5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for November 2024

As the, then, still plain Walter Scott, so nearly opined in 1806:

“November’s sky is chill and drear,
November’s leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn
That hems our little garden in,
I thought, what an excellent month to visit an architecture or design exhibition.”¹

Our five retreats from the chill and drear of November 2024 can be found in Chemnitz, Brussels, Winterthur, Krefeld and New York…….

“Reform of Life” at the Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz, Chemnitz, Germany

For 2025 Chemnitz, and Nova Gorica, Slovenia, are the designated European Capitals of Culture, thus an opportunity to glance anew and afresh on a city that thanks to its treatment during the DDR is today often more viewed as a Capital (offence against the principles and ideals) of Culture, than a Capital of Culture. But a city that over a great many years, so prior to the DDR, was one of the motors of industrialisation in the, then Europe; something reflected in the fact that Chemnitz was, lest we forget, one of the driving impulses in the draughting and passing of the 1887 Reich Patent Law, the first such formal law in the lands of the contemporary Germany, by way of protecting the new technology and solutions being developed in the city.

A (hi)story of late 19th/early 20th century industrialisation that brought Chemnitz a great deal of wealth and thus also saw a great many contemporary European creatives travel to the city to undertake commissions, including the Belgian architect and designer Henry van der Velde who in addition to realising two villas and numerous interiors in the city, also designed in 1908 a sadly no longer existent lawn tennis club. A lawn tennis club in 1908 being in itself a clear symbol of affluence and prosperity.

And a Henry van de Velde who is very much the inspiration and stimulation for Reform of Life, an exhibtion which will unite objects by, and associated with, van de Velde from the Kunstsammlung’s Henry van de Velde Museum, housed in van de Velde’s Villa Esche, with works from the Kunstsammlung’s textile and applied art’s collection realised between 1880 and 1950 by the likes of, and amongst others, William Morris, Max Bill, Otto Berger or Chemnitz’s own Marianne Brandt, and which thus should not only allow one to approach a better appreciation of the path from Art Nouveau to post-War Modernism, certainly in a Germanic context, but also allow one to approach a better appreciation of the role and influence of Henry van de Velde on that path, on architecture and design in the first half of the 20th century and thereby his ongoing relevance to architecture and design in the first half of the 21st century.

Reform of Life is scheduled to open at the Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz, Theaterplatz 1, 09111 Chemnitz on Sunday November 24th and run until Sunday March 2nd. Further details can be found at www.kunstsammlungen-chemnitz.de

“Pre-architectures” at CIVA, Brussels, Belgium

In these dispatches we’ve often ask if, why, we need architects. Not by way of annoying architects, or at least not exclusively, but (primarily) by way questioning how our built environments are realised and how they could, should, ¿must? be realised and continuously re-imagined and developed.

And, as we all know, but only very rarely reflect upon, there was a time before architecture, a time when buildings were simply constructed not complexly architctured; a reality that CIVA, Brussels, argue could have continued. But, their argument continues, human society decided it wanted something else.

What if we’d decided differently? Who decided we wanted something else? Why? Can we change that/our decision? Should we? Or is the path we’re on the best one? Was it a wise decision?

Based on research involving artists, sociologists, archaeologists and architects Pre-architectures aims to approach considerations on human spaces, on the origins and subsequent development of human spaces as components of social, economic and political realities and continua in the company of creatives such as, and amongst many others, Ettore Sottsass, Mariana Castillo Deball, Hans Hollein or Anton Vidokle & Pelin Tan, and thereby should allow for differentiated perspectives on not only the architecture without architects that was so central to, for example, the theoretical development of Tsuyoshi Tane’s Garden House on the Vitra Campus, Weil am Rhein, nor only on the possibilities and risks of architecture without architects in our contemporary society that is so much more complex than those depicted and championed in Bernard Rudofsky’s 1964 exhibition and book Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture, but also on our contemporary buildings and spaces, on what they are, why they are, what they could be and what they, potentially, should be.

Pre-architectures is scheduled to open at CIVA, Rue de l’Ermitage 55, 1050 Brussels on Wednesday November 6th and run until Sunday March 30th. Further details can be found at https://civa.brussels

“Lighten Up! In the Rhythm of Day and Night” at the Gewerbemuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland

The Dark Ages are so-called because of the lack of robust, testable, information we have on and about them, and not because they were physically dark. Although they were. Certainly much darker than today; for amongst the many indicators and evidence of the development of human society, and the increasing complexity, of human society over the centuries one of the most readily accessible and most convincing is the ever increasing illumination of human spaces.

An increase of light in our lives, or at least of physical light, that has been culturally, socially and economically important, but which has also brought problems, many of which we are only slowly starting to fully appreciate, including, for example, the effect of our illuminated world on the natural world we share the planet with, and also the increasing distancing of the human being from its internal body clock and from the innate circadian rhythm that is so important across the natural world; an increasing distance not least because in our artificially illuminated world we decide when we are asleep and when we are awake rather than following our internal systems, or more accurately and commonly, we needs must fit our sleeping patterns around the demands of work and commerce rather than of our biological clock and personal circadian rhythm, a subject previously discussed in these dispatches by and from the exhibition Uneversum: Rhythms and Spaces at the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tallinn.

And relationships with light, dark, sleep, awake, nature and human society Lighten Up! aims to approach and provide space for reflection on via a landscape of installations by 17 international creatives of various hues, pun intended, across seven chapters exploring, Essence of Light, Daylight Dynamics, Biological Clocks, Nocturnal and Artificial Light, Nature of Time, Rest-activity Cycles and Mysteries of Sleep and Dreams that should help underscore that our relationship with light is more complex than simply one of illumination, that our relationship with light is simultaneously personal and collective, and thereby provide stimuli for a more questioning approach to light we all need. But also all don’t need.

Lighten Up! In the Rhythm of Day and Night is scheduled to open at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur, Kirchplatz 14, 8400 Winterthur on Friday November 22nd and run until Sunday May 11th. Further details can be found at www.gewerbemuseum.ch

“Visionary Spaces. Walter Pichler Meets Frederick Kiesler in a Display by raumlaborberlin” at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany

As previously discussed in these dispatches, the Ukranian-Amercan architect, artist and designer Frederick/Friedrich Kiesler was among the more interesting and informative definers of space, and questioners of relationships with and within space, in the earliest decades of the 20th century, a creative who via projects such as, for example, his scenography for the play W.U.R. Werstands Universal Robots in Berlin, his interior of the Film Guild Cinema, New York, or his Endless House concept was amongst the more extreme imaginers of spaces of his generation. A role, in many regards, taken on post 1939-45 War by the Austrian architect and sculptor Walter Pichler, a creative who greatly contributed to the development of the theoretical basis of the move away from the more dogmatic confines of post-War Functionalist Modernism interpretations of space and of human needs in and from space, and thus the opening of the definition of the term ‘architecture’.

Two creatives who sought answers to the questions of space, the creation of space, our use of space and relationships with space, the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld will seek to bring into dialogue with one another via some 120 objects and an installation by raumlaborberlin, a collective who over the years have regularly demonstrated their own singular and uninhibited approach to space, with aim of allowing us all to better identify intersections and divergences in the oeuvres of Pichler and Kiesler, and thereby allowing for better appreciations of not only those two oeuvres, nor of the nature of architectural and design dialogues in the 20th century, but on the (hi)story of architecture beyond the built that is so often understood as being the (hi)story of architecture. But is only part of that (hi)story.

Visionary Spaces. Walter Pichler Meets Frederick Kiesler in a Display by raumlaborberlin is scheduled to open at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Joseph-Beuys-Platz 1, 47798 Krefeld on Friday November 22nd and run until Sunday March 30th. Further details can be found at https://kunstmuseenkrefeld.de

“Making Home — Smithsonian Design Triennial” at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, New York, USA

What makes a home? What defines a home? How does home define us? What role does, could, should, design play in making (a) home?

For their seventh Design Triennal the Cooper Hewitt New York seek to explore such and similar questions via 25 commissioned projects across three chapters: Going Home with is focus on the perpetual two-way exchange between individuals and domestic environments; Seeking Home which will challenge conventional definitions and interpretations of ‘home’ as a non-physical space; and Building Home which promises to explore the physical spaces, and buildings, which we call home.

Three chapters which through allowing for an expansion of the term ‘home’, and for an approach to the complexity of the term ‘home’ in its myriad, and at times contradictory, contemporary contexts should help initiate discussions on not only relationships between design and home, and design and home making, but for all on the complex relationships between design as a physical and conceptual practice and domestic life, ‘home’, as a physical and conceptual practice.

Making Home — Smithsonian Design Triennial is scheduled to open at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 East 91st Street, New York NY 10128 on Saturday November 2nd and run until Sunday August 10th. Further details can be found at www.cooperhewitt.org

1. Walter Scott, Marmion; A Tale of Flodden Field, Archibald Constable and Company, Edinburgh, 1808, page 3