Design

Georg-Christof Bertsch, Honorary Professor for Intercultural Design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach, warns designers against making a laughing stock of themselves by striving to be auxiliary artists. It is in fact the increasing complexity of industrial design as a profession itself that is presenting the challenges facing this sector today.

Of course, Coca-Cola, Campbell’s Tomato Soup and Zippo lighters are familiar even to Europeans. But have you heard of Lasko’s “Box Fan”, the “Snuggie” fleece blanket or “Little Red Wagon” for kids? If not, then it’s high time for an excursion into the wonderful world of American consumer goods.

Evidently Friedrich von Borries has the one or other problem with bananas. That being so it cannot harm to read exactly what the fruit has to do with design, low sensations and art – and which concept of design will pop out of the banana skin in the end.

Are teachers who are themselves barely able to lay claim to noteworthy practical experience in design in a position to train others? This is a question that has been raised by Egon Chemaitis, retired Professor of Design Foundations at Universität der Künste Berlin. He cites four reasons, which from his point of view have contributed to the shift in design education in the direction of art.

"Is design becoming the auxiliary of art?" Thomas Edelmann asked in an article in the Stylepark Magazine where he debated the practice of design training at art academies. Among other things, he specifically addressed current changes at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts. Friedrich von Borries was prompted by the article to outline his ideas on design.

New trends in teaching and curricula are influencing future design. In Hamburg design is now only part of art courses. At other art academies, it is becoming a marginal subject. But there's no sign of designers putting up a fight.

Shortly before imm cologne opens its doors, the magazine A&W has elected its "Designer of the Year". A quite extraordinary designer has been chosen this year in the person of Patricia Urquiola who has changed the face of middle-class interiors to a greater extent than almost anyone else in the field.

Euro 60 million for a collection plus the cost of investing in a building: Why on earth is the Chinese city of Hangzhou buying an extensive Bauhaus collection and building a special museum to house it in on the Design Campus?

Modular, flexible and adaptable – multi-functional appears to be the buzzword for the furniture of our times. Yet there are in fact few interior design solutions that warrant the title “multi-functional”.

The legendary exhibition “Italy – The New Domestic Landscape” held in New York’s MoMA in 1972 was devoted to the work of Italian designers. To this day, the catalog accompanying the exhibition has been highlighting a creative stance that took social responsibility as second nature. Consequently, many of the issues debated are still surprisingly topical for today’s generation of designers.

At the age of 32 Richard Buckminster Fuller faced disaster: He was bankrupt and his infant daughter had just died. Instead of giving up, he resolved henceforth only to do things that were destined to help mankind as a whole. The fruits of his intentions are now on show at Marta Herford.

Crisis or no crisis, Greece's landscapes not only enchant the locals, but countless tourists, too. Yet there is more to the country than beautiful beaches and olive groves. Have you ever counted the Monobloc chairs on your vacation snaps?

The Monobloc chair is considered the epitome of mass furniture. For long treated derogatorily, recently a series of designers have focused firmly on it. The publication on "220°C Virus Monobloc" sheds light on all facets of this realignment.

Isamu Noguchi was the first artist and designer in America to open his own museum. This was a good thing - because the premises in 33rd Road perfectly reflect his design philosophy.

With his book "Total design" Mateo Kries, Chief Curator and future director at Vitra Design Museum in Weil/Rhine, has critically assessed the new and supposedly exaggerated role of design.

In the 1930s, Charlotte Perriand was convinced that it was necessary to fight for a better future. Not only did she strive for new forms in design, but she also sought to improve social conditions through design and architecture. She employed large photo collages on which she had applied layers of writing to communicate her political and social messages. The Museum of Design in Zurich is now holding an exhibition dedicated to these works.

Experiments with materials, poetry and diversity are typical for the work of Atelier Oï. Projects for all over the world evolve at their new base, a former motel in La Neuveville.

The world is so full of useful things that they easily escape our notice. Konstantin Grcic's current exhibition "Design Real" at London's Serpentine Gallery directs our attention in innovative and insightful fashion at a particularly intriguing corner of the vast realm of the useful, one where technical innovation and iconic power are held in artful balance.

Shop window decoration by artists and designers have a long-standing tradition. Now Tokujin Yoshioka has created an installation for Maison Hermès in Tokyo that plays superbly with the power of images.

There's no escaping the impression that designers, engineers and ad men like to be seen as artists. Yet experience shows that art does not sit easy with the advertising world, which rarely produces anything other than bland me-too's.

The era of the energy-saving lamp has begun. But is it even ready for its new tasks? Many have in recent months warned about the health risks, even environmental associations are sceptical whether the energy savings are great and as regards disposal of the lamp as waste. And with reference to its design, it is not just a matter of taste, but also of drastic consequences for everyday culture and design.

He created seating buds, mushrooms for the home and incomparable interiors. Pierre Paulin's upbeat creations have had a significant influence on design history. They are as alive as ever today. The visionary French interior designer died at the age of 81 last Saturday.

While once we had spas, these days we have wellness temples. At these oases of wellbeing contemporary man sacrifices his vices on the altar of health. But as the author T.C. Boyle reveals he should not be too ill.

Concrete curtains, synthetic paper bags, knitted fabric seat covers - new materials inspire new products.

Construction

Iittala, a leading, Scandinavian design brand for homeware products, has opened a new flagship store in Berlin.

Alongside Charles and Ray Eames, designer and architect George Nelson rates as one of the formative representatives of American design in the second half of the 20th century. He would have turned 100 this year - an occasion which the Vitra Design Museum has seized to devote a first, comprehensive retrospective to his oeuvre.

In the beginning there was the wing chair. Today it is available in many materials and versions, and it certainly looks as though they are exponentially increasing: Sofas and armchairs with high backrests. A little hideaway from the cold and the noise of the outside world, which more and more people are beginning to appreciate.

It is with great sadness and shock that we learned of the death of architect and designer Hannes Wettstein.

Ettore Sottsass died in his home in Milan aged 90 on the very last day of 2007. Not only in Italy, and not only in the world of design and architecture are people mourning the loss of a designer of genius, as the world has lost a great humanist. For Sottsass, who construed design as the incessant search for a possible metaphor of existence, the search has come to a dramatic end.

When an international chemical conglomerate, an Italian furniture manufacturer and a German designer collaborate on the development of new materials and their application then legends are born. For example the new plastic cantilever chair "Myto".

On the death of Dino Gavina, one of the last "great masters" of Italian design. Typical somehow, the tardiness in writing about the death of one of Italy's really greatest designers. All the more Dino Gavina retreated from the public eye in the last decades, all the less was published on his sudden death on April 6.

"MYTO", a fully synthetic cantilever-based chair was created in what has been an unparalleled cooperation between a designer, a furniture manufacturer and an industrial corporation.

NASA-Experimente und andere Lichtspiele mit Achille Castiglioni

A book has been published just in time for the Milan Furniture Fair - on the oeuvre of Ludovica + Roberto Palomba.