As the, then, still plain Walter Scott, so nearly opined in 1806: "November's sky is chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear: Late, gazing down the steepy linn That hems our little garden in, I thought, what an excellent month to visit an architecture or design exhibition."1 Our five retreats from the chill and drear of November 2024 can be found in Chemnitz, Brussels, Winterthur, Krefeld and New York....... "Reform of Life" at the Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz, Chemnitz,
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As Letitia Elizabeth Landon so very, very, nearly wrote in 1823, Of all the months that fill the year Give April's month to me, For the architecture and design museums are then so filled, With sweet variety! Our sweet variety in April's month of 2024 can be found in Dessau, Brussels, Rome, Paris and Dresden....... "The Gesture Speaks" at the Bauhaus Museum, Dessau, Germany For all that the Bauhauses were, without question, art and design and craft and architecture, they were also movement;
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In 1981 Irish stadium rockers U2 noted of October: "And the trees are stripped bare, Of all they wear" That of course was 1981, before the, then approaching but much less tangible, irreversible consequences of climate change meant that the trees in Ireland, and across Europe, still proudly wear their leaves throughout October. A new reality that, we'd argue, may soon see U2 forced to rename the song 'November'. A reality, and a coming renaming, that sets the final line of the opening verse:
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"The May of life blooms but once", reflects Friedrich Schiller, continuing, "It has faded for me".1 Cheer up Freddie!!! And there's nothing quite like a good architecture or design exhibition to revitalise all your faculties. Our recommended fertilizers for the zest of life in May 2022 can be found in Berlin, Den Haag, Brussels, Pfäffikon SZ and Amsterdam....... "Organizing Things" at the Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge, Berlin, Germany According to Rudolf Clausius's interpretation of
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"It was one of those March days" reflects Philip "Pip" Pirrip in Great Expectations, "when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade".1 And thus exactly the sort of dithering, indecisive, capricious, March day when rather than surreptitiously rowing down the Thames towards Gravesend, one should seek refuge in the consistent climate and warming intellectual atmosphere of an architecture or design exhibition. Our five Great exhibition
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