/ Newspaper article in: “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung“ from 23.08.2004
Bottom is top and top is bottom
The Frankfurt designer Knut Völzke has created universal furniture whose form and function know no limits
By Peter-Philipp Schmitt
He named the tray “May”, the side table “Julie”, the bookends “August”. What sounds like months of the year
are more than just labels for furniture. Each one is a hommage. Ernst May was a master of simplicity: More
than eighty years ago, the architect produced affordable living space in Frankfurt, Germany by industrializing
the construction phase with prefabricated parts and repeated floor plans. August Moralt was a master joiner
and the inventor of laminated veneer: He glued together layers of solid wood and strengthened the sides with
veneer. Furniture material cannot get any lighter, more stable, or more natural. And Julie? Knut Völzke laughs,
“That should evoke the month I was born in.”
The Frankfurt designer Knut Völzke, born in 1968, is a trained cabinet maker. He worked in this area for ten
years after secondary school. Lastly, as a master craftsman, he managed a workshop – in Ostwestfalen, the
home of well-known furniture labels such as Interlübke, Cor, and Poggenpohl, for whom Völzke produced
prototypes. “Many of which couldn’t be produced.” The task appealed to him, partially because he believed
that he, as a practitioner, could offer something that not every architect or a designer could.
Völzke is not only a craftsman, he is also a design theorist. For this reason, he was drawn to Frankfurt, where
he was convinced by the “extensive theoretical approach” of the Offenbach Academy of Art and Design
(HfG). At the HfG, he learned the “trinity” of product language: Which form does a product have (the socalled formal aesthetic function), what is it evidently for (function of appearance), how does it impact the
observer (function of symbols)? In regards to his collection, the last category kept him occupied. Is “May”
classic, modern, or perhaps even sexy?
“May” was the starting point for his line of furniture. It is “the essence of a tray, a surface that you can
set something on, having two folded ends with which you can pick it up,” says Völzke. “May” cannot be
associated with only one function. Depending upon how you turn and rotate it, the tray becomes a podium,
table, stool – or a lid for “Julie”. Together with “May”, “Julie” becomes a closable container. Without “May”
and set on its side, the box becomes a shelf; set next to and on top of each other, it becomes a shelf unit.
“My idea grew in width and height.” The collection became more complex: “Julie 219” combined with
“May” simply means that the bottom form is 19 centimeters high and can accommodate two lids (each 28
centimeters wide). The container “Julie” comes in various heights (19, 30, and 45 centimeter) and widths: 31,
59, 87, 115, and even 199 centimeters. “Julie” combined with “May” forms a sideboard or media furniture into
which everything fits, from a television to a DVD player.
The universal furniture is produced by his former colleagues in his hometown, Gütersloh in Germany. The
special and extremely fine laminated veneer made of spruce is also produced there, which is then coated
with a layer of colorful resin. The forty-one-year-old has refined August Moralt’s technique to the point that
the wood is exposed along the edges and the wooden grain of the glued layers is visible. It is effective,
gorgeous, and feels good to the touch. Moreover, Völzke selected only seven colors, which can be perfectly
mixed and matched: white, sand, lilac, mocha, grey, and blue.
The designer, who is meanwhile designing entire interiors (the last project was for the German Institute for
International Educational Research in Frankfurt) and currently creating a new tile collection for Villeroy &
Boch, does not work under his own name. He calls his studio “leise” (meaning quiet or hushed). It is a term
that fits his work as he understands it. The name “Simple” would have been too simplistic. It also does not
convey any atmosphere. “Leise”, on the other hand, suits him—and his furniture.
Additional information on Leise can be found on the Internet at www.leise-leise.com. The furniture collection
by Knut Völzke (the tray “May” costs €119) is available in Berlin at Andreas Murkudis (www.andreasmurkudis.
net), in Munich at Thiersch 15 (www.thiersch15.de), in Hamburg at Sleeping Dogs Concept Store located at
stilwerk Hamburg (www.sleeping-dogs.de), in Cologne at Magazin (www.magazin-koeln.de), and in London
at Do Shop Limited (www.do-shop.com).