A Space for Learning

Here's a Design Week event that's so cool it needs its own post. A Space for Learning is an exhibition marking the end of a design competition run by the Irish Architecture Foundation, and the beginning of a much-needed discussion on how we design our schools and learning spaces. Last winter the IAF placed 120 architects in 90 schools around the country to begin a collaborative design process regarding the spaces we learn in, and now ten winners display their work in NCAD Gallery from Thursday 4th November until January 2011 before beginning a national tour.

Design Week 2010

Ireland's tenth Design Week, this time in association with Crown Paints (less tasty than gin, but probably a better fit when you think about it...), kicks off on Monday 1st November. There are events going on all over the country, so to find some near you, take a look at the website. Below are some choice cuts from the events in Dublin, the ones I'll aim to call into over the next two weeks or so (some of them run longer than the week, which is good because there's a lot to get through).

Stationery

Some of the projects I've been working on for the last couple of months are about to come to a close, which means I'll be starting some new ones soon. I don't know what they are yet, but I'm sure they'll be awesome... And one thing I like to do to kickstart something new is to get new stationery! I think I use it as an excuse to buy new stuff, telling myself I couldn't possibly be inspired to do something new using the end of a notebook from the last project. It makes sense in my head....

Henry J. Lyons Architects

(Image by Matt Kavanagh)

During Open House Dublin weekend I managed to attend a number of events and tours, all of which were pretty enjoyable. My highlights of the weekend both came from Henry J. Lyons Architects, who guided tours of their own slick-o-rama design studios (pictured below) and their high-profile Criminal Courts of Justice (pictured above). The Criminal Courts, completed at the end of last year, won two Irish Architecture Awards earlier this year, and for good reason too. In terms of functionality, great care has been taken to ensure each group of people using the building (judiciary, jury, public and custodians) can circulate individually, their paths never crossing on their way to or from any of the 22 courtrooms. The architects have also designed a 'double-skin' to wrap around the building, allowing for insulation/ventilation as needed, as well as keeping the inside out of view from the outside of the building, but allowing natural light and views of the outside to flood into all the courtrooms. Overall, it's a really light and airy building, huge but with great attention to the small details.

The Best of all the Rest

When I last posted about Open House Dublin, it was a calm Sunday night, and there were almost fifty events sitting on the OHD website, ready to be booked by thousands of eager visitors the following day. Cut to Monday morning, and the website got so many hits in such a short space of time, it crashed for a few minutes. Needless to say, all the prebook tours (which equals over 3000 bookings) were gone in no time. If you missed out, because you arrived to the frenzy more than fifteen minutes after everyone else, don't worry! Over 100 events don't require booking at all - just rock up to a building/event at the time specified on the website - and here's the I Like Local* guide to the best of all the rest this weekend:

Pivot Dublin

This morning saw the launch of Pivot Dublin - Dublin's bid to be designated World Design Capital in 2014. Spearheaded by Dublin City and County Councils along with a number of design and architecture organisations and designers across the city, Dublin's bid is due early next year, but work for it has been going on for the last 12 months or so.

Consider me Outfitted

Backtracking a little, I know, as I've already moved onto Dublin things again, but I needed to post this, and it's better late than never: the branch of Urban Outfitters in Glasgow is a little Awesome. It's huge and well stocked and has taken the "wooden art installation in a big ol' warehouse" vibe a lot further than the Dublin branch, making it quite a pleasant place to browse through. They've got a pretty nice range of furniture in stock, and loads of cool bikes hanging from the ceiling of the second floor over the mezzanine level. Though a UO homewares section is usually full of pretty naff nick-nacks, I managed to weed out a slick eco-cup, below, and firmly believe the coffee tastes better from ceramic than it does from paper.

Pick of the Pre-Books

When not writing I Like Local* (which you may have noticed is most of the time), I work for the Irish Architecture Foundation, and it's my job to coordinate Open House Dublin. OHD is Ireland's biggest architecture festival, and is happening, for the fifth time, from 7 - 10 October. I wont go on about it too much, cos there's a whole website for that, but I thought I should take the opportunity to pick my top ten pre-book tours (remember only a small proportion of the programme needs pre-booking though...) before the website opens for booking tomorrow (Monday) at 10am!

Page\Park Part Two

(Image of Thomson's exterior via CCA)

Another Page\Park-refurbished cultural space is CCA - the Centre for Contemporary Arts on Sauchiehall Street. Page\Park reworked a building by another notable name in Glasgow's architectural history - Alexander 'Greek' Thomson - to accomodate gallery, screening and performance spaces, as well as a cafe and bar and a pretty art and design bookshop and reading space at front-of-house. Well worth a visit, though one might not be enough...

Page\Park Part One

I just spent a long weekend in Glasgow, so for 5 glorious days I focused on Glaswegian buildings (and inside them, and around them) instead of Dublin ones. One such building was the Lighthouse, Glasgow's Centre for Architecture, Design and the City, was part of the itinerary. Housed in a Charles Rennie Mackintosh building, cleverly refurbished and extended by Glasgow firm Page\Park, the Centre houses a permanent Mackintosh exhibition, two viewing towers, a Vitra showroom, exhibition space, a cafe (pictured below) and a shop, which I somehow missed (?!). Unfortunately they were between builds while I was there, and so there wasn't a lot to see beyond the Mackintosh room, but I guess it's good to brush up on the man while in his home town...

of de Blacam and Meagher

Image by Alice Clancy

This week I are be mostly working on one project while most of the rest of the IAF office works on another: the Irish participation at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. This year's exhibition for the Biennale is called of de Blacam and Meagher and the exhibition creates/disseminates an archive of the work of de Blacam and Meagher - an undoubtedly influential Irish architecture practice who have been working for the past 33 years.

This Must Be The (Right) Place

I wont be around this weekend, because I'm heading to Glasgow to eat my body weight in battered foodstuffs, but if you are, you should check out Right Place, Right Space? - an exhibition in an artfully reconfigured house in East Wall. Called the Plastic House, it's a renovation project by Architecture Republic that combines a deceptively ordinary facade with a daring interior. I'm DYING to see inside it, but it looks like I'll have to wait til October to do so...

Ligatures

At the no longer very recent NCAD Graduate Show, it was Ronan Horan's work in the Visual Communication show that most impressed me. Horan noted that as our modes of communication are changing, and indeed shortening, the way we use language needs to change also. Already we've developed text chat as a modern shorthand, but that's rotten looking, so Horan's designed some ligatures to join the ampersand and make abbreviated type a lot more attractive. They're elegant, but more importantly quite easy to understand, making you wonder why nobody came up with them before.

Wall

It's like living in a James Turrell installation...or at least it was until we put a tv in that corner...

Drawda is on the Up

Naturally, it's not until I move away from Drogheda that I realise there's a brand new cool cafe there. I went to visit my parents last weekend and stumbled upon Trader's Coffee House on Laurence Street and I'm quite a fan already. All I sampled while sitting in its tasty interior was the coffee (also tasty), but they seemed to have a range of great looking sandwiches and even better looking cakes, all baked and prepared in-house. The coffee is roasted in Galway, so it's a little more local than usual, and I'd be sure to drink it a lot if I were still a local myself...

In other news, I saw Mickey Joe Harte having a mooch around Scotch Hall Shopping Centre after my coffee. Result!

National Leprechaun Museum

You may not believe me when I tell you this, but I recently visited the National Leprechaun Museum, and it is Awesome. Really, actually, honestly Awesome. It's a museum of mythology, which is great because that's something most people leave behind after primary school, and visiting the museum got me really enthused about all of that again. But the best thing about the museum is that it's beautifully designed by museum director Tom O'Rahilly. A number of clever tricks are employed to play with scale, such as the tunnel you pass through at the beginning of your tour and the giant-sized living room (featuring a giant-sized Anglepoise lamp!), but cleverer still are not-in-the-least-bit-naff ways you're brought through the magical world of the museum: everything's made to the highest spec from the best materials, and everything is slick as hell: from the rain room to the rainbow and everything besides. Swallow your cynicism and go visit!

Leaf Rugs

Designed by Michael Scott and Partners and completed in 1953, Busáras (Dublin's central bus station) seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of building (one of quite a few from that era still standing in the city). At the time, its International Modernist style was a lot for locals to take, and it cost a fortune to design and build which made it even more difficult for people to get behind. Nowadays the spaces and facades visible to the public are in need of some renovation, so it's looking a little worse for wear...

Number 31

If you thought all that Irish architect Sam Stephenson was good for was replacing Georgian buildings and Viking excavations with brutalist blocks (ESB Building on Hatch Street and Dublin Civic Offices, Wood Quay if you feel like brushing up) then I suggest you visit Number 31. Now a luxurious guesthouse serving "probably the best breakfast in Dublin" - their words, and Georgina Campbells too, for that matter - Number 31 Leeson Close, just off Leeson Street is a stunning mews that Stephenson converted and made his family home in 1958. Structurally and stylistically, everything in the mews is as Stephenson designed it, from the mirrored bar to the iconic conversation pit (above). For someone long-associated with architectural brutalism, Stephenson used his materials, the wood panelling in particular, to great effect, lending a warmth and homeliness to the sleek interior. Infinitely cooler than anything you'd expect from 1950s Ireland, possibly cooler than a lot of present-day conversions, this place is super sweet and well worth a visit.

Movie Night

Kicking off at 5pm on Monday 24th May in NCAD is a design movie double bill featuring Gary Hustwit's two awesome documentaries Helvetica and Objectified. This is the first of a series of events that will be hosted by NCAD's MA in Design History and Material Culture, keep an eye on their website for future installments. Also, follow the director Gary Hustwit on Twitter as he'll be announcing the third film in the design trilogy soon. Fashion, architecture, something else that's awesome...what will it be?!!

No Fixed Abode

I visited the Interior Design & Art Fair in the RDS last weekend, and head and shoulders above the rest of the stands was that of nofixedabode.ie. Peter and Sarah McCann run the online (and occasionally pop-up) design shop, stocking work by a number of different designers from here and abroad, including Peter himself. Some of my favourites on display at the RDS were these cushions by Scottish designer Donna Wilson:

Images via No Fixed Abode

ODOS Architects

One thing I didn't manage to see while wandering around Portobello (because I drew the line at climbing into people's gardens....this time....) was the extension done by ODOS Architects to a house on St. Kevin's Road. Completed in 2005, the extension breathes new life into traditional shapes, in the words of the architects themselves, "re-establishing the worth of the period home and stating the value of the new".

Less, But Better

Thanks to Image Now (who live in the old Boys School, below) for communicating the philosophy of Dieter Rams on New Bride Street.

Portobello

Portobello has to be one of the nicest parts of Dublin city, and I would very much like to live there. I had a wander around there the other day, soaking up the prettiness and the sunshine (shortlived as the latter was...) and, among other things, found the following:



Dolls is a clothes shop on the corner of Ovoca Road and Emorville Avenue. There was a great pair of brogues (I thought I took a photo on my new phone, but apparently not. Still coming to grips the phone and and coming to terms with the loss of the photo of the great brogues...) and they were playing Lykke Li when I went in. Dreamy. Also, through the door on the right of the shop is a cafe with seating just outside. I must check out the coffee another day, and will keep you posted on that.

Looking After Things

Partly because of a conversation I had on Saturday with Aisling from Raindrops on Kittens, and partly because it's been a long time coming, I spent this bank holiday Monday polishing shoes and altering clothes. Above left is my Favourite Pair of Jeans Probably Ever that I'd recently worn a giant hole in. Now they're patched up and ready to face another season. The campers are now freshly waxed, and the brogues are whitened up to a dazzling degree. Below is a pair of jeans that needed taking in at the waist, and while I was at it, I thought I'd shorten them (cue a hemming lesson from my mum). Lastly, the sandals needed some gluing in parts cos the straps were coming apart (I really need to stop buying shoes in Topshop - they cost quite a bit and yet always need repairing so soon after buying them...)

Here's the Heads Up #6

Oops, missed this one... will be buying tickets promptly, and wont have a volcanic ash cloud to stop me from making it...


(Image via The Small Print)

Here's the Heads Up #5

(image via A.Rubanesque's Facebook page)

So all the goings-on in Dublin and around are probably old news to all of you, but it's been a busy week since I got home and I'm still trying to get my head around everything that's going on. A handful of upcoming things have got my attention, here they are :)

Villa Julia

Still coming over all Spanish, I couldn't leave out Estudio Mariscal. Headed by designer Javier Mariscal, they work in product, interior, web design and more. One of my favourite projects of theirs has to be Villa Julia, a series of cardboard houses for children that you can colour in as you see fit. Oh to be a 7 year old with rich and design-savvy parents...*sigh*...

Jaime Hayón

The Camper stores in Tokyo and Barcelona (pictured above) are just some of the projects within Jaime Hayón's extensive portfolio. Spanish-born Hayón is known for his opulent, often over-the-top design, making him the ideal person to become the art director of Lladró ceramics, a position he uses to reinvent naff and put a new spin on those tired ornaments most of our parents have at least one of in their homes. In particular, his Re-Deco range for Lladró seems to do so by simultaneously making them more tasteful and more cringeworthy - how he managed it, I may never know...

Camper

(Image via Camper)

Spanish company Camper make some of the comfiest shoes around, without skimping on character. There's always a nice pair or two to be found in their stores (I think the mens and children's ranges usually come out on top), but it's possibly the stores themselves that are their crowning glory. I've visited a couple branches, most recently the branch in Palma on Mallorca, and rich colours, playful graphics and statement lights almost always feature. Pictured below is their flagship store in Tokyo, which seems to bring together clean Japanese minimalism and Mediterranean liveliness effortlessly. Designed by the Spanish superstar Jaime Hayón, who's been in partnership with Camper for a while now, designing stores as well as shoes, there'll be more about him to come.

¡Ay Caramba!

After a week or two of busyness-induced silence followed by an unexpected extension of my holiday in the Balaerics (thank you, Eyjafjallajökull - the funniest named volcano I'm aware of), I'm finally back to blogging, hooray!

Firstly, a look at some of the things I've been coveting while in a villa in the mountains in Mallorca:

Awesomely naff tiles. Every house should have some, but maybe not quite as many as there were here:

Here's the Heads Up #4

Tonight!
Pecha Kucha #5, The Sugar Club, Dublin 2
I know, I know, I already mentioned this one, but what I forgot to mention is that along with the 10 speakers there will be a screening of Areaman's documentary 140 Characters. Saw a teaser trailer for it when Areaman last took to the Sugar Club stage for a Sweettalk, and very excited to see the whole thing. This spectacular affair is a mere €5, payable at the door (which opens at 7 - be there early though, I hear it'll be a popular one....unless that's a lie someone told me, it being April Fool's Day...)

Here's the Heads Up #3

(Image via The Face Hunter)

Going on this week:
The Face Hunter Book Signing, Noble & Beggarman Books, South William Street, Dublin 2
If your a dedicated follower of fashion blogs, The Face Hunter may well be on your blog roll. Run by Swiss photographer Yvan Rodic, in true Sartorialist style it's now spawned a book, and Rodic himself is in town to sign a copy of it for you. Head to Noble & Beggarman bookshop (well worth a visit in itself) between 6 - 8pm on Thursday (that's today!!) to pick it up.

Made For You By Arms

Arms is a Dublin-based label who specialise in casualwear for men and women. Clean shapes, simple detailing and tasty muted colours seem to reign supreme. The top image is from their A/W09 collection, and the two smaller images are from the current S/S10 collection, and I'm lusting everything pictured. Even the stationary/office supplies. Unlucky for me (but lucky for my purse) they don't seem to have an Irish stockist now that Circus is closed :( BUT I'm told you can buy online via Bespoke Boutique. Hooray!

Studio Aad

Studio Aad is a graphic design studio located just upstairs from where the guys from Arms do their thing. In fact, they're responsible for the logo and lookbooks of the same fashion label (pictured below). Among a lot of other high profile and/or trendy clients, they've done the branding for the Absolut Fringe Festival and one of i like local*s favourite Dublin eateries, Green 19. Their portfolio's well worth a browse, and you'll also find their work in Victionary's By Invitation Only

Here's the Heads Up #2

More designy events in March that you should get to if you can:

Exhibitions on until the end of the month:
Notebooks and Narratives: The Secret Laboratory, PLACE, Belfast
If The Lives of Spaces at OBG isn't enough to sate your architectural apetite, go along to PLACE, Fountain Street, Belfast for an exhibition of architects' notebooks. See inside the process of a number of noted Irish architects such as Tom de Paor, O'Donnell + Tuomey, Grafton and others until the 27th March.

Adrian Coen

Joining Superfolk in the ranks of Irish designers in this years Greenhouse at the Stockholm Furniture Fair was Adrian Coen. Originally from Athlone and now completing his final year of furniture design at HDK Steneby, Adrian exhibited a nicely executed solution to store fresh fruit and veg in the kitchen.

Here's the Heads Up #1

I've come to realise that more often than not, I'm telling you about design-related events in Ireland after rather than before they happen, which means you've got less chance of getting to them yourself. So here's the heads up about some events that might be worth your time this month. If I'm missing anything, let me know and I'll try and add it in time!

Happening/ending this week:
Paulette Phillips : History appears twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, NCAD Gallery, Thomas St, Dublin 8
This exhibition explores E 1027, a villa on the Cote d’ Azur built by architect and designer Eileen Gray for her lover Jean Badovici in 1929. Having built the house as a romantic getaway, Gray eventually walked away from her labor of love. For a period of time it then became known as Le Corbusier’s house, while Gray languished in obscurity. It closes this Saturday (6th March), and the gallery is open each day from 10am - 5pm until then.

Boys and Girls and abgc

love Love LOVE this!! Once upon a time, Boys and Girls advertising agency moved into an old solicitor's office in one of Dublin's many Georgian building on Pembroke Road. It was full of yucky carpets and lame paint colours, so they asked Andrew Brady and Gearoid Carvill of abgc architecture & design to help them make their new home cool and fun. Andrew and Gearoid had a think for a while, and decided to make the place clean, white and sparkling, and make the piéce de resistance of the office a large handbuilt Lego table. The boys worked really really hard (see below in the time-lapse animation by Cormac Browne), only barely taking time for tea and pizza, and voila! A brand spanking new office, in which Boys & Girls will (hopefully) live happily ever after. The End? I hope not :)

Sweettalk #39

Sweettalk #39 took place on Thursday in the Sugar Club, and as always it was a pretty enjoyable evening. First up was Andreas Pettersson, a Swedish-born, Dublin-based fashion photographer. He showed some shots from a range of fashion shoots he's done for Image magazine, Brown Thomas and others. And he's handsome. Awesome. Next up were Ivor and Shane, the brains behind For The Love Of, a series of open submission themed exhibitions/arty parties, the latest of which (For The Love Of Change) will open next week in Mill Street Studios. Things kick off on Thursday 4th at 7pm, and for €5 (€2 of which goes to Haiti) you can party your pants off while surrounded by tasty artwork.

(Image via ICAD)

WIS at Designgalleriet

WIS Design is Lisa Widén and Anna Irinarchos. They are based in Stockholm and take a playful and poetic approach to design. During Stockholm Design Week they held an exhibition entitled "Add Up" at Designgallieriet which illustrated this playful side. Inspired by games such as croquet and hide-and-seek they have developed a series of stools, benches and storage furniture. Wis have already designed products for Casamania, David Design and Örsjö lighting company and I am sure we will see more of their strong graphical products in the future.

-Colm

Check In

(Image via Hotel Skeppsholmen)

Really close to Arkitekturmuseet you will find Hotel Skeppsholmen. Hotel Skeppsholmen has had an interesting history since being built in 1699. Originally built to house the Royal Marines its uses included a hospice for poor people infected with the plague, administrative offices and now as an exclusive design hotel. Claesson Koivisto Rune and architects Peter Erséus & Gunhild Skoog Jägbeck are responsible for the renovations and to coincide with Stockholm Design week CKR had an exhibition of their smaller objects in the hotel.

Designboost at Arkitekturmuseet

DesignBoost is an event consisting of workshops, lectures, panel discussions and exhibitions revolving around a central theme. The events theme was "Design for Life" and it was held at Arkitekturmuseet as part of Stockholm Design Week.

Included in the line-up this year was Ross Lovegrove, Karim Rashid, Ilse Crawford, James Irvine, Ineke Hans, Stephen Burks, Jens Fager, Satyendra Pakhale and Henrik Otto to name a few. I could only attend six speakers and by far the most interesting of those I saw was Ilse Crawford.


(Image via Designboost)

Greta Magnusson Grossman

Although not aware of her exhibition before my visit to Arkitekturmuseet (which runs until May) I was glad to find it when I got there. Greta Magnusson Grossman was a pioneering Swedish designer, architect and businesswoman whose influences are only just coming to light. Having worked successfully in Stockholm for a number of years she moved to America in 1940. She owned modern design shops in Stockholm and Los Angeles, and can be credited with significantly influencing Southern California with her Scandinavian design aesthetic. Having designed both furniture and lighting for over a dozen companies, her most well known pieces are the Cobra lamp for Ralph O. Smith and her range of dressers and bureaus for Glenn of California.

Stockholm Syndrome

(Skeppsholmen island, Stockholm, image by Colm Keller)

So, I Like Local*s gotten some Irish Blog Awards nominations and to celebrate has headed off to Stockholm on holidays! No, that's a lie. The nominations part is true (and thanks to those who kindly nominated I Like Local*, I'm very chuffed!), but unfortunately I could barely afford my recent Scandinavian jaunt, so another is out of the question. I know, only one Nordic weekend away in months, life is tough... Instead, Colm Keller headed to Stockholm to check out the Stockholm Furniture Fair and Northern Light Fair, and will be reporting back to I Like Local* on his finds and favourites. Enjoy!

Sketches, Schemes, Subjects

As mentioned below, on Monday I attended part of GradCAM's weeklong symposium, Arts Research: Publics and Purposes. Specifically, I attended their afternoon session on design research, entitled Sketches, Schemes, Subjects. Early on in the symposium we heard from Ré Dubhthaigh of London-based consultancy Radarstation, Dr.Gearóid O'Conchubhair of NCAD and Cearbhall O'Meadhra, research fellow at NCAD. Later that evening was a screening of some Eames and Eames-related films. If you're not familiar, Charles and Ray Eames were two of America's most iconic designers, as well as architects and filmmakers. If you're a regular reader of interiors blogs, you'll notice a common fondness among them for the Eames rocking chair, but I have to say, I'm much more of a Lounge Chair and Ottoman kinda girl (and I'll take them in brown, thanks)...

McCullough Mulvin Architects

(Image via www.dublincity.ie)

On Monday I went to the design symposium held as part of GradCAM's Arts Research: Public and Purposes in the newly completed Wood Quay Venue in the basement of the Civic Offices, Dublin (pictured above). I'd been looking forward to having an excuse to visit the venue for a while, as it's an interesting combination of new and very very old. Long story short, when excavations began of Wood Quay prior to the building of phase one of the Civic Offices (designed by Sam Stephenson) there in the 1970s revealed substantial remains from the original Viking settlement of the 900s, including sections of the Viking city wall. Though the public tried to halt development of the area, they failed, and in the 1990s the Civic Offices were completed on the site. When designing the second phase of the Civic Offices in the 1990s, architectural firm Scott Tallon Walker created an extra large basement space where the old wall stood, and it remained hidden away in the basement among bicycles and motorbikes until recently.

A Space for Learning

(image by St Kilian's Deutsche Schule, Clonskeagh and architect Simon Keogh, via A Space for Learning)

A Space for Learning is a design competition run by the Irish Architecture Foundation where 120 architects and 1500 Transition Year students all around the country are working together to design learning spaces, in some cases (above) with rather unexpected results! Working in teams in over 90 schools on both sides of the border, architects and students will submit their design ideas to the IAF in March and the winning designs will produce exhibits of their designs for a national touring show kicking off next Autumn. Visit the blog to get the latest updates on the project, and to get a glimpse of what our future schools might look like...

Superfolk at Stockholm

Home again!...ish.. Here's a post about an Irish design studio, Superfolk, on its way to the Stockholm Furniture Fair, from tomorrow until the 13th February. Superfolk, run by Gearoid Muldowney, is showing a table, stools, a lamp and a series of handmade wallpapers in Greenhouse, the Furniture Fair's platform for graduates and newly-formed studios. Pictured are Stools and table (pictures courtesy of Superfolk).

Dansk Arkitektur Center

(image by Philip Kennedy)

I visited the Danish Architecture Centre (spelled in Danish above because architecture looks cool with 'k's in it...) to see an exhibition called "New Public Spaces", which was about new, well..em..public spaces in Denmark, and the sometimes unexpected ways that people have been using them. Though the show wasn't mind blowing, the bookshop was pretty cool. I would have liked to spend more time browsing their impresssive range of books on art, design and architecture. I'll definitely call in again the next time I'm in town.

It's a Small World

Showing in the Danish Design Centre on Copenhagen's Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard until the 22nd March, It's a Small World is an exhibition exploring four contemporary concerns in design, architecture and craft: Sustainability, Human Scale, New Craftsmanship and Non-Standardised Praxis. What all that boils down to is work that represents the changing face of Danish design, something that has had quite a consistent public face until now. It also aims to showcase Danish design's increasing international relevance, as much of the exhibits deal with global design concerns. Work from designers and such as Louise Campbell and Cecilie Manz, craftspeople such as Astrid Krogh and architects such as Lundgaard and Tranberg (you may remember them from such posts as "skuespilhuset" below - in fact their exhibit's all about the coolest playhouse ever) and Bjarke Ingels Group (and many more, I just wont list them all) features to show some of the innovation, ambition, relevance and critical edge present in Danish design today. The exhibition itself is beautifully designed (but then I would say that - it's completely my aesthetic, with crisp white triangulated armatures to display all the exhibits) and documented, and it is well worth seeing, either now in Denmark, or later on its international tour.

Jacobsenfest Part Two

The following day we headed north of Copenhagen to Skovshoved (on foot in the freeeeeezing cold - that's dedication to design) to see Arne Jacobsen's 1936 petrol station. It's dreamy and well worth the trek out of the city. Here's a picture from Fieldwork:


(image by Philip Kennedy)

Jacobsenfest Part One

(image via TWM)

First stop on our Danish Superstar Architect Arne Jacobsen Tour was the SAS Royal Hotel, just by Central Station. Designed by Jacobsen in 1956, it still towers over much of the city as a striking monument to the Danish Modern Style. Perhaps most special about the SAS Royal Hotel is not the exterior (the unpopularity of its addition to the Copenhagen skyline led the architect to joke, "...it came in first when they held a competition for the ugliest building in Copenhagen"), but the interior. Jacobsen designed every detail of the hotel, and some of his most iconic furniture (such as the Egg and Swan chairs, pictured below) were designed specifically for this project. Though the iconic chairs are littered all over the hotel, only one room has been maintained exactly as Jacobsen designed it - Room 606. If you're in the area, ask at reception if anyone's staying in it: if not, they'll give you a tour, and it's well worth a look :)

Skuespilhuset

Image by Jens Markus Lindhe

On Sunday 24th January Slaraffenklang played in one of the newer branches of Copenhagen's Royal Theatre: Skuespilhuset (The Playhouse). Designed by Lundgaard and Tranberg Arkitekter and completed in 2008, it's won numerous architecture and lighting awards and features in the exhibition on sustainability in the Danish Design Centre.

Cutting Ice to Snow

Leaving Denmark doesn't get any easier the more I do it... now I'm back after a great couple of days in sweet snowy Copenhagen. *sigh* Fieldwork and I headed over for a design-y cinnamon-y holiday and to see Slaraffenklang, a hybrid of great Danish bands Slaraffenland and Efterklang (follow the link to download a free EP, including the song Cutting Ice to Snow and then come along to see each band play in Whelan's on the 25th April). When we got there, we were greeted by a supersnowy wonderland - it was so beautiful!