Search results for ""design museum""

The essential guide to the story of London's acclaimed museum - from its origins in the 1980s to its pivotal move in 2016 London's Design Museum is entering an exciting period in its life as it prepares to move to the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington. The Story of the Design Museum charts the story of the museum's life from its inception as the Boilerhouse Project to twenty-five years of groundbreaking exhibitions at Shad Thames. The book begins with a foreword by the founder of the Design Museum Sir Terence Conran, and concludes with an essay from the museum's architect, John Pawson, accompanied by stunning images of the iconic and newly renovated Commonwealth Institute Building, the museum's new home.

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Cooper Hewitt possesses one of the most diverse and comprehensive collections of design works in existence and is the only museum in the United States devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. Reopening in late 2014, the museum has undergone a transformative renovation. Its landmark home in the Andrew Carnegie Mansion offers an entirely new and interactive visitor experience resulting in 60 percent more gallery space. To mark the occasion, Cooper Hewitt is publishing an expansive book on its unparalleled collection, which consists of more than 210,000 objects from all over the world, spanning 30 centuries. Designed by Irma Boom, and a wonderful design object in itself at over 900 pages, the book expresses the museum's primary goal--to inspire people to see how design impacts their lives. Available in three different colors and printing with glow in the dark ink, the book embodies design process. This user-centered approach is reinforced throughout the pages with 54 narratives and an extensive process glossary that discusses individual objects through a design lens. Featuring more than 1,100 collection objects selected by the curatorial staff, Smithsonian Design Library, and renowned designer Irma Boom, Making Design is organized entirely by Boom's visual sequencing of images; her design and the curators' essays weave parallel narratives throughout the book. This wildly playful and unexpected jaunt through the collection ends with Boom's exploration of her process, "Making Making Design," which embraces the essence design and the new experiences in Cooper Hewitt's galleries.

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From the Chanel suit to the Wonderbra, via Jackie Kennedy, Ziggy Stardust and Alexander McQueen, respected fashion journalist and editor Paula Reed explores each of the styles and visionaries that have defined the way we dress. Spanning fifty years - from the 1950s to the 1990s - and accompanied by striking photographs throughout, Fashion Evolution is the definitive story of the style moments that changed the world.

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Now in its eleventh year, the Design Museum’s Beazley Designs of the Year award and exhibition showcase the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. From the first iPhone to Zaha Hadid’s final building, the nominations for the award have spanned the fields of architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport. Introduced by Deyan Sudjic and guest curator Aric Chen of M+ in Hong Kong, this illustrated book brings together all the nominated designs for 2018, along with the reasons for their selection by an international group of design experts, practitioners and critics, including Iwan Baan and Hans Ulrich Obrist. It is a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design today. At the beginning of the second decade of its life, the essence of the concept remains the same. A wide and international group of expert nominators have been invited to put forward up to three projects each that for them reflect significant new directions in six fields, from architecture to transport. The results are put together by a guest curator to form an exhibition at the Design Museum. A jury selects winners in each category, as well as one overall design of the year. The Design Museum has published an accompanying catalogue for the award and exhibition over the past ten years, which was marked by the publication of the ten-year anniversary book Designs of our Time: 10 Years of Designs of the Year.

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At more than 120 bpm, electronic music sets the tempo on dancefloors around the globe. Accompanying the exhibition Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers, this book offers an insight into the visual culture of electronic music, and how technology, design, art and fashion have contributed to its power. With its roots in Detroit and Chicago in the early 1980s, electronic dance music was popularised across Europe through underground rave parties. Its impact on contemporary culture is still unfolding today. Containing interviews with early pioneers such as techno legend Jeff Mills, The Designers Republic’s Ian Anderson, and those pushing the political dimension of electronic music, such as ballroom dancer and DJ Kiddy Smile, Electronic bears witness to the shifting nature of the genre. Illustrated with over 300 images, some published here for the first time, Electronic features Jean-Michel Jarre’s virtual studio; work by pioneer Daphne Oram of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; audiovisual performances by musicians like Bicep and the Chemical Brothers; fashion collections by Raf Simons and Charles Jeffrey of Loverboy; iconic photography by Jacob Khrist and Tina Paul; artwork by Christian Marclay; club graphics from Peter Saville and Mark Farrow; and iconic venues such as the Haçienda, Gatecrasher, Fabric, Berghain and the Warehouse Project. Reflecting the shifts in society over the past thirty years, electronic music has generated distinct visual languages as well as its own political and cultural ideals.

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The first book to dive exclusively into Ai Weiwei’s approach to design and collecting, shedding light on the value we ascribe to everyday objects. Artist, film-maker, architect, activist, collector – whatever mode Ai Weiwei is in, he is trying to tell us something about the state of the world. This book presents Ai’s work as a commentary on design and what it reveals about our changing values. Confronted by the rapid pace of change in his country, Ai became fascinated by Chinese antiquities. His vast collections of historical artefacts, from Stone Age tools to broken teapot spouts, attest to the way the language of objects speaks across the ages. Is this a classic tale of technical progress, or have we lost crucial qualities with the march of time? Ai invites us to make sense of these objects as he explores the tensions between past and present, hand and machine, precious and worthless, construction and destruction.

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Charlotte Perriand was one of great designers of the twentieth century. A pioneer of modernism, her work was often overshadowed by her more famous male collaborators, who included Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Jean Prouvé. However, in recent years her reputation as a furniture designer and architect has matched the stature of her peers – her furniture in particular has become highly prized by collectors. From the 1920s onwards, Perriand was instrumental in bringing the modernist aesthetic to interiors. But she also believed in the synthesis of the arts, and was friends with visual artists such as Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger. This book will explore Perriand’s journey from the machine aesthetic to her adoption of natural forms, and from modular furniture systems to major architectural projects such as Les Arcs ski resort. Featuring some of her most famous interiors, as well as her original furniture, her photography and her personal notebooks, this book sheds new light on Perriand’s creative process and her place in design history. It will accompany the forthcoming Design Museum exhibition of the same title, which will coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Perriand’s last significant presentation in London, held at the Design Museum in 1996.

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The twentieth century offered up countless visions of domestic life, from the aspirational to the radical. Whether it was the dream of the fully mechanised home or the notion that technology might free us from home altogether, the domestic realm was a site of endless invention and speculation. But what happened to those visions? Are the smart homes of today the future that architects and designers once predicted, or has ‘home’ proved resistant to radical change? Home Futures: Living in Yesterday’s Tomorrow –accompanying a major Design Museum exhibition of the same title–explores a number of different attitudes toward domestic life, tracing the social and technological developments that have driven change in the home. It proposes that we are already living in yesterday’s tomorrow, just not in the way anyone predicted. This book begins with a lavishly illustrated catalogue portraying the ‘home futures’ of the twentieth century and beyond, from the work of Ettore Sottsass and Joe Colombo to Google’s recent forays into the smart home. The catalogue is followed by a reader consisting of newly commissioned essays by writers such as Dan Hill and Justin McGuirk, which explore the changes in the domestic realm in relation to space, technology, society, economy and psychology.

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The Offbeat Sari will explore how the sari has become a site for design innovation, an expression of identity, a form of resistance, and a crafted object carrying layers of cultural meanings. In recent years, the sari has been reinvented. The urban youth who previously associated the sari with dressing up can now be found wearing saris and sneakers on their commutes to work. Designers are experimenting with hybrid forms such as sari gowns and dresses, pre-draped saris and innovative materials such as steel. Wearers are embodying the sari as a vessel for dynamism rather than pageantry. Individuals are wearing the sari as an expression of resistance to social norms and activists are embodying it as an object of protest. Today, the sari manifests as a site for design innovation, an expression of identity and a crafted object carrying layers of cultural meanings. Since the exhibition will focus on the sari in urban India, the book will follow suit in terms of this remit. It will comprise a series of commissioned essays by notable Indian writers expanding on some of the themes that are central to the definition of the sari in contemporary India and pegged to objects displayed in the exhibition.

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Arrive. Survive. Thrive.Getting humans to Mars has become one of the great challenges of our time. Mars holds the potential of human settlement, and the promise of life after Earth. Some of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs, architects and engineers are dedicated to conquering this next frontier.Moving to Mars: Design for the Red Planet is one of the first books to focus on the crucial role that design will play in this collective endeavour. From the capsules that will need to keep passengers in harmony during their nine-month journey, to the habitats that they will live in, to the terraforming of the landscape to make it life-sustaining, every detail needs to be designed. This task is falling to the traditional space agencies such as NASA, and to private entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Richard Branson, and to architects such as Norman Foster. As well as technical and practical solutions, this book will examine how design and design thinkers are approaching our move to Mars in unexpected ways. With striking, rarely-seen imagery and a unique design-led focus, this book will appeal to ‘space junkies’ and design enthusiasts alike.

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The third volume in the Beazley Designs of the Year catalogue series, offering a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design today. Now in its thirteenth year, the Design Museum’s Beazley Designs of the Year award and exhibition showcase the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. From the first iPhone to Zaha Hadid’s final building, the nominations for the award have spanned the fields of architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport. Introduced by Tim Marlow and Emily King, this illustrated book brings together all the nominated designs for 2020, along with the reasons for their selection by an international group of design experts, practitioners and critics. It is the definitive record of the year in design. Past nominees and winners include: Zaha Hadid, Gucci, SpaceX, Nike, Foster + Partners, Shepard Fairey, Comme des Garçons, Apple, OMA, Barber & Osgerby, Jasper Morrison, Thomas Heatherwick, Kanye West and David Adjaye.

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The second volume in the Beazley Designs of the Year catalogue series, offering a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design today.Now in its twelfth year, the Design Museum’s Beazley Designs of the Year award and exhibition showcase the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design.From the first iPhone to Zaha Hadid’s final building, the nominations for the award have spanned the fields of architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport. Introduced by Deyan Sudjic and Beatrice Galilee, this illustrated book brings together all the nominated designs for 2019, along with the reasons for their selection by an international group of design experts, practitioners and critics. It is the definitive record of the year in design.Past nominees and winners include: Zaha Hadid, Gucci, SpaceX, Nike, Foster + Partners, Shepard Fairey, Comme des Garçons, Apple, OMA, Barber & Osgerby, Jasper Morrison, Thomas Heatherwick, Kanye West and David Adjaye. This year’s exhibition runs from 18 September 2019 to 15 January 2020.

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This Design Museum exhibition catalogue is a survey of political graphics over the past decade. From Michael Bierut's identity for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid to the protest graphics of Occupy, 'Je Suis Charlie' and the Women's March, the book also includes interviews with Milton Glazer and Shepard Fairey.

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Surrealism was one of the most influential cultural movements of the twentieth century. Subverting the dogmas of modernism and rationalism in art and literature, it also had a profound impact on the world of design. From Dalí’s Mae West Lips sofa to Schiaparelli’s ‘shocking pink’ haute couture, Surrealism championed the power of the unconscious, of dreams and hidden desires – and liberated design from convention and functionalism. Published to accompany the exhibition Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design 1924 – Today, this book celebrates Surrealism’s enduring legacy. It features groundbreaking fashion by Mary Katrantzou and Dior, as well as British artists and designers, including Tim Walker, Jonathan Trayte and Vince Fraser. Alongside essays by leading experts, such as Ghislaine Wood and Alyce Mahon, are interviews with practitioners who are carrying the torch of Surrealism today, including Viviane Sassen, Dunne & Raby and the Campana Brothers. The book concludes with a glimpse into some of the recent forms of art and resistance the movement has inspired, such as Afro-Surrealism, as well as the surprising connections between Surrealist thinking and one of the most contentious technological developments of our time: artificial intelligence. Contributors: Glenn Adamson, Yasmina Atta, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Susanna Brown, Campana Brothers, Dunne & Raby, Alyce Mahon, Justin McGuirk, Priya Khanchandani, Viviane Sassen, Ayoola Solarin, Ghislaine Wood, Najla El Zein

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This is the first book to gather leading designers, creators and industry insiders to reflect on sneaker design and its ground-breaking impact on popular culture. Contributors provide insights into the evolution of sneakers from sport-wear to style icons, the processes and people involved in sneaker design and its global future. Through conversations with the people directly involved in the creation of sneakers, it speaks to the next generation of sneaker designers and wearers by asking: who are the people involved in the design of a sneaker? How do their roles and approaches differ? How does their individual work contribute to the collective effort of making a sneaker? What will the future of sneaker design be? Richly illustrated, it includes iconic sneakers, drawings and sketches, prototypes as well as glimpses in the manufacturing process. Across three chapters – Style and Culture, People and Processes, The Future – the approaches and experience of industry leaders unfold the past, present, and future of sneakers as style icons and cultural facilitators. Contributors turn to the next generation of designers with an open challenge to move the industry towards a more positive direction for both the people and the planet.

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Idealistic visions of the Soviet capital that were never realised.Published at the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Imagine Moscow: Architecture, Propaganda, Revolution portrays Moscow as it was envisioned by a bold generation of architects in the 1920s and early 1930s. Through evocative imagery and a wealth of rarely seen material, this book provides a window into an idealistic fantasy of the Soviet capital that was never realised and has since been largely forgotten.Focusing on six unbuilt architectural landmarks, Imagine Moscow explores how these projects reflected changes in everyday life and society following the revolution, during one of the most fascinating periods of the twentieth century. Large-scale architectural plans, models and drawings are placed alongside propaganda posters, textiles and porcelain, contextualising the transformation of a city reborn as the new capital of the USSR and the international centre of socialism.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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