Small as the Netherlands may be in the global jigsaw, it has been the source of numerous significant impulses in terms of architecture and design, numerous significant impulses which for reasons of brevity we'll reduce to the Dutch gable as a defining feature of baroque architecture, to De Stijl as leading protagonists of the early 20th century European avant-garde, and to that late 20th century Dutch avant-garde that developed in the course of the 1990s and which did so much to force an
read more
Whereas in the natural world spring ushers in new life but once a year, in the design museum world re-awakenings are biannual: a spring spring as curators awake from their winter hibernation and an autumn spring as they awake from their summer dormancy. Both bringing forth not only the promise of growth, energy, of a new esprit, of new experiences, new sensations, but confirming the eternal nature of existence, that we are but a moment on an endless spiralling continuum....... Our five new
read more
In 1968 the East German designer Rudolf Horn opined that "the changed tenor of industrial production in the socialist society, in relation to its task of satisfying cultural needs on a mass scale, raises the question of how despite mass production the consumer can realise an individual [domestic] environment, and in addition forces us to consider the problem of how the cultured personality can creatively contribute to the design of their immediate surroundings."1 How indeed....? It was,
read more
If the recent history of Germany is one of East and West, the longer history is one of North and South; a history which, and simplifying to the point of falsehood, saw the rivalry and conflict between the Hanseatic League and the traders of the southern states become a rivalry and conflict between Prussia and the realms of Baden, Württemberg, Hessen and Bavaria: the latter being the most reluctant to ratify the 1870 November Treaties and join the new Deutsches Reich. A reluctance expressed not
read more
Partly for reasons of its size, and partly on account of the way the then nations of the contemporary Germany responded to the challenges and realities of late 19th/early 20th century industrialisation, Germany is home to a truly outrageous number of architecture and design schools, certainly more than it would be logical, prudent or congenial to pack into one post. And so to save your nerves, and our fingers, we'll present the German leg of our 2019 #campustour via a series of regional
read more
The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was (reportedly) the opinion that, "in art there are only fast or slow developments. Essentially it is a matter of evolution, not revolution." A position one, arguably, could apply to all expressions of contemporary culture and society. And a position the exhibition SPACES. Interior design evolution at the ADAM Brussels Design Museum explores in context of domestic interiors. SPACES. Interior design evolution, ADAM Brussels Design Museum, Brussels
read more
For Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince Summertime may very well be a "Time to sit back and unwind", for us Summertime is when our year finally, finally, gets going. While others spend the long hot days of summer on the beach, in the mountains, riding around in their Jeep, their Benzos, Nissan or eating pizza at Lorenzos, we're to be found either riding backwards in trains, our eyes fixed firmly on the past as we race into the future, terrified that a metaphor is becoming an omen, or wandering the
read more
According to our old friend Roget possible synonyms for "August" include great, noble, impressive or worshipful. We can't promise the following quintet of exhibitions will exactly meet such qualities; however, they promise to be anything but frivolous, undignified or flighty explorations of their subject, and therefore certainly should be tending to the August in August 2019....... "New rollout. bauhaus wallpaper" at the Kulturgeschichtlichen Museum Osnabrück, Germany Although Bauhaus,
read more
In these dispatches we once doubted the prevalence of designer furniture in comics, noting and acknowledging the regular appearance of popular furniture designs in other visual media, we, off-handedly, opined, "... Designer furniture in a comic?" Elegantly proving us very, very wrong the Vitra Design Museum's exhibition Living in a Box. Design and Comics not only explores the use and depiction of designer furniture and lighting in comics, but also considers how comics have contributed to and
read more
According to the Greek philosopher Anaximenes of Miletus, air is the source of everything. And whereas in the intervening 2500 years we have come to better understand the true nature, character and properties of air, as the exhibtion Design on Air at the Centre d'innovation et de design Grand-Hornu illustrates, air remains a very potent, stimulating, and protean creative force. Design on Air, Centre d'innovation et de design au Grand-Hornu Omnipresent yet absent, perceptible yet
read more
On May 14th 2019 the European Court of Justice ruled that all employers are required "to set up an objective, reliable and accessible system enabling the duration of time worked each day by each worker to be measured." 1 On July 15th 1855 Johannes Bürk was granted a patent for just such a system. A system which, as the Uhrenindustriemuseum Villingen-Schwenningen's exhibition Time, Freedom and Control – The Legacy of Johannes Bürk explains, paved the way, certainly in spirit, for many of the
read more
July was once known as Quintilis, and was the fifth month of the Roman calender. The fifth of ten. "Winter" being but an ill-defined cold and dark period between December and March. And sensible as such as an arrangement sounds, and much as we could live with such an arrangement today, with the rise of the Roman Republic the wise decision was made to divide winter into January and February. Wise not least because it means our contemporary year has 12 months: and thus two extra months in which
read more
On this, the longest day, a radio smow playlist devoted to that which Europe for the next 24 hours will have more of than at any other time this year. And which somehow still won't seem enough. We could do with a lot more light, a lot more illumination, in our contemporary society..................... Fire. The first man-made light....and still the most endearing and engaging form.... As the Bible reliably informs us*, the first thing God did was create the heaven and the earth. And then
read more
To paraphrase the title of the recent exhibition at the Deutsche Architekturmuseum, with the Neues Frankfurt project the team of architects and urban planners around Ernst May and Ludwig Landmann sought to develop new housing for new humans. With the exhibition Wie wohnen die Leute? the Historisches Museum Frankfurt explore the contemporary reality of the Neues Frankfurt estates and thereby the new housing of then in context of the new humans of today. A Home Adapts by the group
read more
According to the old saying "Human spirit and the June wind often change swiftly", and while we can undertake only little to influence the wind, a visit to an architecture or design exhibition should help strengthen, enhance, embolden and thus stabilise the human spirit. In June, or at any time of the year. Our five recommendations for new exhibitions opening in June 2019 can be found in Ulm, Hornu, Munich, Gothenburg and Boston...... "bauhaus ulm: From Peterhans to Maldonado" at the
read more
In centuries past traditions were something that were established slowly, often becoming such long after those who had began them, who had understood their origins, meaning and function in contemporary society, had shuffled off this mortal coil; in our contemporary world traditions arrive over night, no-one having the patience to wait, no-one wanting to miss out on anything. In which sense, celebrating in 2019 its second edition, our traditional 3daysofdesign Copenhagen #embassytour. As
read more
"I assure you that you and your work are the model case for what the Bauhaus has been after" wrote Walter Gropius to Wilhelm Wagenfeld in April 1965. Just how Wilhelm Wagenfeld developed that "model case" "after" Bauhaus is explored, at least in terms of one design genre, in that genre for which Wilhelm Wagenfeld is most popularly known as a Bauhaus model, in the exhibition Wilhelm Wagenfeld: Lamps at the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus Bremen. Tropfen (l) & Düren (r) by Wilhelm Wagenfeld for
read more
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
read more
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
read more
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
read more
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
read more
"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.
read more
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
read more
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. 💡
read more
