As an (apparent) unending forest criss-crossed by visual axes and dotted with meadows, Park Sanssouci in Potsdam stands proxy for the garden design, the garden architecture, of 18th and 19th century Europe. As an (apparent) unending forest criss-crossed by visual axes and dotted with meadows, Park Sanssouci in Potsdam stands proxy for the power and wealth and pomp and glory of 18th and 19th century Prussia. According to the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, who
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Morari by Jesse Altmann, Valentina Lenk and Klara Schneider, as seen at Berlin Design Week 2024 If we're going to entice and encourage ever more individuals in urban spaces to give up their private cars, and, we'll argue, that is desirable not only in terms of tackling the myriad problems of our contemporary urban spaces but also in exposing the fiction of, and the egoistic stupidity of, autonomous cars and flying taxis, we not only need public transport vehicles and networks that are
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Partly for reasons of its size, and partly on account of the way the then nations of the contemporary Germany responded to the challenges and realities of late 19th/early 20th century industrialisation, Germany is home to a truly outrageous number of architecture and design schools, certainly more than it would be logical, prudent or congenial to pack into one post. And so to save your nerves, and our fingers, we'll present the German leg of our 2019 #campustour via a series of regional
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The 18th century Prussian Monarch Friedrich der Große, or Alte Fritz - Old Fritz - as he is popularly known, has many claims to fame, not least of which is his promotion and advancing of the cultivation of the potato in the lands under his command, thus making him responsible for the tuber's contemporary popularity in northern Germany. And hence his other title: The Potato King. Friedrich was also a patron of the applied arts and handicrafts and in 1763 took over Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky's
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As an architectural theorist and experimental constructor Konrad Wachsmann played an important role in the development of architectural thinking in the decades following the Second World War, and thus by extrapolation in the development of our contemporary understanding of the built environment. Even if the majority of us cannot always follow his logic. Thus it is perhaps fitting that one of Konrad Wachsmann's first buildings should have been created for a man whose deliberations on the space
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Following on from the relative inactivity of August September saw us wind back up towards the 2014 autumn design festival season. But before everything kicked of in Vienna, we enjoyed the exhibitions Okolo Offline Two – Collecting at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, Useful Exhibition by Sanghyeok Lee at the DMY Design Gallery Berlin, Alvar Aalto – Second Nature at the Vitra Design Museum and enjoyed a lovely chat with architect Eberhard Lange on the restoration of Egon Eiermann's Wohnhaus
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On Friday September 26th the Egon Eiermann Society will present the inaugural "Egon Eiermann Chair" Award at a ceremony in the Neue Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in Berlin. Initiated to recognise those individuals or organisations who have made an especially valuable contribution to the maintenance and preservation of Egon Eiermann's works the first Egon Eiermann Chair will be awarded to Barbara and Eckard Düwal for their restoration of the so-called Wohnhaus Matthies in Potsdam-Babelsberg.
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As the new exhibition Die Form ist nur Teil des Ganzen at the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus Bremen makes very clear, Wilhelm Wagenfeld was firmly of the opinion that those objects with which we surround ourselves should be created so as to make them not only functional but to make their use a relevant, natural and self-evident part of our daily routine. Form not so much following function as use. While remaining an attractive, aesthetically agreeable, indispensable part of every object. Wagenfeld was
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At the recent Designtage Brandenburg Design Conference Vitra Design Museum Chief Curator Mateo Kries held the opening keyword speech. Under the title "Open Design! Why we need to reinvent design" Mateo Kries extended the thoughts presented in his 2010 book "Total Design" to explore where design is going, what are going to be the important themes in the future, and so by extrapolation explore the contemporary nature of the term "design". For as the spray paint on the walls so often says: "How
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On Wednesday evening the winners of the Designpreis Brandenburg 2013 were announced in a ceremony held in the cavern-like grandeur of Potsdam's Nikolaisaal. Chosen from over 200 submitted entries the winning projects ranged from a campaign to encourage better glass recycling etiquette over a furniture production system that negates the need for large scale distribution and onto a book for dyslexics and an underground train for Singapore. We'll have more on the Designpreis Brandenburg later as
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With the haze that has been mercilessly hanging over Potsdam these last few days finally giving over to an unpleasant background moisture level somewhere between rain and mist, the season for indoor activities has indubitably arrived. And so it is timeous that the Villa Schöningen in Potsdam is opening a new exhibition celebrating the creativity of graduates from the FH Potsdam Product Design Department. Curated by current FH Potsdam students under the guidance of Professors Jörg Hundertpfund
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