It being July, there is an obvious temptation to search for new design and architecture exhibitions opening near the coast, maybe in interesting seaside holiday locations. That four of our five tips for July 2015 are indeed being staged a flip-flops throw from the beach is genuinely more by chance than design. Is however very, very welcome. "Rygalik: The Heart of Things" at Gdynia City Museum, Gdynia, Poland The first time we met Tomek and Gosia Rygalik they were making tables out of old
read more
Space is, as any Trekkie will tell you, the final frontier. For designers and architects it is certainly a very challenging frontier. Not only do the normal physical laws not apply thus requiring new considerations in terms of materials or construction, but functionality takes on whole new meanings: “comfort” being replaced by “need to survive”, “ergonomics” being replaced by “need to survive”, “adaptability” being replaced by “need to survive” And does the interior of a spaceship need to be
read more
In his review of Chris Taylor's book "How Star Wars Conquered the Universe" the American film critic Tom Shone makes a point so obvious you wonder how it has escaped you these past 38 years: Junk is everything in Star Wars. The Jawas deal in junk. The droids are sold as junk. Our heroes are delivered as junk into the Death Stars trash compactor. That the Death Star is the only new piece of technology on display is sign enough of its nefariousness: those serving the Empire are the only people
read more
"Fancy a cup of tea?" "Oh, yes please! Thank you!" "OK, I'll put the kettle on" "Troglodyte" Boiling water for tea is a process as old as, well...... the drinking of hot tea. And a process that has remained largely unchanged since. When change has come it has invariably been influenced by technology: kettles over open fires, kettles on stoves, electric kettles. But always involving a kettle. (Accepting that is that the samovar is a "kettle".......and even if you don't, the samovar has
read more
As previously reported, Bauhaus Dessau are currently presenting “The coop principle – Hannes Meyer and the Concept of Collective Design”, an exhibition devoted to the second Bauhaus Director and for all his belief in the strength of the collective in almost all aspects of life, but especially in design. Hannes Meyer himself never completed projects alone, but always as part of a collective, the Dessau exhibition celebrates that fact and Meyer's unshakeable belief in the power of the
read more
Charles Eames is arguably the best known representative of post-war American design. His works are certainly the most commonly recognized and endearing examples of post-war American design. Yet exactly because of the success of his post-war work it is often forgotten that Charles Eames has a pre-war biography, a biography that is pre-Ray Kaiser, pre-George Nelson, pre-Hermann Miller, pre-Vitra, pre-plywood, plastic and aluminium, pre-IBM, Moscow, India, Mathematica, Franklin & Jefferson.... and
read more
There is little in this world that brings us more pleasure than a good modular shelving system. We know that sentence speaks volumes about the state of our alleged "lives", but we're not embarrassed to admit it. We like shelves. Consequently, given that it appears that everybody but everybody is developing a modular shelving system and that as a result you currently can't visit a furniture fair or design event without stumbling every few metres across another new system, these would appear
read more
In our recent post "Blurred Lines or What if Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke designed furniture?" we took a stroll along the very fine border between being inspired by a piece of furniture design and plagiarising a piece of furniture design. One of the most popular sources for both inspiration and plagiarism is Charles and Ray Eames: for inspiration because of the many ground breaking designs, processes and theories the pair developed over the decades, for plagiarism because of the
read more
Customs are a form of social regulation. Love them or loath them customs allow us to form connections, to find a sense of stability and order, to differentiate ourselves from others, align ourselves with others, and not least enjoy regular festivities and parties as customs are celebrated and/or enacted. Customs are therefore inherently good. Unless it is the sort of Customs which sit at the border between two counties and stop a young Swiss ceramicist displaying their work at an
read more
The first thing any carpentry apprentice does is build their own wooden toolbox. It makes sense. You're learning to work with wood, you will need somewhere to keep all your chisels and saws. So you build a toolbox. The first thing anyone wanting to chop logs does is make their own wooden axe head ? Or perhaps better put ?????????????????? But why couldn't it be the case, for as HFBK Hamburg student Bastian Austermann demonstrates with his Splitting Wood project, such is eminently
read more
Much as we adore our pets they can be troublesome. Be it the cat the refuses to move from your bed, the dog that chews your shoes, pillows, newspapers et al, or the sweary parrot embarrassing us at every (inopportune) moment. If only we could distract them. Maybe we should treat them better? Or at least treat them to better possessions, to objects that meet a standard of functionality and design quality that we demand from our objects. We’re not averse to claiming our pets are family members,
read more
As we have often noted in these pages, a combination of increasing automation, advancing technology, the changing nature of industry and commerce and the associated evolution of the term "office work" will increasingly enforce changes in office furniture design. And we're not being particularly clever or perceptive when we say such, its simply how the process works, how office furniture design has always progressed: be it the evolution of the office chair in the 19th century as ever more
read more
In context of DMY 2015 the Berlin/Beijing based cultural exchange association Migrant Birds are presenting the exhibition Modern Fossils, a solo exhibition of works by the Beijing based artist and designer Song Tao. Migrant Birds present Modern Fossils by Song Tao Born in Shanghai in 1969 Song Tao initially graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1986 before moving to France to complete a Masters degree in Plastic Arts at the Université Paris 1. Although Song Tao’s
read more
As we believe we've said before, and assume we will repeat in the future, contemporary Dutch design is largely, though not exclusively, about the research, and the subsequent processes invariably developed. If it leads to a product, that's good. But it needn't. That it however often does can be experienced in the exhibition Contemporary Creation Processes in Design on show at DAD Galerie Berlin. Curated by Berlin based, Eindhoven graduate Ruben der Kinderen Contemporary Creation Processes in
read more
On Thursday June 11th the 2015 DMY International Design Festival opens its doors to the public, and Berlin will once again be the focus of the global design community. But is Berlin the creative city many assume it to be? Beats the creative heart genuinely with a different rhythm, and with more fervour, on the banks of the Spree than elsewhere? Or is "Berlin Design" just a nice bit of location marketing behind which stands little more than non-stop parties and endless cheap lifestyle
read more
On March 10th 2015 a jury at the Central District Court of California in Los Angeles concluded that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke had relied a little too heavily on Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit "Got to Give It Up" when composing their track "Blurred Lines". For infringement of Gaye's copyright the court ordered Williams and Thicke to pay Marvin Gaye's estate $7.4 million dollars. Responding to the judgement Pharrell Williams mused in the Financial Times that "the verdict handicaps any creator
read more
"The real jewel of my disease-ridden woodlot is the prothonotary warbler", confided the American author, ecologist and conservationist Aldo Leopold in his 1949 book "A Sand County Almanac", "The flash of his gold-and-blue plumage amid the dank decay of the June woods is in itself proof that dead trees are transmuted into living animals, and vice versa." The following five new design and architecture exhibitions are our prothonotary warblers: proving as they, hopefully, do that abstract ideas
read more
"Rare is the human backside that hasn't found solace and support in Mr. Day's most famous creation", thus, with just a touch of music hall sauciness, begins Bruce Weber his obituary to the British designer Robin Day in the New York Times from November 20th 2010, before continuing, "a molded polypropylene shell fastened to an enameled bent tubular steel base that has become familiar seating in schools, churches, offices, auditoriums, home patios, kitchens, dens, bedrooms and basements around the
read more
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer's USM Haller modular furniture system USM instigated a series of masterclasses in which students at seven international design schools were paired with a mentor and asked to "Rethink the Modular" and for all to "consider the significance of modularity in architecture and design" and so "exploit the idea of modularity for contemporary design". The results of the academic exercise were unveiled in an exhibition premièred during
read more
Shium is the many ways the Korean antipode to our modern world: Shium is decelerate, rest, relax, pause, reflect, slow down. Refresh body and soul Shium is also the foundation on which the exhibition Tools for A Break – Korean Crafts and Design is built, and following its première during Munich Creative Business Week 2015, Tools for A Break – Korean Crafts and Design is currently on show in Berlin. Tools for A Break - Korean Crafts and Design at Orangelab Berlin Fascinated by the diversity
read more
One of the biggest disappointments of Milan Furniture Fair 2015 was that all manufacturers, or at least all the ones we visited, seem almost pathologically intent on maintaining the convention of a chair as a legged and/or cantilevered object which supports the human frame in an elevated position circa 40 - 45 cms above the floor and with the lower leg extended away from the body. Yet changing technology is resulting in a need for new chair typologies, for chairs which offer alternative
read more
Several visitors to the Milan furniture fair with whom we spoke, including some whose judgement on such matters we value more than our own, were very excited by the new Uffici chair by Nitzan Cohen for Mattiazzi. We were, and remain, less convinced. Yes with its rigid, unyielding, duck bill-esque form and integrated mesh backrest we can see and understand that it is something new, something different. Yes, its mix of wood and synthetic weave is a nice interplay on two epochs of office chair
read more
Floris Wubben is a rare and precious being. Floris Wubben is a contemporary Dutch designer who didn't study at Design Academy Eindhoven. When we ask him how such a situation can arise, why he didn't attend Eindhoven, he smiles and replies that we're not the first to ask him that, everybody it seems wants to know. An indication of just how rare and precious a being he is. Floris Wubben does of course have his atelier in Eindhoven. Anything else would be far too absurd, if not illegal, and
read more
As is becoming traditional the interregional initiative Belgium is Design used Milan Design Week to present a showcase of contemporary Belgian design talent. However, in a break with the tenderfoot tradition the 2015 exhibition didn’t take place in the reserved grandeur of the Triennale di Milano design museum but in the decadent marble festooned grandeur of the Sala Napoleonica of the Accademia di Brera; a venue whose almost stereotypical sumptuousness presented the perfect contrast to the
read more
