A look at some of the off-site exhibits during Milan’s Design Week. Composite steel-bar furnishings from the Belgian design studio Muller Van Severen on display in the Lambrate district in Milan. For those who see the Milan furniture fair as a cultural event, and are less interested in the ups and downs of the contract furniture business, it’s all about the fringe. Away from the wheeler-dealing hordes of the Saloni, the city blossoms with design exhibitions that are less commercial and more searching, more propositional. This year, however, there seemed to be less of the curated, thematic shows that have
After years of instability and sharp declines, the housing market is finally on the rebound. Both new construction and home renovations have posted recent gains, a good sign for the entire U.S. economy. Source: McGraw-Hill Dodge Analytics Click the image above to view a full presentation of these stats [PDF].
In this issue of RECORD, we explore works of architecture as urban catalysts—buildings that raise the stakes for design in their neighborhoods while successfully engaging the surrounding context.
The parlous state of the economy seems to be making manufacturers risk averse and innovation shy. The Bikini Island modular island sofa by Werner Aisslinger for Moroso. Milan makes a habit of celebrating its own heroes. Every year, the Triennale holds an exhibition dedicated to the same (now mostly dead) maestri—Sottsass, Mendini, Magistretti, and the like. Wonderful though that generation was, Milan ought to be a place that generates new heroes. But this year, far from being a hotbed of innovation, Milan was in the grip of the tried and tested. Where normally the fringe events are so numerous and
Sizing up the firm's new collection for Knoll at the Milan furniture fair. The Tools for Life collection is on view during the 2013 Salone del Mobile at Prada’s Milan exhibition space at via Fogazzaro, 36. One of the interesting aspects of the Milan furniture fair in the last couple of years is the way in which a particular group of journalists and critics has set the agenda before the fair has even begun. In 2011, there was a concerted move to raise awareness of the way designers are not always fairly treated by the design industry (this is a
An art biennial in the United Arab Emirates inaugurates a set of new exhibition spaces and presents work by OFFICE, SANAA, Buro Ole Scheeren, and Studio Mumbai. The 11th Sharjah Biennial sprawls through more than a dozen venues in and around the emirate’s Heritage Area on the eastern bank of Sharjah Creek. (The Persian Gulf is visible in the background.) The art world loves a spectacle and rewards provocateurs. Sharjah bans the sale of alcohol, enforces strict blasphemy laws, and has a reputation as the most conservative of the United Arab Emirates. They make an unlikely couple, but the opening
Designed by EHDD, the 330,000-square-foot waterfront campus is targeting net zero energy. A view from the water of the Exploratorium at Pier 15. When the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s celebrated science museum, opens in its new location on a pair of renovated piers April 17, the knowledge seekers and tinkerers of the world will be reunited with beloved displays like the gravity-powered calculator and the tornado machine. Visitors will also discover new exhibits, such as a pedestrian bridge that is constantly enveloped in fog and a ceiling aperture that transforms the site’s new glassed-in observatory gallery into an architectural sundial. But
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