Your classic garden gnome has gotten a modern, almost Brutalist makeover with Nino. Product designer Pellegrino Cucciniello created the geometric pal in collaboration with studio Plato Design. It’s a clear deviation from the classic gnome, but somehow seems appropriate for this day and age, and will look just as good in your yard or garden. Made of concrete with brass inlay, the gnome stands 14 inches tall, and comes in grey, white, and pink. Available for $110. Via Curbed:
Plato Design is a small studio in Salerno, Italy, that works almost entirely in cast concrete, and Nino sits in a long tradition of designers taking the garden gnome seriously. Philippe Starck did it for Kartell in 2000 with his Attila and Napoleon gnome stools, and the low-poly faceting here is a nod to the way 3D software renders a figure before it is smoothed. For more objects that treat the ordinary with a straight face, see modern prairie planters, the exploded fruit bowl, and soap that is irregularly shaped on purpose. Our own curated objects live in the Moss and Fog Shop.
