Normally October is all about design festivals, October 2015 wasn't. On the one hand we weren't at that many this year, and on the other those we were at didn't impress us that much. What did impress us was the new collection by Ateliers J&J. Oh yes! In addition October 2015 saw us consider questions of housing provision at Wohnungsfrage at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, the oeuvre of Charles and Ray Eames at the Barbican Art Gallery in London and Art Nouveau at the Kunst und Gewerbe
read more
As we've often opined in these pages, design is a way of thinking, not a profession. An opinion we inevitably illustrate with a picture of a chair being used to hold a door open at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle. But in what do designers actually believe? What are their motivations? Their goals? From where does their understanding of design originate? Why design? Such and similar questions form the core of the Depot Basel exhibition "Forum for an Attitude" which begins in Weil am
read more
As previously reported, Bauhaus Dessau are currently presenting “The coop principle – Hannes Meyer and the Concept of Collective Design”, an exhibition devoted to the second Bauhaus Director and for all his belief in the strength of the collective in almost all aspects of life, but especially in design. Hannes Meyer himself never completed projects alone, but always as part of a collective, the Dessau exhibition celebrates that fact and Meyer's unshakeable belief in the power of the
read more
In what sounds like a truly monumental example of critical cultural analysis meets mid-life crisis and self-doubt, Depot Basel and members of the global creative network Fictional Collective will spend March exploring the modern nature of creative work and for all the nature of the relationships between creative work and private life and between creative work and financial reward. As anyone who works creatively will know, and as anyone who doesn't will no doubt have long suspected,
read more
When in 2013 the design facilitators from Depot Basel were forced to move from their original home in a former grain silo to their current home in a former bureau de change they not only gave up a venue which we once, and not entirely positively, declared as the "picture perfect location for a contemporary design gallery", they also gave up some 90% of their space: 800 sqm becoming just 65. What they however gained was display windows. Lots of display windows. And the question of how best to
read more
For us there is very little that epitomises fakeness better than Bling - bold, flash, arrogant jewellery distracting from the soullessness of the wearer. Or the object if we're talking about hideous bejewelled bottles and the like. For their summer 2014 exhibition Depot Basel invited 12 jewellery designers to present their own interpretation of "Fake" Organised in conjunction with the contemporary jewellery magazine Current Obsession Craft & Bling Bling - Fake presents a collection of
read more
Until April 27th Depot Basel are presenting the exhibition Okolo Offline. Documenting the first five years of Prague based design collective Okolo, aka Jakub Štěch, Adam Štěch, Jan Kloss and Matěj Činčera, the exhibition presents 25 posts from the Okolo blog - www.okoloweb.cz - in a gallery installation: from Moebius for Hermés to Anatomy of ČZ via rulers and set squares, Meiss ski goggles or "Recent Japanese Inspirations", the digital world is made tangible as objects, books, posters and
read more
April 2014, as every April we can ever remember, means Milanese purgatory. Apparently it is meant to cleanse the soul, purify our thoughts and generally mitigate for the sins of the past, and so allow us to proceed to higher plains and greater virtues. And boy must we have sinned. We can't remember exactly when, far less how. We just hope we enjoyed it at the time. Because now we are paying. When, if, we return these are the new design exhibitions we're planning on visiting to help us
read more
Following the pains and tribulations of Milan, June is a time to relax. To enjoy design once again. This year we did that at DMY Berlin, Design Miami Basel at with the new Vitra(mini)Haus in Weil am Rhein....
read more
On Friday November 22nd Depot Basel open their new exhibition, Changes – Chancen. At the beginning of September 2013 the Depot Basel collective brought together five Swiss creatives for a discussion aimed at exploring aspects of Switzerland as a location for "work, production and design." Consisting of product designer Jörg Boner, Stefan Rechsteiner from footwear company Velt, architect and author Claude Lichtenstein, product designer Meret Probst and interior designer & author Verena Huber
read more
As we noted in an earlier post, the team behind Depot Basel were recently awarded a highly coveted Swiss Design Award in the category Design Mediation. A very well deserved and very welcome recognition for all the work invested. And parallel to Design Miami Basel 2013 Depot Basel opened their latest exhibition, Craft & Drawing. We're a bit late with this post, Craft & Drawing only runs until June 29th 2013; however, as the largest part of our readership are and were unlikely to be in Basel
read more
If you thought you'd seen the epitome of kitsch, we give you..... An olive bowl in the shape of Celine Dion's swimming pool. Just writing that sentence makes us want one. And of course the accompanying bowl for sun-dried tomatoes in the shape of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's swimming pool. Created by Zurich based designer Damian Fopp the Celeb Bowls collection is a series of porcelain bowls based on celebrity swimming pools, or to be more precise the swimming pools of Frank Sinatra, John
read more
Back in the day exhibitions demonstrating how modern flats and houses could, even should, be constructed and furnished were all the rage. Events such as "Die Wohnung" and the associated Weißenhofsiedlung Stuttgart, or post-War shows such as "Interbau 57" or "Wie Wohnen?" presented visitors a brave new world as visualised by the leading designers and architects of the day. Today we have glossy magazines full of wise words from "Trend Researchers" and a data Tsunami of "Style Blogs" which
read more
As we've repeated ad nauseam Depot Basel is a project that has interested and excited us since the first show, but is a location that we've never manged to visit. Happily when we were in Weil am Rhein for the opening of "Gerrit Rietveld – The Revolution of Space" at the Vitra Design Museum the smallest of small gaps opened in our schedule, and we seized the opportunity to sneak across the border. Located in a former grain storage building on the site of a former railway freight yard next to a
read more
Much like those who doubted that the Stone Roses would ever get back together; there are also those who doubt we will ever make it to a Depot Basel show. Until now it was the case that the shows inevitably fell at periods when we were otherwise engaged. And the opening of Depot Basel No. 5 on March 23rd was no different. However, this time we're hopeful we can make it, because the show runs until May 5th. Longer than usual, but then they are also showing more than usual. The "main"
read more
There's nothing quite like a invitation to a vernissage to remind you that you really should get round to finishing of typing up an interview. At Neue Räume Zurich in October 2011 we didin't just speak to Nikolas Kerl and Jürg Scheidegger But also with Moritz Schmid and Rebekka Kiesewetter. And yes the last two interviews have yet to be published. We are working on them. Promise. Back at Neue Räume, Rebekka told us that it was almost certain that she would be co-organising a "Depot Basel -
read more
On November 1st we'll be in Zurich for Switzerland's biggest designer furniture fair Neue Räume, and hope to use the trip to research the current state of the industry in Switzerland. More interestingly, from October 14th - 16th the collective behind Depot Basel are offering interested parties the chance to get to know a few practitioners from the creative scene in Switzerland, and so get a feel for what is currently happening in the land. Featuring the industrial designers Dimitri Bähler and
read more
