bekende deense meubelontwerper

I’ve always thought that this fabric wall hanging that came with my furnished workweek apartment was pretty keen and hoped that I might be able to arrange to have it move out with me, when that day comes, but didn’t realise until just recently that it is a piece of Danish graphic designer and interior decorator Verner Panton’s Mira-X Collection.
A student of the psychology and working in the studio of architect Arne Jacobsen, Panton (*1928 – †1998) is probably best known for his line of furniture, including his signature moon lamps and chair still licensed and in production by the company Vitra and for incredibly psychedelic office spaces like the cantina for Spiegel magazine headquarters in Hamburg, executed in the same style as this indoor swimming pool shown at the link.

ausstellung für unbekannte architekten

On this day in 1919, Walter Gropius founded in Weimar the Bauhaus school—a merger of the art academies of the city and grand duchy—as the successor institution to Arts and Crafts studio founded earlier by Belgian Art Nouveau architect Henry Clemens van de Velde, dismissed earlier during the war on account of his nationality, whose new style represented a negotiated compromise between the fine and the applied arts.  A show during the same month called An Exhibition of Unknown Architects, Gropius outlined the goal of the movement (see also here, here, here, and here) to create a new trade association for which there were not the same bars to membership as the guilds of the past, crafting the neologism as the heir of the Bauhütte, the stone masons who managed construction of cathedrals in Gothic times. A huge profusion of art and design came out of this movement and explore a carefully curated archive of resources at Open Culture at the link.

caffettiera

Architect David Chipperfield has redesigned and reissued the iconic Moka Pot for Italian design line Alessi, launching it at the Salone de Mobile of the Milan Design Week.
The original was introduced to the public in 1933, invented by engineer Alfonso Bialetti (*1888 – †1970), this percolator making it possible for more of the coffee-drinking public to enjoy an espresso at home—since previous contraptions were large and unwieldly and not well-suited for domestic use. The trained metal-worker also introduced aluminium for kitchen-use whereas it had not been a common feature beforehand. The redesign is of course informed by Bialetti’s conception but is a hendecagon and closer to circular than the octagon. Perhaps this homage, Alessi being known for commissioning architects to create signature everyday items, will give the struggling Bialetti company the boost to recover and become fiscally solvent again, the once ubiquitous and must-have appliance having lost ground to coffee pads and pods.

textilkunst

Born 5 March 1897, Swiss textile artist Gunta Slölzl (†1983) had a formative and fundamental role in leading the Bauhaus school’s weaving workshop.  Find more posts about the movement and its principals here, here, here and here.
Having joined the movement just after its inception, she became a full master (the first female to achieve this level though the atmosphere was rather lacking in collegiality with most of the directors dismissing fabrics as craft and women’s work) in 1928 and revitalised the weaving and dyeing studios, mentoring many students and experimented with synthetic materials. A gallery of Stölzl’s works can be found here along with other Bauhaus disciplines cab be found at the link here.

form follows function

In the centenary year of the founding of the Bauhaus school and design movement by architect Walter Gropius, an international group of graphic designers, in acknowledgement and homage to their roots and inheritance have taken on the fun task (Bauhaus typography was also gone into some darker places) of remixing contemporary corporate identities and logos and imagining how they might appear had they been commissions and assignments of the original circle of talent.
Until marginalised by the rise of Nazi and ostracised as degenerate art, the movement and philosophy was on the cutting edge of a changing world with artists and designers like Herbert Bayer, Anni Albers, Joseph Albers and Paul Klee embracing a seismic cultural and economic shift at a time when many felt unmoored and regarded with suspicion forces that were poised to upend the old order of things.  Contemplate more modern brand and organisational identities at the link up top.

worshipful company of stationers and newspaper makers

Via the always excellent Boing Boing, we are given a taste of the dazzling collection of ephemera of a confessed letterhead obsessive.
There are quite a few amazing Art Deco specimens to consider that are not only the height of typography but also serves as important historical record of millions of aggregated business correspondence of decades past. A blog, in itself and as a landing page, is certainly informed in terms of layout and format by the sheet banner, masthead, body and background and we bloggers should cultivate such aesthetics.

haut de gamme

We really enjoyed this retrospective review of 1960s fashion that ought to be revived from vintage maven Messy Nessy Chic. In addition to the pictured attire suitable for Star Fleet cadets from “Moon Girl” and Go-Go boot originators André Courrèges (*1923 – †2016) and Dame Mary Quant, the decade’s trends included paper dresses, outlandish eyewear and experimentation with new materials, including the use of Polymerising Vinyl Chloride (PVC) for weather-proof clothing and accessories. Much more to explore at the link up top.

captain america

The US Army is scheduled to introduce retro-style service uniforms with an initial issue of some two hundred of the World War II era service dress first to military recruiters before general distribution.
Presently, in all settings outside of formal social events, the standard attire is camouflaged fatigues and combat boots (previously here and here), drawing some derision in non-combat situations and the “Greens” would be worn in the office and during conferences. Soldier reception to the new professional look is reportedly positive but at the same time were not eager to add more to their service wardrobe.

omoshirogara

Via the always excellent Everlasting Blört, we are directed to the archives of Dangerous Minds and given a lesson in the propaganda kimonos produced in Japan from the turn of the century through the war years. Unlike more visible banners of provocation and hate, the above, 面白柄, denote a private novelty on display in the home only or perhaps as the interior inner lining of apparel—in any case, for a restricted audience and not for public display. This particular garb, celebrating industrial progress and the war-effort and ultra-nationalism alike, has garnered considerable scholarship of late and more excellent specimens are to be found curated at the links above.

8x8

marci playground: an assortment of brilliantly mismatched audio-swapped musical performances 

i’ll level with you, virginia: the one time Trump might have been expected to be liberal with the truth, plus some additional background 

misery loves company: those within the Beltway and beyond are commiserating on the effects of the partial government shutdown

eye on the workforce: exploring the photography of Lewis Hine that transformed the way America and the world regards labour 

regift of the magi: newborns are hard to shop for

bantamweight: check out these portable, pad-like typewriters from the early 1900s, via Messy Nessy Chic

chariots of frolic: incredible Indian wedding carriages

metafilter: Miss Cellania begins curating year-end superlatives with 2018’s top books with the aggregated list available here

cga

In the Christmas package from my parents, they included a picture of a young master Johan at seated at the helm of one of my first personal computers—though not the first foray into programming but possibly the first home model that came as a package with floppy disk drives and monitor and not cassette-tape memory that one hooked up to a television set. I don’t recall if the display just didn’t show up on film or if in a fit of intense privacy, I was driven to shut the screen off, but in either case, I still give the same look (according to H) if I’m bothered or feel someone’s looking over my shoulder.

5x5

their santatanic majesties request: the Rolling Stone album had the working title of Cosmic Christmas

tinsel: a gallery of Mid-Century Modern aluminum Christmas trees

tinsel town: 1930s Hollywood in its heydays recreated as a diorama

brick & mortar: a bookshop in Tokyo now has a cover-charge

aðventuljós: a handy guide to the holidays in Iceland

orgelpositiv

Having enjoyed the framing and composition of Robert Götzfried beforehand in his series on German bowling lanes, we appreciated learning thanks to our fellow peripatetic Things Magazine that the intrepid photographer is still very much active with new collections including some truly outstanding specimens of pipe organs with other subjects to be found at the referring links above.
A positive or box organ is one built to be more or less mobile if not march—from the Latin ponere “to place”—and wouldn’t be part of the elaborate interior facades of buildings—which themselves were a Mid-Century Modern revival in church and concert hall symphonic architecture (called the Orgelbewegung, the Organ Movement) that was especially strong in the US and Germany in the 1950s.

6x6

spitzmaus mummy in a coffin and other treasures: Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum’s guest curators, Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf

siss-boom-bah: antique Japanese fireworks catalogues

invaderz: a twist on the classic arcade game whose advancing armada evolves (relatedly) during play

a declaration of future independence: antiquarian JF Ptak shares the scarce text of Czechoslovakian president Edvard Beneš’ nullification of the Munich Agreement, which was promised to usher in “peace in our time”

not the stockholm syndrome: Swedish capital takes a stand on the privatisation of public spaces (previously), via Super Punch

暦:dioramist and art director Tatsuya Tanaka (previously) is sharing a daily calendar of his miniatures assembled from the everyday, via Nag on the Lake   

oldtimers

Previously H and I had enjoyed touring the sister campus in Speyer where a 747 and the Buran, the Soviet version of the Space Shuttle, are on display and recently redeeming one of H’s birthday gifts, we got to take a look at the sprawling museum, amusement park and cinema das Auto- und Technikmuseum Sinsheim, the largest private exhibit in Europe that curates some three hundred classic automobiles (Oldtimers auf Deutsch), forty racing cars, thirty locomotives, one hundred and fifty tractors, dozens of player pianos and calliopes plus over sixty aircraft, including the two supersonic commercial planes built the Anglo-French Concorde and the Russian Tupolev Tu-144, visible when passing by on the Autobahn.

The vast halls contained a really impressive amount of Mercedes (including some infamous ones custom-made for Benito Mussolini and Heinrich Himmler) and some extraordinary Maybachs produced for the anonymously, forgotten well-off, with a significant portion maintained in fully-function condition.

Also on display for inspection were an original model DeLorean and a motorised unicycle from 1894, whose time has come around again. Of course the exhibits are worth marvelling at and pretending to sit in the driver’s seat and quite a few are up for demonstration, but moreover it’s something inspired to think about the level and depth of engineering that went into each of these machines, some three thousand all told.

great railway journeys

Via Dark Roasted Blend’s weekly Link Latte, we find ourselves directed to the beautifully curated collection of vintage and antique European rail travel posters from Armand Massonet. Categorised and with a bit of provenance that allows one to date the ephemera and learn more, there’s a wealth of resources to discover. We especially liked the section dedicated to overnight expresses and sleeper cars (a less common luxury nowadays)—including automobile hauling service. The pictorial train map section, like this Bildkarte of Austria, is also definitely worth browsing through.

7x7

yokohama-e: early depictions of Westerns (previously) by Japanese illustrators—via the Everlasting Blört

uncanny valley: the secret (related) and sometimes glamourous life of fashion mannequins

periodicals: the Avocado has a regular column on reading vintage and antique magazines—via Things Magazine

spriting: fun and informative pixel-art animation tutorials

millinery: curating the illustrations of Joanna Spicer to celebrate the hatmaking industry of Stockport

reading room: Massimo Listri’s amazing photography of European libraries

what-ifs: illustrator Tom Stults envisions films created in another time and place

game of optional goals

Had I not learned otherwise, I would have thought that this alternative reality version, meritocratic of the board game Monopoly was some sort of commission from some No Such Agency to communicate with its field agents but Careers from Parker Brothers was introduced in 1955. In addition to the outer track, there are several internal loops, career paths to try and many more regular opportunities to draw cards of chance and a rather involved scoring system (recorded on a Magic Slate Paper Saver pad) to monitor progress and achieve a sort of work-life balance with a Success Formula of money, fame and happiness. Designed by sociologist, ethnographer and author James Cooke Brown (*1921 - †2000), players could aspire to be an astronaut, farmer or a uranium prospector among other things and landing on the same square as another knocked the first player to “the park bench”—intimating that they were out of work and fallen on hard times. Later versions of the game were adapted to better reflect the cultural milieu.

ye butcher, ye baker, ye candlestick-maker

Public Domain Review features a slim, quirky volume that at first glance seems like eighteenth century pulp fiction but is actually a 1908 light-hearted lament over the modern state of everyday occupations (to wit), satirising a host of old professions with ballads that address contemporary and resonant scourges—like over-regulation, quackery, fake news and copyfight, some perhaps landing a bit too close to home.
Click on the image to enlarge plus a word on the anachronistic use of “ye olde:” it should be and was always properly pronounced with the th sound, Early Modern English employing the now obsolete Old English letter thorn (þ), which in handwritten form could look like a y, especially when used in the scribal abbreviation of the article, the e a sort of superscript. Be sure to visit the link up top for more discoveries from the world’s print archives.

7x7

paying it forward: a comprehensive and inspiring look at the “I Promise” school of Lebron James

archival quality: an object lesson on the durability of microfilm, via Slashdot

mercator-projection: Google Maps shifts to depict the Earth as a globe, helping to ameliorate geographic perspectives (previously)

achoque: a convent near Lake Pátzcuaro is saving an endangered salamander from extinction—the nuns producing a cough syrup from its skin, via Kottke’s Quick Links

jingfen: a Finnish comic about social anxieties finds resonance with millions of Chinese people

lossless compression: organisms seem pretty indifferent to the effects of squeezing their whole genome into a single DNA molecule

the oxygen of amplification: exploring the conundrum of covering tabloid politics and some advice for journalists on how to not fall into the manipulative traps