The design writer and collector Dung Ngo owns more than 10,000 pieces of cutlery. His collection became the basis of Knife Fork Spoon: Modernist Cutlery 1900 – 2025, a book tracing 125 years of cutlery design. An exhibition at the Denver Art Museum accompanied the book, but Ngo wanted to do more than look back. He wanted to see what the next generation of knives, forks, and spoons could look like.
Traditional metal cutlery usually starts as a flat sheet that is bent into shape. The process limits the forms designers can create. Ngo found another possibility in a set designed by architect Greg Lynn in 2007. It was made by 3D printing metal, but the method was experimental at the time, and only a handful of sets were made.
Ngo invited eleven other designers to create pieces that reflected their personal experiences and cultural backgrounds and that could only be made with 3D printing. Their work appeared in the exhibition Knife, Fork, Spoon 3.0 in Copenhagen.
Designer Minjae Kim added chopsticks to his set of knives, forks, and spoons. Nifemi Marcus-Bello paired his cutlery with a printed bowl, drawing on a Nigerian dining custom. When diners choose to eat with their hands, they may be offered a bowl of water to wash them. Marcin Rusak took inspiration from the orchids his grandfather bred. His cutlery looks as though it is about to bloom.
Metal 3D printers are still expensive, but Ngo imagines a day when people could send a design to a local printer and pick it up the next day. The shapes may be new, but the choices about what to make and why still belong to the designer.