What with the sweet afterglow of Vienna Design Week behind us we entered October 2013 full of enthusiasm - not least because it meant the opening of the new (smow) Cologne store. The month nearly nose-dived on account of a hideous plagiarism in Leipzig, but was more than rescued by Alison and Peter Smithson at the AIT ArchitekturSalon Cologne.......
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After the relative calm and civility of July and August, September sees a more than inconsequential upping of our professional pensum. In addition to our regular pilgrimage to Vienna Design Week, September 2013 also saw the opening of Lightopia at the Vitra Design Museum, Made in Slums - Mathare Nairobi at the Triennale Design Museum Milan, the International Marianne Brandt Contest in Chemnitz, and the acquisition of Finnish manufacturer Artek by Vitra......
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On Wednesday evening the winners of the Designpreis Brandenburg 2013 were announced in a ceremony held in the cavern-like grandeur of Potsdam's Nikolaisaal. Chosen from over 200 submitted entries the winning projects ranged from a campaign to encourage better glass recycling etiquette over a furniture production system that negates the need for large scale distribution and onto a book for dyslexics and an underground train for Singapore. We'll have more on the Designpreis Brandenburg later as
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"Guten Abend Berlin" Boing Boing "Street's like a jungle, so call the police.... " That is how one opens an event. Sadly it appears that noone from the Bundespreis Ecodesign and/or the German Federal Environment Ministry saw Blur at the 2013 Berlin Festival. And so rather than an inspiring sonic boom, the Bundespreis Ecodesign 2013 Awards ceremony in Berlin opened..... by firstly inviting all nominated companies/individuals onto the stage. One at a time. Awards ceremonies are by their
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"How did the elephant get its trunk?" "How do you get concrete and mortar on to the upper floors of buildings? While you don't need to know the answer to the first question to answer the second: if the elephant didn't, the answer to the second would be a lot less convenient than the modern reality. The idea of using a trunk-esque system to transport concrete and mortar to higher floors was developed by the Stuttgart engineer Karl Schlecht in his 1957 diploma project at Stuttgart University.
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We're not going to pretend everyone is enamoured with our constant pops at Chemnitz. Truth is for the majority our behaviour lies somewhere between adolescent immaturity and the senseless ravings of an embittered pensioner. And indeed all did in fact begin when we were immature teenagers. And we've long since reach the enviable status of rancorous elder citizens. But despite being unenamoured with our demur, most have accepted and understood that it is nothing personal, that it is just an
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On Saturday September 7th the winners of the International Marianne Brandt Contest 2013 were unveiled at an awards ceremony in the Industry Museum Chemnitz. We'll have more on the winners, the 2013 contest and of course the accompanying exhibition real soon, but for now the winners. Congratulations to all! Product Design Award Product & Special Award Alessi: Susanne Schwarz, "Papier tragen" Appreciation Product, Special Award (smow) & Public Award: Anna Albertine Baronius, "2tables"
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Having already been to Chemnitz once this year we really are loathed to go a second time. It somehow feels unfair. Unjust. Twice. In one year. Why us! However on Saturday September 7th the winners of the International Marianne Brandt Contest 2013 contest will be announced and the awards exhibition formally opened. In the Industriemuseum Chemnitz. And we will be there. In the middle of June the nomination shortlist was unveiled, and even though it contains just the names of the nominated
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Having recently publicly announced that the International Marianne Brandt Contest is "....without question one of our favourite international design competitions...." we're not really sure how to start a Post about the Designpreis Halle. At least not without sounding like complete tarts. Initiated in 2007 the Designpreis Halle is, much like the Marianne Brandt Contest, a tri-annual design competition. Or at least was. The third edition really should have taken place in 2013, didn't or at
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Normally we don't pay any heed to design contest exhibitions at design fairs. It just doesn't feel right, looking at them being in our jaundiced minds akin to reading those appalling advertorial "special supplements" that the print industry have fallen back on for survival. However at DMY Berlin 2013 something drew our attention to the exhibition for the adream 2012 competition. A pink brick to be precise. And we're mighty glad it did. Although "adream 2012" sounds like some truly horrendous
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As we noted in an earlier post, the team behind Depot Basel were recently awarded a highly coveted Swiss Design Award in the category Design Mediation. A very well deserved and very welcome recognition for all the work invested. And parallel to Design Miami Basel 2013 Depot Basel opened their latest exhibition, Craft & Drawing. We're a bit late with this post, Craft & Drawing only runs until June 29th 2013; however, as the largest part of our readership are and were unlikely to be in Basel
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If you thought you'd seen the epitome of kitsch, we give you..... An olive bowl in the shape of Celine Dion's swimming pool. Just writing that sentence makes us want one. And of course the accompanying bowl for sun-dried tomatoes in the shape of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's swimming pool. Created by Zurich based designer Damian Fopp the Celeb Bowls collection is a series of porcelain bowls based on celebrity swimming pools, or to be more precise the swimming pools of Frank Sinatra, John
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Despite a very personal, and very, very, old, aversion to all things Chemnitz - a situation we really should start getting over - the Chemnitz based Marianne Brandt Contest is without question one of our favourite international design competitions. We know of no other design competition that could crown an origami hummingbird with a paperclip beak as winner. And we know of no new product concept of late that has so instantly excited and won as over quite as Mechthild did. Or indeed
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As many of you know we officially gave up reporting on private design awards a couple of years ago - for us the emphasis in such awards is more often than not too heavily biased towards generating income for the organisers rather than helping or otherwise furthering the designers and their works. And as such don't merit our support. While some awards are obviously more honourable than others; we decided ignoring all would be fairest. However as Angela Merkel continues to teach us: what is
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It being January, IMM Cologne once again provided the backdrop for the presentation of the A&W Designer of the Year Award. Following on from Tokujin Yoshioka in 2011 and Patrica Urquiola in 2012 the 2013 accolade went to everyone's favourite Bretons Ronan And Erwan Bouroullec In addition to the undoubted kudos of winning, as part of the award the Brothers Bouroullec are also being honoured in an exhibition at the Kölnischer Kunstverein. Featuring an overview of their more recent works the
read moreOlder readers will be well aware of the high esteem in which we hold the Bauhaus educated designer Marianne Brandt. And of the fact that every time we write about her we invariably end up offending half of Saxony. So. Deep breath. Fingers crossed. Here goes..... In 2013 the Chemnitz Art Society Villa Arte will be hosting the 5th International Marianne Brandt Contest. A triannual celebration of international contemporary design the 5th edition of the competition not only continues the search
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Ever since DMY Berlin inaugurated their "Three from Ten" Awards in 2009 the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin has honoured the nominees and prize winners with an autumn exhibition. 2012 is no different and the exhibition "DMY Awards and Jury Selection 2012" can be viewed in Berlin until mid-October. It is of course only logical that the Bauhaus Archiv should take an interest in largely experimental and conceptual design projects. For although today heavily stained with cliché and tainted by the passing
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Back in January Benjamin Hubert was awarded the A&W Audi Mentorpreis 2012. Presented in conjunction with the A&W Designer of the Year Award the Mentorpreis can in many ways be considered as being the "Young Designer" category. The interesting aspect of the A&W Audi Mentorpreis is that the winner is nominated by that year's A&W Designer of the Year. So in 2012 Patricia Urquiola. After the award ceremony we caught up with Benjamin for a quick chat; however, we very cleverly managed to lose the
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As we always say one of the joys of visiting design festivals is the chance they offer to explore different parts of the host city. Normally it is the visitors who travel. In Leipzig, it's Designers' Open that travels. The true minstrel under the European design festivals, Designers' Open has been annually packing its kit bag and moving on ever since leaving its, figurative, family home in the Grassi Museum in 2006. Designers Open 2012 will be held from October 25th to 28th in the
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As already stated, DMY Berlin 2012 is hosting not only the Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2012 exhibition but also the jury meeting to decide which entries should be nominated - and as such go forward to the short list from which the winners will be selected. The jury have done their work and until June 10th we all have the chance to not only view all submitted entries. But also disagree with the jury's decisions. It's why jury's make decisions! The first thing to say is that
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Although we know better, sometimes we could almost believe that this blog is planned. In our "Belgium is Design" post from Milan we wrote "Tim Baute from interror was for several years one of the true highlights at Designers Fair in Cologne." And a couple of weeks later in pops the information that he will be making his debut at DMY Berlin. If his new "Stealth" product range will be a highlight remains to be seen. And certainly the competition is tough. New Zealand designer David Trubridge,
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A couple of years ago we were sat, late one Friday evening, in the kitchen in the Moormann Berge in Aschau, when Nils Holger Moormann came in. Beaming. He'd just returned from collecting a "German Design Prize" in Gold for Berge and enthused how, in comparison to other design prizes, winning the Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland was like winning Olympic gold. He may not have compared it to the Olympics, our memories may be fuzzy on that point. But it was certainly high praise. And
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For a decade and a half the unofficial start to Cologne Furniture Week has been the honouring of the "A&W Designer of the Year" Awarded by the German magazine "A&W Architektur & Wohnen", the prize was inaugurated in 1997 to honour a designer whose work has particular defined the home furnishing style of our time. Previous winners including Philippe Starck, Antonio Citterio or Tom Dixon. To name just three from 15. The A&W Designer of the Year 2012 is the Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola.
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At the 2011 Milan Furniture Fair Vitra are presenting a range of new products from designers including Konstantin Grcic, Antonio Citterio and Barber & Osgerby. Ahead of the official launch we caught up with Vitra Chief Design Officer Eckart Maise to discuss the new products and the Vitra Home Collection in general. (smow): Herr Maise, before we discuss the new products, and maybe as a little helpful background. How does a company like Vitra develop a collection? Do you go to a designer and
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