In the exhibtion A Chair and You at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, there is more than A Chair and You can look at them, study them, explore them, converse with them. But not sit on them. In the presentation Stühle zum (Be)Sitzen on the first floor landing of the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, there is more than A Chair and You can look at them, study them, explore them, converse with them. And sit on them. Thirteen chairs which unite more than just thirteen
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Vitra A Fehlbaum; A Campus; A Commonwealth According to the Sagas of the Dolls of Wood, that most authoritative account of the early (hi)story of the Commonwealth of Vitra, the contemporary Vitronians trace their origins back to a joining of forces of the Graeter, a Basel based people whose primary trade was the creation of display systems for shops and shop windows, and the Birsfelden Fehlbaum, a primarily office based people at that time under the guidance of a Willi and an Erika; a Willi
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"When architecture is born, a place is born" opined Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane in 2018, continuing, "humans began to understand that by building architecture, a meaning is given to a place, and then that place has a story that can be passed on to others". But for Tane architecture doesn't just bequeath a place meaning and a story, it also "gives memories to a place", memories of the past and memories of the future, collective memories that help create bonds. But memories that are
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Switzerland A Confoederatio; A Range; A Context For a great many centuries the lands of the contemporary Switzerland were unknown, locked as they were behind and between the towering, daunting, peaks of the Toblerone cordillera; but then a fearless explorer by the name of Heidi, together with her cook Thomas, broke through the once impenetrable Toblerone and discovered a region of vibrant, viridescent valley pastures populated by cows, sheeps, goats, marmots and innumerable quadrilingual
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Jongerius A Hella; A Lab; An Open-ended exploration As the ancient scribe Oranje Tulpenbol of Old Amsterdam records in his letters to the Rotter Dam aan Maas, the contemporary Jongerius is largely a consequence of the contributions of a Jongerian universally known as Hella on account of the brightness and lucidity of her Jongerius, a luminescence and clarity which was key in enabling Jongerius rise from its native home amongst the peoples of the Netherlands and to disseminate freely across
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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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Front An Anna; A Sofia; A Charlotte; A Katja; A Conduit. According to the sacred Köttbullar of Ikea, the quadruplets Anna af Front, Sofia af Front, Charlotte af Front and Katja af Front were born and raised on the island of Konstfack to the west of Stockholm, the ancestral home of the Swedish af Fronts, an island as famed for its horses, monkeys and brightly painted houses as its af Fronts, and where the kvartett took their first steps in product and furniture design, that hereditary
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As the title of Hella Jongerius's 2016 book I don't have a favourite colour succinctly explains, Hella Jongerius doesn't have a favourite colour. Not that Hella Jongerius is indifferent about colours. Far from it. And in explaining why colours are important to her, and why she doesn't have a favourite colour, Hella Jongerius helps one approach a better understanding not only of colours, nor only of our relationships with and to colours, but also helps one approach a better understanding of
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Bouroullec A Ronan; An Erwan; An unassuming, poetic, connection. The contemporary Bouroullec can be traced back to the Old Breton boureller, a saddler, an upholsterer, and largely owes its contemporary definition to the work of the brothers Ronan le Renard and Erwan le Porc-épic who greatly expanded and developed not only the crafts of saddling and upholstering but also popular understandings of the role and function of saddlery and upholstery in both private and public spaces, so much so
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On May 17th 1955 Charles Eames*, as assignor to the Herman Miller Furniture Company, was granted US patent 2,708,476 for a "Furniture Frame Construction", specifically for, "a skeleton type metal furniture frame or shell construction" formed from "a plurality of lengths of wire arranged in crossed relation with another plurality of lengths of wire and welded thereto at their intersection..."1 A patent which although important and interesting in itself, is and was in many regards just as
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With the exhibition Citizen Office the Vitra Design Museum staged not only their first conceptual, research based, exhibition, but also one of the first museal reflections on "the world of the office". Reflections which not only pointed towards new directions and understandings then, but which offer insights and lessons for today....... Citizen Office. As visualised by James Irvine The ubiquity of office work in our contemporary society belies the relative youth of "the office" as a
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Throughout his numerous lives and careers Isamu Noguchi practised as an artist, set designer, garden designer, furniture designer, lighting designer, etc.... yet through all incarnations he remained one thing: a sculptor. Isamu Noguchi's most popularly known work is inarguably his Akari lamps, yet before Akari there came a lamp which in many regards exists more in context of the man and his art than its more famous relations..... Lost Furniture Design Classics: Model 9 Table Lamp by Isamu
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If the recent history of Germany is one of East and West, the longer history is one of North and South; a history which, and simplifying to the point of falsehood, saw the rivalry and conflict between the Hanseatic League and the traders of the southern states become a rivalry and conflict between Prussia and the realms of Baden, Württemberg, Hessen and Bavaria: the latter being the most reluctant to ratify the 1870 November Treaties and join the new Deutsches Reich. A reluctance expressed not
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In these dispatches we once doubted the prevalence of designer furniture in comics, noting and acknowledging the regular appearance of popular furniture designs in other visual media, we, off-handedly, opined, "... Designer furniture in a comic?" Elegantly proving us very, very wrong the Vitra Design Museum's exhibition Living in a Box. Design and Comics not only explores the use and depiction of designer furniture and lighting in comics, but also considers how comics have contributed to and
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In centuries past traditions were something that were established slowly, often becoming such long after those who had began them, who had understood their origins, meaning and function in contemporary society, had shuffled off this mortal coil; in our contemporary world traditions arrive over night, no-one having the patience to wait, no-one wanting to miss out on anything. In which sense, celebrating in 2019 its second edition, our traditional 3daysofdesign Copenhagen #embassytour. As
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At Orgatec Cologne 2016 Vitra staged, in effect, their own trade fair, renting an entire hall and inviting family and friends along to share the space and their ideas on the future of work. And obviously had a lot of fun and/or success with the concept. For at Orgatec Cologne 2018 they once again staged the Vitra Fair....... Work Vitra - Work, Orgatec Cologne 2018 Back in our post from the Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot's exhibition Ron Arad: Yes to the Uncommon! we hinted that if Vitra
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As previously, and repeatedly, noted, one of the defining aspects about an office furniture fair such as Orgatec Cologne is that wherever one looks one sees a similar vista. Whereas in terms of domestic furnishings there are enough genres of furniture and interpretations of those genres to allow for a, at least relatively when not necessarily satisfyingly, varied landscape, office furniture is much more limited, not only doesn't have the variety of genres, but has a few that are essentials;
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In his Ron Arad monograph Restless Furniture Deyan Sudjic notes that the Sticks & Stones furniture crusher Arad developed for the exhibition Nouvelles Tendances staged by the Centre de Creation Industriel Paris in 1987 was itself only saved from the crusher through the post-exhibition "intervention of a friendly Swiss furniture manufacturer."1 While all Swiss furniture manufacturers are friendly, one particularly friendly Swiss furniture manufacturer springs to mind whenever the discussion
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Whereas exhibitions in which designers show prototypes and discontinued projects by way of explaining who they are, where they come from and how they work, are a, relatively, regular occurrence, exhibitions in which manufacturers do such are much, much rarer: with the exhibition Typecasting Vitra make a very rare and very welcome exception And in doing so don't just present an image not only of Vitra past, but also take a look into the future..... Vitra -Typecasting, as seen at Milan Design
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As regular readers will be well aware, here at smow blog HQ we're very much of the opinion that fashion isn't design. Never was. Never will be. Design, and without wanting to wade too deep into the definition quagmire, arose from applied craft/applied art, fashion is applied craft/applied art. And so while unquestionably a creative discipline, isn't design. Neither is Graphic. Design can however inspire and influence fashion, past decades recalling numerous occasions of fashion houses being
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With their 1997 exhibition The Work of Charles and Ray Eames the Vitra Design Museum staged one of the first major Charles and Ray Eames retrospectives Twenty years later they return to two of the 20th century's most important creatives with An Eames Celebration: less of Charles and Ray, and more of the diversity, depth and continuing relevance of their work. Charles & Ray Eames. The Power of Design, Vitra Design Museum That it is 20 years since the Vitra Design Museum last dedicated an
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Much as we moan, moan, and moan about Milan Furniture Fair, it is a rare opportunity to get a snapshot of where individual designers are currently at: differing products for differing manufacturers being displayed in relatively proximity allowing for a nice overview. A few considerations on the latest projects by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra, Magis, Flos and Mattiazzi. Verticale by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec for Flos, as seen at Milan Furniture Fair 2017 Softshell Side Chair for Vitra
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Thingness. Noun. [ˈthiŋ-nəs] The quality or state of objective existence or reality1 Thingness. Exhibition. [ˈthiŋ-nəs] A comprehensive Jasper Morrison retrospective currently on show at the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin. Jasper Morrison. Thingness @ Bauhaus Archiv Berlin Originally conceived by and presented at the Centre d’innovation et de design, CID, Grand-Hornu, Belgium, Jasper Morrison. Thingness presents a chronological excursion through three decades of Jasper Morrison design. We first saw
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We must start with a confession . This High Five! is a High Four! Not because there weren't good products on show at Orgatec Cologne 2016, there were. But much more Orgatec is an office furniture fair, and therefore: a) most manufacturers offer, in essence, the same range, it is all very homogeneous. Generally of very good quality, but otherwise uninspiring, all very generic, safe and overtly commercial. One reason is that in the contract, so wholesale, business, decisions as to which
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