As all around, certainly all around here in Europe, the world blossoms and blooms into life, as colour and variety and vitality abound, it's strange to remember that just a few short weeks ago everything was so barren, monochrome, desolate. Not least in context of the global architecture and design museum community: how hard we had to labour to achieve anything approaching what could justifiably be termed a 'list' of new architecture and design exhibitions. Similarly it's hard to imagine that
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In Poetics Aristotle argues poetry arose on account of two intrinsic human instincts: an "instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm" and "the instinct of imitation", as in representation rather than copying, an imitation Aristotle opines is the method via which humans learn, and that "to learn gives the liveliest pleasure". Yet while for Aristotle all forms of poetry are "in their general conception modes of imitation", again as in representation rather than copying, "they differ, however, from one
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Back in May we were faced with the decision as to whether to remain with the online exhibition recommendations we'd been carrying throughout the spring, or, given that ever more museums were re-opening, move back offline for our June recommendations. And decided to move back offline, not least because "viewing an exhibition in a museum is the more satisfying experience, the more rewarding experience, the more enduring experience. And an important experience." Ahead of our November
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The museums may be closed, travel restricted and leaving your home, when possible, unadvised..... but that's no reason to restrict your cultural uptake, far less neglect the development of your architecture and design understandings. Or put another way, if you can't get to the museum..... let the museum come to you. Five online architecture and design exhibitions and museum collections to explore from your sofa, bed, garden, balcony, wherever..... Vitra Design Museum - Collection Online In
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Back in the days of the Roman Republic Martius was the month in which troops mustered in preparation for the coming battle season, to prepare, as it were, to March into war. Please don't! The world's out of control enough as it is! Rather use the coming spring as your incentive, to (a) make up for some of those New Year's Resolutions you've long forgotten you'd made and (b) to march into a future of new impulses, new understandings, new perspectives, a new world. To march into an architecture
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Whereas in the natural world spring ushers in new life but once a year, in the design museum world re-awakenings are biannual: a spring spring as curators awake from their winter hibernation and an autumn spring as they awake from their summer dormancy. Both bringing forth not only the promise of growth, energy, of a new esprit, of new experiences, new sensations, but confirming the eternal nature of existence, that we are but a moment on an endless spiralling continuum....... Our five new
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As any fule kno, an echo requires a surface off which to reflect. Otherwise it is just shouting into the void. With the exhibition Echoes - 100 Years in Finnish Design and Architecture at the Felleshus, Berlin, that reflective surface is the traditions, cultures and landscapes of north-east Europe. Echoes - 100 Years in Finnish Design and Architecture @ Felleshus, The Nordic Embassies, Berlin On December 6th 1917 the Finnish Republic declared its independence from Russia, an event that
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Summer traditionally sees a fall off in the number of new exhibitions opening, the 2017 drought is however especially hard, so much so that we can only find four recommendations. Either the global museum community assume we're all at the beach, and thus not interested, or expect the world to end in September and so don't see the point in new exhibitions. It is a little unclear. However, not only are we interested, but it takes a little more than the threat of an imminent apocalypse to keep us
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Following on from the relative inactivity of August September saw us wind back up towards the 2014 autumn design festival season. But before everything kicked of in Vienna, we enjoyed the exhibitions Okolo Offline Two – Collecting at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, Useful Exhibition by Sanghyeok Lee at the DMY Design Gallery Berlin, Alvar Aalto – Second Nature at the Vitra Design Museum and enjoyed a lovely chat with architect Eberhard Lange on the restoration of Egon Eiermann's Wohnhaus
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Everyone knows Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto. Everyone knows his flowing, free-formed buildings and his moulded plywood furniture. What is there new to learn? What is the point in another Alvar Aalto exhibition. What indeed................................ Born in Kuortane Finland on February 3rd 1898 Alvar Aalto began studying architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology in 1916, graduating in 1921 and established his own architectural practice in Jyväskyla in 1923. In
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The inescapable chill in the morning air and the deep-seated boredom in the eyes of school aged children can only mean that summer is, ever so slowly, coming to an end. And just as spring beckons life to return in the natural world, so to does autumn herald a revival of activity in the unnatural world of museums and galleries. Consequently, whereas in August we only managed to find three architecture and design exhibitions to recommend, for September we have seven! A Magnificent Seven who
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If we're honest, we really, really, should have seen it coming. We didn't. Having been acquired in 2013 by Vitra, Artek have now begun working with leading designers from the Vitra roster. Specifically, in Milan Artek launched a new chair from Konstantin Grcic and new colour and textile schemes from Hella Jongerius for the classic Alvar Aalto 400 and 401 armchairs and Stool 60. We just hope no-one is tempted to over egg this particular pudding. In the Milan press release Artek CEO Mirkku
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"One of the typical activities in modern architecture has been the construction of chairs and the adoption of new materials and new methods for them. The tubular steel chair is surely rational from technical and constructive points of view: It is light, suitable for mass production, and so on. But steel and chromium surfaces are not satisfactory from the human point of view. Steel is too good a conductor of heat. The chromium surface gives too bright reflections of light, and even acoustically
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Fate may have been hard on February by abstractly depriving it of its rightful quotient of days, taunting it indeed by giving it a 29th every four years as if to say "....it could be soooo good....": fortunately the museums of this world are less divisive, treat February as if it was any other month and February 2014 sees a wealth of interesting new exhibitions. In an architecture heavy selection our recommendations from the new openings include Arabian architecture at the Louisiana Museum of
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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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"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 moreIn our post on Vitra's purchase of the Finnish furniture producer Artek we quoted from a letter George Nelson wrote to Charles Eames recounting a meeting with Alvar Aalto in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Below we quote more from said letter. We cannot prove or disprove any of the claims made therein. We assume it is all true. We say, you can keep your stories of rock star debauchery, your stories of film star excess, your stories of out of control poets and of the decadence of the European
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At Design Miami Basel 2013 one of the more impressive presentations was without question the collection of Alvar Aalto furniture shown by Stockholm/Berlin based gallery Jackson Design. A presentation that included rare examples of Alvar Aalto's furniture for and by the Finnish manufacturer Artek. And all available for purchase. Basel based furniture manufacturer Vitra have gone one step further, and have purchased Artek. Following completion of his architecture studies in 1921 Alvar Aalto
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In our interview with Michel Charlot about his lamp U-Turn for Belux he told us that "I like it when people look at an object and find it “normal”, but that is something which is quite difficult to achieve...." Such an object is without question Stool 60 by Alvar Aalto. As so to help explain the complexity hidden in the simplicity, and celebrate the object's 80th anniversary, the Ungers Archiv für Architekturwissenschaft are staging an exhibition during IMM Cologne 2013 devoted to this
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At the risk of upsetting furniture historians, wood is probably the longest serving material in furniture design. It is also one of the most deceptively complex and hard to work materials in furniture design. For all bending, shaping and moulding pieces of solid wood is a process that has long fascinated and infuriated designers and architects in equal measure. From Michael Thonet's ground breaking research in the 19th century, over the efforts of Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer or Charles Eames
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As tradition demands the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln (MAKK) have organised a furniture themed, special exhibition to coincide with the Cologne Furniture Fair. Under the title "Von Aalto bis Zumthor: Architektenmöbel" ("From Aalto to Zumthor: Furniture by Architects") the MAKK is presenting over 120 examples of furniture designed by professional architects. As older readers will have long since accepted, the "Furniture Architect" is a pet subject of ours. Not just because the architects
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At IMM Cologne Finnish producer Artek continued their 75th Anniversary celebrations with a small show at Droom/Design Your Room in Cologne's Belgian Quarter. We'll write more on the Artek story from the Stockholm Design Week; but for now a few impressions from Cologne.
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While we are enjoying ourselves at the #VitraHaus preview in Weil am Rhein, the good people of Weimar will be getting their first chance to view the exhibition "In Sand gezeichnet – Entwürfe von Alvar Aalto" (Drawn in Sand - Sketches by Alvar Aalto) at the Bauhaus Universität in Weimar. Featuring over 100 sketches and 18 models of never realised projects, the exhibition promises an interesting insight into the process behind the design of the man who led Scandinavian architecture into
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