Nea studio, an Architectural Design firm based in Norway and New York, announces the launch of its new furniture line. Five pieces from the Arctic Line, designed by Nina Edwards Anker, will be exhibited for the first time in May 2007. In 2002, the New York architect, Nina Edwards Anker, lost—and then found—herself in the beauty of Scandinavian design and Nordic nature.
What Anker saw with her fresh eyes came as a surprise. The region’s heritage of modernist furniture addressed the three desires that she knew were forming in the collective unconscious: the yearning for sensuality, purity, and effortless functionality. “Although there is an austerity to the Nordic sensibility, there is a raw power and physicality to the land that is almost primitive,” Anker says. “This combination is compelling; the aesthetic is very understated and elegant, yet run through with a brute sense of the body and the natural elements that govern every aspect of life here.” Inspired to investigate this mix further through her own designs, Anker put the life she knew in New York City on pause and turned instead towards the Arctic Circle.
Working out of Oslo, Anker incorporates precise structural systems into organic, sculptural forms. Years of architectural training and experience inform every part of her process: each of the five furniture pieces is conceived and designed with a rigor usually reserved for buildings. The debut collection on view at the Talent Zone is inspired by Arctic ice and snow. The astounding precision of natural phenomena inspires the furniture’s pure, unwavering lines. The unexpected, at times playful, dance of light in the Nordic winter landscape is echoed by the swooping curves, sharp angles, and the stunning,
reflective materials, such as giant plates of stainless steel. Anker’s production methods also reflect her geographic circumstance: the prototypes are made with a combination of advanced digital technology and vernacular craft knowledge. nea studio’s work speaks a language of this moment, in which organic fluidity is balanced by scientific rigor.
About nea studio
After four years of work experience in architectural firms in both Manhattan and Oslo, and two years of teaching experience at New York’s Pratt Institute, Edwards Anker started nea studio in 2006. She received her Masters in Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 2001 after completing two years at the Architectural Association in London.
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