Exhibitions in which designers present objects that inspire them are nothing new. But are by their very nature exhibitions that are always new. No two being the same. A fact that always makes them worth visiting. During Milan Design Week the Kaleidoscope Project Space is showing "Source Material", the latest such exhibition. Presenting objects submitted by 45 creatives from across a range of genres, Source Material claims to be an exploration of how the creative process is both "informed by
read moreAs part of the accompanying fringe programme to the exhibition Konstantin Grcic - Panorama, the Vitra Design Museum is hosting a talk on Thursday April 17th by Berlin creative collective Raumlabor. Established in 1999 as a loose association of architects and artists Raumlabor have spent the past fifteen years exploring issues around urban renewal, interactive environments, the borders between public and private spaces. Cityscapes, to use the vocabulary of Panorama. For their Vitra Design
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As regular readers will be aware, unlike The Kinks we are no dedicated followers of fashion. Millinery is another matter altogether. There is little that excites us quite as much as a good hat. And so we were obviously instantly taken by what we took to be an over sized Fes on Cologne designer Thomas Schnur's stand at Salone Satellite. It was of course not a Fes but "Felt Stool", one of Thomas's newer projects. And a project that is exactly what it claims to be. A stool made of felt. Not
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Older readers will remember how last year one of the Vitra Senior Manager's quoted from this blog in his pre-fair pep talk to the assembled Team Vitra. Having reached the zenith of our careers we contemplated retiring. Fortunately we didn't. For at Milan 2014 Vitra have re-issued objects from a collection of Alexander Girard furniture designs that featured in our July 2012 "Lost Furniture Design Classics" post. OK not the furniture pieces we referred to, but objects from the same
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At the 1949 Copenhagen Carpenters Guild exhibition Hans J. Wegner presented his JH501 "Round Chair" for Johannes Hansen. Often referred to simply as "The Chair", for many its basic yet expressive form reflecting perfection in chair design, the JH501 was the work with which Hans J. Wegner first reached a mass public and is in many ways the work that first established the international reputation of Danish design and which made Danish furniture "hip". Among those who saw the JH501 at the 1949
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"With Milan design week, as with life", we noted in our Milan Design Week 2014 preview, "the best, most interesting, most enjoyable discoveries are invariably to be made on the by-ways. And often as the result of spontaneous, unconsidered, chance, decisions." And so it came to pass. On the Sunday before Milan design week we were busy completing all those important, unacknowledged, thankless, tasks without which this all wouldn't be possible, when by pure chance we walked past the Milan
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Many people, if not peoples, could currently be forgiven for reacting somewhat sceptically to the notion of a “Happy Future”. With their exhibition “Happy Future” Dutch design collective Dutch Invertuals take on this scepticism and aim to show that the basic ingredients for such are there; we just need to identify and use them correctly. Established in 2009 Dutch Invertuals is a loose collective of designers, largely but not exclusively with a Design Academy Eindhoven background, who
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Whereas, generally speaking, those designers we feature in these pages have trained as either an architect or carpenter, Jean Prouvé was a blacksmith. Or more correctly a ferronniers d'art. An ornamental blacksmith. A training that was to give him a singular perspective on the challenges of the age, on aesthetics, on the question of industrial versus artisan production and which endows him and his work with a unique place in the history of European architecture and design. He is also the only
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"Potentially it is the simplest assignments, unencumbered by the complex mix of functional, technical or economic conditions, that allow an especially eloquent architecture" So mused the Sachsen branch of the German Architects Association, BDA, in awarding a "Special Recognition" in the 2013 BDA-Preis Sachsen to the project "Garage in Holzstapelbauweise" by Stuttgart based Reichel Schlaier Architekten. Created for a private client in the village of Marienberg, Sachsen, Garage in
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Until April 27th Depot Basel are presenting the exhibition Okolo Offline. Documenting the first five years of Prague based design collective Okolo, aka Jakub Štěch, Adam Štěch, Jan Kloss and Matěj Činčera, the exhibition presents 25 posts from the Okolo blog - www.okoloweb.cz - in a gallery installation: from Moebius for Hermés to Anatomy of ČZ via rulers and set squares, Meiss ski goggles or "Recent Japanese Inspirations", the digital world is made tangible as objects, books, posters and
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As we noted in our review of the book "WEGNER – Just one good chair", Hans J. Wegner spent a large proportion of his career seeking to perfect and improve his chair designs. "If only you could design just one good chair in your life . . .", he mused in 1952, "But you simply cannot" Similarly for Egon Eiermann the "Chair of his Life" was always the next chair design. While Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was famously of the opinion that designing a chair was more complicated than building a
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"When I walk into a building I see space, light and colour", so explains the Finnish photographer Ola Kolehmainen his relationship to architecture. How Ola Kolehmainen visualises this triumvirate is currently being presented in the exhibition Geometric Light at the gallery Haus am Waldsee in Berlin. Born in Helsinki in 1964 Ola Kolehmainen originally studied journalism before completing an MA in photography at the University of Art and Design Helsinki. His passion for architecture
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The weekend April 4th to April 6th 2014 sees the 3rd annual "European Artistic Crafts Days". Organised by the French National Institute of Arts and Crafts (INMA), the Journées Européennes des Métiers d’Art will be celebrated with untold events, workshops, open days and exhibitions in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Great Britain, Latvia, Hungary and Portugal. And by us through the candleholder Medallion by Gonçalo Campos & Maria Bruno Néo for Portuguese brand Vicara, a new product
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Born on April 2nd 1914 Hans Jørgensen Wegner is without question one of the most important designers of the so-called Danish Modern movement. Works such as the Peacock Chair from 1947, the 1949 JH501, an object often referred to simply as "The Chair" or his 1949 CH24 Wishbone Chair, his best selling creation, largely helping define Danish design in the 1940s and 1950s. Golden decades that still dominate the public persona of the Danish design tradition. Hans Jørgensen Wegner is equally
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"Okay so is there ANYTHING interesting happening in Milan this year?" asked dezeen founder and Editor in Chief Marcus Fairs in a recent tweet, "Judging by my inbox so far, the answer is no" The real answer of course is: ignore your inbox. As a Marcus Fairs must surely know. But which is admittedly easier said than done. With Milan design week, as with life, the best, most interesting, most enjoyable discoveries are invariably to be made on the by-ways. And often as the result of
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April 2014, as every April we can ever remember, means Milanese purgatory. Apparently it is meant to cleanse the soul, purify our thoughts and generally mitigate for the sins of the past, and so allow us to proceed to higher plains and greater virtues. And boy must we have sinned. We can't remember exactly when, far less how. We just hope we enjoyed it at the time. Because now we are paying. When, if, we return these are the new design exhibitions we're planning on visiting to help us
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If we were to be completely honest we would have to admit that although we were aware of the name "Ferdinand Kramer", it wasn't until Frankfurt based manufacturer e15 launched a series of Kramer re-editions at Milan 2012 that we actually paid any serious attention to the man and his work. Something we are very thankful for. Born in Frankfurt in 1898 Ferdinand Kramer undertook a foundation architecture course in Munich before joining Bauhaus Weimar in 1919. Disillusioned by the lack of a
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Until May 8th 2014 the Aedes Architecture Forum Berlin is hosting the exhibition Visions of the Alhambra, a presentation of the new visitor centre/site entrance designed for the Alhambra palace/fortress/citadel complex in Granada, Spain by Álvaro Siza Vieira and Juan Domingo Santos. Originally constructed in the 9th century as a feudal fortress, the Alhambra served from the 11th century as a seat of power for Moorish rulers of Granada and subsequently as a citadel for the catholic conquerors
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One of the first telephone calls Mateo Kries and Marc Zehntner made upon assuming leadership of the Vitra Design Museum in 2011 was to Konstantin Grcic to discuss the possibility of an exhibition. Grcic was, in principle, open to the idea, but, "I didn't want a static exhibition, something that froze my work in time, rather I wanted something dynamic" That "something dynamic" is the exhibition Konstantin Grcic - Panorama which opened at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein on Friday March
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It is a universally acknowledged fact that men only buy Playboy to read the articles. And we only visited the exhibition "Playboy Architecture, 1953-1979" at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt in order to, to, to, tttoooooooo see the Eames DCW that is on display.....mmmm...... its not a chair you see that often..... aaahhh......mmmmmmmm..... or the Bertoia Diamond Chair? [Audible nervous cough. Depart stage left.] Originating from a project by students at Princeton University
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As the prevailing design ideology in post-War Germany die gute Form almost single handedly established the modern German design tradition, and so by extrapolation was responsible for defining the popular understanding of "German Design" Loosely translatable as "good form", gute Form can be considered as reducing an object, building or anything really down to its very essentials, of creating "a natural product, developed from its function and technical requirements, that in its form represents
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As a general rule we ignore rules. Especially those rules that start with "don't" However, when we were told not to photograph inside USM's new powder coating facility at their Münsingen HQ, we did as we were told. For fear that had we not one of the new robotic arms would have picked us up and dispatched us on a Willie Wonka-esque punishment journey leaving us permanently coated in one of USM's 14 colours. Built at a cost of some 20 Million Swiss Francs the new USM powder coating facility
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Although these days talk of necessary redevelopment, renewal, reinvention and change of function in Bremen is often undertaken in context of the local football team Werder; generally the focus is the former harbour areas. With the relocation of the oversea harbours from their former city locations, Bremen has found itself with large areas of land and innumerate buildings looking for a new identity and new functions. Bremen of course isn't the only maritime metropolis having to come to terms
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Until June 10th the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin is presenting "New Architecture! Modern Architecture in Images and Books", an exhibition devoted to architecture photography and architecture publishing of the 1920s and 30s. And an exhibition that illustrates just how little the genres have evolved over the intervening decades. The central focus of New Architecture! is the life, work and archive of the architecture critic and art historian Walter Müller-Wulckow. In addition to his journalistic and
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