Search results for ""Vitra Design Museum""

Hello, Robot. Design between Human and Machine investigates how robotics is increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives. The exhibition shows that design in its traditional function as a mediator is indispensable if robots are to become a visible reality and not just remain hidden in washing machines, cars and cash machines. The catalogue points out where we already encounter these intelligent machines and where we may come across them in the near future: in the industry, in the military and in everyday settings; at nurseries and retirement homes; in our bodies and in the cloud; when shopping and having sex; in video games and, of course, in film and literature. In a series of in-depth essays and interviews, experts such as science-fiction author Bruce Sterling or the design duo Dunne & Raby explore the question of how we deal with an environment that is rapidly becoming more digital, smarter and more autonomous. They highlight our often ambivalent relationship to new technologies and discuss the opportunities and challenges that present themselves to us as individuals and as a society in this context. In this regard, Hello, Robot. broadens the scope of the discussion to include the ethical and political questions with which we are faced today in the light of technological advances in robotics, while confronting us with the contradictions that are often found in the answers to these questions. Authors and interviewees: Bruce Sterling, Fiona Raby, Anthony Dunne, Gesche Joost, Carlo Ratti, Amelie Klein and others.

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An Assembly of Iconic, Forgotten and New Vitra Characters During Milan’s Design Week 2018, the Vitra exhibition »Typecasting,« curated by Robert Stadler, presented 200 objects in the former sports hall La Pelota in the city’s Brera district. In addition to generous photographic documentation of the event, this eponymous publication , designed by Zak Group, critically investigates how design evolves under the influ ence of social media. By presenting the objects as characters, »Typecasting« is as much about furniture as it is about ourselves. Whereas furniture’s practical function is a given, its representational role has dramatically evolved: furniture and objects become props for self-staging on social media and online.

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The Umbrella House is the smallest residential home by Japanese architect and mathematician Kazuo Shinohara (1925–2006). This book tells the story of his unique masterpiece, which was first built in Tokyo in 1961. More than sixty years later, a stroke of good fortune made it possible to save the Umbrella House from demolition and move it to a new location, where it now stands on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein (Germany). The wooden house’s post-and-beam construction references traditional Japanese domestic and temple architecture. Experts from Japan and Europe supervised the dismantling of the house in Tokyo and its reassembly in Weil am Rhein. The book traces the long journey of the Umbrella House in lavish illustrations including impressions from 1960s Japan, architectural designs and plans, and photographs that document its dismantling and reassembly or show the house in its new location. Texts by Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA), Shin-ichi Okuyama, and David B. Stewart discuss the Umbrella House against the background of Japanese architectural discourse between 1960 and the present. "The strength of my conviction that A House is a Work of Art was born of the struggle with this small house. I wished to express the force of space contained in the doma [earthen-floor room] of an old Japanese farmhouse, this time by means of the geometric structural design of a karakasa [oiled-paper Japanese umbrella]." Kazuo Shinohara in a text on the Umbrella House published in October 1962 in the Japanese architecture journal Shinkenchiku (vol. 37, no. 10; first published in English in February 1963 in The Japan Architect, vol. 38, no. 2).

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Hello, Robot. Design Between Human and Machine investigates how robotics is becoming part of our everyday lives. The exhibitions shows that design in its traditional function as a mediator is indispensable if robots are to become a visible reality and not just remain hidden in washing machines, cars and cash machines. The volume clarifies where we already encounter these intelligent machines and where we may come across them in the near future: in industry, in the military and in everyday settings; at nurseries and retirement homes; in our bodies and in the cloud; when shopping and having sex; in video games and, of course, in film and literature. In a series of in-depth essays and interviews, experts such as the science fiction author Bruce Sterling and the design duo Dunne & Raby explore the question of how we deal with our environment becoming increasingly digital, smarter and more autonomous. They highlight our often ambivalent relationship to new technologies and discuss the opportunities and challenges that are posed to us as individuals and as a society in this context. In this regard, Hello, Robot. broadens the scope of the discussion to the ethical and political questions with which we are faced today in the light of technological advances in robotics, whilst confronting us with the contradictions that are often found in the answers to these questions.

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Artificial light has revolutionized our environment like almost no other medium. Today, we are experiencing a profound change in the world of artificial light, with as yet unforeseeable consequences for people’s lives. »Lightopia« presents icons and examples of lighting design, setting them in a broader cultural and historical context. The publication comprises three separate books in a slipcase. In volume 1, renowned authors take a close look at the cultural history of light in a number of essays dealing with topics as diverse as the scenographic significance of light or its psychological aspects. Volume 2 presents a selection of the 100 most important luminaires from the collection of the Vitra Design Museum – dating from 1900 to today – and includes texts on the development of lighting design. In volume 3, interviews with well-known lighting designers and artists explore how new illumination technologies revolutionize the creative use of light today. With its three volumes, »Lightopia« constitutes a unique compendium of lighting design. It is opulently illustrated and encompasses an exceptional spectrum of examples from design, art and architecture; with works by Olafur Eliasson, Gino Sarfatti, Ingo Maurer, mischer’traxler, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Richard Sapper, Achille Castiglioni, Ulrike Brandi, Pieke Bergmans and many others.

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Plastic has shaped our daily lives like no other material. Originally associated with convenience, progress, even revolution, today plastic seems to have lost its utopian appeal. Plastic is everywhere, yet most conspicuous as waste and as a key factor in the global environmental crisis. This book examines the success story of plastic in the twentieth century and at the same time presents the different discourses on how we should manage the waste the material produces and also find solutions that take into account its entire life cycle in the future. Mark Miodownik, Susan Freinkel, and Nanjala Nyabola each contribute an essay that sheds light on the history of plastics from 1850 to today. A material-rich visual chronology illustrates how consumers’ perception of plastics has changed over the decades. Brief descriptions of a selection of 50 objects examine the importance of plastics for material culture. Reprints of fundamental texts about the history of plastics—for example by Alexander Parkes and Roland Barthes—provide a context from the history of ideas. The book reflects the current discourse and state of research on plastic with numerous individual interviews and panel discussions that were held with designers, representatives from industry, researchers, and environmental activists. Underpinning these conversations are comprehensive data visualizations on plastic production and consumption, recycling.

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This publication accompanies the exhibition Transform! Design and the Future of Energy at the Vitra Design Museum. Energy is the central driving force of our society; Energy is political; Energy is invisible. But all buildings, infrastructure and products with which energy is generated, distributed and used are designed. Design must therefore also play a central role in urgently needed energy transition. This publication accompanying the exhibition Transform! Designing the Future of Energy explores the current, radical transformation of the energy sector from a design perspective: from products that harvest renewable energies to the design of solar houses and wind turbines, from intelligent mobility concepts to future visions of self-sufficient cities. It sheds light on the global thirst for energy and asks critical questions: How can design contribute to making greater use of renewable energies and to reducing our energy consumption?

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The catalogue of a unique collection, ROBOTS 1:2 presents the space-themed toys in the R. F. Robot Collection held by the Vitra Design Museum. "Small kinetic sculptures of great originality": that is how Rolf Fehlbaum, Chairman Emeritus of Vitra and founder of the Vitra Design Museum, describes the objects in his collection. In many years of careful research, he compiled a rare Wunderkammer of toy robots made mainly in Japan between 1937 and 1973. The term robot was coined in 1921 by Czech writer Karel Capek in his play R. U. R., which foreshadowed some of the impact robots have had on human lives – from relieving us of hard, dangerous, or unpleasant tasks to taking over our jobs, from small everyday dependencies to shifts in social power dynamics. While the large-format predecessor to this book presented the exhibits in their original size, ROBOTS 1:2 shows the space toys on a 1:2 scale. The largest robot determines the size of the book: this conveys a sense of the uncanny ambivalence that clings to even the most playful representatives of their kind. The fantastic pictures on the original packaging often displayed alongside the figurines vividly illustrate an image of the future that by this time is itself part of our past. QR codes give access to short films showing a number of robots in action. The R. F. Robot Collection, housed in the »Wunderkammer« on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany, can be visited as part of a guided tour.For more information please go to www.design-museum.de.

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This publication is accompanying the presentation »Tsuyoshi Tane: The Garden House« at the Vitra Design Museum Gallery, which is dedicated to the recently constructed Tane Garden House on the Vitra Campus. The idea to build a garden house on the Vitra Campus was initiated by Vitra Chairman Emeritus Rolf Fehlbaum. The building which is direct proximity of the Oudolf Garten, combines a rooftop viewing platform for Campus visitors and a meeting room for the gardeners who tend the grounds. Tsuyoshi Tane understood that this project was small in scale, but large in meaning. This is reflected in the Japanese architect’s unique design approach, which is based on an intensive research process that explores the local context in order to utilize traditional handicrafts as well as regional resources. Like an archaeologist, Tane started with a long period of exploration, researching the »memory of the place« where the project was being planned. Tsuyoshi Tane calls this approach »Archaeology of the Future«. The publication Tane Garden House provides a deep insight into the design process that stretched over several years. It documets the creation of the architectural project, including unrealised models, as well as sketches drawn by Tsuyoshi Tane. The appealing softcover book in a handy format does not only excite those interested in architecture, but also serves as a source of inspiration for the topic of building in the future.

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Since the 1980s, Vitra has enlisted some of the world’s leading architects to design buildings for its campus, including Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, SANAA, Álvaro Siza, Nicholas Grimshaw and Herzog & de Meuron. This has resulted in a unique architectural ensemble that attracts 350,000 visitors each year, about which Philip Johnson wrote: “Since the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart in 1927, there has not been a gathering in a single place of a group of buildings designed by the most distinguished architects in the Western world.” While the renowned Vitra Design Museum presents alternating exhibitions, the Schaudepot gives visitors an insight into parts of the museum’s extensive collection. In addition, during their time on the Campus, visitors can take part in a guided tour of the architecture or a workshop, enjoy the view from the Vitra Slide Tower and afterwards slide down the 37-meter-long slide, experience furniture classics and new products from the Vitra Home Collection in the VitraHaus as well as savour the offers of the shops and cafés. Originally published in 2014, this revised flexibound edition of The Vitra Campus offers an overview of Vitra architecture, its daily use, the development of the Campus and biographies of the contributing architects. An ideal souvenir and campus guide, The Vitra Campus is also a fascinating read about some of the most significant architects and buildings of our time.

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In 2019, the Vitra Design Museum will publish the Atlas of Furniture Design, the definitive, encyclopedic overview of the history of modern furniture design. Featuring over 1700 objects by more than 500 designers and 121 manufacturers, it includes approximately 2800 images ranging from detailed object photographs to historical images documenting interiors, patents, brochures, and related works of art and architecture. The basis for the Atlas of Furniture Design is the collection held by the Vitra Design Museum, one of the largest of its kind with more than 7000 works. The book presents selected pieces by the most important designers of the last 230 years and documents key periods in design history, including early nineteenth-century industrial furniture in bentwood and metal, Art Nouveau and Secessionist pieces and works by protagonists of classical modernism and postwar design, as well as postmodern and contemporary pieces. The Atlas of Furniture Design employed a team of more than 70 experts and features over 550 detailed texts about key objects. In-depth essays provide sociocultural and design-historical context to four historical epochs of furniture design and the pieces highlighted here, enriched by a detailed annex containing designer biographies, glossaries, and elaborate information graphics. The Atlas of Furniture Design is an indispensable resource for collectors, scholars and experts, as well as a beautifully designed object that speaks to design enthusiasts.

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This new publication is dedicated to the Baranger Motion Displays of the R. F. Collection housed at the Vitra Design Museum. Motion Displays were conceived as eye-catching and novel moving objects, which – primarily in the US – were used in jewellers’ shop-window displays to attract customers. The Baranger Motion Displays were produced by Baranger Studios in Pasadena, CA between 1937 and 1957 and were lent to thousands of jewellers’ shops over the years. Primarily during the 1990s, Rolf Fehlbaum, Vitra Chairman Emeritus and founder of the Vitra Design Museum, worked to assemble a carefully selected a comprehensive collection of these objects in Weil am Rhein. With large-scale illustrations of the different Motion Displays and an atmospheric photo essay featuring black-and-white details of the objects, the book provides an unprecedented and in-depth view into this collection. In an accompanying essay, Bill Shaffer traces the success story of the displays and sheds light on the significance of the red cases in which they were delivered to the jewellers. Along with Robots 1:1 and Space Fantasies 1:1, Baranger Motion Displays is the third publication to focus on the R. F. Collection. Visitors can view the collection of Motion Displays at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein as part of the “Wunderkammer” (cabinet of curiosities), which also presents other parts of Rolf Fehlbaum’s wide-ranging collection. In order for readers to be able to experience the wonders of these moving objects for themselves, each Motion Display has been given a QR Code in the book which links to an entertaining video clip of the display in action.

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This interdisciplinary account of the different types of flexible living presents work by Modernist and contemporary architects and designers such as; Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller, Jean Prouve, Joe Colombo and Shigeru Ban, contrasting them with the flexible houses and installations featured in non-European cultures. In view of the on-going globalisation of life, the traditional distinction between sedentary and nomad lifestyles has been undermined. Due to the growing significance of transport the sedentary populations are as mobile as the nomads, just as the latter now set up permanent camp - in fact, the two ways of life have mutually influenced each other over the course of time. This title also sheds light on the causes and effects of mobile living from a sociological and psychological viewpoint.

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Our homes are an expression of how we want to live; they shape our everyday routines and fundamentally affect our well-being. Interior design for the home sustains a giant global industry and feeds an entire branch of the media. However, the question of dwelling, or how to live, is found increasingly to be lacking in serious discourse. This book sets out to review the interior design of our homes. It discusses 20 iconic residential interiors from the present back to the 1920s, by architects and designers such as Assemble, Arno Brandlhuber, Lina Bo Bardi, and Josef Frank and by artists such as Cecil Beaton and Andy Warhol. Including historic and recent photographs, drawings and plans, the book explores these case studies as key moments in the history of the modern interior. Penny Sparke provides a concise history of the discipline of interior design, Alice Rawsthorn investigates the role of gender, and Mark Taylor discusses the discourse on interior design in the twenty-first century. Adam Štěch offers insights into the use of colour in residential interiors and Matteo Pirola offers a detailed and richly illustrated chronology of significant events in the history of interior design. In a portfolio of photographs selected exclusively for this book, Jasper Morrison explores what makes a good interior. In addition to interviews with contemporary interior design practitioners, experts in the fields of the sociology of living and psychology provide further insight. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in interior design.

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Surrealism expanded our reality by drawing upon myths, dreams, and the subconscious as sources of artistic inspiration. Beginning in the 1930s, the movement made a crucial impact on design, and it continues to inspire designers to this day. »Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design« is the first book to document this fascinating conversation. It includes numerous essays and a comprehensive selection of images which traces these reciprocal exchanges by juxtaposing exemplary artworks and design objects. Among the featured artists and designers are Gae Aulenti, Achille Castiglioni, Giorgio de Chirico, Le Corbusier, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, ntoni Gaudí, Frederick Kiesler, René Magritte, Carlo Mollino, Meret Oppenheim, and many others. The book is rounded off with historical text material as well as short texts and statements by contemporary designers. This in- depth examination makes one thing abundantly clear: form does not always follow function — it can also follow our obsessions, our fantasies, and our hidden desires.

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The book »Konstantin Grcic – Panorama« contains the first catalogue raisonné of the designer’s work and documents over 400 pieces of furniture, products and exhibitions with informative details, images and comprehensive descriptions. This overview is accompanied by numerous illustrated essays from renowned authors, including Peter Sloterdijk, Richard Sennett, Paola Antonelli, Jonathan Olivares, Mario Carpo, Louise Schouwenberg, Jan Boelen, Janna Lipsky and Mateo Kries. While some essays investigate Grcic’s oeuvre and its context, others address overarching issues that shape Grcic’s work, such as new production technologies, evolution of the home environment or the development of public spaces. The book is further augmented by a series of images depicting visionary spatial designs by Grcic demonstrating his conceptions of life in the future. All these facets combine to make the book a unique panorama of a designer whose contemporary influence is widely felt – as well as a fascinating read for all those with an interest in the future of design.

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Iwan Baan: Moments in Architecture offers the first comprehensive overview of works created by one of the leading photographers of our time. More than six hundred images from two decades document the growth of global megacities and portray buildings by prominent contemporary architects including Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhaas, and Zaha Hadid, as well as traditional and informal architecture all around the world The photographer was personally involved in the conception of this richly illustrated and beautifully made publication.

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Gardens have always been places of leisure, pleasure, and production – they reflect identities, dreams, and visions. Deeply rooted in their culture, gardens have immense symbolic potential. The recent revival of horticulture has focused less on the garden as a romantic refuge than as a place where we imagine the future and develop solutions. Urban farms, vertical gardens, and other innovative projects in art, architecture, and urban planning demonstrate that the present return to the garden is no timid retreat, but a pioneering quest for a world in which social and ecological justice count for something. Garden Futures examines what gardens and their design reveal about our relationship to nature. In exploring the history of ideas behind the genesis of the modern garden, the book takes a close look at the present, goes in search of origins in the past, and builds bridges into the future. Stunning photographs illustrate ground-breaking gardens by such designers as Derek Jarman and Piet Oudolf while critical articles by well-known authors question conventional garden ideals. Authors and gardeners including Gilles Clement and Jamaica Kincaid present the garden as a place of learning where abstract concepts like ecology, climate change, and food insecurity are translated into things you can smell, touch, and taste. Daisy Ginsberg, Salmon Creek Farm, and EcoLogic Studio create experimental and speculative projects generating new attitudes and approaches.

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Presented in this oversize publication are 146 aerospace-related toys from the collection of Rolf Fehlbaum, Vitra’s chairman emeritus and the founder of Vitra Design Museum. Toys related to space exploration—rockets, robots and astronaut figurines—exploded in popularity in the 1930s with the success of space opera comic strips such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, which portrayed postwar fantasies of untold technological possibilities. From there, sci-fi only gained a wider audience as the Soviet/American space race began and people of all ages turned their gazes skywards to wonder about what marvels may exist beyond Earth’s orbit. The toys in this volume are shown at their original size with the available packaging, organised into ten categories and arranged in chronological order by their manufacture dates. Some of the toys depict amusing conjectures for the future of aeronautical exploration such as space dogs, space elephants and even a space whale, while others are more realistic replicas of rockets in miniature. Infused with an undeniable nostalgia, this collection maintains the childlike wonder of the toys’ initial audiences and invites present-day readers to both reflect on the era’s technological advancements and look to the future for what discoveries may still be on the horizon.

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The cheap, colourful plastic designs from East Germany pitted against the cool functionalism of West German design: The publication German Design 1949 – 1989: Two Countries, One History does away with such clichés. More than 30 years after German reunification, it presents a comprehensive overview of German design history of the post-war period for the first time ever. With over 380 illustrations and numerous examples from the fields of design—fashion, furniture, graphics, automobile, industrial, and interiors—the book shows how design featured in daily life on both sides of the Wall, the important part it played in the reconstruction process and how it served as a propaganda tool during the Cold War. Key objects and protagonists—from Dieter Rams or Otl Aicher in the West to Rudolf Horn or Renate Müller in the East—are presented alongside formative factors such as the Bauhaus legacy and important institutions. The exceptional case of the division of Germany allows a unique comparative perspective on the role design played in promoting socialism and capitalism. While in the Federal Republic to the West, it became a generator of the export economy and the "Made in Germany" brand, in the East it was intended to fuel the socialist planned economy and affordability for broad sections of the population was key. While the book highlights the different realities of East and West, the many cross references that connected design in both are also examined. It impressively illustrates the many facets of German design history in the post-war period. With contributions by Paul Betts, Greg Castillo, Petra Eisele, Siegfried Gronert, Jana Scholze, Katharina Pfützner, Eli Rubin, Katrin Schreiter, Oliver Sukrow, Carsten Wolff, among others; interviews with Prem Krishnamurthy, Renate Müller and Dieter Rams.

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Charles and Ray Eames are counted among the leading designers of the twentieth century. Perhaps best known for their furniture designs, the Eameses also made pioneering contributions to the fields of architecture (Eames House, Los Angeles), film (Powers of Ten), exhibitions (“Mathematica”), toys (House of Cards), graphics, and much more. Underlying all this work was a robust and compelling philosophy of design. “Essential Eames: Words and Pictures” draws from their lifetimes of speeches and writings, as well as an archive of nearly one million photographs taken by Charles and Ray Eames and their office staff over the course of four decades of work.

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A charming tale for little and big design enthusiasts with wonderful illustrations by the renowned artist Maira Kalman is a fun and engaging way for children to learn about some of the masterpieces of design. When a set of eight classic old No. 14 Thonet chairs are threatened with certain doom, their ingenuity saves the day! Together they discover not only a way to escape but a world of the most wonderful and imaginative chairs from around the globe. The Thonets discover, too, that they have a talent for the stage! This charming tale by Rolf Fehlbaum, with delightful illustrations by Maria Kalman, is accompanied by a brief and informative glossary of twenty-two of the most innovative chairs created in 150 years.

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Brazil unites some of the most creative manifestations of popular art in the world. By presenting works by the legendary Mestre Vitalino and other artists from Pernambuco, the Jequitinhonha Valley and Niterói An Art of Resilience fosters awareness of this amazing art of the people. This new publication documents Rolf Fehlbaum`s collection of popular art from Brazil. They are on display in the »Wunderkammer«, a gallery of special objects from the world of popular culture, located on the Vitra Campus. Rather than representing the full scope of Brazilian popular art this collection is based on specific personal choices that were formed by the first pieces, which were by Mestre Vitalino, Zé Caboclo, Adolton and Ulisses. While most of the objects deal individually with different aspects of life, there are three groups of objects that are treated separately: the Bumba Meu Boi spectacle, the Maracatu carnival procession, and the cruel raids of the cangaceiros around Lampião and Maria Bonita. The groups are accompanied by essays written by the Brazilian anthropologists Ricardo Lima and Guacira Waldeck.

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The last decade has seen a growing social movement towards collectivity, sharing and participation. This paradigm shift is reflected in architecture as well: In recent years, increasingly innovative collective housing projects, organized around the principle of trading in private spaces for larger, more luxurious shared spaces, have been emerging across the globe – many of them realized through bottom-up grassroots initiatives. The return of the collective in architecture has resulted in surprising architectural solutions that also create new urban spaces. The publication Together! The New Architecture of the Collective presents around twenty international building projects from Europe Japan, and the US that provide innovative platforms for collective living in the present day. A selection of projects are discussed in detail, ad extensive photo essays offer rich and vivid impressions of the daily collective and private lie and everyday routines in these buildings. Interviews with movers and shakers from the collective housing scene, written by international journalists, offer insights and background information on the processes and people that have made each project possible. All that is complemented by theoretical and historical context, including analytical essays by experts in the field, info graphics providing facts and figures, diagrams explaining how different collective housing models work, and an extensive timeline detailing genealogy of the collective housing movement in the twentieth century.

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Wendepunkte im Bauen begleitet die Ausstellung in der Pinakothek der Moderne in München von März bis Juni 2010. Das Buch beinhaltet: • Aufsätze u.a. zur Geschichte des Systembaus in Deutschland, über Industrialisierung und Digitalisierung des Bauens und über den Einsatz von Computern in der Planung • Ausführlicher Katalogteil mit Fotos von Modellen/gebauten Beispielen und Plänen zu Projekten (August von Voit | Glaspalast, Jean Prouvè | Maison tropicale, Richard Buckminster Fuller | Dymaxion House, Konrad Wachsmann | United States Air Force Hangar, Frank O. Gehry | Vitra Design Museum, Thomas Herzog, Hanns Jörg Schrade | Design Center, Foster and Partners | Überdachung des Great Court des British Museum, UNStudio - van Berkel & Bos | Mercedes-Benz Museum • Gedanken zeitgenössischer Architekten zu Bedeutung und Wirkung von Wachsmanns „Wendepunkt im Bauen“ "

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