...And that they had outrageous, decadent, plans for Berlin... Planning and Building under National Socialism the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, allow one to begin to reflect on such themes and also to begin to learn to better formulate such questions...
...Design for Socialist Spaces the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, in cooperation with numerous museums and institutions from across eastern Europe, provide an introduction to post-War 20th century architecture and design in and from Croatia, the Czech Republic, East Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Ukraine, and in doing so invite us all to begin to approach more probable and more meaningful positions... A presentation that alongside introducing both state affiliated design institutions such as, for example, the Polish Instytut Wzornictwa Przemysłowego [Institute of Industrial Design]2 or VNIITE [All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Technical Aesthetics] as the principle design institution in the Soviet Union, and also independent institutions such as, for example, Studio za stanovanje im opremo [Studio for Housing and Interior Design], Ljubljana, or the Hungarian Fiatal Iparművészek Stúdiója Egyesület [Studio of Young Designers Association] also features exhibtion platforms such as the Biennial of Industrial Design, BIO, inaugurated in Ljubljana in 1964 as the world's first design biennale, and an event still staged today, and also design schools such as, and again amongst many others, the Department of Industrial Artistic Design within the, then, Lithuanian SSR State Art Institute, Vilnius, the short-lived Academy of Applied Arts, Zagreb, or the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee and the Burg Giebichenstein Halle in the DDR...
...Our five recommended locations for transforming expectations into knowledge in March 2023 can be found in Berlin, Espoo, New York, Nyköping and Weil am Rhein... Design for Socialist Spaces" at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, Germany First off we have to say that we really, really, really, don't like the name: Retrotopia sounding to us like the sort of deplorable, despicable, "vintage" furniture shop that sells utter tat for outrageous prices to those easily-led personages impressed by Instagram...
...Developed in the mid-1960s as an office furniture system, the inherent flexibility and variability of USM Haller's modular system has allowed it to naturally evolve alongside office practices and realities; for example, alongside the shift in recent decades from rigid to more flexible office scenographies, alongside the rise in recent decades of home working, or, most recently, with the USM Security Screen which naturally, and quickly, allows any existing USM reception desk to be effortlessly updated and reinvented for our Corona age... A landscape USM Haller quickly inhabited and where over the decades the inherent flexibility and variability of its modular system has seen it naturally adapt to the ever evolving realities of domestic life: the domestic life of both the private individual with all its personal fluctuations, high, lows and unpredictability, but also of communal society and, for example, its ever increasing collective networked, digital structure...
...[gallery link="file" ids="64948,64942,64940"] USM Haller Bacon Settle One of the problems with the traditional bacon settle is that while your situation, your needs, will invariably change, your wooden bacon settle can't really... A modular system, such as that offered by the USM Haller Bacon Settle, can...
...With the showcase USM Haller HomeWork smow Cologne consider responses to such evolutions with the assistance of the USM Haller modular furniture system... For all that USM Haller is a modular furniture system it is fundamentally a modular architecture system...
...Staged under the title "Ambassadors of Creative Innovation" the Swiss Embassy 3daysofdesign 2019 showcase presented works from established Swiss brands such as Vitra, USM Haller, Création Baumann, Caran d'Ache or Laufen, who presented their new SAVE urine directing toilet concept realised in conjunction with Vienna based studio EOOS and Eawag, the aquatic research institute at the ETH Zürich; younger brands such as Viu eyewear or Zürich based Qwstion with their bags crafted from Bananatex, a textile made from, well, banana plants, not yet Zürcher Bananas, but if we're not all careful it may only be a matter of time, and no-one wants that; and students from the Architecture and Wood & Civil Engineering departments at the Berner Fachhochschule, who, in inter-disciplinary teams of two, considered under the title "Furniture for a Pop-up Embassy", representative, temporary, variable, momentary furniture...
