Until the introduction of the Julian calender in 45 BCE December had but 29 days, meaning two less days to explore, challenge and enjoy architecture and design exhibitions.
Imagine! How horrible!! We don't say it often, but Thank You Julius Caesar!!!"
Our locations for taking advantage of all 31 glorious days of December 2024 can be found in Herford, Philadelphia, Bratislava, Berlin and Caesar's native Rome.......
While never approving of, far less understanding the reasons for, Lutz 'Luigi' Colani's character, we've always been keen to separate Colani from his work, or to paraphrase George Orwell's view on Salvador Dali, have long believed 'one ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Colani is an interesting, informative, instructive, important designer and a frightfully abhorrent human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other'.1
With Shapes of the Future Marta Herford aim to allow one to concurrently, if autonomously, consider those "two facts" of Colani: the former via a presentation of archival material, prototypes and commercial products from across the decades of Colani's career and the wide range of creative genres in which he was active, whereby a particular focus promises to be Colani's furniture design, much of which was produced in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe region of the contemporary Germany, in which Herford also stands, and that was a major centre of the West German furniture industry. A West German furniture industry that Colani revolutionised, demonised, invigorised and terrorised in equal measure.
The later via a chapter that promises to focus on the man not the designer Lutz 'Luigi' Colani; a focus we'd argue is as important as that that on the designer Colani, and which may offer an opportunity for differentiated perspectives on his character, may cause you to view Colani with new eyes. Or may confirm what you've long thought about Colani.
Thus a presentation which through allowing you to separate the "two facts", to approach each individually but also in context of one another, should not only allow for an extensive introduction to and exploration of the work, positions, approaches and personality of Lutz 'Luigi' Colani, but also allow for more nuanced reflections on the question of the ongoing relevance of that work, positions, approaches and personality.
Luigi Colani – Shapes of the Future opened at Marta Herford, Goebenstraße 2–10, 32052 Herford on Sunday December 1st and is scheduled to run until Sunday March 23rd. Further details can be found at https://marta-herford.de
While Naoto Fukasawa may not be the amongst the first names that come to mind when discussing the most influential designers of the late 20th/early 21st centuries. He very much should be.
A Product Design graduate of Tama Art University, Tokyo, Naoto Fukasawa cut his professional teeth at Seiko Epson, a relationship with an electronic goods manufacturer in the early stages of his career that places him in a prestigious group of influential and important designers, and with the design agency IDEAO, before establishing his own studio in Tokyo.
A studio from where Fukasawa has both realised projects for clients as varied as, and amongst many, many, others, Herman Miller, Artemide, B & B Italia, Issey Miyake, Hitatchi, Hay or MUJI, the later whose design language he dominates and whose reputation he was fundamental in establishing, and has also developed and propagated his design theories as, arguably, most popularly represented by his theory of design Without Thought, that, and summarising more than is prudent, position that you shouldn't be aware of the object you're using, shouldn't be thinking about it, and also Super Normal as developed with Jasper Morrison which, and again summarising more than we really should, is related to an instinctivness that means an object transcends the physical and becomes an action. Almost an archetype. A Super Normal invariably possessed by anonymous rather than authored goods that should be the aim of authors.
A Super Normal and Without Thought that, in many regards, were important in moving global design positions and discourses away from the excesses of the 1980s, while also continuing the reassessment of the tenets of Functionalist Modernism that led to many of those excesses.
And a Super Normal and Without Thought that, we presume, will be very much on show in Things in Themselves, a exhibition that promises a mix of archive materials and products from across Fukasawa's career, and an exhibition which Philadelphia Museum of Art claim is the first major Naoto Fukasawa exhibition in America, which if true, and we see no reason to doubt it, is incredible. As in awful. As in why did it take so long?!?!?!
Naoto Fukasawa: Things in Themselves is scheduled to open at Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19130 on Friday December 13th and run until Sunday April 20th. Further details can be found at www.philamuseum.org
For all that the Ottoman Empire is popularly considered as the contemporary Turkey, at its height it stretched along the north coast of Africa and reached far into the contemporary central Europe. And that not necessarily peacefully or amicably as can be illustrated by the Hungarian Ottoman relationships of the 16th and 17th centuries, that period, we presume between the Battle of Mohács and the liberation of Buda, that forms the basis of Fruits of Discord, a multi-disciplinary exploration by the Slovak National Gallery of a rarely popularly illuminated, but highly relevant and apposite moment, in the (hi)story of contemporary Europe.
An exploration to be undertaken via art and literature but also, if we've understood correctly, via objects of daily use including ceramics, textiles and other craft production, and also via architecture, military and civil, in a presentation which in its breadth and inter-relationships should allow not only for a more probable telling of the military and political (hi)story of Europe, of the role of the military and political (hi)story of Europe in the development of the contemporary Europe, but also allow for a more probable telling of daily life at all levels of class and society, and also of the myriad interactions between, and influencing of, the varying worlds views, and the impact of that interaction and influence on society, its objects and rituals, in a period of turmoil, conflict and longing that has helped shape our own period.
And thereby should help allow for both the more probable telling of the path thus taken we in Europe currently, urgently, need in order to better understand and manage contemporary Europe, and also allow for focussed considerations on the two-way relationship between the prevailing realities in and the objects and rituals of any society and community that we all currently, urgently, need to appreciate.
Fruits of Discord. Portraying the Ottoman Presence is scheduled to open at the Slovak National Gallery, Rázusovo nábrežie 1, 811 02 Bratislava on Friday December 6th and run until Sunday May 18th. Further details can be found at https://sng.sk
As preparations were being made for the 1987 International Building Exhibition, IBA, in West-Berlin, a group of female architects and planners questioned the male dominance of not only the projects being planned for IBA 87, but of architecture and urban planning in general that the male dominance of IBA 87 reflected, and mobilised themselves as Feministische Organisation von Planerinnen und Architektinnen, FOPA, by way of demanding a less male centric architecture and urban planning.
A FOPA who in the guise of Myra Warhaftig, Christine Jachmann and Zaha Hadid were subsequently commissioned to realise social housing projects for IBA 87 on Kreuzberg's Dessauer Strasse. Three projects that stand not only in context of the gender equality movements of the 1980s but of the architectural discourses of the 1980s as, and as noted above, the tenants of Functionalist Modernism were simultaneously questioned, redefined and reimagined.
Promising a presentation of archive materials and interviews with residents past and present of the housing blocks by Warhaftig, Jachmann and Hadid, Dessauer Strasse and other stories on emancipatory housing should allow not only for a differentiated perspective on IBA 87 and on the development of architecture and urban planning in 20th century Europe, nor only allow for insights into questions of social housing design and provision but also for explorations of questions on the gender of architecture and urban planning past, present and future.
Dessauer Strasse and other stories on emancipatory housing is scheduled to open at the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum, DAZ, Wilhelmine-Gemberg-Weg 6, 10179 Berlin on Friday December 6th and run until Sunday February 16th. Further details can be found at www.daz.de
For all that Kraftwerk's depiction of the Autobahn as "a grey band, white stripes, green border" may not sound that inspiring, may not stimulate, unless that is you're a graphic designer, the Autobahn has without question been one of the more important innovations in allowing for the development of European society and culture, we all, and a great majority of our food and our objects of daily use, "fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn".
In Italy they've been 'guidiamo, guidiamo, guidiamo in autostrada' long before Kraftwerk built their monument to the Autobahn, long before the NSDAP who are popularly believed to have been responsible for the development of the Autobahn employed them for their nefarious purposes, and long before anyone else in Europe: the very first autostrada in Europe was opened between Milan and Varese in September 1924. Italy is the home of the Autobahn. Indeed we'd argue with routes such as the Via Appia the contemporary Italy has an even longer history of, tradition of, autostrade.
By way of celebrating the centenary of the autostrade, and one suspects celebrating the autostrade as an object and a concept, MAXXI, Rome, promise with Italia in movimento a presentation of photographs of autostrade, photographs of the construction of, use of, relationships with autostrade, and also of interpretations of autostrade, from across the decades that should allow for wider perspectives on the role, relevance and representation of the "grey band, white stripes, green border" than that enabled by Kraftwerk.
And a presentation which hopefully will also offer space for refections on the future of the autostrada. For reflections if the autostrada has a future. Should have a future, or if its time to say grazie mille, ma ciao.......
Italia in movimento. Autostrade e futuro is scheduled to open at Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, MAXXI, Via Guido Reni, 4 A, Rome on Friday December 6th and run until Sunday February 2nd. Further details can be found at www.maxxi.art
1George Orwell, Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali, The Saturday Book for 1944, London, 1944 reprinted in George Orwell. Essays, Penguin Books, 2000 page 253 Original: "One ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other."
