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"50-TravelTags" Tag


I’m new here


Friday, May 24, 2019

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*****

I don’t really know the way, but I want to. I have this habit to wander off randomly when I’m unknown with a place. Just to see where I’ll end up if I let go of control. “Let fate decide” says the romantic in me.

After a while I see patterns and I believe that I know where I am. Finding attractive by-streets in every corner. But that’s an illusion. By the next turn this pattern is shattered by reality.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I don’t want to stay. Just keep going, till this frame turns into bedlam. Borders can’t contain me anymore. Looking back I can’t trace back my origins. I’m not lost. I’m new here.

I am chaos.

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Chain of Connections


Monday, April 9, 2012

 

Sometimes it happens when you think that you do not have any relation with something, suddenly you find a chain of connections with yourself.

 

Richard Niessen – graphic designer working and living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Since 2006  he works together with his wife Esther de Vries. The main focus was – search for a relations between Richard Niessen and Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Richard Niessen graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 1996. Esther de Vries graduated from this Academy as well in 1998. I selected some fragments from interviews where they mention the Rietveld Academie:

“The class in which I graduated, in 1996, we all started on our own. I think there was a need for a new generation. We were the first generation of creatives that were used to using computers. I think there was also an economic boom; a lot of clients wanted to work with young designers. Linda van Deursen had been teaching us and she was very influential. Ajax won the Champions League in 95 so she called us her Champions League.” 

“It’s one of the best schools,” says Niessen, “because it takes students seriously. Also, great designers teach there. A lot of art schools in Holland are more like schools, but the Rietveld is different…”

“It’s also because there are lots of interesting students,” adds Esther de Vries. “Everybody wants to go there, so they get a great selection of people to choose from. It generates a lot of talent.” 

“Students at the Rietveld are taught that they shouldn’t ever expect to earn any money,” laughs Niessen. “Most people prefer to stay poor and do exciting work. Sometimes we’re asked to work with commercial clients but it never works out because they see a piece of work and say ‘we want that’.” 

“Rietveld is a quite particular school. Rather than being taught in a certain style, you are trained to have an attitude. Students aren’t given straightforward assignments like ‘make a letterhead’ or ‘design a business card’. You are encouraged to be autonomous, to adopt a more art-like approach, to work more conceptually. Of course at the time I wanted to make letterheads, but after I left I was thankful for the training. It’s attitude that prepares you for anything, and you have plenty of time to find your own style after you graduate. Now I always start by thinking about what is the most interesting aspect of an assignment for me.”

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Old sailors do not whistle!


Friday, May 20, 2011

Old school sailors

My class-mate Olga makes beautiful old school tattoos with markers and colorful felt-pens. Maybe for her graphic hand or maybe because she was for a year on a sailing ship, the Falcon.


Roses, sacred hearts, daggers and anchors are her favorite subjects, exactly like the Old School style tells. Black lines draw easy and round figures that have to be filled with solid colors. Thanks to the sailors coming from exotic places (like the Philippines where Olga’s family come from) during the XVIII and XIX centuries who had contact with different tattoo arts and cultures. For sailors tattoos were a sign to remember adventures and reason to tell stories. In the beginning of ‘900 the tattoo practice started to arrive in the western important ports with the same sailors were opening small tattoos studios. Sailor Jerry (1911-1973) is the initiator of the style in Honolulu
in a notoriously neighborhood, frequented by the best names in prostitution and crime and, as always, by the well sailors. What shock me most of the Old Style is the elastic feature in design that from aggressive and poetic can become sensual and delicate. In the western society it easily changes attitude being used also from elegant women in visible and provocative places, maybe trying to imitate the sensual free body language of the same sex over ocean.

picture of William Vander Weyde, (1871-1929)

From my researches one of the first country that adopted tattoos was England, from the sailing in Polynesia, in the middle 18th Captain Samuel Wallis, French explorer, was one of the first to write about tattoos: “universal custom among men and women to get their buttocks and the back of their thighs painted with thin black lines representing different figures”.
The polynesian women were having their first tattoo at the age of 12. From that point tattoos were defining roles, position in society and head also religious meaning. The design of Polynesian tattoos was a Tribal style: geometric forms and stylization from natural element. It was really different from what we know about the Old School style of the sailors. I didn’t understand exactly what was the western approach to the indigenous culture in the case of tattoos and what european people kept from it. I think they were really fascinated by the act, painful and beautiful at the same

time. Looking at pictures of european and american women full of tattoos at the beginning of the 1900, i was thinking about their role in society, how was possible at the time of the “belle époque” to look like a polynesian? I didn’t find a lot, but in one of the most famous example there’s Nora, daughter of Martin Hildebrandt who in 1846 opens the first U.S. tattoo shop in New York City, servicing from both sides of the Civil War. Nora, rises to fame in the 1890s when she tours with the Barnum and Bailey Circus as the Tattooed Lady.

[by Sara Cattin]

Never on a Friday

Not a gem of the Amsterdamse School, the HMS Falken nevertheless originates in Dutch craftsmanship as a ‘Schoener’ first set afloat in 1947 and still sails the Seven Seas. The term or idea of the Seven Seas was coined as early as 2300 BC, but as many myths and legends at sea, the stories change. However, they do survive. Some might not think that brave and adventurous men at sea waste their time and occupy their minds with silly stories and folklore but more so than anything else – that’s exactly what they do. Sailors are without doubt the most superstitious people I’ve ever met. Among loads of quirky habits and traditions, these are a few does and don’ts you should consider when embarking a ship:

  • Don’t put your left foot down first when going aboard.
  • Sail out on a Sunday when leaving the port, never on a Friday.
  • If you meet a priest, a redhead or women without shoes on your way to the ship – stay at home for the rest of the day, don’t leave the port.
  • Keep a black cat on board for good luck; all other black items are banned.
  • Don’t kill any birds if you run out of food at sea. Especially not an albatross. Birds will bring you to land, but most important; albatrosses carries the souls of dead sailors.
  • Do keep your eyes open for nude women; it’s good luck. That’s also why the figurehead in the bow of the ship often is a female (with one breast bare in good taste).
  • Wear earrings, they will enhance your eyesight. Sailors ought to wear a golden earring in case they’ll drown and get found ashore because it will finance their funeral.
  • Don’t light a cigarette or pipe on a candle, if the candle blows out you’re doomed.
  • Don’t whistle. Whistling resembles the wind in the sails and will for sure call upon the storm.

Keep this in mind and you’ll likely go along with the skipper.


Anne Bonny & Mary Read [x]

[by Olga Nordwall]

Letters


Monday, March 7, 2011

Use Designblog TravelTags


Tuesday, November 23, 2010

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Visit all “50TravelTags”

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from the Designblog tag-list.

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browse mapping by Maria Micheva

It is not easy to navigate in the design world, let alone Designblog.
The 979 postings and over 2000 keywords turn it into a subjective maze. How are you going to find an entrance to amazing stories and surprising opinions. In-depth interviews and downloadable theses and research papers.
Before you know it, you turn from user to participant of a universe that sucks you in or swings you out.


browse mapping by Severin Bunse

Students from A group decided to help you along by browsing the blog for you. Becoming your guides, in a manner of speaking. Creating new tags that can serve as “Travel Tags”. [invention, ice-cold, climate, crisis, fun, erudition, rules, gravity, convention, removable, purple, symbol, social-talk, audio-zine, similarities, mode, funny-story, flexibility, women, do-it-yourself, icon, sharing, interpretation, role, masterpiece, travel, imagination, slowMe, play, peaceful-living, mystery, sexuality, reflector, 0-dimension, no-comment, theater, ideology, dress, sharing, hidden, art-of propaganda, dependency, break-up, sign, young, pulling-pushing, conditional, breakfast, porcelain, Norwegian-mythology]-tt. You can look them up in Designblog’s tag-list, under [50-TravelTags].


browse mapping by Anouk Buntsma

Browsing surely illustrates that Designblog can become a true Pandora’s box. On the TravelTag poster, which was printed on this occasion, you can see a selection of their journeys in the form of ‘browse-maps’. Visualizations of their browsing history. These visual sketches show clearly that browsing through the blog leaves a clear individual trace. No person experiences it the same way. The blog creates –by design– a colored travel experience that synchronizes with your personal taste and ambition.

mapping my browse history


Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Mapping_Anouk_bw2

the mystery of constructivism


Thursday, September 16, 2010

When we were at the Irma Boom: Biography in Books exhibit, my eyes caught this inconspicuous book. First I walked passed it, I did see the book but didn’t really noticed it. After a while I came back to see it and I found it really interesting. The book is really thin and also not big but not to small too. The book was opened so I couldn’t see the cover of it. I only saw it was an orange cover. It was opened at a page with a constructivistic drawing of a boat, on the other page you saw three lines of text and another drawing that is hard to describe. It looked really graphical, something I really liked!  It was so minimalistic and that was what got my attention. I didn’t really wanted to know what it was about. But I found out it is a poem book. Maybe that broke the mystery of the book a little bit. I’m still thinking about putting the poems in a translatormachine.

The book also has a really interesting index on the right side of the pages. Every page has it’s own little logo with some Russian word above it, it’s probably about the subject of the poem, but still I don’t get the little logo’s. All these little mysteries made the book so interesting to me

a small conversation between a Man and a Woman, starting from the workshop “Rules” by Ayumi Higuchi; rules in nature vs. rules in human beings


Saturday, June 5, 2010




To get to this conversation, I asked people around me to question something about the other gender, something the person questions the most (and if they didn’t know, just sOmething)

Italian Music for Movies


Tuesday, June 1, 2010

- click on image to download this research pdf -

 

- also read 'There are rules behind complex and organic circumstances [x] -

 

Vintage as a Vantage point


Sunday, May 30, 2010

Vintage

“Re-invent history, wear vintage”, a slogan that visually hits me while browsing through various vintage blogs online. The internet seems to have embraced vintage on its broadest scale, being a contemporary fetishized term for fashion and our continuous external enterprise. But a posting about vintage hairstyles( think Audrey Hepburn, Edie Sedgewick and Mia Farrow) made me think about vintage as something else, vintage as a vantage point for a multitude of areas, not just objects, but lifestyles and attitudes as well.
It seems as though all aspects of our past can be submerged into the nostalgia of vintage as a term and as an expression. The time element is crucial to explain why and what is actually classified as vintage. Used originally as a label of certain wines, vintage relates to specific grapes that were grown and harvested in a specified year, designating quality for some. The term becomes a symbol for exquisite taste, consequently a certain value is added, in price and demand. Vintage expanded in other areas of society during the last half of the 20th century as generations witnessed a rapid change in consumerism and global economy. Commodities lost their integrity as originality and uniqueness spiraled down the latter of mass consumption and reproduction. The spiritual value on personal items diminished as the availability in products grew homogeneous in its most pervasive forms, shaping a malady in western society of extreme objectification.

The myth of the movie star; hair-do goes vintage

It´s in our nature of always looking back to the past, either as way to water the soil for a new growth, a renaissance, or to point at faults to validate our presence to approach the past´s consequences for a better future. Let´s face it; overproduction and excess kill our sense of relationship with objects, whereas our grandmother´s closet might be the place which survives, for nostalgic and preservable reasons. Passing items on to new generations make them less mortal, meaning they´ll survive us and the increasing waste of cheap products we acquire regularly. Vintage exclaims soul and integrity, which points to the interest of vintage in the first place. The fact that vintage designs and clothing were created in the past, it exist a time period for items to grow into vintage, meaning it develops into a vintage state, and as a result vintage is a sign of growth and of belonging to a time we retrospectively inquire to for inspiration and aspiration. An increasing need for a closer relationship with our daily life suits this pursuit. The need for quality and uniqueness in products goes hand in hand with our need of being unique individuals. By acquiring vintage products, we are reflecting ourselves through a language of uniqueness as expression in the products. We feel more unique if we own unique items.

We´re constantly designing our life as availability and income supports a selective way of living. With vintage, one can classify or rather differentiate certain objects or designs from the rest of society´s mainstream market. It creates a distinction. Or one rather attains this distinctive aspect of separating oneself from the majority. Vintage is also associated with lifestyle, one add an extra element to your life. We embark upon a journey of image orientation, meaning we re-create or re-enact an image connected to the past. James Dean like lifestyle. The Beat generation´s poets influence on the intellectual youth, adding a specific trademark dress code; think hipster fashion without neon colors, a pre-8o´s hipster, relating to Allan Ginsberg and his contemporaries way of living and looking. RayBan´s Wayfarer for example were born before Tom Cruise saw his own reflection in them from Hollywood’s on-set film camera lenses in the 80´s. Hollywood and mainstream fashion have a tendency to pick up old codes for a new generation to re-mold into their own. Consequently, vintage design and clothing stores are today located in hip areas in big cities. An urban phenomena one could add, that merges our past with the present. It´s a business of its own, based on individual items, may it be garments from specific designer houses from the previous decades in the 20th century, 1920´s up til the 80´s. Or it be re-productions and copies of vintage design for nicer price tags. The vintage “look” can be acquired by anyone, yet the true vintage items, the high-value and unique ones are restrained to people who collects or can afford to buy the extra aura.

The thick frames, cigarettes and rolled up pants; ultimate vintage  look for men

The myth of the culture heroes; Mia Farrow and Veronica Lake´s hair-do and Beatnic Allan Ginsberg´s thick frames and rolled up pants. They represent an image or a lifestyle, molded into present day trends, making vintage a part of us- transformed from ideals and nostalgic decades, a sign of our present day mythmaking and longing for the past.

In 1995 James bought a t-shirt from the Coca Cola 1988 Olympics.  James feels that if something is genuinely vintage and personal, like our t-shirts, then it’s OK. We have grown old with them.

Thanks to James Westcott´s t-shirt, known as the mountain goat to many; currently a writer for OMA in Rotterdam, juggles art critiques and most importantly, a conquistador of global awareness.

Vintage Apparal

With Vintage, one can classify or rather differentiate certain objects or designs from the rest of society´s mainstream market. It creates a distinction.

Within apparel vintage has become an important part of the choice that people have in building their wardrobes. Vintage can be seen as an anti-movement to fast fashion and consumerism. Vintage pieces are often unique and carry a ‘soul’ in them. The items had a history and this is what attracts people to them.
Vintage can be divided into several subdivisions, here are two of them

Vintage stores in amsterdam:

EpisodeZipper

Vintage — ironic hipster

the largest and most consumed division. these stores are mostly found in smaller shopping area’s where they attract a younger crowd of students and twentiesomethings. The stores are mostly overpacked with items, and decoration is often vintage related. The clothing tends to be a parody of past trends and iconic clothing items. people pair shirts with wolf prints and eighties addidas jackets. This whole movement has sparked highstreet retailers like H&M to actually copy the vintage and vintage look into their apparel to also attract this costumer. Whats apparent that within this segment its not about the authenticity of vintage but more about the aesthetics of it.

KabinetLadyday


Vintage — Labels

Here mostly collectors and fashion enthusiasts are active, the strive to collect the most coveted pieces and do research on them, aside from the collectable quality, these people are also interested in the make of the garment, because many of these garments are made in ways that are not utilized anymore due to expensive labour. Stores like these can be found in smaller shopping area’s in the higher segment, many of the store owners are collectors of vintage themselves and seek to curate their selection presented in the store. Many of these stores carry also vintage bags and other accessories like jewelry. Clients vary from young fashionistas to old ladies.  Also interesting to add is that many fashion designers scour these stores in search for items that they can incorporate into their own collection, many vintage items get copied and recycled into the current fashion landscape.

Ebay Vintage > FerryVintage

Movie > intersection: Manhatten Vintage

Fashion brands using vintage for their collection as inspiration and copies.

Maison Martin Margiela — ‘Replica’
Margiela scours vintage markets and stores to find items that can be directly copied into the house’s aesthetic. A label is included in the garment or shoe that this item is a replica. Additional info about where its found and material is also found in the label.

Other big brands
Several big brands employ research teams to find pieces as inspiration for their upcoming collections. In addition to vintage found outside they also use their own archives to draw inspiration from and reuse their old designs in new contexts.

TedTalk > Johanna Blakely

post by Marie Louise Jacobs — David Kulen

My grandmother and her weave


Friday, May 28, 2010

I want to tell you about my grandmother and needlework.

My grandmother had a big house and in one of the rooms she had a weave. On the weave she made tablecloths and carpets out of old sheets and fabrics. She ripped the fabric in to long thin strings and weaved them in to carpets. Some of the carpets she made where for her own house, some for the summerhouse and others to give away to family and friends.

My grandmother had an education as a nurse but after she married my grandfather she became a housewife. No busy work life for her but instead she had time to do different kinds of needlework an of course be a wife and mother. After her children moved out of the house she also developed new interest such as hunting to spend more time with my grandfather who was a keen hunter. But enough about her life story so far because this text is about the needlework she made and her as an example for a generation of woman and design.

The carpets she made are called kludetæpper in Danish, which directly translated means rag carpets in English. A better word for it in English would properly be patchwork carpets. The technique is that you ripe a bunch of old fabrics such as sheets or bed linen into long thin shreds about one centimetre wide. You then weave the shreds together again into rectangular carpets. The results is colour full thick carpets. When weaving you can also make patterns or motifs in the carpets by selecting the specific colours and then applying them in a pattern. The more traditional look of the carpets is a wide blend of colours without a specific pattern or motif.

A patchwork carpet my grandmother made

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Me, You and Alexander van Slobbe


Sunday, May 16, 2010

Exhibition flyer

This spring I went to visit the exhibition “fashion for thought” at the Centraal museum in Utrecht. The exhibition was containing the work of fashion designer Alexander van Slobbe.

In the end of this interesting, and well curated exhibition, Alexander van Slobbe showed one of his patterns for a dress, with all the materials needed to copy it. I decided to make a project out of this dress and went right after the exhibition to buy fabric.

choosing fabric

I chose a black, transparent fabric for my dress.

Alexander Van Slobbe works a lot with the fabric, not forcing it into any direction, on the contrary, his way of designing really follows the direction and weaving in the textile he uses.

In my reinvention of the design of Alexander Van Slobbe, I would like to work, like Alexander van Slobbe, by draping the fabric. To find inspiration, I therefor looked up two of my favourite designers, Diana Orving, who works a lot with draping, and “House of Dagmar”, a designer collective who´s design is based on stitching.


left: Diana Orving, middle and right: House of Dagmar (www.dianaorving.com; www.houseofdagmar.se)

When I looked at the patterns I copied, I saw that the size was to big for me. Therefor, so that I can more easily work with draping, and to make the dress my size, I started to make a tailor’s dummy.

Instructions how to make your own tailor´s dummy

Material: tape, scissor, plaster bandage

  • wrap your self in tape. Not to tight

  • cut it open

  • tape it together again

  • cover it with plaster

 

while starting the cutting process, I realized what a difficult fabric I had chosen. It was to thin. When making the hem, and cutting it, thin fabric gets really easily wrinkled. I had to put a cotton ribbon between two layers of the fabric to be able to complete the hem, both in the sleeves and the collar.  After stitching and unstitching several times, i could finally start with the drapings.

back of the dress front of the dress

The most problematic part was the making of the collar. I called my parents for advice. My mother told me that her mother  used to cut very thin fabric on the diagonal when making a collar. By doing so, the weeving of the fabric lyes in the “wrong” direction, and therefor the fabric stays in place.

My grandmother would be horrified if she could see my way of working with the dress with the unregular stitches and the cutting in the fabric. She was a teacher for dressmakers and always knew who should wear what and how. She used to design clothing from private orders by rich ladies in the 50s. Actually my other grandmother, the mother of my dad, was also working within fashion. She was a sewer, and her sister a fashion designer. But I guess I lack the patience and interest in mathematics to work with sewing. On the other hand, the fashion designer Diana Orving, sketches directly on the dummy. She didn’t have any training in pattern construction. She just began by putting fabric on a dummy and register the way the fabric was falling.

I don´t know why I like drapings so much. Maby I see it as reaction against garnment wich only aims to bring out the body, clothes that are not interplaying with the fabric nor with the person who weares it. This kind of fashion is very excluding. It´s only made for people who are happy with their body, or only think that they are beutifull if they show their body parts because of objectification. But working with drapings goes further than that. It makes us aware of the importance of the fabric. It makes us see the handicraft and how gravitation creating shapes through the fabric. What Alexander van Slobbe does, is that he manages to balance the drapings through simple lines, forms and colours. It never becomes to much.

By choosing a black, thin fabric I tryed to do the same. The belt in the waist, and the  narrowing of the lower part of the dress brings out the classical shape of the woman body.

By making the décolletage in the back more low-cut than in the front, the dress becomes sensual without revealing to much.

So this is the result. Now it´s  only Me, You and Alexander Van Slobbe!

Something Else . . .


Saturday, May 15, 2010

THERE ARE RULES BEHIND COMPLEX AND ORGANIC CIRCUMSTANCES

This is the opening sentence of “Rules” a graduation essay written by Ayumi Higuchi in which she investigates the impact rules have or can have on the process of cause and effect in the creative process. A story that drags you into the exiting process of research where every question or statement leads to two others.
Using interviews as a platform to ask questions and create interaction, she involves Jan Groenewold (physician-chef), Luna Maurer and Jonathan Puckey (graphic designers), Snejanka Mihaylova (philosopher-writer-artist) and Peter van Bergen (musician-composer) to talk about the subject from the perspective of their specific discipline.
Look for yourself how she illustrates this story with many images and quotes dragging you deeper into the matter every page, creating in depth understanding. Munari, Wittgenstein, 9/11, John Cage, mixing politics with art and science with nature to get her point across.

Ayumi visited us in April 2010 to present a workshop in which she planted the seed of understanding using Bruno Munari‘s observations; [] We can establish a rule of growth: the branch that follows is always slenderer than the one before it (Drawing a Tree).
Providing us with a trunk and applying two simple rules to it: The branch that follows must be slimmer than the one before -and- the tree must be symmetric, it quickly became clear that there are many rules behind complex and organic circumstances.

 

download this research essay: “RULES”, there are rules behind complex and organic structures

Idealistic intentions


Friday, May 7, 2010

Idealistic intentions

All over the world idealistic ideas about ecological, peaceful communities and city’s rise up with the intention to create a new world and to design a new society and mentality that would chance the world. Nature supporting architecture, religious like rituals, education, economic and social structures are developed to amplify the realization of this new and “better” world. In every such project that was developed until now, cultures come together in a fusion of art, education, rituals and tradition. It is clear that a lot of people have the desire of a new structured, new spiritual and in every aspect more organic and ecological world. One that gives us the peace of mind that we will not use up our energy sources, that we will not exterminate our nature and therefor importantly to most humans ourselves! Every kind of media is trying to inform us to be aware for the need of change throughout the hole world. To raise the question of awareness, in what way do we go on manipulating the world, in what way can we change our living conditions. It is even a big inspiration for the art world, television series that create science fiction out of it, writhers, designers, architects etc…

Utopia’s

Some reactions to all of this have bin the design and building of Utopia’s. Still up until today non of these “Utopia” projects seem to really succeed. It is an interesting question to why these projects fail time after time and still why so many projects are rising up. It is a question that I will give my own perspective on. I will take two cities as an example for the experiment for the improvement of a better quality of live.

Auroville

“Auroville wants to be a universal township where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity”. In there philosophy they try to wave cultures and societies together with traditional and modern lifestyles. In that way Auroville has become a playground in many area’s such as architecture. Not only does Auroville have an interesting architecture it has it’s own economical structure, a research area for renewable energy and recyclable energy and elements, it’s own social structures and developed education.


The sketch of Auroville ‘1965’ begun with Mirra Alfassa (who was collectively called “The Mother”) she laid down the basic concept for the town. Here first sketches are called “The Galaxy” in witch she tries to lay down all the important activity areas that would fulfill the vision of making it a universal township.  It was to be a city that would totally intergrade and be submissive to nature. Then in 1970 Mirra Alfassa asked Roger Anger to begin with the design of the center “Matrimandir” the hart of Auroville. This is the most and very important  building of Auroville. It is called the “soul of the city” and is situated in a large open space much like an arena called “Peace”. Inside the building there are 4 pedestals that all belong to a wind-region North-East-South-West and symbolize characters. And also a mediation hall, this contains the largest glass globe in the world. Above it is a hole in the roof so that the sunlight shine’s s straight line into the globe by daylight. Witch gives it a extraordinary glow and light spectacle.


Every building has a symbolic meaning. The city exists out of 4 zones (cultural, international, industrial, residential) and a green belt. The movement of the city became to be intergraded in the nature it was build in. Around it other communities came into existence. Thus a kind of double city gradually developed. Auroville starts weaving into a structure of it’s evolution and become one pattern. The city has relied on the possibilities that nature trees and plants gave room for to build, and because of that a very natural shape became to be, almost tornado like, if it was made and shaped by nature itself.

This all came to be in the order of a charter of rules that where developed to the being of the City. Some of the architectural rules:

  1. Not to Harm nature or its existing habitants in the build of the city
  2. Eco Friendly Architecture
  3. Climate responsive architecture
  4. Architecture integration with natural surroundings

The following link is to the architectural aspect of Auroville: http://www.auroville.org/thecity/architecture.htm

Chandrigarh

Here I want to make a bridge to Chandrigarh another city that was build in India. This city came to existence because in 1947 Punjab was divided into a Pakistani and Indian part the new Indian state therefor needed a new capital city. The architect is Le Cobustier who also created the Modular formula and his own charter’s of rules for architectural constructions.

Some of Le Cobusier values:

  1. Architecture that has a moving relation with light, shadow and space.
  2. Provide of cheap and high quality buildings
  3. To contribute to a more comfortable and easy lifestyle
  4. To connect people by the use of elements and natural senses

These formula’s had everything to do with the natural elements.Le Corbusier had an aversion for industrial like cities, he thought it led to crowing, dirtiness and lack of moral landscape. He tried to intergrade a way of architecture that suggest and encourage people to have a certain lifestyle. He was also very concerned with the human body responding to its architecture. Also the feel and touch of materials and shapes, color, space, sounds, light where all even as important. The city Chandigarh pronounces itself as a city where modernization coexists with nature’s preservation. Tree and plants are as much a part of the construction plans as the buildings an the roads. And he city is surrounded by a green belt.

The most important and symbolic monument is an metal 85 feet hight open hand that rotates in the direction of the wind and carries out the message of peace and unity “open to give and open to receive”. Much like the symbolic meaning of the centre building “Matrimandir” in Auroville. Also Chandrigarh is divided into different area’s witch are self-sufficient neighborhoods, that are linked to each other by roads and path networks. The zones are numbered from 1 to 47, with the exception of 13 (since it is considered unlucky). The shape of the city is much like a patchwork blanked. It is clear that the city, roads and networks are organized and designed for practical use and comfort.

Failure and Succes

Both cities show in some way’s a lot of resemblance to each other but are also very opposite to each other in a lot of way’s. Both city are divided in sectors that have there own function, witch is also very important to both city’s is the richness of nature. In both city’s the architecture is build with a very friendly approach to the human body and environment. And both cities contain symbolic elements. But where Auroville wants to be a total new economic, ecological and self sufficient city and break loos of commercial and mass production companies, Chandigarh has companies like Mc Donalds etc… The mentality and philosophy differs in a economical, spiritual and educational way. Auroville tries to contribute to a solution for our problems of pollution of our environment, our energy sources and the quality of our mental and physical health. Chandrigarh tries to have a quality of living environment but does not in the hole try to change the use of economical and commercial consumers with the outcome of a more nurturing use of our environment. Still Auroville has not provide a solution and is now surviving on neighbor-villages. If you look at the world as a symbiotic organism it is clear that one can not survive without the other, everything is linked to each other. Even within the smallest organic cels and atoms there is linkage to everything around us. We humans have designed and created a world full of problems that are totally linked and symbiotic to each other. If we take one of them away the survival of function as we created it is in danger. In order for a concept like Auroville to work there has to be a chain reaction throughout the hole world to maintain that symbiotic relationship that we have with the world in order to survive.

It is very clear now in the scientific world, the spiritual world, the business and economic world, that a change and chain reaction like that is very necessary for our survival. Money became digital and lost its value and creditability. Banks are falling, oil one of our biggest sources of energy is running out. There is a big hole in the ozone-lear that damages our  bio culturals. We have to find a way to make a solution possible. And finding this way is very inspirational for designers all over the world!

SI Module or total table design


Tuesday, March 23, 2010

SI Module is the portable platform for Applied Arts and Autonomous Design, initiated by Sandberg Institute Applied Arts department.
On a special table a system of modules will be build. The sizes of these modules are variable, depending on the size of works exhibited.
SI Module, was part of Object Rotterdam

three more links inspired by the design fair: Object Rotterdam
1•Odd Designs on Film, 2•Richard Hutten "playing with tradition", 3•Total Table design
The Object Rotterdam excursion was part of the Basic Year "form-lab" workshop

“Prenez soin de vous”


Monday, March 15, 2010

For the first time in fifteen years an overview exhibition on the work of the French artist Sophie Calle is organize in The Netherlands. Central work in this exhibit is “Prenez soin de vous” (Take care of yourself), in which Calle invites 107 women from a ballerina to a lawyer to use their professional skills to interpret an email in which her partner breaks up with her.

Sophie Calle is part of the April 1st BasicYear Design Trip
look for more on Sophie Calle
newspaper article NRC  9/5/2008 (dutch) pdf

XX- ,The Book


Saturday, January 9, 2010

XX- is based on a research-approach that focuses on the intensive examination of typography and writing in all its social, societal and aesthetic ways of application. In the 2006 ‘typography class’ at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts, we (Elisabeth Hinrichs, Aileen Ittner and Daniel Rother) developed our project on the visual implementation of “symbols of power” in writing systems under the conditions of a totalitarian regime. In particular, we examined the way in which the SS (Nazi SS 1925-45) presented and visually legitimated itself by means of a constructed sign . A collection of sources was created on the basis of intensive research in libraries, state archives and the Internet as well as of interviews with contemporary witnesses. This collection was the starting point and the foundation of that book XX-, The SS-Rune as a special Character on Typewriters.

In its three chapters FEMALE (FRAU), SIGN (ZEICHEN), MACHINE (MASCHINE) the book XX examines the way in which administration, communication and technology were an elementary condition of the functioning of the annihilation apparatus in the Third Reich.

The book’s content consists in visual (advertising and propaganda images, files) and textual fragments (contemporary, philosophical, sociological statements as well as statements related to cultural studies and encyclopedic entries).In it, history is interpreted, displayed and arranged. In this sophisticated way of dealing with history which makes its documents visible and discloses them for use the book XX- questions its sources and their perception. In its hybrid composition as a file as well as a book its design employs filing techniques such as a registry, catchwords, numeration and categorisation and embeds these into a book format.

The book XX- is composed as a symbiosis of a file and a book cover and thus refers to its sources: The archive and literature. Constructed solely of visual and textual fragments, it uses available literature (contemporary statements, encyclopedic entries, philosophical, sociological, political and linguistical standpoints as well as statements related to cultural studies) and images (advertising- and propaganda images of the 30s and 40s, files).

In the book, fragments are juxtaposed without them being commented in way resembling an archive. Thus, they demand an independent analysis and an autonomous evaluation of the different opinions by the reader. The selective constellation of the sources takes on the book’s structures: Their succession and compilation are fixedand thus generate a new content. The resulting hybrid presents history and questions its alleged absoluteness and unambiguousness at the same time.

The book XX- questions its sources and their perception In a sophisticated way of dealing with history that makes its documents visible and discloses them for use. Thus the closeness of the book as a medium is abrogated in favour of a new perception of historiography. History is interpreted,  displayed and arranged in a reflection of the medium.

by Elisabeth Hinrichs, Aileen Ittner, Daniel Rother

Title: XX- (The SS-Rune as a special Character on Typewriters)
Series: orange files. Studies on Grammatology # 1 [orange files. Studien zur Grammatologie]
Editors: Julia Blume, Prof. Günter Karl Bose, Institute for Book Design at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts [Institut für Buchkunst der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig] Leipzig 2009
324 pages, 198 images, 420 citations, hard cover, cost €49
ISBN: 978-3-932865-55-8


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