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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Having started this Bauhaus Weimar centenary year by exploring the path from Arts and Crafts to Bauhaus, the Bröhan Museum Berlin end this Bauhaus Weimar centenary year by exploring the path from Bauhaus to Arts and Crafts Scandinavia. Or more accurately put, by exploring Nordic Design. The Response to the Bauhaus. Nordic Design. The Response to the Bauhaus at the Bröhan Museum, Berlin As this Bauhaus Weimar centenary year winds down and Bauhaus mania fades, or at least until 2026 when
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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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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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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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It's almost impossible to reflect on design education without reflecting on Bauhaus. Especially this year. And especially when a tour of design school summer exhibitions takes you to Sachsen-Anhalt and Thüringen, to those (contemporary) German States where for 100 years Bauhaus both began and found its de facto end. And while there will be time in coming posts for those reflections on the Gropius school and the developments of the century past, the focus of our 2019 #campustour visits to
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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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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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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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"I assure you that you and your work are the model case for what the Bauhaus has been after" wrote Walter Gropius to Wilhelm Wagenfeld in April 1965. Just how Wilhelm Wagenfeld developed that "model case" "after" Bauhaus is explored, at least in terms of one design genre, in that genre for which Wilhelm Wagenfeld is most popularly known as a Bauhaus model, in the exhibition Wilhelm Wagenfeld: Lamps at the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus Bremen. Tropfen (l) & Düren (r) by Wilhelm Wagenfeld for
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For all the controversy surrounding smow Tel Aviv's victory in the 2018 smow Song Contest, not least the question if there even is a smow Tel Aviv, the staging of the 2019 Contest in Israel does allow for a very nice reinforcing of the central theme of the 2019 smow Song Contest.... Inarguably the biggest architecture and design story in 2019 is the centenary of the founding of Bauhaus Weimar. And whereas one can, should, argue if the school deserves its singular billing, it gets it. What
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That joining the Women's Department weaving workshop was for many a female Bauhäusler not so much an active wish as the response to a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, shouldn't be confused with the workshop producing work of an involuntary, unloving, uncaring nature, of it playing second fiddle to the rest of the institution. Far from it. The quality and relevance of the work created in the Bauhaus weaving workshop being in many regards attested by the fact it was one of the more productive and
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More or less...... .....while 3 of the 5 have a direct connection to Bauhaus, 5 of the 5 are very much in the spirit of the attempts of inter-War architects and designers to reform architecture and design, to establish a new architecture and design for the new society, attempts in which Bauhaus played an important role. And for those seeking escape from Dessau and Weimar, figuratively not physically, we refer you to our more general 5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2019
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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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When one considers the, let's say, unique, derisive, unalluring place the Sächsisch dialect enjoys endures amongst German speakers, it could be considered unwise, foolhardy, to explore all too deeply the contributions made by creatives and industry in and from the State of Sachsen to the development of Bauhaus, to explore, if you will, Bauhaus's Sächsisch accent. With the exhibition Bauhaus_Sachsen the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig do just that....... Bauhaus_Sachsen, Grassi
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Today industrially produced objects are so self-evident and ubiquitous it can be hard to believe there was a time when they weren't. There was. With the exhibition Unique Piece or Mass Product? the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge Berlin explores the developments of industrial production in the early 20th century, the discussions and discourses which accompanied those developments and the connections between such developments and the evolution of both formal understandings and the role and
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"We feel ourselves beholden to the traditions of Bauhaus"1 opined Rolf Kuhn, Director of the Dessau based Zentrum für Gestaltung, in the catalogue for the institute's 1988 exhibition Experiment Bauhaus. And while that may have been the case in the late 1980s, it certainly wasn't always so in East Germany. With the exhibition Shaping everyday life! Bauhaus modernism in the GDR the Dokumentationszentrum Alltagskultur der DDR in Eisenhüttenstadt allow for not only an exploration of the
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"Sometimes one has to remind oneself that this change took place in one generation - such is the gap between the woman of today and of yesterday, between the girl of then and of now." So begins the German magazine Die Woche's 1930 article "Mädchen wollen etwas lernen", "Girls want to learn something", an article which opens Four "Bauhausmädels" and is subsequently extend by the Angermuseum Erfurt to explore not only what Gertrud Arndt, Margarete Heymann, Margaretha Reichardt and Marianne
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From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Enticed us into the following architecture and design exhibitions....... William Shakespeare, Sonnet 98, From you have I been absent in the spring (extended, with apologies) "Bauhaus_Sachsen" at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig, Germany When in 1925 it became clear that Bauhaus would have to leave Weimar, Leipzig was one of the city's to offer it a new home; as history records Walter
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Were it possible that there could be such a thing as a "lost" Bauhaus building, something wholly unimaginable this of all years, then the best candidate would, arguably, have to be the ADGB Bundesschule in Bernau bei Berlin. Yes, it is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and so is not really lost; however as an object it only rarely features, and when then invariably passingly, in the popular Bauhaus discourse .... and that despite being built by a serving Bauhaus Director. With the exhibition
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The 1920s was in many regards a decade that promised so much, achieved so much, but which was then overtaken by political and economic events before it could cement that which it promised and achieved, and which therefore remains hanging, almost stranded, in history. Somehow unfulfilled. And which with its popular image as as roaring, golden, age also appears a little too joyous, a little too optimistic, sandwiched as it is between the horrors and loss of two wars. But then in the course of
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Although Bauhaus did undeniably exist, sometimes we could all be forgiven for believing we had collectively imagined it. Not only on account of its ephemerality as an institution, but also because it existed in a period of history that is, generally, a little abstract, intangible, indecipherable for a majority of us. While today the popular image of Bauhaus is so ideal, represents such a utopia and eutopia, it has that tangible feeling of intangibility, of unreality, of something imaginary.
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"Beware the Ides of March" Julius Caesar was, allegedly, advised by the soothsayer Spurinna. And he probably wished he had. March 15th seeing his death at the hands of some 60 Senators, a death which led to civil war as opposing forces sought to control Rome's destiny. "Beware the 5th of the Calends of April" a modern day Spurinna would no doubt warn the good folks of the United Kingdom. March 29th looking as it is like being an equally fateful day. But while Caesar could have taken steps to
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