He is one of the figureheads of design and was always surrounded by a cluster of the greats of his trade. Without producer Dino Gavina, the international success of Italian design would have been inconceivable. His self-image was manifest on his visiting card, on which was printed: "Dino Gavina. Sovversivo". A Portrait of a Subversive.

The Italian furniture company Estel not only stands for a long family tradition. For generations it has also developed a good nose for the right design decisions. It was not until last year that Estel extended its empire to include five additional brands, including Dino Gavina's company "Simon". Ute Diehl met the company's President Alberto Stella and asked him what it means to adopt Gavina's legacy and take it forward into the future.

Concrete is by no means simply gray and monotonous. Recent years have seen the development of numerous new concretes that reveal the various uses to which it can be put.

The new Material Edition will showcase many other types of concrete including, for example, glass-foam concrete, translucent concrete, colored and recycled concrete. Be inspired by the sheer wealth of possible uses!

In fall 2008 Chris Bangle and Frank Barkow ran a workshop at Harvard Graduate School of Design based on Gina technology, a flexible outer skin, which produced astonishing results and creates totally new Utopias in which to live and reside.

Concrete is the epitome of the Neues Bauen movement and linked inseparably to Modernism. Yet despite the multifarious opportunities for use it still has a hard time being perceived in terms of its aesthetic qualities as well.

Richard Avedon (1923 to 2004) is one of the 20th century's most famous fashion photographers and portrait makers. Schirmer/Mosel have now published a fascinating illustrated book entitled "Avedon Fashion", which presents a selection of fashion photographs from six decades.

The new "La Diva" tile series by Villeroy & Boch truly lives up to its name. Opulent, playful and exclusive, it embodies a blend of styles that spans cultures and epochs -and is thus far more contemporary than we may initially think.

How would we build if we could build how we liked? What would our cities look like, would our submerged dreams come true? Marjetica Potrč offers us answers - in a light and playful way in the Arsenale, Venice.

Many of Arne Jacobsen's furniture designs were originally developed for special architectural projects. The Swan Chair is just one prime example. Perhaps because swans have often inspired the human imagination, the chair's sculptural quality comes into play in many locations.

He is more than just a man in the wings who provides the technology and experience. Not until he has developed a functioning model can the design process begin. A portrait of Egon Bräuning, long-standing Head of Development at Vitra.

Are electric drives more a PR campaign than a serious alternative? What is currently being treated as the future face of automobility has already been around for some time. Electric cars have as yet, however, been able to establish themselves. For several reasons.

The London fair 100% Design might be going through a bad patch but the city itself has a number of interesting things to see in the realm of design, art and architecture.

Design is more than just providing styling, and the look of a car is more than just pretty wraps for it. But do the ad agencies know this, too?

Thomas Demand' works appear to hover in the glass display case that is Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Yet that impression is deceiving, as so foten do his photographs. Under the title "Nationalgalerie" (national gallery) the artist uses curtain fabric hung freely from the ceiling and provided by the Danish company Kvadrat to showcase works whose theme is key moments in German history since 1945.

His designs attest to immense creative powers and are as unusual as is he: Angelo Mangiarotti. What was long since overdue has finally been realized by the provinces of Agape and Mantua: A retrospective in honor of the great Italian designer.

Dare to look into the future? Each of us will drive an electric car, will charge it overnight, while at the same time the washing machine runs because electricity will be cheaper at night. How to secure power supplies during such peak periods? Claudia Beckmann spoke to David Dallinger. They discussed how the electric car of tomorrow can be integrated into renewable decentral energy systems.

The auto's future is inextricably connected to batteries. And to power sockets. What sounds so plausible and developed in the media and at press conferences, is far from ready, and instead the major challenge we face is to develop electromobility: in the form of powerful batteries.

The automobile industry is the focal point of the debate about climate goals and CO2 reduction. The answer to the question about the car of the future is quite clearly electromobility. Claudia Beckmann and Nancy Jehmlich spoke to three experts about which mobility concepts are currently being discussed and the technical and economic challenges that accompany them.

If we are to believe the grandiose announcements by the auto industry we will soon be driving highly efficiently in futuristically designed automobiles into a brave clean world. And the energy will come from a power socket. But a lot of what glitters as promises at IAA is simply not gold. But pie in the sky. And design is tailoring the new clothes and making do with the role of being the sub-servant of technology.

Until September 30, 2009, six renowned architecture studios will be orchestrating in the display windows of the Frankfurt's Vitra showroom imaginative images that drivers waiting at the nearby traffic lights can observe until the light turns green.

Copenhagen is hosting the Code 09 design fair and the Copenhagen Design Week - but it's the city that's the star.

What role is design actually playing at the 63rd IAA car show? Are the new models keeping their promises in this respect? Or for various reasons, is design losing the requisite balance between yesterday and today?

For some time now, the future has been the present as far as automobile advertising is concerned: everything must be green, efficient, economical. Such harmony between Man, Nature and Machine is, however, just a sun-drenched fairy tale, and then, just sometimes, the dim, dark night.

Boxy cars are taking the design world by storm.

Summer is gradually drawing to the close. And with it that summer low point that everyone fears. Among the memories of summer is the 'Architektur Sommer' in Munich, where an innovative new event format took a hold in public spaces.

It's a bit like Christmas, only every other year: Once again this year hordes of amazed and enthusiastic car lovers will make their way to the major car show in Frankfurt, in the hope of finding the wondrous, even revolutionary automobile of the future. But what is it we are actually dreaming of?

What does it actually mean for one's own way of driving, mood, - and not least of all design awareness - to drive along behind a rear, to analyze its motion, get one's own front as close as possible to it, while at the same time, on th other hand, keeping one's one rear as far away as possible from an approaching front?

A real fake - this is the topic addressed in the current issue of Stylepark Magazine for Product Culture. So we dispatched our authors to explore this terrain fraught with tension between reality and illusion, genuine and forgery.

Crisis or no crisis, you will soon be able to oggle them at the IAA International Motor Show in Frankfurt - namely all the new, beautiful, better, faster, even safer and even more fuel-efficient cars. So how does the auto industry present itself in its commercials? What instincts do they appeal to and what values do they propagate?

In that time people have continually been talking about the future of individual transport. There are definitely some alternatives which would help to reduce traffic congestion in big cities and use energy in an efficient way. Intelligently organized group transport is one of them.

Something is brewing, not only in German homes. The interaction between cultures has also grown more intense in the kitchen. Take Poggenpohl: one of the premium German kitchen manufacturers it has been particularly successful in the Gulf Region. We asked why that is and about their experiences there.

Home living magazines announced the "multicultural furniture" trend, the "ethno-style" and "intercultural design" trend. The new color frenzy is being judged as an expression of overcoming a "design style" which is far too plain and of the need for individuality and unconventionality. The world of design seems to have opened up to foreign creative styles.

Be it "I see something you don't see" or "spot the difference", picture puzzles can rouse either our irritation or our ambition. Or be skillfully used in advertising.