Back 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
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According to Germanic folklore: A wet February brings a fruitful year. And that, we'd argue, not only in terms of vegetation, but also in terms of your individual personal development: a wet February meaning more time spent in museums and thus an enhanced opportunity to engage in meaningful and relevant and motivating discourses and discussions. An ideal environment in which to allow your appreciations of and positions to the world around you to optimally develop, swell, ripen and nourish. So
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In their 2021/22 exhibition Craft is Cactus the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, constructed a very convincing argument for including craft in the cactus family, a very convincing argument for making the Craftoideae a fifth subfamily of the Cactaceae. Yet while a very good argument, as we all know, much work remains to be undertaken on the classification of the Craftoideae, not least in context of their habitats: where does one find craft? Where do the Craftoideae prevail? With the
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The contemporary systematics of the family Cactaceae recognises four subfamilies, Cactoideae, Maihuenioideae, Opuntioideae and Pereskioideae; is however a classification very much in motion, one very much in an ongoing process of re-evaluation, re-definition, re-assessment, one which undergoes regular revisions. ¿An ongoing re-evaluation and re-definition and re-assessment and revision which could see the addition of a fifth subfamily, the Craftoideae? With the exhibition Craft is Cactus. The
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"November's night is dark and drear, The dullest month of all the year", opined Letitia Elizabeth Landon in 1836, however, 'twas not all doom and gloom, for, as she continues, "the November evening now closing in round Mrs. Cameron's house was of a very cheerful nature."* A cheerfulness in Mrs. Cameron's house/school occasioned by the gaiety associated with the rapidly approaching annual school prize-giving and ball; and a cheerfulness to banish the dreary darkness of a November evening that
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As the 19th century English poet Robert Browning so very, very, nearly phrased it: Oh, to be in Berlin, Vienna, Chemnitz, 's-Hertogenbosch, or Berlin (again), Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in Berlin, Vienna, Chemnitz, 's-Hertogenbosch, or Berlin (again), Sees, some morning a most interesting, entertaining and instructive sounding architecture and/or design exhibition, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough...... "Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos" at the Gropius Bau, Berlin,
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To paraphrase the Propellerheads, this is just a little bit of a blog post repeating... For much as with our November 2020 exhibition recommendations, so some of our December 2020 exhibition recommendations won't be opening. Or at least not in December 2020. But then as now are in still in our list. On the one hand because they will open, and is an important part of any pleasure not the expectation and anticipation? And on the other hand, because that which makes an exhibition recommendable
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Within any regular pentagon one can locate, in numerous, manifold, relationships, the Golden Ratio, that centuries old guarantor of harmony, balance, beauty.... And within an irregular Pentagon? With the exhibition Design Gruppe Pentagon the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Cologne search for an answer in context of the 1980s Rheinland design quintet....... Design Gruppe Pentagon, Museum für Angewandte Kunst Cologne Established, more or less, formally in Cologne in 1985 by Gerd Arens, Wolfgang
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The long and winding (hi)story of furniture design is largely one of evolution not revolution, largely one of innumerable, often imperceptible, social, cultural, economic, technical, et al transformations, movements, hindrances and undulations which slowly, continually, combine and interact to widen and deepen the river as it flows. A process aided, abetted and accelerated by irregularly arising confluences where a new tributary flows into the unflinchingly onwards rolling mainstem. One such
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Off late, and certainly in a European context, January has become a month of forgoing, eschewing and general abstention, with campaigns such as Dry January and Veganuary extolling us to utilise our guilt at our dangerous, decadent, gluttony of late December as an impetus to radically alter our behaviour, as a catalyst for reduction. And while less is unquestionably more, and thus worth striving for, fundamental change is invariably more sustainably and meaningfully achieved through better
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On November 1st 1512 Pope Julius II celebrated the All Saint's Day Mass in the Sistine Chapel. The first public presentation of Michelangelo's frescos, and thereby the opening of a permanent exhibition still on show today. And still attracting a public. And while permanent exhibitions are good and important, for all in allowing an overview and an introduction to a subject, it is those ever changing temporary exhibitions that, should, ideally, allow for new insights and deepening of
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While it is important, and relevant, that the centenary of the opening of Bauhaus Weimar is used to delve a little deeper into the (hi)story of both the institution and inter-War Modernism, design and architecture is more than Bauhaus. Thus following on from our October Bauhaus/inter-War Modernism focussed new exhibition recommendations, five more general, if anything but humdrum, architecture and design exhibitions opening in October 2019 in Groningen, Frankfurt, New York, Stockholm and Weil
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"...a new generation, a new age, must develop forms and tenors for their interior and exterior worlds which correspond to its desire for well-being and its ideals" wrote Frankfurt city mayor Ludwig Landmann in 1926.1 With the exhibition Moderne am Main 1919-1933 the Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt explore how such developments were approached and realised in Frankfurt and environs, and by extrapolation explore the contribution made by the region to the evolution of inter-War understandings
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The reason most of us fail to keep most of our New Year resolutions is, mostly, because we either resolve to give up things we enjoy or to do things we don't. Which is foolhardy in the extreme. If you wanted to do more sport, you would. If you wanted to eat less crisps, you would. But don't. And don't. So don't. The wiser choice is to resolve to do more of that which you enjoy, and thereby not only setting yourself an achievable goal but one which through the genuine fulfilment it brings
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It being July, there is an obvious temptation to search for new design and architecture exhibitions opening near the coast, maybe in interesting seaside holiday locations. That four of our five tips for July 2015 are indeed being staged a flip-flops throw from the beach is genuinely more by chance than design. Is however very, very welcome. "Rygalik: The Heart of Things" at Gdynia City Museum, Gdynia, Poland The first time we met Tomek and Gosia Rygalik they were making tables out of old
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