As the, then, still plain Walter Scott, so nearly opined in 1806: "November's sky is chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear: Late, gazing down the steepy linn That hems our little garden in, I thought, what an excellent month to visit an architecture or design exhibition."1 Our five retreats from the chill and drear of November 2024 can be found in Chemnitz, Brussels, Winterthur, Krefeld and New York....... "Reform of Life" at the Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz, Chemnitz,
read moreBack in the spring Haitian musician Wyclef Jean informed us all he'd be "Gone Till November". And so he should be back any day now; and given how busy he's invariably been all summer, earning as he has been enough money to buy out blocks, he's probably not had a chance to visit an architecture or design museum. And so, we assume, will be absolutely desperate to stimulate his cognitive faculties. Our five recommendations for new exhibitions opening in November 2023 for Wyclef Jean, or indeed
read moreFollowing the declaration of the French Republic in 1792 a new calendar was introduced in the realms of France: the Revolution had washed away France past and the Republic marked the start of a new reality for mankind, one of universal Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and therefore demanded a resetting of the collective clock, a new measuring of time, and thus out went the Gregorian calendar and its historic associations with church and state, and in came le calendrier républicain, the French
read moreWhile Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is arguably best known for the works he realised in the (mid-)west USA, the works he realised in west(ern) Germany are no less relevant or important for understanding the man, his work and his legacy. Summer 2019 saw the western German State of Nordrhein-Westfalen host three Mies van der Rohe exhibitions, one each in, and devoted to Mies's works in, Aachen, Krefeld and Essen. Three exhibitions now united in one in Cologne, and which as a unified trio not only
read moreAs we all learned from the exhibition Peter Behrens. The Practical and the Ideal at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld, the city was an important location in the development of the young Peter Behrens, not least through the role played by the museum's founding director Friedrich Deneken in helping Behrens take his first steps from pure to applied arts; help which included not only giving Behrens' work space in the museum but also mediating commissions with Krefeld manufacturers. One of the more
read more"...this is also a sure sign for the development of our style that we gradually succeed in bringing the practical back in line with the ideal. It seems to me, this could now also apply to many aspects of our common aspirations."1 So wrote Peter Behrens in 1901 to the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld's director Friedrich Deneken. With the exhibition The Practical and the Ideal the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld explore not only how Peter Behrens' understood such and how he attempted to achieve just
read moreEstablished in 1897 as an institution for pure and applied arts the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld was, for all through the person of its founding director Friedrich Deneken, an important protagonist in the discourse concerning the relationships between art, craft and industry at the turn of the 20th century With the exhibition From Idea to Form. Domeau & Pérès: Design and Craftsmanship in Dialogue, the contemporary Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld continue this discourse. From Idea to Form.
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