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Spot On: Women Designers in the Collection, Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot, Weil am Rhein
Designer | 24.01.2022

Spot On: Women Designers in the Collection at the Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot, Weil am Rhein

The popular (hi)story of furniture design is, no-one could argue, a very male (hi)story.1 Which doesn't mean that furniture design is a profession at which males excel more than females, a profession for which males have a natural affinity above and beyond that of females, that females' natural domains are textiles and colours; much more is because that popular (hi)story of furniture design contains flaws, biases, inaccuracies and under-illuminated corners. A great many of which can be traced

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Craft is Cactus. The Collection from 1945 to Today, Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt
Designer | 19.01.2022

Craft is Cactus. The Collection from 1945 to Today at the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt

The contemporary systematics of the family Cactaceae recognises four subfamilies, Cactoideae, Maihuenioideae, Opuntioideae and Pereskioideae; is however a classification very much in motion, one very much in an ongoing process of re-evaluation, re-definition, re-assessment, one which undergoes regular revisions. ¿An ongoing re-evaluation and re-definition and re-assessment and revision which could see the addition of a fifth subfamily, the Craftoideae? With the exhibition Craft is Cactus. The

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The Historia Supellexalis H for Hygge
Everyday Design | 14.01.2022

The Historia Supellexalis: “H” for Hygge

Hygge A Curse; A Malediction; A Torment As the runes in the Caves of Lego record, ever since the reign of the post-Viking autocrat King Mark Edsføring, furniture, lighting, textile and accessory design in Denmark has endured a great many trials as varied and various forces have sought to use them to their advantage, have sought to employ furniture, lighting, textile and accessory design in Denmark for their own benefit rather than letting furniture, lighting, textile and accessory design in

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Louise Brigham (1875 - 1956)
Designer | 10.01.2022

smow Blog Design Calendar: January 10th 1875 – Happy Birthday Louise Brigham!

"Boxing is not an exclusively athletic term in these practical and utilitarian days", noted John Crocker in 1913, rather, "the making of useful and ornamental things for the home, from the boxes, that in other days adorned the rear of stores, is the nucleus of armament that has made "boxing" a pursuit that contains both amusement and substantial results."1 And nobody contributed more to promoting and advancing the amusement and substantial results of the practical and utilitarian craft of

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5 New Architecture and Design Exhibitions January 2022

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for January 2022

According to Germanic folklore, "If January is frosty and cold, a green woodland will soon entice us". The implication being that a severe January is the necessary pre-requisite not only for a timeous spring bursting forth with new life, but also for a warm, (meteorologically) settled, summer. But in the frost and cold and dark and endlessness of January that green (deciduous) woodland is still a long way off, is unimaginable, is unreachable, is almost mythical; however, protection, and

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Bauhaus Lab: Vegetation Under Power – Heat, Breath, Growth, Bauhaus Building, Dessau
Bauhaus | 15.12.2021

Bauhaus Lab: Vegetation Under Power – Heat, Breath, Growth at the Bauhaus Building, Dessau

There are a great many and varied mediums via which to track the (hi)story of a region, the 2021 Bauhaus Lab chose plants; or more accurately, the 2021 Bauhaus Lab chose the (hi)stories of the flora in the region around Dessau as a medium for explorations of the human, social, industrial, political, economic, ecological, et al (hi)stories of the region. A telling of a local (hi)stories which enables access to both global considerations on, and questions concerning, our relationships with the

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The Ulmer Hocker and its four fathers, Hans Gugelot, Paul Hildinger, Josef Schlecker and Max Bill, as seen at The Ulmer Hocker: Idea - Icon - Idol, HfG-Archiv Ulm
Architecture | 08.12.2021

The Ulmer Hocker: Idea ─ Icon ─ Idol at the HfG-Archiv, Ulm

1 x rounded piece of beech, 2 x quadratic pieces of beech, 3 x quadratic pieces of spruce... 1, 2, 3... An Ulmer Hocker1 With the exhibition The Ulmer Hocker: Idea ─ Icon ─ Idol the HfG-Archiv, Ulm, help elucidate that while an Ulmer Hocker is that simple, it is a deceptive, and highly informative, simplicity....... The Ulmer Hocker: Idea - Icon - Idol, HfG-Archiv Ulm The HfG Ulm: Idea - Icon - Idol - Bauhaus Arising from the Ulmer Volkshochschule, a post-War institution initiated by Inge

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for December 2021

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for December 2021

In 1922 the Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie told the undergraduates at St. Andrews University "you remember someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December", an allusion to the summer of your life filling your darkening winter days with colour and aroma, and an analogy he neatly reinforces a little later with a, "you have June coming".1 But that was 1922. Roses were seasonal. Today roses are available all year round, which is not only symbolic of the short-sighted

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The Centraal Beheer Office Building, Apeldoorn, by Herman Hertzberger (photo https://commons.wikimedia.org via cc0)
Architecture | 26.11.2021

#officetour Milestones – The Centraal Beheer Office Building by Herman Hertzberger

"The problem", elucidated Herman Hertzberger in 1973, in context of his project for the Centraal Beheer insurance company in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, "was to make an office building that would be a working place where everybody would feel at home: a house for 1000 people."1 How Herman Hertzberger sought to solve that problem not only helping explain aspects of the development of architecture in the course of the 20th century, nor only aspects of the development of office design in the

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karl clauss dietel. die offene form by Walter Scheiffele and Steffen Schuhmann through Spector Books (image courtesy Spector Books)
Bauhaus | 19.11.2021

karl clauss dietel. die offene form by Walter Scheiffele and Steffen Schuhmann

It is perhaps indicative of the differing receptions to and estimations of design in the former West Germany and the former East Germany that while Dieter Rams' Ten Principles of good design are revered as if cast in stone, Karl Clauss Dietel's Five Big Ls of good design have barely seen the light of day since November 1989. A popular focus on the former West which tends to popular understandings of design from West Germany as being valid and authentic and laudable, while design from East

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Green Sky, Blue Grass. Colour Coding Worlds, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt

Green Sky, Blue Grass. Colour Coding Worlds at the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt

Our relationships with colour are invariably shaped and informed by the culture and society in which we were raised. A state of affairs that, equally invariably, leads to us all possessing relatively strictly defined understandings of colour, understandings of the psychology of colours or of the agency of colours or of the use of colours. With the exhibition Green Sky, Blue Grass. Colour Coding Worlds, the Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt discuss the cultural relevance and social functions of

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West Germany Neues deutsches Design (l) and more rational 1980s West German design, as seen at German Design 1949–1989. Two Countries, One History, Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden
Architecture | 09.11.2021

German Design 1949–1989. Two Countries, One History at the Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden

Whereas politics, economics or sport in West Germany and East Germany are well and widely studied, and the similarities and differences regularly and publicly analysed and contextualised, thereby allowing for more refined, nuanced, popular understandings; design in and from the two Germanys remains, largely, a niche subject for a small band of specialists, and on a popular level something not only repeatedly reduced to a few works, institutions and protagonists, but also defined by

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Reflections on Pop Art, as seen at The Magic of Form - Design and Art, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg
Designer | 05.11.2021

The Magic of Form - Design and Art at Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg

In his 1961 short film Danish Design, Jørgen Roos tells how in the late 18th century the Danish artist Nicolai Abildgaard travelled to Greece and Italy in search of inspiration from classical art, and came back not only with artistic impetuses, but with classical furniture concepts he began to reproduce: "Abildgaard had become Denmark's first furniture designer".1 And while we'd argue about the validity of that claim, there is an undeniability in an understanding of not just furniture design,

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for November 2021

"November's night is dark and drear, The dullest month of all the year", opined Letitia Elizabeth Landon in 1836, however, 'twas not all doom and gloom, for, as she continues, "the November evening now closing in round Mrs. Cameron's house was of a very cheerful nature."* A cheerfulness in Mrs. Cameron's house/school occasioned by the gaiety associated with the rapidly approaching annual school prize-giving and ball; and a cheerfulness to banish the dreary darkness of a November evening that

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The Historia Supellexalis G for Grcic
Designer | 21.10.2021

The Historia Supellexalis: "G" for Grcic

Grcic A Konstantin; A Nurturing; A Reduction There are a great many legends surrounding the origins of Grcic, and while many are centred around the regions today known as München and Wuppertal, the more plausible appears to be that Grcic arose in the days of ancient Rome when a member of a large herd, a Grex, of roving furniture makers, tired of the monotony and fallacy of the repetition of the same objects regardless of context and the passage of time, stole away to pursue the development of

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Le Corbusier's 1957 Tapisserie L'étrange oiseau et le taureau, as seen at Le Corbusier and Colour at the Museum für Gestaltung, Pavillon Le Corbusier, Zürich
Architecture | 13.10.2021

Le Corbusier and Color at the Museum für Gestaltung, Pavillon Le Corbusier, Zürich

One could be forgiven for thinking that little would be as pointless as a Le Corbusier colouring-in book. So singularly achromatic is the popular understanding of Le Corbusier, a lack of colour reinforced by the dour, austere, round bespectacled, persona which so universally defines Le Corbusier: what, one asks oneself, could there possibly be to colour in a Le Corbusier colouring-in book? Yet in contrast to the popular Le Corbusier image, Le Corbusier's career was one undertaken in colour. A

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Verner Panton - Colouring a New World, Trapholt, Kolding
Architecture | 08.10.2021

Verner Panton – Colouring a New World at Trapholt, Kolding

"Space and form are important elements in the creation of the [interior] environment", opined the Danish architect, artist and designer Verner Panton in 1969, however, he continues, "colours are even more important". And no-one, even those with but the briefest familiarity with Verner Panton, can oversee the colour in Verner Panton's work. Yet important as colour and space and form were for Panton, "in the creation of the [interior] environment", "l'homme reste l'élément central", man remains

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for October 2021

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for October 2021

In days of yore October was known in Germanic lands as Weinmonat, Wine Month, Month of Wine, whereby thoughts were, unquestionably, less with the drink as with the grape and the harvest, and thus the promise of the new wine. And in many regards our exhibition recommendations can be considered a monthly harvest of the new crop of architecture and design exhibitions; specifically, and staying in Germanic registers, an Auslese, a considered selection of those well ripened concepts and premises it

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Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 - Today, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein
Architecture | 26.09.2021

Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein

In her 1929 essay A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf, as a component of her reflections on the myriad subjects of 'women and fiction', reads her way, chronologically, through a bookcase of works written by women from across the centuries. Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, has the feeling of Virginia Woolf's bookcase, allowing as it does for reflections on, and a critical questioning of, the myriad subjects of 'women and design'....... Here

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Downtown Eisenhüttenstadt largely in Plaspi and..... Sugar, as seen in Endless Beginning. The Transformation of the Socialist City, Museum Utopie und Alltag, Eisenhüttenstadt
Architecture | 17.09.2021

Endless Beginning. The Transformation of the Socialist City at the Museum Utopie und Alltag, Eisenhüttenstadt

In September 1951 the East German newspaper Neue Zeit informed its readers that, "whomever travels to Fürstenberg sees the beginnings of the new city, a city planned according to the "Principles of Urban Development".1 Whomever travels to Fürstenberg today arrives in Eisenhüttenstadt, the planned city that arose from those "beginnings"; and a city which, arguably, more than any other, stands proxy for the rise and fall of East Germany. With the exhibition Endless Beginning. The Transformation

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Radio smow: A Tables Playlist…….
Everyday Design | 06.09.2021

Radio smow: A Tables Playlist…….

Of all the genres of furniture which accompany global society, none, arguably, is more self-explanatory, more obvious, than the table. Yet for all the simplicity, or perhaps exactly because of all the simplicity, the table is, arguably, the most versatile of all the genres of furniture which accompany global society; the contemporary table existing as it does in a myriad forms and contexts. And not just physical forms and contexts......... The (hi)story of the table, in terms of verifiable

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for September 2021

According to the 6th century CE antiquarian John the Lydian, "the oracle recommends drinking milk for the sake of good health all through the month of September".1 And while milk may have advantages in terms of your physical health, for your spiritual and intellectual health, we'd recommend the following quintet of new architecture, design and art exhibitions opening in September 2021. Whereby, exhibitions and milk aren't mutually exclusive, you can partake of both if you so wish......

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A model of Archigram’s 1964 Walking City as part of a discussion on literray and architectural ideal cities, as seen as, Die Stadt Between Skyline and Latrine, smac - Staatliches Museum für Archäologie Chemnitz
Architecture | 20.08.2021

Die Stadt. Between Skyline and Latrine at the smac – Staatliches Museum für Archäologie Chemnitz

Globally some 2 billion of us live in a city of more than 500,000 inhabitants.1 A number that is progressively growing. But what does "city" mean? Not lexicographically, but physically, culturally, socially, politically, economically, morally, etc, etc, etc? With the exhibition Die Stadt. Between Skyline and Latrine the smac – Staatliches Museum für Archäologie Chemnitz attempt to approach possible answers...... A model of Archigram’s 1964 Walking City as part of a discussion on literary

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Not directly associated with Amédée Ozenfant but being as it is the house next door to the house/studio designed by Le Corbusier for Amédée Ozenfant in Paris in 1922, is a nice metaphor of the dearth of images of Amédée Ozenfant and/or his work available: it's the next best thing. Also beacuse it very neatly mirrors Amédée Ozenfant's 1937 views on white paint, ivy and virginia creepers....... (photo by Mbzt via commons.wikimedia.org CC BY 3.0)
Architecture | 13.08.2021

Design. Colour. Theory.: Amédée Ozenfant – Colour

"We must endeavour to introduce a little order into this business, or at least sense into a great deal of it. But what is sense without order? We must try to find some method of arriving at some sort of order - one that will at least enable us to escape from this vagueness in the design of colour", opined Amédée Ozenfant in 1937.1 And had an idea or two as to the how....... Not directly associated with Amédée Ozenfant, but being as it is the house next door to the house/studio designed by

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