Arising from the discussions and discourses of the earliest years of the 20th century on the production of, materials of, forms of, and relationships with our objects of daily use in context of the increasing industrialisation of the, then, Germany, and in context of the increasing globalisation of the, then, Europe, the Leipziger Grassimesse1 quickly established itself amongst both avant-gardists and those of a more traditional persuasion, and in doing so became, arguably, one of the more
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Room for Change by Design Campus/d-o-t-s, Vienna Design Week 2023 As noted from the exhibtion Plant Fever. Towards a Phyto-centred design at Schloss Pillnitz, Dresden, a component of its tenure in Dresden was its integration into the 2023 Design Campus Summer School, a platform of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, a platform under the direction in 2023 of Studio d-o-t-s a.k.a. Laura Drouet and Olivier Lacrouts, curators of Plant Fever; and in which context the Summer School participants
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Stargazer chair by Klemens Schillinger (l) and Campfire by Lino Gasparitsch, as seen at Garten, Galerie Rauminhalt, Vienna Design Week 2023 As noted in our post from Ums Eck – 1 M² by Studio Högl Borowski, Vienna Design Week has always been an event that has taken an interest in Vienna, in the fabric of Vienna, the residents of Vienna and the relationships within the city. Including the many green spaces, or potential, possible, green spaces in the city, such as the Czerninplatz that was the
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Much as the (hi)story of architecture is also a chronicle of developments and changes in the social, cultural, economic, ecological, technical, et al realities of any given region, so to is the (hi)story of a region's parks and gardens and urban green spaces. Whereby the (hi)story of the latter is much less often popularly employed in studying and interpreting and learning from the (hi)story of a region than the former. With the showcase Of Gardens and People. Designed Nature, Art and
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For all that the annual Leipzig Grassimesse is and always has been as a sales fair, a place to peruse, discourse with and purchase, contemporary craft, applied art and design, and thereby an opportunity to support contemporary craft, applied art and design practitioners, or perhaps more accurately an opportunity to support those practitioners whose practice you most enjoy, it has also always been a platform for creative schools and their students to present their works and approaches and
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1 M² by Studio Högl Borowski, the Ums Eck project for Vienna Design Week 2023 One of the real joys of Vienna Design Week is that it has always actively and naturally, self-evidently, included the city in all its hues, and expressions, and realities in its programme, has always understood definitions of design to include not only social design and urban design in addition to the more commercial definitions, but also to include the exchange and interaction between all manifestations of design
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In 1981 Irish stadium rockers U2 noted of October: "And the trees are stripped bare, Of all they wear" That of course was 1981, before the, then approaching but much less tangible, irreversible consequences of climate change meant that the trees in Ireland, and across Europe, still proudly wear their leaves throughout October. A new reality that, we'd argue, may soon see U2 forced to rename the song 'November'. A reality, and a coming renaming, that sets the final line of the opening verse:
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Pendulum Lamp by Matej Štefanac, as seen at Vienna Design Week 2023 In many regards the name of Ljubljana based designer Matej Štefanac's new lamp is a misnomer, because pendulums swing and the defining feature of, the argument made by, the joy of, Matej's lamp is that doesn't: It is resolutely, tenaciously, unapologetically static. Until you move it, then it follows your every whim; the technology allowing as it does the lamp to be swung through 180 degrees so that it can shine directly to
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Established in Budapest in 2004 by textile designer Szilvia Szigeti and her interior designer husband Tamás Radnóti, Design Without Borders understands itself, and summarising to the point of inaccuracy, as a platform for international design dialogue across, or perhaps more accurately indifferent to, not only national borders but borders of genre, scale, approach, position et al. By way of preparing for the platform's forthcoming 20th birthday a showcase of projects presented, hosted, by
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The MOWO - Move with VIVI and CC collections, as seen at Vienna Design Week 2023 We first met MOWO, Move with Wood, and its designer Lisa Stolz, at the 2018 Central Saint Martins, London, Degree Show where it was very obviously our stand out project from that year's show, from that year's graduation projects at Central Saint Martins, being as it was the only project we discussed in any depth. In 2021, in the midst of Corona, Lisa Stolz established, via a Kickstarter campaign, MOWO as
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There is an argument to be made that while variation and uniqueness are inherent features of craft processes, design strives for the production of endless uniformity. Or perhaps more accurately design did: while the earliest design practitioners, and those of the 1920s and 1930s who followed them, very much (largely) sought to develop products that contemporary industry could produce en mass as exact replicas of one another, since the 1960s individuals and groups of designers have sought to
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It's been a while, and we were beginning to think it would never happen again; however, after an inordinately long absence September 2023 sees us once again meet up with Vienna Design Week....... For a great many years Vienna Design Week was a key component of our year, not only because, much as the arrival of celery on menus, and plates, informed an A. A. Milne that autumn was with us, Vienna Design Week signalled that summer was well and truly over, thus providing a little, and much need,
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In context of the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar, that first wide-ranging presentation of the school, its work and its understandings of itself and the world in which it existed, the institute presented with the Haus am Horn by Georg Muche and its interior, furniture, fittings and accessories by the likes of, and amongst others, Erich Dieckmann, Alma Buscher, Otto Lindig, Benita Otte or Marcel Breuer, a synopsis of the prevailing understandings of and positions to domestic arrangements and
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Music was my first love, And it will be my last, Music of the future. And music of the past. confided to us all the English singer John Miles in 1976, and thereby both tending to confirm the fundamental place music has, has had, in human civilisations and societies, music as an ancient and eternal force in human civilisation and society, and also through setting the future before the past, a setting, yes, not unrelated to the requirements and provisions of the ancient laws of rhyme, most
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In the alpine regions of Europe the arrival of September marks the start of the Almabtrieb, that annual migration of the cattle, sheep and goats of the region from their high pastures to the valleys far, far below. A migration undertaken because, as the cattle, sheep and goats of the alps innately understand, September is the month when the global architecture and design museum community (slowly) end their summer siesta and begin to invite us all to peruse their autumn/winter exhibition
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We're not saying that Capellagården is the best design school in the world. But would say it is, without question, one of the most delightful and most engaging and most relaxing to visit, one of the best to visit. A genuine joy that was denied us during the Covid years. But one we weren't going to give up on. In summer 2023 the stars aligned and we ventured once again over the seas to Öland....... Capellagården Summer Exhibition 2023 Established in the village of Vickleby1 on the eastern
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The popular Bauhaus focus, preoccupation, of discussions on creativity in the 1920s very naturally leads to us all ignoring other important protagonists, causes us all, when oft unwittingly, to miss other equally valid, and enjoyable, paths to appreciations of developments in craft, design, technology and our objects of daily use in the early decades of the 20th century, that important, and still very relevant, period where handwork increasingly ceded to industry. With Haël. Margarete
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Switzerland A Confoederatio; A Range; A Context For a great many centuries the lands of the contemporary Switzerland were unknown, locked as they were behind and between the towering, daunting, peaks of the Toblerone cordillera; but then a fearless explorer by the name of Heidi, together with her cook Thomas, broke through the once impenetrable Toblerone and discovered a region of vibrant, viridescent valley pastures populated by cows, sheeps, goats, marmots and innumerable quadrilingual
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Arising in the early 1950s from a collective, a community, who had been ardently opposed to the NSDAP, their world view and their warmongering dictatorship, the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm understood itself very much in context of the post-War re-development of society, the post-War development of a new democratic, future-resilient, society. In West Germany and further afield. Thus it is little wonder that synthetic plastics, that material class which post-War offered, embodied,
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Summer Break!!! As in August 2022!! And once again, not us, we're here, we're busy, we're keen, we're chomping at the bit; but the international architecture and design museum community have very clearly decided amongst themselves not to open new exhibitions in August. Whereby, yes, August always was a slow month for new openings but that in August 2022 and August 2023 we should find but one new showcase is a signal of something more than a coincidence. And, as with August 2022, one
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As we were preparing for our trip to Halle and the 2023 Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Jahresausstellung one of those people on the edge of the smow Blog, one of those people who are so important to its operation, asked us how many summer exhibitions we'd seen at Burg Halle. A question that caused a terror to develop within us as the enormity of the number forming before our eyes became ever more distinct and discernable; but then, before we gave vocal form to such an improbable,
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Unlike a great many international craft, applied art and design fairs, entry to the annual Grassimesse Leipzig is strictly by jury selection. And has been since the first edition in 1920. 'twas, in many regards, one of the pillars on which the event established its reputation. And one which helps it maintain that reputation. The 2023 Grassimesse jury recently convened to review the abundance of applications for this year's edition, up some 33% on 2022, and, and perhaps more satisfyingly,
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As we noted, almost exactly 12 months ago, although we here at smow Blog are more or less fully up and running again after the Covid enforced disruption, the extremely complex nature of the smow Blog machinery means that there are still a few elements of the whole that are awaiting a proper re-boot, including, as we noted almost exactly 12 months ago, our famed, and falafel fixated, annual #campustour through European design school summer exhibitions. Which doesn't mean that we aren't visiting
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Of all the novel technological developments of the past century or so, or more specifically those novel developments in context of mobility, arguably, none have approached the human species' imagination, spoken to the human species' fantasies nor so tantalisingly promised that limitless future we all innately know is possible, to quite the degree of the airship; arguably a form of transport that today, all those decades after reaching its zenith as a commercial enterprise, still has an appeal,
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