Zanat
Zanat was formally launched as a design brand only in 2015 and it has come a long way since. Zanat’s roots, however, are to be found much earlier in history. It started more than a century ago when Gano the great grandfather of Zanat’s founders, Orhan and Adem Niksic, stumbled upon what once was a primitive hand-carving technique that originated from a small village close to our hometown of Konjic, just south of Sarajevo on the Neretva River.
Gano learned the carving technique from some pioneer woodcarver-entrepreneurs who (thanks to visionary educational support of the Austro-Hungarian empire’s regime that ruled Bosnia at the time) perfected the village technique beyond recognition and teamed up with already established furniture producers in Sarajevo, such as Buttazoni-Venturini, who exhibited hand-carved furniture pieces at fairs and exhibitions in Milan, Paris (Millennium exhibition of 1900), Vienna.
Salih Teskeredžić
Salih Teskeredžić is probably the most influential and most prolific product designer in Bosnia. Born in 1962, Salih is a tenured professor of product design at the Sarajevo Arts Academy. He founded and managed an independent architecture and design studio in Vienna (2000-2004) and in 2007 he launched a Sarajevo based architecture and design studio AD ARTE. Salih is known for pushing the technological limits of modern furniture design in wood (his favorite material), for emotionally expressive and irresistibly elegant pieces of furniture. His earlier work earned him numerous design awards in the former Yugoslavia, his products were exhibited internationally and he has held three solo gallery exhibitions in Sarajevo and Vienna. In recent years, Salih has been awarded as many as 10 of the prestegious Interior Innovation Awards granted by the German Design Council: Latus table and chair (2011), Torsio table (2011), Torsio chair (2012), Tesa chair (2012), all designed for Artisan; Daisy dining table (2012), designed for Rukotvorine (Zanat’s parent company); finally, chair, armchair, table and bed for the Fawn collection (2015) for Gazzda.