Human society's fascination with leaving behind the limitations and fragilities and vagaries of the human being, and of the planet we all call home, is almost as old as human society, and is inextricably linked with developments in technology, science, engineering and human society's understandings of itself and its environments; amongst the earliest descriptions, for example, of flying to the moon being Francis Godwin’s 1638 book The Man in the Moone, an account of a journey, and of the beings
read more
As we all know from the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. And as a species we've developed a myriad ways of transforming one form of energy to another. We burn oil. We burn coal. We burn gas. We burn wood. We burn an awful lot, don't we..... But we also employ, for example, the kinetic energy of wind, waves and photons or the potential energy of Uranium atoms. With Transform! Designing the Future of Energy the
read more
In Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale Perdita bewails that she has no "flowers o’ th’ spring" to make garlands for, and to strew over, her beloved Florizel; "flowers o’ th’ spring" including violets, primroses, oxlips or "daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty". Whereby in her infatuation with, and fearless youthful love for, Florizel, Perdita fails to appreciate that it wasn't fear of the winds of March that kept the swallows away, swallows love a
read more
"When architecture is born, a place is born" opined Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane in 2018, continuing, "humans began to understand that by building architecture, a meaning is given to a place, and then that place has a story that can be passed on to others". But for Tane architecture doesn't just bequeath a place meaning and a story, it also "gives memories to a place", memories of the past and memories of the future, collective memories that help create bonds. But memories that are
read more
What is the popular understanding of the contribution of women to the mural of design (hi)story? Exactly. Thus, and with very good reason, and a degree of necessity, urgency even, the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur invite us all to consider The Bigger Picture....... The Bigger Picture: Design – Women – Society, Gewerbemuseum, Winterthur As an exhibtion The Bigger Picture: Design – Women – Society is based on, essentially is, the Vitra Design Museum's exhibition Here We Are! Women in Design 1900
read more
Although the etymology of "April" is lost in the mists of time, one of the more likely, and more satisfying, theories as to its origins is to be found in the Latin verb aperire, to open, which itself can be considered as being, possibly, related to the ancient Greek ἄνοιξις, ánoixis, opening. And thus the very obvious connotations to spring springing forth in April, to the natural world opening for another season. What is much better recorded are the new architecture and design exhibitions
read more
Amongst the great many things the experiences of the last couple of years have brought to the fore, and have unequivocally reinforced, is the importance to humans, collectively and individually, of outdoor spaces; not just for fresh air, movement, relaxation and physical well-being, but also for mental well-being. With Garden Futures. Designing with Nature the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, explore the garden as such an outdoor space, and also as a cultural space, as a design space, as a
read more
"March is the Month of Expectation. The things we do not know", opined once the American poet Emily Dickinson.1 Easily enough resolved!!! And no, not by "Persons of prognostication", whom one should definitely always "show becoming firmness"; but by visiting an architecture or design exhibition and approaching that which you don't know via your own inquiry and questioning and reasoning. Our five recommended locations for transforming expectations into knowledge in March 2023 can be found in
read more
Amongst the many developments that have influenced and informed the path of furniture and interior design in the past 120ish years one must, without question, count developments in context of colour. Whereas in previous centuries colours were limited in their availability, range and durability, recent decades have seen not only progress in that availability, range and durability, and as such ever more possibilities in our use of colour, but also seen increasing study of psychology and colour
read more
In 1997 Euro-popsters Aqua declared that "life in plastic, it's fantastic". And in 1997 a greater part of humanity would have readily, and unquestioningly, concurred with Aqua that plastic was indeed fantastic. And that plastics offered us an endlessly fantastic, undimmably bright, future.1 But that was 1997. Last century. An eternity ago. And, as so oft, the passage of time has shaken once firmly held convictions and forced fundamental re-appraisals of all that which once seemed so
read more
"It was one of those March days" reflects Philip "Pip" Pirrip in Great Expectations, "when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade".1 And thus exactly the sort of dithering, indecisive, capricious, March day when rather than surreptitiously rowing down the Thames towards Gravesend, one should seek refuge in the consistent climate and warming intellectual atmosphere of an architecture or design exhibition. Our five Great exhibition
read more
The popular (hi)story of furniture design is, no-one could argue, a very male (hi)story.1 Which doesn't mean that furniture design is a profession at which males excel more than females, a profession for which males have a natural affinity above and beyond that of females, that females' natural domains are textiles and colours; much more is because that popular (hi)story of furniture design contains flaws, biases, inaccuracies and under-illuminated corners. A great many of which can be traced
read more
Whereas politics, economics or sport in West Germany and East Germany are well and widely studied, and the similarities and differences regularly and publicly analysed and contextualised, thereby allowing for more refined, nuanced, popular understandings; design in and from the two Germanys remains, largely, a niche subject for a small band of specialists, and on a popular level something not only repeatedly reduced to a few works, institutions and protagonists, but also defined by
read more
In her 1929 essay A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf, as a component of her reflections on the myriad subjects of 'women and fiction', reads her way, chronologically, through a bookcase of works written by women from across the centuries. Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, has the feeling of Virginia Woolf's bookcase, allowing as it does for reflections on, and a critical questioning of, the myriad subjects of 'women and design'....... Here
read more
In the final decades of the 19th century the lands of the, then, German Empire, established themselves amongst the leading protagonists in the developments of contemporary applied arts as they moved towards that which we today term design. A leading position which, in certain regards, became a European dominance in the course of the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s through the contributions made to the evolving practices, processes, expressions and understandings of the period by institutions such as,
read more
Following the declaration of the French Republic in 1792 a new calendar was introduced in the realms of France: the Revolution had washed away France past and the Republic marked the start of a new reality for mankind, one of universal Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and therefore demanded a resetting of the collective clock, a new measuring of time, and thus out went the Gregorian calendar and its historic associations with church and state, and in came le calendrier républicain, the French
read more
Alongside the Chinese and Korean New Year celebrations one of the most popular observances in any given February is, arguably, the Feast Day of Saint Valentine on February 14th; St Valentine famously being the patron saint of greetings card manufacturers, lovers, but less famously, if just as importantly, also offering protection from the plague. Now while the misanthropes amongst you will query whether love and plague aren't synonyms, and a pox upon you for that; this February 14th we could
read more
"It's not possible to define a style in my work"1, opined once the Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti. With the exhibition Gae Aulenti: A Creative Universe, the Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot don't contradict that opinion, but do provide for a framework for considerations on its validity...... Gae Aulenti: A Creative Universe, Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot Born in Palazzolo dello Stella (Udine) on December 4th 1927 Gaetana "Gae" Aulenti studied architecture at the Politecnico
read more
With the exhibition Citizen Office the Vitra Design Museum staged not only their first conceptual, research based, exhibition, but also one of the first museal reflections on "the world of the office". Reflections which not only pointed towards new directions and understandings then, but which offer insights and lessons for today....... Citizen Office. As visualised by James Irvine The ubiquity of office work in our contemporary society belies the relative youth of "the office" as a
read more
The museums may be closed, travel restricted and leaving your home, when possible, unadvised..... but that's no reason to restrict your cultural uptake, far less neglect the development of your architecture and design understandings. Or put another way, if you can't get to the museum..... let the museum come to you. Five online architecture and design exhibitions and museum collections to explore from your sofa, bed, garden, balcony, wherever..... Vitra Design Museum - Collection Online In
read more
"What is the goal?" asked Elsie de Wolfe in 1913 in context of domestic interior design. "A house", she answered, "that is like the life that goes on within it, a house that gives us beauty as we understand it and beauty of a nobler kind that we may grow to understand, a house that looks amenity."1 How Elsie de Wolfe understood such, and how over the intervening century and a bit understandings of life, beauty, nobler beauty, amenity, the goal(s) of domestic interior design have developed and
read more
According to Goethe, Without the Fastnacht's dance and masquerade ball February has little to offer at all.1 Rubbish! Absolute rot! Our recommendations for new architecture and design exhibitions opening during February 2020 in Weil am Rhein, New York, Vienna, Houston and Kerkrade which ably demonstrate that February has much more to offer than carnival, and for all that February can provide for a greater degree of cerebral gratification than sensual......... "Home Stories: 100 Years, 20
read more
Birthday's are not only an occasion for celebration, but also for reflection on the year past, and on those milestone birthdays, for all the decadal birthdays, to reflect wider on the lives you've lived and the experiences you've enjoyed/endured, reflect on what you've gained, what you've lost, in those decades past. So, or similar, the Vitra Design Museum, who celebrate their 30th birthday in November 2019 and are marking the occasion with reflections, when not necessarily on their own three
read more
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
read more
