'Chairs without Legs' guest exhibition at the Bauhaus Archive Berlin; photo by Rainer Viertlböck

Originally developed in tubular steel by a Dutch architect and furniture designer Mart Stam in the 1920s, soon after its invention cantilever chair has found itself the centre of attention, inspiration and reinterpretation among some of the most prominent Bauhaus figures such as Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Later, in 1960s, Verner Panton has popularised the form by creating the now-iconic, curvilinear ‘Panton’ chair which, at the time, was the first cantilevered chair made from a single piece of plastic. Since then, the ‘chair without legs’ has been revisited and refashioned innumerable amount of times by designers from across the globe. Now, to celebrate the history and undeniable adaptability of cantilever chair, Munich’s International Design Museum has organised a special guest exhibition which opened earlier last week (21 March) at the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin. (more…)

Harpa Concert & Conference Centre by Henning Larsen Architects; photo © Osbjørn Jacobsen

If music be the food of love, then where better to dine out than a world-class concert hall or opera house? Here, Architonic examines a number of recently completed architectural projects that perform as hard as the artists who take to their stages. Play on. (by Simon Cowell)

to Simon Cowell’s article on Architonic

New World Center by Gehry Partners, LLP; photo by Claudia Uribe

New World Center, the first purpose-built home for America’s Orchestral Academy, the New World Symphony, was realised earlier this year by the LA-based practice of the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry. (more…)

After ‘Koolhaas Houslife’, the celebrated documentary about the charming Guadalupe Acedo, housekeeper at the Maison à Bordeaux, Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine realised a new series of films. ‘Living Architecture’ seeks to develop a way of looking at architecture which turns away from the current trend of idealizing the representation of our architectural heritage.

'Pomerol by Herzog & De Meuron, film by Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine

“Unlike most movies about architecture, these films focus less on explaining the building, its structure and its technical details than on letting the viewer enter into the invisible bubble of the daily intimacy of some icons of contemporary architecture.”

'Xmas Meier', film by Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine

‘Koolhaas Houselife’ recension @ Architonic

to the ‘Living Architecture’ website