gebr.silvestri is a Amsterdam-based design studio. We – Adrian Silvestri-Chyle and Stefan Silvestri – work as art directors and designers in two and three dimensions. We produce visual solutions in media ranging from print to online to 3D. Our projects range from brand identities and books through products to exhibition and stage design.
Following our five-year training in two- and three-dimensional design at Schule für Gestaltung St. Gallen and at Globus in St. Gallen in our native Switzerland, we both studied graphic design at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Our design studio gebr.silvestri has been in business since 1994.
We have been giving workshops in typography and the language of images at Merz Akademie in Stuttgart since 1996 and teaching at Design Academy Eindhoven since 2004. In the past we gave workshops at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Mulhouse (1998–1999) and we taught at St Joost Akademie in Breda (2002–2004).
tussen de bogen 50 1013jb Amsterdam
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info@gebr.silvestri.nl
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2006Artist’s book
To create this site-specific work at Japan’s National Museum of Art in Osaka, Swiss conceptual artist Christian Philipp Müller first tracked down all 54 different types of chair then present in the museum. He subsequently arranged them in chronological order (by their date of design) on a colourful, stair-step platform to create a typology of usage. In connection with this unique work, we were asked to design a book with texts in English, German and Japanese. It was to serve as an inventory of the differences in status among the different chairs.
The artist’s book we designed includes photographs of all 54 chairs in their various functions, along with simple product descriptions and storage conditions. The installation serves as a fine commentary on the current fetish of the chair as a design object and on our nostalgia for these familiar shapes, some of which have become high-class consumer goods.
The square, 128-page book is printed in full colour and bound in a full-colour hardcover printed on silver foiled paper including an extra glossy spot UV. To make the content more accessible through the design, we used the same colour scheme on the fore-edge of the book block that Müller used in his installation. For the end leaves we used iridescent Conqueror paper.
Publisher: Christiane Kintisch, BAWAG Foundation EditionText: Christian Philipp Müller, Hiroyuki Nakanishi, Christian Witt-Döring, Bennett SimsonPrinter: Druckerei Rema Print Littera (Vienna)
see also:Kunstmuseum Basel – Museum für Gegenwartskunst: ‘Christian Philipp Müller’Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Christian Philipp Müller ‘The spirit of the Haus: 20 years of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 1989–2009’Haus der Kunst: Christian Philipp Müller ‘Histories in conflict: Haus der Kunst and the ideological uses of art, 1937–1955’
