Radio smow: A Musical Designer Playlist…….

Our deliberations on Bauhaus and music very naturally led us to a whole raft of further deliberations on the associations between music and other forms of creative expression; and for all the question, given that so many of those Bauhäusler who had/could have had second careers as musicians were artists, are there designers who have/had second careers as musicians…….

…….of course there are……

smow Blog Playlist. Reprise.

There is one song missing from the smow blog playlist: missing for the simple, regrettable, and thoroughly avoidable, reason that it isn’t on spotify.

For din skyld by the Danish singer Birgit Brüel. Denmark’s entry for the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest. And featuring lyrics by Poul Henningsen.

Yes, that Poul Henningsen.

(smow) blog Design Calendar: September 9th 1894 – Happy Birthday Poul Henningsen!

For a man who is universally lauded as one of the most important Danish designers of the 20th century, there

(smow) blog Design Calendar: April 28th 1925 – L’Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes opens in Paris

“What is the Paris Exposition?”, asked Roger Gilman in the September 1925 edition of The Art Bulletin, “It is a

Passagen Cologne 2014: Alle Metalle / All Metal

Revolutions in design and architecture invariably involve a new material. The oldest examples of this phenomenon being found in the

Vitra Design Museum: Lightopia

“My, my, my, Delilah! Why, why, why, Delilah!”

The morning of Friday September 27th 2013 was one of those misty autumn occasions that cause SANAA’s immense new Vitra Factory Building in Weil am Rhein to merge, almost unseen, with the grey background. Even Herzog & de Meuron’s new Basel Messe complex was reduced to nothing more grand than a continuation of the uncaring monotonous sky. The glitzing, shimmering palace of high summer just the weak shadow of a memory.

And so it was perhaps fitting that the Vitra Design Museum choose this dank September morn to open their latest exhibition, “Lightopia”, an exhibition devoted to light.

For today was a clear warning, in the coming months we will all be in need of a little light.