The VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron in Weil am Rhein is now open. What is the concept behind the building? And how does its architecture go together with the Vitra Home Collection whose diversity is spread throughout the spectacular stack of buildings?

Erich Mendelsohn refers to it as "charm", Peter Zumthor as "spiritual quality" when architecture creates an atmosphere that appeals to all the senses, when rooms jingle, light dances, and materials and colors are carefully combined.

The automobile manufacturer Audi, in collaboration with Stylepark, has established a competition for the Audi Urban Future Award. In the first year of the competition, six internationally renowned architectural firms will develop scenarios and visions for the city of the future under consideration of issues of mobility. The results will be presented in Venice parallel to the Architecture Biennale.

The Zurich Museum of Design is tackling a tough topic in its show on "Global Design". It sets high standards, but only partially meets them.

At the moment everything produced seems to be committed to being creative. But where, and under what conditions is it possible to work creatively? Is it true that art is still produced in studios? Has our idea of what a studio is fundamentally changed?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In recent years, Paris-based fair Maison & Objet has grown, to the detriment of other fairs. But now it appears that this trend is being reversed.

For the construction of the Paris Philharmonic Georg Ackermann, a company of carpenters, built an acoustic model on a scale of 1:10. In order to be able to simulate what the situation in the concert hall would later be as exactly as possible, it even has a large number of little puppets sitting in the audience wearing noise-absorbing clothing and little caps instead of hair.

No festival of innovations such as is Milan, but then no one would have expected that. All the same, the imm cologne seems to have steadied up despite the crisis. A tour with some of the most interesting company presentations and products.

Even though overall there was a lack of intellectual sparkle and aesthetic flair, the atmosphere in Cologne was astonishingly upbeat. So is imm cologne in the process of consolidating? What are its prospects for the future?

Despite the difficult economic situation, the world's leading textiles trade fair, the Heimtextil in Frankfurt, held steady this year. The focus was less on spectacular innovations and more on strengthening the core business, with a few exceptions, of course.

For Vorwerk Carpets the architect Hadi Teherani creates the new design tile collection „Scale" with visitors to the Passagen program accompanying Cologne furniture fair invited to try out the tiles.

A great many trade fairs and design events await us in the next four months. Stylepark proudly presents the most important among them.

At the beginning of the 1950s, Italian oil company Agip came up with the idea of linking gas station architecture to the company's corporate identity. An exhibition at Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt presents Italy's gas station architecture during the economic recovery of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The imm cologne is held at the beginning of each year. Below you will find a list of the most interesting exhibitors in Cologne.

It is January again and so the venue is Cologne for "imm cologne" and "Passagen". The aim behind the slogan "Creating Spaces" is to breathe new life into a trade fair that in the last few years has become somewhat sluggish and, with the presence of "manufacturers with an affinity for design", to demonstrate a clear market focus. Will this work?

Textiles, and that includes high-tech membranes and foils, have been increasingly gaining significance in contemporary architecture. In "Textile Architecture" Sylvie Krüger presents the most important applications.

In the form of the "Fortune Factory" in Erbach in the Odenwald forest, Koziol recently opened a corporate museum that outlines the company's 80-year-plus history, from its origins as ivory carvers through to the design-keen manufacturer of plastic products.

Many things are different in America. Design, for example. Which is supposed to be good, cheap and something for John Doe. As can be seen from the New York exhibition "Design USA. Contemporary Innovation" that presents the winners of the National Design Award.

In Miami's Viceroy Hotel Philippe Starck has created a spa that flummoxed anyone expecting the reduced Zen aesthetics of many wellness interiors.

TEN! That would be more fitting for the decade and the coming new year. And back with Jim Henson's great numbers films. In our case the special focus is on the number TEN.

The Boston City Hall is one of the most controversial examples of American Brutalism. Once celebrated as avant-garde, today it gets greeted only with scorn - and is gradually falling apart.

Driven by creativity and shaken by diamond fever, Spanish designer Jaime Hayon created the concept for the Kuwait store for the jewelry label "Octium".