As has oft been noted in these pages, the years following the Second World War were years of quick, radical, fundamental social, cultural and economic change. Changes from which the then fledgling furniture design industry greatly benefited: and from which it continues to benefit with many of the popular mass market designs created back then becoming the design classics of today. The design week having not yet been invented and those furniture trade fairs that existed being very much the
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For a man who is universally lauded as one of the most important Danish designers of the 20th century, there is an inexplicable scarcity of reliable, independent information on Poul Henningsen. At least in languages other than Danish. Even the British Library in London, the self proclaimed keeper of the "world's knowledge", can only offer a couple of non-Danish language texts. Library shelves around the globe however buckle under the weight of Danish language works by and about Poul
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Charlotte Perriand was famously of the opinion that in terms of furniture design wood was a “… vegetable substance, bound in its very nature to decay,….” and that the future belonged to metal. For all the bent steel tubing of European modernism.1 Poul Henningsen in contrast warned that the industrial production of steel tube furniture as promoted by Perriand, Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus clique and their ilk "maa ogsaa føre til, at de sekundære Former ved Stolen" - may also lead to secondary
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By way of an addendum to our "Five New Design Exhibitions for September 2014" post, until November 2nd the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden are presenting the exhibition Okolo Offline Two - Collecting. Organised by the Kunstgewerbemuseum in collaboration with Depot Basel, "Okolo Offline Two" follows on from the exhibition Okolo Offline held at Depot Basel in April this year. As with Okolo Offline One the central pillar of Okolo Offline Two is formed by the Prague based creative collective Okolo and
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Erected in 1927 in context of the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition "Die Wohnung" the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart aimed to achieve "…. a reduction in house construction and running costs, in addition to a simplification of housework and a general improvement in living standards" But did it? Or is it just a collection of buildings by Max Taut, Hans Poelzig, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Mart Stam, Peter Behrens and their ilk? A chance for a close connected group of modernists to show off?
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The inescapable chill in the morning air and the deep-seated boredom in the eyes of school aged children can only mean that summer is, ever so slowly, coming to an end. And just as spring beckons life to return in the natural world, so to does autumn herald a revival of activity in the unnatural world of museums and galleries. Consequently, whereas in August we only managed to find three architecture and design exhibitions to recommend, for September we have seven! A Magnificent Seven who
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Back in February the participants of the exhibition "Trading Places. Designers meet the collection" at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden spent two days trawling through the museum's depots looking for objects with which to work. During the tour Daphna Isaacs and Laurens Manders, aka Eindhoven based studio Daphna Laurens, were shown inside a drawer. Walked on. Stopped. Walked back. Looked inside the drawer again and asked Herr Knorr, Head of metal, glass and ceramics at the Kunstgewerbemuseum,
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No sooner had we published our post on the innovative high-tech world of silbærg snowboards, than we received information on a fascinating project producing older than old skool skateboards. Initiated by Royal Academy of Art, The Hague graduate Bastiaan van Druten, Woody skateboards are created from elm trees which had to be felled in Amsterdam and Utrecht "...because of disease or because they were in the way of capitalism" Which is a turn of phrase almost as exquisite as the skateboards
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It is very apposite that the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig is currently hosting a special presentation dedicated to the designer Rudolf Horn: for here began the story of one of Rudolf Horn's more interesting projects, the somewhat unfortunately named Conferstar club chair. And yes it does look like Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Chair. It's supposed to. In 1962 Rudolf Horn was sitting in his office in Leipzig and was, by his own admission, fed up. And so decided to visit the Grassi
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In our post from the excellent exhibition Croatian Holiday at Vienna Design Week 2012 we questioned the curators assertion that through incorporating contemporary designers into a nation's tourist industry one could help that nation promote a contemporary national identity abroad. Our scepticism wasn't levied at the employment of designers in, for example, creating furniture for hotels, the interior design of tourist attractions or promotional material, but much more about employing designers
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Any self-respecting modern conurbation needs a moniker. An evocative tag line on which to hang its city marketing strategy and attract tourists. Paris is of course the City of Love, Rome the Eternal City, Prague the City of a Hundred Spires while Edinburgh, whether advisable or not, regails as simply Auld Reekie. In 1998 the southern German town of Weil am Rhein re-christened itself "City of Chairs" If we're honest the reason why escapes us, for aside from Vitra there is, as far as we are
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As previously noted in these pages the (hi)story of modernism is largely one of successful male/female partnerships, the most famous questionably being Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich or Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand in the main period of inter-war European modernism and Charles and Ray Eames in context of the post-war American adaptation. Yet it is also a (hi)story with only very few identifiable female leads. From the examples above Lilly Reich, Charlotte Perriand and Ray
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"Plastic was equivalent with America for us. Only Bakelite came from Europe. Right? But after the war, everything plastic came to Italy from the States. Purely commercial stuff, but every year a new material came on the market", recalled Italian architect and designer Anna Castelli Ferrieri in a 1997 interview, "We wanted to try out what all can be made with these new materials"1 And try she did. With an élan that resulted in an enviable portfolio of products that have not only become
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One of the most mundane, yet important, aspects of any designer or architect's training is sketching existing buildings and products. Observing. Studying. Forming. Learning. Developing. Hans J Wegner, for example, drew, drew and redrew the furniture in the Danish Design Museum Copenhagen, Louis I. Kahn spent his formative years sketching the ruins of European churches and cathedrals, while a young Le Corbusier regularly crossed the Swiss-Italian Border to undertake study tours of locations
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As we noted in our post from the recent Burg Giebichenstein Halle summer exhibition, the institution is currently one of the more interesting design schools in Germany. That it is is largely on account of the conscientious work done and reputation established during the days of divided Germany, and the way that work has subsequently been carried on through into the unified days. One of the most interesting, if not influential, members of the Burg Giebichenstein staff during the DDR days was
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In 2011 a group of Dutch artists and designers established the Orangemann Trust and set about converting an old, abandoned house in the centre of Oranienbaum into a gallery for contemporary art and design. That Oranienbaum is a village of some 3000 inhabitants situated 150 kilometres south of Berlin, 80 kilometres north of Leipzig and 4 light years from the next railway station, the location could appear somewhat questionable. Could. Were it not for the fact that modern Oranienbaum was
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24 hours after Hella Jongerius crossed our paths at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin Rundgang 2014, and 48 hours after finding ourselves in the same corridor as Axel Kufus at the Universität der Künste Berlin Rundgang 2014, Stephan Schulz cycled past us as we walked to the 2014 summer exhibition at Burg Giebichenstein Halle. Its just the way we rock. Sorry....... As we've noted before Halle should be Vienna. It's certainly a much more attractive, imposing and interesting city than its
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Some 24 hours after finding ourselves in the same corridor as Axel Kufus at the Universität der Künste 2014 Rundgang our paths crossed that of Hella Jongerius at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin Rundgang. It’s just how it is in Berlin…… And as with the UdK Rundgang, in terms of product/industrial the 2014 show at Weißensee was/is, in our opinion, somewhat smaller than in previous editions, did/does however present a highly entertaining review of the past years work and so neatly explains
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"Herr Mies van der Rohe proposed to close Bauhaus. The proposition was unanimously approved".1 With this sober protocol dated July 20th 1933, but referring to a meeting held on July 19th 1933, the closing of Bauhaus Berlin, and so the end of the Bauhaus story, is formally confirmed. Present at the meeting on July 19th, and so unified in their responsibility for the decision were, in addition to Mies van der Rohe, Josef Albers, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Wassily Kandinsky, Walter Peterhans, Lilly
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One of the highlights for us of the student summer semester showcase season is always the annual Rundgang at the Universität der Künste, UdK, Berlin. And while the Product/Industrial Design presentation at the 2014 Rundgang is/was somewhat smaller than usual, it was/is still the expected, and entertaining, mix of the theoretical, the conceptual and the practical. In addition to the chance to once again experience projects such as Clair Obscur, a project which can of course also be viewed as
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As is becoming customary Design Miami Basel 2014 provided the backdrop for the presentation of the Swiss Design Award. And an exhibition of all nominated projects. Inaugurated in 1918 the Swiss Design Award is organised by the Swiss Federal Culture Agency - the Bundesamt für Kultur - and seeks to reward and recognise particularly outstanding contemporary design by both Swiss designers and Swiss based international designers. The 2014 edition attracted 252 entries for the four competition
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On the evening of Thursday July 10th the annual Bauhaus University Weimar "Summaery" student showcase exhibition opened for its 2014 edition. In terms of product design, and without meaning to be disingenuous, it wasn't the strongest Summaery we've ever been to. There were however a few projects that allowed us to leave without the feeling of having completely wasted our train fares. And so, and in no particular order..... WOob by Lisa Kästner (Realised in context of the class: MACHEN? -
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Back in November the winners of the 2013 German Federal Ecodesign Award - the Bundespreis Ecodesign - were announced at a slightly less than glittering ceremony in Berlin. In February 2014 an exhibition featuring the 12 winners and further 19 nominated projects opened in Ludwigsburg. Following a brief stop at the designforum in Vienna the Bundespreis Ecodesign 2013 exhibition is currently being presented at the headquarters of the Umweltbundesamt - the German Federal Environment Agency - in
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By way of a final addendum to our "5 New Design Exhibitions for July 2014" post, the Design museum Gent are currently hosting an exhibition devoted to one of the true masters of 20th century design, Finn Juhl. A designer who, as regular readers will be aware, we yield ground to no man to in our admiration for. Born in Frederiksberg, Denmark in 1912 Finn Juhl studied architecture at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Following his graduation in 1934 Finn Juhl took up a
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