In the exhibition al dente: Pasta & Design the HfG-Archiv, Ulm, explore, discuss and approach pasta in its myriad incarnations across a variety of cultural and creative contexts. But not in context of music. As so oft, that task falls to Radio smow....... The (hi)story of pasta is not only lost in the mists of time, but as with all that is similarly lost in those mists, much of that which is presented as fact is more probably myth and legend. And in the case of Marco Polo's place in that
read more
The music by Peter Scherer, and music design by Daniel Hobi, play an important role in the film E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea; play an important role in enabling Beatrice Minger and Christoph Schaub's film to allow us all to approach the differentiated and more probable appreciation of Eileen Gray E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea admonishes we all need must approach. But can exploring Eileen Gray via music also allow one to approach that differentiated and more
read more
So unwilling are we here at smow Blog to blow our own trumpet, we don't even own a trumpet. Why would we, we'd never blow it. It would just lie in the corner, unused, wastefully untooted. However, 2000 smow Blog posts is an occasion very much demanding of a fanfare. Technically 2001 smow Blog posts, the nature of these things meaning this post didn't appear as planned between Transform! Designing the Future of Energy at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein and 5 New Architecture & Design
read more
With spring approaching thoughts invariably turn to days spent out of doors, and, for those fortunate enough, to thoughts of leisurely days spent sat in the garden. Leisurely days spent sat in the garden, ideally, listening to music. ¿Listening to music about being sat in the garden; sat in the garden listening to songs about garden furniture......? The (hi)story of garden furniture is, inarguably, and somewhat logically, as old as the garden itself; a concept that stretches back to the
read more
Of all the genres of furniture which accompany global society, none, arguably, is more self-explanatory, more obvious, than the table. Yet for all the simplicity, or perhaps exactly because of all the simplicity, the table is, arguably, the most versatile of all the genres of furniture which accompany global society; the contemporary table existing as it does in a myriad forms and contexts. And not just physical forms and contexts......... The (hi)story of the table, in terms of verifiable
read more
In 1956 the Dutch electronics conglomerate Phillips asked Le Corbusier if he would be interested in designing their pavilion for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. Le Corbusier was. Albeit, "je ne ferai pas de pavillon; je ferai un Poème électronique avec la bouteille qui contiendra", "I will not create a pavilion; I will create a Poème électronique with the bottle to contain it."1 And a pavilion/bottle/Poème électronique which offers an apposite starting point to approaching a
read more
The sense, logic or otherwise of the biannual changing of the clocks is a subject that can keep any conversation animated until the next change occurs......When it can start all over again. The biannual repositioning of the hands of time is however also an opportune moments to consider our relationship to time, for all our measurement of time, our harnessing of time, our charting of time, and of time metaphoric and time symbolic as represented by that embodiment of time tangible ... the clock.
read more
"At the present day a library has become as necessary an appendage to a house as a hot and cold bath" wrote the Roman Stoic Seneca at some point in the first century CE, "I would excuse them straightway if they really were carried away by an excessive zeal for literature; but as it is, these costly works of sacred genius, with all the illustrations that adorn them, are merely bought for display and to serve as wall-furniture."1 And today? While the glossy coffee table book may be have become
read more
Our deliberations on Bauhaus and music very naturally led us to a whole raft of further deliberations on the associations between music and other forms of creative expression; and for all the question, given that so many of those Bauhäusler who had/could have had second careers as musicians were artists, are there designers who have/had second careers as musicians....... .......of course there are...... 6 D 030 Z by Charles & Ray Eames for Evans for Zenith Radio. We all know that designers
read more
In these days of uncertainty one thing is indubitable: we will all become much better acquainted with our sofa, our couch and our settee. To accompany us all, a Radio smow playlist dedicated to the sofa, couch, settee and an invitation to reflect on the symbolic, figurative and cultural role of the sofa, couch, settee... ...a triumvirate of terms which raises the very obvious question as to the difference(s) The short answer is that today there is essentially none, the term you use being a
read more
"Das tritt nach ...meiner Kenntnis ... ist das sofort, unverzüglich" "As far as I'm aware..... that applies .... with immediate effect, forthwith" Rarely has an almost sentence in a press conference had such consequences. With his confidently unconfident utterances on the evening of Thursday November 9th 1989, a statement concerning a relaxation on restrictions for those East Germans wanting to travel to West Germany, a statement made while distractedly flicking through papers looking for,
read more
On this, the longest day, a radio smow playlist devoted to that which Europe for the next 24 hours will have more of than at any other time this year. And which somehow still won't seem enough. We could do with a lot more light, a lot more illumination, in our contemporary society..................... Fire. The first man-made light....and still the most endearing and engaging form.... As the Bible reliably informs us*, the first thing God did was create the heaven and the earth. And then
read more
Following the #smowblogfact revelation from Vitra Work at Orgatec Cologne 2018 that the smow blog office is devoid of shelving, we were inundated with an e-mail asking why? why has the smow blog office no shelving....? A very simple question, and one which for the first time caused us to pose ourselves a much more fundamental question, why? why, has the smow blog office no shelving....? Considerations which quickly evolved and diverged to concern themselves with the more general questions of
read more
Slowly but surely the temperatures across Europe begin to fall, along with the leaves and the hours of daylight. Hibernation approaches. And by way of an accompaniment to the imminent long sleep, a Radio smow beds playlist. ...and so to bed! Back at the 2018 KABK Den Haag graduation festival the project Windows Without a View by Rudi van Delden investigated how you can "reclaim the missing third of your life”, i.e. when your in bed, and for all explored "the bedroom as the new office
read more
It's probably no exaggeration to claim that musicians have at best an ambivalent, truculent, openly confrontational relationship with the office. When not writing about being in love, not being in love, wanting to be in love, wanting to not be in love, etc, they can be found pouring scorn and ridicule on those who dutifully waste their days in offices when there is all that freedom to be enjoyed. Thus one could imagine songs about office furniture being about as rare as occasions when Caílte
read more
While preparing our 5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for December 2017 post we spent a not inconsiderate amount of time contemplating the exhibition Cupboard Love at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur, in particular the fact the while it promises to explore cupboards in their metaphoric manifestations as expressed in film, literature and art, they appear to have overlooked the use of cupboards, closets and other storage units in music. We just had to rectify that....... Cupboard Love at the
read more
There is one song missing from the smow blog playlist: missing for the simple, regrettable, and thoroughly avoidable, reason that it isn't on spotify. For din skyld by the Danish singer Birgit Brüel. Denmark's entry for the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest. And featuring lyrics by Poul Henningsen. Yes, that Poul Henningsen. Poul Henningsen (1894 - 1967) Although popularly remembered as a lighting designer Poul Henningsen was, as previously noted, so much more. Indeed, in many respects his
read more
It's not quite radio smow. Not yet. But we hope it is another way to enjoy, and understand, the smow blog....... 6 D 030 Z by Charles & Ray Eames for Evans for Zenith Radio, as seen at Radio Days. Tube Radios, Design Classics, Internet Radio, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Cologne Much as there is an innate joy in the way a good designer can reduce an idea down to a few lengths of wood, or twists of metal, so to is there an inescapable wonder in the way a good songsmith can express an idea
read more
