With EOOS, the MAK mounts the first solo exhibition of the eponymous design studio’s product and interior designs and gives insight into its multi-faceted design practice. The MAK DESIGN LAB, a recent EOOS design project, is both showcase and exhibition and provides the context for this retrospective show laid out in the form of a narrative “parcourse” of exhibits. The focus is on the poetic-analytical creative process of studio founders Martin Bergmann (b. 1963, Lienz/East Tyrol), Gernot Bohmann (b. 1968, Krieglach/Steiermark), and Harald Gruendl (b. 1967, Vienna) and the decidedly reduced design language they developed as a team, which moves between the archaic and high-tech and promotes responsible and sustainable consumption.
 
The designer trio met through their studies at the MAK’s neighbor, today’s University of Applied Arts in the late 1980s. Through their interest in other artistic disciplines and philosophical discourse, as well as in the latest technologies, the three complement each other intellectually. With its “Poetic Analysis” approach, EOOS has developed a unique methodology to guide the collective design process. Intuitive images, archaic or quotidian rituals, and mythological stories provide points of departure and reference. An experimental mindset, research orientation, craftsmanship know-how, and attention to technical and aesthetic details engender EOOS’s trenchant quality. Also remarkable is the number of patents held by the studio for technical developments and innovative product solutions.
 
More than 130 design prizes—among them the prestigious design “Oscar,” the Compasso d’Oro—substantiate the professional recognition enjoyed by the successful design studio. Located in Vienna since 1995, EOOS has won a global clientele. In coming up with their designs—whether for products, furniture, or interiors—the designers are actively engaged with their project partners and affiliated clients. Customers like Alessi, Armani, adidas, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, bulthaup, Dedon, Duravit, Hussl, Lamy, MatteoGrassi, Herman Miller, Keilhauer, Walter Knoll, and Zumtobel value the brand-focused collaboration and the designs dispensing with stylistic allure.
 
“EOOS” not only refers to one of the mythical cart horses hitched to the sun chariot in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, but names a design forge as a driving force in contemporary Austrian and international design. By exclusively staging the EOOS-developed installation EOOS transforms in the room normally dedicated to the works of Josef Hoffmann, the MAK underscores the importance of this current generation of designers as guides to a Digital Modernity and honors the outstanding achievements of this studio in its twenty-year history.

Curator: Thomas Geisler, Curator, MAK Design Collection

Interventions at the MAK DESIGN LAB >>
 

Book presentation and dramatic reading with EOOS:

by: EOOS
Design between Archaic and High Tech
Tue, 2.6., 7 p.m., MAK FORUM
EOOS designs arise in the field of tension between the archaic and high-tech. With its “Poetical Analysis” approach, the studio has created a unique research tool that examines rituals, intuitive images, and myths and interprets these anew. EOOS’s decidedly reduced design language covers a broad bandwidth of projects ranging from interior design to home and office furniture to product designs for everyday objects.
 With a comprehensive catalog of works and texts by Thomas Geisler, Katarina V. Posch, and Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, and also stories by EOOS about EOOS, the monograph appears on the occasion of the solo exhibition EOOS in the MAK DESIGN LAB.

On the publication:
Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Director, MAK
Martin Bergmann, Gernot Bohmann, Harald Gruendl, EOOS
 
by: EOOS
Design between Archaic and High Tech
Edited by EOOS and MAK, with contributions by EOOS, Thomas Geisler, Katarina V. Posch and Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, German/English, 300 pages, MAK Vienna/Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2015, € 51,40
 

Guided Tours

Curator-guided tour of the exhibition with Thomas Geisler, Curator, MAK Design Collection:
Tue, 3.2., with Harald Gruendl, EOOS
Tue, 24.3., with Martin Bergmann, EOOS
Tue, 28.4., with Gernot Bohmann, EOOS
at 6 p.m.
 

Related Events

Tue, 3 Feb 2015, 7:30 p.m.
Cooking up a kitchen
EOOS in conversation with Eva B. Ottillinger, art historian and deputy scientific head of the Imperial Furniture Collection Vienna, curator of the exhibition The Kitchen and its Furniture - Design and history (4 Mar – 26 Jul 2015); and Helmut Österreicher, chef and gastronomist.
When comes the kitchen? What does one really need for cooking? EOOS published the knowledge accumulated in the course of developing the b2 kitchen system for bulthaup in a book entitled The Cooked Kitchen: A Poetical Analysis. An open exchange of ideas from the theory and practice of cooking.

Tue, 17 Feb 2015, 7:30 p.m.
A room for giants or dwarves?
EOOS in conversation with Lilli Hollein, architecture and design curator, director of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK; and Marie-Therese Harnoncourt, architect, the next ENTERprise.
Is design architecture on a small scale? Where does scale divide or link these disciplines? By invitation of aut. architektur und tirol, EOOS (together with architectural firm the next ENTERprise, 2012) developed an installation for the exhibition eins zu zwei – zwei zu eins [one to two–two to one], which uses archetypal furniture to make it possible to experience various relationships to the space. An open exchange of ideas in a reconstruction of the setting.
 
Tue, 24 Feb 2015, 7:30 p.m.
Alpine Seating
EOOS in conversation with Sebastian Hackenschmidt, Curator, MAK Furniture and Woodwork Collection; and Peter Hussl, CEO of HUSSL Sitzmöbel.
What constitutes alpine furniture? Can tradition and innovation be reconciled in today’s carpentry trade? The archaic peasant furniture of the Alpine area has fascinated EOOS for quite some time; the furniture series Alpin for HUSSL is their discovery of a contemporary answer. An open exchange of ideas from the theory and practice of furniture design.