The remix of Sebastian Summa´s Mastodon stool was created together with designer Jo Hany. This version is made of turned oak and three identically canted aluminum sheets - joined together with rivets.  

http://cargocollective.com/summa/MASTODON

A uniform and anonymous kitchen utensil, the cutting board, receives a CNC engraving in the style of an ancient still life painting, a piece of art history. The plain side remains for cutting, while the food can be decoratively served on the engraved one. 

Made out of maple by a carpender in the Black Forest of Germany

Designed by Hrafnkell Birgisson

Solskin is a solar lamp designed for milking light from the sun.

During the daytime it is placed in the window and in the afternoon it has been filled with sunlight. Then it can be carried into the dwellings and used as an ecologically friendly light source. After a day in the window Solskin can give light for up to eight hours. You turn on the light by lifting up the handle.

Designed by Hrafnkell Birgisson, Sesselja Guðmundsdóttir and Aðalsteinn Stefánsson. Under development.

Created by combining packaging from synthetic polymers with natural lava rock and organic resin.

The Eleanor vases were originally made in 1996 for the Design Bazaar project in Saarbrücken using recycled detergent bottles. The bottom cut off and used as a mould for a resin base. The original Eleanor vases joined the Design Bazaar on several events and fairs in Cologne, Milano, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt in 1996-2000.

Cut-fish is a food processing board for preparing and serving high quality food. The board is made of white HD-PE, a durable and recyclable thermoplastic commonly used in the fish processing industry. The boards replicate the outlines of selected North Atlantic fish species. Cutting or chopping is best done on the smooth side, while the carved side is designed for serving. 

Designed by Fanney Long and Hrafnkell Birgisson

The Knit & Lit is a lamp created in a limited edition together with The Handknitting Association of Iceland.

Designed by Hrafnkell Birgisson & Matthias Möver

The wooden, silkscreen printed ships are made out of driftwood logs that wash ashore along the coastline of northwestern Iceland and are too small to be reclaimed normally. The silkscreen printed images depict life at sea and in the North Atlantic fishing industry. 

Along with sheep’s wool, driftwood has played a vital role in the otherwise woodless country of Iceland ever since it was settled. This wood has traditionally been used to build homes, boats, furniture, boat winches, food bowls, barrels and boxes, as well as for making charcoal. The northern coastline used to be “white” in many places with driftwood originally carried down the rivers of Siberia to the sea, where the northeastern currents carry it to the pack ice. From there, the currents carry the wood around the North Pole where some of it drifts off northeast of Iceland and is finally washed ashore along the path of the East Greenland Stream.

There are still a few farms collecting this driftwood today. But the process of cleaning and drying the wood is very time-consuming and costly, so it generally only makes financial sense to use the larger trunks. The main tree species transported to the country this way are fir, larch and some spruce and poplar. 

The project was developed with the support of the Danish National Workshops for Arts and Crafts in 2011.

www.svkh.dk

Christmas in Iceland would not be complete without the 13 unruly brothers called the Yuletide Lads. For 13 nights before Christmas, every child in Iceland puts a shoe on the window sill at bedtime, hoping that the Yuletide Lad who passes by that evening will put a little something in the shoe. If the child has been good the Lad might leave behind a small present – but the naughty ones get a raw potato! Meathooker comes to town two days before Christmas. He finds a residence, climbs onto the roof and dangles his hook down the chimney, hoping that its sharp point will fasten into a leg of lamb as it simmers in the pot or hangs in the smoke above the glowing embers.

Meathooker is envisaged here by designer Hrafnkell Birgisson and writer Gerður Kristný. This work is a beautiful fusion of Icelandic culture, design and writing, created for a worthy cause. All proceeds pass to The Benefit Society for Children with Disabilities.

www.jolaoroinn.is/um-jolaoroana/2009---ketkrokur/