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
read more
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
read more
Although geographically the (hi)story of Vitra begins in Basel, spiritually it begins in America and arrives in Switzerland in 1957 with the licences to produce works by US designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi and Alexander Girard; and then grows over the subsequent decades under the influence of the close co-operations which thus developed, for all those with George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames. Given this close affinity with and to America it was perhaps
read more
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",
read more
"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,
read more
On the steps leading to the entrance of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd is embossed "Ich will Designer werden" - "I want to be a designer." With the criticism from Schwäbisch Gmünd alumni Markus Jehs concerning the quality of the discourse in global design education still ringing in our ears, we felt a very real need to grab a marker pen and add ", because..." We didn't. That would have be vandalism. Although if we're correctly informed graffiting on design schools is allowed,
read more
Such are the vagaries of the autumn/spring cycle in the global design exhibition industry, and it is an industry people, let's not fool ourselves otherwise, August is traditionally a very lean month: curators are on holiday, critics are on holiday, exhibition designers are on holiday, protagonists are on holiday. Who wants to open an exhibition? The following five museums. That's who.......... "Dream out Loud" at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland Whereas museum exhibitions generally
read more
The 18th century Prussian Monarch Friedrich der Große, or Alte Fritz - Old Fritz - as he is popularly known, has many claims to fame, not least of which is his promotion and advancing of the cultivation of the potato in the lands under his command, thus making him responsible for the tuber's contemporary popularity in northern Germany. And hence his other title: The Potato King. Friedrich was also a patron of the applied arts and handicrafts and in 1763 took over Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky's
read more
An important commercial, financial and administrative centre since the middle ages Cologne has contributed greatly to the development of European society, culture and politics, while with the Kölner Dom the city is home to not only one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Europe, and thus one of the most important religious institutions on the continent, but posses an excellent example of logical, considered, coherent, urban planning: by building the cathedral on a raised platform directly next
read more
With its postal address of "Am Weissenhof 1" it should come as no surprise that the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, ABK, Stuttgart was not only the first building on that now fabled site on Stuttgart's Killesberg, but also that it played a role, when albeit a relatively small one, in helping create the fable: Professor Adolf Schneck designing two of the houses, the school's workshops, under the supervision of Hilde Zimmermann, being responsible for the kitchen of one of Schneck's houses, while
read more
For reasons which we believe are in some form or other closely related to Ley Lines, or similar, all long distance trains in Germany pass through the station Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe. It's not a situation over which Deutsche Bahn have any control, is rather a natural phenomenon, or as Louis H. Sullivan would no doubt phrase it, "This is the law" Thus we have passed through Kassel a lot. Without ever having visited the city. A situation we rectified this year with a visit to the Rundgang end of term
read more
Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a town famous for some 150 years as a, if not the, centre of American furniture production, it is perhaps not surprising that Tom Newhouse choose to pursue a career in furniture design. Upon graduating in 1972 from the School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Tom Newhouse took up a position as a staff designer with Herman Miller, a situation he himself refers to as a "marvellous beginning", before in 1978 he established his
read more
Tulga Beyerle, Director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, once gave us a piece of advice, the context of which we've long since forgotten, but not the content "only work with people you like" Much as we have tried to follow Tulga's sage advice, such are the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune under which we suffer, we haven't; unlike, we presume, Tulga who has now gone one step further and transformed the premise into the exhibition Friends + Design. Friends + Design at the
read more
"Photography is the medium par excellence of our time. As a visual means of communication, it has no equal."1 So wrote the American photographer Berenice Abbott in 1941. How she set about proving such can be explored in the exhibition Berenice Abbott – Photographs at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin Berenice Abbott - Photographs at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin Born in Springfield, Ohio in 1898 Berenice Abbott initially, and only very briefly, studied journalism at Ohio State University before
read more
Inaugurated in July 212 BC* the Ludi Apollinares were Roman games staged in honour of Apollo and featuring a mix of chariot racing, plays, dances and ritual sacrifice. The following five new exhibitions opening in July 2016 may lack the excitement of the chariot race, but in many respects are much more appropriate means by which to celebrate the Greco-Roman God of the arts, poetry, music and knowledge. And no gilded ox, goat or heifer need suffer. "Fast Forward: The Architecture of William
read more
Being principally an office furniture fair NeoCon doesn't really attract "fringe events" the way home furnishing focussed trade fairs do; office furniture, allegedly, lacking much of the flair, emotion and excitement of its domestic relatives. In the past however the so-called Guerrilla Truck Show did attempt to provide an alternative, more independent, take on design, than the sanitised corporate vision presented at NeoCon. Staged during NeoCon week in Chicago's Fulton Market district the
read more
At the risk of getting political, the term "neoconservative"/"neocon" hasn't always had the best reputation, especially not in Europe where its connotations of American supremacy through military force has long made it a subject for suspicion, intrigue and popular rejection. Thus for us it is all the more amusing that one of America's main contemporary furniture trade fairs should be "NeoCon". The imagery the name conjures up easily keeping us amused for the duration of a transatlantic
read more
Cities grow, mutate, evolve, a process which, as with human development, is rarely straightforward, rarely occurs without sacrifice and/or leaving one or the other scar. Physical as well as emotional. With the exhibition Stuttgart reißt sich ab - Stuttgart Demolishes Itself - the Architekturgalerie am Weissenhof aim to explore the nature of post-war urban development in Stuttgart, and to present what they refer to as a "Plea for the preservation of cityscape defining buildings" Co-curated by
read more
We're not going to claim that DMY Berlin 2016 was a vintage year, for us the 14th edition of the international design festival featured too little of substance, too much superficial, too little original, too much that was too obvious and far, far, far too many intricate filigree light bulbs. And nothing says "lifestyle", or winds us up, more than an intricate, filigree light bulb. However our impression may have been partially clouded by the distraction caused by the large amount of open space
read more
Our five recommendations for new design and architecture exhibitions opening in June 2016 feature four in Germany and one in Holland. That's not our fault. That is the honest result of our open minded search through the programmes' of numerous global architecture and design museums. The following are for us the best five. We know the decision is subjective. But are sticking with our five. And thereby accepting the suspicion that we have specially selected them on account of where they are being
read more
Money, famously, makes the world go round. The world go round. Money makes the world go round How that came to be, the consequences of such, and where that could eventually lead us is currently being explored in the exhibition Geld [Money] at the smac - State Museum for Archaeology in Chemnitz. Geld @ smac – State Museum for Archaeology in Chemnitz "As an institution we want to present exhibitions which deal with the central themes of mankind, and money is such a topic and one with which we
read more
The clearest sign that that things are changing in Berlin-Oberschöneweide is without question the new vegan Vietnamese restaurant on the corner of Edisonstrasse and Wilhelminenhofstrasse.* For all unfamiliar with Oberschöneweide, which we presume is everyone, the district in south eastern Berlin was never a particularly happy vegan hunting ground; yet as much as being a new culinary alternative the vegan Vietnamese restaurant is much more a sign that a new clientèle is active in the area, that
read more
Unbelievably, Eindhoven based design studio Daphna Laurens have never, ever, participated at Salone Satellite, that section of the Milan furniture fair devoted to young design talents. Unbelievably because they are unquestionably talented, and are equally unquestionably young. Even if the works displayed in Milan suggested a maturity beyond their years. Studio Daphna Laurens present Prototipi @ Salone Satellite Milan 2016 Presented under the title Prototipi Daphna Isaacs and Laurens
read more
As with contemporary football the story of contemporary architecture and design begins on the British Isles; and as with football it didn't take long before the British nations were replaced at the forefront of the art(s) by their European neighbours. In both cases Germany and France moving with notable speed, diligence and grace past the UK. Inspired by this coming summer's EURO 2016 European Football Championships in France, the Bröhan Museum Berlin are celebrating the creative rivalry which
read more
