Ois Anders: Major Projects in Bavaria 1945-2020 at the Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, Regensburg

In 1998 the then, German President, and native of Bavaria, Roman Herzog opined, “In München sind Lederhose und Laptop eine Symbiose eingegangen”, ‘In Munich, lederhose and laptops have entered into a symbiosis’.

One of innumerable partisan puffs for the Freistaat over the decades by Bavarian politicians; but also a very neat political statement implying that the popular image of Bavaria as being all about mountains, forests, lakes, rivers and rugged herders on livestock dense alms, was no longer valid. That Bavaria had changed, certainly was changing.

With the exhibition Ois Anders: Major Projects in Bavaria 1945 – 2020 the Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, Regensburg, explore and discuss developments in Bavaria since the second half of the 20th century, and in doing so provide for wider reflection on not only change processes, but how we all view not only Bavaria, but the world around us in general…….

Munich Creative Business Week 2024, Servus!

Established in 2012, so a good three and half years after smow Blog, just sayin’, Munich Creative Business Week, MCBW, is today, according to its own claim, “Germany’s largest design event”. A claim we see absolutely no reason to doubt, but also haven’t tried to verify. Primarily because we see so little reason to doubt it. Despite our famed cynicism.

Initiated by bayern design, Bavaria’s “international design competence centre”, and from the very beginning known as Munich Creative Business Week… which, and digressing slightly, is a perplexing decision for an English title in the normally so Heimat fixated Mia San Mia Bavaria; a corner of the contemporary Germany that, in many regards, is still smarting that it was forced to join Prussia in a unified German Empire rather than remain the independent Alpine nation many Bavarians still believe it to be. Having not yet heard the result of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Most odd.

And while over the years the MCBW format has altered, as these things tend to do, it has generally always featured talks, conferences, seminars, workshops etc alongside exhibitions, showcases and presentations. A format that although at times can get a little too ‘brand’ focussed for our liking, often, for our taste, focusses a little too heavily on the ‘business’ of its title rather than the ‘creative’, can at times forget that the ‘business’ is but necessary in order to allow the ‘creativity’, to enable the ‘creativity’ to develop and evolve, and not a ‘creativity’ that is the basis for a ‘business’, the ‘creative’ isn’t a commodity, and can also have an unfortunate hang to typography, yet despite such thoroughly subjective, and arguably unfair, positions on our part, especially as concerns typography, MCBW always offers a varied programme across the city which invariably integrates a pleasingly wide variety of institutional and industry and civic partners. And, certainly of late, a varied programme staged in context of an over-arching theme; not a theme all components need must respond to or correspond with, but which does set the tone of the event: following Moving Horizons in 2022 and Why disruption unleashes creativity in 2023, in 2024 MCBW is being staged under the banner: How to co-curate with nature. There’s that English again. Most, most, odd.

A MCBW that over the years we have always enjoyed and learned from, has always been entertaining and instructive to visit; if, admittedly, a MCBW we have been but infrequent visitors of, and that for no other reason than calender clashes: MCBW used to be in March, and we tend to be busy in March. And only rarely in the vicinity of Munich in March. Since 2022 it’s been staged in May. We’re assuming not because of our calendars. But May is more convenient.

And in 2024 we did indeed make. A bit late. But we did make it.

In the coming days and weeks we will bring you some of our thoughts and reflections on some of those works and projects and positions experienced, and some of our thoughts and reflections on Munich Creative Business Week 2024 as an event. Munich Creative Business Week 2024 as a co-curation with nature.

Full details on Munich Creative Business Week 2024 can be found at www.mcbw.de

#campustour 2019: Germany – Bavaria

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 only by the then Bavarian parliament’s protracted deliberations on, and initial rejection of, the Treaties, but Bavaria’s then King, Ludwig II, he of the fairytale castles, absence from the formal proclamation of the Kaiserreich in January 1871.

Yet despite Bavaria’s long, deep, and (arguably) continuing, resistance and hostility to the union, it is Weißbier, Lederhosen and FC Bayern, and fairytale castles, which stand representative for many a non-German’s understanding of German identity.

Conversely, while Bavaria has contributed much to the development of contemporary design in Germany, not least through the efforts of, and amongst many others, the late 19th/early 20th century Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk, Die Neue Sammlung as one of the oldest and largest dedicated design museums, the Munich born and based designer Konstantin Grcic or Stuttgart born but Chiemgau based design publisher Nils Holger Moormann, the popular understanding of “Designed in Germany” lies outwith the Freistaat, in the realms of gute Form, largely developed in Ulm and arguably most popularly understood through Braun; in Stuttgart’s Porsche or Wolfsburg’s Volkswagen; or, and this year of all years, by Bauhaus, an institution which as we noted in context of our 2019 smow Song Contest coverage, was very, very Prussian in its make up, students from Bavaria being outnumbered by those from Mars. More or less.

But what can Bavaria’s design schools contribute to altering such a position? To raising the profile of Bavarian design? We can’t offer any concrete prognosis, or at least not here, logistic realities meaning that we only visited two Bavarian design schools, technically three but we’ll get to that, at length; however, from the two (three) we did visit……

Bayerischer Staatspreis für Nachwuchsdesigner 2014: Winners

Among the regional German design awards the Bavarian Design Award is particularly notable being as it is an award exclusively