As more loyal readers will be aware we like nothing more than attempting to undermine Italy’s claim to be the cradle of contemporary European architecture and design.

It’s all show and deliberate misinformation being our war cry.

And so the exhibition L’Italia di Le Corbusier currently showing at the MAXXI in Rome is not the sort of show we really want to see presented.

Because it seems to imply that Italy played a significant role in both the development of the young Le Corbusier’s understanding of architecture and then as a reference point for him throughout his career.

Which could all undermine many of our arguments…..

Le Corbusier on the roof of the FIAT complex in Lingotto, 22nd April 1934 (Photo Courtesy Fondation Le Corbusier, Parigi)

Although for many Le Corbusier’s only substantial link with Italy is the licensing of his furniture designs to Cassina; Charles-Edouard Jeanneret’s relationship with Italy begins in 1907 when as a 20 year old he made his first trip over the Swiss-Italian border and his ties with Italy were to remain strong right up until his death in 1965.

L’Italia di Le Corbusier provides an insight into the relationship between Le Corbusier and Italy and in doing so explores how the the land was to influence Le Corbusier and his work.

Or at least that’s the professed aim of the exhibition.

We’ve not seen it, and so can’t say if it does or doesn’t

But it certainly sounds as if it should.

Presenting some 320 documents and 300 photographs L’Italia di Le Corbusier doesn’t just concentrate on Le Corbusier the architect but also covers his photography, painting, writing, sculpture etc… and so promises both a view of a Le Corbusier that most people don’t know and a rare chance to review his complete oeuvre.

Split into four chronologic and thematic sections L’Italia di Le Corbusier begins with his early study trips to Italy, including photographs and architectural drawings taken and made in Pompeii and his watercolours of Venice and Pisa.

The following sections explore his artistic pursuits in the early 1920s, including his establishing of the magazine L’Esprit Nouveau – in the first edition of which Charles-Edouard Jeanneret became Le Corbusier – and his contact and communication with Italian Rationalist architects during the 1930s. A particular highlight for us here is documentation of Le Corbusier’s friendly approaches to Mussolini in the context of  trying to win the commission for the new town of Pontinia.

L’Italia di Le Corbusier closes with a look at Le Corbusier’s post war work in Italy ending with his last two Italian projects, neither of which was ever realised but both of which are quintessential “late Le Corbusier”, the Olivetti Electronic Calculation Centre in Rho and a hospital in Venice.

"Studio della facciata del duomo di Pisa con dettagli di archetti e colonnine, 1907" by Le Corbusier (Courtesy Fondation Le Corbusier)

As we say we’ve not yet seen the exhibition and, despite our fears that it may cause us one or the other problem in our campaign against Italy, as an exhibition it is certainly very appealing.

What especially appeals to us is the country focus. Something about diving into the relationship between a man such a Le Corbusier and one country fascinates us.

The history of architecture and design is awash with close links between individuals and lands other than that of their birth. Yet the nature and influence of these relationships are all too often reduced to footnotes or accepted facts in the posthumous biographies and monographs.

L’Italia di Le Corbusier is a rare chance to explore one such relationship in more detail.

That and the chance to escape the north European winter for a few days Roman sun…

L’Italia di Le Corbusier can be viewed until February 17th 2013 at at MAXXI Rome. Full details can be found at www.fondazionemaxxi.it

Le Corbusier - Self portrait, 1917 (Courtesy Fondation Le Corbusier)

A 1964 sketch of Venice by Le Corbusier (Courtesy Fondation Le Corbusier, Parigi)

Hill House Chair by Charles Rennie Mackintosh through Cassina

144th birthdays aren’t occasions all celebrate; however, because Charles Rennie Mackintosh ties in so nicely with so many of the themes we’ve covered in the past weeks it seems like an occasion we can’t ignore.

Born in Glasgow on June 7th 1868 Charles Rennie Mackintosh trained as an architect with John Hutchinson before moving to the larger company Honeyman & Keppie following his qualification in 1889.

In 1890 Mackintosh was given his first solo project, designing an extension for the back of the Glasgow Herald newspaper offices on Buchanan Street, a project that was quickly followed by contributions to the Martyrs’ Public School and Queen Margaret’s Medical College.

In 1896 Honeyman & Keppie were awarded the commission to build the new Glasgow School of Art: with a design largely developed by Mackintosh. Construction began in 1898 and a year later the doors opened on a building that remains not only one of the most genuinely interesting buildings in Glasgow, but one of the most instantly recognisable and finest examples of Mackintosh’s architectural work.

1898 was also a significant year for Charles Rennie Mackintosh as it saw him complete his first commission for the soon to be legendary, Miss Cranston. At that time it was only a series of wall stencils, but over the next dozen years or so Mackintosh was to create interiors for all four of Miss Cranston’s Glasgow tea rooms. A contract that not only saw him work as one of the first genuine interior designers, but also produced a range of furniture whose form and aesthetics continue to attract and bewitch. The Willow Chair and Argyle Chair being perhaps two of the best known examples.

It also created in the case of the Willow Tea Room a future tourist attraction that would provide American visitors with somewhere to shelter from the ubiquitous Glasgow rain before getting on the train back to Edinburgh.

In addition to tea rooms and art schools Charles Rennie Mackintosh was also responsible for various private houses, most famously Hill House in Helensburgh, where he not only created the fortress-esque building but was also responsible for the fixtures, fittings and decoration. The Hill House Chair remaining one of furniture designs most iconic pieces, while projects such as Hill House made Mackintosh one of the influences for the short-lived historical revival of 1950s UK design.

Argyle Chair by Charles Rennie Mackintosh through Cassina

Beyond to his talents for architecture and design Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a prolific and skilled painter, and his later years were largely taken up with artistic endeavours.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh died in London in 1928.

While highly regarded and respected in the UK, as one of the leading lights in the Arts and Crafts movement Charles Rennie Mackintosh was also to have an influence that extended far outwith his native shores.

In 1903 one Hermann Muthesius, at the time Cultural Attaché at the German Embassy in London, published several articles in leading Germanophone newspapers of the day praising Mackintosh and the beauty of his work, in particular his tea rooms. Such praise obviously not going unnoticed by the burgeoning Jugendstil movement.

Following his return to Germany in 1904 Hermann Muthesius remained in close contact with Mackintosh, and as co-founder and later chairman of the Deutscher Werkbund movement had ample opportunity to further disseminate Mackintosh’s ideas on the continent.

On a side note, Hermann Muthesius’ continual arguments with Henry van de Velde and Walter Gropius more or less forced the split in the Werkbund that led to the establishment of Bauhaus. “No Mackintosh, No Bauhaus” is historically inaccurate. But an intriguing line of thought nonetheless.

The Dutch were also looking at what was happening on the other side of the German Ocean at the turn of the century and many elements of Mackintosh’s work can be found in objects created by members of de Stijl movement. Indeed some of the precursor pieces leading up to Gerrit Rietveld’s Rood blauwe stoel contain a form language and construction technique that demonstrate uncanny parallels to what Miss Cranston’s guests were sitting on as they enjoyed their tea and scones.

Mies van der Rohe allegedly once said that Charles Rennie Mackintosh “tidied up architecture”. That may be, what is unquestionable is that through his development of an approach that reduced objects down to a minimum, without losing sight of decorative elements, Charles Rennie Mackintosh helped accelerate the move away from Historicism and so created an environment receptive to Modernism.

Which is in our humble opinion is a decent contribution to contemporary architecture and design.

Happy Birthday Charles Rennie Mackintosh!

Willow Chair by Charles Rennie Mackintosh through Cassina

If your going to organise an exhibition called “The Revolution of Space”, there is probably no more fitting location than Frank Gehry’s “revolutionary spaced” Vitra Design Museum building in Weil am Rhein. Unless that it is your exhibition happens to be dedicated to Gerrit Rietveld a man whose canon is principally defined by linear, regular, sober forms.

Then you might think twice.

The Vitra Design Museum have risked the contrast and consequently visitors to “The Revolution of Space” are not only presented with an overview of the man, his work, his influence and his legacy; but also the most fantastic series of formal juxtapositions.

Vitra Design Museum: Gerrit Rietveld - The Revolution of Space. Even the weather adapted to the Rietveld monotone

Born in Utrecht in 1888 Gerrit Thomas Rietveld left school at age 12 to work in his father’s carpentry workshop. Following a spell as a technical drawer and model maker for the Utrecht goldsmith and jeweler C.J.A. Berger, Rietveld established his own carpentry workshop in 1917 and the following year he created the first, still colourless, version of his Red Blue Chair; a work that was to prove both a blessing and a millstone. In 1919 Rietveld made his first contact with leading members of the Dutch creative group de Stijl, a movement of artists, designers and architects that equally proved to be blessing and millstone in perfect unison. Subsequent years saw him turn his attention increasingly to architecture projects and in 1928 Gerrit Rietveld was one of the founding members of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture alongside luminaries such as Le Corbusier, Mart Stam or Hannes Meyer.

“The Revolution of Space” is largely based on the exhibition “Rietveld’s Universe” that was shown in Utrecht in 2010. The new title reflecting changes made by the Vitra Design Museum in terms of the context and style of the exhibition. In addition to new items that explain Rietveld in the context of his time, the current exhibition follows a largely chronological progression in contrast to the more thematic approach presented in Utrecht.

Consequently “The Revolution of Space” opens with the Rietveld classics. Which is good. For much like Metallica’s “Black” album tour when they played “Enter Sandman” as the opening song and thus meet all expectations head on, it frees and opens your mind for new, or long forgotten, experiences.

And moving beyond the classics, one understands not only in how many different fields Rietveld was active, but in how many areas of furniture design and architecture he was ahead of his time. And how much of what he attempted, but didn’t necessarily realise, can be enjoyed in the work of designers from later periods.

If, for example, a chair formed from a single piece of bent metal sounds familiar, then the chances are you’ve read our interview with Harry Thaler.

The form language and concept are completely different, but Rietveld was there in 1942; experimenting, pushing limits, doing exactly what the HFBK Hamburg symposium ”Warum Getsaltung?” taught us is the designers primary function.

And it’s not just Harry who has found himself temporally upstaged by the assiduous heer Rietveld, “The Revolution of Space” contains numerous examples of designers whose work either shows indications of Rietveld’s influence or whose work involves themes that Rietveld was experimenting with a generation or two previously.

For us the parallels to Bauhaus are most interesting.

Because they pose the question, why didn’t Gerrit Rietveld go to Bauhaus?

The visual similarities between the principle Rietveld works and the popular Bauhaus works is unquestionable, as is the fact that Rietveld and several Bauhäusler were working in a similar fashion on very similar themes at similar times, and that they unquestionably influenced one another. While in our interview with Bauhaus Archiv Berlin director Dr. Annemarie Jaeggi she talks about how part of the Bauhaus philosophy was testing materials and discovering what was possible with them. In every room of the Vitra Design Museum one finds examples of Gerrit Rietveld doing just that.

And so why not join forces?

The exhibition curators Ida van Zijl from the Centraal Museum Utrecht and Amelie Znidaric from Vitra Design Museum are in full agreement that Rietveld’s private situation in Holland simply didn’t allow him to travel to Bauhaus. It wasn’t an issue. And that in any case he was probably happy enough with those projects he had, and simply didn’t have any real desire or need to travel to Germany.

Which, to misquote Berlin’s PM Klaus Wowereit “…ist auch gut so.”

For had he travelled to Weimar or Dessau there is the obvious risk that he would have become just another part of the Bauhaus story.

Which would have been an injustice.

For be it as a pioneer of Open Design, as an modern urban planner or as one of the first designers to be asked to design aircraft interiors, Gerrit Rietveld was a man of many, many talents.

Our attention was especially caught by the models, sketches and furniture pieces relating to Gerrit Rietveld’s numerous projects examining issues of social housing, pre-fabrication and generally improving the workers domestic lot.

For us the parallels with Jean Prouvé are inescapable, but according to Ida van Zijl there is one central difference, “For Prouvé the industrial production was very important, for Rietveld the idea was more important. It was less important how it was made, important was that it was made”

And therein lies, possibly, a further reason why Gerrit Rietveld never went to Bauhaus. His heart potentially beating a little more for the craft and less for the industry, thus putting him more in the tradition of Arts and Crafts or Deutsche Werkbund than the industrial focused Bauhaus.

A model for the Verriet Institute for handicapped children, Curacao. Designed by Gerrit Rietveld and Henk Nolte 1949-52

Despite all the genuine innovation, vision and experimentation, Gerrit Rietveld remains a man trapped by his early work; for all the Red Blue Chair has become such a design icon that it is nigh on impossible for most of us to separate the man from that one object. But why should that be? Is the early work really better than what came later? Why does the popular image of Gerrit Rietveld stop just as his career was really starting ? For Ida van Zijl, part of the problem can be found, somewhat ironically, in the movement that initially brought Rietveld to a wider public, “de Stijl is so important in the history of the 20th century, and consequently those works that were produced in context of de Stijl are inevitably the best known and most widely recognised”

And so by extrapolation shroud all other works. Which in Rietveld’s case is the majority of his oeuvre, and in particular his later works.

Works we may never have had if the Centraal Museum Utrecht hadn’t staged a Rietveld retrospective in 1958 that re-focused attention on the man and highlighted his contribution to European architecture and design.

That said Rietveld remains someone whose rehabilitation is not yet complete, he remains a man who it is all too easy to describe in three or four projects. “The Revolution of Space” beautifully makes clear that there is much more to Gerrit Rietveld, much more to enjoy, much more to discover, much more to learn.

We hope that visitors take the hint.

And the location ? Would Gerrit T. Rietveld approve of a building such as the Vitra Design Museum? Would he be glad that his work was on show in a Frank O. Gehry temple to the decadent formless organic? We ask curator Ida van Zijl. She laughs warmly.”Definitely! He wasn’t a crusader, wasn’t on a mission to convert others to his beliefs. There was, for example, a Dutch architect called van Ravesteyn who developed an almost baroque form of functionalism. All the leading Dutch architects of the day criticised him and said that what he was doing was wrong. And it was Rietveld who said “No! Everyone has their own interpretation of modernism”, And so I think he’d be interested to see this building and very happy to have his work on display here”

Gerrit T. Rietveld The Revolution of Space can be viewed at the Vitra Design Museum Weil am Rhein until September 16th 2012.

Luddites!

Not a phrase normally associated with (smow)

To the best of our knowledge no (smow)employee has ever smashed an iPad or capped a WiFi service in protest at the creeping and increasingly obsessive proliferation of technology into our lives.

Despite that, the early summer weeks in the (smow)HQ were dominated by the preparation and production of the very first (smow)catalogue.

That’s print catalogue.

So on paper.

With ink.

Luddites?

Au contraire nos amis!

Not only is the production of such an analogue catalogue technologically more challenging than coding with that “any-fool-can-do” HTML; but, just as the mechanisation of the textile mills offered the oppressed masses their first, golden, taste of leisure time – so does a print catalogue help us to regain that.

Turn off the computer, enjoy a break, peruse a catalogue. And then turn the computer back on and order.

In addition to featuring a selection of products from the (smow) range the (smow) Designer Furniture Catalogue 2011 also includes biographical information on some of the most important designers and a range of specially commissioned photos of products from USM Haller, Vitra, Moormann, Richard Lampert et al

And is a mighty fine piece of work. Well done to all involved!

If you’d be interested in seeing the finished work, or know someone who would appreciate a copy, please contact service@smow.de (NOTE: It is only available in German)

And at facebook.com/smowcom we have posted a photo gallery documenting the production process.

(smow) Designer Furniture Catalogue 2011

Eames Lounge Chair by George Brückmann. A delightful combination of painting, photography and mind games.

A recurrent theme, not only here in the (smow)blog but also in general throughout the (smow) global network is the subject of illegal copies of design classics.

Or better put when is a design classic a design classic?

At the HGB Leipzig Rundgang in February we were confronted with an unexpected and somewhat unusual interpretation of the question in the form of “Eames Lounge Chair” by George Brückmann.

And were immediately hooked.

And not only we were impressed by Brückmanns work, In October 2009 his series “In-Situ” was selected to be part of the 2009/2010 “Gute Aussichten – junge deutsche fotografie” exhibition, one of the most important and prestigious Germanic contemporary photography exhibitions.

After 10 months and 6 stations in 3 countries the final “Gute Aussichten” exhibition of the 2009/2010 tour opens in the Art Foyer DZ Bank in Frankfurt am Main on Thursday July 29th.

Until the September 11th visitors will be able to view not only the work of George Brückmann but the work of the other seven young artists selected from the 91 entries submitted from 33 German colleges.

Ahead of the exhibition opening we caught up with George Brückmann in his atelier in Leipzig-Lindenau. And pretty much got off to the worst possible start.

Just as all forms of “design” rely on innovation and new ideas if they are to survive so to do the visual arts.

We thought George Brückmann painted onto photographs.

He doesn’t.

Still life with beer by George Brückmann. The objects are real, have been painted onto and then photographed

Initially he painted onto objects, coating the objects with paint of the same colour -  and then photographed them. And in doing so created wonderfully, obtuse, voluminous scenes somewhere between reality, painting and photography.

Then he moved onto painting objects which in the consciousness of the viewer were then extrapolated into other objects, before tackling the subject of design classics or better put the relationship between design classics and non-design classics.

We wont spoil the work by revealing the process, but enough to say George Brückmann paints designer furniture classics in such a way that through the composition of the final photograph “normal” objects appear transformed into the iconic pieces.

The paintings of the chairs themselves are not especially accurate, for all the the proportions and form  often vary from the originals. But that plays no role in your observation. You still recognise them, still find them attractive , still give them a value -  a value that then also seems to meliorate the raw and rudimentary settings.

Brückmann’s work is concerned with the “imaginary  extension” of one object into another and is achieved through a combination of perspective, context, art and the viewers innate cognition. Be it a cardboard box transformed into a deck chair or an everyday garden lounger seen as a Le Corbusiers LC 4 chaise longue.

Charles and Ray Eames’ lounge chair, The F 51 by Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohes’ Barcelona Chair being just three of the design classics he has re-interpretied.

Or better put extended from less valuable everyday items into the design classics we all know.

In the words of Brückmann “Here objects are what they could have been, could be, want to be or even should be”

The exhibition “Gute Aussichten – junge deutsche fotografie 2009/2010” can be viewed at the Art Foyer DZ Bank in Frankfurt am Main until September 11.

Le Corbusier LC 4 by George Brückmann part of "gute aussichten - junge deutsche fotografie 2009/2010"

For Charles Rennie Mackintosh the 2010 (smow) designer furniture World Cup may have been over; but matches against England always have their own incentive.

With Tom Dixon replacing Jasper Morrison, the English took an early lead with the Dixon Bronze Copper Shade and moved further ahead with a beautifully worked Off Cut stool.

In the second half Charles Rennie Mackintosh narrowed the gap with his Hill House chair; however Tom Dixon responded with a quick Wingback Chair and Spin candelabra combination for a deserved 4:1 victory.

The Group C table and all Group C results can be found here.

Charlotte Perriand with Le Corbusier und Pierre Jeanneret

Perhaps best known for her numerous co-operations with Le Corbusier, the Parisian architect and designer Charlotte Perriand played an instrumental role in developing the European modern movement: Not least as Charlotte Perriand is credited with converting Le Corbusiers modern furniture ideas into reality and so establishing the tradition of minimal, bent chrome steel tube and leather furniture.

Among the most famous of these collaborations are the from Cassina produced LC4 Chaise Longue, LC2 Armchair and LC7 Swivel Chair which Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand originally created for their “Maison la Roche” in Paris.

Charlotte Perriand with Le Corbusier was however only one chapter in a life and career that also involved collaborations with Fernand Leger and Jean Prouvé and stations in Moscow, Japan, Vietnam and Brasil.

LC4 by Charlotte Perriand Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret through Cassina

And it is her time in Brasil that is the subject of an exhibition at the Gewerbemuseum in Winterthur which opens on July 4th.

“Charlotte Perriand und ihre Spuren in Brasilien” is essentially devoted to a flat she designed and built in Rio de Janeiro during the early 1960s. The exhibition curators have rebuilt the flat and its interior in 1:2 scale in Winterthur and use it to explore Charlotte Perriand’s approach to her work and the design philosophies that guided her.

On July 16th the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich opens its exhibition “Charlotte Perriand: Designer, Photographer, Activist”. With an extensive accompanying programme the Zürich exhibition focuses less on Charlotte Perriand’s architecture and more on her furniture design, photography and her social commitment and activism.

Together the two exhibitions offer a rare chance to learn more about the life and work of one of the few women who could establish themselves in the male dominated, and heavily patriarchal society that was inter-war France.  Women in France didn’t get the vote until 1944 – by which point Charlotte Perriand, as well as the Paris based Eileen Gray, had already not only established themselves but also helped define the modern movement.

Charlotte Perriand und ihre Spuren in Brasilien runs at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur from July 4th until August 22nd.

Charlotte Perriand Designer, Photographer, Activist runs at the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich from July 16th until 24th October.

And the two museums are only 25 kms apart. So a nice days walk during a Swiss holiday.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was greatly influenced by Japanese design and this encounter against Isamu Noguchi quickly developed into a masterclass of subtle, self-confident, organic design.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh took an instant lead with his complete interior ensemble for the Willow Tea Rooms. In particular the Willow Chair seemed to distract Noguchi through its familar, yet foreign narrative.
Isamu Noguchi recovered however and drew level with his Freeform Sofa and Ottoman before moving ahead with his Coffee Table.
2:1 for Japan

The Group C table and all Group C results can be found here.

Although stylistically worlds apart both Ron Arad and Charles Rennie Mackintosh are united by their individual and uncompromising style and approach to design. As expected it was Charles Rennie Mackintosh who made the stronger start, taking a  1:0 lead with his Argyle Chair – a brave break form contemporary convention and a deserved lead. Ron Arad’s attempts at stemming Mackintosh’s dominance largely lacked the required precision and all landed wide of their intended target. Late in the second half however Ron Arad did manage to level proceedings with his ingenious and genre redefining Bookworm bookcase for Kartell.

An intriguing and just 1:1

The Group C table and all Group C results can be found here.