In our post from the exhibition Art Nouveau. The Great Utopian Vision at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg we stated, with a certain degree of authority, that "No one likes a hippy" The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis obviously do and are celebrating that fact with the exhibition Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia. Subtitled "An Examination of the Radical Art, Architecture, and Design of 1960s & 1970s Counterculture" the Walker Art Center's exhibition promises to explore
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"What is understood today as the housing problem is a specific intensification of the bad housing conditions endured by the working class through the sudden large scale movement of the population to the major cities; huge increases in rents, an even greater overcrowding of individuals in houses, and for some the impossibility of even finding suitable accommodation." 1 Although written in 1872 Friedrich Engels analysis of the urban housing situation remains in many ways as contemporary as it
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"The World of Charles and Ray Eames" It is inherent in the nature of America's most productive 20th century creatives that there is no "world" of Charles and Ray Eames; there are "worlds" In their new Eames retrospective the Barbican Art Gallery London attempt to combine these worlds into a coherent, comprehensible universe. The World of Charles and Ray Eames @ Barbican Art Gallery London Charles Eames was born in St Louis, Missouri in 1907. Ray Kaiser in Sacramento, California in 1912.
read moreIn our design calender post on the inaugural Memphis Exhibition in Milan we noted that although important for the development of design and architecture, the Memphis group was never that successful commercially. Which is not to say that Memphis furniture wasn't bought and used to furnish homes. According to Artemide co-founder Ernesto Gismondi, who also served as Managing Director of the Memphis trading company, there are, or at least were, two homes furnished exclusively with Memphis. And
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No one likes a hippy. Which might explain the ambivalence many have towards Art Nouveau. For with its floral motifs, visual dreamscapes, hopeless utopianism and all-pervading fascination with nudity, Art Nouveau is in many ways the original hippy movement. And this association may also be what bestows the preeminent international arts and architecture movement of the late 19th and early 20th century its unmistakable smack of kitsch, its perceived lack of contemporary cultural relevance.
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Among the more interesting and entertaining texts we didn't publish from IMM Cologne 2015 was our post on the showcase "The Journey of Things" featuring works by 6 Berlin and 2 London based designers. It would have been a great text. Had it been published. That it wasn't is one of those mysteries which only those with an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the smow blog can understand. Fortunately for us, and indeed all in or near Berlin in the coming weeks, until October 31st works
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As we've often opined in these pages, design is a way of thinking, not a profession. An opinion we inevitably illustrate with a picture of a chair being used to hold a door open at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle. But in what do designers actually believe? What are their motivations? Their goals? From where does their understanding of design originate? Why design? Such and similar questions form the core of the Depot Basel exhibition "Forum for an Attitude" which begins in Weil am
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As many of our regular readers will be aware, we don't like food design. We would say "we can't stomach it", however, that would draw more attention to the subject than it could ever deserve. We're particularly wary of Spanish food design, and the connections that invariably raises to some of the most senseless, egoistic and narcissistic episodes in the recent history of cuisine. Even writing that sentence brings us out in a rage. That said, we've long sought a chance to view the exhibition
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One of the biggest problems with Modernism is the name. It was unquestionably modern. Which is why it became known as "Modernism". However, having become Modernism, it remained Modernism, and consequently "Modernism" came to imply something static. Rather than something, well, modern. Nowhere is this problem more visible than in discussions around Bauhaus. Established in Weimar in 1919 Bauhaus would go on to play a central role in shaping those new ideas about art, architecture and design
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These past few months we have made no effort to disguise the fact that one of our favourite discoveries of 2015 has been Brussels based Ateliers J&J. Ever since we saw the studio's work as part of the exhibition MAD ABOUT LIVING – 24 Designers from Brussels during Cologne Design Week we've been obsessing about the tubular steel and solid wood objects which formed their inaugural collection. And now Ateliers J&J are ready to launch their second collection: their challenging second album, as
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If form follows function, what form does, could, should yearning and longing have? If architects are continually searching for a form that meets our individual understanding of the physical environment, what form does, could, should our individual emotional yearnings and longings have? Do we want our yearnings to have a form? Or are we not, perhaps, when all is said and done, happier when they remain abstract and unreachable? The seventh edition of Vitra Frankfurt's biennial Ampelphase
read moreCelebrated as the salvation of design. Denounced as kitsch. Fresh & invigorating. Vain & hifalutin. A watershed in design history. A passing fad. There are few architecture and design movements that divided opinion quite as much as the works of the Italian group Memphis. Or indeed which continue to divide opinion more than thirty years after their emergence. Although officially launched with an exhibition at the Arc '74 gallery in Milan on Friday September 18th 1981 Memphis can trace its
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If we're completely honest, until now the only piece of wickerwork about which we have ever gotten truly excited is The Wicker Man in Robin Hardy's eponymous 1973 film. All other wickerwork leaving us somehow cold. Almost as cold as the heart of Lord Summerisle. That however was until we saw Diana Stegmann's woven baskets presented as part of the Modern Crafts Talents section at Tendence Frankfurt 2015. Yes with their protruding stalks and unfamiliar forms Diana Stegmann's woven baskets are
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We've said it so often that even we are somewhat tired of hearing it, but..... Portugal has lots of cork. Portugal has a, relatively, weak economy, Portugal has lots of very talented designers. 1+1+1= More Portuguese cork design would be an excellent idea. And while some Portuguese labels such as Blackcork, CorkWay or Vicara are investigating, admittedly with various degrees of success, contemporary uses for cork, in general when one finds Portuguese cork in the home it is invariably in
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As we noted in our post on the 2015 Garden Unique Youngstars competition winner "snak" by Gunnar Søren Petersen, the contemporary outdoor furniture market is largely a forgotten world as far as quality design is concerned. But, and as we also noted, it needn't be. The 2015 edition of the Garden Unique Youngstars competition staged as part of the spoga+gafa garden fair in Cologne presented 15 projects by young designers which showed that "design for outdoors" is no contradiction. We're not
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In 1960 Enzo Mari designed "16 Animali" for Italian manufacturer Danese. Comprising 16 wooden animal shapes "16 Animali" is simultaneously a child's jigsaw and 16 individual wooden toys to be played with and thrown about as wished. In 2014 with his son's second birthday approaching Prague based industrial designer Jakub Gurecký faced the question of what to give him? Yes, he could buy something, but surely as a qualified and experienced industrial designer he could also create something? But
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The very first piece of product design George Nelson realised was inspired by architecture. The typical American family home in 1944 had storage problems: not only because increasing prosperity meant that a majority of 1940s Americans owned more than their parents and grandparents had ever possessed, but changing lifestyle practices meant they didn't own the same things their parents and grandparents had owned. Rather they owned things like golf clubs. Which don't fit in conventional
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As old Mother Goose, allegedly, once claimed: Thirty days hath September, and the following five enticing new design and architecture exhibitions which are probably well worth checking out if you get the chance....... "Piet Mondrian. The Line" at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany Just as those architects who were to lead the move to modernism in the first decades of the 20th century generally began working in more classic styles before being seduced by the reduced charm of modernism,
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As Noël Coward famously observed, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, and it takes a similarly laissez-faire approach to life to open an exhibition in August. Everyone, but everyone, it would appear is on holiday. Or has at least like Coward's caribous, lain down for a snooze. Which is probably why the majority of the following five exhibitions open in late August, so after the sun has ceased to be much too sultry such that one must avoid its ultry-violet ray. "Shelter:
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"The challenges of contemporary housing are rooted in the changing materials, social and intellectual structures of our time; and can only be understood in such terms. The degree of structural change determines the nature and extent of the problems. They are deprived of any arbitrariness. They cannot be solved with slogans, nor hidden and ignored behind words of good intention. The problem of rationalisation and standardisation is only one part of the problem. Rationalisation and
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Taking a few minutes break from the 2015 Burg Giebichenstein Halle Summer Exhibition we sat ourselves on a low wall to enjoy a well earned coffee and to digest and reflect on what we had seen, when we slowly became aware of the unmistakable tones of Morrissey's "Everyday is like Sunday" drifting across the college's Neuwerk campus. "Armageddon, come Armageddon! Come, Armageddon! Come!" Give that in the course of its 100 year history nuclear obliteration is just about the only twist of fate
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It is probably fair to say that over the years and decades the Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK Berlin, has produced the majority of the more interesting and important Berlin designers. Whereas historically that was largely on account of the lack of alternatives; today the school has responded to the increasing competition by employing good sensible teaching staff who set the students good sensible semester projects and also give them the freedom to develop their own individual projects as
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On the evening of Thursday June 9th Bauhaus University Weimar formally opened the 2015 edition of their annual Summaery end of year exhibition; thus, and equally formally, launching our 2015 summer tour of student showcases. For all in or near Weimar this weekend, Summaery 2015 runs at the Bauhaus University Weimar, and at locations throughout the town, until 6pm on Sunday July 12th, full details can be found at www.uni-weimar.de/summaery, and here three design projects which particularly
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On days when his sketches didn't meet with his own, self-critical, approval, the Swiss architect and urban planner Le Corbusier is reported to have laid down his pencil and quietly reflected, "c'est difficile, l'architecture" 1 Equally difficile is describing and explaining the multifarious talents and passions of Le Corbusier. One option, arguably the best option, is to focus on just one aspect of Le Corbusier's oeuvre and to use this concentrated analysis as a conduit through which to
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