As all around, certainly all around here in Europe, the world blossoms and blooms into life, as colour and variety and vitality abound, it's strange to remember that just a few short weeks ago everything was so barren, monochrome, desolate. Not least in context of the global architecture and design museum community: how hard we had to labour to achieve anything approaching what could justifiably be termed a 'list' of new architecture and design exhibitions. Similarly it's hard to imagine that
read moreFor all that as a species we like to think that we are in control of the wider universe, like to think that our mastery of physics and mathematics has put us in charge, little underscores the fallacy of that position as neatly as the Gregorian calendar, an apparently flawless invention, one that defines our lives, where everything sits so snugly.... until every four years we have to add an extra day to stop it all going haywire. Unless that is the year is exactly divisible by 100, but not by
read moreIn 1936 Aino Aalto opined that "homes can be given interior design in other ways than before - not by buying expensive complete suites of furniture, but by concentrating on low-cost furnishings which can be used - with the aid of flowers, carpets, drapery and colours - to create hitherto more practical and more comfortable homes."1 A break not only with the understandings, the ways, of generations long past in terms of what constitutes appropriate furniture; but also a break with the ways of
read moreBack in May we were faced with the decision as to whether to remain with the online exhibition recommendations we'd been carrying throughout the spring, or, given that ever more museums were re-opening, move back offline for our June recommendations. And decided to move back offline, not least because "viewing an exhibition in a museum is the more satisfying experience, the more rewarding experience, the more enduring experience. And an important experience." Ahead of our November
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