In context of DMY 2015 the Berlin/Beijing based cultural exchange association Migrant Birds are presenting the exhibition Modern Fossils, a solo exhibition of works by the Beijing based artist and designer Song Tao. Migrant Birds present Modern Fossils by Song Tao Born in Shanghai in 1969 Song Tao initially graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1986 before moving to France to complete a Masters degree in Plastic Arts at the Université Paris 1. Although Song Tao’s
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As we believe we've said before, and assume we will repeat in the future, contemporary Dutch design is largely, though not exclusively, about the research, and the subsequent processes invariably developed. If it leads to a product, that's good. But it needn't. That it however often does can be experienced in the exhibition Contemporary Creation Processes in Design on show at DAD Galerie Berlin. Curated by Berlin based, Eindhoven graduate Ruben der Kinderen Contemporary Creation Processes in
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On Thursday June 11th the 2015 DMY International Design Festival opens its doors to the public, and Berlin will once again be the focus of the global design community. But is Berlin the creative city many assume it to be? Beats the creative heart genuinely with a different rhythm, and with more fervour, on the banks of the Spree than elsewhere? Or is "Berlin Design" just a nice bit of location marketing behind which stands little more than non-stop parties and endless cheap lifestyle
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As previously reported, the company DMY Berlin GmbH & Co. KG, who for the past decade or so has run the annual DMY Berlin design festival, filed for insolvency in October 2014: the festival itself however continues under the auspices of a new organiser, about:design. “DMY is dead. Long live DMY”, as it were. The 2015 edition of DMY opens for professional, specialist, visitors at 10am on Thursday June 11th, at 6pm that evening to the general public, and runs until Sunday June 14th. Ahead of
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On March 10th 2015 a jury at the Central District Court of California in Los Angeles concluded that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke had relied a little too heavily on Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit "Got to Give It Up" when composing their track "Blurred Lines". For infringement of Gaye's copyright the court ordered Williams and Thicke to pay Marvin Gaye's estate $7.4 million dollars. Responding to the judgement Pharrell Williams mused in the Financial Times that "the verdict handicaps any creator
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"The real jewel of my disease-ridden woodlot is the prothonotary warbler", confided the American author, ecologist and conservationist Aldo Leopold in his 1949 book "A Sand County Almanac", "The flash of his gold-and-blue plumage amid the dank decay of the June woods is in itself proof that dead trees are transmuted into living animals, and vice versa." The following five new design and architecture exhibitions are our prothonotary warblers: proving as they, hopefully, do that abstract ideas
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From June 1st until June 7th the 15th D'Days Paris will be staged under the theme "Experience" Which is hopefully something one has gathered sufficient of after 14 festivals. Featuring contributions from some 100+ creatives the principle focus of D'Days Paris 2015 is, as ever, in-store presentations including, for example, a vapour installation from Krux Amsterdam in the Boffi flagship store, a special presentation of Kartell's latest products in a scenography designed by Ferruccio Laviani in
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Given that Bauhaus is often perceived as having been an incubator for the creative talents of the 1920s, it is perhaps fitting that windows salvaged from Bauhaus Dessau should have been upcycled into a greenhouse for the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin. Or at least into a greenhouse-esque structure for the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin. Conceived, planned and realised by Berlin architectural practice zukunftsgeraeusche GbR together with the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin, Technischen Universität Berlin and Wagner
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"Rare is the human backside that hasn't found solace and support in Mr. Day's most famous creation", thus, with just a touch of music hall sauciness, begins Bruce Weber his obituary to the British designer Robin Day in the New York Times from November 20th 2010, before continuing, "a molded polypropylene shell fastened to an enameled bent tubular steel base that has become familiar seating in schools, churches, offices, auditoriums, home patios, kitchens, dens, bedrooms and basements around the
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How can the urban environment be improved with new housing? Which spatial constellations foster interaction? Which strategies reduce costs but still produce a high quality? How can we initiate a new era of house building? Such and similar questions are posed, and possible answers presented, in the exhibition URBAN LIVING - Strategies for the Future currently on show at the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum DAZ in Berlin. URBAN LIVING - Strategies for the Future at the Deutsches Architektur
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To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer's USM Haller modular furniture system USM instigated a series of masterclasses in which students at seven international design schools were paired with a mentor and asked to "Rethink the Modular" and for all to "consider the significance of modularity in architecture and design" and so "exploit the idea of modularity for contemporary design". The results of the academic exercise were unveiled in an exhibition premièred during
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As we noted in our post on the exhibition Open World at Kazerne Eindhoven, for a city that is often cited as the hub of contemporary European creativity, there isn't much on show publicly in downtown Eindhoven. Rather than being the bustling hive of vision and inspiration one may expect, the centre of Eindhoven is in many ways a textbook example of the sort of monochrome, backwater provincial town that could vanish overnight without anybody noticing. Save of course photographers who specialise
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Shium is the many ways the Korean antipode to our modern world: Shium is decelerate, rest, relax, pause, reflect, slow down. Refresh body and soul Shium is also the foundation on which the exhibition Tools for A Break – Korean Crafts and Design is built, and following its première during Munich Creative Business Week 2015, Tools for A Break – Korean Crafts and Design is currently on show in Berlin. Tools for A Break - Korean Crafts and Design at Orangelab Berlin Fascinated by the diversity
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One of the biggest disappointments of Milan Furniture Fair 2015 was that all manufacturers, or at least all the ones we visited, seem almost pathologically intent on maintaining the convention of a chair as a legged and/or cantilevered object which supports the human frame in an elevated position circa 40 - 45 cms above the floor and with the lower leg extended away from the body. Yet changing technology is resulting in a need for new chair typologies, for chairs which offer alternative
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Several visitors to the Milan furniture fair with whom we spoke, including some whose judgement on such matters we value more than our own, were very excited by the new Uffici chair by Nitzan Cohen for Mattiazzi. We were, and remain, less convinced. Yes with its rigid, unyielding, duck bill-esque form and integrated mesh backrest we can see and understand that it is something new, something different. Yes, its mix of wood and synthetic weave is a nice interplay on two epochs of office chair
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Floris Wubben is a rare and precious being. Floris Wubben is a contemporary Dutch designer who didn't study at Design Academy Eindhoven. When we ask him how such a situation can arise, why he didn't attend Eindhoven, he smiles and replies that we're not the first to ask him that, everybody it seems wants to know. An indication of just how rare and precious a being he is. Floris Wubben does of course have his atelier in Eindhoven. Anything else would be far too absurd, if not illegal, and
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As is becoming traditional the interregional initiative Belgium is Design used Milan Design Week to present a showcase of contemporary Belgian design talent. However, in a break with the tenderfoot tradition the 2015 exhibition didn’t take place in the reserved grandeur of the Triennale di Milano design museum but in the decadent marble festooned grandeur of the Sala Napoleonica of the Accademia di Brera; a venue whose almost stereotypical sumptuousness presented the perfect contrast to the
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The biggest, and certainly highest budget, new architecture and design exhibition open in May 2015 is without question the World Expo 2015 in Milan which begins on May 1st. Staged under the central theme of "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life" Expo Milan 2015 will feature presentations from some 140 countries in an equal or greater number of pavilions by some of the world's leading architectural practices, and promises to present an unrivalled exploration of future strategies for feeding an
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It was invariably more through good fortune than good planning; however, at Milan Furniture Fair 2015 Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's principle manufacturers were all sited next to one another. Good for Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec as it meant they didn't have so far to walk to get to their numerous appointments. And good for everyone else as it allowed for a very easy overview of the brothers' latest works. Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's highest profile new launch at Milan Furniture Fair 2015 was
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Privately and professionally we have long complained about, and been deeply saddened by, the lack of side/coffee tables with a shelf to be found in the contemporary furniture market. We know it's a first world problem, we know we should concentrate on other, genuinely important, things, but..... Back in the day all side/coffee tables had a shelf. And today......? Today the smow blog living room is scattered with magazines, brochures, music scores and catalogues we simply do not know where or
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As a general rule, what you don't say is more important than what you do say: your body language famously sending discrete messages to those around you, messages which betray your feelings and intentions more eloquently and honestly than you ever could, or indeed would often dare to. Similarly, an inanimate object's body language also sends discrete messages which eloquently betray its intentions. An object's body language being more commonly referred to as its form and the functionalists
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Back in the hazy mists of 2014 the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts, Leipzig presented Sitting – Lying – Swinging. Furniture from Thonet, an exhibition which provided a leisurely stroll through 150 years of Thonet chair design and helped explain the evolution of the company's designs over the decades, including why Thonet lost their way in the 1980s and how from the late 1990s onwards they regained their position as one of Europe's leading contemporary furniture producers. And an exhibition
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In the late 19th/early 20th century Vienna based J & J Kohn helped establish the Austro-Hungarian Empire as an important centre for contemporary furniture design, advanced the careers of leading Wiener Secession era designers such as Josef Hoffmann, Otto Prutscher or Adolf Loos, as well as helping lay the foundations for the commercial furniture industry as we know it today. And while we're not going to forecast such a grand future for Brussels based Ateliers J&J, or at least not yet, from
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Upon seeing Rui Alves's Bridge armchair prototype at IMM Cologne 2015 we commented on the unfamiliar, and for us not instantly accessible, overproportioned upholstered seat and backrest...... Before realising in context of both the Pocket Chair by Jesper Junge and the Lenz Lounge Chair by Bartmann Berlin, Silvia Terhedebrügge & Hanne Willmann, that possibly Rui was just riding the Zeitgeist a lot better than us and that the overproportioned aesthetic had a contemporary relevance we were unaware
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