The transformed gardens at the Natural History Museum tell the story of evolution on our planet, from 2.7 billion years ago to the present day.

As part of the project Gitta designed two Rock Viewers that frame views of extinct animals on the museums’ historic façade. The viewers draw connections between the events being illustrated in the garden and the stories being told on Victorian facade of the building.

Feilden Fowles led the transformation, collaborating closely with the Museum’s experts, and working in collaboration with landscape architects J&L Gibbons.

Image credit

Simon Sorted

The transformed gardens at the Natural History Museum include a new learning landscape that showcases UK urban nature and biodiversity.

As part of the project Gitta has designed an installation that engages the visitors with the underground connections between tree roots and fungi networks. An abstract brass inlay of the fungi threads is cast into the path, visually connecting the two talking tubes.

Feilden Fowles led the transformation, working in close collaboration with the Museum’s experts and landscape architects J&L Gibbons.

Image credit

Simon Sorted

The transformed gardens at the Natural History Museum tell the story of evolution on our planet, from 2.7 billion years ago to the present day.

 As part of the project Gitta has designed several floor inlays, working closely with the Museum’s graphic designer and the landscape architects J&L Gibbons. The inlays interpret the changing geological periods and how life on earth evolved.

Feilden Fowles led the transformation, working in collaboration with the Museum’s experts and landscape architects J&L Gibbons.

Image credit

Simon Sorted

The transformed gardens at the Natural History Museum include a new learning landscape that showcases UK biodiversity.

 As part of the project Gitta has designed several brass funnels that interpret and draw attention to urban nature. The Pond Funnel shows an automata of an animated water flea, other funnels let you listen to the sounds of decaying wood or water rushing up the trunk of a tree. Two funnels frame the view of terracotta animals on the building’s historic façade, while the Pollen Funnel houses an automata that shows how the bee-fly pollinates a primrose.

Feilden Fowles led the transformation, working in close collaboration with the Museum’s experts and landscape architects J&L Gibbons, and alongside engineersHRW and Max Fordham. The automatas are by Martin Smith.

Image credit

1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9 @ Simon Sorted

7 @ © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum

The transformed gardens at the Natural History Museum include a new learning landscape that showcases UK urban nature and biodiversity.

As part of the project Gitta has designed several tactile installations working closely with the museums team. In the west garden brass creatures and plants are dotted around the landscape, inviting the visitor to discover natures unsung heros. In the Evolution Garden in the East the brass tactiles are presented on accompanying labels.

Feilden Fowles led the transformation, working in close collaboration with the Museum’s experts and landscape architects J&L Gibbons.

Image credit

Simon Sorted

The transformed gardens at the Natural History Museum include a new learning landscape that showcases UK urban nature and biodiversity.

As part of the project Gitta has designed a story telling bench. The bench has been carved out of storm felled timber and creates a focal point in the garden’s outdoor classroom. Children’s drawings of insects have been engraved into brass discs dotted around the trunk of the bench.

Feilden Fowles led the transformation, working in close collaboration with the Museum’s experts and  landscape architects J&L Gibbons.

Image credit

1 & 2 @ Simon Sorted
3 @ Jim Stephenson, The Trustees of The Natural History Museum, Feilden Fowles

The transformed gardens at the Natural History Museum tell the story of evolution on our planet, from 2.7 billion years ago to the present day.

As part of the project Gitta designed the 3D hardware for the wayfinding, building names and interpretation working closely with the museum’s graphic designers.

Feilden Fowles led the transformation, collaborating closely with the Museum’s experts, and working in collaboration with landscape architects J&L Gibbons.

Image credit

Simon Sorted

Permanent furniture installation for Guy’s Cancer Centre, London.

Genius Loci is a furniture commission focused on creating a sensitive and coherent patient-centred narrative across the public areas within the Centre. The Screen Seats overlapping translucent screens create a sculptural interplay beyond the pure functionality of the furniture, while the varied heights of the screens, some of which extend across the floors, create dramatic lines.

The ‘Welcome’ table on the ground floor breaks up the large meeting table form and enables the reception space to be used by as many people as possible, retaining the philosophy of a shared and open environment. The smaller reception desks, present on each of the treatment village receptions, combine an open reception desk with a floating table surface to encourage a more informal and personal use of this area. A new armchair and side chair have been developed, addressing the requirement for patients.

Photos: Simon Sorted

Furniture installation for the National Trust

”Please Sit” is an exhibition of site specific furniture installations curated and designed for the National Trust at Fenton House in London. The exhibition helps interpret the eclectic property by inviting the visitor to slow down, sit down and look again at the house and it’s collections. Gitta invited 5 other designers to create site specific seats interpreting a given room as well as designing her seats for the Rockingham Room and the garden. Her Jacob’s Chair and Benches are inspired by an embroidery of Jacob’s Dream, inside the house the golden chair is ethereal, alluding to the mind ascending. In the orchard the dark seats are more grounded, suggestive of apple harvest.

Concept Kitchen design

The Drawer Kitchen is a concept kitchen that has been designed for the Italian kitchen manufacturer Schiffini for the Wallpaper* Handmade project in Milan 2010.

The Drawer Kitchen is a functional kitchen island that has a very sculptural, abstract and deconstructivist appearance, almost like an ‘exploded’ storage unit. The unit looks dynamic when not in use, but become even more dramatic when the drawers are being pulled out.

The chandelier was originally designed for the Deptford Design Market Challenge, turning market finds into desirable goods. Shuttlecock Science references the structure of molecule models while capturing the spirit of the birdy in flight.

Site specific lighting installation for the exhibition “Uncanny Rooms” at Pitzhangor Manor, London.

Based on traditional pleated silk lampshades, the lights appear to be strangely alive. They crawl up walls, hug table legs and squeeze into corners. The perceived plasticity of the Uncanny Lamps is unlikely and strange: objects which are frozen mid sentence.

The Hugging Lamp and Double Vision Lamp are held in the V&A Museum’s collection.

The Bodge Bench was made over 5 days bodging in Clissett Wood in 2010. Bodging is a traditional craft where furniture is made without power tools from freshly-cut wood close to where the tree is felled. Bodging foregrounds sustainable making on a small scale and highlights woodlands’ capacity to nurture creativity.

The Bodge Bench has been aquired by the V&A for their collection in 2022.

Photo in woods © Jason Orton

Permanent Seating installation for the V&A, London

The brief for the commission asked for the installation to be inspired by original chairs on display in the V&A’s Furniture Gallery. Gitta Gschwendtner has chosen six timber chairs from across the collection, each constructed by different making techniques. The chair parts are set seemingly randomly into the curved bench seat – each back mismatched with a different set of legs. Chair Bench playfully draws the attention to the construction and form of timber chairs throughout the centuries while giving the visitor a chance to experience the pieces up close.

Furniture range

The Bodge Series started as part of a bodging workshop in 2010. Bodging is the traditional way of creating Windsor chairs from green timber using only hand tools. During this workshop Gitta Gschwendtner created a two-seater bench, which inspired a range of factory made pieces including a 6 meter bench as well as the side chair. The armchair and coffee table were later developed to complement a large-scale furniture installation for the Guy’s Cancer Centre in London.

The Bodge Armchair has been aquired by the Vitra Design Museum for their collection in 2021.

A series of Soft Smiles to mark the strange times of Covid lockdown.

Working with a limited palette of materials from home Gitta has created three-dimensional yellow felt smiles that look to be inhabiting the house. Rooted in her interest in surreal shapes and objects that appear to have a life of their own the smiles are seen slumping down stairs, catching the sun on a beam, slipping down shelves and being transformed by fruit.

This light hearted projects explores the communal feeling of being trapped at home while injects a bit of humour during an unusual and scary time of our lives.

Site specific lighting installation for Erno Goldfingers 2 Willow Road house in London.

Celebrating 100 years since women received the right to vote curator Frith Kerr invited 7 women to respond to works by female artist for “Ahead of the Curve” at 2 Willow Road. Taking the cue from Helen Phillips’ sculpture named “Suspended Figure”, now positioned on the floor, Gitta decided to suspend the surreal Soft Lamp in the glorious stairwell above it.

Seating installation for the Design Museum, London

The Bag Stools respond to the theme of consumerism by seemingly turning a shopping bag up-side down and inviting people to slow down, sit down and enjoy the view rather than material consumption.

The Bag Stool is held in the Design Museum’s collection.

Ceramic vase prototypes

The vases were originally designed for “Please Sit”, an exhibition curated for the National Trust at Fenton House. The vases reference the clouds in an embroidery of Jacob’s Dream in the Rockingham Room of the house.

The Slip Shelf appears to have slipped down the wall, the shelving compartments transforming into a magazine rack.

The shelf has been originally designed for the exhibition Them Indoors at the Geffrye Museum.

Ceramic pendant lights

The cable strangles the shade and therefore determines its shape.
The form of the shade has been developed by squeezing a slip-cast cone while it was still wet and malleable. The resulting shape was used as a master for the mould making. The finished shade retains the quality of a soft material despite being hard ceramic.

This rocking chair has been made in a day at Carl Clerkins’ Beasley Brothers Repair Shop as part of the Eternally Yours exhibition at Somerset House. The exhibition explores ideas around care, repair and healing and invited designers utilised donated off-cuts and components to create new objects in Carl’s on gallery workshop.

Three vintage coffee tables collide to become one curious crossbreed.

The Crossbreed Table was originally design for the exhibition Them Indoors at the Geffrye Museum.

This little table was made during the Great Heal’s Bodging Race, where 10 designers and makers set up a workshop in the shop window of Heal’s furniture shop. The designers used donated materials and shared their skills to make pieces of furniture on the spot.

For the Magazine Table Gitta utilises the Bonners leather working skills to integrate a stitched magazine rack into the wooden surface.