January 2013 was, as every January, dominated by IMM Cologne, and all that that entails. In particular IMM Cologne 2013 brought us Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's investiture as A&W Designers of the year and a delightful Alvar Aalto Stool 60 exhibition at Ungers Archiv für Architekturwissenschaft. January 2013 was in addition the opening of the exhibition "Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things" at the Design Museum London.....
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In our recent post from Florence we reported on the attempts being made there by the local authorities to help support and advance the local craftsfolk. Since 2008 the Chambers of Commerce from five of Florence's nearish neighbours have followed a different, though just as valid path towards achieving the same. Under the title "Rethinking The Product" the Chambers of Commerce from Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato and Terni pair young designers with local businesses and set them specific challenges.
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By way of an addendum to our 5 New Design Exhibitions for December 2013 post....... On Saturday December 14th 2013 SWING Gallery in South-Central Italian Benevento open a solo exhibition by the Berlin design collective Shapes in Play. Under the title Hidden Patterns Johanna Spath and Johannes Tsopanides, a.k.a Shapes in Play present the latest chapter in their exploration of both the borders between digital and analogue in contemporary society and the possibilities for increasing emotional
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While we can't be certain that the artist, designer and choreographer Oskar Schlemmer would have completely agreed with the claim that "Life is a cabaret", we do know where he placed cabaret in the great scheme of cultural happenings: a little lower than theatre, but slightly higher than varieté. ""Stage" in general", Schlemmer wrote in 1925, "encompasses all that lies between religious cult and naive public amusement, both are not that what the stage is; the calculated impact on man of
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On Wednesday December 5th the AIT ArchitekturSalon Cologne open an exhibition devoted to the Guga Children`s Theatre construction project in Langa, South Africa. Established in the late 1990s the Guga S’Thebe cultural centre in the Langa township by Cape Town provides facilities and courses for adults and children alike and in addition to meeting rooms and a theatre/concert venue also houses rehearsal rooms and craft workshops. While over the years the work and scope of the centre has grown,
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It being that time of year when the only exhibition most of us are interested is the one displaying "presents with my name on them", there are only very few design exhibitions opening this December. Very few. But some. Here a selection of the more interesting ways to work off that extra roast potato or twelve........ "Mensch Raum Maschine. Stage Experiments at the Bauhaus" at Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, Germany Despite the current theatre surrounding the decision not to renew Stiftung Bauhaus
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With the haze that has been mercilessly hanging over Potsdam these last few days finally giving over to an unpleasant background moisture level somewhere between rain and mist, the season for indoor activities has indubitably arrived. And so it is timeous that the Villa Schöningen in Potsdam is opening a new exhibition celebrating the creativity of graduates from the FH Potsdam Product Design Department. Curated by current FH Potsdam students under the guidance of Professors Jörg Hundertpfund
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Until Monday February 24th 2014 the Bauhaus Archive Berlin is presenting the exhibition "Mein Reklame-Fegefeuer. Herbert Bayer. Werbegrafik 1928 – 1938." Born in Haag, Upper Austria on April 5th 1900 Herbert Bayer joined Bauhaus Weimar in 1921 and moved with the institution to Dessau in 1925 where Walter Gropius appointed him head of the newly established Print and Advertising Workshop. In 1928 Herbert Bayer departed Bauhaus and established his own commercial graphic design studio in Berlin
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On Friday November 22nd Depot Basel open their new exhibition, Changes – Chancen. At the beginning of September 2013 the Depot Basel collective brought together five Swiss creatives for a discussion aimed at exploring aspects of Switzerland as a location for "work, production and design." Consisting of product designer Jörg Boner, Stefan Rechsteiner from footwear company Velt, architect and author Claude Lichtenstein, product designer Meret Probst and interior designer & author Verena Huber
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As part of the bi-annual Europalia Arts Festival the Belgian cultural institute Grand Hornu is currently presenting the exhibition "Living Objects - Made for India" Curated by London based design studio Doshi Levien "Living Objects" is, as the title cleverly implies, an exploration of everyday Indian objects, everyday Indian design as it were, and an exhibition that in the words of Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien should be seen as "...a vehicle to discuss Indian culture, Indian values and
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As we are sure you will appreciate we tend to shy away from recommending anything we haven’t seen and/or tested ourselves. That said, the following five exhibitions, all opening in November, caught our attention. And certainly seem worth checking out..... "mein reklame-fegefeuer. herbert bayer. werbegrafik 1928 - 1938" at Bauhaus Archiv Berlin, Germany Appointed in 1925 as the first director of the printing and advertising workshop at Bauhaus Dessau the Austrian artist and typographer
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When the yellowing leaves of passing like a carpet over Leipzig lie..... it must be time for "Leipzig Creative Autumn", as the town's marketing bods will no doubt eventually get round to calling it. On Friday we'll be at Designers' Open, the start shot however is traditionally made by the Grassimesse at the Leipzig Museum for Applied Art. Which is only fair. On the one hand Grassimesse is older - tracing its history as it can back to the 1920s and counting many a Bauhaus student and
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We’re almost too late, almost, but until November 8th the AIT ArchitekturSalon Cologne is presenting the exhibition, Alison and Peter Smithson – The Art of Inhabitation. A reworked version of the London Design Museum’s 2003 exhibition “Alison and Peter Smithson – From the House of the Future to a House of Today”, “The Art of Inhabitation” explores the work and legacy of two of the most important post-war British architects through just one facet of the extensive canon: private houses. A facet
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One of the take home messages from the Vitra Design Museum's Lightopia exhibition is that lighting design is rarely about the form of the final object - that is often little more than an expression of the designers artistic sensibilities - and much more is about, for example, the utilisation of materials in the construction or the method by which the light is generated and the luminescence distributed. This reality was wonderfully underscored by Austrian designer Sebastian Zachl's Passionswege
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When we spoke to Marc Zehntner and Mateo Kries, the joint heads of the Vitra Design Museum, they told us that they hoped to make the institution "... a much more vibrant location that doesn’t just present exhibitions exploring the most important design themes and topics but much more asks question of the visitors and so becomes more of an experience." The fringe programme to the current Vitra Design Museum exhibition Lightopia wonderfully demonstrates just what they meant, featuring as it does
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Vienna's fine, the sun shines most the time The feeling is "laid back" Plane trees grow and Herr Gruber's beer prices are low But you know we keep thinkin' about Making our way back Well we're Leipzig City born and raised But nowadays, We're lost between two shores Vienna's fine, but it ain't home Leipzig's home, But it ain't ours no more......... Which, and with obvious apologies to Niel Diamond, is a somewhat long, involved and frankly unnecessarily depressive way, of saying that the time
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We must admit to having had our problems with Vienna based design studio chmara.rosinke Not in a physical, fisticuffs sort of way you understand, and certainly not in a screaming insults across a crowded bar way, but in a pure critical styleee. With their project "Mobile Gastfreundschaft" chmara.rosinke, as far as we understand the whole madness, helped convince the t**** researchers and their lazy media morlocks that "nomadicity" would be a good horse to back. That's obviously not
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As we noted in our post on Depot_0411 by Marlene Klausner, "food" often crops up in the Vienna Design Week programme, as a general rule in the "Stadtarbeit" programme, a programme element that looks at how design can influence, benefit and, ideally, improve urban environments. In this context, in addition to Depot_0411 Vienna Design Week 2013 is hosting the project "Construisine" from the Berlin based designers Johanna Dehio and Dominik Hehl. A couple of years ago one of the Stadtarbeit
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What is luxury? For Passionswege 2013 the French/Swiss duo Bertille + Mathieu were paired with the Viennese crystal manufacturer J. & L. Lobmeyr, a company whose products grace Royal places, helped establish the Wiener Werkstätte and would by most popular, conventional definitions be considered "luxury", and have developed a delightful project that answers the question in an alternative, though equally valid, way. Lollipops. Sugar candy lollipops. Specifically Bertille + Mathieu have used a
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As far as we are aware the grand doyen of Austrian architecture Otto Wagner never devoted a great deal of his energy to glass. Save that is for the interior of his majestic Postsparkasse in Vienna. Shrouded in glass from floor to ceiling the interior resembles more a Victorian greenhouse than a savings bank. And as such is a more than fitting location for the exhibition SECOND LIFE - Upcycling Glass Design from Finland. Organised in conjunction with the Finnish Glass Museum Riihimäki, SECOND
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For reasons we've never truly understood "food" always crops ups somewhere, in some context during Vienna Design Week. Fortunately the organisers appear to have finally stopped designers growing herbs and vegetables in public places and have instead moved on to explore other, more practical, aspects of our modern relationship to what we eat and how we can best organise food production and distribution in the future. Among the projects this year is Depot_0411 by Austrian designer Marlene
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As we arrived in Vienna the first thing we noticed was our breath. It's autumn in Vienna. And we still haven't found our winter accommodation. When we do an object such as "Heat x Heart" may be just the thing to complete our winter retreat. Created by the Swedish born, London based designer Hilda Hellström in cooperation with E. Fessler Kamine, a Vienesse firm who have been involved with the production of heating ovens and oven tiles for over 200 years and whose products can be found, for
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It seems somehow fitting that our first post from Vienna Design Week 2013 should be from a Passionswege project. Passionswege is after all one of the major attractions for us of Vienna Design Week. For anyone new, or who has mistakenly stumbled across us, Passionswege is a programme within Vienna Design Week that pairs young designers with long established handicraft based manufacturers to develop a product/project that combines the tradition of the manufacturer with the new perspective
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"My, my, my, Delilah! Why, why, why, Delilah!" The morning of Friday September 27th 2013 was one of those misty autumn occasions that cause SANAA's immense new Vitra Factory Building in Weil am Rhein to merge, almost unseen, with the grey background. Even Herzog & de Meuron's new Basel Messe complex was reduced to nothing more grand than a continuation of the uncaring monotonous sky. The glitzing, shimmering palace of high summer just the weak shadow of a memory. And so it was perhaps fitting
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