With our trademark "almost too late, but just sneaking in on time" we bring you Prima by Zaha Hadid. Conceived and realised in cooperation with the Austrian crystal concern Swarowski, Prima is a five piece installation based on Zaha Hadid's sketches for her 1993 Vitra Fire Station project. At the moment Prima is a very expensive, and very, very heavy installation on show in front of said Fire Station; however, if we know Vitra we can well imagine what the next step is... We have no formal, or
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As many of you will be more than aware, it is very rare that a genuine expert reviews an exhibition for these pages; however, in the case of the 1951 exhibition "Design for Use, USA" we have one. The German silversmith, product designer and Bauhaus alumni Wilhelm Wagenfeld. At least indirectly. On January 5th 1951 "Twenty-five thousand pounds of American home furnishings exhibition material"1 departed the Museum of Modern Art in New York to begin a two year tour of Europe. Curated by Edgar
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The most ingenious aspect of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe is probably its location - sandwiched as it is between the Karlsruhe Centre for Art and Media with its research institutes, museums, galleries et al and Karlsruhe Job Centre..... Could there be a better metaphor for the precarious position of today's professional designer? Probably. But we're sticking to ours. Opened in 1992 the HfG Karlsruhe was established with the aim of creating an arts and design school for the modern
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As any fool know, we traditionally begin our round-up of the summer semester student shows at the Bauhaus University Weimar. This year however Thüringen is having to yield to Stuttgart, and specifically the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart. In relation to institutions such as the Bauhaus Uni Weimar or Burg Giebichenstein Halle, the Industrial Design department at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart is relatively small, but no less interesting. For the 2013 Rundgang there were
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Anyone familiar with the roads in Leipzig's Lower East Plagwitz Village District will be aware that to call them roads is to do a great disservice to the memory of John McAdam and Edgar Purnell Hooley. In a biblical sense a road is composed of tarmac. In a Plagwitz sense a road is composed of potholes, loosely linked by random slithers of tarmac. Over the years we've given up getting annoyed about the state of the roads and... no, we've not. That's a lie. We get cross about it every single
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Normally we don't pay any heed to design contest exhibitions at design fairs. It just doesn't feel right, looking at them being in our jaundiced minds akin to reading those appalling advertorial "special supplements" that the print industry have fallen back on for survival. However at DMY Berlin 2013 something drew our attention to the exhibition for the adream 2012 competition. A pink brick to be precise. And we're mighty glad it did. Although "adream 2012" sounds like some truly horrendous
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As we noted in an earlier post, the team behind Depot Basel were recently awarded a highly coveted Swiss Design Award in the category Design Mediation. A very well deserved and very welcome recognition for all the work invested. And parallel to Design Miami Basel 2013 Depot Basel opened their latest exhibition, Craft & Drawing. We're a bit late with this post, Craft & Drawing only runs until June 29th 2013; however, as the largest part of our readership are and were unlikely to be in Basel
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It's about ten minutes since we mentioned Belgium. And we know that one or the other of you are getting nervous. Fearing we may have forgotten the magical, if not mythical, Kingdom. Fear no more. Belgium is back. At DMY Berlin 2013 students from the Thomas More University College Mechelen presented examples of their work in a group exhibition. We believe the VOMO in the exhibition name is the post-graduate furniture course in Mechelen, we are however a little confused and so may have got
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In our post about Diogene by Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Vitra we noted that a Jean Prouvé house could currently be marvelled at Design Miami Basel 2013. And we obviously don't want to deny all who weren't there the chance to do just that. Presented by Galerie Patrick Seguin the "Maison des Jours Meilleurs" was conceived in 1956 as a response to the campaigning French priest Abbé Pierre's call for low cost emergency housing for the Paris homeless. While the rich Italians and super
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Since establishing their own design studio in Stuttgart in 1994 Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub have quietly gone on to become two of the busiest and most successful German product designers of their generation. With a client portfolio that includes the likes of Thonet, Wilkhahn, Fritz Hansen, Authentics or Belux Jehs+Laub are just at home with designing office furniture as with domestic furniture, lighting and accessories. And in a career splattered with international awards the highlight
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If you thought you'd seen the epitome of kitsch, we give you..... An olive bowl in the shape of Celine Dion's swimming pool. Just writing that sentence makes us want one. And of course the accompanying bowl for sun-dried tomatoes in the shape of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's swimming pool. Created by Zurich based designer Damian Fopp the Celeb Bowls collection is a series of porcelain bowls based on celebrity swimming pools, or to be more precise the swimming pools of Frank Sinatra, John
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As part of DMY Berlin 2013 the Belgian design critic, curator, journalist and lecturer Max Borka organised the exhibition "Refugium. Berlin as a Design Principle" in collaboration and cooperation with students from his d- SOAP course at the FH Potsdam. Presenting works by some 50 Berlin based designers Refugium not only presents works by the selected designers but also seeks/sought to explore what characterises the Berlin design community and what makes the Berlin design scene relevant and
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We first came across the work of Polish born, Swiss based designer Oskar Zieta at DMY Berlin 2009. And in 2010 wrote in the context of DMY's Swiss country focus: One of the biggest Swiss stands was that from ETH Zurich with their FIDU technology. Which was displayed at DMY 2009. We like it, find it a fascinating process, like the furniture that they produce and last year had an interesting and long conversation with Oskar Zieta about the process and its development. For us there is no doubt
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The first object to attract our attention on Atelier Bonk's stand in the Ventura At Work exhibition in Milan was the candle stick holder. That is until it was pointed out to us that it is actually a potato masher. It's a very simple mistake to make. Especially if you're as daft as us. Bruges based Atelier Bonk is the result of a co-operation between designer Tim "Interror.be" Baute and graphic artist Stefaan de Croock, a.k.a. Strook. The name of the atelier may cause uncontrolled
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With DMY Berlin standing in front of the door like some excited child waiting to be taken to its chums birthday party, all eyes are slowly turning to to the German capital. The first Berlin design events are already running and until June 9th the gallery "Haus am Waldsee" is presenting the exhibition "Home of the Future" by and featuring Werner Aisslinger. We already posted a few photos in a (smow) facebook gallery. Delightful as the exhibition unquestionably is, for us one of the more
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We quote: "It’s probably fair to say the biggest surprise at Salone Satellite 2012 was seeing Rui Alves aka My Own Super Studio. Because we thought 2011 had been the last year he was allowed to exhibit." Fast forward 12 months later. And guess what the the biggest surprise at Salone Satellite 2013 was.... ? He has however promised us that this is his final, final, final year at Salone Satellite. A thought which to be honest doesn't disappoint or otherwise upset us because 2013 was also the
read moreAs older readers will know a large proportion of the menial labour at (smow) is carried out by a team of highly qualified Vitra Eames Elephants. In the past we've praised them, for example, for their help moving USM Haller units around our warehouse. (smow) recently moved into a new base in the Leipzig Baumwollspinnerei complex, a former yarn works largely inhabited by artists, sculptors and their ilk. Being naturally curious beasts our elephants didn't take long to start exploring the
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In the context of another project we are currently researching various aspects of Egon Eiermann's architectural output. And have discovered the most wonderful contradictory positions as regards dealing with his legacy. Contradictory positions which pose the more general question as to how one should approach modernist architectural legacies. Should all works be saved? Are all buildings really worth saving? Are there alternatives? Stadthaus Krefeld by Egon Eiermann (Photo Source: Wikimedia
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More intuitive readers will have enjoyed our post on the exhibition "Objects for Neighbours" from IMM Cologne 2013 and for all our interview with the participants. To be fair you'd have to very intuitive as it hasn't been published. Yet. We are however working on it. You can therefore imagine our absolute horror on bumping into two of the participants at Salone Satellite during Milan Design Week. There being little worse than admitting that you still haven't finished something.
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In December 2012 Vitrashop, the shop fitting arm of the Vitra Group, and of course the original rock on which the Vitra seed germinated and grew, took formal occupation of their new distribution centre. Conceived by Tokyo based architects Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa aka SANAA, the imaginatively titled "SANAA Factory Building" is the latest addition to the Vitra Campus and was officially presented to the public on April 19th 2013. Vitra CEO Rolf Fehlbaum first approached Kazuyo Sejima &
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During Milan Design Week 2013 Knoll formally launched the "Tools for Life" collection from Dutch architecture practice OMA, a collection overseen by OMA co-founder Rem Koolhaas. The collection had previously been previewed as part of the stage decoration for the Prada Fall Men's show in January, and was formally unveiled in the same location.... the Prada Milan HQ A location that theoretically the likes of us should never be allowed to enter. But Design Week is Design Week. The first thing
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Back in October at Orgatec 2012 Vitra unveiled Workbay, the new concept from Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. The latest stage in the brother's career-long "room within a room" research Workbay is a flexible system based around fleece walls and aluminium supports that resembles a cross between the Alcove Sofa and the Bouroullec's Communal Cells from Orgatec 2010. When we saw Workbay in Cologne we thought, nice idea, nice extension of the Bouroullec programme... and went back to concentrating on
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Ahead of Milan Design Week we received an email from a Belgian designer of our acquaintance letting us know where we could view their work. The email ended with a euphoric "This is finally Belgium's year!" A thought that really appealed to us, because as we wrote last year Belgium has the potential to be every bit as successful as Holland. And indeed should be. And so with an optimistic heart we set off to the Triennale di Milano to view the exhibition "Belgium is Design" And experienced our
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The concept of the so-called "Vertical Garden" or "Living Wall" is reasonably well established in architecture. In principle it involves cladding an exterior wall with plants in an integrated, self-sufficient system that requires little or no maintenance or external input. The theory is that the plants provide an efficient layer of insulation that keeps the temperature ambient in summer and reduces heating costs in winter. In addition such constructions reduce the impact of a building on
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