Initiated at the HTWG Konstanz in 2024 as a Master's thesis in Communication Design by Corinna Gratzl and Julia Klass, and a project very much in keeping with the motto of Munich Creative Business Week, MCBW, 2025, How to design a vibrant community, if in a very specific context, Dialog Beyond Disciplines asked questions such as, What defines and shapes the practice of designers working across disciplines? or What impulses do open-disciplinary approaches offer for a broader understanding of
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Not only the food and drink one serves is part of a prevailing table culture and by extrapolation part of a prevailing culture, the table being as it is the physical and metaphoric centre of any community and society, but also the objects and tools one employs for serving and consuming that food and drink are part of that, those, culture(s). Whereby, we speak less of the, invariably, invented romanticised folkloric definitions of culture, those cultures imagined as they may have been in the
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A feature of the international design calendar since 2012, we (briefly) discussed the (hi)story of Munich Creative Business Week from the 2024 edition, and so refer you, dear reader, to our post from 2024 by way of an introduction, and will stop here only to note that the motto of the 2025 edition is: How to design a vibrant community. A motto motivated by a sensing of a widespread desire for a little more togetherness in a world increasingly defined by division and isolation, and a motto to be
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The 1985 Alchimia Manifesto proclaims, "Per Alchimia le discipline non interessano quando sono considerate al l’interno delle loro regole", 'For Alchimia, disciplines are of no interest when considered within their rules', rather, and much as the alchemists of yore advanced, "è importante indagare nei grandi spazi liberi esistenti fra di essere"1, 'it is important to explore the vast free spaces existing between them'. With Alchimia. The Revolution of Italian Design the Bröhan Museum, Berlin,
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For all that the (hi)story of the human species is one of movement, of the physical relocation of individuals and communities, be that temporarily or permanently, it is also one of the development of forms of movement and of the development of our relationships with the act of moving. With the exhibition On the Move! Frankfurt and Mobility the Historisches Museum Frankfurt explore those developments....... On the Move! Frankfurt and Mobility, Historisches Museum, Frankfurt As an exhibition
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The environment in which we exist isn't just physical, tactile, nor only to be experienced and navigated visually, rather it continually involves, and continually makes demands upon, all of our senses. Yet despite the complexity of the environment in which we exist, and the varied and various organs our body provides us with to enable us to employ all our senses in approaching that environment, the vast majority of us consider our other senses, refer to our other senses, use our other organs,
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"Det är omöjligt att göra ett stort hus osynligt"1, opined once Swedish architect Léonie Geisendorf, 'It is impossible to make a large building invisible'. Yet while a building can't be invisible, its architect can. Especially when they are female. In an eponymous showcase ArkDes, Stockholm, seek to remove the cloak of invisibility that currently shrouds both Léonie Geisendorf and her contribution to the (hi)story of architecture and interior design in Sweden....... Léonie Geisendorf,
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"How does it feel?", asked once Bob Dylan, "To be without a home, Like a complete unknown, Like a rolling stone"1 A valid question, but one that needs must requires first defining "home". A tricky task Dylan doesn't concern himself with; but which Swiss artist Sandra Knecht seeks to approach in the exhibition, essay, Home Is a Foreign Place at Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger, Basel....... Sandra Knecht - Home Is a Foreign Place, Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger, Basel .......or perhaps more
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The Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, houses four museums: the Modern Art Collection of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, the Architekturmuseum der TU München and Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum. A quartet whose collections for all that they are separate, autonomous, aren't independent of one another, rather they intersect, support and contradict one another and thereby exist in context of one another. With 4 Museums – 1 Modernism that 1
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Reflecting back on the summer of 1923 Xanti Schawinsky recalled, "one day, during a break, a tennis coach named Niels Peterson asked me if I knew a school in Weimar called 'Bauhaus'". Xanti Schawinsky didn't. Niels Peterson explained. "My curiosity was fully ignited, and the very next day, I took a leave of absence and, with financial help from my father, traveled to Weimar"1 With Play, Life, Illusion. Xanti Schawinsky the Kunsthalle Bielefeld explore what happened next....... Play, Life,
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One of the first design rules everybody learns is Louis H. Sullivan's 1896 proclamation that that "form ever follows function, and this is the law." Only later do you begin to appreciate that "function" isn't a given but has to be defined if "form" is to be able to meaningfully follow it. Only much later do you appreciate the complexities in defining "function". With Nike: Form Follows Motion the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, explore the (hi)story of Nike, design at Nike and also
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In the early 1980s, Scottish Indie jingle-janglers Orange Juice advised us all to "Rip it up and start again".1 Which has also been the prevailing credo of European architecture and urban planning for much of the past two centuries: less a case of what goes up must come down, as what goes up will come down as soon as a new use is demanded or a new spatial concept developed or a new political ideology comes to the fore. But should it? Must it? And if didn't? Questions that in recent decades
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Inaugurated in 1997, Tallinn Applied Art Triennial is a curated platform for contemporary creatives of all hues staged around, in dialogue with, a unifying theme/topic, and which presents itself as both a central exhibition and a series of satellite events throughout the Estonian capital. A platform that after being open to creatives based globally for its first 8 editions, was restricted for its 9th edition to global creatives based in the Baltic and Nordic nations. Why the change? We no
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The cover of Walter Gropius's 1919 Bauhaus Manifesto, that rallying call for what would become the three Bauhauses, is famously graced by Lyonel Feininger's woodcutting Kathedrale, an ideogram for the "Wundertat der gotischen Kathedrale"1, the 'miracle of the Gothic cathedral', that archetype Gropius borrowed from John Ruskin to explain what good architecture is, why it is, how it arises, and thereby to visualise the path to the 'building of the future' via a 'new guild of craftsmen'2 Gropius
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The month of March takes its name from the Roman month of Martius which in turn takes its name from the Roman God of War, Mārs. As does the planet Mars which a small group of individuals appear phenomenally keen to get to as quickly as possible. Ideally quicker. If that is because they suspect the presence of rare earths, are looking for new regions to fight over by way of honouring Mārs, or simply read far too many comics as children and believe it is the unavoidable fate of humans to visit
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Museums are popularly associated with Pasts. In their current exhibition the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, concern themselves with Futures, specifically with the Material and Design of Tomorrow....... Futures. Material and Design of Tomorrow, Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig There can be little argument, OK given the contemporary state of what passes for global discourse there can be an awful lot of very virulent argument, backed up with aggressive online trolling
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Once upon a time in a land far, far away there was cafe called Pasaka, Fairy Tale, a cafe designed for children. With the exhibition Fairy Tale. Childhood in Lithuania during the late Soviet era Kaunas Picture Gallery take that cafe Pasaka as the starting point for a multi-disciplinary exploration of the degree to which childhood in the Lithuania of the 1960s, 70s and 80s outwith cafe Pasaka was of the joyful fairy tale type, a land of magic, plenty, positivity, and dreams coming true and/or
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"Mis on disain?" What is design? asked once the Estonian designer Bruno Tomberg.1 What is Bruno Tomberg?, we, essentially, asked in context of the exhibition Bruno Tomberg. Inventing Design at the Estonian Museum of Applied Arts and Design, Tallinn. What is Bruno Tomberg in 2025 and beyond? was, essentially, the question posed by and off students from the Textile and Furniture Departments of Pallas University of Applied Sciences, Tartu, in context of the project Mõtestades Brunot,
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Stockholm's Konstfack university of arts, crafts and design used the occasion of Stockholm Design Week 2025 to present the results of a number of semester projects including, for example, Innovation for Resilience which concerned itself with questions of circularity and sustainability in the infrastructure of camps for the displaced; Half Past Five at our Place, a cooperative project involving kitchenware undertaken in conjunction with pupils at Stockholm's Kung Saga Gymnasium; or Air Ship.
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In 1958 the French sociologist Roger Caillois opined that "L'esprit du jeu est essentiel à la culture"1, 'the spirit of play is essential to culture', an opinion that finds an echo in a Charles Eames' "toys are not really as innocent as they look. Toys and games are the preludes to serious ideas".2 A position that, in many regards, underscores the argument made from and by Design for Children at the Bröhan Museum, Berlin, that design for the playful world of the child is the best location to
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Over the years Stockholm based design studio Front a.k.a. Anna Lindgren and Sofia Lagerkvist (and, back in the day, also Katja Sävström and Charlotte von der Lancken) have oft employed chance as a design tool, have oft employed an essentially surrealist approach to design: they have, for example, let a rat gnaw wallpaper by way of creating a pattern, they've they let a fly buzz around a light bulb to create lamp shades, they've frozen an explosion in time to create a lounge chair, they've
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Tracing its (hi)story back to 1920, and having featured over the years and decades works by some of the more prominent and important designers, applied artists and crafters of the 20th and 21st centuries, Leipzig's annual Grassimesse has not only an established place in the international creative calender but an established reputation for the quality of the works it presents. And you can be part of the 2025 edition. If that is your application is accepted by the Grassimesse Jury, that
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For all that nature is based on, dependent on, carefully formed patterns, repeating order, an efficiency of structure, it is invariably a lack of pattern, order or structure, a randomness and serendipity, that brings about the most fundamental changes, that drives developments in individuals, populations, communities, societies. And for all that the human spirit is naturally drawn to, and naturally delights in, carefully formed patterns, repeating order, and efficiency of structure, do we
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Launched in 2002 by Stockholm Furniture Fair as a fringe accompaniment to the manufacturers presenting their wares in Stockholmsmässan's halls, Stockholm Design Week has, of late, become ever more a Stockholm Furniture Fair satellite as ever more manufacturers choose to present their wares in their flagship stores in downtown Stockholm rather than in Stockholmsmässan halls. A shift that, arguably, is partly responsible for the amount of space within those Stockholmsmässan halls, space that
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