News & Stories

Why they use two hands to hold a glass …

by Egon Chemaitis

Being European in China: A guide. When invited to eat at a restaurant in China, you should always carefully wedge your serviette underneath your plate. That was it doesn't fall on the floor each time you get up because you or one of the guests have a toast to make. The Chinese dinner table is not to be outdone when it comes to symbolism.

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Everyday America

by Nora Sobich

Of course, Coca-Cola, Campbell’s Tomato Soup and Zippo lighters are familiar even to Europeans. But have you heard of Lasko’s “Box Fan”, the “Snuggie” fleece blanket or “Little Red Wagon” for kids? If not, then it’s high time for an excursion into the wonderful world of American consumer goods.

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Tea silk, Mao Zedong and a Chinese actress’ memories of childhood

by Mi You

The name Dashilar stands for an exciting district of Beijing. Several of the Beijing Design Week events tempted visitors into seeing both once magnificent buildings and former Maoist factories. Alongside exhibitions such as Arik Chen's "Silent Heroes", there's also a longer-term modernization project underway here. The plans by Liang Jingyu and his colleagues could turn out to be trailblazing in the battle against gentrification.

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News & Stories | International Motor Show 2011

Down with the window! And out with your elbow!

by Nora Sobich

Cruising down the street with your elbow out the car window is a leisurely matter. A gesture that could be read as rebellion, or as communication. Will this youthful stance finally have to take a back seat in an era of fully air-conditioned cars?

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Learning from the land of water

by Nina Reetzke

Water destroys, heals, seduces. In hardly any other country is this more apparent than Indonesia, country of countless islands. While in the West, water tends to be managed mechanically, and of late digitally, in Indonesia it is a design element in spatial planning, architecture and interior designs.

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Design in the heart of Serbia

by Nancy Jehmlich

The ambitious project "Belgrade Design Week" is a passionate attempt to establish the Serbian capital as a new design hub. However, the festival succeeds in creating something far more valuable, and that is bringing together like-minded people in an invigorating city.

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Living in nine tubo

The symposium on "Regionalism in current industrial design from Japan and Europe" offered an opportunity to converse with designer Makoto Koizumi who does not yet have a presence outside Japan. In conversation with Nina Reetzke he explains what his furniture collection "Tetsubo" and his new interpretations of the "9tubohouse" are all about.

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Fretting our way into the future

by Georg-Christof Bertsch

In the form of the "Chrome" hotel, Kolkata has got a new design spaceship in which Western and Indian elements create a very special blend.

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My pillow from Uzbekistan

by Markus Frenzl

Home living magazines announced the "multicultural furniture" trend, the "ethno-style" and "intercultural design" trend. The new color frenzy is being judged as an expression of overcoming a "design style" which is far too plain and of the need for individuality and unconventionality. The world of design seems to have opened up to foreign creative styles.

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To be creative means to enjoy

by Sandra Hofmeister

Artists and designers, cultural ambassadors and dreamers: Vitra Design Museum presents the refreshingly diverse oeuvre of Brazilians Fernando and Humberto Campana.

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Stuttgart, Königstrasse – bricked up

by Georg-Christof Bertsch

In design, interculturality is currently the big hit. Elements from different cultures are being combined in ever more sophisticated ways. However, the reality in cities like Rio de Janeiro provides a very different picture. Soon the favela could become a model of uncontrolled urban growth in Germany too.

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Buildings suited to bamboo

by Egon Chemaitis

Although people in Europe do know that bamboo can be used in many different ways, hardly anybody really knows very much about its characteristics. The situation is very different in Anji, China, where there is hardly any aspect of living where life is not hard to imagine without Bamboo.

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Reflections on architecture

by Ralf Wollheim

The "Testify! The Consequences of Architecture" exhibition at Deutsches Architektur Zentrum in Berlin explores individual experiences with architectural projects worldwide.

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Woolen blanket like a mythical sealskin

by Anne Kaestner

Anyone visiting Frankfurt over the next couple of weeks will simply encounter Iceland everywhere. The remote fabulous country is Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair this year and the Museum für Angewandte Kunst has just opened an exhibition on Icelandic design. Above all fashion labels such as Spaksmannsspjarir, Mundi, Ásta Créative Clothes, Barbara I Gongini and Shoplifter are now the talk of the town here.

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Not only higher

by Meret Ernst

About half of all the high-rises that stand in the cities of this world have been built in the last decade. Curator Andres Janser sets out in his show "High-Rises - Dream and Reality" at Museum für Gestaltung Zürich to explore what is behind this boom.

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Suddenly Spain is Japanese and Japan a little Spanish

by Silke Gehrmann-Becker

Spanish design collective CuldeSac has come up with a special idea for an exhibition for Tokyo Designers Week: "Made in JAPAIN - The true story of Spanish Design" uses a comic to convey a fantastic tale of interculturality.

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Let our fantasies become reality

by Lucy Bullivant

Pupils from Westminster Academy in London were set the task of creating fantasy public spaces. The Serpentine Gallery is now presenting the results of the Fantasy Architecture competition.

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Functional ornamentation

by Nancy Jehmlich

Centuries ago, in a small town in Tunisia on the edge of the Sahara, craftsmen experimented with the decorative potential of brick. At the same time they created functional but contemporary architecture.-

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The kitchen as a way of life

by Thomas Wagner

Something is brewing, not only in German homes. The interaction between cultures has also grown more intense in the kitchen. Take Poggenpohl: one of the premium German kitchen manufacturers it has been particularly successful in the Gulf Region. We asked why that is and about their experiences there.

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Visual negotiations

by Birgit S. Bauer

The Russians like things luxurious, the Japanese prefer things more playful than you might imagine - and the French of course like things feminine and sensual: A glance at brand and packaging design in the age of globalization.

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Bambú brasileiro or the future of a material

by Georg-Christof Bertsch

Brazil is the land of tropical forests. Very few actually know that bamboo also grows here in abundance. The more radical the changes in current policies of exploiting the rainforest, the better the chances that bamboo, a versatile material boasting a multitude of different applications, will soon be attributed a far more prominent role - in architecture as well as in design and automotive engineering.

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Ewa Kumlin´s Milan

by Ewa Kumlin

I only caught the tail end of the Salone in Milan this year, so I missed all the parties and the people, BUT I saw a lot and could still feel the hype.

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