Cukrarna hosts charity auction for Ukraine's Kharkiv
Ljubljana, 19 June - The Cukrarna art gallery will host a charity auction on Monday evening to raise funds for post-war reconstruction of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Up for sale will be iconic chairs made by Slovenian industrial designer Niko Kralj with a new touch by a number of visual artists. The "reworked" chairs are already on display at Cukrarna.
Kharkiv, Ukraine
Buildings in Kharjiv afer Russian shelling.
Photo: Ukrinform/dpa/STA
File photo
The project is the brainchild of architecture students Miha Benčina and Nikolaj Srdić Kranjc, both collectors of Lupina (Shell) chairs, which were designed in the 1950s, with Tatyana Sergeyeva, a professor at the Kharkiv National University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, also taking part.
Benčina and Srdić Kranjc told the STA that after the war started in Ukraine, they had decided to offer their chairs for auction. The money raised will be used to have an international architecture tender to select the best project to renovate Kharkiv.
This north-eastern Ukrainian city has one of the best architecture schools in Ukraine, whose existence is at stake due to the war, and is also a world capital of construction. Benčina and Srdić Kranjc said that its cultural heritage must not be lost.
The pair invited to the project a number of artists, who were very happy to take park. They were given the chairs to change them in line with their own ideas.
Apart from Benčina and Srdić Kranjc, the participating artists are Roman Uranjek, Zora Stančič, Matej Andraž Vogrinčič, Arjan Pregl, Tobias Putrih, Mojca Zlokarnik, Petra Varl + Matic Vrabič, Mladen Stropnik, Ljudje, Matija Medved + Dan Adlešič, Ava Tribušon, LYC, Svitlana Ryabishchuk and Filip Kulčar.
The Lupina chair was designed by pioneer of Slovenian industrial design Niko Kralj (1920-2013) in the 1950s and is still considered a classic interior design item.