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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The top story from Biennale Interieur Kortrijk 2018 is that use of the toilets is free. Jubilation all round!! Much as we like to think our campaign against the previous 50 cent charge was responsible, we suspect the answer lies elsewhere. But we made a stand, and that's what's important. As is the fact that freed from our rage at the intolerability of the charges, and the thus ensuing intolerable bladder pressure, we could concentrate freely on the objects on show. Accepting, as ever, that
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Whereas today the term "design" is regularly understood as an adjective or a noun, its origin is as a verb. It is something one does. The interesting and relevant being that everyone does it differently. With the exhibition Process the centre d'innovation et de design au Grand-Hornu explore Belgian designer Benoît Deneufbourg's definition of that verb. Benoît Deneufbourg. Process, CID - centre d'innovation et de design au Grand-Hornu Born in La Louvière, Benoît Deneufbourg initially
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With his two faces the Roman God Janus was able to look in two different directions at once, a skill he traditionally employed as a gatekeeper, as a guardian of transitions, observing the past while always having his view firmly on the future; but a skill which is also helpful in understanding design processes, allowing as it does one to see simultaneously both the finished article, and the research, experimentation and design philosophy that lead to it. Presenting works by eight Liège based
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Escalating tension between the nuclear powers, public discourses on gender equality/respect, racial equality/respect, religious equality/respect, thousands displaced through war and conflict in South East Asia, destabilising wars and conflicts in the Middle East, warnings about irreversible environmental stability and the long-term habitability of earth, thousands on the streets demanding change..... And the situation in 1968 wasn't very different. With the exhibition 68. Pop und Protest the
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The 2018 ArtEZ Academy of Art & Design Arnhem graduation exhibition was staged under the title, Liberty, but how many would the students be taking...... ArtEZ Academy of Art & Design Arnhem, Liberty 2018 ArtEZ Arnhem Formally established in 2002 through the fusion of existing creative colleges in Arnhem, Enschede and Zwolle, ArtEZ not only still maintains colleges in the three locations, but unites the three, and the word Art, in the name ArtEZ; not particularly elegantly, but effectively.
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The 6th edition of LuForm Aachen is being staged, as the title succinctly implies, in conjunction with the Reciprocity Design Triennale, an event nominally based in the Belgian city of Liège but which, and as with LuForm, integrates creatives and creative institutions from across the Meuse–Rhine Euroregion. And therefore a most logical and natural cooperation As an exhibition LuForm 6 also reflects one of the principle themes of Reciprocity 2018: fragility. Whereby, if the exhibitions in
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"I am happy to supply you with photos of a larger building that has recently been completed, and which, for me, is one in which I have succeeded in most clearly expressing my views on art", wrote the German architect, designer and artist Peter Behrens in 1931, "it is the central warehouse and the associated administration building of the Gutehoffnungshütte Oberhausen, Rhineland"1 With the exhibition Peter Behrens - Art and Technology that clearest expression of Behrens' view on art hosts an
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Fragility is in many regards the natural state of all systems and organisms. Something the Second Law of Thermodynamics tends to support. Given this inherent fragility, the secret to existence is largely a perpetual struggle to prevent fragility becoming the defining condition of a system/organism, in keeping the fragility in the background: something our organic and non-organic systems have developed very clever and astute methods for achieving, so much so that we normally are unaware of
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If Jean-Claude Juncker gets his way October 2018 could see the clocks of Europe turned back an hour for the final time. And thereby bringing to an end the long tradition of local newspapers publishing bi-annual articles documenting the curious tales and legends of town clocks, stories from the Schwarzwald on the largest and smallest cuckoo clocks, and photographs of horologists surrounded by the 350+ clocks and watches they need to reset. For our part, we'll miss them. It will also mean you
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Victor Papanek's contention that "There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few of them", remains one of the most pertinent considerations on the design profession, because it succinctly underscores that in what they do designers directly and indirectly impact not only the user/consumer of that which they design, but also on all those involved in the production, distribution and disposal of that which they design. And thereby, directly and indirectly, on our
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Staged in context of Intersections, ADAM Brussels Design Museum's biennale programme, Design Generations explores not only the work of designers of differing generations, but for all design that remains relevant across generations...... Intersections #5. Design Generations, ADAM Brussels Design Museum The ADAM Brussels Design Museum's Intersections biennale predates the ADAM Brussels Design Museum: the first three being staged in the city's Atomium, that enduring symbol of the blind faith
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Back in the day most everything was produced locally, every community had its network of producers, who not only produced but were also knowledge depositories for processes, materials, local conditions etc, etc, etc Back in the day. More recently production has become remote, goods being produced in anonymous factories, transported across continents, through innumerate staging posts, and thereby not only severing the link between producer and customer, but meaning ever fewer people understand
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The metal wire chair is such a well established seating genre it is hard to imagine it is possible to do anything new with it. Far less anything exciting. However...... ArNO by Bright Potato, as seen at Meet My Project, Paris Design Week 2018 ArNO by Bright Potato Presented in context of the exhibition Meet My Project at the VIA gallery, the joy, nay, the deep satisfaction, of ArNO by London based studio Bright Potato a.k.a Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology graduates David Beirne & Diego
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In our post from the state of DESIGN Berlin curated exhibition VICIS. Always Change a Running System during Munich Creative Business Week 2018 we opined that there was something biographical in the title. Similarly Expertimental Design has overtones of self-reflection. And for all of an unyielding belief in the value, logic, necessity of experimentation in design. Something also reflected in the 2018 state of DESIGN Berlin showcase. state of DESIGN Berlin, Expertimental Design Berlin Design
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It is a universal rule of life that some of the most pleasing things occur unplanned, and that is certainly the case when visiting a design week, events where the disappointment that invariably arises visiting shows you intended to, is quickly offset by something you stumble across per chance. So too was it as we turned into the Rue des Coutures-Saint-Gervais, our thoughts less concerned with where we were or where we were going as with where we had been and for all why we'd been where we'd
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