Should the 2014 football World Cup final see Italy meet Brazil that would, arguably, be a more than fitting celebration of the 100th anniversary of Italo-Brazilian architect, artist, designer and author Lina Bo Bardi. However, because football's fickle fate cannot be relied upon the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum, DAZ Berlin are currently staging the exhibition "Lina Bo Bardi - Together", an equally fitting tribute to Lina Bo Bardi and her work. Born in Rome on December 5th 1914 Achillina Bo
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We can't rule out that our interest in the project zTuA by Hochschule Rosenheim students Marko Steininger, Martin Winkler and Fabian Steiner is a direct consequence of the current situation in the (smow) blog HQ. That our professional opinions are being influenced by personal circumstances. We hope they aren't. But can't rule it out. zTuA is an acronym of "zwischen Tür und Angel" - "between door and hinge" - a nice German idiom that refers either to a necessary urgency, to being in the
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If etymologists are to be believed the name "June" is derived from the Latin word iuniores - younger, so junior - a word that has also given us Juniperus. And Juniperus communis gives us the juniper berries that give gin its magic. And what is an exhibition opening without gin? And so what better month to visit an exhibition opening than June? Our five picks from the new June 2014 offerings features Swiss garden design, Spanish food design, Italian abstract design, Finnish modernist design
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Parallel to the exhibition Fernsehgeräte the Neues Museum Nürnberg is also presenting "Unschärfe" - Out of Focus - an installation by Nürnberg architect Matthias Loebermann created in cooperation with students from the Institut für Architektur und Städtebau at the Hochschule Biberach. Whereas fuzziness, blurring and an irritating placing of focus is a tried and tested process in painting or photography - something we demonstrate neigh on daily - in architecture it is a little used phenomenon.
read moreOver the weekend June 6th - 9th the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is hosting the exhibition "Supermodels - 100 Years of Dutch Design and Iconic Architecture" Conceived by Amsterdam based design agency Concern as a response to the question how best to present the variety of Dutch design and architecture in a representative yet compact touring exhibition format, Supermodels presents scale models of important and/or iconic examples of Dutch architecture and design. Premièred at Milan 2014
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Until August 24th the Swiss Architecture Museum, SAM, in Basel is staging "Fritz Haller. Architect and Researcher", an exhibition devoted to one of the most important architects and architectural theorists of the 20th century, albeit one who is all too often overlooked and misunderstood. Or simply known for his USM modular storage system. Born in Solothurn, Switzerland in 1924 Fritz Haller trained as an architectural draughtsman before undertaking a series of jobs in architecture firms
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When Erich Mendelsohn's new Schocken department store opened in Chemnitz in 1930 Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst, one of the leading architecture periodicals of the age, were unsparing in their praise "With his new Schocken department store in Chemnitz Erich Mendelsohn has achieved a new peak in his creativity", they announced.1 With the conversion of Mendelsohn's construction to the new Staatlichen Museum für Archäologie Chemnitz - the State Archaeology Museum in Chemnitz - the responsible
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Who creates the city? Who shapes its future? asks the introduction to the exhibition "Weltstadt - Who creates the city?" currently showing at the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum, DAZ in Berlin. Hang on.....? Haven't we seen similar questions somewhere else recently.....? Of course...... at Konstantin Grcic - Panorama at the Vitra Design Museum, in the context of which we wrote "How each of us responds and reacts to such challenges will ultimately affect the nature of our cities, and so
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Under the title "Dicht Säen" - "Sow Densely" - the sixth Bavarian Architecture Week from May 16th until May 25th 2014 will explore concepts and ideas of "Density" in contemporary architecture and urban planning. Topics that although being discussed at a Bavarian level and in a Bavarian context naturally have a wider importance and relevance. As our cities evolve questions of land use invariably arise: How much space does one need? How much space should one accept? Where does private end and
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Mayday! Mayday! Don't panic. It's just a public holiday. You'll survive. Barbecue something...... And afterwards, when everyone else is back at work and things have calmed down a little, why not enjoy one or more of the following design and architecture exhibitions opening around Europe this coming May. "Fritz Haller. Architekt und Forscher" at the S AM Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum, Basel, Switzerland Everyone knows Fritz Haller. He designed one of the few truly iconic and genuinely
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"What is the Paris Exposition?", asked Roger Gilman in the September 1925 edition of The Art Bulletin, "It is a new world of the applied arts. It is a new world of reality, reality in the square mass of concrete construction, reality in the smooth surfaces of machine products, reality in wonderful new materials offered by our mastery of science and transport, reality in the severe plainness of our practical age, reality in a marvellous effort to design everything and copy nothing. And it is a
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Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of strolling with us through Potsdam will know our feelings on recreating exact replicas of long since lost buildings. Yet much as we get annoyed, dismayed, confused, upset, angry, depressed and downright cross by the unjustifiable, untenable decisions taken in Brandenburg, we do appreciate that often such decisions have to be made. Such as in Dessau in context of Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy's Masters' Houses. One and a half of four near
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Herewith we inform the directors of the Hochschule für bildende Kunst that the Provisional Republican Government has approved the request to rename the unified Hochschule für bildende Kunst and Kunstgewerbeschule as "Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar"1 With this succinct letter from the Office of the Hofmarschallamt in Weimar on 12th April 1919, Bauhaus formally existed. A succinct letter that ended four long years of negotiation and planning, and which - arguably, and depending on your position -
read moreAs part of the accompanying fringe programme to the exhibition Konstantin Grcic - Panorama, the Vitra Design Museum is hosting a talk on Thursday April 17th by Berlin creative collective Raumlabor. Established in 1999 as a loose association of architects and artists Raumlabor have spent the past fifteen years exploring issues around urban renewal, interactive environments, the borders between public and private spaces. Cityscapes, to use the vocabulary of Panorama. For their Vitra Design
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"Potentially it is the simplest assignments, unencumbered by the complex mix of functional, technical or economic conditions, that allow an especially eloquent architecture" So mused the Sachsen branch of the German Architects Association, BDA, in awarding a "Special Recognition" in the 2013 BDA-Preis Sachsen to the project "Garage in Holzstapelbauweise" by Stuttgart based Reichel Schlaier Architekten. Created for a private client in the village of Marienberg, Sachsen, Garage in
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"When I walk into a building I see space, light and colour", so explains the Finnish photographer Ola Kolehmainen his relationship to architecture. How Ola Kolehmainen visualises this triumvirate is currently being presented in the exhibition Geometric Light at the gallery Haus am Waldsee in Berlin. Born in Helsinki in 1964 Ola Kolehmainen originally studied journalism before completing an MA in photography at the University of Art and Design Helsinki. His passion for architecture
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April 2014, as every April we can ever remember, means Milanese purgatory. Apparently it is meant to cleanse the soul, purify our thoughts and generally mitigate for the sins of the past, and so allow us to proceed to higher plains and greater virtues. And boy must we have sinned. We can't remember exactly when, far less how. We just hope we enjoyed it at the time. Because now we are paying. When, if, we return these are the new design exhibitions we're planning on visiting to help us
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Until May 8th 2014 the Aedes Architecture Forum Berlin is hosting the exhibition Visions of the Alhambra, a presentation of the new visitor centre/site entrance designed for the Alhambra palace/fortress/citadel complex in Granada, Spain by Álvaro Siza Vieira and Juan Domingo Santos. Originally constructed in the 9th century as a feudal fortress, the Alhambra served from the 11th century as a seat of power for Moorish rulers of Granada and subsequently as a citadel for the catholic conquerors
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It is a universally acknowledged fact that men only buy Playboy to read the articles. And we only visited the exhibition "Playboy Architecture, 1953-1979" at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt in order to, to, to, tttoooooooo see the Eames DCW that is on display.....mmmm...... its not a chair you see that often..... aaahhh......mmmmmmmm..... or the Bertoia Diamond Chair? [Audible nervous cough. Depart stage left.] Originating from a project by students at Princeton University
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As the prevailing design ideology in post-War Germany die gute Form almost single handedly established the modern German design tradition, and so by extrapolation was responsible for defining the popular understanding of "German Design" Loosely translatable as "good form", gute Form can be considered as reducing an object, building or anything really down to its very essentials, of creating "a natural product, developed from its function and technical requirements, that in its form represents
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As a general rule we ignore rules. Especially those rules that start with "don't" However, when we were told not to photograph inside USM's new powder coating facility at their Münsingen HQ, we did as we were told. For fear that had we not one of the new robotic arms would have picked us up and dispatched us on a Willie Wonka-esque punishment journey leaving us permanently coated in one of USM's 14 colours. Built at a cost of some 20 Million Swiss Francs the new USM powder coating facility
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Although these days talk of necessary redevelopment, renewal, reinvention and change of function in Bremen is often undertaken in context of the local football team Werder; generally the focus is the former harbour areas. With the relocation of the oversea harbours from their former city locations, Bremen has found itself with large areas of land and innumerate buildings looking for a new identity and new functions. Bremen of course isn't the only maritime metropolis having to come to terms
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Until June 10th the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin is presenting "New Architecture! Modern Architecture in Images and Books", an exhibition devoted to architecture photography and architecture publishing of the 1920s and 30s. And an exhibition that illustrates just how little the genres have evolved over the intervening decades. The central focus of New Architecture! is the life, work and archive of the architecture critic and art historian Walter Müller-Wulckow. In addition to his journalistic and
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"It is simple to prove that despite all distractions to the contrary from the cultural community in western Germany that also in the area of industrial design no real, definitive, new impetus can be expected; the foundation for such is missing and the wheel of development is being turned back, advancement stopped and that regardless if Germany - and the future in general - is thereby endangered..... We, the artists of the German Democratic Republic, are the opinion that owing to our
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