2019

nus bird

Concept

The Spotted Nutcracker is a forest-dweller: a songbird that collects nuts from the fir cones of Swiss stone pines for its winter supplies, cleverly hides them and then finds them again, mostly covered by a deep layer of snow. If the bird forgets where the nuts were, a new Swiss stone pine grows. This symbiosis between animal and plants is fascinating and is a model for the ingenious ecological system of mountain regions.

“Nus” means “we” or “us” in Rhaeto-Romance. We belong to nature and are a part of it.

As an object, nus tells this story. This messenger from the mountains of Grisons can even be smelt. The design is symbolically graphic, matching the emblematic function of the object. Carefully formed complementary contours of Swiss stone pine and walnut create a Ying and Yang of contrasts.

Nus is a contemporary design item, an accessory to the Mobilglias collection, “released” and also available in museum shops or hotels. The “hardest nut” to crack, the sales and transport, is simply and directly solved with the box. Incidentally, the bird can also be used as a nutcracker. Nus spreads a pleasant Swiss stone pine fragrance, and perhaps has a certain similarity to Scrat, the sabre-toothed squirrel in the children’s film “Ice Age”, making us discreetly aware of the need to treat nature’s beauty and resources more conscientiously.

Context
A messenger from the mountains of Grisons that can be smelt.
Material
Swiss stone pine and walnut; lathe-turned, milled, glued and smoothened.