There are manufacturers that survive a century, after which there are manufacturers that deserve to. Bang & Olufsen, the Danish purveyor of audio objects so stunning they should be insured alongside your jewelry, falls squarely into the latter class. Based in 1925 in a modest attic in Struer, Denmark, by Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen — two engineering college students with slightly grand ambitions — the model has spent the previous hundred years making the remainder of us really feel that odd audio system are merely not an choice. A Century of Sound (百年拂声), their centenary exhibition in Shanghai, made this case with appreciable authority.
Unfold throughout six immersive rooms at Shengjia Backyard — a century-old property on Hengshan Highway — the exhibition traced the model’s evolution from pioneering Danish upstart to world design powerhouse. What struck me most instantly was how shockingly modern their archive appeared. Merchandise designed three many years in the past possessed the type of quiet confidence that makes trendy releases appear, by comparability, determined for consideration. That’s the hallmark of real design intelligence: the refusal to chase a second.
Every room informed a unique chapter. The Artwork Deco salon, richly appointed and atmospheric, proved that B&O’s modern industrial vocabulary might maintain its personal in opposition to the period’s most ornate interiors — no small feat. Nevertheless it was the Minimalism room that gave me pause. A gleaming chrome steel dice, spare and exact, it transported you on to the Nineteen Nineties — that decade of unpolluted strains and cooler-than-thou restraint that’s, in fact, having its inevitable cultural revival. B&O didn’t simply take part in that aesthetic; they helped writer it. Standing inside that room, I discovered myself pondering: that is what it seems to be like when a model is at all times 5 years forward, for 100 years working.
Then there was the Artwork of the A9 — a collaboration with 5 Chinese language creatives that elevated B&O’s signature speaker right into a canvas for cultural dialog: architect Zhang Yonghe, designer Li Ximi, singer Mavis Fan, tech creator He Tongxue and actor and model ambassador Gong Jun. Every introduced a definite sensibility to the A9, however He’s contribution was the standout: a floral design that actually blossomed when warmth was utilized to its floor. It was probably the most quietly arresting factor I noticed all night.
The ultimate room required a sure composure. The centrepiece was the Beolab 90 Titan Version — a decade on from the speaker’s unique debut, this strictly restricted centenary version strips again the acoustic veils completely to show the hand-finished aluminium cupboard in all its uncooked, 65kg glory, with the tweeter housing machined from a single block of stable aluminium and each fastener individually polished and engraved with “1925”. Beside it stood the Beolab 90 Alchemy Version, its walnut struts accented with 24-carat gold-plated nodes and its grilles handcrafted in bronze thread by specialist artisans. Collectively, they made the case that B&O has by no means actually been within the enterprise of creating audio system. They make objects you fall in love with that occur to provide extraordinary sound.
The night concluded at JZ Membership, Shanghai’s most storied jazz vacation spot, the place a up to date ensemble performed a century of fashionable music in chronological sequence — from the jazz-age swagger of Placing on the Ritz all over to The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights. Leslie Cheung’s Monica introduced the home down, because it has a manner of doing, in any decade. The 5 collaborating artists then took to the stage for a panel on timelessness in design — a becoming near a night that had simply made the argument slightly convincingly by itself.
Some manufacturers age. Others, like a superbly engineered piece of Danish aluminium, merely endure.
This text was written by Pakkee Tan and was first seen on GRAZIA Singapore.
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