Do designers always know best? No, do they....? Back in July we celebrated the 60th anniversary of Arne Jacobsen's Ant Chair for Fritz Hansen, including mention of the heavy criticism that greeted its presentation, in particular the criticism that it only had three legs. Criticism that didn't concern Arne Jacobsen one jot. For Jacobsen the Ant Chair was conceived as a three legged chair, functioned as a three legged chair and would always remain a three legged chair. Eventually however
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There is currently a lot of "buzz" in the contemporary furniture and interior design communities about bringing nature in to domestic spaces, of finding ways of integrating plants with furniture and furnishings, softening our harsh, uncaring modern world if you will. In recent months we have posted, for example, on Stephan Schulz's Domestic Landscape project, Green Lamp by Zuzanna Malinowska or Werner Aisslinger's Bikini Island concept for Moroso. While at the recent Designers' Open Leipzig
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Expansion. It's not always good. Waistlines. Overdrafts. Weeks since you last phoned your mother. For example wouldn't be good. Business expansion is however good. And the best news is that (smow) continues to expand. Following on from the "original" (smow)rooms in Leipzig and Chemnitz, the (smow) online designer furniture store opened its virtual doors in 2008 before in 2012 (smow) Stuttgart joined the family. 2013 has already seen the launch of (smow) Erfurt, and since early October
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Although, according to our strict definition of "design" the work of Leipzig ceramicist Claudia Biehne must be considered handwork, we're delighted Porcelain Studio Biehne & Passig are taking part in the Designers' Open 2013 Spots. When we dropped by the studio Stefan Passig asked how we first got to know the studio's work, and unlike the romance of a casual meeting under an escalator in a former department store, with Studio Biehne & Passig we really can't recall. Suspect however it was at
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There are only very few furniture manufacturers who can claim to have been major players in two fundamental furniture design revolutions. Thonet is one of them. And if we're honest, the only one we can currently name. Although the Thonet story begins in 1819, the story only really begins to "pick up steam" in 1859 when Michael Thonet perfected his warm wood bending process. The result of over twenty years development, heartbreak, experimentation, bankruptcy, fleeting success and brutal
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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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Hot on the heels of Vienna Design Week 2013 and its very successful "Passionswege" programme news reaches us from Florence of an alternative approach to rejuvenating and invigorating traditional handicrafts. One that involves nothing more complicated than leaving the craftsfolk to do what they do. One of the confusing aspects about Florence is that despite the 8 billion tourists who visit the city every year, the streets of the town centre are still largely populated by small trades
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"How did the elephant get its trunk?" "How do you get concrete and mortar on to the upper floors of buildings? While you don't need to know the answer to the first question to answer the second: if the elephant didn't, the answer to the second would be a lot less convenient than the modern reality. The idea of using a trunk-esque system to transport concrete and mortar to higher floors was developed by the Stuttgart engineer Karl Schlecht in his 1957 diploma project at Stuttgart University.
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Back in October one of the joys of Orgatec 2012 in Cologne was watching visitors reactions to Hella Jongerius' Sphere Table for Vitra. Most were highly amused and assumed it was a new kids product. An opinion that quickly changes when you learn the background to the object. Developed for Hella Jongerius' recently completed redevelopment of the North Delegate's Lounge at the United Nations in New York, the Sphere Table is a response to a brief that said the lounge could contain no internal
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"How did you first hear about kkaarrlls?" It's perhaps not quite a question on a par with "Where were you when Kennedy got shot?" or "How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?", but when asked by Volker Albus, Product Design Professor and Prorector at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe and, together with Stefan Legner, co-founder and "boss" from kkaarrlls, you really have to respond. "Pure chance", being our less than brilliant answer. "Milan 2009, too early for a
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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 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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"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
read moreAs we noted in our designer barbecue post "... summer is bidding its final farewells" And with autumn's impudent chill invading ever more our pastoral calm the time for our hibernation approaches. And so we're currently exploring accommodation options. Fortunately it's been a bit of a "small house year" in these pages with, for example, Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Vitra's Diogene or Jean Prouve's Maison des Jours Meilleurs occupying our thoughts. Our first contact with reduced room
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In addition to Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen's superb modular case furniture system, a further highlight of the MoMa New York's 1940 "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition was Harry Weese and Benjamin Baldwin's winning collection in the "Furniture for Outdoor Living" category, a collection that included a tea wagon, table, benches, loungers and as a genuine highlight, a barbecue wagon. Resembling a coal bucket on wheels - and again owing to "issues" with the rights holder we sadly
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On Saturday September 14th London Design Festival 2013 opens to the public. We'll sadly not be there. Sadly because London in early Autumn is always a delightful thought, and also because the 2013 programme would appear to contain a few real gems. As many of you know we don't like recommending shows/exhibitions/products/anything really we haven't seen ourselves. And while at such events the genuine personal highlights are often found where and when one least expects them, there are a few
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We're not going to pretend everyone is enamoured with our constant pops at Chemnitz. Truth is for the majority our behaviour lies somewhere between adolescent immaturity and the senseless ravings of an embittered pensioner. And indeed all did in fact begin when we were immature teenagers. And we've long since reach the enviable status of rancorous elder citizens. But despite being unenamoured with our demur, most have accepted and understood that it is nothing personal, that it is just an
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On Saturday September 7th the winners of the International Marianne Brandt Contest 2013 were unveiled at an awards ceremony in the Industry Museum Chemnitz. We'll have more on the winners, the 2013 contest and of course the accompanying exhibition real soon, but for now the winners. Congratulations to all! Product Design Award Product & Special Award Alessi: Susanne Schwarz, "Papier tragen" Appreciation Product, Special Award (smow) & Public Award: Anna Albertine Baronius, "2tables"
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"Do the books that writers don't write matter?", asks Julian Barnes in his 1984 novel Flaubert's Parrot. In a similar vein, do the posts that bloggers don't write matter? Among Julian Barnes' arguments for not disregarding the unwritten novel is that, "Besides, an idea isn't always abandoned because it fails some quality control test. The imagination doesn't crop annually like a reliable fruit tree. The writer has to gather whatever's there: sometimes too much, sometimes too little, sometimes
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We know what you're thinking, lost furniture designs from Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames. ??? Yup. Two of the most important, influential and best known protagonists of mid-century modern design have a product series that has vanished without trace. And in our opinion it vanished exactly because Saarinen and Eames are two of the best known protagonists of mid-century modern design. But let's start at the beginning.... In 1940 the Museum of Modern Art New York staged their "Organic Design
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Much as we bemoan our annual trip to Milan, we do generally return enriched in some form or another. And, secretly, glad that we went. 2011's epiphany came when we were introduced to the Milanese producer Azucena. The introduction coming via Konstantin Grcic and his Entre-Deux "screen/divider/barricade", an object that was/is the start of a longer term cooperation between Grcic and Azucena. A continuation of which we are patiently awaiting. Until then we are whetting our Azucena appetite
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In our post "Wilhelm Wagenfeld Reviews Design for Use, USA" we quoted Wagenfeld's assertion that "In the current age machines and handicraft are intimately interwoven with one another." The Bauhaus Archiv Berlin is currently presenting an exhibition which ably demonstrates that some 80 years later such harmonious constellations cannot only still be found, but are still producing results every bit as refined and timeless as those realised by Wilhelm Wagenfeld. Poesie & Industrie - Poetry and
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As any fool know contemporary product design arose from traditional crafts. The birth however wasn’t the smoothest, and the conflict between the form loving traditionalists who believed in a future of craft based industrial production and the machine fixated modernists with their focus on functionality dominated the inter-war years. Post World War II the modernists had largely succeeded in establishing their position and in his review of the 1951 exhibition “Design for Use USA” Wilhelm
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Although we rarely have reason to blow our own trumpets, we do regularly have cause to sound our colleagues veritable flourish of bugles, clarions, cornets, horns. And trumpets. Such is an occasion. With immediate effect many products in the (smow) online shop can be perused, compared and enjoyed as 360 degree photos. And they are photos. And not computer generated renderings. From established design classics including the Vitra Panton Chair or the Eames DSR over modern classics such as the
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