Our visit to the 2018 Glasgow School of Art Degree Show occurred before the recent fire, indeed this post was all planned to go, then came news of the fire ... and it seemed appropriate to wait. But not to archive it away altogether, for tragic and destructive as the fire unquestionably was, an art/design/architecture school is its staff and students and ideas and visions and understanding of the world. Not the bricks and mortar that surround it. Even if those bricks and mortar were arranged
read more"Shake of all the props - the props tradition and authority offer you - and go alone - crawl - stumble - stagger - but go alone", encouraged the Scottish architect, designer and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh his audience during his 1902 lecture Seemliness.1 How Charles Rennie Mackintosh himself attempted to do just that can be explored in the exhibition Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Making the Glasgow Style. Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Making the Glasgow Style @ Kelvingrove Art Gallery and
read moreArguably because Passover/Easter is early this year, every, but every, museum is opening a major exhibition in the course of March 2018, in preparation for the unofficial start of the tourist season in April. A situation which leaves us with the daunting possibility of creating 5 such Top 5 lists. And still having some exhibitions left over. Faced with a similar situation back in November 2017 we referred to the abundance of options which lay before us as being akin to "gardens mottled with
read more2016 being as it is a leap year, February 2016 is graced with an extra day, and the global design and architecture museum community have jumped at the opportunity granted by the extra 24 hours to organise a record number of new design and architecture exhibitions. Reducing the selection down to five wasn't easy; but does mean that if you don't like our choices have a quick look at what is opening in Herford, New York, Zürich, Eindhoven, or, once again Zürich.... You're bound to find something!
read moreOne of the most mundane, yet important, aspects of any designer or architect's training is sketching existing buildings and products. Observing. Studying. Forming. Learning. Developing. Hans J Wegner, for example, drew, drew and redrew the furniture in the Danish Design Museum Copenhagen, Louis I. Kahn spent his formative years sketching the ruins of European churches and cathedrals, while a young Le Corbusier regularly crossed the Swiss-Italian Border to undertake study tours of locations
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