What with the sweet afterglow of Vienna Design Week behind us we entered October 2013 full of enthusiasm - not least because it meant the opening of the new (smow) Cologne store. The month nearly nose-dived on account of a hideous plagiarism in Leipzig, but was more than rescued by Alison and Peter Smithson at the AIT ArchitekturSalon Cologne.......
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Visiting the HfG Karlsruhe Sommerloch exhibition was not just a memorable highlight of July 2013 - but also fitting as it marked the start of our own summer pause. Our own Sommerloch. In addition July 2013 saw us visit the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart Rundgang, Art & Design Fit for a King @ Ampelhaus, Oranienbaum and Aus allen Richtungen. Positionen junger Architekten im BDA at Wechselraum Stuttgart......
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Despite the unnecessary unpleasantness on show at Leipzig Messe, (post to follow, awaiting legal clearance) the 2013 Designers’ Open Spots program provides more than enough reasons to get out and explore Leipzig creativity. One particularly good example is Plagwitz Village based collective diefabrik. Our introduction to diefabrik came via their cardboard furniture collection, including the shelf system “Constructo” and the Lounger “Chair777″, shown at Designers' Open 2009. An introduction
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Anyone familiar with the roads in Leipzig's Lower East Plagwitz Village District will be aware that to call them roads is to do a great disservice to the memory of John McAdam and Edgar Purnell Hooley. In a biblical sense a road is composed of tarmac. In a Plagwitz sense a road is composed of potholes, loosely linked by random slithers of tarmac. Over the years we've given up getting annoyed about the state of the roads and... no, we've not. That's a lie. We get cross about it every single
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Its a little known fact, but the printer in (smow)HQ sits atop a "Block" by Frank Gehry. And indeed in general we at (smow)blog are long standing fans of corrugated cardboard furniture; and not only since introducing the world to Stuart Miller during the 2009 Saloni. Shelf 114/115 from Leipzig based diefabrik didn't quite set our hearts ablaze as much as Stuarts nameless chair, but did make us very happy. It is a truly, truly ridiculous concept. Oval cardboard forms with exaggerated teeth
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