Magazin

Just holding its own but lacking in innovation. This would be a reasonable description of this year's "imm Cologne" you might say. "The international furniture fair" as the Cologne event officially calls itself is losing glamour and international flair. If it wants to survive it must become innovative especially in the high-end design segment.

Designer Eric Degenhardt studied architecture, which might be one reason why dealing with space has always been high on his list of priorities. He has also long been interested in parasitic architectures. At the imm in Cologne he presented his mobile unit "Landed" together with Richard Lampert.

What people look for at the fair, but seldom find, is freely available elsewhere. In Ehrenfeld, in the Art Club's exhibition rooms, and in the former Railway Board building, there is plenty going on as part of the "Passagen" - and you'll find more than just young designers there. You'll find improvised kitchens and amusing design.

"And, have you already been to Isfahan and Shiraz?" After asking how you are and where you come from, this is probably the most frequent question you will be asked when visiting Teheran. Since Shiraz is a city of romantic gardens and thus of spring, the winter trip goes to Isfahan, the old capital of the Safawid Empire, a pearl of Islamic architecture and a Persian delight. Indeed, the city's very name has a poetic ring to it: "Oh Is-fa-haaan, oh Is-fa-haaan"

Postmodern architecture is not having an easy time of it at the moment. It is the unloved child which everyone resents, but which is still part of the family. In Frankfurt, too, there is currently a great deal of controversy and divided opinion on what would be the best approach to the architectural relics.

There is a legendary furniture scene in Jacques Tati's 1958 film classic Mon Oncle. The lady of the house gives the neighbor a tour of her modern home and stops in front of a paltry composition of wire chairs. "This is our seating area," she says proudly, and the spectator smiles. For let's be honest, wire furniture is a strenuous contemporary. It inevitably has the dreaded ‘rolled roast effect' on the sitter's derrière.

Jaime Hayon's new monograph in Gestalten Verlag

Each year, every year: Cologne invites everyone to attend imm cologne. For all the recent debate on the future of furniture trade fairs, many will take up the invitation. Simply consult the list of selected manufacturers to found out which exhibitors they are, and where you can find them.

Tips for design lovers at the Cologne Furniture Fair

The old year has gone, and the Cologne furniture fair is about to come. Even if everything that glitters is not gold - we cannot do without Cologne. And so we take the imm in the best sense as an event typified by that Cologne casualness: It always somehow functioned, so it will function this time.

The "defects set" provided by karhard architektur + design is a valuable tool for building inspections, offering with practical advice for dealing with botched-up work - including working off frustration with fun and games.

We spoke to the Managing Director of furnishing and decorating fabric manufacturer Backhausen at "Nutec", the first Cradle to Cradle fair congress in Frankfurt. We discussed how easy or difficult it is to manage sustainability.

Two luminaires. The one soft in terms of material properties, yet cubic and linear as regards the design. The other by contrast with a delicate design but made of firm materials. One by One and Disk by Belux.

The number nine is heading straight for us with the inevitability of the calendar. For an entire year, it will be our constant companion behind a two and two noughts. But what kind of a number is nine? What's it made of?

Sep Ruf's international breakthrough came with the German Pavilion at the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels, co-designed jointly by the architect and Egon Eiermann. For a long time, Ruf's fame was confined to the professional world. Now, a major publication of his work has been published to celebrate the centenary of his birth.

Vacation in Iran. The most frequent reaction to this is the question: "Isn't that rather dangerous?" The simple answer is: No it isn't. In fact, you will most probably meet exceptionally friendly and open-minded people. And be overwhelmed by beautiful mosques and palaces, bazaars and teahouses, gardens, deserts and mountains. A picture story from Iran, starting in Teheran.

Mosaics have been enjoying a renaissance for the past twenty years at least. The beginning of the digital age also marked the start of the triumphal march of the mosaic stone, the smallest element in a complex picture.

During the recent Cologne Orgatec, Claudia Beckmann and Thomas Wagner talked with Antonio Citterio about the office of tomorrow, the relevance of research for the design process, and design's social responsibility.

With white, gold, blue and black, shiny aluminium reflectors they create a variety of light effects. KAP is the name of the new built-in spots from Flos Architectural.

On closer inspection more things in this world than you would initially imagine prove to be translucent - the human skin, plant leaves, paper and even wax. Many creative disciplines have long since been taking advantage of the qualities of transparent materials and make gainful use of the possibilities of specific light modulation, especially in an architectural context.

Strong and light: Carbon is the high-flyer. In product design too and even in times when sustainability should play an ever greater role, the industrial material shows its sensational potential.

All the things you can make from industrial cardboard - the material keeps finding new applications in architecture and design.

Eco-management systems, eco-labels, sustainability certificates – the need for information on ecological aspects of production is growing by the day. Some companies, such as Italian manufacturer Arper, have already pinned proof of the eco-friendliness of their products to their masts.

The term wire mesh initially sounds technical and slightly reserved. However, the possible appearances hiding behind this material are very promising, both in mechanical and aesthetic terms. A picture gallery with selected pieces conveys an idea of the various properties wire mesh can have and how wide its range of possible uses is.

It's all about feelings. That's how great cinema works. Even when the film is about a sink fixture which plays the protagonist in "Karbon Faucet".

They leave everything else in a creative dead-end. CuldeSac, a 17-strong design team from Valencia, works on various interdisciplinary projects, devising both individual products and complete design concepts at once. And there will be even greater demand for this in the future. We visited CuldeSac in their old and new studio.

The winter issue of Stylepark Magazine for Product Culture addresses the current financial and economic crisis and sheds light on its effects on the design industry. It will be available from December 15 from selected newsagents and as a direct subscription.

Down through the years, James Bond has had to endure a lot, has traveled round the world countless times, loved countless women, and overcome at least just as many adversaries. In the course of time, not only have his weapons become more effective, his escape vehicles faster, and his enemies trickier, but Bond himself has morphed. Yet throughout the feel for good design has remained constant.

Once upon a time they wore suits, white or striped shirts, and bow ties. Today architects, and not just them prefer black. Why? You don't know? A small but amusing book offers insights into how the champions of the discipline turn out - even if they avoid black.

Ben van Berkel's "MyChair" has the wherewithal to become a classic, which makes spatial relationships its own.

For those who want to get an idea of the New York art scene of the 1960s or independent American cinema, the films of Jonas Mekas are a must. Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and George Maciunas, he filmed all of them, and in so doing always also told his own story with the camera. For those who have seen his movies, music videos are simply clean, slow and boring. Simply mainstream.

With 'Bodysign', Marc-Jens Biegel has been creating jewellery designs for famous international product designers for the past six years. There have been ten collections so far, all based on an ultra simple yet extremely clever, carefully considered concept.

Last weekend saw the 11th International Architecture Biennial in Venice draw to a close. "Out There: Architecture Beyond Building" was the motto, which tempted people to leave the architecture outside in the cold. To show just how urban thought, the architectural strategies and the design approaches were presented we offer you a few impressions from the country pavilions, the Giardini, and the thematic exhibition in the Arsenale.

The first monograph by Jürgen Mayer H. was published in the autumn. The cover probably already announced a new decorative style - natural numerals in the print colours CMYK reproduced over and over again, which when decoded from a distance turns out to be the Mensa Moltke student dining hall, the work, which made him famous. On the inside of the book, the game of figures and patterns goes on, on a page which separates practice from theory.

Moleskine in the box: The little book is the classic among notebooks, even though everything legendary about it is a marketing ploy. As part of the exhibition "Detour", which has been touring the world for years, 38 specimens were presented at the Museum der Dinge in Berlin - designed by artists, designers and writers.