In July 1969 Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and as Neil Armstrong stepped from the Eagle lunar module he announced it was, "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind". And inarguably it was. And was. But what has it brought mankind? Apart from an awful lot of conspiracy theories. And an ongoing fascination with space that drives the irrational belief that in the 21st century we urgently require everything which appeared in 1950s and 1960s science fiction comics and films in order
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Knoll A Wilhelm; A Walter; A Willy; A Hans; A Florence; A Lineage Although research into its ancestry is still very much ongoing, the wild Knoll, Knoll furniturus, is popularly believed to have originated in the region of the contemporary Stuttgart; what is certain is that it was in the contemporary Stuttgart that Knoll furniturus was first domesticated as Knoll wilhelmus, a Knoll typified by its leathery character and whose most successful cultivation was unquestionably in conjunction with
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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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July was once known as Quintilis, and was the fifth month of the Roman calender. The fifth of ten. "Winter" being but an ill-defined cold and dark period between December and March. And sensible as such as an arrangement sounds, and much as we could live with such an arrangement today, with the rise of the Roman Republic the wise decision was made to divide winter into January and February. Wise not least because it means our contemporary year has 12 months: and thus two extra months in which
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For all the controversy surrounding smow Tel Aviv's victory in the 2018 smow Song Contest, not least the question if there even is a smow Tel Aviv, the staging of the 2019 Contest in Israel does allow for a very nice reinforcing of the central theme of the 2019 smow Song Contest.... Inarguably the biggest architecture and design story in 2019 is the centenary of the founding of Bauhaus Weimar. And whereas one can, should, argue if the school deserves its singular billing, it gets it. What
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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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Atop bonny Killesberg, and beside Kochenhof, (the) Akademie der Bildenden Künste, ABK, Stuttgart has been nurturing a basic kernel within a bright kettle of students of numerous creative disciplines since 1761. For their 2018 Rundgang the, we believe the word is, identity, was based on alternative resolutions of the initialism ABK, the central one being Alle brauchen Kunst - Everyone Needs Art. But do we need that applied, functional art developed in the year past at the ABK Stuttgart......?
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Remember, Remember! The fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot...... Thus begins the traditional song commemorating, and urging us all never to forget, Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators attempts to overthrow the English parliament of the day, their plotting to install a new parliament, one more in line with their ideological position, for all one more in line with their ideological understanding of the English parliament's future relationship to the dominant extra-governmental power
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During June 2018 the participative art installation Freiheit 2.0 in Stuttgart is exploring issues around Big Data, artificial intelligence and the future of our relationships with the digital, virtual, environment. In addition to a series of colloquia in which invited experts talk about aspects of the wider themes and engage in conversations with the project initiator Florian Mehnert, the three further pillars on which Freiheit 2.0 is built are a Self-Tracking App via which everyone can create
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If swarm intelligence describes natural systems where individuals pool their resources for the benefit of the community, then Big Data can be considered a form of swarm intelligence appropriated by commerce: where commerce pools individuals' resources, their data, for the benefit of commerce. In both swarm intelligence and Big Data the individuals involved are, largely, unaware of the extent of the interaction and resource pooling. Whereas however birds, bees, fish and ants needn't be aware of
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Following smow Lisboa's surprise victory in the 2017 smow Song Contest, the Portuguese capital is preparing to host the 2018 song contest: a contest being staged very much in context of the contemporary relevance of smow's historic connections.... As the anniversary of smow Lisboa's victory approaches it remains as controversial and as unexpected as it was on that muggy evening back in May 2017: not least because there is no smow Lisboa. However, never ones to look a gift horse in the mouth
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According to the German philologist, mythologist, folklorist and definer of the Germanic Umlaut, Jacob Grimm, an old belief states that the Cuckoo never sings before the 3rd of April; and, "should you have money in your pouch when you hear him sing the first time, you will be well off all that year, if not, you will be short the whole year" 1 Much like the cuckoo, our five new architecture & design exhibitions recommendations for April 2018 begin with their songs after April 3rd; and should
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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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The 18th century forebearer of the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart was established as a location "where the youth can be cultivated, likes plants in a nursery" While nurseries can produce strong and noble trees, flowers with the most exquisite blossoms and hardy perennials that keep on contributing to their environment, they are also often home to unstable experimental hybrids and provide the perfect breeding ground for parasites and disease. How well the current Akademie der
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It's early May and once again the party ship we call the smow song contest is ready to set sail...... First staged in 1956 in Lugano, as a small, essentially regional, event, the smow song contest has grown as the smow family has, and now enjoys a popularity far outwith smow's geographic heartland. A fact acknowledged by the addition of Sydney to the competition in 2015: our antipodean cousins having long adopted the spirit of smow. Yes, some, ill informed, never happy's, oafs quite frankly,
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On May 1st 1851 Queen Victoria opened The Great Exhibition in Hyde Park London: the first "World's Fair", an event which celebrated the advances of the industrial age, and whose influence on industry, engineering, science, architecture and society was to resonate globally for decades, acting as it did as the motor for the quickening technological advances of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. While the profit generated from the 6 million visitors allowed for the construction of London's
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Slowly but surely September is becoming Europe's summer. Whereas July and August increasingly fail to produce anything even vaguely "summery", we can always rely on September to deliver long balmy afternoons, and even longer, balmier, nights. Often juxtaposed with crisp, misty mornings under a fresh blue sky. It's almost as if September knows that once it is gone, autumn will grasp us by the shoulders and drag us, selfishly, into winter. As if September knows it is our last refuge. "Get out
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Although Stuttgart based design studio Jehs+Laub are in many respects best known as the winners of the inaugural Moormann Bookinist Cup, they are also one of Germany's most prolific and successful furniture design studios. Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub met while studying Industrial Design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, their friendship developed over the course of a practical semester in New York, led them to complete a joint Diploma Project and ultimately saw the
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With its postal address of "Am Weissenhof 1" it should come as no surprise that the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, ABK, Stuttgart was not only the first building on that now fabled site on Stuttgart's Killesberg, but also that it played a role, when albeit a relatively small one, in helping create the fable: Professor Adolf Schneck designing two of the houses, the school's workshops, under the supervision of Hilde Zimmermann, being responsible for the kitchen of one of Schneck's houses, while
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Cities grow, mutate, evolve, a process which, as with human development, is rarely straightforward, rarely occurs without sacrifice and/or leaving one or the other scar. Physical as well as emotional. With the exhibition Stuttgart reißt sich ab - Stuttgart Demolishes Itself - the Architekturgalerie am Weissenhof aim to explore the nature of post-war urban development in Stuttgart, and to present what they refer to as a "Plea for the preservation of cityscape defining buildings" Co-curated by
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"...the strict, logical lines which avoid anything unnecessary and which with the sleekest form and through the simplest means embodies the modern objectivity"1, with this, glowing, description of his design the Supreme Court of the German Reich in Leipzig awarded on June 1st 1932 Mart Stam the artistic copyright of the cubic, quadratic, cantilever chair, and thus settled arguably the very first legal dispute over the copyright of the form of a piece of furniture intended for industrial mass
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Our five recommendations for new design and architecture exhibitions opening in June 2016 feature four in Germany and one in Holland. That's not our fault. That is the honest result of our open minded search through the programmes' of numerous global architecture and design museums. The following are for us the best five. We know the decision is subjective. But are sticking with our five. And thereby accepting the suspicion that we have specially selected them on account of where they are being
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