Nandi Collection

The Nandi Collection is produced by Phantom Hands in collaboration with German designer and craftsman Klemens Grund. A master woodworker, Klemens’ work reflects his experiments with simplicity, frugality and everyday objects. Furniture, he says, manifests our daily life and anchors us to the world. Each piece in this collection was thus conceived with an eye on the quotidian. Much of it is a response to Phantom Hand’s existing mid-century oeuvre. But it is as much a reflection of Klemen’s time in India and the Bangalore workshop, working with carpenters and draughtsmen, happening upon new craft techniques, customs, materials and lore. Klemens talks more about how the manual way of working at Phantom Hands impacted his design process in this video.

The name of the collection takes on from the Nandi Hills, an 11th C. hill station said to be in the shape of a sleeping bull, about 60 km from Bangalore. In Shaivite traditions Nandi is often described as a humped white bull accompanying Shiva. Powerful but gentle, humble yet hardy, it serves as an abstract motif for Klemens’ light, simply constructed, but robust designs.