Great Movie, giving an introduction to the new book “Less and More – The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams”. Incl. his 10 commandments on good design. Hero!

Perfectly in tune with my recent move from Rotterdam to Berlin* I can recommend the Bauhaus exhibition in the Martin Gropius Bau (where else?) in Berlin. The exhibition – the largest on Bauhaus in history – will be open until 4th of October 2009, and focuses on the period 1919 to 1933. It is refreshing and and overwhelming to see this wealth of utopian ideas, especially now.

From the press release:

“Wednesday, the 21 July, the exhibition ‘Bauhaus. A Conceptual Model’ opened in Berlin’s Martin Gropius Bau. On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Bauhaus and 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the leading Bauhaus research institutions and museums in Germany – the Bauhaus Archive Berlin, the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau and the Klassik Stiftung Weimar – are for the first time jointly presenting an exhibition. With about 1,000 objects it will be the largest Bauhaus exhibition ever. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, cooperating partner in the project, sent 25 objects to Berlin and will present its own exhibition ‘bauhaus 1919 – 1933. Workshops for Modernity’ beginning on 8 November in New York.

Supporting Programme for the Exhibition

A diverse programme of events will be offered to accompany ‘Bauhaus. A Conceptual Model’. It includes a five-day international conference ‘bauhaus global’ (21 – 26 September 2009) supported by the Stiftung Lotto/ Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin, as well as a lecture series, cinema nights, workshops, architecture tours and book presentations (see overview of supporting events). Public tours are offered on Saturdays and Sundays at 12:00 and 2:00 pm.

The exhibition is supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. The primary supporters are HOCHTIEF and the Sparkassen-Kulturfond des Deutschen Sparkassen- und Giroverbands. The Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin and the ART MENTOR FOUNDATION LUCERNE are sponsors of the exhibition. Media partners are the Radio Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb), the newspapers DIE WELT, and the Berliner Morgenpost, and the Wall AG. The installation in the Lichthof was generously supported by Eternit AG and Thonet GmbH.”

*we still have our man Martin in Rotterdam, though!

The Rotterdam Design Award started its 2009 application period, deadline is 8 of May.

Have a look at OMA’s most recent project for Prada, the ‘Prada Transformer‘. The project has it’s own proper website, featuring Rem presenting, plans and renderings as well as a construction time lapse in progress.

Last week my friends Bob and Christian gave a new silhouette to cologne, by means of illuminating the television tower with a spectacular lighten moved dress.

Up to the 1980s the construction of a television tower was a matter of course for many German cities to underline their urban character. Cologne is no exception: The local Colonius was designed by Erwin Heinle and was finished in 1981. With a height of 266 meters it is not only the highest television tower in Nordrhine-Westfalia, but also a striking landmark that is visible from far. As such, it is an inherent part of Cologne’s skyline by day and night. Unfortunately its significance as a tourist destination has been lost since the closure of the observation platform several years ago.
The architects Christian Dieckmann and Robert Wetzels want to re-raise the awareness for the significance of the distinctive building for the cityscape of Cologne:

An exhibition in the elevated ground level documents the development of the television tower and gives extensive background information. Moreover the panorama view that would be visible from the observation platform (when open to the public) is replicated by means of printable film on the basement windows, and selected architecture and urban development projects are explicated in the “Schaufenster zur Stadt”. At “Liegen unterm Turm” at the bottom of the Colonius visitors can savour coffee and cake and enjoy the television tower from a distinct angle. But the most spectacular event is the artful illumination of the tower. By illuminating its column the Colonius is transformed into a giant sculpture that is thus promoted to a highlight of Cologne’s nightly skyline during plan08.

Dieckmann’s and Wetzels’s and vision is to establish a competition in the future: the Colonius Award. International artist and designers shall be asked yearly to hand in their proposal for an illumination of the Colonius. The illumination of the television tower during plan08 is made possible by Stadt Köln, Deutsche Funkturm GmbH and Deutsche Telekom AG.

Now in its 4th issue, PIN-UP: Magazine for Architectural Entertainment has proven to be a great magazine that has lasted past its first few issues to be a hopefully lasting review on architectural and design culture. Having first seen issue #2 back in the summer of 2007 at the Pro qm bookstore installation at Documenta in Kassel, the magazine has been notoriously hard-to-find throughout Europe and North America. Released by Bruil in the Netherlands, the magazine apparently shares similar roots as our other preferred review, Fantastic Man.

Felix Burrichter, PIN-UPs founder and editor was invited to write a short blog post in the New York Times in order to explain his idea behind issue #4 of the inventive review. In addition, he has posted numerous articles on The Moment through the New York Times. The magazine takes a fascinating perspective on the world of architecture and its by-products. The discipline is set within the larger context of design production and the cultural place that architecture plays in society. The articles are great tangents, the fashion coverage is brilliant, the interviews varied and the layout is excellent. If you’re in Montréal, swing by the Canadian Centre for Architecture to pick up your copy.

This friday at 16:30 an interesting exhibition opens @ the Casla in Almere. It will feature the winning projects of the Eenvoud Competition, the third edition for an experimetal neighbourhood in Almere. Its predecessors, “De Fantasie” and “De Realiteit”, ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Reality’ were held back in the eighties and their results are still worth an excursion. More information on that below.

“De Éénvoud” or ‘Simplicity ‘is the result of a competition held in 2006. The brief was to design a freestanding and simple low-cost house, expressing their own wishes and ideas for dwelling. The winners got the possibility to build their design on a beautiful open spot in the woodland of Noorderplassen-West.

The twelve winning projects, amongst which an ornithologist’s house, a rubber house, a convertible house and a scaled version of the Unité d’Habitation were submitted from The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and Sweden. The houses will have a permanent character, with a minimum of building regulations. Some of the projects will be built by the designers themselves; nine projects are still open for clients to join in.

The Exhibition “De Éénvoud” opens the 28th of march and will run until 10th of may 2008 @ Architectuurcentrum CASLa, Weerwaterplein 3, 1324 EE Almere Stad
Open Tuesday to Saturday between 12.00-17.00

The Predecessors
“De Fantasie” and “De Realiteit” were meant to stay only for five years, but as always with experimental projects, they usually last longer than permanent houses. The houses are used either for permanent living, as holiday homes or studios.
They are part of a number of special residential neighbourhoods in Almere, amongst which such ridiculosities as The Regenboogwijk (Rainbow Quarter), Stedenwijk (City Quarter), Muziekwijk (Music Quarter), Filmwijk (Movie Quarter), Parkwijk (Park Quarter). De Realiteit and De Fantasie have arguably yielded the most striking architecture. De Realiteit comprises seventeen projects on the Noorderplassen lakes, while nine houses make up De Fantasie on Weerwater.

De Fantasie
De Fantasie has developed into a beautiful and tranquil neighborhood on the southwest shore of the Weerwater. Because of the involvement of the people in this area it has the feel of a holiday resort. The intention was to build homes which were to be demolished after five years. However, due to the project’s success, the houses are still standing. A striking design in this quarter is ‘Hard Glass’, by architect Jan Benthem of famous dutch office Benthem Crouwel. It was one of their first projects, now they are building every major train station, airport etc. This project, ‘Hard Glass’ is a glass, cubic villa which has been lifted off the ground by a construction of steel tubes. The living quarters inside the cube resemble an aquarium. The type of doors also used on ships divide the villa’s rooms.
The VVV (the local tourist information office) in Almere has a CASla route description through De Fantasie which you can enjoy without a guide.

De Realiteit
The ‘temporary character’ is also reflected in the much talked-about quarter De Realiteit. Here too the houses are still standing, as they are a resounding success. De Realiteit lies in a fairly remote area, which has resulted in a surprising ambience. The seventeen houses differ in the materials used and the construction, but mainly in shape. The house created by Dick Bruijne and Gerard Koppelman is a striking design which stands out. ‘A bird is flying underneath our house’ is suspended five meters above the ground in a steel frame. The house itself is a small, two-storied wooden cube. The surface area of the house is small in proportion to the steel frame.
You probably also come across ‘Markies’ a house which unfold from a trailer. I guess you won’t see it there though since its constantly on the road.
De Realiteit is situated on the Noorderplassen and the VVV also has a route description on this one.
Check out the website for more details on the houses.
More photos also here

June 11th the first Museum entirely dedicated to Graphic Design will be opened by our Queen Beatrix in Breda.
For the opening my friend Teun Castelein will make his graphic statement out of concieved content from 250 participants. Everybody is welcome to design its own flag and mail it to flag@graphicdesignmuseum.com. All designs will be printed on unique flags and put against the building. The result will be an explosion of information. A colourful art piece at the old baroque building of the supermodern Graphic Design Museum.
Really a piece of art that makes people think about modern visual communication, about the position of musea in the contemporary image-culture and the fact that everybody is a designer/ image-maker nowadays.

So invest some 250 €, add another line to your CV and be part of the opening exhibition. You can upload your images here.
It seems to be selling quite well and I’m sure it will look amazing.

Teun did a similar spectacular work of art inspired by the famous website ‘www.milliondollarhomepage.com‘ in 2005. He sold the façade of his Alma Mater, the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam to more than 300 companies, organisations and individuals.

They added logos and trademarks, images of art, poetry and lovenotes. The façade consists of more than 16,000 tiles [35x29cm], each of which is supplied with its own individual printed plastic plate. The result is an overwhelming mosaic of colour and information – a project that seeks to push the boundaries between commerce and art, society and the movements of the market, the private sector and public space. The Sandberg Institute is located on the Amsterdam ring road in the Zuidas district, the city’s new economic centre.

Teun Castelein, who is actually the first man in real size on the web, graduated in 2002 at the Art Academy of Utrecht with a research on Dutch suburban town Hoogvliet, just outside Rotterdam.
This ghetto town had a very negative image, so he decided to start a feel good branding campaign for its citizens as part of the WIMBY! project. One of his proposals was a Hollywood sign of ‘HOOGVLIET’ [which was implemented in a park design by FAT architects]. With this icon of Hollywood he wanted to give the people something to believe in, that you can be somebody! By giving Hoogvliet a bit of Hollywood allure, he made its inhabitants the stars.

So, go get your creativity boiling, convince your boss to spend those Euros and put something more on it than just your average company logo!

There are countless conversations among architects about pay, and how architecture is (apparently) poorly paid. Now there’s some good proof. An awesome online survey and searchable database was shown to me today, assembled by Coroflot. You can view the datasets here, sort by country as well as occupation and job title. The few graphics are great too. It isn’t surprising that among the design professions (graphic, fashion, interactive media, and so forth), architecture has one of the lower ceilings.

Archinect has had a salary poll running for quite some time, and it has always been a fascinating read. But it has always been incomplete, has no sortable databases, and didn’t offer a comparative analysis. In comparison, the Coroflot survey boasts 4250 respondents from 73 countries. What is clear is that in most design fields the incomes are rising nicely. On top of this, you’re best paid as a consultant. Nonetheless there are some hard-to-explain anomolies that stick out. It turns out that designers in India are some of the worlds best-paid, up there with Americans and Australians. Hmm.

For livestyle junkies imm-cologne is a must – from local designers to big international brands it shows the whole range of spic-and-span-new interiour design. Have fun and and hurry up – last day of the design week is 20. January 2008.

More infos by the organisator:

Top-class designer furniture, classic living worlds, trendy accessories: imm cologne provides a comprehensive selection of furniture and furnishings. From “imm pure” to “imm basic,” the product range is clearly structured in segments. This international furnishing show is the global marketplace and meeting place for the international furniture sector — the 2008 fair features more than 1,300 exhibitors from about 60 countries. As the sector’s business event, trend barometer, international communication forum and centre for creative ideas, imm cologne and its full programme of events generate strong momentum for the interior design of tomorrow.

Mark Simonson was invited to talk about typography legend Adrian Frutiger last summer at TypeCon in Boston. He made his inspiring slides available as a PDF. Something you should miss in no circumstance, if you are ever so slightly interested in design! Read more on Simonson’s blog.

Or download here:

The Tent gallery has another promising exhibition opening next week, Dutch Design Port, that showcases Rotterdam design talent -we are such navel-gazers here. The exhibition was originally curated for the Milk Gallery in New York, including 10 Dutch Designers, and has now come back home from over the ocean.

Dutch Design Port will display the work of Jurgen Bey, Demakersvan, Simon Heijdens, Richard Hutten, Hella Jongerius, Chris Kabel, Joris Laarman, Atelier van Lieshout, Bertjan Pot and Wieki Somers. The Show runs from 7th September until the 28th October, 2007, and the opening night is also the 7th, at 18.00.

Photos from the Milk Gallery show, after party, and more can be found here.

UPDATE: We’ve added pictures from the event to our Photo Page!

Given that my favourite place to shop for Men’s clothes in Rotterdam is at Margreeth Olshoorn on Witte de Withstraat, it was great news to hear that they will launch a new men’s store down the street. It is to be much more than clothes, leaning towards lifestyle, and the launch party for all us Fantastic Men will be from 18.00 to 20.00 on September 6th, 2007, at #39 Witte de Withstraat. Please dress appropriately.

paris based designers atypyk have a nice list of design ideas they want to share and a lot of fun-stuff to sell in their shop. (check the PLEASE section)

via republish

I’ve been experimenting with file-linking between word and indesign. This is what a XML file created by word looks like in the indesign story editor. Or is it a traffic control screen? A facade study?