Kobi Gantenbein

Criss & Cross: Design from Switzerland 1860-2007 Kobi Gantenbein Bilingual edition

From Le Corbusier to the Helvetica font, Switzerland has produced some of the most influential product and graphic design of the twentieth century. This sleek volume collects the best examples spanning from the early twentieth century (tiny slippers with pom-poms attached, made for little girls in the 1930s) to 2007 (Peter Muller's most recent avant garde fashion collection). One chapter is devoted to things that are "Small and Beautiful," like a 1926 pocket watch by Movado or the 2006 MX Revolution Logitech computer mouse, while others collect "Tiny Helpers" like the series of Swiss bank notes produced in 1997. In "Up to the Mountains" we find snowboards, chalets, avalanche dogs and other high-design rescue equipment, and in "The Longsellers," we get to classics like the Swiss army knife, an iconic vegetable peeler and Le Corbusier's famous LC1 1928 armchair. An extremely sexy book packed with great visuals and truly pertinent information.