Across the northern hemisphere September generally marks the start of the academic year, be that in primary, secondary, tertiary or quaternary education contexts, as students at all levels return to their studies after the long summer break. And while quinary education may not need an official start, or indeed a structured year, there is not only something appropriate in opening a new chapter in your studies alongside that of your fellow students, but for all the number and variety of new
read moreAs Sara Coleridge so very, very, nearly phrased it: "Hot July brings cooling showers, Apricots, and inspiring days in architecture and design museums"1 Our five apricots recommendations for inspiring new exhibitions opening in the, invariably, far, far, too hot July of 2024 take us all to Luxembourg, Remagen, Warsaw, Utrecht and Susch....... "Xanti Schawinsky: Play, Life, Illusion — a Retrospective" at Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam, Luxembourg Xanti Schawinsky is not only a
read more"There is terror and panic in our city", wrote the, then, 14 year old Clara Schwarz of life in, then, Żółkiew, Poland, today, Zhovkva, Ukraine, in the summer of 1942 of life under German occupation, "the Jews are building bunkers of all kinds: underground, double walls, anywhere they can find a spot to hide".1 For Clara and her family that "spot" was a "3 metres square and a meter and a half deep" bunker under a house, a bunker dug out by Clara and other children with their bare hands; a
read more"Projektowanie i realizacja form powłokowych jest problemem złożony", opined the Polish architect Witold Lipiński in 1978, "design and implementation of shell structures is a complex problem". And it certainly is. For all a complex mathematical problem, and that of a degree that, for Lipiński, for all when combined with the associated technical challenges, "greatly limit[s] plastic ingenuity", meaning as it did that architects were invariably restricted to forms "mathematically defined in a
read moreIt is, we'd argue, fair to say that most people in western Europe still have a very stereotypical, skewed, if not prejudiced view of late 20th century design in and from those nations that form the eastern half of the European continent. With Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, in cooperation with numerous museums and institutions from across eastern Europe, provide an introduction to post-War 20th century architecture and design in and from Croatia, the
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