Theory

From the viewpoint of Portuguese architect and architectural theorist Diogo Seixas Lopes, Aldo Rossi’s buildings are steeped in melancholy. Adeline Seidel asked Lopes why this is.

Backdrop, sculpture or theme world? Temporary architectures in the social media age reveal more than one might at first think: an architecture analysis using Instagram.

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.

Nobody need fear such immense naivety: Friedrich von Borries seeks with a novel and a design label to bring on board “shareholders for the revolution”. At his Club Med of revolution culture, you won’t find anything right in the completely wrong world.

Why develop a new product when you can simply reissue a design from the past? Contrary to one’s expectations, so-called “classics” are indeed required to prove their worth time and time again.

Typically furniture is only examined as regards concept, function and design – seldom do you find in-depth media-theoretical considerations. The book “Möbel als Medien” (Furniture as media), featuring contributions by authors including Marshall McLuhan, Vilém Flusser and Mark Kingwell, offers a broad perspective.

It should not only be in times of crisis that we stop to think about critique, says Benita Braun-Feldweg in keeping with the tradition of her grandfather Wilhelm Braun-Feldweg who considered writing a part of design. To foster design-focused debate in society, the Braun-Feldweg Prize is now to be awarded for the sixth time. Nina Reetzke took the opportunity to meet and talk to the granddaughter of the German design mastermind.

Architects, designers and artists in the 1960s and 1970s just loved communicating their idea of architecture in "little magazines". While there are often immense differences between the periodicals in terms of content and graphics, they all express a wish for radical rejuvenation. "Clip Stamp Fold" is a book that gives a good overall impression of this glittering chapter in the history of architecture.

In the second section, Jochen Stöckmann talks to Paola Antonelli, design curator at New York's MoMA, on the current significance of design, the specificities of a museum, the @ sign in the collection, on green design, and on weapons in a design exhibition.

Paola Antonelli is in charge of design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and thus for the department which, in the view of the founding director Alfred Barr was destined to show everyone the opportunities for including art in their own lives. Jochen Stöckmann speaks to Paola Antonelli about design exhibitions in an art museum, about how important it is despite computers to create things by hand, about mobile phones and the criteria for selecting items for inclusion in the collection.

What will cities of the future look like? How will we move around in them? Archigram's utopia provide answers which are still exciting. Thanks to the Archigram Archival Project the designs and activities of the British architect group can now be viewed in detail on the Internet.