Designer transforms platbands from old village houses into colorful masterpieces

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Vitaly Zhuikov from Moscow came up with a wonderful idea: he finds old, unnecessary platbands in remote villages, brings them to the capital and gives them a second life, turning them into stylish interior items. For example, in mirror frames. It is very important that the designer tries to preserve the individuality and folk color of old wooden objects, laid down many years ago by the authors, but at the same time to make them fashionable.

Vitaly was born in 1969 in the capital of Udmurtia, Izhevsk; he has lived and worked in Moscow for over twenty years. Educated at the School of Art, he worked for several years as a graphic designer, then as an art director for interior magazines, and then decided to go into industrial design. He graduated from high school in the UK in this area and a few years later organized his own project Made in August ("Made in August"). It is no coincidence that Vitaly gave this name to his design laboratory, which he set up in the garage. He explains that in this English phrase, on the one hand, romance is felt, and on the other, there is no connection to a place, time or direction of activity.

At first, Zhuikov experimented a lot with a variety of materials - from plastic to metal. However, in the end he realized that the most interesting thing for him was working with wood. Since Vitaly did not have the opportunity (and, perhaps, even an acute desire) to open his own production, he decided to take ready-made items that the owners did not need: the designer makes real masterpieces of them.

Vitaly often has to travel to his homeland in Udmurtia, and he is very sad to see how villages are gradually dying and how old wooden houses with wonderful platbands are being demolished.

The designer collects household items in such houses and, of course, unique platbands, which otherwise should have gone to the landfill. He brings them not only from Udmurtia, but also from other remote corners of our country.

In his design laboratory in Moscow, he comes up with how to play with this or that wooden thing in such a way as to combine in his work both the simplicity of the craft and high technology, while maintaining the original, authentic look of the object.

For example, this platband from the Ivanovo region, turned into a mirror frame, on which the beautiful texture of an old tree is clearly visible, will be an excellent gift for a romantic girl. Vitaly restored it, treated it with a protective antiseptic, and then covered it with colorless acrylic varnish.

And his wooden brother became a display case for a collection of plates, which Vitaly made to order. He tried to leave as much "native" paint as possible on the casing, covering it with a colorless matte varnish. The texture and color of the shelves are made to resemble an old tree.

And this Ivanovo platband was heavily fired, brushed, and then covered with several layers of deep matte black paint and colorless varnish. The platband looks like it was molded from clay.

And Vitaly makes New Year's tree-mirrors from fragments of platbands. Not a bad gift too. He found platbands for "Christmas trees" in Udmurtia.

And these are the "former" platbands of their Gorodets. They were originally white. This blue mirror frame looks very impressive.

By the way, about mirrors. If now such a gift does not surprise anyone, then our ancestors considered it a bad omen to receive such a present. Why? You can find out about this by reading our material. forbidden gifts: what could not be given in Russia