Aalto by Jasna Faginović, as seen at Zagreb Design Week 2024 Back in the day sofas, as with all other furniture objects, were solid, immutable, unresponsive objects. Were what they were and remained that for infinity, regardless of how everything else around them changed. Then the human species discovered modularity. A moment as important, and as fundamental, for the human species as the discovery of fire, the wheel, or the potato chip. And since when sofas have been modular. Except they
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Kućni Bench by Lana Veble, as seen at Zagreb Design Week 2024 One of the (great many) consequences of our contemporary European society is the physical toll all the sitting takes on our bodies; a cost for our contemporary conveniences that means for ever more of us regular physical exercise is important, necessary, be that organised sport or simply a few exercises, stretches and bends at home. But much as nobody wants a home-office desk in their home that screams OFFICE at you, so to does
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The European design calendar is dominated by a few mega events, colossi whose shadows not only define the calendar but tend to hog the media and therefore the popular perception of contemporary design, not least since that media became primarily the unreflective echo chamber of Instagram; yet colossi whose (invariably stupidly high) costs mean that only those with the deepest of pockets can hope to find success at such events, only those with the deepest of pockets can hope to register on the
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In 1991 the German, designer, theoretician, educator and co-initiator of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm, Otl Aicher, opined that "die Relation von Form und Material lässt sich nirgendwo so gut nachweisen wie bei Nahrungsmitteln, also etwa bei Teigwaren"1, 'the relationship between form and material is nowhere better demonstrated than in foodstuffs, such as pasta'. With the exhibition al dente: Pasta & Design the HfG-Archiv, Ulm, explore not only the relationships between form and material
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The word on the wind was that Tsuyoshi Tane’s Garden House was to be the last addition to the Vitra Campus, Weil am Rhein. The wind appears to have been ill-informed, thankfully, for with the project Khudi Bari by Marina Tabassum the Vitra Campus has a new addition that expands and extends it more than just physically....... Khudi Bari by Marina Tabassum, Vitra Campus, Weil am Rhein Developed in 2020 by Dhaka, Bangladesh, born and based architect Marina Tabassum as a project for "the
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Timon and Melchior Grau with their Fire lamp (photo courtesy GRAU) There is an argument to be made, one indeed we've often have made in these dispatches, that the (hi)story of human society, essentially, begins with the harnessing of fire, a harnessing that conceptually someone had to arrive at and which poses important questions as to how 'primitive' 'primitive' societies actually were: could you conceive harnessing fire, and then work out how to? We couldn't. A harnessing of fire that was
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"A bútortörténet az általános művészettörténet és a művelődéstörténet egyik speciális ága" opined the Hungarian interior designer, furniture designer, editor and educator Kaesz Gyula in 1962, 'furniture history is a special branch of general art history and cultural history', continuing that 'its task is to acquaint you with the part of human creative work that creates the human environment and means of use. Through the individual objects, we get to know the age, the production and social
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In the exhibtion A Chair and You at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, there is more than A Chair and You can look at them, study them, explore them, converse with them. But not sit on them. In the presentation Stühle zum (Be)Sitzen on the first floor landing of the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, there is more than A Chair and You can look at them, study them, explore them, converse with them. And sit on them. Thirteen chairs which unite more than just thirteen
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Human society's fascination with leaving behind the limitations and fragilities and vagaries of the human being, and of the planet we all call home, is almost as old as human society, and is inextricably linked with developments in technology, science, engineering and human society's understandings of itself and its environments; amongst the earliest descriptions, for example, of flying to the moon being Francis Godwin’s 1638 book The Man in the Moone, an account of a journey, and of the beings
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August 2024 is Olympics, or at least the first half is. And while, yes, you could stay home and watch events in Paris unfold from the comfort of your sofa and fridge, you could also undertake a little cerebral, contemplative, conceptual, fencing, judo, weightlifting, skateboarding, and/or gymnastics of your own. Go for that inner gold!!! Seek to become a new personal best!!! Our five recommended cultural sporting venues for August 2024 can be found, not in Paris, or at least not directly,
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"The word 'document' which in the last few generations stood, and in many regards still stands for, papers relating to legal matters, such as deeds, contracts, affidavits and certificates, has in present-day professional usage reverted to its original meaning as derived from its Latin origin", opined Lucia Moholy in 1948, "and now applies to spoken, written, printed and other materials, produced and distributed for the purpose of imparting knowledge".1 With Lucia Moholy: Exposures Kunsthalle
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As an (apparent) unending forest criss-crossed by visual axes and dotted with meadows, Park Sanssouci in Potsdam stands proxy for the garden design, the garden architecture, of 18th and 19th century Europe. As an (apparent) unending forest criss-crossed by visual axes and dotted with meadows, Park Sanssouci in Potsdam stands proxy for the power and wealth and pomp and glory of 18th and 19th century Prussia. According to the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, who
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Wegneritis An Itch; A Compulsion; A Just One Good Chair Formally catalogued in the WHO International Classification of Diseases as MB23.W1, Wegneritis is a condition exclusive to furniture designers first recorded in Denmark where Jørgensen Wegner, a Hans by birth, and a leading carpenter of his age whose chairs were celebrated and acclaimed throughout all the known lands of that period, was beset by a compulsion, a creative itch, to design ever new chairs, "If only you could design just one
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As Sara Coleridge so very, very, nearly phrased it: "Hot July brings cooling showers, Apricots, and inspiring days in architecture and design museums"1 Our five apricots recommendations for inspiring new exhibitions opening in the, invariably, far, far, too hot July of 2024 take us all to Luxembourg, Remagen, Warsaw, Utrecht and Susch....... "Xanti Schawinsky: Play, Life, Illusion — a Retrospective" at Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam, Luxembourg Xanti Schawinsky is not only a
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Ciao Salone! Servus Salone!! Amongst the European designer furniture publishers Nils Holger Moormann has long stood out from the crowd, and that primarily because Nils Holger Moormann has never sought the crowd, has always done Nils Holger Moormann's thing, not the crowd's thing, and who in doing such has very much, and very justifiably, attracted a crowd lot of individuals. Thus while other furniture publishers dance to the tune of the international trade fair crowd, Nils Holger Moormann
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Moa by Roberta Wende, as seen at Design Without Borders 2024, Budapest As the chair Moa by Roberta Wende appeared in our field of view at Design Without Borders 2024 in the Kiscell Museum, Budapest, our first thought was "felt". Or more accurately our first thought was "FELT!!!", a reflection of our current obsession with all things wool and the promise (we firmly believe to be) inherent in an increase in small-scale, local, sheep-holding in Europe. And we were right it is felt. But not
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Pouls by Daniel Melente, as seen at Design Without Borders 2024, Budapest As discussed and explored in the exhibition Deep-seated. The Secret Art of Upholstery at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, the cushioning that is so central, so defining, in contemporary seating, and in contemporary interiors, has a long (hi)story, a long (hi)story related to technical and cultural changes, a long (hi)story which has both been informed by and has contributed to changes in society. And a
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Sonic Flowers and String by George Koutsouris, as seen at Design Without Borders 2024, Budapest In 2023 a, if one so will, special edition of Design Without Borders was held at FUGA - Budapest Center of Architecture, which devoted itself to "sound objects", objects that deliberately emit sounds, can be made to emit sounds, but which aren't musical instruments, or at least not in the normally understood definitions of the term; sound objects that, in many regards, are also part of that
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Access by mischer'traxler, as seen at Design Without Borders 2024, Budapest mischer'traxler a.k.a. Vienna based creatives Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler have, inarguably, been one of the more interesting and instructive design studios of the past decade and half. And that without ever achieving, without ever giving the impression of wanting to achieve, a wide public profile or a popular commercial acclaim. Always seem to have been perfectly happy getting on with doing their thing.
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Celebrating its 20th anniversary edition in 2024 we charted, and discussed, the (hi)story of Design Without Borders in our conversation with the institutions initiators, organisers and curators Szilvia Szigeti and Tamás Radnóti, and so refer you there dear readers for the background. And also refer you to our post from the 2014 edition, the last time we visited Design Without Borders in its native Budapest; a last visit in Budapest not for lack on interest, far from it, but simply on account of
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The Room for Focussed Activity, as seen at The Biophilic Workspace, Technische Universität München, Munich Creative Business Week 2024 For all that the office is popularly considered an 'environment', over a great man decades it was essentially a monoculture in terms of flora and fauna: humans were there, but little else. Save that half-dried out Yucca sp. or Philodendron sp. in the shadiest corner of the office. Or sat on the sunniest window still. Objects that have not only accompanied the
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From the Bauhaus Museum Weimar you can see the Buchenwald concentration camp; from the Bauhaus Museum Weimar you can exactly locate the violence and inhumanity of the NSDAP. However from Bauhaus Weimar and Bauhaus Dessau and Bauhaus Berlin locating the NSDAP is a lot less straightforward; from the Bauhauses seeing the NSDAP is not as simple, the view towards the NSDAP being as it is partially hidden, lightly distorted, unfocussed, by the mists of an unquestioned post-War narrative. And that
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In 1949 Edgar Kaufmann Jr. the, then, Director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, reflected, not uncritically, that "as more and more new chairs become available to the buying public, the problem of selection begins to be bewildering." A truism that has lost nothing in contemporaneousness over the decades; and also a very nice eyewitness observation from the early days of the rise of the post 1939-45 War American furniture design industry. And of its
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Wellen, Wogen, Wirbel. Water as a source of inspiration, Galerie Handwerk, Munich Water, as we all know, is that compound without which life on earth simply wouldn't be physically possible. And a compound that, as discussed from, for example, Water Pressure. Designing for the Future at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, has an importance and relevance for human society that goes far beyond the physical of its life giving properties. Important and relevant as the physical of its life
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