Our pick of the new architecture and design exhibitions opening in January 2017, with showcases in Cologne, New York, Rotterdam, Atlanta and Helsinki. 5 New Design Exhibitions for January 2017 Offering as it does the perfect opportunity for reflection on what has been, and the chance to quietly place hope in what may yet come, January is in many respects the perfect month for visiting an architecture or design exhibition: the very best presenting as they do just such a mix, and thus
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With Holzklasse designer Nils Holger Moormann and VW bus fabricator CustomBus have brought Moormann design to the highways, and for all, the byways. Master of all he surveys.... Holzklasse by Nils Holger Moormann & CustomBus For many the "open road" is the ultimate synonym of a carefree life. And an unachievable dream. Which is of course what makes it such a seductive synonym. For Nils Holger Moormann the open road is daily reality as he travels Europe visiting clients, customers and
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One of our highlights of 2016 was without question PrintStool by Munich based designer Thorsten Franck for German manufacturer Wilkhahn. Less because of the object itself and more because of what it represents: the first step by a major furniture producer towards industrial 3D furniture printing. We met up with Thorsten in Munich to discuss PrintStool, 3D printing and the changing role of designers. PrintStool by Thorsten Franck for Wilkhahn, here as seen at NeoCon Chicago 2016 After
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Five recommendations for new architecture and design exhibitions opening in December 2016, featuring shows in Copenhagen, Weimar, Nürnberg, London and Munich 5 New Design Exhibitions for December 2016 2016 has been an awful year. As in proper awful. Which my explain the unusually high number of expressionist-esque art exhibitions opening globally in December 2016: the bright colours and supportive warmth and encouragement such works tend to radiate being just what we all need after a tough
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With the exhibition Stapeln. Ein Prinzip der Moderne the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus in Bremen celebrate the complex diversity of one of design's simplest principles .... Stacking. Stackable Chairs, as seen at Stapeln. Ein Prinzip der Moderne at the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus Bremen Placing one object on top of another is one of the more innate of human actions. Is something we start to do before we can talk, and an action so simple, so self-explanatory, we generally pay it no heed. Why should we?
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Back in February we spoke with Richard Lampert and he told us he was planning exhibiting at Orgatec. Had a few ideas he said. Boy, did he have ideas......... Orgatec Cologne 2016: Richard Lampert Established in Stuttgart in 1993 the first product in the Richard Lampert portfolio was Eiermann table frame, and thus, in many respects, the company began as an "office furniture" manufacturer. If largely furniture for architects' offices. The great architect's table frame quickly establishing
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Although one primarily goes to Kazerne Eindhoven to experience experimental, challenging, yet invariably accessible and pertinent design, during Dutch Design Week one also gets the chance to experience young, emerging, furniture brands. At Dutch Design week 2016 we were particularly taken with the presentation by Dutch brand Functionals. Tracing its origins back to 1972 and the establishment of a metal workshop in Goirle, near Tilburg, by Henk van Esch, the contemporary Functionals was
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Whereas 3D printing is omnipresent in the media, and a ubiquitous tool in contemporary research and development, in most daily realities it remains scarcelypresent. Save for tablet holders, cosplay accessories and Star Wars chess sets. Or put another way, as a popular activity 3D printing is still very nerd niche. Often very, very trivial. And certainly not a widespread, commercial, industrial process. Yet. But will be. Of that we are certain. How that will be in context of the furniture
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With The Wall, Nieuwe German Gestaltung #004, the 2016 Biennale Interieur in Kortrijk presented an overview of contemporary German design. The Wall: Nieuwe German Gestaltung @ Biennale Interieur Kortrijk 2016 All who know us will understand just how much it tickles us that one of the most ardent proponents of German contemporary design is a Belgian, Max Borka. Not per se that Max is Belgian. But that Max isn’t German. That it takes a non-German to explain to Germans how good contemporary
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It goes without saying that picking a "best of" from an event such as Dutch Design Week is impossible. Too varied are the projects, too wide the scope, too incomparable the works be that classic product design, classic architecture, classic craft, or more conceptual and/or research projects in and across genres. Rarely does urban planning sit so comfortably and naturally alongside pottery, high-tech and politics. While everywhere in Eindhoven one finds people 3D printing with all manner of
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According to Axl Rose, "...it's hard to hold a candle, in the cold November rain." The question is surely, why you would want to? It sounds like a thoroughly foolish thing to do. The clocks have changed, it's dark, cold, we're all a little down, but honestly Axl, standing outside with candles ain't going to make things better. Visiting one of the following five new architecture and design exhibitions however might just.... Fear and Love – Reactions to a complex world at the Design Museum,
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We must start with a confession . This High Five! is a High Four! Not because there weren't good products on show at Orgatec Cologne 2016, there were. But much more Orgatec is an office furniture fair, and therefore: a) most manufacturers offer, in essence, the same range, it is all very homogeneous. Generally of very good quality, but otherwise uninspiring, all very generic, safe and overtly commercial. One reason is that in the contract, so wholesale, business, decisions as to which
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When we spoke with Vitra's Chief Sales Officer Josef Kaiser at NeoCon Chicago he told us that at "Orgatec 2016 we will be trying to be more interesting for architects, without losing the focus on the dealers, which will be challenge, but one we’re looking forward to, not least because this year we have our own hall" What that meant in practice could be experienced in Hall 5.2 at Cologne Messe. Or in the Vitra Messe - Vitra Trade Fair - as we've taking to calling it, seeing how it was,
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On the train down to Kortrijk and the 2016 Biennale Interieur we started drafting this introduction. The talk was of the 25th anniversary edition, the relevance of the event in context of the European furniture and design market - then and now - and the strength(s) of contemporary Belgian furniture design Then we saw that organisers were charging 50 cents to use the toilet. In a fair. Ctrl A. Ctrl X. It may "only" be 50 cents, but.... having charged visitors €22,00 to enter a fair. You
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In 2016 the Breton capital Rennes hosted four exhibitions of, by and from Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec; one of them Rêveries Urbaines - Urban Dreams - is now on show at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec - Rêveries Urbaines, Vitra Design Museum In the European design calendar late September/early October is Vienna Design Week and the opening of the winter/spring temporary exhibition in the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein. And thus our annual outing on the
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The winners and nominated projects from the 2016 International Marianne Brandt Contest can be viewed in an exhibition in Chemnitz. International Marianne Brandt Contest 2016 Exhibition, Chemnitz Museum of Industry Time was we couldn't write about Chemnitz without making a cynical comment, an alleged joke. Time was. These days we not only travel voluntarily, and regularly, to Chemnitz but have begun to understand aspects of the town's character, aspects which on account of our previous
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Continuing our series of posts on creativity in Cologne, historic and contemporary, we met up with product designer Felix Stark. Born in Bonn Felix Stark initially completed a carpentry apprenticeship before studying product design at the ecosign/Akademie für Gestaltung in Cologne, where in 2004 he established his design studio "formstark". In addition to realising projects as varied as, and amongst many others, the ARK tap and bathroom fittings collection for Spanish manufacturer Stanza, a
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August in Edinburgh is Festival, Fringe & Edinburgh College of Art Masters Degree Show. We enjoyed one of the three…… Edinburgh College of Art Occasionally, very, very occasionally, we genuinely think it might be us. Genuinely think there might be nothing wrong with the number of events during Milan Design Week. Genuinely think there is nothing wrong with the number of stages at the Glastonbury Festival. Genuinely think there is nothing wrong with the number of ice cream flavours on offer.
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"When I was very small, a little boy of five or six years old, I was certainly no infant prodigy, but I did do drawings with houses, with vases and flowers, with gypsy caravans, merry-go-rounds and cemeteries........"1 Thus began one of the more interesting design journeys of the twentieth century. Ettore Sottsass (Photo Barbara Radice, 1984 © and courtesy Studio Ettore Sottsass) Ettore Sottsass: From Architect to Designer Born In Innsbruck, Austria, on September 14th 1917 as the son of an
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(a+b)÷a = a÷b ≡ harmony? Or, the contemporary relevance of the Golden Ratio In addition to those artificial laws decreed by state and church our lives are also defined by innate laws, those of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and Murphy. But is there a law of harmony? A law which defines perfect proportions and thus the ideal form of any object? Proponents of the Golden Ratio would answer yes. With their exhibition Divine Golden Ingenious. The Golden Ratio as a Theory of Everything?
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Slowly but surely September is becoming Europe's summer. Whereas July and August increasingly fail to produce anything even vaguely "summery", we can always rely on September to deliver long balmy afternoons, and even longer, balmier, nights. Often juxtaposed with crisp, misty mornings under a fresh blue sky. It's almost as if September knows that once it is gone, autumn will grasp us by the shoulders and drag us, selfishly, into winter. As if September knows it is our last refuge. "Get out
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If a central component of the Bauhaus philosophy was, in essence, to make art useful for industrial production and thus give art a contemporary relevance and function, what to do in a post-industrial world?* The answer from the German art historian and architecture theorist Heinrich Klotz was to unify art with digital technology, and thus give art a contemporary relevance and function. Or the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe, to give it its formal name; and an institution
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As East Berlin's Art and Design College the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee was in many ways symbolic of East Germany's difficult relationship with Bauhaus and the legacy of inter-war functionalism. On the one hand the DDR needed the reduced, cost effective, mass-market, industrial objects striven for during the period. On the other a need to define a new, socialist, tradition for the new, socialist, state meant an almost dogmatic rejection of everything associated with the pre-war "Germany",
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"Does the world really need ever more chairs?", is arguably the question we are most regularly asked. Alongside, "What do you actually do all day?" The answer to the second question depends on who posed it, in how far we hope to impress them or in how far we fear they may stop us doing what we do were they to discover what that actually is. The answer to the first question is "Yes" Or "Yes, if the new chair represents an advance over existing chairs" A chair being not something you sit on,
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