In context of DMY 2015 the Berlin/Beijing based cultural exchange association Migrant Birds are presenting the exhibition Modern Fossils, a solo exhibition of works by the Beijing based artist and designer Song Tao. Migrant Birds present Modern Fossils by Song Tao Born in Shanghai in 1969 Song Tao initially graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1986 before moving to France to complete a Masters degree in Plastic Arts at the Université Paris 1. Although Song Tao’s
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As we believe we've said before, and assume we will repeat in the future, contemporary Dutch design is largely, though not exclusively, about the research, and the subsequent processes invariably developed. If it leads to a product, that's good. But it needn't. That it however often does can be experienced in the exhibition Contemporary Creation Processes in Design on show at DAD Galerie Berlin. Curated by Berlin based, Eindhoven graduate Ruben der Kinderen Contemporary Creation Processes in
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On Thursday June 11th the 2015 DMY International Design Festival opens its doors to the public, and Berlin will once again be the focus of the global design community. But is Berlin the creative city many assume it to be? Beats the creative heart genuinely with a different rhythm, and with more fervour, on the banks of the Spree than elsewhere? Or is "Berlin Design" just a nice bit of location marketing behind which stands little more than non-stop parties and endless cheap lifestyle
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As previously reported, the company DMY Berlin GmbH & Co. KG, who for the past decade or so has run the annual DMY Berlin design festival, filed for insolvency in October 2014: the festival itself however continues under the auspices of a new organiser, about:design. “DMY is dead. Long live DMY”, as it were. The 2015 edition of DMY opens for professional, specialist, visitors at 10am on Thursday June 11th, at 6pm that evening to the general public, and runs until Sunday June 14th. Ahead of
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Given that Bauhaus is often perceived as having been an incubator for the creative talents of the 1920s, it is perhaps fitting that windows salvaged from Bauhaus Dessau should have been upcycled into a greenhouse for the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin. Or at least into a greenhouse-esque structure for the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin. Conceived, planned and realised by Berlin architectural practice zukunftsgeraeusche GbR together with the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin, Technischen Universität Berlin and Wagner
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How can the urban environment be improved with new housing? Which spatial constellations foster interaction? Which strategies reduce costs but still produce a high quality? How can we initiate a new era of house building? Such and similar questions are posed, and possible answers presented, in the exhibition URBAN LIVING - Strategies for the Future currently on show at the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum DAZ in Berlin. URBAN LIVING - Strategies for the Future at the Deutsches Architektur
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Shium is the many ways the Korean antipode to our modern world: Shium is decelerate, rest, relax, pause, reflect, slow down. Refresh body and soul Shium is also the foundation on which the exhibition Tools for A Break – Korean Crafts and Design is built, and following its première during Munich Creative Business Week 2015, Tools for A Break – Korean Crafts and Design is currently on show in Berlin. Tools for A Break - Korean Crafts and Design at Orangelab Berlin Fascinated by the diversity
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Floris Wubben is a rare and precious being. Floris Wubben is a contemporary Dutch designer who didn't study at Design Academy Eindhoven. When we ask him how such a situation can arise, why he didn't attend Eindhoven, he smiles and replies that we're not the first to ask him that, everybody it seems wants to know. An indication of just how rare and precious a being he is. Floris Wubben does of course have his atelier in Eindhoven. Anything else would be far too absurd, if not illegal, and
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When Italian designer/design theologian Enzo Mari released his Autoprogettazione family of self build furniture in 1974 he did so with the aim of challenging popular conventions on industrial furniture production, and for all the concept that price is related to quality; the real value of an object, according to Mari, being something more intrinsic, something that exists inherent within a piece of furniture and which comes from a purity of form. Commercial furniture production distorts this
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Following the necessary disruption of their permanent exhibition to accommodate the recently ended exhibition Sensing the Future: László Moholy-Nagy, die Medien und die Künste, the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin have taken the opportunity afforded to redesign their exhibition concept. And in doing so have allowed a very welcome fresh wind to blow through their museum. Bauhaus Archiv Berlin: Sammlung Bauhaus Presented under the title Sammlung Bauhaus - The Bauhaus Collection - the new permanent
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With ever more of our fellow train passengers displaying acute symptoms of over exposure to cheap Glühwein it can only mean that December is upon us. And the end of one the genuinely more enjoyable smow blog years. Indeed its fair to say 2014 was one of those years that makes you consider if its not time to hang up the old travelling socks and seek a more sedate, sedentary, existence. A fitting moment perhaps, but the correct decision? We've a couple of days to decide. And to accompany us
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Such was the quality of the new products we saw during our autumn tour they kept us going well into November; indeed it wasn't until a cold dank Friday in Chemnitz ahead of the opening of the exhibition Andy Warhol – Death and Disaster at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, that we even realised it was November.
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......and continued over Budapest and on to Berlin - where amongst other delights we partook of the exhibitions Sensing the Future: László Moholy-Nagy, die Medien und die Künste at the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin and Schrill Bizarr Brachial. Das Neue Deutsche Design der 80er Jahre at the Bröhan Museum - and onto Cologne for the Orgatec office furniture trade fair.
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Following on from the relative inactivity of August September saw us wind back up towards the 2014 autumn design festival season. But before everything kicked of in Vienna, we enjoyed the exhibitions Okolo Offline Two – Collecting at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, Useful Exhibition by Sanghyeok Lee at the DMY Design Gallery Berlin, Alvar Aalto – Second Nature at the Vitra Design Museum and enjoyed a lovely chat with architect Eberhard Lange on the restoration of Egon Eiermann's Wohnhaus
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Thanks to a unnecessarily long journey through Sachsen-Anhalt in an unnecessarily warm bus, July 2014 will remain indelibly scorched in our collective memory. On a professional note, July 2014 also saw the exhibitions Unter Zwischen im Ampelhaus, Oranienbaum and Summer Break VA / Neue Arbeiten at Direktorenhaus Berlin, and of course the flood of student exhibitions that arise every summer.
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... had things not continued apace in June. A month which saw us trawl trough Berlin with Niek Wagemans looking for material with which to build a bar for the Dutch Embassy, rub shoulders with some very glamorous individuals at Design Miami Basel and, most importantly, test the new Vitra Slide Tower in Weil am Rhein.
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May may have been slow in the past. May. For aside from DMY Berlin, Fritz Haller in Basel, Niek van der Heijden in Berlin, and Wilhelm Wagenfeld in Bremen we also got to visit Nürnberg and the new archaeology museum in Chemnitz. And so all things considered May 2014 may go down as one of our busiest months ever.....
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As all old thesauruans know "April" is merely a synonym for "Milan" And lo despite all promises to the contrary April 2014 once again found us in Lombardy, where, amongst other objects and exhibitions, we were very taken with the Alexander Girard reissues revealed by Vitra, the exhibition of Meisenthal Glassworks at the Institut Francais and the new Rival chair by Konstantin Grcic for Artek. Away from Milan April 214 saw us get to know the work of Pascal Howe at the DMY Design Gallery Berlin,
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According to our pictorial review of March 2013 it was "a month of travelling: Stuttgart, Chemnitz, Weimar, Dessau….. its amazing we found time to actually write anything……." March was 2014 was the same. Just replace "Stuttgart, Chemnitz, Weimar, Dessau" with "Frankfurt, Münsingen, Berlin, Weil am Rhein" It also explains the large number of half-finished drafts from March. Obviously we didn't find time to write everything!
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Cold as February 2014 unquestionably was, we managed to warm ourselves with exhibitions looking at the 1920s medial representation of Bauhaus Dessau, the life and works of Marianne Brandt and the work of Berlin based designer Birgit Severin. And got all excited by some USM window fittings!
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Until February 8th 2015 the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum, DAZ, in Berlin is presenting the exhibition "The Urburb: patterns of contemporary living" Developed by Ori Scialom, Dr. Roy Brand and Keren Yaela Golan The Urburb was Israel's contribution to the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale and aims to place the current state of urban planning and architecture in Israel in context of historical developments. To this end The Urburb features four so-called sand printers - industrial plotting
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Just as it seems that the press conference ahead of the opening of the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin's new exhibition, "VKhUTEMAS – A Russian Laboratory of Modernity", is approaching its end, yet another, final, question is posed. Martin-Gropius-Bau Director Gereon Sievernich smiles warmly and responds with a very good natured "My, have you all got a lot of questions today!" Yes. Unsurprisingly. Exhibitions, or indeed any form of academic presentation, about the Russian art school VKhUTEMAS
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One of the advantages of having been running our "5 New Design Exhibitions" series for over a year is that we now possess what we can optimistically refer to as an "archive" And looking in that "archive" we discover that for December 2013 we recommended four exhibitions in Germanophone countries and one in Holland. And for December 2014 we're doing the same. It's not deliberate; it is just the case that only museums and galleries in Germany appear to open design and architecture exhibitions
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Until February 22nd the Berlin Gallery Haus am Waldsee is presenting the exhibition "Architectural Utopia Reloaded", a retrospective dedicated to the experimental architecture collective Haus-Rucker-Co. Haus-Rucker-Co - Architectural Utopia Reloaded at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin Established in Vienna in 1967 by the architects Laurids Ortner and Günter Zamp Kelp together with the artist Klaus Pinter, Haus-Rucker-Co principally concerned themselves with the creation of a new understanding of
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