1. The sharpest Christmas decorations

For design-conscious types, who are looking for something beyond the usual Christmas clichés, Denmark is the best place to be to maximize your aesthetic senses and avoid traditional designs. Welcome to a universe of simple color palettes, based on black, gray, white, and pastel colours.
Modern Christmas decorations are such an obvious idea that it is surprising it has taken so long for them to become available. They are sophisticated, sustainable, and available to all budgets, from Hay to Ferm Living. For the ultimate design experience, you can find gifts so beautifully wrapped that you won’t want to open them.

2. Inner light

As the Christmas season approaches and the sun sets at 4:00 p.m., managing light at home is a high priority for us here in Denmark. Unsurprisingly, lighting is a big business, and candles and indirect lamps are found in the corners of every home. Travel to the dark north to experience light and shadow patterns that will make you not want to leave the house.

3. A taste of Nordic Christmas

Danish kitchens are one of world’s best kept secrets. Only recently have Danish people rediscovered and come to appreciate their food traditions. Bakeries, especially, have made a come back at these latitudes. Get ready for a country where making bread and cookies together with your children is the standard for any family. Bring your own julekager as a host gift to any social gathering to show your goodwill.

4. Let your children in front of the TV

Yes, you read that right, television. There are no questions about the quality of Danish TV drama. Series, such as Borgen, The Killing, or The Bridge, are popular around the world thanks to TV management not interfering in the creative process. The same is true for children’s shows. Every December, 25 episodes of quality drama run on national TV, enthralling your children with mystery, magic some Nordic mythology and real-life conflicts. Series, such as Pagten, Tidsrejsen or Absalons Hemmelighed, showcase Danish children’s television at its best.

5. Plastic-free Christmas

Danes are not artificial, and this is apparent in the materials they use in their homes. Wood, leader, paper, and porcelain are basics in both home and Christmas decoration. Danish Christmases and porcelain have always gone hand-in-hand, since the time of Napoleon. Old brands, such as Royal Copenhagen, have rewritten their own histories and are no longer 80s cliches but high-end home accessories. An array of modern designers are bringing new life to the business, such a Anne Black, and adding Scandinavian touches to ceramics. Few countries can boast so many popular toys created by top designers, ready to fill the bottom of your Christmas tree with perfect gifts for younger children, including popular mid-century modern wooden toys.

6. Danish hygge around the table

When it comes to table manners, bring your best humor and conversations to the table, because you will be spending a lot of time there. Bringing people together is a national sport in Denmark, from Christmas dinners (julefrokost) with collegaes and office friends to family games like pakkelege. Nobody wants a boring dinner companion, but you don’t have to be ready with a speech, which is mandatory at other Danish gatherings.

7. Strolling in the frost

Due to climate change, we are still far from delivering a white Christmas in Denmark. However, you can expect some frost, and there is nothing stopping you from enjoying a cycle around a Danish city. For a more leisurely option, enjoy shopping at local stores while strolling through sidewalks and courtyards in a city were even department stores have an interesting edge.

The post 7 reasons why you should be in Denmark for Christmas appeared first on Modernist in DK.

Check for updates here.

The post Follow Modernissimo Blog on Instagram appeared first on Modernist in DK.

Believe me, thanks to this title your 21st century had a very different outcome.

Look around you —your sleek smartphone, your wardrobe, your living room decor, the foodies delicatessen in your fridge, or your last travel destination. Wallpaper* was one of the main players promoting obscure trends that are becoming mainstream today you can find Wallpaper* magazine’s influence even in your grandmother’s favorite Sunday newspaper.

It all started one day when Tyler Brûlé secured a loan and launched the astonishingly beautiful Wallpaper* magazine in 1996. This fresh title presented an alternative lifestyle to the grunge culture and marked a new direction in the difficult art of magazine publishing.

The sales figures skyrocketed in the first months of publication and attracted the attention of the publishing industry. In an unprecedented move Time Inc. offered one million pounds for a young title only a few months old and kept all the existing staff in place. Backed by one of the biggest media concerns in the world, Tyler Brûlé made Wallpaper* one of the most influential global magazines in recent decades, moving the grunge generation X (the ungroomed pre-sequel of the hipsters) to places where they had never been.

Today Wallpaper* magazine is a cliché of itself. Brûlé and his staff are long gone and started Monocle Magazine, but their influence in our lives remains. See how:

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Made It Cool to Look Healthy

I bought my first issue a few months after launch. The smiling Ivy League guys definitely stood out at a newsstand crowded with grunge and late 90s heroin looks. Depicting sports and health in a fashion title was a suicidal stunt that represented the worst of the 80s. Today, health is all around asking about half-marathon results is a great icebreaker at social gatherings.

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Made You Love Mad Men 10 Years before Mad Men Aired

Back in 1996 the 50s design associated with the worst of western culture. So, promoting the very best of mid-century modern architecture and interior design in a fashion magazine was a wrong staff decision. But against all odds, Wallpaper* succeeded with what no other architectural magazine had ever achieved—making the new generations love 20th century classic architectural masterpieces, sometimes as a mere first class background for high-end fashion shoots. You had never seen so much concrete in a magazine before.

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Made Us Desire an iPhone 10 Years Before the iPhone Arrived

Electronic devices in the late 90s were mostly disposable gadgets in plastic or computers in cream plastic or meter tall black Sony hi-fi systems. Wallpaper* contributed to a shift in tastes, promoting the work of designers like Jacob Jensen for Bang and Olufsen and Dieter Rams for Braun, opening our eyes to finish in aluminum and the long-forgotten design quality of home devices. Jonathan Ive and his team at Apple created the products you were longing for during the decade that followed.

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Made You Upgrade Your Wardrobe

In a time when a plastic watches set you on the edge of over-accessorizing, promoting Swiss watches and end-fashion to the broad public was a no-go strategy. Wallpaper* taught us to drop the white t-shirts and flannel shirts and love the relaunched Gucci from a new guy called Tom Ford. Hugo Boss, Filippa K, Burberry, and FCUK followed afterward. Generation X experienced a sense of quality they’d never tasted before.

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Made Us Love Scandi Once Again

After the heyday of the Scandinavian design in the 50s and 60s the Scandinavian culture lost much of its international appeal. Wallpaper* articles about Wegner, Alto, and Asplund contributed to the renaissance we enjoy today where many admire our balance of craftsmanship, high tech, sustainability, and social equality. New and cool Scandi designers were included on top of the classics. Habitat, IKEA, and the Nordic Noir did the rest.

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Designed Many of the Magazines You’re Reading Today

A balanced mix of fashion, travel, food, and architecture have become the ubiquitous standard ingredients of the publishing business today, from high-end magazines to Sunday issues of tabloid newspapers. Back in the 90s the media landscape was dominated by narrow-casted magazines covering mainly one issue. Titles like Wallpaper* or Arena shook the business, breaking the rules and establishing themselves as major actors in the last golden age of the print business before the advent of the digital media.

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Taught You to be Truly Global

The usual suspects (Paris, London, Rome, and New York) attracted millions of visitors during decades of cultural monopoly. No one dared to move off the beaten path. So Wallpaper* raised eyebrows when featuring travel guides for Santiago, Manchester, Tel Aviv, and even Baghdad. The guides, with the superior quality of their scouting appreciated even by the locals, have been the standard for the industry ever since and have been imitated endless times since.

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Filled Your Fridge with Ecology

The 80s gave us nothing more than broccoli and over-hyped French cuisine. The 90s failed even worse and gave us the popularization of fast food. The landscape was depressing, as Naomi Klein pointed at that time.

Health and sustainability were not directly linked to modern urban living. Despite that it has been around since the 70s, the ecology movement never took off. Wallpaper* contributed to changing that and promoting food sustainability to new consumers, adding an unexpected coolness to local, organic products.

Featuring food was a huge, bold move coming from a fashion magazine. The staff proved to be ahead of their time. Anticipating that food was fast-becoming a key factor in urban lifestyles Wallpaper* challenged our tastes, supporting the emerging new food trends we enjoy today.

Tyler Brûlé & Wallpaper* Illustrated Your Dreams

Never before had a lifestyle magazine offered so much place to illustrators. Wallpaper* shocked many in the business by resurrecting fashion illustration from the grave. The entire media industry copied the concept and a renaissance of modern illustration was born.

Pictures from the few magazines that survived five house movings. Cover picture by Monocle.

The post 9 Ways Tyler Brûlé Has Changed Your Life appeared first on Modernist in DK.

We now enjoy a modern and more sustainable building designed by the award-winning studio 3XN. Located beside one of the most innovative stations in Denmark, Flintholm, makes commuting even more inspiring.

I am truly a city person, so I am back to the city with a big smile.

The post I’m working back in the city appeared first on Modernist in DK.

The post The good (Danish) life appeared first on Modernist in DK.

1) Forget trying to see 21 Centuries of Art
Stick to Contemporary Art or Ancient Art and forget everything that happened in between.
Modern contemporary art is a beautiful playground for children: sculptures in unusual materials, pop art, and light and video installations will definitely blow their mind.
Ancient Art with good mummy factor will also work. Exhibitions of Egyptian art are a no-brainer when it comes to kids: the images of cats, as well as the Egyptian figurines, dolls, warriors and tombs will appeal to even the most TV-addicted children on earth.

Later you’ll have many years to fill the gap in between these two periods.

2) Nightmare at the museum
Hungry children will make your day hell. Start the visit with a meal. Most museums in Scandinavia allow you to bring your own food in a dedicated area. If you promise a piece of cake at the museum café after a bit of art appreciation, everyone will be happy.

2) Let the kids play around in the museum
We avoid special guided tours for children. We do not support the idea of sitting quietly wearing an oversized neon t-shirt with a silly logo. Browsing freely around the exhibitions or solving activities on their own gives the children a more creative experience.

4) Reduce your ambitions
Huge museums are the trend now but they can be intimidating for anyone and particularly for the kids. We introduce them to big museums in small bits and agree on the plan before we enter, often splitting the day in two, with some exhibits at the beginning and the children’s museum or the workshop later. A light meal during the break will definitely make the day easier.

5) Life is too short for boring museums
Don’t waste your precious time in an old-fashioned museum where time stands still. Design studios are revamping museums everywhere, creating spectacular experiences with a consistent narrative flow. These museums are eye candy for children.

6) Get their feedback
Ask your kids to pick up their favorite piece of art in a room. It will keep their interest alive and help them reflect on what they are experiencing. Children of any age have an opinion and are usually not shy about sharing it.

7) They are never too young
Make visiting a museum a habit for children as soon as possible. A museum visit is a possible any weekend at any age. Our first child visited a Helmut Newton retrospective when she was 6 months old and enjoyed the Newton nudes. She was breastfeeding at the time!

The post 7 Ways To Enjoy A Museum With Children Without Dying While Trying appeared first on Modernist in DK.

As many would expect, Instituto Escuela did not outlast the outcome of the Spanish Civil War, but the buildings designed by rationalist architects Arniches and Domingez did. Most of them were incorporated into the huge Ramiro de Maeztu school, one of the main public schools in Madrid. I spent some good years in primary school there, attending one of the remaining original pavilions designed in 1933. Light, air and space dominated each classroom, each of which had a garden and its own toilet facilities.

This groundbreaking building must be seen in a context: until a few years before, school building regulations allowed for few pupil centric design principles, focusing mainly on the form – axis distribution, ornament and roofs instead of on functional principles. Even in sunny Spain, terraces were not allowed in school buildings.

Unfortunately, the section I attended along with the rest of the school has been severely modified without much respect to the original design. I hope one day this school will be another one of the many good examples of outstanding conservation and restoration in Spain.

The post My Modern School From 80 Years Ago appeared first on Modernist in DK.

This state-of-the-art housing complex from the 1930’s includes innovative displaced floor plans. It became famous for its staggered balconies, and is popularly known as “Casa de los Picos”.

Since they were quite modern-minded, it might seem natural that my grandparents lived there. They had an apartment on the top floor, their business on the ground floor, and a huge warehouse in the basement. I have only good childhood memories of that building.

González left also his fingerprint on some other Modern buildings in Cáceres from that period, such as the Norba Theater. The Norba was an ultra-modern cinema, accommodating 2000 people in 1935. It is the double the size of the biggest cinema screen ever built in Scandinavia.

The post Modern Home For A Modern Family appeared first on Modernist in DK.