Frank Buchwald

When we first noticed his unique pieces, we instantly wanted to meet the artist behind this sculptural lamp designs to get to know more about him and his work.

Frank Buchwald crosses the lines between design and art with his work and his lamps are much more than only luminiferous. They are objects and sculptures that remind of insects which stand on spider legs and seem to be above all rough and unaffected. Frank Buchwald has always been fascinated by technical artifacts. In his early childhood, he first got in touch with the rough world of big machines, steam locomotives and heavy, stamping gears. This time was of great influence and the fascination for mechanical, archaic objects followed along ever since. The rough machine characteristic is reflected by his exclusive lamp designs. The pure, visible technique, which gets along without any decorations and fake embellishments is the signature feature of Frank Buchwald’s work.

When Frank Buchwald first set foot in the metal atelier of a friend he was instantly excited about metal and its processing. There he found the material which helped him to express himself in the future. ‘Only when I’m productive I know that I’m alive’, the designer an artist says. His conceptual work takes places solely on paper and dummies made of plates of hard foam. He doesn’t use a computer for his drafts, he’d rather use the floor to a draft sketches, capturing spontaneous ideas. He can find his inspirations almost everywhere. In current or bygone industrial buildings, in architecture or also in completely different areas like the electrode microscopic molecular biology; there he is confronted with structures, which arouse his interest. Currently he is working on a new morphic draft which will be chromed in contrast to his otherwise black colored lamps. ‘Everything can be exciting if one has the intuition and is sensitive enough to look behind the things and to discover the magic of the smallness’, Buchwald explains.
With his lamps Buchwald transforms a piece of his inner world outwards and lets the viewer participate on what’s happening in his mind. He is completely aware of the fact that we are depending on electricity and are living in a fragile balance with the omnipresent machines, without whom our modern society wouldn’t work. You can find his timeless objects mainly in exclusive interiors like in Roland Emmerich’s Berlin apartment, in which they can evolve their full and unique effect.

Text and Images by Caroline Kurze