Besides making steel, brass and wooden sculptures, Richardt created Minimalist design Over a decade for Danish design studio Frama: a day bed, living room chairs, candle holders, shelving systems, a very minimalist lamp for the restaurant Noma.
Sophie Charara
Even so, Frama passed on tool one Vearkalso in Copenhagen, which makes professional kitchen-inspired tools. For co-founders Daniel Ronge and Christian Lorentzen, it was love at first sight.
We talked about the sheer simplicity of this thing, but Richardt's inspiration was, of course, partly from tools in Asia. Cooking chopsticks, often made from bamboo, have long been used by professional stir-fry chefs for tasting and sampling in the kitchen.
“I had some chopsticks at home that I used to stir oatmeal with in the morning for a few years, and it was a little too small to do that,” he says. Then I thought I could make it larger into a design that could also flip a pancake. In Japan, they actually have some pretty big chopsticks, but they still use them in pairs when they stir, and they're quite fun to handle.
And there is more reality. Wooden utensils can last for decades compared to years for silicone alternatives (if cleaned and stored properly), and have had a Lots of discussion later how many toxic chemicals black plastic spoons can often expose users to.
Sophie Charara
In terms of design, we've clearly been moving in this direction for a while, arguably desiring less and less. Joseph's kitchen tools and minimalist stacking we've been strangely drawn to for a while, while Jony Ive has done for computers what his predecessors in industrial design did making, say, the chairs and lamps iconic.
Abstract wooden scandi toys in beige, cream and gray, though, can be quite infuriating. They should be bright red and green and make a lot of noise. And nativity sets without blocks, cannot be adhered to. Ridiculous. They simply collect urine. But I think we can safely say that you can't get more minimalist than a stick.
As Wired senior editor Jeremy White exclaimed, How could something so absurd be so desirable? Is a stirring stick inherently more than a spoon, perhaps? Like something Bear Can Carmy Berzatto throw over a kitchen?
“It's a humble tool. “I was amazed at the simple thing of having a stick stir your food,” says Richardt with a laugh. It took me back to something that I can't explain, but it's a nice feeling. I felt that I had been transported back to the Neanderthals.