Thonet A Michael; A Twist; A Portfolio of Patents According to the Felsbilder of the Nymphs of Loreley, that most important of sources of information of the earliest (hi)story of the contemporary Rheinland, the Thonet arose in the community of Boppard, a community framed on the one side by a series of swinging aqueous curves as the Rhein meanders its way slowly through the metamorphic rock of the Rhenish Massif, and on the other by a range of peaks of that Massif on whose flowing curving
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3D printed ceramics by Babette Wiezorek, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig For all that a Wilhelm Wagenfeld is popularly known as one of the more craft orientated designers of the early 20th century, he was no adherent to 'tradition' as understood as doing that which has always been done, and was no adherent of, no fan of, craft as an unchanging practice, railing against those who practised craft as such as participants in a "Maskentanz", a Masked Ball, a
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Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle - Faserland oder 8mm und 100% Bio, Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig Cutting straight to the chase, in our post from the Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle Jahresausstellung 2023 we noted "as ever we may have missed things, in fact we know we did": the project Faserland oder 8mm und 100% Bio was that thing we knew we'd missed. Whereby we still don't know where it was hidden, for we can't remember a single square centimetre
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The H2L lounge chair by Studio Machwerk, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig One of the joys of Grassimesse is that it has never been about big names and star turns, anyone and everyone can apply. All you have to do is convince the jury you deserve to be there. As newbies Studio Machwerk did. And did. Established in 2022 (possibly 2023, yes, we've forgotten, but certainly not before 2022) by Christopher (Ebert) and Josef (Ehnert), both graduates of the Faculty
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Adobe by Ralf Stauss / Papier Langackerhäusl, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig As previously noted in these dispatches, in the 18th century serious attempts were made to employ Papier-mâché as a material for furniture construction, primarily in context of the so-called 'japanning' of the period: a fashion, a t****, in 18th and 19th century Europe for 'Oriental' lacquered goods that saw European craftsfolk develop their own local alternatives, not least as a
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Andreas Möller - Weberei Hamburg & Flying8, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig In the earliest years of the Grassimesse one of the more regularly encountered products was handwoven textiles, textiles being as they are and were the sort of product where the hand versus machine, craft versus industry, debates of the early 20th century can be particularly well, and particularly well focussed, undertaken. And that not least because textiles stand, in many regards,
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New Sources by Matthias Gschwendtner, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig Developed by Matthias Gschwendtner in context of his Diploma Project at the Universität der Künste, UdK, Berlin New Sources sees, and simplifying more than is perhaps prudent, Matthias employ Artificial Intelligence, 3D scanning, algorithmic modelling and robotic milling to form silver birch branches into the necessary components for a chair. Which, yes, does sound like an awful lot of
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Let's be honest, it wouldn't be smow if it followed the rules and did that which you'd expected it to. Thus it should have come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that the inaugural Grassimesse smow-Designpreis produced not the expected one, but two, joint, co-winners: Budapest based designer Annabella Hevesi and her studio Line and Round I O and Nürnberg based glassmaker Cornelius Réer....... smow co-founder Martina Stadler reads the laudatio for Cornelius Réer (m) Annabella Hevesi / Line
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While in many regards being selected to participate at the Grassimesse can be considered an accolade in itself, the event also awards a number of prizes: some specific, others general, all well worth winning. Ahead of the opening of the 2023 edition the winners of the seven Grassi Prizes were announced on Thursday evening in the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig. Selected by the 2023 Grassmesse jury from the 80+ exhibitors, the victorious seven are....... Grassipreis der Carl und
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"If we want to survive, if we want to reach the next level", postulated the German architect Günther L. Eckert in 1980, "we simply have to risk the impossible. It is too easy to invest only in common logic and to dismiss everything that does not have these specific characteristics, everything that encroaches into the incorruptible dimensions of creative self-consent".1 Günther L. Eckert's "impossible", his distancing from "common logic", his encroaching "into the incorruptible dimensions of
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"Something is happening to the way people live" opined Nanna Ditzel in 1961; changing realities which caused her to reflect that, in terms of our furniture and interiors, "don't we carry around a whole load of stuff that is old and defunct - and could actually be different."1 With the exhibition Nanna Ditzel. Taking Design to New Heights, Trapholt, Kolding, explore how Nanna Ditzel approached and understood and realised that "different"....... Nanna Ditzel. Taking Design to New Heights,
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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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