“Urban farming” takes many shapes – in America’s shrinking cities the new trend toward self-providers shows just how obvious visionary town planning can be.

In Germany we are still busy discussing old "bridging technology". In the Indian Federal State of Gujarat people have long since been trailblazing new ways. Here, you will find thermally powered canteen kitchens and an ashram run on renewable energy supplies.

An exhibition at Château de Boisbuchet is presenting "naked” aluminum objects from Japan, thereby portraying an episode of cultural history and the qualities of anonymous Japanese design.

The work by (interior) designer Francesc Rifé stands out for its clarity and reduction. This is particularly surprising, as if anything, traditional Spanish design is known more for its shrill tones.

Royal Tichelaar Makkum is one of the very oldest companies in the Netherlands. For some years now the family-owned company has been catching the eye with products created by such renowned designers as Hella Jongerius and Studio Makkink & Bey. A book has now appeared describing the porcelain manufactory.

How much are titles, prizes and other distinctions really worth? What some consider a mark of quality is seen by others as a red rag. The Finnish capital Helsinki has been selected as the World Design Capital 2012 – and is definitely worth a visit.

His works seem familiar and strange at once. Martin Brüger makes simple additions to everyday objects. Sometimes the proportions change, then the color effect alters, or a kind of frame is created. Nina Reetzke spoke to the Darmstadt artist about his views on the things that surround us.

From busy images to quiet ones to wild games with letters – the work featured in a competition, "100 best posters", gladdens the eye and makes the heart beat a little faster.

Designs by young designers are currently on display in Villa Noailles. With the help of craftsmanship Jean-Baptiste Fastrez,for example, restores individuality to industrial kettles. And Brynjar Sigurdarson has created a luminaire that at one and the same time is reminiscent of a brush, a torch, and a magic wand.

French designer Inga Sempé is one of the most interesting phenomena in the current design scene. Nancy Jehmlich talked with her about the status design has in France, about her experience with manufacturers, about expensive and cheap products, and about her favorite places in Paris.

When the discussion turns to contemporary design, few people in Germany necessarily think of India. In Ahmedabad, the descendant of an ancient textile empire is working hard to change this.

In our current Stylepark Magazine for Product Culture we address the transient and fleeting nature of life – with temporary buildings, compostable materials and Japanese packaging design.

In several of the pavilions and works of the 54th Venice Art Biennial we can see a return from the image to the space and thus to the incompressible here-and-now.

It would seem that the topic of the “nation” has by no means been exhausted – and this is true of the Venice Biennial, too. Nationality continues to play a major role in answering the questions of who is allowed membership and who is condemned to remain on the move. Examples from the Roma Pavilion and the disturbing photographic oeuvre of Hsieh Chun-Te from Taiwan show this most clearly.

It is well known that copycat versions of design objects cause high economic losses. That said, at universities copying is still considered a practical principle in learning. The upshot of this may be surprising – even pirate copies can sometimes lead to new insights.

In no less than three country pavilions, artists use opera and song as a means of discussing and criticizing the state of the world. In the Icelandic pavilion this takes the form of a criticism of European immigration policies, in the Hungarian pavilion music represents a metaphor for the crisis in post-communist Hungary, while in the Dutch pavilion opera acts as a model for teamwork in the nation.

The Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (MMK), is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a major exhibition, which is being held not only in museum itself.

We have always known that Germans love cars. We can only conjecture what kind of fantasies surround the cult object. The exhibition “Fetisch Auto. Ich fahre, also bin ich” (Car fetish – I drive, therefore I am) in Basle provides an insight into the visual images surrounding what is actually a pretty functional object.

Greetings from Legoland: The NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf is showcasing an exhibition about containers, which reveals just how much enthusiasm there currently is in the architecture scene for transportation vessels such as these, but also how thoroughly the beautiful new world of standardized architecture ignores individuality and local circumstances.

Mike Nelson has assembled a labyrinth in the British pavilion. It could be the product of our fantasy or equally exist in Istanbul – and it certainly undermines our notions of time, place and action.

Over the past few years several crossover projects between fashion and furniture have attracted much attention. Together, G-Star Raw and Vitra are sounding out the furniture cosmos of Jean Prouvé. The "Prouvé Raw" collection is a successful homage to the French designer.

At previous biennials, you could have safely passed up visiting the Egyptian pavilion, as all they staged were pro-regime shows that did not seem to fit in an artistic context. However, following the unrest in the Middle East, a revolution is also taking place in the Arab art world – as Ahmed Basiony's videos demonstrate.

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.

At Design Miami Basel above all countless classics were on show. But anyone who managed to make their way past all the Jean Prouvés, Bauhaus, Mid Century Modern and Art Deco found contemporary design by the likes of Pierre Charpin and Max Lamb waiting to be discovered.

In the Belgian pavilion Angel Vergara takes on electronic media and the newstreams they produce. As a painter, employing a range of painting styles, he seeks to defend himself against the flood of moving images.

Already ahead of the show, the decision by Biennial Director Bice Curiger to incorporate a 16th-century Venetian artist into her exhibition concept sparked controversy. And now the time has come: Contemporary art is no longer alone in the Padiglione Centrale. Is this bridging of several centuries a clever move by the curator?

Seldom was there are clearer art divide at the Venice Biennial than that this year between the advocates and the opponents of Christoph Schlingensief’s German pavilion, on which the chiseled “Germania” has been painted over with the words “Egomania”, alluding to a Schlingensief film of 1986.

“Crystal of Resistance” is the title artist Thomas Hirschhorn has given to his work for the Swiss pavilion at the Biennial. But what exactly is the deal with this crystal and resistance?

Outside the US pavilion the tank tracks rattle. No worries. Venice hasn’t been occupied by the US Army. Rather, outside and inside the pavilion artist duo Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla explore the interrelationship of body, politics and power.

Since the beginning of this year, Marianne Goebl, has been the new Director of Design Miami/Basel. Soon the design trade fair will open its doors in conjunction with Art Basel – at which point at the latest it will become apparent what new marks the marketing specialist has successfully made on the fair – after all, she’s someone who loves to move between the various design disciplines.

Markus Schinwald imagines being the forger of images that never existed. The portraits in prim living-room size on display in the Austrian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennial all come from the 19th century. And he simply added what they lacked in order to offer a contemporary image of man, that prosthetic God. Using retouched strings, fabric, rings and chains, the bodies are readied for the salon.

Outside his home country few know of Kim Swoo Geun, yet in South Korea he is considered one of the founders of architectural Modernism. A show in Berlin's Galerie Aedes curated by South Koreans offers everyone a chance to study the designs for the structures such as the Kyung Dong Church more closely.

"Copy/Culture" formed one of the focal points at this year's DMY Berlin. Luckily, there was more to see than just replica, namely a great deal of products, prototypes and designs too.

Clattering tank tracks, any number of pigeons and a church for a dead artist: the Venice art biennial is once again a spectacular show. But this time much is far too sensitive, dripping in pathos and, despite there being several good pieces, essentially too harmless. Which begs the question: where is the international art world heading?