What do have in common a tassel hanging from the key of grandma’s wardrobe and a coach having been exhibited at Milano Furniture Show? A strange concept called Hyperbolism that matches sensual shapes and rococo mathematics. Upon the first zeppelin of this year, I have known about non Euclidian geometry as a means of transportation towards the future of architecture and design, his awarded works exhibited at prestigious fairs, the Hyperlocked facility and other great adventures in the design field presented by Radu Comşa.

It is a simple story dealing with three-dimensional spatial concepts that are made conscious. Actually, the story deals with understanding what the French mean by “la meme Jeanette autrement coiffee” and Romanians by „aceeaşi Mărie cu altă pălărie”. [The same thing viewed under a different aspect].

Since the space that separate us from one another is somehow amorphous it needed Euclid to divide it into a rectangular Cartesian that we all have in our minds since we have been writing on a flat (Euclidian) sheet of paper, we have been scratching with a piece of chalk on a flat (Euclidian) blackboard, we have been proudly looking at our new flat (i.e. Euclidian) LCD.

„Hyperbolism” is a story starting one day when I realized that the world exists both on Euclid’s left hand side (spherical geometry) and right hand side (hyperbolic geometry), and where I was aware of the practical importance of the mathematics teacher’s words while explaining the non Euclidian geometry.

Things are much simpler than you think. However, do not close your ears when hearing about „non Euclidian geometry”, be it spherical or hyperbolic. Spherical geometry means that a surface is embedded looking like a ball, while hyperbolic geometry means that a surface is widened looking like a salad leaf. Meanwhile, Euclid plan, our reflex, remains like a hexagonal grit stone plated floor.





1. Everything has started in 2005, when I saw the physical models of pseudospheres made by Daina Taimina from Cornell University on the internet. Starting from a comment on the spherical model of the football ball, for several years Taimina has been crocheting physical models of hyperbolic geometry for all US universities.

2. Following the same algorithm, I began to restore the pseudosphere by using a silicone rubber girdle.
3. After having used 105 meters of the girdle I managed to obtain a pseudosphere of about 75 cm in diameter. The object was called „Rasta stool”, with direct reference to Rastafari culture.

4. In fact, using the embedding property of hyperbolic geometry physical surface I was attempting to make a dual-purpose sitting-storing object which, by “swallowing” the objects might have been used as such.
5. At 2006 Bucharest Biennial of Architecture, Rasta stool was used without added objects as seen in the picture.





6. The next design adventure started from the idea of a cone having an angle larger than 3600.
7. Changed into a spiral with a center-angle of 3600 x single turns





8. Bloomit! Sofa. It is a dual-purpose sitting-storing object similar to Rasta stool: in this case for flat objects (books, magazines)
9. An object of unusual appearance is obtained when assembling the ends. It can be also used for storage.





10. Bloomit! at 2008 Milano Showroom. Visitors successfully used at Designersblock exhibition.





11. Bloomit! idea was used for a radical (folding) redesign of the iconic Disco Ball
12. Here an unfolded version recreating the sphere with reflexions via rotation.





13. Then the Ice Age chair followed. A chair, actually a slip cover for a chair made of fibers on which surface the bright negative of the hidden chair appears.
14. Opposed to a parallelipipedic appearance the Ice Age chair is soft and comfortable.

15. In January 2008 Rasta stool appeared in Simply Material Catalogue of Hong Kong at the „organic” chapter, although I had opted for the „geometric” chapter which was appropriated for Rasta pseudosphere shape.





16. We realized that due to an automatic reflex, the Euclidian matter is assimilated to lodging like in this well-known picture…
17. And the non Euclidian matter (including Rasta) is assimilated to the organic one and meant for objects, like in this archetype.





18. Things have been clearly defined until recently as demonstrated by the next visual experiment. A conventional image has been chosen…
19. And a hyperbolic representation algorithm was simulated. A completely unacceptable image has been obtained…

20. Until recently, Gehry’s example has been quite similar.
21. Or, currently, singular creations play with an aleatory spherical and hyperbolic mixture like in Corner Plaza (Vito Acconci)

22. Or like the proposition of Various Architects from Oslo for a television tower in Chengdu (Korea).
23. Or like in Fuksas’ wining project for the new airport of Shenzen. Like a sort of „hyperbolism”, a designation allowing to approach those project starting from their own geometry.

24. To promote this idea we built „Hyperlocked”, a spring-made facility consisting of two interwoven hyperbolic cloths.
25. Hyperlocked has also a projection in the design field. It is for the first time that a three-dimension object simulates a way to vectorize that is used in virtual reality very much. Usually, the reverse happens, virtual reality simulates factuality.





26. Detail with the interior cobweb
27. Hyperlocked was exposed at Bucharest Architecture Biennial 2008 edition in the  Horia Bernea hall from the Museum of the Romanian Peasant