No, it's not all shoulder pads and garish colour clashes....... although........ .......much more, with the exhibition 1980s - A new era in furniture design Stockholm's Museum of Furniture Studies explore furniture design in that most politically, culturally, socially and economically fluid of decades, and, and not completely unrelated, a decade which not only brought fundamental changes to understandings of furniture design, but arguably brought more abrupt, more curt, more enduring changes
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As regular readers will be aware, in these dispatches we, very, very occasionally, quietly bemoan a certain monotony at furniture trade fairs, protest that, if you will, we regularly find ourselves wading through an homogenous mass. On this occasion we will however let someone else make that observation on our behalf. In his 2015 book Swedish Design: An Ethnography the American anthropologist Keith M. Murphy notes of a visit to the 2006 Stockholm Furniture Fair, "[T]he only problem was, so
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It's been 8 years since we last visited an exhibition by Stockholm based studio Färg & Blanche. Then 2011, back in the days when we still had our own teeth, our own hair, dreams and aspirations which were in our control, it was the exhibition 20 designers at BIOLOGISKA, one of the most memorable locations we've ever viewed an exhibition in. And despite having been in many an impressive venues since, a multi-storey 360 degree diorama populated by stuffed animals in a range of habitats, remains
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The exhibition Against Invisibility – Women Designers at the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau 1898 to 1938 at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden presents the biographies of 19 female creatives who despite being, to varying degrees, prolific in the early decades of the 20th century, became increasingly invisible post-War; and in doing so not only helps them to regain their visibility, not only ensures their contribution to the development of art and design in the first decades of the 20th century is
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Despite what some may have us believe, Bauhaus didn't appear one morning from the slowly clearing mists of the Ilm valley; rather, and for all its lasting allure, Bauhaus 'twas but a moment on a longer, wider, international helix. One which began its twisting long before Walter Gropius and his merry band arrived in Weimar, and which continues, winding its way ever onwards, to this day. With the exhibition From Arts and Crafts to the Bauhaus. Art and Design – A New Unity! the Bröhan Museum
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"The role of the architect is one of organisation. The house is the considered organisation of our ways of life"1, opined the Austrian architect Margarete Lihotzky in 1921. And in the course of a long, varied career, she repeatedly demonstrated what she understood by such; including most famously, if somewhat narrowly, in a kitchen design............. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000) (Photo 1997, Werner Faymann, source https://commons.wikimedia.org) Born in Vienna on January 23rd
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"...a new generation, a new age, must develop forms and tenors for their interior and exterior worlds which correspond to its desire for well-being and its ideals" wrote Frankfurt city mayor Ludwig Landmann in 1926.1 With the exhibition Moderne am Main 1919-1933 the Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt explore how such developments were approached and realised in Frankfurt and environs, and by extrapolation explore the contribution made by the region to the evolution of inter-War understandings
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According to the posters to be found liberally distributed throughout the city, IMM Cologne 2019 promised to present "1000 furnishings ideas for your home" And it may very well have done. We didn't count. Not least because.... What interest the number, if the ideas themselves ain't meaningful? What interest the number, if the ideas themselves ain't logical? What interest the number, if the ideas themselves ain't justifiable? Or reducing the thought to its essence, what interest the idea if
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Fortune, we are told, favours the brave. Misfortune the reckless, but fortune the brave. Thus, summing all the bravery we could muster, we descended into the unknown of the Bunker am Bahngleis and the exhibition Generation Köln.....* Karoline&Klemens&Thomas&Tim. Generation Köln @ Passagen Cologne 2019 As noted in context of Generation Cologne 2018, we're not huge fans of generic umbrella terms such as "Generation", finding them not only distracting and counter productive, but also
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Although founded twelve years before Bauhaus Weimar, and despite overlaps in personnel and biographies, it would be incorrect to draw a direct line from the Deutsche Werkbund to the Gropius school, even if a line of sorts can, should, be traced between the two institutions. A line which serves not only to connect the two but to underscore the role both played in the development of contemporary understandings of formal aesthetics in the first decades of the 20th century, and also the influence
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On December 10th 1869 Gebrüder Thonet voluntarily relinquished their 1856 Privilege in respect of "The manufacture of chairs and table legs made of bent wood, the bending facilitated by the action of steam or simmering liquids"; thereby ending not only a thirteen year monopoly during which time Thonet became a firmly established global brand, but also the culmination of a neigh on three decade story which highlights the importance of patent protection in the furniture industry. Biegen oder
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If you are planning visiting an architecture or design museum, anywhere in the world, in 2019, it will be staging a Bauhaus themed special exhibition. Guaranteed. There are literally millions of them lined up. If not billions. Which is no complaint. Or at least not unless they are exhibitions based on formulaic, lazy clichés. Then it is very much a complaint. But if they are exhibitions which take open, honest and unblinkered views on either the institution as a whole or a specific, ideally,
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Designer, grib magten! enjoined the 2018 Design School Kolding exhibition, Designer, seize the power! Which not only sounds a bit more revolutionary than one is use to from Danes, but also implies designers should be in power. A position on which, and as we oft noted, we're highly sceptical. Intimately involved in power systems yes, but designers in charge....... Consequently we thought it wise to set course for the Design School Kolding 2018 Graduation Exhibition. Designer, grib magten!
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Atop bonny Killesberg, and beside Kochenhof, (the) Akademie der Bildenden Künste, ABK, Stuttgart has been nurturing a basic kernel within a bright kettle of students of numerous creative disciplines since 1761. For their 2018 Rundgang the, we believe the word is, identity, was based on alternative resolutions of the initialism ABK, the central one being Alle brauchen Kunst - Everyone Needs Art. But do we need that applied, functional art developed in the year past at the ABK Stuttgart......?
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French designer Ionna Vautrin first reached a broad international public with her Binic lamp for Italian manufacturer Foscarini, a design which, it's fair to say, is/was one of those genuinely, gloriously, joyous moments in the (hi)story of lighting design, a work full of character yet devoid of vanity, universally applicable yet always individual. Ionna Vautrin is however more than Binic: before Binic Ionna had enjoyed a varied, international career working with a diverse roster of studios
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As we all learned from the exhibition Peter Behrens. The Practical and the Ideal at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld, the city was an important location in the development of the young Peter Behrens, not least through the role played by the museum's founding director Friedrich Deneken in helping Behrens take his first steps from pure to applied arts; help which included not only giving Behrens' work space in the museum but also mediating commissions with Krefeld manufacturers. One of the more
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At Orgatec Cologne 2016 Vitra staged, in effect, their own trade fair, renting an entire hall and inviting family and friends along to share the space and their ideas on the future of work. And obviously had a lot of fun and/or success with the concept. For at Orgatec Cologne 2018 they once again staged the Vitra Fair....... Work Vitra - Work, Orgatec Cologne 2018 Back in our post from the Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot's exhibition Ron Arad: Yes to the Uncommon! we hinted that if Vitra
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History is not only written by the winners, and re-written by those who can't accept the facts of their defeat, but history is also the story of the visible, those who are invisible having nothing to contribute. With the exhibition Against Invisibility – Women Designers at the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau 1898 to 1938 the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden not only re-introduce nineteen, largely, forgotten female creatives, and therefore allow their contributions' to history to be recorded, but in
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It is seldom that the largest, most centrally placed and intricately staged object in an exhibition isn't the central focus of that exhibition, but a conduit which introduces and guides the exhibition. Something you could ignore, but really shouldn't. However such is the case with the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin's new exhibition Inside Out. Understanding the art of furniture making Inside Out. Understanding the art of furniture making at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin Although it's is widely
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Remember, Remember! The fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot...... Thus begins the traditional song commemorating, and urging us all never to forget, Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators attempts to overthrow the English parliament of the day, their plotting to install a new parliament, one more in line with their ideological position, for all one more in line with their ideological understanding of the English parliament's future relationship to the dominant extra-governmental power
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As previously, and repeatedly, noted, one of the defining aspects about an office furniture fair such as Orgatec Cologne is that wherever one looks one sees a similar vista. Whereas in terms of domestic furnishings there are enough genres of furniture and interpretations of those genres to allow for a, at least relatively when not necessarily satisfyingly, varied landscape, office furniture is much more limited, not only doesn't have the variety of genres, but has a few that are essentials;
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With a new name, but a familiar format, the 2018 Kölner Design Preis once again celebrates the city's design students and creative colleges, including an exhibition of all nominated projects in the Cologne Museum für Angewandte Kunst. 1st Prize: Unfolding Space by Jakob Kilian (KISD), as seen at Kölner Design Preis/Toby E. Rodes Award 2018 Exhibition, MAKK Cologne Inaugurated in 2007 the Kölner Design Preis/Toby E. Rodes Award is a by-nomination award, every creative college in Cologne
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Qu'est-ce que le design? What is design? A question as old as the word itself, arguably older. But one with an answer? In an attempt to approach one the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris asked Charles Eames, Verner Panton, Roger Tallon, Joe Colombo and Fritz Eichler, Qu'est-ce que le design?...... A view of Verner Panton's installation at Qu'est-ce que le design Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris 1969 (Photo Pierre Jahan © and courtesy Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris) Organised in context of
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Staged as part of the Biennale Interieur Kortrijk 2018 City Festival the showcase, We are the Next Generation, presents/presented works by graduates from design schools across Belgium and northern France. But are they......... We are the Next Generation @ Biennale Interieur Kortrijk 2018 The first thing to say is that the Biennale Interieur Kortrijk 2018 City Festival is/was staged in the town's former Sint Martin hospital, we're not sure how quickly the hospital had to vacate the
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