"Der var en stolt Theepotte", "there was a proud teapot", so begins Hans Christian Andersen's 1863 tale, The Teapot, Andersen continuing by recording that said teapot was, "proud of its porcelain, proud of its long spout, proud of its broad handle"; the start of the biography of an everyday household object, the start of the biography of one of those anonymous goods with which we all surround ourselves, that is one of the first items one meets in the Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge, Berlin,
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As noted in our (brief) introductory post from Stockholm 2023, alongside all the problematic aspects of furniture fairs, one of the advantages, one of the joys of the format, is the chance to catch up with folks, the opportunity they offer to meet with, if oft all too briefly, individuals whose paths you don't cross on a regular basis; individuals such as Budapest based András Kerékgyártó, a designer who we greatly enjoy talking to, or more accurately who we greatly enjoy listening too,
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Launched in 2022 by Gothenburg based lighting manufacturer Oblure, Stair Lamp by, similarly Gothenburg based, Notchi Architects, is a freely dimmable desk/table/bedside lamp-cum-bookend which features two integrated USB-C ports on the side, an integrated two-pin plug socket unobtrusively, neatly, hidden within the base, exterior storage space for pens, USB sticks, chewing gum, lip balm, rings, loose change, very small cacti, etc, etc, etc..... and which screams 1980s Postmodernism at you.
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Based in Tauberbischofsheim in the extreme north of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, VS Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken have producing furniture for schools for over 120 years — the "S" in "VS" was for the greater part of that 120+years Schulmöbelfabriken, school furniture works — and while you can definitely see Stakki in educational establishments, not least thanks to the child sized versions on show in Stockholm, and which, one presumes are known in Tauberbischofsheim as Stakkli, or as
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The high-backed settle has been a furniture object since at least the Middle Ages, if not earlier, and has be re-interpreted numerous times over the centuries; including in the early 2000s by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec who, as far as we recall, introduced with their Alcove for Vitra the concept of the upholstered high-backed settle. A novel understanding of the high-backed settle that very quickly became a popular subject for manufacturers of acoustic furniture, and more gradually a subject
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Born in Tokushima, Japan, in 1920 as a scion of long line of Kendō equipment manufacturers, in the course of the 1950s Takeshi Nii increasingly became a handcraft practitioner, primarily in wood, and subsequently moving to furniture, for all chairs, a fascination with chairs that, as best we can ascertain, and if our Japanese is as good as we hope it is, was inflamed by post-War Danish chair design, and for all by Peter Hvidt and Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen's 1950 AX chair for Fritz Hansen; and
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Hej! Hej! Hej! Hej! Hej! Hej! The rhythm of Stockholm Furniture Fair is given as much by the greetings ringing through the venue as by the layout of the halls or by the products on show; wherever one goes the background to everything is the sound of a simple, but potent, galvanising, word, concept, conveyed and returned....... 🧑 Hej! Hej! 👩🏾 👵🏽 Hej! Hej! 😀 🧔🏼 Hej! Hej! 🤝🏾 But it's been a while since we were last exposed to the joyous rhythm of Stockholm Furniture Fair. Or indeed to
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As any fule kno Italy has a long (hi)story in and of architecture, whereby it is predominately a (his)story of architecture: with Buone Nuove. Women Changing Architecture the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Stockholm, offer an introduction to an alternative narrative. And to alternative futures....... Buone Nuove. Women Changing Architecture, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Stoccolma Originally presented as a full exhibtion at MAXXI Rome in 2022, and now freshly pared down to an abbreviated
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"Design", opined textile designer Bernat Klein in 1976, "means to enjoy the exploration of new possibilities. It means to take pleasure in finding new solutions to old problems; or to have fun juggling with a number of old solutions until they suddenly click and coalesce into one, beautiful, new solution".1 With the exhibtion Bernat Klein. Design in Colour the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, allow insights into how Klein explored, discovered and juggled. And the new possibilities and
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According to Germanic folklore: A wet February brings a fruitful year. And that, we'd argue, not only in terms of vegetation, but also in terms of your individual personal development: a wet February meaning more time spent in museums and thus an enhanced opportunity to engage in meaningful and relevant and motivating discourses and discussions. An ideal environment in which to allow your appreciations of and positions to the world around you to optimally develop, swell, ripen and nourish. So
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Objectification A Curse; A Malediction; A Poison Amongst all animals the ability to attract the attention of others is of fundamental importance in numerous contexts, not least in context of attracting the interest of a potential mate; an attracting of others that is undertaken via a number of innately understood signals, signals that can be transmitted by smell or by sound but regularly are visual: form, colour, proportion, scale, etc used individually or in combination to convey unspoken
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For all that shops are places where design of all types is bought and sold, as the exhibition On Display. Designing the shop experience at Design Museum Brussels helps elucidate, throughout the past 150ish years shops have been both microcosms and drivers of architectural and design positions. If one so will have been display windows for contemporary architecture and design as much as for the goods they purvey....... On Display. Designing the shop experience, Design Museum Brussels For all
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Globally some 100 million individuals are classed as homeless, with untold millions more living in precarious, unsafe, unhealthy conditions.1 And the problem isn't new. Just one of the great many that as a global society we've never managed to get on top off. With the exhibition Who’s Next? Homelessness, Architecture and Cities the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, both offer insights into global homelessness and also demand fresh impetus for finding more meaningful ways forward.......
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Our recent reflections on the La Fonda bar stool by Charles and Ray Eames, and also our recent reflections on Goethe's Donkey, Goethe's chair "just high enough that one can sit half-standing", got us very naturally thinking a lot about stools of all types, the various and varied places one meets stools, the various and varied manners via which stools interact with and contribute to our daily lives, the (hi)story and development of the stool, in particular in context of the (hi)stories and
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By way of breaking us all gently into 2023 we thought that rather than presenting a list of new architecture and design exhibitions opening in January 2023, we'd provide a list of those exhibitions both up and running in January 2023 and those opening in January 2023. It seemed a civilised and informative approach. An approach that was more empowering, less demanding. An invitation to visit an exhibition rather than defining an obligation to visit an exhibition. If an approach, an invitation,
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The Swiss Design Lounge on the first floor of the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich, is home to selected works by the good and great of 20th and 21st century Swiss furniture, lighting and textile design, including, and amongst many others, Bruno Rey, Ubald Klug, Hans Eichenberger or Susi and Ueli Berger, works which not only stand in discourse with one another but also actively invite visitors to try them out, to spend time with them, to get to know them; and while you are, and while you enjoy
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Upholstered furniture is called upholstered furniture for a reason, yet how often do we consider the upholstery rather than the furniture; or more accurately, how often do we consider the upholstery that makes furniture upholstered furniture? How often do we consider the upholstery that makes upholstered furniture such a singular genre of furniture? How often do we consider the upholstery that bequeaths upholstered furniture such a singular status? With the exhibition Deep-seated. The Secret
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According to popular (hi)story the tradition of the Christmas tree originated in the lands of the contemporary Germany. And with O Tannenbaum it was in the lands of the contemporary Germany that that most popular ode to the Christmas tree was first sung. But it's not by way of celebration of Germanic contributions to the Christmas season that all five of our new exhibition recommendations for December 2022 are in Germany, Austria or Germanophone Switzerland. It's just the way the dice fell.
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Pressures of time meant we sadly couldn't make any of the Belgian design school graduate shows this past summer; however, the platform MAD Brussels did manage to have a look. Or did at least look at those design schools to be found in Brussels, and selected from the innumerable graduation projects on show their top ten. An honoured decemvirate subsequently presented in the showcase Graduation Show 2022 at the MAD HQ. A subjective selection, sure, but then aren't all selections? Including our
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Netherlands A Gulf; A Commonwealth; A Context In the course of his great many letters to his pupil, the Rotter Dam aan Maas, letters in which are contained the earliest known descriptions of the provinces that comprise the contemporary Netherlands*, the ancient scribe Oranje Tulpenbol of Old Amsterdam tells how there once existed in those provinces two antagonistic tribes of native Meubilairers: one occupying an area sited roughly between the contemporary Den Haag and Apeldoorn, the other
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In the 1880s design in France stood, in many regards, at the threshold of Art Nouveau, with the likes of, and amongst many others, Louis Majorelle, Émile Gallé or Hector Guimard beginning to start to question the production of, the formal expression of and our relationships with, our objects of daily use in context of the early years of the Third Republic and a rapidly rising industrialisation with all the associated social, economic, technical and political et al developments of the age. And
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In 1959 Alexander Girard was commissioned to design the interior of the New York restaurant La Fonda del Sol, a commission for which Charles and Ray Eames designed the seating. Yet whereas the La Fonda dining chair and La Fonda side chair are well-known, if currently out of production, components of the Eames' canon, what of the La Fonda bar stool....... La Fonda Bar Stool by Charles and Ray Eames Housed on the ground floor of the, then, new Time & Life building on Manhattan's Rockefeller
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We published our first monthly list of exhibition recommendations on November 1st 2013, one of those short, superficial, posts we used to compose, having as we did back then endless time on our hands; and an intervening nine years that means that with this list for November 2022 we are entering our tenth year of helping you advance your cultural education. While being very much aware that the vast majority of you have never visited a single one of the circa 450 new exhibitions we've carefully
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"Everybody, except myself, have used, and admit to having used my photographs ... and often also without mentioning my name", lamented Lucia Moholy in 1956, "everyone – except myself – have derived advantages from using my photographs, either directly, or indirectly, in a number of ways, be it in cash or prestige, or both".1 The photographs in question being of and from the Weimar and Dessau Bauhauses, photos which played, and continue to play, a not unimportant role in mediating Bauhaus to a
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