Category Archives: Design

August 03

Architectural Wonders: Melnikov’s House

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On the 3rd of August 1890, Russian architect and painter Konstantin Melnikov was born in Moscow. A pious Orthodox Christian from a peasant family, Melnikov had managed to gain admission to the prestigious Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and study with Russia’s greatest neoclassical painters and architects on the eve of the October […]

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June 18

Modernism Uncut: Marianne Brandt’s Photomontages

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On the 18th of June 1983, German artist Marianne Brandt died in Kirchberg, Saxony at the age of 89. She was a complex multi-media artist and designer nowadays best remembered for creating metallic household objects such as lamps, ashtrays and teapots which are at the forefront of modern industrial design. Starting with 1926, Brandt also […]

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June 13

Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon: Inventor of the Modern Fashion Show

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On the 13th of June 1863, Lucy Christiana, Lady Duff-Gordon (née Sutherland), best known as ‘Lucile’, was born in London, England. She gained recognition as a leading fashion designer in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. After being abandoned by her first husband, James Stuart Wallace, who left her practically penniless, she set […]

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June 04

Female Decorative Artists in Early 20th-Century Britain

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On the 4th of June 1879, British illustrator and designer Mabel Lucie Attwell was born in Mile End, London. At the turn of the century, her drawings of sentimentalized rotund cuddly infants, started appearing in various media such as: cards, calendars, nursery equipment, pictures, crockery and china ware, dolls, postcards, advertisements, posters, books and figurines. […]

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May 28

The Larssons’ Handmade, Homemade Bliss: Swedish Arts and Crafts

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On the 28th of May 1853, artist and designer Carl Larsson was born in Stockholm. Following a difficult childhood spent in poverty, Larsson got a break when an art teacher recognised his talent and directed him towards a creative career. He started off working as an illustrator of books, magazines, and newspapers, then moved to […]

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March 30

Fortunato Depero’s Futurist Toy

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On the 30th of March 1892, Italian Futurist artist Fortunato Depero was born in Fondo, Trentino. In his youth, he was apprentice to a marble worker, which may explain his future interest in shape, form and design. On a 1913 trip to Florence, he discovered a copy of Giovanni Papini’s periodical Lacerba, which prophesized the […]

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December 10

Beyond the Veneer: Charles Rennie Mackintosh

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On the 10th of December 1928, Glaswegian designer and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh died in London relatively unknown and destitute. He was one of the artists who reaffirmed craftsmanship at a time of emerging Northern industrialization. He agreed with those in the British Arts and Crafts Movement who hailed a return to the individual touch […]

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November 24

Christopher Dresser: Design into Industry

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On the 24th of November 1904, Christopher Dresser died in Mulhouse, eastern France. Unlike visual artists, designers leave a more palpable impression on our daily lives and yet, quite often, many of their discoveries fail to be attributed to them as the products they create get absorbed into the commercial circuit. Their ‘signature’ is lost […]

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November 16

Disney’s Architectural Aspirations in EPCOT

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On the 16th of November 1965, Walt Disney announced that his company had acquired 27,443 acres of a Florida swampland, twice the size of Manhattan, where he had plans to build the utopian Epcot Center: Experimental Prototypical Community/City of Tomorrow. In his own words, “EPCOT will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies […]

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