Fundstücke

What do car keys look like in the age of digitalization? Have they finally ceased to be status symbols? We checked out a few of the latest examples at the Frankfurt International Motor Show.

Our Stylepark team gathered, snapped shots and committed them to paper: Best wishes for a happy holiday season and a joyous new year!

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.

On a rocky outcrop of Newfoundland, where there’s nothing between you and the Artic, the Fogo Island Inn has since May of this year proved that good design can foster tourism and thus create jobs.

Despite the Nazis’ ostracism of Modernism, in the wake of World War II the Germans reassumed their role as trailblazers in industrial design almost immediately. A recently rediscovered “secret report” reveals how in 1946 the British secret service went on a mission to scent out the German consumer goods industry.

There's not a child who does not know him and like playing him: Darth Vader. Which is no doubt why the fallen Jedi knight who has switched to the dark side in the Star Wars trilogy is the protagonist in a VW commercial originally shot for the US. Now Lord Vader has a rival.

There has long since been a technological basis in place to meet our seemingly unlimited need for communications. Now all we need are phones that are not only technically outstanding, but also state-of-the-art in design terms. The Alessi phone could fit the bill.

Soft curves and gentle cambers are their distinctive feature. The Up series designed in 1968 by Gaetano Pesce for B&B Italia has been revamped to celebrate its anniversary.

"We want to take up old traditions again, because they have been put to great use," says the young designer Marek Gut from Linz. He and his team have taken up the challenge of applying the parameters of veritable, bourgeois existence to their designs. His commode is a case in point, and what a case!

In the last 50 years, the number of one-person households has more than tripled. The German Federal Statistics Office predicts that for the next fifteen years more than half the number of people who live in cities will live alone. Time for a few pieces of furniture for singles.

In tune with Zaha - from head to toe: not only buildings, landscaped spaces, sofas - now there are shoes that bear Zaha Hadid's unmistakably dynamic signature.

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.

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

The basic element is simpler than a clothes peg: A piece of plastic the size of a finger which at first glance looks useless and yet can effect true miracles. Together with Foscarini, Milan-based designer Giulio Iacchetti has created a modular ceiling luminaire consisting purely of thermoplastic components.

The superb Birkhäuser book "New Alpine Architecture" contains architectural surprises and unimagined qualities.

Modernist concrete cube or Baroque farmhouse – terraced house or readymade: When designers start working for birds, the outlook offered is surprising. And not just for the ornithologists.

Patricia Urquiola’s Retrouvé collection was presented in several colors at the Milan furniture fair. For her design for the garden furniture the Milan-based designer was inspired by the squiggles and flourishes of the 1950s.

There are two sides to Häberli’s cartoons: the daytime idyll and the nighttime adventure. The fluorescent elements on the curtain fabric “Village” start to glow when it gets dark. They are invisible during the day.

Recliners and over-ornamented seating - room installation and colorful weltanschauung: Almost 30 years after its first fiery appearance, Verner Panton’s Amoebe is experiencing a comeback. Verner Panton created his colorful Visiona installation at the Cologne Furniture Fair in 1970. The Amoebe Highback was part of it and is again increasing in significance today as a place of withdrawal: Vitra has again started production of the colorful chair.

Living light can be felt and experienced in various ways - as brightness and darkness, as concentrated rays or as reflections on a wall. Swiss designer Hannes Wettstein speaks in this context of "light semantics". And it was the key factor determining his design for the Scope family of luminaires.

No sponsor, and instead unconventional and successful ideas. Swedish design quartet Defyra sets itself high standards in terms of commitment. In its studio in Stockholm, it recycles discarded skis to form chairs.

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".

He plays piano in a jazz band, is a trained carpenter, and studied design in Stockholm: His friends like to call Fredrik Mattson the Chick Corea of Swedish design; although a mere 35 years old this Nordic talent, humorous yet serious has already received many prizes. Only recently Mattson received a Red Dot and some time ago the Golden Chair.

Who is not familiar with the tiresome search for the right stereo system? How do I combine speakers, amplifiers and playback devices best? And how do I find a suitable place in my apartment without having to compromise in terms of space and design?

Zelt, Wasserball und Rollkoffer: Die neue Puma-Kollektion kultiviert das Lounging in der Natur und spricht vor allem hartnäckige Großstädter an.

Produzieren, wo der Kunde ist: Die Leuchtblumen von Janne Kyttänen leiten eine neue Ära im Produktdesign ein.

Rem Koolhaas macht jetzt Mode. Bruce Willis trägt seine T-Shirts, und Miuccia Prada verkauft sie.

Auf einem Taschentuch präsentierte Nils Holger Moormann auf der diesjährigen Mailänder Möbelmesse seine neuen Produkte. "Benutzt es zum Trocknen Eurer Abschiedstränen", rief uns der Chiemgauer Querdenker selbstbewusst zu, als wir seinen Stand verlassen wollen.

Generally, the most beautiful finds are those we did not actually set out to find. This is why, in their joint project, Stylepark and the magazine Baumeister are presenting surprising and inspiring moments from art, architecture and design whose special qualities deserve personal consideration and a second look.

NASA-Experimente und andere Lichtspiele mit Achille Castiglioni