It’s staggering just how many iconic stairs provided value to spaces and rapidly evolved beyond aesthetic and engineering virtuosity into symbolism, power and religion references for maximum impact. From the Tower of Babel to the stairway to the Acropolis.

No matter where you are you find fascinating staircases that make your day more enjoyable. Here are some of the ones I have found during the last couple of years.

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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.

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When JAPAN opened our eyes

It all started in Chicago. Towards the end of the 19th century when it was time to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus hitting the beaches in Hispaniola. The World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago became the biggest pastiche of architecture ever built. Disney World would look like razor-sharp minimalism in comparison.

Read more: The Day America Was Not Ready To Be Modern.

The greatest American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, was horrified at the exhibition halls, all set in dated Beaux Arts style, made of wood and plaster and coated in white. None of these white buildings made history. Instead, a gift from the Japanese emperor changed the course of architecture when it caught Wright’s attention.

In little island isolated from the rest was the Ho-o-Den, the Japanese pavilion by Masamichi Kuru. It was a scaled-down version of the temple of Hō-ō-dō built in 1052 in Uji, near Kyoto. The Chicago version also called as The Phoenix pavillion, was adapted from a sacred Buddhist temple into a secular one, and it featured some of the greatest hits of more than 1000 years of Japanese building tradition.

It can be difficult to understand how Japanese architecture has been around for thousands of years but was barely known to western architects of the time. That’s why this building stood out and sparked in Frank Lloyd Wright a love affair with Japanese culture. The building felt organic and looked natural, compared to traditional western architecture.

The timing could not have been better. Wright was looking beyond the boundaries of traditional architecture to solve a prehistoric problem: how to design comfortable private homes that normal people would be inspired to live in.

Wright and other modernist architects would go on to create more innovation in the next 100 years than previous builders had done in 2000. In an age when we are continually told about the cutting-edge modernity of Western culture, it easy to forget, that homes had seen little improvement since Augustus was emperor.

JAPAN GAVE US OPEN PLAN houses

While traditional European houses were rigidly divided into separate enclosed rooms, the Phoenix Pavilion presented Wright a free plan schema with interconnected open indoor spaces that could be adapted with movable screens.

JAPAN GAVE US HOMES OPEN TO NATURE

Here is more. While traditional homes had no interaction whatsoever with the surrounding nature, the Ho O den welcomed the outdoors, with sliding doors opening to the nature with terraces.

Wright revolutionized home design, and is now regarded as the most influential American architect ever, setting the style of the new 20th century. Yet the blueprints of Wright’s Prairie houses were built on those Japanese principles of open spaces and interacting with nature. Wright’s Obsidian houses, which were meant to provide quality living for the middle classes, developed even further this Japanese idea of blurring the barriers between indoors and outdoors.

JAPan make us love materials again

The architects of the Case Study program showed what can happen when the new construction materials and Japanese-inspired designs came together, beautifully exchanging wood with steel in the best-looking houses ever.

And the western world love the idea

These Japanese features totally revised the way we consider our modern houses, how we live in them, and even how we see ourselves. Open spaces, interaction with nature, and authenticity in building materials are the lasting ideas. Their continuing appeal is due partly to the fact that they are based on a 1000-year-old proof of concept, and it still rocks.

Wright revolutionized home design, and is now regarded as the most influential American architect ever, setting the style of the new 20th century. The Disciples of Wright such as Rudolf Shindler found the perfect space to pursue their ideas into open plan house that you and I can dream about living in. Neutra, the Eames and Philip Johnson followed after, inspiring also the architects of our modern homes.

So, while you’re sitting in your modern terrace and enjoying a rosé or beer after work, you might want to spare a toast to that generous Japanese emperor who showed us what being modern is all about.

Cover picture by Yuki Yaginuma, Traditional Japanese houses by Wakiiii, Mark B. Schlemmer, Tanaka Juuyoh, and Emile B under Creative Commons license. Neutra house by Julius Shulman, Eames house by Edward Stojakovic and
Philip Johnson house by Mark B. Schlemmer.

The post How Modernism Was Invented In The Japanese Middle Ages appeared first on Modernist in DK.

You missed a real party at the Columbian Exhibition. It was a massive event that drew over 27 million visitors in the Windy City. Is is estimated that a quarter of the American population paid a visit to the exhibition celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival on a Caribbean beach.

The great modern disaster

Few would argue today that the Columbian exhibition was an architectural disaster of gigantic proportions. In a showcase of progress and future mechanical innovations, the architecture in contrast was a gigantic Beaux Arts pastiche. In an age of changes in technology and lifestyle, most architects still remained wedded to the glories of the past.

Ironically, Chicago was ahead of its time in modern architecture. All eyes were on Alder and Sullivan and the other members of the Chicago school who put the city ahead of New York with the first functional steel skyscrapers.

Whether it was a Fine Arts pavilion or the innovations halls, the pompous, wedding-cake neo-baroque architecture was not the best stage to preview the world to come. People got blinded by sham-classical buildings of white-washed plaster and plywood.

One insignificant building changed history

Many modern architects at the time, such as Frank Lloyd Wright or Louis Sullivan, were horrified with the exhibition halls. Not one of these great white buildings made history. Instead, 20th-century architecture was changed by a simple gift from the Japanese emperor.

In an island isolated from the rest of the fair was the Ho-o-Den, the Japanese pavilion by Masamichi Kuru. This building inspired the young Frank Lloyd Wright to consider some of the fundamental tenets of architecture for the next century.

Want to know how? Stay tuned to my next post.

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If in the 20th century we learned to use machines, in the 21st we are learning to interact with them. And Teruyuki and Yuka Shikawa are making a game of blurring the boundaries between the physical and digital world.

The Shikawas are taking digital imagery to the next level by delivering the most accurate lighting and 3D texturing you’ve ever seen. Judge by yourself how digital got natural.

All pictures are reproduced with the kind permission of Teruyuki and Yuka.

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It was in a remote town in Northern Italy that a guy called Antonio Sant’Elia decided to invent the future in a time when everyone else was looking at the past. Architects were uncomfortable with strange new technologies; as a result, the new railway stations and power plants were disguised as monuments from the past.

Sant’Elia hung around with the poet Antonio Tomasso Marinetti and a bunch of other non-conformists who called themselves the Futurist Group. Rejecting the disappointment and despair of their contemporaries, the Futurists embraced the speed and energy of the emerging modern life and all its machines that would influence generations to come. In Marinetti’s words, “Nothing in the world is more beautiful than a great, humming power station.”

Against all odds these guys managed to lay the foundations of our modern culture and its architecture. While other avant-gardists like Adolf Loos were already working in this direction, the Futurists’ boldness overshadowed all else and inspired the visionaries of the following Modernist decades.

It was Sant’Elia who created a catalogue of drawings so powerful that one doesn’t know where to begin describing them. His sense of the future took flight and projected cities with the user in mind. Form would follow function and a dynamic lifestyle would shape the forms—this in a time when architecture was regarded as the ultimate static art. Presenting solutions that we take for granted today, the Futurists showed the potential of architecture to create mega-skyscrapers towering above huge traffic intersections, thus sweeping away the urban planning of the last 3000 years. Say goodbye to individual buildings and hello to integrated functional systems.

Sant’Elia pursued his dream by simply being himself. Not one of his proposed buildings was ever built. He did not adapt to cultural trends; he simply relied on his talent. In 1915, Sant’Elia enlisted in the Italian army. For the Futurists, the Great War was seen as a historic event and a chance to shape the future. Within a year, Sant’Elia was killed in action.

And yet his ideas have lived on. Sant’Elia’s Futurism is considered one the most influential cultural movements Italy has produced in the last century. The Modernism movement built upon these ideas and completely reinvented the twentieth century to create the modern world you live in today.

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The social problems that flared up in some of these concrete projects fueled the criticism and overshadowed the worthy social ideals of this movement. The rest is history.

Follow your dreams and build your long-desired mini Barbican in Magnolia Street. If you need inspiration, you can easily add some ideas to your Instagram feed by following these amazing accounts. Tough and utterly stylish concrete.

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Oh please! Not the robots again

We’ve heard this kind of thing before. If you’re like me, you are tired of hearing the same old song since the early 1980s, when the car industry became robotized. Hollywood received good material for apocalyptical movies. But we cannot take these dystopian future predictions seriously while we watch our robot vacuum cleaners struggle with maneuvering around a couple of chairs. When will these household robots evolve into superintelligent killing machines? The question is worth asking after seeing twenty-first-century hi-tech armies being challenged by poorly educated men with Kalashnikovs in their hands.

Schadenfreude and the rise of the machines

While we waited for the robot revolution, we had fun at the beginning of this century by watching YouTube videos of the ASIMO robot’s mishaps. It seems that robotic research has caused more entertainment than admiration. We smile when the mighty suffer in popular entertainment. Watching robots fail is now the epic enjoyable sport for working classes, just as watching VCR tapes was in the previous century.

Robot missteps in production lines reassure us that the robots will not jeopardize our future. Or will they? The robots may be out to prove themselves with the new Atlas. Unveiled earlier this year by Boston Dynamics, the Atlas shocked many, including the company owner, Google. Boston Dynamics gained cult popularity and brought robots into the fourth dimension with their previous robotic dogs, changing the face of modern robots forever. Those dogs were a lifetime away from ASIMO, but the Atlas is closer to what people fear about intelligent machines. It didn’t take long for Google to realize that Boston Dynamics had little appeal in public opinion. Thus, fearing a new Google Glass, they announced they’re putting Boston Dynamics up for sale.

The robots are out there, in disguise

You probably wouldn’t be able to tell from a quick look outside, but robots are silently and rapidly becoming part of our streets’ inventory; they’re simply disguised as something else. For instance, take Copenhagen Metro. Copenhagen, known for its low-tech transport (50% of people commute by bike), was the first city in the world to have a fully automatized, state-of-the-art network back in 2008. Computers and hi-tech robotic trains deliver 89.9% accuracy and no accidents, with trains running up to 80 kilometers per hour less than 60 seconds from each other. By the time you read this, a robot will be driving below my window every minute.

Computers and robots are taking to the streets. Even my basic VW Up has a computer that can think faster than I can and thus take over in dangerous situations. (My wife argues, however, that outthinking me doesn’t require advanced software.) The list is long and sometimes secretive. For example, every minute, computers help planes land without the passengers’ knowledge. Imagine the panic that would ensue in the cabin if the captain were to announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, because of terrible visibility conditions, we have decided to let the plane land by itself.”

And we still laugh at the bots

Just as we had fun at the expense of the ASIMO robot, my children laugh at Siri. The clumsiness of the AI and some bots still provides the same kind of entertainment. Marketing professionals and creative directors in the advertising industry still distrust the technology. But the scale of the automatization project is evident. We must acknowledge that automatization is no longer a blue-collar issue and goes far beyond the production line and into marketing, customer service, journalism, business consulting, and law firm associates. Robots even write corporate earnings reports for the Associated Press. Sooner or later, your work will not resemble what it is now.

Many of the smartest people in the industry agree that computer capacity is no longer a problem. Instead, the issue is to find the right design to create services that learn from their own mistakes and will change our lives definitely.

Alexa is the next step in the quest to fill our home with bots. Amazon Echo might have changed my perspective on the bots. After all, it’s the closest thing to a 24/7 shopping assistant sitting in my living room, and it includes more than 100 services, from Nest to Uber. This this is the real deal coming from Amazon, who took in 39.3% of online holiday e-commerce spending in the United States last year. Google want to be there and has just presented their own Google Home assistant this week.

You can still laugh at the robots. The future may not yet be now, but it is getting closer.

Pictures: Minority Report. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2002. Terminator Salvation, Warner Home Video, 2009. Copenhagen Metro by flo-klee in Creative Commons. Amazon Eco by Amazon.

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The 1950s marked a dramatic shift in the way people shopped and the ways in which retail businesses presented themselves. Have a look at these shop windows. You could easily expect to see them in your favorite high-fashion or department store window today. Enjoy these amazing samples of branding by creativity that are still good for inspiration nowadays, when retail is reinventing itself by combining in-store and digital experiences.

Top picture. Design Philip Clavadetscher for Bullock’s Westwood, Los Angeles.

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