While it’s hard to feel anything even vaguely resembling joy in a month which sees the UK start its senseless and cowardly, withdrawal from the European Union … life goes on!! Our five top distractions for April 2017 features new design and architecture exhibitions in Berlin, New York, Paris, Dessau and Milan. "Otto Bartning (1883–1959). Architect of Social Modernism" at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany Born in Karlsruhe in 1883 the architect and theoretician Otto Bartning was, and
read moreFor George Orwell nothing heralded spring quite like the re-appearance of toads, emerging from their subterranean hibernation and setting off, once again, on life's great cycle. Our toads are the flurry of new design and architecture exhibitions which open globally every March, as the international museum and gallery community awake from their winter slumber. Our highlights for March 2017, featuring new exhibitions in Bielefeld, Helsinki, Weil am Rhein, Utrecht and Paris "Partners in
read moreIn 1969 the then French President Georges Pompidou announced his desire that Paris should posses a large museum dedicated to art of all kinds and which in addition to nurturing and promoting creativity was itself a landmark of the architecture of our age. On January 31st 1977, and three years after George Pompidou's untimely death, that desire became reality with the official opening of the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou, Le Centre Pompidou, Paris Le Centre Pompidou,
read moreOn days when his sketches didn't meet with his own, self-critical, approval, the Swiss architect and urban planner Le Corbusier is reported to have laid down his pencil and quietly reflected, "c'est difficile, l'architecture" 1 Equally difficile is describing and explaining the multifarious talents and passions of Le Corbusier. One option, arguably the best option, is to focus on just one aspect of Le Corbusier's oeuvre and to use this concentrated analysis as a conduit through which to
read more"Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?" asks Obi-Wan Kenobi, more or less rhetorically, in Star Wars. Chewbacca understood. And the Wookie warrior also understood that foolish as the fool who follows the fool is, he is less foolish than the April fool who misses the following five new design and architecture exhibitions opening in the coming weeks.............. "Somewhat Different. Contemporary Design and the Power of Convention" at the Museum of Decorative Arts and
read more"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers" exclaims Anne Shirley in Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables, "it would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?" Yes Anne, it would. Yet while Ms Shirley turned her youthful attention to decorating her bedroom with the brightly coloured maple branches so prevalent on Prince Edward Island at this time of year, our joy is found in the new architecture and design exhibitions opening in the
read moreFrom February 20th until May 20th 2013 the Centre Pompidou Paris is presenting a major retrospective devoted to the Irish artist, designer and architect Eileen Gray. As someone who once claimed "The future projects light, the past only clouds" we're not 100% certain the subject herself would approve; however, for us it is a welcome and long overdue Eileen Gray retrospective, and fittingly one being staged in the city that more than any other influenced and defined her life, character and
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