INTERVIEWS Rethinking surfaces12/5/2013Jürgen Mayer H. is the brain behind the extraordinary surface designs set to catch the eye at “Innovations@Domotex", on show as part of the upcoming Domotex. Oliver G. Hamm chatted with the Berlin-based architect about exhibition architecture and the impact the 1970s have had on his creative work.
ARCHITECTURE On hold – The intangible legacy of the past decade12/4/2013The 2008 crisis resulted in a large number of planning operations being suspended. Will the pre-crisis boom go down in the annals of history as an aberration, or prove only to be a precursor of things to come?
FAIRS & EVENTS Floor studies engaging the senses12/3/2013For a long time floors attracted little attention, if any. Thankfully, those days are over. Things are looking up in the world of flooring. Which is great news, and not just for the eye.
DESIGN Presents, presents12/1/2013You know the ins and outs of design and architecture? Then take part in our special Stylepark Christmas Contest. Be it chairs, luminaires, or living room accessories – this year there are once again any number of great prizes to be won.
INTERVIEWS Carpet design as the pinnacle12/1/2013Steffen Kehrle has landed on the floor. Or the carpet, to be precise. For “Flooring Deluxe”, the special exhibition at this year’s Domotex, the designer teamed up with Dura and together they produced creations that call to mind the paintings by Jackson Pollock. In conversation with Nora Khereddine, Kehrle explains why this collaboration is here to stay.
FAIRS & EVENTS São Paulo: Using city, making city11/29/2013Instead of foregrounding architects and architecture, the X. São Paulo Architecture Biennale addresses the cities and transforms the Brazilian metropolis itself into one gigantic exhibition space. Our author Isabel Martinez Abascal set off for Stylepark and visited the Biennial sites, discovering many controversial city views along the way.
INTERVIEWS Grasping carpets11/29/2013Domotex, second time. For the next round in January Stefan Diez is back on board. This time as the chairman of the jury of the newly-created “Innovations@Domotex” platform. The Munich-based designer chats here about his renewed involvement, the oohs and aahs of floor coverings, and his preference for made-to-fit, hand-made carpets.
ART Over-the-counter masterpieces11/27/2013A year ago Amsterdam’s Rijksmusum launched its Rijksstudio, an online platform that allows users to download images of the museum's artworks for free and edit them at will. Sellout or seductive?
ARCHITECTURE Beautiful homes rising from the dust11/24/2013Neat glossy pictures of gorgeous buildings and smart interiors shape the face of architecture in today’s media age. But if you take the plunge and treat your house or apartment to a makeover, you will soon find yourself confronted with noise, dust, dirt – and those who cause it.
FAIRS & EVENTS New threads and colors11/22/2013At Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg you can admire how artistic woven and knotted products can be – and how they can grace installations, canvases and house façades. The “Art & Textiles” exhibition featuring works from Beuys to Richter is more than merely another thread in the argument.
FEATURED The communicative office11/21/2013Crucial to the office world of today is an inviting ambience and direct communication routes, as were realized by local.ch for its new facility in Zurich, using furniture by Lista Office LO.
DESIGN Functional, with style11/20/2013The “to-go” mentality of today’s globalized world calls for fashion that affords maximum freedom of movement and stylistic diversity. Couturiers at the summer 2014 “Sport Couture” thus presented zestful color combinations and unusual material mixes. Part 2 of our catwalk analysis.
INTERVIEWS Battle of innovations11/19/2013Domotex is set to undergo yet another makeover in 2014. At the press conference for the new concept Robert Volhard spoke with Jochen Köckler, Board Member at Deutsche Messe AG, about trade fairs and “Innovations@Domotex”, the new communications program Deutsche Messe AG has co-developed with Stylepark.
DESIGN Certainties – shaken, not stirred11/17/2013In his discerning but chatty volume, Michael Erlhoff draws our attention to the potential and ideas innate in design. A book for anyone who views aesthetic debate as something more than just a matter of theoretical edification.
FAIRS & EVENTS The pattern that connects11/13/2013Patterns, once shunned by Modernism, have long since become ubiquitous in art, architecture and design. A noteworthy exhibition in Lingen explores the question what makes patterns so attractive in all these fields – and why they are so easy on the eyes.
FEATURED Google Docks11/12/2013All the colors of the rainbow – in Google’s new Dublin premises the shades of the familiar logo dominate the interior, which features furniture from Pedrali.
ART A panoramic view – with obstructions11/10/2013Imagine roadblocks, barbed wire obstacles and sandbag barricades against a backdrop of deserted ruins: A leading member of Magnum Photos, Josef Koudelka took his panoramic camera to document the landscape along the route of the barrier that separates Israel and Palestine. His latest volume “The Wall” presents these images in an album that is as somber as it is impressive.
ARCHITECTURE Prêt-à-porter living11/8/2013Turning the crisis into an opportunity: Spain’s architects are discovering prefab homes as a cost-efficient and attractive alternative. With their transportable miniature dwellings Madrid firms “Abaton” and “Sistema Modulab” are spearheading this new trend.
ARCHITECTURE New found design11/6/2013On a rocky outcrop of Newfoundland, where there’s nothing between you and the Artic, the Fogo Island Inn has since May of this year proved that good design can foster tourism and thus create jobs.
ARCHITECTURE MEGALOPOLI(TIC)S11/6/2013Cities are the main arena in which globalization takes physical form. So far the city has failed to register as a political entity in its own right. A pleading for the world as an archipelago of city-states.
FEATURED Banking in South Africa11/5/2013Allen International is the brain behind what could quite easily become the “bank branch of the future”: The planning consultants opted for interactive displays, computer terminals and a meticulously planned lighting concept boasting luminaires from Reggiani.
ARCHITECTURE See you at the bus stop11/3/2013The small village of Krumbach in Austria’s Vorarlberg region provides the stage for seven of architecture’s biggest names, including Wang Shu und Sou Fujimoto, to put their ideas of what goes to make a perfect bus shelter into practice. The first “Wartehüsle”, as the Austrians call it, has already been put up.
ARCHITECTURE Hallingdal and its successors11/1/2013What would Verner Panton’s furniture be like without the bright fabrics from Kvadrat? From the very outset, the Danes collaborated closely with designers to create striking highlights. Now there’s a book describing the company, which is one of the world’s leading makers of home textiles today. A glance behind the scene.
ARCHITECTURE Schoolyard hitting it BIG10/30/2013Bjarke Ingels Group architectural firm (or BIG for a not exactly modest acronym) also succeeds on the small scale. For a school complex in Hellerup nr. Copenhagen the architects dug deep to sink a new gym into the grounds of the old schoolyard. A walkable gigantic sculpture is the result.
ARCHITECTURE Swing to work10/27/2013When “NL Architects” redesigned the “NS Stations” Headquarters in Utrecht then also reinvented the working culture there. The individual office cells morphed into a well-thought out, deadpan and charming office environment.
INTERVIEWS Air does as it likes10/25/2013Be it appealing street paintings, opulent façade décor or surrealist staircases, for Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann public space is one large playground. The Swiss artist duo chats to Özlem Özdemir.
ART Thawing the ice of the Inca City10/23/2013Mars, the Red Planet and the Earth’s neighbor in the Solar System, has long inspired human imagination. Now, for the first time, a fascinating book of incredibly high quality photographs gives us the chance to see its barren surface in detail.
ART Stillness in the real world10/20/2013Hitherto creative types have tended to consider self-help books a waste of time. But that is about to change. Frank Berzbach has written a small book about the “Kunst ein kreatives Leben zu führen” (The art of living a creative life), which looks at how a creative person might achieve a state of Zen in their everyday life.
ARCHITECTURE Making German cities a better place10/18/2013The book “Wir bauen Deutschland” paints the portraits of 40 urban planners in public or political offices. An unusual and long-awaited glance behind the scenes of urban planning institutions.