Monday, December 24, 2007

coming soon: Hangaram Design Museum

Daun visited the two design museums in Korea, and will inform us soon about her impressions. Here are some photos of the first one:
Hangaram Design Museum, Seoul

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Plexiglas exhibition in Darmstadt

Today I visited an exhibition at Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt.  It is about Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) or bether known as Plexiglas.
This  extremely weather-resistant plastic was developed to patent stage in 1933 by the Darmstadt-based Röhm company. Its constant high transparency, light weight as compared with glass and wide range of forming options are the attributes that make PLEXIGLAS® an equally attractive material for architecture and design.

With its variability in production this plastic put its stamp on the modernist movement, and made complex forms also feasable with transparency. From Panton's lightnings and chairs to the light roof construction of Munich’s Olympic Stadium, many new forms were made possible by this material.

Mathildenhöhe, where the exhibition was shown is also the birthplace of the german art deco movement (Jugendstil). Several houses and a museum show how this movement opened the way to modernism. This place near Frankfurt is until today important for the design scene because there is also located the "Design Zentrum Hessen" and the "FH Darmstadt - design faculty".

Our photo album from this excursion:
Plexiglas exhibition


"PLEXIGLAS®"
Museum Künstlerkolonie in Darmstadt (Mathildenhöhe)
16th Sept. 2007 to 24. March 2008


Website of the Museum and the exhibition

Sunday, December 2, 2007

BMW Museum closes until 2008

On 6th December the popular BMW Museum in Munich closes to reopen in 2008. After renovation the exhibition will grow from 1000m² to 5000m². After the great new Porsche Museum and Mercedes Museum (both in Stuttgart) the BMW institution seemed a little bit old fashioned. In front of the Museum BMW opened the BMW World, a center for visitors and customers.