Summer Break!!! As in August 2022!! And once again, not us, we're here, we're busy, we're keen, we're chomping at the bit; but the international architecture and design museum community have very clearly decided amongst themselves not to open new exhibitions in August. Whereby, yes, August always was a slow month for new openings but that in August 2022 and August 2023 we should find but one new showcase is a signal of something more than a coincidence. And, as with August 2022, one
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For the first time in its long and illustrious history Leipzig's Grassimesse will award a dedicated design prize at its 2023 edition. More specifically, will award the €2,500 smow-Designpreis. The call for entries is now open, and you are all cordially invited closed....... Tracing its history back to 1920, the contemporary Grassimesse began as an, if you will, response on the part of Dr. Richard Graul, Director of the, then, Kunstgewerbemuseum Leipzig, the contemporary Grassi Museum für
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Following smow Turin's thoroughly unexpected, if in no way undeserved, victory in the 2021 smow Song Contest, it's off to Piemonte for the 2022 edition. A 2022 smow Song Contest being held very much in context of events 20 years previous....... 2002 was a very different world than the one we know today. In 2002, for example, following the ousting of the Taliban girls were allowed to attend school in Afghanistan; Chechens stormed the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow demanding an end to Russia's
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After a long, challenging, year the smow Song Contest finds itself exactly where it was: Rotterdam. Not just the location, but the stage, the decoration, the costumes, even the bier en frieten exactly as they were twelve months ago. The decisive, defining, difference between the 2020 smow Song Contest and the 2021 smow Song Contest being the new understandings, the new perceptions, the new perspectives, the new vitality, the new passions, the new desires, the new old new, articulated by the
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In a year in which the familiar glow of many a beloved cultural event is missing, one beacon continues to shine. As a virtual, and in many regards virtual, event the smow Song Contest is one that can be staged regardless of prevailing physical social distancing regulations and physical travel restrictions. And while virtual closeness and virtual travel can never, and must never be allowed to, replace the physical, the 2020 smow Song Contest does allow us all an opportunity to cross great
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How many stories can a city tell? There are the public, collective, communal stories told by its buildings, by its peoples, by its industries, by the development of its cultural institutions and through the actions of famous/infamous citizens; but there are also the myriad private, individual stories, the scurrilous, the appalling, the romantic, the comic, the tragic, the improbable, and of course the secret, whispered, ones. At the risk of sounding like a city marketing platform, a city is
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The only FAQ not answered by the smow FAQs is the one that begins, "What is smow........?" And as smow grows and grows so too does the F with which the Q is A'd. The answer in one sense is very simple, smow trade in furniture, lighting and home/office accessories through a series of showrooms and online shops. But that only partly explains "smow". Doesn't explain the how, who, why and wherefore. Nor the richness. Explaining the true smow is in many respects best achieved by exploring another
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It's not quite radio smow. Not yet. But we hope it is another way to enjoy, and understand, the smow blog....... 6 D 030 Z by Charles & Ray Eames for Evans for Zenith Radio, as seen at Radio Days. Tube Radios, Design Classics, Internet Radio, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Cologne Much as there is an innate joy in the way a good designer can reduce an idea down to a few lengths of wood, or twists of metal, so to is there an inescapable wonder in the way a good songsmith can express an idea
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Ever since supermarkets started filling their shelves with Christmas foodstuffs in September, view-on-demand has allowed us to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" when we choose rather than when the schedulers dictate and global warming robbed Europe of all its snow, it has become increasingly difficult to judge just when Christmas is due. Is it next week? Or do I have time before I start panicking about buying presents? Is that man dressed as Santa celebrating Halloween? Or is not a man dressed as
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Following on from the success of smow Cologne's Passagen Design Week début in 2014 with the USM Haller exhibition Facetten, 2015 sees a presentation of tables from the German manufacturer ASCO. Established in 1998 with the aim of developing tables which radiate a timeless elegance, the ASCO collection combines table tops in a range of hardwoods with bases constructed from wood, metal or concrete to produce objects that are as domesticated as they are rustic and individual as they are
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As already noted, until Friday October 31st smow Cologne are presenting the exhibition Stadt-Land-schafft. Making use of smow Cologne's generous window space and even more generous Waidmarkt frontage, Stadt-Land-schafft presents eight interpretations of urban topology and the conflict/synergy between our natural and our built environments. And so, for example, Aachen based K2 Architekten present the installation Barb[el] which reflects on how city and countryside merge with one another without
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"What was the best moment of your life?" ask Cologne based Pell Architekten in the introduction to their contribution to smow Cologne's forthcoming exhibition Waidblicke, "Has it been or is it still to come? OK, but along the way there's been good moments. Where were they?" Where indeed.... Since October 2013 smow Cologne have been resident in the city's Waidmarkt - The Woad Market - a location that can trace its history back to the Roman occupation of the modern Colonia and which achieved a
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We've spent a lot of 2014 travelling backwards on trains, racing towards the future with our eyes fixed firmly on the past. We know its a metaphor. We just hope it isn't an omen. Time will, as ever, tell. And with this being late September, the next five weeks will see us travelling backwards through the European design landscape with an unhealthy, and fate taunting, regularity. Our Autumn Tour 2014 begins at Vienna Design Week where, aside from the Passionswege projects, were particularly
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For many, the darkest, furthest removed edge of the (smow) universe is (smow) Chemnitz. (smow) however reaches further. Much further. To Manly, New South Wales, to be precise and (smow) Australia. More of a cousin than a member of the immediate (smow) family, (smow) Australia offer products by leading European manufacturers including Nils Holger Moormann, Richard Lampert, LoCa, Jonas & Jonas and Kabré-Leipzig to the good people of Sydney and, through their online shop, beyond. And now have
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A summer silly season with 360 degree product images and handmade bottle openers explaining the difference between craft and design assumed a veneer of normality thanks to a fairytale presentation of vintage furniture in Berlin, contemporary porcelain at the Bauhaus Archiv and a little thinking about architecture in Stuttgart.........
read moreIt is in the very nature of year ends that they tend to cause one to reflect. And so in the coming days, while we enjoy a barely deserved but jealously guarded week or two offline, we will present a reflective pictorial review of 2013. 2013 was a weird old year, and while it's fair to say that we've certainly had better, it did contain a few moments that reminded us why we do this. And made us grateful that we can. And no we're not talking about the Prada croissants at the Knoll show during
read moreAlthough we rarely have reason to blow our own trumpets, we do regularly have cause to sound our colleagues veritable flourish of bugles, clarions, cornets, horns. And trumpets. Such is an occasion. With immediate effect many products in the (smow) online shop can be perused, compared and enjoyed as 360 degree photos. And they are photos. And not computer generated renderings. From established design classics including the Vitra Panton Chair or the Eames DSR over modern classics such as the
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On Tuesday April 30th 2013 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands steps down as head as the House of Orange. And Posterous closes down. One going voluntarily to ensure an smooth transition of power. The other being closed by its new owners as part of a brutal and unjust conflict for supremacy in the social media market. We discovered Posterous in 2010 by pure change, were instantly hooked by the effortless simplicity with which one could post and so Posterous became our platform of choice for all
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A garden is for relaxing in on a summers evening. For growing vegetables. For having a cheeky cigarette when you're supposed to be finishing the accounts. A garden is also a metaphor for growing up, maturing. Getting older. In the final (smow)liest event for the 2010 Leipzig Buchmesse, journalist and author Gerhard Matzig presented his own personal tale of the journey from carefree urban youth to responsible suburban middle age. And to a garden. In front of a potentially illegally
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It's not easy being German. It really isn't. Fortunately, it can be highly entertaining; as Philipp Kohlhöfer more than eloquently demonstrated to a full house at the opening event of (smow)liest 2010 in the (smow)room in Leipzig. From David Hasselhoff karoake with South-Central LA gangsters to dinner with Nelly Furtado via the moral dilemmas of associating oneself with childless individuals, Philipp Kohlhöfer led the audience through an amusing, and at times highly poetic, evening of
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In the wake of our "warehouse" post we have received numerous emails along a similar vein: "It's OK for yous and your highly trained Eames Elephants; but how do we get our USM Haller furniture into our flat?" The simple answer - assuming you live in Germany - is "PREMIUM delivery" Under normal conditions the Schenker delivery crews are only allowed to deliver to the door of your building. It's a legal thing. With "PREMIUM delivery", however, for a small additional fee not only will the
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We're not going to pretend we're fans of Carnival. Truth be told, for us Carnival and Oktoberfest belong to a class of cultural events that indicate a nation still struggling to come to terms with the fact that woolly mammoths no longer roam the land. Or that women are allowed to vote. However, we're in Cologne and so we can at least pretend that we find alcohol fuelled violence oh-so amusing. Especially when presented in conjunction with a Papier-mâché model of Angela Merkel with an
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As traditional as roasted chestnuts and corked sherry, gift recommendations are what make Christmas for us. This year, however, we start with a friendly warning. The lead times for many of our suppliers are creeping upwards - and although we have a well stocked and bountiful warehouse; should you want to order something extra special as a gift for a loved one, and we have to order it - it's getting tight. The "traffic light system" in the (smow)shop provides an instant guide to availability;
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The fifth Leipzig Designers Open is well ... Open. For the next three days over 150 international exhibitors will be presenting their furniture, fashion, jewellery and product/communication designs and concepts in the unique atmosphere of the Merkurhaus. We're old enough that we can recall numerous Merkurhaus tenants, but none that offered such a varied and high quality selection as at this years Designers Open. Which is proabably why they all stopped trading and while Designers Open grows
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