Archive

Jürgen 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.

The 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?

For 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.

Steffen 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.

Instead 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.

Domotex, 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.

A 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?

Neat 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.

At 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.

The “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.

Domotex 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.

In 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.

Patterns, 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.

Imagine 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.

Turning 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.