Autumn is once more upon the Northern Hemisphere, that season of not only "mists and mellow fruitfulness", but as a John Keats also reminds us the season of harvest, be that vine fruits, apples, gourds or hazelnuts. Or the architecture and design exhibitions Keats didn't mention. If, to be fair to him, they would have been largely unknown in 1819. Unlike today; a today where after a long summer of waiting patiently, of observing from afar, and hoping, autumn traditionally presents a bountiful
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In September 1839 Henry David Thoreau and his brother John spent two weeks navigating the Concord and Merrimack rivers on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border. A boat trip, a journey, motivated by Thoreau's long time observation of the Concord river, and for all its many organic and inorganic inhabitants, floating past him, "fulfilling their fate" as they did; and which inspired Thoreau to "launch myself on its bosom and float wither it would bear me."1 Which is not only a very positive
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Summer Break!!! Not us!!! We're still here, tirelessly toiling to provide the fuel to keep your fires of inquiry burning bright and thereby powering your ongoing exploration into the depths and breadths of design. And your deconstruction of the simplifications, half-truths and objectifications that have become popularly confused for design. But the international architecture and design museum community have collectively decided not to open any new exhibitions in August 2022. We're not
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"One day in the midst of a burning July, When meadows were parched and the rivulets dry, A cluster of Bees in extreme....... anticipation, Flew towards...... a design exhibition"1 (With apologies to Sara Coleridge) Our five welcoming, stimulating, retreats for bees, or anyone or anything, from the parching burning of July 2022 can be found in Munich, Metz, Tulsa, Vienna and Bordeaux....... "The Olympic City of Munich. Retrospect and Outlook" at the Architekturmuseum der TU München, Germany
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With the Boötids, the Arietids and the Beta Taurids June is an eventful month for meteor showers; and a month of great promise for all those who hope their most earnest wishes for the future will be fulfilled through entrusting them to a shooting star. If only their wasn't the seemingly endless wait for nightfall, the seemingly endless sitting and streaming and snacking and stupor of waiting....... Alternatively, use the day(s) ahead of the arrival of those celestial messengers of hope in
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"The May of life blooms but once", reflects Friedrich Schiller, continuing, "It has faded for me".1 Cheer up Freddie!!! And there's nothing quite like a good architecture or design exhibition to revitalise all your faculties. Our recommended fertilizers for the zest of life in May 2022 can be found in Berlin, Den Haag, Brussels, Pfäffikon SZ and Amsterdam....... "Organizing Things" at the Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge, Berlin, Germany According to Rudolf Clausius's interpretation of
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As here in the northern hemisphere winter cedes to spring, not only is nature once again reawakening from its long repose but so too is the international museum community; and that, one senses, with more vigour than in the most recent springs where the Covid pandemic induced upsetting of the established order of the museal ecosystem, through both enforced closures and fundamental disruptions of essential exhibition development processes, dimmed somewhat the promise of the annual spring blush.
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"It was one of those March days" reflects Philip "Pip" Pirrip in Great Expectations, "when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade".1 And thus exactly the sort of dithering, indecisive, capricious, March day when rather than surreptitiously rowing down the Thames towards Gravesend, one should seek refuge in the consistent climate and warming intellectual atmosphere of an architecture or design exhibition. Our five Great exhibition
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According to the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro February 7th marks the first day of spring. Which strikes us, as we're sure it does you, as a little early; however, there was reason in Varro's bold claim, for Varro further sets February 7th as the start of the year, and for all links February 7th with the rising of the west wind, a favourable, warming wind, whose arrival indicates the need to start cultivating your land and crops, specifically Varro advises, "these are things which
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According to Germanic folklore, "If January is frosty and cold, a green woodland will soon entice us". The implication being that a severe January is the necessary pre-requisite not only for a timeous spring bursting forth with new life, but also for a warm, (meteorologically) settled, summer. But in the frost and cold and dark and endlessness of January that green (deciduous) woodland is still a long way off, is unimaginable, is unreachable, is almost mythical; however, protection, and
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In 1922 the Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie told the undergraduates at St. Andrews University "you remember someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December", an allusion to the summer of your life filling your darkening winter days with colour and aroma, and an analogy he neatly reinforces a little later with a, "you have June coming".1 But that was 1922. Roses were seasonal. Today roses are available all year round, which is not only symbolic of the short-sighted
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"November's night is dark and drear, The dullest month of all the year", opined Letitia Elizabeth Landon in 1836, however, 'twas not all doom and gloom, for, as she continues, "the November evening now closing in round Mrs. Cameron's house was of a very cheerful nature."* A cheerfulness in Mrs. Cameron's house/school occasioned by the gaiety associated with the rapidly approaching annual school prize-giving and ball; and a cheerfulness to banish the dreary darkness of a November evening that
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In days of yore October was known in Germanic lands as Weinmonat, Wine Month, Month of Wine, whereby thoughts were, unquestionably, less with the drink as with the grape and the harvest, and thus the promise of the new wine. And in many regards our exhibition recommendations can be considered a monthly harvest of the new crop of architecture and design exhibitions; specifically, and staying in Germanic registers, an Auslese, a considered selection of those well ripened concepts and premises it
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According to the 6th century CE antiquarian John the Lydian, "the oracle recommends drinking milk for the sake of good health all through the month of September".1 And while milk may have advantages in terms of your physical health, for your spiritual and intellectual health, we'd recommend the following quintet of new architecture, design and art exhibitions opening in September 2021. Whereby, exhibitions and milk aren't mutually exclusive, you can partake of both if you so wish......
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We published our first exhibition recommendations list in November 2013, and have diligently, and joyfully, ended every month since with a list of five architecture and design related exhibitions opening in the coming month that appear worthy of a recommendation. A tradition we very much planned to continue in July 2021 for August 2021. And would have; however, having undertaken our regular tour through our database of international museums and galleries, we can find but two exhibitions
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We go in withering July, To ply the hard incessant hoe; Panting beneath the brazen sky, We sweat and grumble, but we go.....1 .....alternatively, skip the panting, sweating and grumbling with a visit to an air-conditioned museum. Our recommendations for escaping the brazen sky of withering July 2021 can be found in Munich, Aalborg, Eisenhüttenstadt, Wrocław and Karlsruhe. And as ever in these times, if you are planning visiting any exhibition please familiarise yourself in advance with the
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"I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it is always June", ponders Anne Shirley in Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1915 novel Anne of the Island. "You'd get tired of it", sighs her adoptive mother Marilla Cuthbert by way of reply. "I daresay", responds Anne, "but just now I feel that it would take me a long time to get tired of it..." Thoughts we very much concur with as we survey and contemplate the varied profusion of new architecture and design exhibitions sprouting forth in June
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According to Germanic folklore Mairegen bringt Segen, Rain in May brings blessings. It also brings an excellent excuse to visit an architecture and/or design exhibition. Our five recommended shelters from the showers in May 2021 can be found in Ulm, Stockholm, Baruth, Zürich and Hasselt...... "HfG Ulm: Exhibition Fever" at the HfG-Archiv, Ulm, Germany. Although only existent between 1953 and 1968 the Hochschule für Gestaltung, HfG, Ulm has a near mythical place in the (hi)story of post-War
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As the 19th century English poet Robert Browning so very, very, nearly phrased it: Oh, to be in Berlin, Vienna, Chemnitz, 's-Hertogenbosch, or Berlin (again), Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in Berlin, Vienna, Chemnitz, 's-Hertogenbosch, or Berlin (again), Sees, some morning a most interesting, entertaining and instructive sounding architecture and/or design exhibition, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough...... "Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos" at the Gropius Bau, Berlin,
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Following the declaration of the French Republic in 1792 a new calendar was introduced in the realms of France: the Revolution had washed away France past and the Republic marked the start of a new reality for mankind, one of universal Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and therefore demanded a resetting of the collective clock, a new measuring of time, and thus out went the Gregorian calendar and its historic associations with church and state, and in came le calendrier républicain, the French
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Alongside the Chinese and Korean New Year celebrations one of the most popular observances in any given February is, arguably, the Feast Day of Saint Valentine on February 14th; St Valentine famously being the patron saint of greetings card manufacturers, lovers, but less famously, if just as importantly, also offering protection from the plague. Now while the misanthropes amongst you will query whether love and plague aren't synonyms, and a pox upon you for that; this February 14th we could
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The only certainty as 2020 flows into 2021 is the ongoing uncertainty. An uncertainty that is increasingly being understood as an ongoing certainty and thereby turning ever more "plans" into "options". And also causing a great many global architecture and design museums to skip over the first quarter of 2021 as if weren't there, and to move their new exhibition openings to April and beyond. A state of affairs which on the one hand means there are currently fewer lonelier locations than any
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To paraphrase the Propellerheads, this is just a little bit of a blog post repeating... For much as with our November 2020 exhibition recommendations, so some of our December 2020 exhibition recommendations won't be opening. Or at least not in December 2020. But then as now are in still in our list. On the one hand because they will open, and is an important part of any pleasure not the expectation and anticipation? And on the other hand, because that which makes an exhibition recommendable
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Back in May we were faced with the decision as to whether to remain with the online exhibition recommendations we'd been carrying throughout the spring, or, given that ever more museums were re-opening, move back offline for our June recommendations. And decided to move back offline, not least because "viewing an exhibition in a museum is the more satisfying experience, the more rewarding experience, the more enduring experience. And an important experience." Ahead of our November
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