As any fule kno Italy has a long (hi)story in and of architecture, whereby it is predominately a (his)story of architecture: with Buone Nuove. Women Changing Architecture the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Stockholm, offer an introduction to an alternative narrative. And to alternative futures....... Buone Nuove. Women Changing Architecture, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Stoccolma Originally presented as a full exhibtion at MAXXI Rome in 2022, and now freshly pared down to an abbreviated
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"Design", opined textile designer Bernat Klein in 1976, "means to enjoy the exploration of new possibilities. It means to take pleasure in finding new solutions to old problems; or to have fun juggling with a number of old solutions until they suddenly click and coalesce into one, beautiful, new solution".1 With the exhibtion Bernat Klein. Design in Colour the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, allow insights into how Klein explored, discovered and juggled. And the new possibilities and
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According to Germanic folklore: A wet February brings a fruitful year. And that, we'd argue, not only in terms of vegetation, but also in terms of your individual personal development: a wet February meaning more time spent in museums and thus an enhanced opportunity to engage in meaningful and relevant and motivating discourses and discussions. An ideal environment in which to allow your appreciations of and positions to the world around you to optimally develop, swell, ripen and nourish. So
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Our recent reflections on the La Fonda bar stool by Charles and Ray Eames, and also our recent reflections on Goethe's Donkey, Goethe's chair "just high enough that one can sit half-standing", got us very naturally thinking a lot about stools of all types, the various and varied places one meets stools, the various and varied manners via which stools interact with and contribute to our daily lives, the (hi)story and development of the stool, in particular in context of the (hi)stories and
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By way of breaking us all gently into 2023 we thought that rather than presenting a list of new architecture and design exhibitions opening in January 2023, we'd provide a list of those exhibitions both up and running in January 2023 and those opening in January 2023. It seemed a civilised and informative approach. An approach that was more empowering, less demanding. An invitation to visit an exhibition rather than defining an obligation to visit an exhibition. If an approach, an invitation,
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The Swiss Design Lounge on the first floor of the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich, is home to selected works by the good and great of 20th and 21st century Swiss furniture, lighting and textile design, including, and amongst many others, Bruno Rey, Ubald Klug, Hans Eichenberger or Susi and Ueli Berger, works which not only stand in discourse with one another but also actively invite visitors to try them out, to spend time with them, to get to know them; and while you are, and while you enjoy
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Upholstered furniture is called upholstered furniture for a reason, yet how often do we consider the upholstery rather than the furniture; or more accurately, how often do we consider the upholstery that makes furniture upholstered furniture? How often do we consider the upholstery that makes upholstered furniture such a singular genre of furniture? How often do we consider the upholstery that bequeaths upholstered furniture such a singular status? With the exhibition Deep-seated. The Secret
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According to popular (hi)story the tradition of the Christmas tree originated in the lands of the contemporary Germany. And with O Tannenbaum it was in the lands of the contemporary Germany that that most popular ode to the Christmas tree was first sung. But it's not by way of celebration of Germanic contributions to the Christmas season that all five of our new exhibition recommendations for December 2022 are in Germany, Austria or Germanophone Switzerland. It's just the way the dice fell.
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Pressures of time meant we sadly couldn't make any of the Belgian design school graduate shows this past summer; however, the platform MAD Brussels did manage to have a look. Or did at least look at those design schools to be found in Brussels, and selected from the innumerable graduation projects on show their top ten. An honoured decemvirate subsequently presented in the showcase Graduation Show 2022 at the MAD HQ. A subjective selection, sure, but then aren't all selections? Including our
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Netherlands A Gulf; A Commonwealth; A Context In the course of his great many letters to his pupil, the Rotter Dam aan Maas, letters in which are contained the earliest known descriptions of the provinces that comprise the contemporary Netherlands*, the ancient scribe Oranje Tulpenbol of Old Amsterdam tells how there once existed in those provinces two antagonistic tribes of native Meubilairers: one occupying an area sited roughly between the contemporary Den Haag and Apeldoorn, the other
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In the 1880s design in France stood, in many regards, at the threshold of Art Nouveau, with the likes of, and amongst many others, Louis Majorelle, Émile Gallé or Hector Guimard beginning to start to question the production of, the formal expression of and our relationships with, our objects of daily use in context of the early years of the Third Republic and a rapidly rising industrialisation with all the associated social, economic, technical and political et al developments of the age. And
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In 1959 Alexander Girard was commissioned to design the interior of the New York restaurant La Fonda del Sol, a commission for which Charles and Ray Eames designed the seating. Yet whereas the La Fonda dining chair and La Fonda side chair are well-known, if currently out of production, components of the Eames' canon, what of the La Fonda bar stool....... La Fonda Bar Stool by Charles and Ray Eames Housed on the ground floor of the, then, new Time & Life building on Manhattan's Rockefeller
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We published our first monthly list of exhibition recommendations on November 1st 2013, one of those short, superficial, posts we used to compose, having as we did back then endless time on our hands; and an intervening nine years that means that with this list for November 2022 we are entering our tenth year of helping you advance your cultural education. While being very much aware that the vast majority of you have never visited a single one of the circa 450 new exhibitions we've carefully
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"Everybody, except myself, have used, and admit to having used my photographs ... and often also without mentioning my name", lamented Lucia Moholy in 1956, "everyone – except myself – have derived advantages from using my photographs, either directly, or indirectly, in a number of ways, be it in cash or prestige, or both".1 The photographs in question being of and from the Weimar and Dessau Bauhauses, photos which played, and continue to play, a not unimportant role in mediating Bauhaus to a
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Just a few short years ago, whereby given the timescales involved one could convincingly argue just a few short hours ago, coal looked very much like yesterday's resource as the international community, or at least a sizeable part of it, promised to move away from coal and embrace novel fuels. A commitment to a move away from coal, and fossil fuels in general, that recent geopolitical and economic developments have stalled; have led the international community to move away from their
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Moormann A Nils Holger; An Autodidact; A Restlessness As the Wackeldackel of Sylt solemnly records, following generations of rule under the rational, steady, unemotional, if autocratic, hand of The Order of the Gute Form, there arose in the lands of the contemporary former West Germany a challenge to that long-established rule through a poorly organised, but on account of that all the better networked, collective of young designers who questioned not only the zealous worshipping of the
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Autumn is once more upon the Northern Hemisphere, that season of not only "mists and mellow fruitfulness", but as a John Keats also reminds us the season of harvest, be that vine fruits, apples, gourds or hazelnuts. Or the architecture and design exhibitions Keats didn't mention. If, to be fair to him, they would have been largely unknown in 1819. Unlike today; a today where after a long summer of waiting patiently, of observing from afar, and hoping, autumn traditionally presents a bountiful
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In 1947 the American designer Edward J Wormley reflected in the New York Times on what contemporary furniture could, should, be, and amongst his thoughts on beds, chairs, storage units et al, opined that "an ideal table would be a flat plane suspended in space", and that not least because "it's the legs that are the big nuisance". "Can we find this kind of furniture in today's market?", he asked his readers, albeit, rhetorically, "You know we can't."1 Which tends to imply Wormley didn't visit
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Amongst the many developments that have influenced and informed the path of furniture and interior design in the past 120ish years one must, without question, count developments in context of colour. Whereas in previous centuries colours were limited in their availability, range and durability, recent decades have seen not only progress in that availability, range and durability, and as such ever more possibilities in our use of colour, but also seen increasing study of psychology and colour
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"For men who have to write a lot, and over prolonged periods, a desk at which they can work standing up is an indispensable piece of furniture for altering their posture and for maintaining their health", opined Journal der Moden in May 1786. An age when, famously, only men wrote. Yet advantageous and positive as standing to write was, prolonged standing could, as Journal der Moden notes, lead to tiredness. A solution was however at hand for all who preferred working at a standing height desk
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In September 1839 Henry David Thoreau and his brother John spent two weeks navigating the Concord and Merrimack rivers on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border. A boat trip, a journey, motivated by Thoreau's long time observation of the Concord river, and for all its many organic and inorganic inhabitants, floating past him, "fulfilling their fate" as they did; and which inspired Thoreau to "launch myself on its bosom and float wither it would bear me."1 Which is not only a very positive
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In Poetics Aristotle argues poetry arose on account of two intrinsic human instincts: an "instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm" and "the instinct of imitation", as in representation rather than copying, an imitation Aristotle opines is the method via which humans learn, and that "to learn gives the liveliest pleasure". Yet while for Aristotle all forms of poetry are "in their general conception modes of imitation", again as in representation rather than copying, "they differ, however, from one
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In their 2021/22 exhibition Craft is Cactus the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, constructed a very convincing argument for including craft in the cactus family, a very convincing argument for making the Craftoideae a fifth subfamily of the Cactaceae. Yet while a very good argument, as we all know, much work remains to be undertaken on the classification of the Craftoideae, not least in context of their habitats: where does one find craft? Where do the Craftoideae prevail? With the
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Summer Break!!! Not us!!! We're still here, tirelessly toiling to provide the fuel to keep your fires of inquiry burning bright and thereby powering your ongoing exploration into the depths and breadths of design. And your deconstruction of the simplifications, half-truths and objectifications that have become popularly confused for design. But the international architecture and design museum community have collectively decided not to open any new exhibitions in August 2022. We're not
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