Creative pluralism: No House Style at Melbourne Now

No House Style, part of the National Gallery of Victoria's Melbourne Now exhibition, presents an assortment of work by leading and emerging Melbourne-based furniture designers and architects. Located on the ground floor of The Ian Potter Centre, the exhibition celebrates the city's creative talent and unique design approach - one that is cross-disciplinary and does not conform to any "house style." Challenging mainstream design trends, this group of local designers and architects are helping to frame Melbourne architecture and design in a way that is expressive of contemporary issues and values and "creative pluralism."

"This growth in creative pluralism has been matched by the exponential growth in Melbourne residential property prices over the past decade. House prices in Victoria have increased by an annual percentage change of nearly six per cent since 2011," said NGV curators Timothy Moore and Simone LeAmon. "This has seen the accumulation of wealth for many existing homeowners and in tandem a growing appreciation for contemporary design. This has also seen many designers and architects in Melbourne rise to the challenge of providing quality affordable housing and furniture design."

The collection, arranged as a tableaux of small rooms, showcases experimental furniture pieces with artistic intensity alongside images of residential architecture in Victoria.

On display at No House Style is Fiona Lynch Office's collaboration with lighting design practice, Volker Haug Studio. Titled "Ton Tall," the lamp reflects Fiona Lynch Office's commitment to designing with sustainable materials and local fabricators. With sustainability in mind, Lynch has used an existing Volker Haug Studio cast to produce a brutalist-inspired floor lamp made with raw aluminium.

Dale Hardiman, co-founder of furniture and object brand Dowel Jones, and ceramic artist James Lemon have worked together to create the piece "Deep Fake Chair." Originally presented for Melbourne Design Week in 2021, the chair is part of an eleven-piece furniture collection imagined for a chaotic near-future where "deep fakes" could have an impact the design industry.

Combining traditional craftmanship with an exploratory process, "Only if you have enough" is a tactile and expressive table made from Australian limestone by Steven John Clark for Den Holm. A trained stonemason, Clark is guided by instinct and an experimental style to create his sculptural furniture pieces that blur the line between art and design.

Kennedy Nolan's Milkbar House, Studio Bright's Older Women's Housing Project and Edition Office's Hawthorn House are amongst some of the Victorian-based dwellings featured in the exhibition - referencing a contemporary domestic interior and demonstrating exploration of material, form and spatial practice.

"If you think of Melbourne as a brand, there is no one standard that dominates the output of its creative practitioners," Moore and LeAmon said. "This is exemplary in contemporary furniture design and residential architecture, where no house style dominates. Designers can produce a work that stems from a personal expression to evoke emotion, continues a cultural tradition or experiments with materials to explore possible futures."

Melbourne Now is on display until 20 August 2023 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square.