With the winter solstice behind us and the days growing noticeably longer, the Vitra Design Museum exhibition Lightopia draws slowly towards its natural end. But before the lights finally go out on March 9th there are still a few genuine highlights in the Fringe programme to be enjoyed, including on Thursday January 23rd a talk with and about the Milan based designer Richard Sapper. Born in Munich in 1932 Richard Sapper has worked with and for companies as varied as Daimler-Benz, Kartell,
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When we spoke to Marc Zehntner and Mateo Kries, the joint heads of the Vitra Design Museum, they told us that they hoped to make the institution "... a much more vibrant location that doesn’t just present exhibitions exploring the most important design themes and topics but much more asks question of the visitors and so becomes more of an experience." The fringe programme to the current Vitra Design Museum exhibition Lightopia wonderfully demonstrates just what they meant, featuring as it does
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"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
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On Saturday 20.03.2010 the latest Vitra Design Museum exhibition "The Essence of Things. Design and the Art of Reduction" officially opens. An exhibition very much after our own hearts. "The Essence of Things. Design and the Art of Reduction" explores the logic that "it is in the nature of human beings to seek the simplest solution" Although admittedly this is a logic that - despite its logic - all too many designers somehow manage to ignore, there are thankfully enough examples of good,
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As many of you will be aware, the construction of the VitraHaus was not without it's controversy. For all the decision to paint the outer walls black. We at (smow)blog can however exclusively reveal that other options were considered. And below we publish exclusive pictures of the rejected colour schemes. Berlin based, Dutch designer Hella Jongerius has created the Vitra Colour Laboratory to help encourage VitraHaus visitors to be more imaginative and creative in their use of colour. One
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If a picture really does paint a thousand words; a dozen VitraHaus photos here saves us an awful lot of typing. Below a few of our favourite images. And if you have any of your own photos that you would like to share with us, please email them to blog@smow.de Full credit will naturally be given for any photos used.
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Some 285 journalists were present for the press preview of Herzog & De Meuron's new VitraHaus in Weil am Rhein on February 12 2010. 285 journalists who were then obliged not to breath a word about what they had experienced until Saturday 20.02.2010...... Lets get the obvious point out the way first. The VitraHaus is magnificent. We approached Herzog & De Meuron's construction on foot from Mühlheimerstrasse and the first view over the car park was every bit as wonderful as we had expected.
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When we were still young, fit and healthy, towns and cities existed. Just existed. These days in order to exist a city needs to be the city of something. And so as one drives along a German motorway, every ten metres or so comes a large brown sign announcing the next conurbation as "Chemnitz - City of the Modernity", "Pied Piper City Hameln" or "Prien am Chiemsee - City of the criminally lazy taxi drivers". Not wanting to be the outsider in this age of claims making, Weil am Rhein has
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Following our visit to the #VitraHaus this coming Friday, the (smow)wintertour 2010 then proceeds, by ski, along the alps to Aschau im Chiemgau, Bavaria and a visit to Nils Holger Moormann and the, so-called, Moormann Haus. Constructed in 1859 by the Bavarian star architect/stage designer team of Christian Jank and Eduard Riedel, who later went on to find wider acclaim with the construction of Schloss Neuschwanstein, the Moormann Haus was built to commemorate the presentation by Maximilian
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As announced yesterday we sadly cannot attend this years Stockholm Furniture Fair - because we have to go to Switzerland, and then quickly back over the border to Germany, or better put: The Official Preview of the Vitra Design Museum complex in Weil am Rhein's newest attraction. The VitraHaus. Designed by Swiss star architects Herzog & de Meuron - perhaps best known for the Beijing National Stadium or the extension of the Tate gallery in London - the VitraHaus is principally conceived as an
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