Magazin

It is Hannes Wettstein's former desk that is attracting particular attention at the exhibition currently being held at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule – ETH). The found objects and equipment on display there show the Swiss industrial designer, who died in 2008, to have been an inspired and inspiring person. It is definitely a good thing that all of the sum total of 347 projects he is recorded as having made have for the first time been extensively documented in an exhibition and catalog.

When, at the beginning of the 1950s, the federal government launched the first initiatives for the promotion of design, the world of consumer goods was still modest and those in charge of the official competitions had understood their assignment. Today, three major internationally-oriented competitions dominate the arena in Germany. The event organizers make a good profit and each year the participating manufacturers are able to look upon their accolades with pride. Yet the orientation-giving function of such awards for both the end-consumer and participants seems to be hanging in the balance.

The "German Design Award" is being hotly debated. A new and independent concept, or just an old thing in new wrapping? Jörg Zimmermann asked Andrej Kupetz, CEO of the German Design Council, what he thought.

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.

Heavy, solid materials, sturdy designs, massively muscular buildings – the current issue of Stylepark Magazine for Product Culture focuses on the issue of “the enduring”.

MaterialicaInternational Design Alliance Congress in TaipehDesigners' OpenCologne Design Prize Conserving digital artworks

A great many Western artists, designers and architects have looked to Japan for inspiration for their works. Bruno Taut spent three and a half years in Japan and during that time wrote numerous treatises, which were recently published in German for the first time. The Katsura Imperial Villa, for instance, was in Taut's eyes the perfect expression of a refined form of Modernism that had been carefully thought through down to the very last detail.

The Palast der Republik in Berlin may no longer exist, but documentation of its demolition does. Christian von Steffelin captured the stages of its destruction on camera. His photos can now be appraised in a commendable illustrated book.

The news of Steve Jobs' death was not unexpected, and yet it came suddenly. While the official notice on the Apple homepage is very short, the articles that seem, to pop up by the minute in the Internet are anything but that. Read on for a selection of articles that emphasize precisely the design achievements of Steve Jobs and Apple.

At this time of year, the Spanish city of Valencia offers prime climatic conditions for a relaxed, short break to visit to the Design Week. But does that mean you have leave all of your clothes at home?

Things are happening in the materials field. No less than a green revolution is on the agenda. Hardly surprising that there is currently a large number of books about material. One that can be particularly recommended is Sascha Peter's reference book "Material Revolution" about multi-functional and sustainable materials.

The Vienna Design Week is busy tempting people to visit the Austrian capital. The multifaceted program is very persuasive and of special note are the "Paths of the Passion". Long-standing manufactories present projects with young designers, such as Philippe Malouin, Tomás Alonso or Bezaproject.

London, Vienna, Beijing – at the moment there is one design week after the other. As London is still considered a design metropolis, it is worth visiting the city on this occasion. Even if the trade fair "100% Design" is becoming increasingly uninteresting, the fringe events in the city were once again impressive.

Architecture and Design Month in New YorkWild Wild West – Young architects from BelgiumPaulo Mendes da Rocha in BrusselsSelf-Publishing Book Fair for Design and ArtUrbanized

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.

Tomás Saraceno’s “Cloud Cities” currently occupy Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof as if they were some utopia. Yet many of the seemingly spaceless and timeless spheres are there not just to be seen, but to be entered. While these transparent structures are fascinating from the inside and the outside, the exhibition as a whole does not succeed in more closely defining Saraceno’s artistic position. Yet it’s certainly worth a visit.

Ship-like modules for housing, recreation and provision go far beyond the common conceptions of a house-boat idyll. In their book “Float”, Dutchmen Koen Olthuis and David Keuning present the potential for floating buildings.

Data protection patterns, and columns of numbers and letters without their content spelling a meaning, form the basis of "Rapport", an intervention by architect Jürgen Mayer H. at Berlinische Galerie. Outsized the symbols spread across the floor and walls to form an "experimental spatial structure".

Iceland and Architecture? Architecture Film Festival Frankfurter Book Fair Specialist convention on the city of tomorrow Design with the Other 90%: Cities Dutch Design Week

“Maniera Moderna” at Haus der Kunst in Munich is dedicated to the multi-faceted oeuvre of Italian architect, designer and photographer Carlo Mollino. The exhibition is not the first to address the Turin polymath’s remarkable oeuvre. But it is certainly the most ambitious, as it focuses on Mollino’s oeuvre as a whole.

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.

They have been fueling automotive advancement for around 100 years now: gas stations. In Christof Vieweg's informative and richly illustrated book "Volltanken bitte!" we discover that the first gas station was a pharmacy, which brands were once sold, when certain architectural models emerged and what particularly attractive stations look like.

Qubique - A new furniture fair in Berlinneue räume 11 - Furniture show in ZurichBuilding with Timber - Exhibition in MunichTerence Conran - The Way We Live Now Graft - Distinct Ambiguity

Directly prior to the beginning of the 64th IAA International Motor Show in Frankfurt, the first “Audi Urban Future Summit” was held at The Squaire at Frankfurt Airport, curated by Stylepark. International experts from a variety of disciplines spent the day discussing Tag possible approaches to mobility in the cities of tomorrow.

Mottos, slogans, brand claims and ad lines – on the stands at the 64th IAA international motor show you can read the one or other pithy sentence, and the one or other piece of nonsense. We’ve compiled the best of the best and worst for you.

Crisis, what crisis. At the 64th IAA international motor show, the industry is looking to the future with confidence. So how exactly do the designers think the auto of tomorrow will look? You can get an idea by casting a glance at the trade-fair orchestrations and the latest concept cars.

When developing new models today, existing parameters play the central role: What will be defined by statutory norms and regulations, today and tomorrow? What strategies do manufacturers and their individual brands pursue? Here is a small selection of concepts and studies which were often primarily concerned with changing notions of convenience and usage.

+++ Modernism in Miniature ++++++ Exhibiting Design +++ +++ Eames Words ++++++ Exhibition on Hannes Wettstein ++++++ Rethinking Mies +++

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?

In mid-September the 64th IAA, the International Car Show, opens for business in Frankfurt. Alongside new drive technologies, today design is crucial for the success of a new model. So what are the car designers’ preferences and methods? Ten hypotheses on the current state of play.

Traffic in China is steadily on the increase. Naturally, you find cars, mopeds and buses there, too but everything works just a little differently. Car hooters sound like house buzzers, for example and taxi drivers cannot read maps.

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.

+++ Helsinki Design Week ++++++ Vienna Design Week +++ +++ Tomás Saraceno: Cloud Cities ++++++ Exhibition about the architect Ernst Neufert ++++++ Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 ++++++ 24th World Congress of Architecture in Tokyo +++