In days of yore October was known in Germanic lands as Weinmonat, Wine Month, Month of Wine, whereby thoughts were, unquestionably, less with the drink as with the grape and the harvest, and thus the promise of the new wine. And in many regards our exhibition recommendations can be considered a monthly harvest of the new crop of architecture and design exhibitions; specifically, and staying in Germanic registers, an Auslese, a considered selection of those well ripened concepts and premises it
read moreAs the 19th century English poet Robert Browning so very, very, nearly phrased it: Oh, to be in Berlin, Vienna, Chemnitz, 's-Hertogenbosch, or Berlin (again), Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in Berlin, Vienna, Chemnitz, 's-Hertogenbosch, or Berlin (again), Sees, some morning a most interesting, entertaining and instructive sounding architecture and/or design exhibition, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough...... "Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos" at the Gropius Bau, Berlin,
read moreWhereas the 1920s may have been Roaring, Golden, Années folles, a decade which could be certain that The Great War, that war to end all wars, had brought lasting peace to Europe, and where the utopian visions of the International Modernists, coupled to political and social emancipation and technological progress, made everything possible, and meant we could all gaily Charleston away our nights and days; the 1920s was also the decade that ushered Europe into one of the darkest periods in its
read moreWhereas 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
read more