The EOOS design studio, a poetic creativity
The design studio EOOS was founded in 1995, in Vienna, Austria, by three designers Martin Bergmann, Gernot Bohmann and Harald Gründl, dealing mainly with design and creating branded spaces for prestigious clients.
Martin Bergmann, born in 1963, in Lienz (East Tyrol), Gernot Bohmann, born in 1968, in Krieglach (Styria), and Harald Gründl, born in 1967, in Vienna, form the trio of successful designers EOOS. After their studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, they founded their design studio in 1995.
Today, EOOS operates in the fields of furniture and product design, as well as boutiques and shops concepts for international clients, such as Alessi, Giorgio Armani, Adidas, Bite Beauty, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bulthaup, Carl Hansen & Son, Dedon, Duravit, Geiger, Herman Miller, Hussl, Keilhauer, Lamy, Matteograssi, Poltrona Frau, Walter Knoll and Zumtobel.
The three Austrian designers consider design as a poetic exercise, a big gap between archaism and high-tech. For them, respect for sustainability and the wise use of materials and resources are essential components of the creation process. Thus, they begin all their work with an analysis that explores the rituals, myths and intuitive images of the projects to which they devote themselves. This research is the source of their imagination, and the first sketches are not realized until later. In fact, their company name, EOOS, also features an element inspired by mythology, since Eoos is the name of one of the horses that, in Greek legend, pulled the chariot of the Sun deity. To give an example, the shape of the arched backrest of the Jason bench is inspired by the image of a stretched arch.
Claiming to love the bizarre, the paradoxical and the spontaneous, the designers perfect their talents as a team. And indeed, Bergmann, Bohmann and Gründl recognize a special synergy between them and succeed in improving their own method. In their inspiring office, located in downtown Vienna, the three hard-nosed thinkers implement their ideas for projects around the world, from Milan to Toronto, to London, New York and Berlin.
EOOS has more than 15 technical patents and has received more than 130 international awards including, in 2004, the Italian Compasso d’Oro for Kube, a system of upholstered seats on bars fixed to the floor, produced by Matteograssi. In 2010, the designers received, for B2, a mobile workshop kitchen developed by Bulthaup, the Gold Design Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2012, the Open Space shower, produced by Duravit, won the Red Dot Award, the German Design Award and the IF Award in gold. For the overhaul of a toilet, they received special recognition for exceptional design from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Finally, the Jaan series bed, for Walter Knoll, was honored best bed 2015 by Wallpaper. And, in special recognition, the MAK, Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, mounted a solo exhibition on EOOS, in 2015, which provided a better understanding of the work process of designers and presented to the general public the scope of their work, exceptional and eclectic.
