Anything made in China is instantly labelled an inferior product. Often people associate the country with mass production and poor quality, but actually there is a fantastic design scene emerging and many workshops exist that are centred around producing objects of quality rather than quantity. So I was pleased to see this fantastic furniture by Chinese industrial designer Gu Qi under the name of Fnji Furniture.

Originally from northeast China, Gu Qi moved to Beijing and found an impressive craft tradition. Here he started to produce some of his designs with the help of a local factory, and later opened a studio space to showcase the furniture in an environment that he designed himself. Now he updates his collection and is working on producing other functional objects for the home.

I think the situation in China is a very interesting one. As Western ideals are quite rapidly becoming part of their everyday, many Chinese are abandoning their traditional roots for something more modern. So it’s going to be interesting to see how designers start to incorporate this back in to their design. I’ve seen glimmers of it here in the work designed by Gu Qi, so it’s exciting to see what else they might produce in the near future. Enjoy.

(Source:the189.com  Author:Mark Robinson)