Swedish heights This year, and despite the economic crisis, the Stockholm furniture fair has consolidated its leading position in the Scandinavian market. And looks like emerging as a real alternative to Cologne and Paris.

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Ambiente revisited This year, nothing at the Frankfurt consumer goods fair Ambiente is the way it was. And a good thing, too.

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More than the sum of little houses Expectations were very high when Herzog & de Meuron were commissioned to build the domicile for Vitra's Home Collection in Weil am Rhein. The VitraHaus has now been completed and it is astonishing. The array of houses stacked one on top of the other is much more than just the sum of little houses.

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The end of Droog Object Rotterdam, the "autonomous design" trade fair, which was held for the second time at the beginning of February, featured in some cases surprising quality: the post-Droog generation of designers would appear to be far more earnest.

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Fretting our way into the future 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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Indian Art in London The new show of the Saatchi Gallery in London which has just opened is "The Empire strikes back - Indian Art today" presents young art from India, once a British Crown Colony and today the world's largest democracy.

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Architecture en miniature In Munich, at an exhibition entitled "Architekturchen" Ingo Maurer is presenting surprising works by Italian design star Michele de Lucchi. They show how working with wood can trigger new thought processes and inspire new ideas.

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Tear down the old to welcome the new? Investors and developers usually have their problems with our aesthetic heritage, especially as the cycles of rejection and appreciation in architecture are unlike those in fashion or design. All the same, the discussion on 1960s architecture is currently growing, becoming more vocal and more differentiated.

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The fun theory Does the world simply change or can it be changed? For example by changing people's behavior? In Sweden advertising shows that neither being determines consciousness nor does consciousness determine being, but rather fun determines our behavior.

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The hidden beauty in the loop The light bulb was once perceived as too bright by many. Today, the purportedly unseemly compact fluorescent lamp tends likewise to be hidden beneath most luminaire designs. With "Koi", Naoto Fukasawa has been the first designer to create an office luminaire series that emphasizes the unpopular lamp's intrinsic and aesthetic beauty.

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Not something that passes by In the works by Swedish design group "Front" the divides are blurred. After all, what you see is not always what you feel. During the Cologne furniture fair the magazine Architektur&Wohnen and Audi awarded the "A&W Designer of the Year" prize. Nancy Jehmlich talked to the designers about animals as designers, good design, and working as a threesome.

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