One could be forgiven for thinking that little would be as pointless as a Le Corbusier colouring-in book. So singularly achromatic is the popular understanding of Le Corbusier, a lack of colour reinforced by the dour, austere, round bespectacled, persona which so universally defines Le Corbusier: what, one asks oneself, could there possibly be to colour in a Le Corbusier colouring-in book? Yet in contrast to the popular Le Corbusier image, Le Corbusier's career was one undertaken in colour. A
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"Space and form are important elements in the creation of the [interior] environment", opined the Danish architect, artist and designer Verner Panton in 1969, however, he continues, "colours are even more important". And no-one, even those with but the briefest familiarity with Verner Panton, can oversee the colour in Verner Panton's work. Yet important as colour and space and form were for Panton, "in the creation of the [interior] environment", "l'homme reste l'élément central", man remains
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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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In her 1929 essay A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf, as a component of her reflections on the myriad subjects of 'women and fiction', reads her way, chronologically, through a bookcase of works written by women from across the centuries. Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, has the feeling of Virginia Woolf's bookcase, allowing as it does for reflections on, and a critical questioning of, the myriad subjects of 'women and design'....... Here
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In September 1951 the East German newspaper Neue Zeit informed its readers that, "whomever travels to Fürstenberg sees the beginnings of the new city, a city planned according to the "Principles of Urban Development".1 Whomever travels to Fürstenberg today arrives in Eisenhüttenstadt, the planned city that arose from those "beginnings"; and a city which, arguably, more than any other, stands proxy for the rise and fall of East Germany. With the exhibition Endless Beginning. The Transformation
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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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Globally some 2 billion of us live in a city of more than 500,000 inhabitants.1 A number that is progressively growing. But what does "city" mean? Not lexicographically, but physically, culturally, socially, politically, economically, morally, etc, etc, etc? With the exhibition Die Stadt. Between Skyline and Latrine the smac – Staatliches Museum für Archäologie Chemnitz attempt to approach possible answers...... A model of Archigram’s 1964 Walking City as part of a discussion on literary
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"We must endeavour to introduce a little order into this business, or at least sense into a great deal of it. But what is sense without order? We must try to find some method of arriving at some sort of order - one that will at least enable us to escape from this vagueness in the design of colour", opined Amédée Ozenfant in 1937.1 And had an idea or two as to the how....... Not directly associated with Amédée Ozenfant, but being as it is the house next door to the house/studio designed by
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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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As the worldline of architecture's spacetime continuum moves through the 1970s and ever further into the 1980s it becomes increasingly blurry, indistinct, harder to confidently follow: established conventions and systems, acknowledged fundamental and/or necessary rules of architecture become increasingly difficult to locate. Indeed were there rules in 1980s architecture? With the exhibition Anything Goes? Berlin Architecture in the 1980s the Berlinische Galerie explore the architectural
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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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"¿Qué es diseño?" asked Clara Porset in 1949. What is design?1 Not because she didn't know. Far from it. Over the course of the preceding two decades Clara Porset had ably demonstrated her considered, critical and responsive understandings of design; understandings that saw her develop into one of the most important, interesting and informative furniture designers in Mexico, understandings that saw her develop into one of the more important, interesting and informative protagonists in the
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In 1935 George Nelson opined that "the history of art in Italy presents the astonishing spectacle of a series of men who knew no boundaries between the arts"; a history, a tradition, Nelson saw continued into 1930s Italy through "the cheering example of Gio Ponti, who found early in life that no one profession was sufficient to use up his energy or exhaust his interests, and added others with the nonchalance of a small boy increasing his collection of marbles".1 A borderless, inexhaustible
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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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In 1956 the Dutch electronics conglomerate Phillips asked Le Corbusier if he would be interested in designing their pavilion for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. Le Corbusier was. Albeit, "je ne ferai pas de pavillon; je ferai un Poème électronique avec la bouteille qui contiendra", "I will not create a pavilion; I will create a Poème électronique with the bottle to contain it."1 And a pavilion/bottle/Poème électronique which offers an apposite starting point to approaching a
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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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With the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize being awarded to Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal international attention has become focused on architectural strategies geared towards maintaining existing buildings in the face of evolving economic, social, demographic, et al, realities rather than demolishing and erecting new ones by way of a response; and also of the value, the economic, the social, the cultural and the environmental value, of reusing, remodelling and reimagining that which
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"Design ist unsichtbar", Design is invisible/unseen proclaimed the Swiss sociologist Lucius Burckhardt in 1981.1 Which surprised a great many in 1981. And may surprise a great many in 2021...... Lucius Burckhardt (1925 - 2003) (Photo Annemarie Burckhardt, © Martin Schmitz Verlag) Born in Davos, Switzerland, on March 12th 1925 Lucius Burckhardt enjoyed, as best we can ascertain, information on his early biography being more gleaned than confirmed, a comfortable childhood in the Swiss alps,
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"One sits more comfortably on a colour that one likes" declares Verner Panton in his 1997 book Lidt om Farver/Notes on Colour.1 A succinct expression of an understanding of colour as more than just a decorative element, and one of many reflections on the function and relevance of colour beyond the merely decorative which, in a myriad guises, pervade the history of furniture and product design. And contrasting, if at times complementary, reflections, pun intended, we will consider in the
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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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In 1936 Aino Aalto opined that "homes can be given interior design in other ways than before - not by buying expensive complete suites of furniture, but by concentrating on low-cost furnishings which can be used - with the aid of flowers, carpets, drapery and colours - to create hitherto more practical and more comfortable homes."1 A break not only with the understandings, the ways, of generations long past in terms of what constitutes appropriate furniture; but also a break with the ways of
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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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