Light takes the leading role during Imm Cologne 2018

This year, during the famous Imm Cologne fair, visitors will have the opportunity to admire an innovative exhibition. “Light Labs” is the slogan for this year's Featured Editions at the international interiors show Imm cologne 2018. But it is more than just a mere slogan: the exhibition is conceived as laboratories made up of small spaces only enclosed by transparent gauze, creating tent-like structures. Here light is given a space of its own where it can illuminate, shine through, reflect, sparkle, climb, radiate out and
step into the limelight.

The creative exhibitors in the Pure Editions halls - including names such as Vitra, Cappellini and Zeitraum - have taken up the challenge and produced some extraordinary ideas.

Photography: Lucie Smyslová, Brokis, Koelnmesse

Each year, imm cologne exhibitors collaborate with a creative professional selected by them to develop new showcases presenting products in the development stage or as objects that are purely of aesthetic or cultural historical interest or, in some cases, from an unfamiliar angle following an artistic intervention. These original installations will be erected within the Pure Editions design segment on nine stages
distributed throughout Halls 2.2 and 3.2. For the sixth Featured Editions, these stages will be constructed as Light Labs.

The Featured Editions is an exclusive exhibition format that imm cologne offers Pure Editions exhibitors each year, giving them the chance to make a statement in the form of an installation. Instead of having a single central location, the exhibition will be staged in nine pyramids - the Light Labs - scattered across the hall, reflecting the open structure of the hall's architecture.

Limiting the exhibition to nine pyramids guarantees an exceptional standard of quality and ensures that its statement to the public and the media is brief and to the point. All exhibitors interested in participating had to apply with a concept that they developed in collaboration with a creative professional - a designer, architect, interior architect, craftsperson or artist - to be staged at the fair.

Photography: Chiaramonte Marin, Emu, Koelnmesse

A jury made up of some major industry players, such as Dick Spierenburg (Creative Director imm cologne), Oliver Jahn (Editor-in-Chief AD Deutschland), Lise Coirier (Editor-in-Chief TL Magazine), Peter-Philipp Schmitt (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and Robert Volhard (founder and Chief Executive Stylepark), will select the best designs at imm cologne 2018.

The installations will be produced with the trade fair's cooperation partner Stylepark. The Featured Editions installations this year will not focus primarily on furniture, but instead on light and lighting in a different context unrelated to home interiors. Where furniture would normally take the spotlight, this year light itself will appear in the starring role.

Photography: Vitra Design Team, Vitra, Koelnmesse

Designers and exhibitors create their own visions of light in nine light labs

Luminaires and light furniture are stacked in heaps, transported into the jungle or connected to form a glowing network. In Emu's installation, luminaires are transformed into the mythical creatures of the deep and float over coral chairs, while in Zeitraum's creation lights illuminate like pieces of jewellery in an
artistically visual ensemble of branches made of brackets, and Gie El succeeds in making even rust shine. Vitra packs its Light Lab with Akari Light Sculptures, filling the stage so much so that light and space, sphere and pyramid, appear to be caught up in a battle for supremacy. Pedrali adopts a humorous take on the theme and presents a fight between good and evil in the form of a battery-powered lamp versus a band of plugs and cables. In the Alias installation, design classics are arranged on mirrored surfaces, creating multiple refracted images, while Cappellini examines the interplay between colour, light and glass, and Dante turns luminaires into navigation beacons.

Photography: Cappellini, Koelnmesse

Decorative light 2018: a highlight at Pure Editions

At imm cologne 2018, the subject of light will be illuminated from two key perspectives: firstly, decorative light in its most varied forms and lighting-fixture designs and, secondly, technical lighting with complex and easily controllable lighting solutions.

Luminaires that emit subtle light, add the final touch to a room as a design element or pick out key eye-catching features will be found in abundance in the Pure Editions segment. The new format, Pure Architects, on the other hand, is transforming itself into the home of technical lighting. LEDs, integrated lighting systems, lighting technology, lighting design, architectural lighting - the subject takes on a whole new dimension in the new-look Hall 4.2.

Photography: Andrea Sanguineti, Alias, Koelnmesse

Koelnmesse - Global Competence in Furniture, Interiors and Design

Koelnmesse is the world's top trade fair organiser for the areas of furnishing, living and lifestyle. At the trade fair hub of Cologne, the leading international fair imm cologne as well as the trade fair formats of LivingKitchen, ORGATEC, spoga+gafa, interzum and Kind + Jugend rank among the internationally renowned and established industry meeting places. These fairs comprehensively represent the upholstered and case furniture segment, the kitchen industry, the office furniture sector and outdoor living as well as the innovations of the furniture supply industry. Over the last few years, Koelnmesse has specifically added international fairs in the most important fastexpanding markets to its portfolio. These include the LivingKitchen China/CIKB in Shanghai, interzum guangzhou in Guangzhou and Pueri Expo in Sao Paulo. With ambista, the network of the interior decorating industry, Koelnmesse offers direct access to relevant products, contacts, competence and events.

Source: Koelnmesse

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