Sitting unassumingly, and largely unnoticed, in the middle of Germany, the city of Gotha may have only little resonance with the majority, with the great unwashed; however, every European royal family can trace their lineage back to Gotha: most famously the English royal family through Queen Victoria's 1840 marriage to Prince Albert, but the royal houses of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Holland, Norway, you get the idea, can all trace their lineage back to and through Gotha. Gotha and royalty ✔
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As this Bauhaus Weimar centenary year is making ever clearer, whereas Bauhaus may have been physically sited in Weimar, Dessau and (nominally) Berlin, approaching a better understanding of "Bauhaus" involves leaving those sites and following the many paths that either led to, or from, those sites. Paths that not only allow one to approach a better understanding of "Bauhaus", but for all to approach a better understanding of the wider developments of the inter-War years, of inter-War Modernism,
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Whereas the 1920s may have been Roaring, Golden, Années folles, a decade which could be certain that The Great War, that war to end all wars, had brought lasting peace to Europe, and where the utopian visions of the International Modernists, coupled to political and social emancipation and technological progress, made everything possible, and meant we could all gaily Charleston away our nights and days; the 1920s was also the decade that ushered Europe into one of the darkest periods in its
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László Moholy-Nagy may have given Marianne Brandt "mettle for metal", and metal may be the material with which she is most readily and popularly associated; however, as she wrote in 1922, "Ich bin ganz von Glas"..... I am entirely glass. Fragile? Transparent? Opaque? Metamorphic? Refractive? Sparkling? For its 7th edition the triennial International Marianne Brandt Contest sought projects exploring glass in all its interpretations, properties and essences; the 60 nominated projects being
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Our Mondo Contemporaneo is a very unhappy, unsatisfying, unrewarding, dark, place. Should we perhaps all consider a move to the colourful, dynamic reverie of Mondo Mendini? At the Groninger Museum you can undertake a trial visit............... Alessandro Mendini, Marcel Proust, & Poltrona di Proust by Alessandro Mendini, as seen at Mondo Mendini, The Groninger Museum, Groningen Born in Milan on August 16th 1931 Alessandro Mendini studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano,
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While Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is arguably best known for the works he realised in the (mid-)west USA, the works he realised in west(ern) Germany are no less relevant or important for understanding the man, his work and his legacy. Summer 2019 saw the western German State of Nordrhein-Westfalen host three Mies van der Rohe exhibitions, one each in, and devoted to Mies's works in, Aachen, Krefeld and Essen. Three exhibitions now united in one in Cologne, and which as a unified trio not only
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While it is important, and relevant, that the centenary of the opening of Bauhaus Weimar is used to delve a little deeper into the (hi)story of both the institution and inter-War Modernism, design and architecture is more than Bauhaus. Thus following on from our October Bauhaus/inter-War Modernism focussed new exhibition recommendations, five more general, if anything but humdrum, architecture and design exhibitions opening in October 2019 in Groningen, Frankfurt, New York, Stockholm and Weil
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More or less…… ….. Back in May 2019 the sheer number of new architecture and design exhibitions opening globally allowed us to produce two recommendations lists: one featuring exhibitions with a strong Bauhaus/inter-War Modernism focus, and one more general, less focussed. Spring forward five months and with the global museum community now fully awoken from their summer slumber we once again find ourselves with a cornucopia of new exhibitions that invites two lists. An invitation we would
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Belgium is uncharted territory for us. Not literately, we're in Belgium fairly frequently. Indeed so frequently that we are often asked why we don't move to Belgium. Because we've been to Belgium, we reply (JOKE!!)) But Belgium is uncharted territory in terms of our annual #campustour: the design school summer showcases in Belgium tending as they do to run parallel to those in London, and that in previous years we've had good reason to be in London at that time, we've, logically, not been in
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"This house is a work by Le Corbusier" announces a yellow and white sign on the edge of the Zürichhorn park, "I commissioned it in his honour, and as a location from which to spread his ideas amongst a wider public" With the exhibition Mon univers the Pavillon Le Corbusier Zürich attempt to do just that via an exploration of the Swiss architect, artist, designer, author, et al, through a very specific filter: that which he collected. A Spanish Tinaja, ships cowls, and furniture by Le
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With its abundance of forests, earths, coals and waterways the contemporary Nordrhein-Westfalen has long been an important centre of production, industry, trade and by extrapolation design and creativity; at various stages in history important impulses and innovation radiating from communities such as Aachen, Hagen, Krefeld, Essen, Soest or Düsseldorf....... .........and since the end of the 19th century from the myriad of art, applied art, architecture and design schools dotted throughout the
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Small as the Netherlands may be in the global jigsaw, it has been the source of numerous significant impulses in terms of architecture and design, numerous significant impulses which for reasons of brevity we'll reduce to the Dutch gable as a defining feature of baroque architecture, to De Stijl as leading protagonists of the early 20th century European avant-garde, and to that late 20th century Dutch avant-garde that developed in the course of the 1990s and which did so much to force an
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Whereas in the natural world spring ushers in new life but once a year, in the design museum world re-awakenings are biannual: a spring spring as curators awake from their winter hibernation and an autumn spring as they awake from their summer dormancy. Both bringing forth not only the promise of growth, energy, of a new esprit, of new experiences, new sensations, but confirming the eternal nature of existence, that we are but a moment on an endless spiralling continuum....... Our five new
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In 1968 the East German designer Rudolf Horn opined that "the changed tenor of industrial production in the socialist society, in relation to its task of satisfying cultural needs on a mass scale, raises the question of how despite mass production the consumer can realise an individual [domestic] environment, and in addition forces us to consider the problem of how the cultured personality can creatively contribute to the design of their immediate surroundings."1 How indeed....? It was,
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If the recent history of Germany is one of East and West, the longer history is one of North and South; a history which, and simplifying to the point of falsehood, saw the rivalry and conflict between the Hanseatic League and the traders of the southern states become a rivalry and conflict between Prussia and the realms of Baden, Württemberg, Hessen and Bavaria: the latter being the most reluctant to ratify the 1870 November Treaties and join the new Deutsches Reich. A reluctance expressed not
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Partly for reasons of its size, and partly on account of the way the then nations of the contemporary Germany responded to the challenges and realities of late 19th/early 20th century industrialisation, Germany is home to a truly outrageous number of architecture and design schools, certainly more than it would be logical, prudent or congenial to pack into one post. And so to save your nerves, and our fingers, we'll present the German leg of our 2019 #campustour via a series of regional
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The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was (reportedly) the opinion that, "in art there are only fast or slow developments. Essentially it is a matter of evolution, not revolution." A position one, arguably, could apply to all expressions of contemporary culture and society. And a position the exhibition SPACES. Interior design evolution at the ADAM Brussels Design Museum explores in context of domestic interiors. SPACES. Interior design evolution, ADAM Brussels Design Museum, Brussels
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According to our old friend Roget possible synonyms for "August" include great, noble, impressive or worshipful. We can't promise the following quintet of exhibitions will exactly meet such qualities; however, they promise to be anything but frivolous, undignified or flighty explorations of their subject, and therefore certainly should be tending to the August in August 2019....... "New rollout. bauhaus wallpaper" at the Kulturgeschichtlichen Museum Osnabrück, Germany Although Bauhaus,
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In these dispatches we once doubted the prevalence of designer furniture in comics, noting and acknowledging the regular appearance of popular furniture designs in other visual media, we, off-handedly, opined, "... Designer furniture in a comic?" Elegantly proving us very, very wrong the Vitra Design Museum's exhibition Living in a Box. Design and Comics not only explores the use and depiction of designer furniture and lighting in comics, but also considers how comics have contributed to and
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July was once known as Quintilis, and was the fifth month of the Roman calender. The fifth of ten. "Winter" being but an ill-defined cold and dark period between December and March. And sensible as such as an arrangement sounds, and much as we could live with such an arrangement today, with the rise of the Roman Republic the wise decision was made to divide winter into January and February. Wise not least because it means our contemporary year has 12 months: and thus two extra months in which
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To paraphrase the title of the recent exhibition at the Deutsche Architekturmuseum, with the Neues Frankfurt project the team of architects and urban planners around Ernst May and Ludwig Landmann sought to develop new housing for new humans. With the exhibition Wie wohnen die Leute? the Historisches Museum Frankfurt explore the contemporary reality of the Neues Frankfurt estates and thereby the new housing of then in context of the new humans of today. A Home Adapts by the group
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According to the old saying "Human spirit and the June wind often change swiftly", and while we can undertake only little to influence the wind, a visit to an architecture or design exhibition should help strengthen, enhance, embolden and thus stabilise the human spirit. In June, or at any time of the year. Our five recommendations for new exhibitions opening in June 2019 can be found in Ulm, Hornu, Munich, Gothenburg and Boston...... "bauhaus ulm: From Peterhans to Maldonado" at the
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While the shortlist of exhibitions for this column is regularly long, that for May 2019 was particularly so. And particularly tricky. Perusing it we saw no realistic chance of getting it down to five, all made good claims for inclusion, none deserved to be ignored...... Then we noticed that, with a little bit tweaking, we could get two lists: one featuring those exhibitions directly connected with Bauhaus/Inter-War architecture and design, and one featuring those less directly connected. 💡
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Sitting, quietly, unobtrusively, in the north-western corner of Germany, Oldenburg is, in many regards, a near textbook example of a provincial town. Which we don't mean as an insult. Doesn't mean it's irrelevant. In any sense less worthy than elsewhere. Much more Oldenburg is the sort of self-contained community that exists not so much independent of the rest of the world, but without the rest of the world noticing. Or Oldenburg caring if they notice. Oldenburg has its (hi)stories, its
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