"Dear Architect" wrote Maria Chinaglia Ponti in 1967 to the architect, but no relation, Gio Ponti, "why don't you design us some modern furniture? Daddy Walter is worried because our traditional stuff is not selling as it used to".1 An unsolicited request, from a company of whom he'd never heard, an architect of the status of a late 1960s Gio Ponti could have turned down, it wasn't as if a late 1960s Gio Ponti needed the commission; however, something about the letter from Maria Chinaglia
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Italy A Peninsula; A Commonwealth; A Context Striding out into the Mediterranean Sea the contemporary commonwealth of Italy, for all its apparent unity, and for all its superficially stable, pastoral, political landscape, is very much a volatile, fervid synthesis of innumerable independent Stati and Popoli; independent Stati and Popoli whose individual characters and perspectives helped form not only the contemporary Italy, but together define the (hi)story of furniture design in the
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"...one only finds warmth of life and sincerity where human nature is allowed to flourish", opined the German designer Erich Dieckmann in 1931, "one shouldn't forget that in our apartments. Let's treat our contemporary homes to something humane. Something unelaborate, something provisional, with some leeway and space for things to grow as they wish over time."1 With the exhibition Chairs: Dieckmann! The Forgotten Bauhäusler Erich Dieckmann, the Kunststiftung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt and
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We were obviously off ill on the day of the great global public debate about whether, given the myriad problems of contemporary societies, our resource emergencies, and the effortless manner in which we've managed to turn the Internet, the greatest tool ever placed at the disposal of a member of the Animalia, into a platform for hate and vanity and greed and crime; if given all that, if we all wanted to, if we all should, move to the Metaverse. But that debate must have occurred, for the
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The popular (hi)story of furniture design is, no-one could argue, a very male (hi)story.1 Which doesn't mean that furniture design is a profession at which males excel more than females, a profession for which males have a natural affinity above and beyond that of females, that females' natural domains are textiles and colours; much more is because that popular (hi)story of furniture design contains flaws, biases, inaccuracies and under-illuminated corners. A great many of which can be traced
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The contemporary systematics of the family Cactaceae recognises four subfamilies, Cactoideae, Maihuenioideae, Opuntioideae and Pereskioideae; is however a classification very much in motion, one very much in an ongoing process of re-evaluation, re-definition, re-assessment, one which undergoes regular revisions. ¿An ongoing re-evaluation and re-definition and re-assessment and revision which could see the addition of a fifth subfamily, the Craftoideae? With the exhibition Craft is Cactus. The
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"Boxing is not an exclusively athletic term in these practical and utilitarian days", noted John Crocker in 1913, rather, "the making of useful and ornamental things for the home, from the boxes, that in other days adorned the rear of stores, is the nucleus of armament that has made "boxing" a pursuit that contains both amusement and substantial results."1 And nobody contributed more to promoting and advancing the amusement and substantial results of the practical and utilitarian craft of
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1 x rounded piece of beech, 2 x quadratic pieces of beech, 3 x quadratic pieces of spruce... 1, 2, 3... An Ulmer Hocker1 With the exhibition The Ulmer Hocker: Idea ─ Icon ─ Idol the HfG-Archiv, Ulm, help elucidate that while an Ulmer Hocker is that simple, it is a deceptive, and highly informative, simplicity....... The Ulmer Hocker: Idea - Icon - Idol, HfG-Archiv Ulm The HfG Ulm: Idea - Icon - Idol - Bauhaus Arising from the Ulmer Volkshochschule, a post-War institution initiated by Inge
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In 1922 the Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie told the undergraduates at St. Andrews University "you remember someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December", an allusion to the summer of your life filling your darkening winter days with colour and aroma, and an analogy he neatly reinforces a little later with a, "you have June coming".1 But that was 1922. Roses were seasonal. Today roses are available all year round, which is not only symbolic of the short-sighted
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Grcic A Konstantin; A Nurturing; A Reduction There are a great many legends surrounding the origins of Grcic, and while many are centred around the regions today known as München and Wuppertal, the more plausible appears to be that Grcic arose in the days of ancient Rome when a member of a large herd, a Grex, of roving furniture makers, tired of the monotony and fallacy of the repetition of the same objects regardless of context and the passage of time, stole away to pursue the development of
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"Space and form are important elements in the creation of the [interior] environment", opined the Danish architect, artist and designer Verner Panton in 1969, however, he continues, "colours are even more important". And no-one, even those with but the briefest familiarity with Verner Panton, can oversee the colour in Verner Panton's work. Yet important as colour and space and form were for Panton, "in the creation of the [interior] environment", "l'homme reste l'élément central", man remains
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In days of yore October was known in Germanic lands as Weinmonat, Wine Month, Month of Wine, whereby thoughts were, unquestionably, less with the drink as with the grape and the harvest, and thus the promise of the new wine. And in many regards our exhibition recommendations can be considered a monthly harvest of the new crop of architecture and design exhibitions; specifically, and staying in Germanic registers, an Auslese, a considered selection of those well ripened concepts and premises it
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Of all the genres of furniture which accompany global society, none, arguably, is more self-explanatory, more obvious, than the table. Yet for all the simplicity, or perhaps exactly because of all the simplicity, the table is, arguably, the most versatile of all the genres of furniture which accompany global society; the contemporary table existing as it does in a myriad forms and contexts. And not just physical forms and contexts......... The (hi)story of the table, in terms of verifiable
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Much as with "Bauhaus", "Memphis" is all too often popularly reduced to a "style", something one can "recreate". As with "Bauhaus" that it is not only disingenuous, and erroneous, but hinders development of understandings of the (hi)story of design, understandings of the path taken to our contemporary design that are important for considerations on where we are and how best to progress. With the showcase Memphis: 40 Years of Kitsch and Elegance the Vitra Design Museum Gallery issue an
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Braun occupy a special, ¿unique?, position not only in the mythology of product design but also in the (hi)story of West Germany; arguably no brand is as closely related with and to West Germany as Braun. With the exhibition Braun 100 the Bröhan-Museum, Berlin, explore the development of design at Braun in the post-War decades and in doing so help one approach differentiated understandings of not only Braun and Braun design, but also of the relationships between Braun, design and West
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"In his work the designer seeks to find the constancy of the good", wrote Karl Clauss Dietel in 1973, a lightly articulated yet not so straightforward task for, as he continues, not only is the assessment of such dependent on a myriad varying factors, but "the search for what defines design, what it grows from, where it comes from and where it wants to go, takes on new dimensions against the background of our cultural upheaval".1 With the exhibition Simson, Diamant, Erika. Formgestaltung von
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"I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it is always June", ponders Anne Shirley in Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1915 novel Anne of the Island. "You'd get tired of it", sighs her adoptive mother Marilla Cuthbert by way of reply. "I daresay", responds Anne, "but just now I feel that it would take me a long time to get tired of it..." Thoughts we very much concur with as we survey and contemplate the varied profusion of new architecture and design exhibitions sprouting forth in June
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"¿Qué es diseño?" asked Clara Porset in 1949. What is design?1 Not because she didn't know. Far from it. Over the course of the preceding two decades Clara Porset had ably demonstrated her considered, critical and responsive understandings of design; understandings that saw her develop into one of the most important, interesting and informative furniture designers in Mexico, understandings that saw her develop into one of the more important, interesting and informative protagonists in the
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As the 19th century English poet Robert Browning so very, very, nearly phrased it: Oh, to be in Berlin, Vienna, Chemnitz, 's-Hertogenbosch, or Berlin (again), Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in Berlin, Vienna, Chemnitz, 's-Hertogenbosch, or Berlin (again), Sees, some morning a most interesting, entertaining and instructive sounding architecture and/or design exhibition, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough...... "Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos" at the Gropius Bau, Berlin,
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"One sits more comfortably on a colour that one likes" declares Verner Panton in his 1997 book Lidt om Farver/Notes on Colour.1 A succinct expression of an understanding of colour as more than just a decorative element, and one of many reflections on the function and relevance of colour beyond the merely decorative which, in a myriad guises, pervade the history of furniture and product design. And contrasting, if at times complementary, reflections, pun intended, we will consider in the
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In 1936 Aino Aalto opined that "homes can be given interior design in other ways than before - not by buying expensive complete suites of furniture, but by concentrating on low-cost furnishings which can be used - with the aid of flowers, carpets, drapery and colours - to create hitherto more practical and more comfortable homes."1 A break not only with the understandings, the ways, of generations long past in terms of what constitutes appropriate furniture; but also a break with the ways of
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In the northern hemisphere* December marks not only the darkest period of the year but also that moment when light begins to return: following the Winter Solstice our days start to get a little longer, and a little brighter. And in December 2020 not just astronomically, but metaphorically. Midwinter 2020 symbolising a moment when a particularly dark year, a particularly dark period, starts to get a little brighter, a moment when a little more light will start to slowly seep into our days,
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The study of vernacular furniture can teach us a lot about not only the development of understandings of furniture, nor only of the development of societies and cultures, nor nor only only about relationships between furniture and wider realities, but also how the position of furniture as a cultural good, as a good embedded in a culture and society, can see furniture serve as a component of projected understandings of heritage and identity, and in doing so can endow attributes on an object of
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"I don't know what design is", opined once the Italian designer Enzo Mari. Not because he hadn't considered the question. But because he had. A lot. With the exhibition Enzo Mari curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Francesca Giacomelli the Triennale Milano present an opportunity to approach an understanding of that which in the course of those considerations, and his 60+ year career, Enzo Mari has variously understood both design to be, and what it could, should, must, be........ Enzo Mari
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