Visitors to group exhibition The Best of East and West would have agreed that form didn’t necessarily follow function. Running from 22 to 27 March, the show gathered works by 12 of the design world’s luminaries in the lobby of Lanson Place Hotel Hong Kong.

The exhibition was organised by Design Harbour, and, with no overarching themes running across the exhibits, the show felt less like a curated exhibition and more like a sneak peek into some of the interesting ideas coming out of the design world.

The exhibits on display in the lobby of Lanson Place Hotel Hong Kong

One of the exhibitors whose works were on display was industrial designer Christopher Boots. Inspired by nature – plants, animals and minerals – the Melbourne-based designer’s creations are organic, yet at the same time, exact. He favours brass, quartz crystal and marble, and in Prometheus IV, named after the Greek god of fire, natural quartz crystal is set in a 450mm dis brushed brass ring to stunning effect.

Crafted from solid brass, opal acrylic and white Carrara marble, the Portal table lamp is inspired by Duchamp’s sculptural forms, but also denotes “a magical or technological passageway connecting two environments, dimensions, or points in time”. The lamp can either sit on a counter or, when freed of its marble base, hang on a wall.

Christopher Boots’ rings of light can be seen in the background

Blue Shanghai White’s one-seater was particularly mesmerising: it featured a blue-and-white porcelain back propped atop an aged wooden chair. While often displayed next to each other in a traditional Chinese home, porcelain and wood are rarely combined in the same piece of design – it’s a challenge the Shanghai-based brand is taking up, with beautiful results.

Also on display was a series of mirrors composed of fragmented, reflected glass. Created by Stonefox, an architecture and design firm from the US, Identity Check provides a tongue-in-cheek critique of today’s selfie phenomenon, but also relates to the design firm’s work with art collectors. What is the relationship between collecting and identity? Is one’s character the sum of what one collects? These are some of the questions Identity Check asks the viewer to consider.

Identity Check by Stonefox

At the back of the lobby, Japanese designer Hamajima Takuya’s formalistic furniture pieces had a strong story-telling component. Highlights included Shelf_03, its steely lines and curves evoking the image of a mother and child in tight embrace.

Shelf_03 by Hamajima Takuya

Other designer-artists exhibiting at The Best of East and West included Tomohiro Shibuki, Daniel Libeskind and Michael Young for Lasvit.

Design Harbour
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