moods

Artist and environmental designer Daan Roosegaarde talked with Paul Andreas about his Smog Free Tower, a smart highway and light-intensive projects that can nevertheless be sustainable.

Greetings from the ribbed Äppelwoi glass: with local color, a shared kitchen and a fictional story: Hotel “Libertine” in Frankfurt/Main seeks to make guests feel at home.

Photographer Laurent Kronental has captured on camera Parisian residential tower blocks and some of the oldest inhabitants. The result: images full of theatrical beauty and melancholy. Adeline Seidel spoke with him about the sheer immoderation of these buildings.

Davide Tommaso Ferrando proves it: If you believe architects’ self-marketing on the Web then houses will soon be building themselves.

“Spirit” is the name of the competition entry submitted by designer Youyuan Zhao: a dancer enters into dialog with water. Adeline Seidel spoke to Youyuan Zhao about his idea.

Brandherm + Krumrey interior architecture is one of the three finalists in the “Axor Inspiration Project” competition. Sara Bertsche talked with Susanne Brandherm and Hannah Stüber about their entry.

In Portikus on the mini island in the River Main in downtown Frankfurt Philippe Grohe presented the prizes to the winning “Axor Inspiration Projects”.

Not only in nature has the force of water created impressive landscapes. With the help of water people have also designed wonderful spaces. Both are places of inspiration and calm.

In order to provoke an in-depth exploration of the element of water, Axor has launched its own competition. For the “Axor Inspiration Project” architects and interior designers were invited to develop new concepts on the topic of “water in space”.

Flying parquet floorboards, a Colombian high-speed knitter and wooden buffaloes peacefully grazing: At the 15th Designers’ Saturday in Langenthal, Switzerland, the designers and manufacturers once again opted for unusual means to stage their products.

Once a year the “Burning Man Festival” transforms Nevada’s Black Rock Desert into a temporary city teeming with audacious buildings, fantastic sculptures, and out-of-this-world conveyances.

Forget about the mixed sauna! In Bochum, people not only analyze urban interstices, they also get in a sweat all by themselves.

“Yourtopia” is the name Dutch architects SeARCH have given their pavilion located next to Het Nieuwe Instituut. An urban “Walden” and a call for us to leave our comfort zones.

Although the exhibition “Sensing Spaces” at London’s Royal Academy presents architecture, it doesn’t celebrate the stars of the scene and their prestigious projects. Instead it shows impressive, atmospheric installations on the topic of space, space that wants to be explored and experienced.

The idea is unusual, possibly even revolutionary. In the form of “Natevo” Italian bed specialist Flou has involved the public in the design process – and brought glowing furniture to market.

Architects, urban planners, hipsters and geeks, all speak of the city and indeed megacities as a place that will prove decisive for the fate of humanity. But a countermovement has been emerging for some time now. Publications such as the German magazine “Landlust” show us “the beautiful side of country life” and depict a fictive rural paradise.

The Japanese blog “rrrrrrrroll” creates small surprises with the technology of animated GIF. The initial point is always the axial rotation.

That façades are more than mere functional structural components becomes abundantly clear when wandering through the streets of Lisbon. Thanks to the characteristic “azulejos”, the buildings’ countenances are just as colorful as the history of the city itself.

It was the billowing curtains at Venice’s Piazza San Marco that provided the inspiration for the temporary art installation “Replika” by Ayzit Bostan and Gerhardt Kellermann – currently on show in Munich’s Hofgarten.

What will your Christmas be like? Candles burning? Do you like the scent of incense? Are there Christmas angels looking down from the mantelpiece? At Christmas everyone has their own idea of how to create the right atmosphere in their home. The artist Claus Richter loves it when there are little (flashing) lights everywhere. We paid him a visit in his personal Christmas paradise.

Tomás Saraceno’s “Cloud Cities” currently occupy Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof as if they were some utopia. Yet many of the seemingly spaceless and timeless spheres are there not just to be seen, but to be entered. While these transparent structures are fascinating from the inside and the outside, the exhibition as a whole does not succeed in more closely defining Saraceno’s artistic position. Yet it’s certainly worth a visit.

"Slàinte mhath!" the Scots wish each other before drinking a whisky. The idea is not getting drunk but enjoying the taste and aroma. Which is why the Scots say: Less is more, sniffing and sipping beat smelling and gulping down.

What happens to furniture that has done its service? It is stored in attics, cellars and in forgotten corners. And sometimes it seems as if the old items had taken on a life of their own.

The ski slope in blistering hot Dubai, the tropical theme pool in Bochum or a shopping experience in the air-conditioned shopping mall in Edmonton - artificial weather conditions and the exclusion of the forces of nature are today more than ever a task for architecture. The manual "-arium" approaches these challenges in an unusual way.

The two articles on how art and architecture deal with the realm of mood have each created their own atmosphere with respect to their subject. And while we are on the subject of atmospheres and creativity our author embarks on a brief trip through Germany and notices some surprising things along the way.

Erich Mendelsohn refers to it as "charm", Peter Zumthor as "spiritual quality" when architecture creates an atmosphere that appeals to all the senses, when rooms jingle, light dances, and materials and colors are carefully combined.

At the moment everything produced seems to be committed to being creative. But where, and under what conditions is it possible to work creatively? Is it true that art is still produced in studios? Has our idea of what a studio is fundamentally changed?