#HTE

Cool Space-Saving Table from a Designer Who Disappeared

Sometimes designers become briefly famous or micro-famous, then just fall off the face of the Earth. I was reminded of this as I saw this GIF making the social media rounds, of course with no mention of the designer who created it:

I knew I’d seen this design before, years ago, and I struggled to remember the designer’s name: Fred-something. Fred McQueen. No, Fred McNeil. McNeil Queen Fredericksen? After an evening beer I was reasonably certain it was King Frederick Nielsen, but the closest that landed me on Google was some tennis player.

Thanks to Reddit, I finally tracked the name down. The designer’s name is Nils Frederking (get off my back, I was close) and he designed that table, called the F2, way back in 2003. In 2007 he “caught rec,” as the kids used to say, at the Salone with this video of the F2 and a chair he’d designed:

Having stoked the appropriate amount of attention, in 2008 the F2 went into production by Ligne Roset. Frederking’s website, however, has not been updated since 2006. So what happened to the guy, where did he go? Is he living off of royalties on the French Riviera? It’s unlikely, as the F2 went out of production at some point. There’s no trace of him in any design publication after 2008, and the last work in his online portfolio dates to 2006.

A page on an unlikely website may provide a clue as to his whereabouts. Tango-Unterricht.com (that’s “Teaching Tango” in German) lists their dance instructor as a Nils Frederking. A translation of his bio reveals that he studied tango dancing for three years in Berlin and during two trips to Argentina. The bio goes on to state:

I have occupied myself intensively since 2006 with the Argentine Tango. I’m interested to combine the various aspects of the Tango together, the connection in the couple, the structure of the dance, the interpretation of the music and dancing at the milonga [a tango dance hall].

In my life before the Tango I studied music and composition and worked as a furniture designer.

How about that?

Would it be easy for you to give up a successful start to a furniture design career if your true passion was dance?

I guess that sometimes…it takes F2 to tango.