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Thonet & Design, Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum, Munich
Designer | 20.05.2019

Thonet & Design @ Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum, Munich

The German town of Boppard sits on two of the most pronounced and prominent curves on the Mittelrhein. Can it be a coincidence that Boppard's most famous son, Michael Thonet, is most popularly known for his curving bentwood chairs? Can it really be a coincidence? Possibly. Almost certainly. What is less contentious is that the flow and meandering of first Michael Thonet's creativity and vigour and subsequently that of the company Thonet has carved its mark not only on the Rhenish Massif

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smow song contest 2019
smow | 17.05.2019

smow Song Contest 2019

For all the controversy surrounding smow Tel Aviv's victory in the 2018 smow Song Contest, not least the question if there even is a smow Tel Aviv, the staging of the 2019 Contest in Israel does allow for a very nice reinforcing of the central theme of the 2019 smow Song Contest.... Inarguably the biggest architecture and design story in 2019 is the centenary of the founding of Bauhaus Weimar. And whereas one can, should, argue if the school deserves its singular billing, it gets it. What

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Bauhaus. Textiles and Graphics, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
Bauhaus | 09.05.2019

Bauhaus. Textiles and Graphics @ Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz

That joining the Women's Department weaving workshop was for many a female Bauhäusler not so much an active wish as the response to a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, shouldn't be confused with the workshop producing work of an involuntary, unloving, uncaring nature, of it playing second fiddle to the rest of the institution. Far from it. The quality and relevance of the work created in the Bauhaus weaving workshop being in many regards attested by the fact it was one of the more productive and

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2019 - Bauhaus Special

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2019 - Bauhaus Special

More or less...... .....while 3 of the 5 have a direct connection to Bauhaus, 5 of the 5 are very much in the spirit of the attempts of inter-War architects and designers to reform architecture and design, to establish a new architecture and design for the new society, attempts in which Bauhaus played an important role. And for those seeking escape from Dessau and Weimar, figuratively not physically, we refer you to our more general 5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2019

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Jelly Effect by Elena Eulitz & Hybrid by Dan Saroussi, as seen at table talks - Tischgespräche, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Schloss Pillnitz, Dresden
Designer | 06.05.2019

table talks — Tischgespräche @ the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Schloss Pillnitz, Dresden

"Low bowls with flowers, as well as flowers placed on the tablecloth and a platter of fruit, are the most beautiful table decorations. All table centrepieces with rocks, palm trees, ostriches, deer, and such are ludicrous, for these things have no business on a table, and all tall table decorations - even those made of flowers - are also unsuitable since they screen the dinner guests from one another", opined Ellen Key of table culture in her 1899 essay Beauty in the Home.1 But that was then.

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New textile worlds in a creative context – Potential technical, intelligent textiles + smart materials, Wasserschloß Klaffenbach, Chemnitz
Chemnitz Creative | 03.05.2019

New textile worlds in a creative context – Potential technical, intelligent textiles + smart materials at Wasserschloß Klaffenbach, Chemnitz

One of the principle motors of the development of new products is new materials: stone famously ceding its primacy to bronze, which in turn ceded to iron... to .... to .... to .... plastics; new materials not only allowing for new forms of objects, but for objects with new functionalities, new properties, new purposes, and thus objects both reflective of the new needs of a continually evolving society and also allowing those needs to be not only met but, ideally, exceeded, thus contributing to

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2019
Architecture | 29.04.2019

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2019

While the shortlist of exhibitions for this column is regularly long, that for May 2019 was particularly so. And particularly tricky. Perusing it we saw no realistic chance of getting it down to five, all made good claims for inclusion, none deserved to be ignored...... Then we noticed that, with a little bit tweaking, we could get two lists: one featuring those exhibitions directly connected with Bauhaus/Inter-War architecture and design, and one featuring those less directly connected. 💡

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Between Utopia and Adaptation. The Bauhaus in Oldenburg, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Oldenburg
Architecture | 29.04.2019

Between Utopia and Adaptation. The Bauhaus in Oldenburg @ the Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Oldenburg

Sitting, quietly, unobtrusively, in the north-western corner of Germany, Oldenburg is, in many regards, a near textbook example of a provincial town. Which we don't mean as an insult. Doesn't mean it's irrelevant. In any sense less worthy than elsewhere. Much more Oldenburg is the sort of self-contained community that exists not so much independent of the rest of the world, but without the rest of the world noticing. Or Oldenburg caring if they notice. Oldenburg has its (hi)stories, its

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Anton Lorenz: From Avant-Garde to Industry, Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot, Weil am Rhein
Designer | 23.04.2019

Anton Lorenz: From Avant-Garde to Industry @ Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot, Weil am Rhein

"I first saw resilient tubular steel furniture designed by Professor Mies van der Rohe in September 1927 at the exhibition "Samt und Seide" in Berlin, objects which made a very deep impression on me, because I felt and saw that here, for the first time, was a meaningful way to utilise the forces inherent in tubular steel." Anton Lorenz, 27th March 19391 Because discussions on the steel tube furniture that, in many regards, characterises the inter-War period tend to focus on the designers and

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Bauhaus_Sachsen, Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig
Bauhaus | 18.04.2019

Bauhaus_Sachsen @ Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig

When one considers the, let's say, unique, derisive, unalluring place the Sächsisch dialect enjoys endures amongst German speakers, it could be considered unwise, foolhardy, to explore all too deeply the contributions made by creatives and industry in and from the State of Sachsen to the development of Bauhaus, to explore, if you will, Bauhaus's Sächsisch accent. With the exhibition Bauhaus_Sachsen the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig do just that....... Bauhaus_Sachsen, Grassi

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Unique Piece or Mass Product?, Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge, Berlin
Bauhaus | 15.04.2019

Unique Piece or Mass Product? @ Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge, Berlin

Today industrially produced objects are so self-evident and ubiquitous it can be hard to believe there was a time when they weren't. There was. With the exhibition Unique Piece or Mass Product? the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge Berlin explores the developments of industrial production in the early 20th century, the discussions and discourses which accompanied those developments and the connections between such developments and the evolution of both formal understandings and the role and

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Milan Furniture Fair 2019 High Five
Designer | 12.04.2019

Milan Furniture Fair 2019: High Five!!

Aside from the, inevitable, consolidation the main theme at Milan Furniture Fair 2019, and the one which occupied us much more than that which was on show for our perusal, is/was the international furniture industry's increasing hunger for data; a hunger which embodied itself at Milan 2019 in a exponential surge in the number of manufacturers requiring potential stand visitors to either pre-register, submit a business card or have their Fair ticket scanned before being allowed onto the stand.

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3101 chair from VEB Stima Stendal (l) Werkstattstuhl by Mart Stam for Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee (m) & Seminarstuhl Selman Selmanagic, Herbert Hirche & Liv Falkenberg for Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau (r), as seen at Shaping everyday life! Bauhaus modernism in the GDR, Dokumentationszentrum Alltagskultur der DDR, Eisenhüttenstadt
Architecture | 08.04.2019

Shaping everyday life! Bauhaus modernism in the GDR @ the Dokumentationszentrum Alltagskultur der DDR, Eisenhüttenstadt

"We feel ourselves beholden to the traditions of Bauhaus"1 opined Rolf Kuhn, Director of the Dessau based Zentrum für Gestaltung, in the catalogue for the institute's 1988 exhibition Experiment Bauhaus. And while that may have been the case in the late 1980s, it certainly wasn't always so in East Germany. With the exhibition Shaping everyday life! Bauhaus modernism in the GDR the Dokumentationszentrum Alltagskultur der DDR in Eisenhüttenstadt allow for not only an exploration of the

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Four "Bauhausmädels", Angermuseum, Erfurt
Bauhaus | 04.04.2019

Four "Bauhausmädels" @ the Angermuseum, Erfurt

"Sometimes one has to remind oneself that this change took place in one generation - such is the gap between the woman of today and of yesterday, between the girl of then and of now." So begins the German magazine Die Woche's 1930 article "Mädchen wollen etwas lernen", "Girls want to learn something", an article which opens Four "Bauhausmädels" and is subsequently extend by the Angermuseum Erfurt to explore not only what Gertrud Arndt, Margarete Heymann, Margaretha Reichardt and Marianne

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Balkrishna Doshi. Architecture for the People, Vitra Design Museum
Architecture | 01.04.2019

Balkrishna Doshi. Architecture for the People @ Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein

"Form should not be finite but should be amorphous, so that the experience within is loose, meandering and multiple" - Balkrishna Doshi1 With the exhibition Architecture for the People the Vitra Design Museum explore Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi's understanding of, belief in and approach to realising the amorphous, the social, the humane, in architecture. Balkrishna Doshi. Architecture for the People, Vitra Design Museum An Indian architect who has built exclusively in India,

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5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for April 2019

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for April 2019

From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Enticed us into the following architecture and design exhibitions....... William Shakespeare, Sonnet 98, From you have I been absent in the spring (extended, with apologies) "Bauhaus_Sachsen" at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig, Germany When in 1925 it became clear that Bauhaus would have to leave Weimar, Leipzig was one of the city's to offer it a new home; as history records Walter

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New Human, New Housing - Architecture of the New Frankfurt 1925–1933, the Deutsches Architekturmuseum Frankfurt
Architecture | 28.03.2019

New Human, New Housing: Architecture of the New Frankfurt 1925–1933 @ the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt

Whereas at Bauhaus Weimar and Dessau architecture was essentially a subject of theory and experimentation, elsewhere in inter-War Europe architecture was theory and practice, and that, occasionally, on a large scale. Such as the Neues Frankfurt project. Instigated in 1925 by Frankfurt's then Mayor Ludwig Landmann and employing a team of some 148 architects, urban planners, garden designers, journalists et al, under the leadership of Ernst May and Martin Elsaesser, Neues Frankfurt realised

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Volksbedarf statt Luxusbedarf - Bernau and its Bauhaus @ Galerie Bernau
Architecture | 26.03.2019

Volksbedarf statt Luxusbedarf - Bernau and its Bauhaus @ Galerie Bernau

Were it possible that there could be such a thing as a "lost" Bauhaus building, something wholly unimaginable this of all years, then the best candidate would, arguably, have to be the ADGB Bundesschule in Bernau bei Berlin. Yes, it is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and so is not really lost; however as an object it only rarely features, and when then invariably passingly, in the popular Bauhaus discourse .... and that despite being built by a serving Bauhaus Director. With the exhibition

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Small Apartment, Department Store, Power Station - New Building and New Living in 1920's Halle, the Stadtmuseum Halle
Architecture | 25.03.2019

Small Apartment, Department Store, Power Station - New Building and New Living in 1920's Halle @ the Stadtmuseum Halle

The 1920s was in many regards a decade that promised so much, achieved so much, but which was then overtaken by political and economic events before it could cement that which it promised and achieved, and which therefore remains hanging, almost stranded, in history. Somehow unfulfilled. And which with its popular image as as roaring, golden, age also appears a little too joyous, a little too optimistic, sandwiched as it is between the horrors and loss of two wars. But then in the course of

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Bauhaus Imaginista @ the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Architecture | 18.03.2019

Bauhaus Imaginista @ the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

Although Bauhaus did undeniably exist, sometimes we could all be forgiven for believing we had collectively imagined it. Not only on account of its ephemerality as an institution, but also because it existed in a period of history that is, generally, a little abstract, intangible, indecipherable for a majority of us. While today the popular image of Bauhaus is so ideal, represents such a utopia and eutopia, it has that tangible feeling of intangibility, of unreality, of something imaginary.

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The Utility Furniture Scheme's "CC41".....
Designer | 12.03.2019

Furnishing Brexit? Or, Reflections on the Utility Furniture Scheme...

As all familiar with the peculiar and idiosyncratic method by which these dispatches are produced will appreciate, come March 30th 2019 there will be a few fundamental changes, as the smow blog team are forced to abandon our familiar home on the internet and create a new one for ourselves in the analogue wastelands of the (dis)United Kingdoms. And as Brexit's unregulated shadow casts itself ever deeper, indelibly, suffocatingly, over the smow blog office, our thoughts turn, somewhat

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täglich geöffnet @ Burg Galerie im Volkspark, Halle
Architecture | 08.03.2019

täglich geöffnet @ Burg Galerie im Volkspark, Halle

The Burg Galerie im Volkspark Halle is open every day, is täglich geöffnet; and with their new exhibition, opens the every day: presenting artistic and design reflections on daily routine(s), the Alltag, and in doing so allows for new perspectives on the what, wherewith and wherefore of our (perceived) daily realities..... täglich geöffnet @ Burg Galerie im Volkspark, Halle The first in a series of exhibitions being staged throughout 2019 under the title, ABC, täglich geöffnet presents 26

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Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design 2019 Exhibition, ArkDes Stockholm
Awards | 06.03.2019

Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design 2019 Exhibition @ ArkDes Stockholm

For the fifth year in succession ArkDes, Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design, is hosting the Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design award/platform exhibition: a showcase of 25 projects providing for 25 understandings of contemporary design in/from Sweden. Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design 2019 Exhibition, ArkDes Stockholm As noted in our post from Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design 2018, inaugurated in 1998 by Svensk Form (the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design) and

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Kölle A(rchitketur)laaf. An Architectural Carneval.
Architecture | 04.03.2019

Kölle A(rchitektur)laaf. An Architectural Carnival.

Since 1823 the good folks of Cologne have taken to the streets on the Monday before Ash Wednesday to mark the approach of Lent with one last day, (and night) of earthly, secular, celebration before resigning body and soul to the sanctity of abstention; the highlight being the Rosenmontag procession which weaves its way through the Altstadt Veedel on the city's left bank. From modest beginnings the Zoch has grown to become not only the largest Rosenmontag procession in Germany, but longer than

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