bulthaup offers more than just superlative quality and a perfect product. In fact, it also offers the experience of “individualism.” To bring this fact back into the minds of everyone searching for the unusual and the unique, bulthaup has created the concept of “Shifting Contexts.”

“Shifting Contexts” invites international architects and designers to re-interpret bulthaup and to create installations based on its many elements.

Accordingly, the emphasis lies not on the development of new products, but rather on the architects’ and designers’ perspectives and ‘take’ on the kitchen living pace.

The specific goal is to create autobiographical kitchens whose interpretation present new insights. The first exhibit is bulthaup b3 by art director Mike Meiré, which is being showcased to mark the Milan furniture fair. White becomes black, function becomes attitude. Mike Meiré is countering the kitchen and pushing boundaries in the process. Surfaces that are not lacquered, but are instead covered with fine leather, create associations with haute couture. Display cabinets that present personal items – knick-knacks as well as fine pieces – as a collection, make reference to rooms that are primarily beyond the kitchen.

Mike Meiré selects elements from various origins, adding them together to create something new, a form of “animated functionality.” It is the principle of eclecticism, applied to the kitchen living space. The great freedom of design that bulthaup b3 offers is taken to its zenith.

As a designer, art director and curator, Mike Meiré has shaped international brands and given a new face to major publications. His installations such as “The Farm Project” and “Global Street Food,” which address the theme of the kitchen, have also attracted worldwide attention.

In 2010, Mike Meiré unveiled his free-form, artistic work as part of Art Basel / “The Solo Project” at the Bartha Contemporary Gallery in London. “Shifting Contexts” draws its relevance not least from its affiliation with the now legendary journey made by Gerd Bulthaup and Otl Aicher.