Technocrats make the world a duller place

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Oh, if only we could walk through ebony peacock gates and enter florally decorated, elegant high-rise palaces

by Claus Richter

Where everything centers on being youthful today what is our attitude to Art Nouveau? Is it as young and new as the name claims and as Adorno admonished nothing but “puberty declared as a permanent state”? Has it become a dream world far removed from our box culture? Or is it making a cinematic return?

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Nodes: Rietveld and the revolution of space –<br>part 1

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The lecturers and their masterful buildings

by Ralf Wollheim

As an historical institution Bauhaus may be known across the globe yet its profile remains unusually vague all the same. No wonder. After all there were three different colleges, in three different locations with three different directors. A new travel book now attempts to draw a detailed map of the school’s checkered history.

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News & Stories | Scandinavian Design ‒ Sturdy comes first?

Reviving Danish furniture classics

by Armin Scharf

Sometimes they use original plan, other times they rely on an aged furniture item – Erling and Egon Petersen, two brothers from Ormslev, Denmark go to endless lengths in their quest to breathe new life into an original design from the previous century.

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Popcorn in the museum

by Thomas Edelmann

For people already familiar with Apple, there are not likely to be many surprises in the exhibition “Stylectrical – von Elektrodesign, das Geschichte schreibt” (Stylectrical – on history-making, electrical design) at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Hamburg. It is a bit like going to the movies with mountains of popcorn. It does leaves nobody any the wiser but some people come away with a pleasant feeling.

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The American friend

by Nora Sobich

In the 1950s, architect Benjamin Thompson brought European design to the United States. His "Design Research" company thereupon became legendary. Nora Sobich talked to Jane Thompson, the architect's widow, in Boston.

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How the gods live

by Amelie Znidaric

Even the architecture gods of classical Modernism are only people, each in his own way. This can be seen -- and smelled - from the houses they lived in. A visit to the Eames House near Los Angeles and to Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan.

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Paradise with a dotted snake

by Nina Reetzke

The two Eames, George Nelson and Alexander Girard not only worked together on joint design projects, but were also close friends for decades. However, in the public eye, prints designer Alexander Girard has always been in the shadow of his colleagues. One more reason to take a closer look at his oeuvre.

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Too much design? Or simply the wrong one?

by Thomas Edelmann

With his book "Total design" Mateo Kries, Chief Curator and future director at Vitra Design Museum in Weil/Rhine, has critically assessed the new and supposedly exaggerated role of design.

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Addio to Ettore Sottsass

by Peter Weiß

Ettore Sottsass died in his home in Milan aged 90 on the very last day of 2007. Not only in Italy, and not only in the world of design and architecture are people mourning the loss of a designer of genius, as the world has lost a great humanist. For Sottsass, who construed design as the incessant search for a possible metaphor of existence, the search has come to a dramatic end.

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News & Stories

A chair of distinction

by Markus Frenzl

Plastic Chairs for all! How one 1950s chair design became an expression of the desire for individuality that shapes our times.

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News & Stories | Orgatec 2012

From our stone-age ancestors to office nomads

by Milenka Thomas

This year, PearsonLloyd took Orgatec, the specialist office & facility trade fair, to present a number of new additions to the “Parcs” and “Docklands” collections by Bene. They have now created a GIF animation demonstrating the potential of these new office typologies to change our way of working and our notion of the perfect office to boot.

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Constellations: Rietveld and the revolution of space – part 2

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Forging a new world

by Thomas Edelmann

Ingo Maurer, Enzo Mari, Eero Aarnio – they all belong to a group of designers who were born in 1932 and by tenaciously advancing their own ideas have succeeded in creating sensational works. A consideration of the 1932 designers.

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News & Stories

Matter of honor

by Sandra Gottwald

Founded in 1954, the Compasso d' Oro is the oldest and most renowned design prize the world over – although it exclusively promoted design Made in Italy.

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The splash of color did nothing more than get on Spiegel employees’ nerves

by Thomas Edelmann

Verner Panton once caused quite a stir with his psychedelic design for “Spiegel’s” offices. While parts of the “Spiegel Cafeteria” will soon feature in Hamburg’s Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, the “Spiegel” unveils its new, illustrious office building designed by architectural firm Henning Larsen – this time the Ippolito Fleitz Group has handled the restaurant’s interior design.

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Patterns à la Prouvé

by Sandra Hofmeister

Over the past few years several crossover projects between fashion and furniture have attracted much attention. Together, G-Star Raw and Vitra are sounding out the furniture cosmos of Jean Prouvé. The "Prouvé Raw" collection is a successful homage to the French designer.

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Perfectly staged

by Meret Ernst

What is more important, the product or the image that remains of it? The exhibition “Zoom” at the Vitra Design Museum focuses on design photography. Down through the decades, Aldo and Marirosa Ballo recorded the buoyant course of Italian design.

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The world is a sculpture

by Amelie Znidaric

Isamu Noguchi was the first artist and designer in America to open his own museum. This was a good thing - because the premises in 33rd Road perfectly reflect his design philosophy.

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Credit where credit’s due

by Nina Reetzke

Weighing in at eight hundred pages in length, "The Story of Eames Furniture" indeed makes a promising impression. A variety of historical images showing Charles and Ray Eames, the Eames Office itself as well as legendary products such as the Lounge Chair, are a feast for the reader's eyes. Unfortunately, however, in places the book's content appears to be strongly influenced by the authors' subjective perspective on design history.

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Mushrooms for the salon of the bourgeoisie
In memory of Pierre Paulin

by Sandra Hofmeister

Mushrooms for the salon of the bourgeoisie <BR>In memory of Pierre Paulin

He created seating buds, mushrooms for the home and incomparable interiors. Pierre Paulin's upbeat creations have had a significant influence on design history. They are as alive as ever today. The visionary French interior designer died at the age of 81 last Saturday.

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