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The Larkin Administration Building by Frank Lloyd Wright in Buffalo New York photo ca 1906)
Architecture | 08.06.2020

#officetour Milestones - The Larkin Administration Building by Frank Lloyd Wright

As previously noted, the (hi)story of the office is long and has its origins in functions and individuals rather than physical spaces; its understanding evolving over the course of several centuries as those functions/individuals gradually became synonyms for their physical place of activity. Before in the course of the 19th century its understanding became increasingly institutionalised, not least against the background of increasing commerce, industry and civic administration, and leading to

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Future Food. What will we eat tomorrow?, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden

Future Food. What will we eat tomorrow? at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden

Interesting, important and not irrelevant as hygiene is at the moment, the new exhibition at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden doesn't concern itself with pandemics, but with another subject of contemporary global interest, importance and relevance: food, food supply, food security. And a theme not entirely unrelated to, certainly not unaffected by, our current reality...... Future Food. What will we eat tomorrow?, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden Established in 1912 the Deutsches

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for June 2020

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for June 2020

We thought long and hard as to if we should continue our online exhibition recommendations series, or go back to offline exhibitions...... and decided for a return to offline. We fully appreciate that in a lot of countries museums are still closed, as indeed are the international borders that you would normally and naturally criss-cross for a short city break to visit those that are open; however, many museums are open, many more are planned/planning to open in the course of June, and

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Eames US Patent 2,708,476 for "Furniture Frame Construction"
Design Calendar | 17.05.2020

smow Blog Design Calendar: May 17th 1955 - Charles Eames Granted US Patent 2,708,476 for Furniture Frame Construction

On May 17th 1955 Charles Eames*, as assignor to the Herman Miller Furniture Company, was granted US patent 2,708,476 for a "Furniture Frame Construction", specifically for, "a skeleton type metal furniture frame or shell construction" formed from "a plurality of lengths of wire arranged in crossed relation with another plurality of lengths of wire and welded thereto at their intersection..."1 A patent which although important and interesting in itself, is and was in many regards just as

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smow song contest 2020 .... waiting for the livestream to begin.....
smow | 15.05.2020

smow Song Contest 2020

In a year in which the familiar glow of many a beloved cultural event is missing, one beacon continues to shine. As a virtual, and in many regards virtual, event the smow Song Contest is one that can be staged regardless of prevailing physical social distancing regulations and physical travel restrictions. And while virtual closeness and virtual travel can never, and must never be allowed to, replace the physical, the 2020 smow Song Contest does allow us all an opportunity to cross great

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The smow blog #officetour, first the theoretical path, then the open road.....
Everyday Design | 11.05.2020

smow Blog #officetour.......

Back in the year 1 BCE, Before Corona Epidemic, we developed a plan to use 2020 to tour through contemporary office design, a tour to be undertaken both physically and theoretically. A very simple plan developed in the knowledge that in October the Orgatec office furniture fair would be staged in Cologne, and that such a tour would, hopefully, allow us to approach Orgatec 2020 from differentiated and manifold perspectives. And a simple plan, which, and as with all simple plans, proved more

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USM Haller: Garden, Terrace, Balcony.....
Architecture | 08.05.2020

USM Haller: Garden, Terrace, Balcony.....

Developed in the mid-1960s as an office furniture system, the inherent flexibility and variability of USM Haller's modular system has allowed it to naturally evolve alongside office practices and realities; for example, alongside the shift in recent decades from rigid to more flexible office scenographies, alongside the rise in recent decades of home working, or, most recently, with the USM Security Screen which naturally, and quickly, allows any existing USM reception desk to be effortlessly

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radio smow A Bauhaus Playlist
Bauhaus | 03.05.2020

Radio smow: A Bauhaus Playlist.......

Bauhaus Weimar's centenary may now be behind us, but there remains a lot of discussion, consideration and reflection ahead of us. Not least in context of the rapidly approaching Bauhaus Dessau centenary. By way of an accompaniment to those reflections, considerations and discussions, and of engendering a differing perspective on both the schools and the contexts in which they existed, a Radio smow playlist devoted to music of, from and associated with the Bauhauses. Radio smow: A Bauhaus

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Visualisation of part of Ettore Sottsass's nomadische Büro concept for Citizen Office, Vitra Design Museum
Designer | 30.04.2020

smow Blog Design Calendar: April 30th 1993 - Opening of Citizen Office at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein

With the exhibition Citizen Office the Vitra Design Museum staged not only their first conceptual, research based, exhibition, but also one of the first museal reflections on "the world of the office". Reflections which not only pointed towards new directions and understandings then, but which offer insights and lessons for today....... Citizen Office. As visualised by James Irvine The ubiquity of office work in our contemporary society belies the relative youth of "the office" as a

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5 Online Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2020

5 Online Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2020

While we'd all much rather physically visit architecture and design museums, our current enforced virtual patronage does allow us all an excellent opportunity to begin to understand architecture and design museums as more than just an exhibition space with shop and café, and to begin to learn to interact with them, and for all their collections, in new, proactive, manners. To understand architecture and design museums as tools as much as institutions. And while a virtual visit can never

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Isamu Noguchi. Sculptor.
Designer | 21.04.2020

Lost Furniture Design Classics: Model 9 Table Lamp by Isamu Noguchi for Knoll Associates

Throughout his numerous lives and careers Isamu Noguchi practised as an artist, set designer, garden designer, furniture designer, lighting designer, etc.... yet through all incarnations he remained one thing: a sculptor. Isamu Noguchi's most popularly known work is inarguably his Akari lamps, yet before Akari there came a lamp which in many regards exists more in context of the man and his art than its more famous relations..... Lost Furniture Design Classics: Model 9 Table Lamp by Isamu

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April 14th 1874 – Happy Birthday Margarete Junge!
Designer | 14.04.2020

smow Blog Design Calendar: April 14th 1874 – Happy Birthday Margarete Junge!

"The work of the Dresden artist Margarete Junge is largely shrouded in darkness" noted the art historian Gert Claußnitzer in his introduction to the 1981 exhibition "Margarete Junge. Fashion sketches and flower studies"1 And while Margarete Junge's 2D works may have been allowed to shine, if only briefly, in the early 1980s, her 3D works remained stubbornly shrouded: only in recent years being afforded the opportunity, if only partially, to radiate as they once did. Thankfully. For the works,

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An Easter Egg…… or, A #stayhome Eastertide hunt for Arne Jacobsen’s Egg……
Designer | 10.04.2020

An Easter Egg...... or, A stay at home Eastertide hunt for Arne Jacobsen's Egg......

The 3316 Easy Chair by Arne Jacobsen a.k.a. The Egg is not only one of the most universally recognised works by Jacobsen, but also one of the most popular representatives of both the lounge chair and also of post-War furniture design. Yet, and as with the Easter egg, the Jacobsen Egg is an object whose simple, inviting charms often hide the much more complex, interesting, informative, instructive, realities of its origin and provenance. And so in a year when many an Easter egg hunt will be

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Lost Furniture Design Classics: The Bacon Settle

In context of the Radio smow Sofa, Couch, Settee Playlist we briefly discussed the settle as an early forebearer of the settee. Existing in a myriad expressions and forms, one variation on the settle was a pleasingly multi-functional, multi-talented, culinary adept, object. And one that has, sadly, vanished from the contemporary furniture landscape....... An early 19th century English bacon settle Originating in the middle ages, John Gloag suggests they were known as early as the 12th

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5 Online Architecture & Design Exhibitions for April 2020

5 Online Architecture & Design Exhibitions for April 2020

The museums may be closed, travel restricted and leaving your home, when possible, unadvised..... but that's no reason to restrict your cultural uptake, far less neglect the development of your architecture and design understandings. Or put another way, if you can't get to the museum..... let the museum come to you. Five online architecture and design exhibitions and museum collections to explore from your sofa, bed, garden, balcony, wherever..... Vitra Design Museum - Collection Online In

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Radio smow: A Sofa, Couch, Settee Playlist…….
smow | 20.03.2020

Radio smow: A Sofa, Couch, Settee Playlist…….

In these days of uncertainty one thing is indubitable: we will all become much better acquainted with our sofa, our couch and our settee. To accompany us all, a Radio smow playlist dedicated to the sofa, couch, settee and an invitation to reflect on the symbolic, figurative and cultural role of the sofa, couch, settee... ...a triumvirate of terms which raises the very obvious question as to the difference(s) The short answer is that today there is essentially none, the term you use being a

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for March 2020

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for March 2020

Back in the days of the Roman Republic Martius was the month in which troops mustered in preparation for the coming battle season, to prepare, as it were, to March into war. Please don't! The world's out of control enough as it is! Rather use the coming spring as your incentive, to (a) make up for some of those New Year's Resolutions you've long forgotten you'd made and (b) to march into a future of new impulses, new understandings, new perspectives, a new world. To march into an architecture

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Female Traces, the Museum of Furniture Studies, Stockholm
Designer | 20.02.2020

Female Traces at the Museum of Furniture Studies, Stockholm

It's not just the presence, or lack of, female designers in the contemporary furniture industry, nor just the presence, or lack of, female designers in museum exhibitions that informs and influences understandings of the contribution of female designers to contemporary furniture design and the (hi)story of furniture design, it is also the presence, or lack of, female designers in design museum and applied arts museum collections, those depositories and reserves of furniture design's history and

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Finn Juhl's house, as seen at Home Stories: 100 Years, 20 Visionary Interiors, Vitra Design Museum
Architecture | 11.02.2020

Home Stories: 100 Years, 20 Visionary Interiors at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein

"What is the goal?" asked Elsie de Wolfe in 1913 in context of domestic interior design. "A house", she answered, "that is like the life that goes on within it, a house that gives us beauty as we understand it and beauty of a nobler kind that we may grow to understand, a house that looks amenity."1 How Elsie de Wolfe understood such, and how over the intervening century and a bit understandings of life, beauty, nobler beauty, amenity, the goal(s) of domestic interior design have developed and

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Stockholm Furniture Fair 2020: High Five
Designer | 06.02.2020

Stockholm Furniture Fair 2020: High Five!!

With the 2020 edition Stockholm Furniture Fair celebrates its 70th birthday. Grattis på födelsedagen! We did think about taking along a cake, but knew the halls of Stockholmsmässan would be filled to the rafters with Kanelbullar, as indeed would we. And so by way of a present, a Stockholm Furniture Fair 2020 High 6!! EIO Lounge Chair from Nuen The first thing to say is that we feel that, for us, EIO is but the start of a journey. The second thing to say is that ahead of any trade fair one

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100 Years of Positionable Light, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
Bauhaus | 31.01.2020

100 Years of Positionable Light @ the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

"In many workshops and offices it is regularly attempted to achieve both direct and semi-indirect lighting by means of large, single, light sources, that is, to work only with ample general lighting. Yet as pleasant as this type of lighting may be, in many cases it proves unsatisfactory on account of certain inherent shortcomings"1 So opined in 1926 the German engineer Curt Fischer. Rhetorically. For in 1919 he had already patented his first solution to resolving such "inherent shortcomings".

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for February 2020
smow | 30.01.2020

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for February 2020

According to Goethe, Without the Fastnacht's dance and masquerade ball February has little to offer at all.1 Rubbish! Absolute rot! Our recommendations for new architecture and design exhibitions opening during February 2020 in Weil am Rhein, New York, Vienna, Houston and Kerkrade which ably demonstrate that February has much more to offer than carnival, and for all that February can provide for a greater degree of cerebral gratification than sensual......... "Home Stories: 100 Years, 20

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Works from Duxer Porzellan Manufaktur, Dux, as seen at Spitzen des Art déco, Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig

Spitzen des Art déco @ the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig

On March 6th 1927 the exhibition Europäisches Kunstgewerbe opened at the Grassimuseum Leipzig, not only a presentation of contemporary European applied arts but the inaugural exhibition in the museum's (almost finished) new home on the city's Johannisplatz. With the exhibition Spitzen des Art déco the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig stage not only a presentation of European Art déco porcelain, but a reminder of both the Johannisplatz complex's Art déco heritage and the vibrancy,

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IMM Cologne 2020: High Five!!
Designer | 20.01.2020

IMM Cologne 2020: High Five!!

Apart from the chance to peruse and consider the collections and new products of and from a wide variety of manufacturers and labels, one of the real joys of visiting any furniture fair is the opportunity it allows to observe designers in conversation with manufacturers and labels. For all in pairings that currently don't formally exist. We never eavesdrop on such conversations, that would be rude, and to overplay our prowess as spies; but we do enjoy imagining what may arise from those

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