Hearth and Home

Forget the concept of blocked stone chimneys, smoke billowing into the room and the ashen aftermath of the chimney sweep that traditional open hearths bring. Not to mention the stale smell of wood smoke that finds its way through your furniture, clothes and your hair.

Things have become more efficient in the business of fireplaces with design improvements in traditional vented wood installations and the use of biofuels. Things have also become a lot sexier in design, placing your fireplace anywhere in the room, as a design feature, and a little like something out of a 70s science fiction movie.

With names like Gyrofocus, Bathyscafocus and Anthrax Bubble, the range from Beauty Fires is about award winning design, efficiency and innovation in burning fuels that are a bit more kind to your living space.

The Focus range by French self-taught sculptor/designer Dominique Imbert, and particularly the Gyrofocus, has been exhibited in the Bordeaux Contemporary Art Museum, the National Centre of Contemporary Art in Grenoble and in New York’s Guggenheim Museum.

In 2009, it won first prize in Italy’s Pulchra design competition, in which 74,425 international online voters chose the Gyrofocus from a selection of 100 designer objects as the ‘World’s most beautiful object’.

The entire Focus range is available in South Africa, just in time for the cold snap of Winter through Beauty Fires.
www.beautyfires.com