Oh Vienna!!! Day Three

One of the best days in Vienna! After finishing with work - and with the temperature firmly around zero AND snowing, I headed towards the Secession building. Of course I walked to get to it, which is something one does easily in Vienna - but get dressed well! So below are some things I saw on the way to the Secession (I did visit Stefansdom first but that merits a separate post under my Pillars Of The Earth series).

More Christmas decorations! Don't they look surreal in daylight?

This is the best deli in Vienna: Meinl Am Graben.

The building next to Meinl looks extraordinary too - notice those statues!

Gorgeous entrance!
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Gucci anyone?


Chanel ma belle! I dare anyone to go out in Vienna with those shorts!


The Adolf Loos building in daylight.


Michaelertor: Hofburg main entrance

Michaelertor - Hercules statues


Entrance to Imperial Apartments - that's Empress Sissy's silhouette


In Der Burg courtyard - monument to emperor Franz



The back of the Burgkapelle (13th century) in the Sweizerhof (oldest part of the Hofburg, 13th century)


Josefsplatz with the monument of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1795-1806, by sculptor Franz Anton Zauner). At the back is the Prunksaal, part of the Austrian National Library

The Spanish Riding School entrance.


Twin museums(yes it is snow): The Naturhistorisches Museum opposite of...


...the Kunsthistorisches Museum!


Horse statue at Maria-Theresien Platz


Maria-Theresien statue


The Museumsquartier, which includes...

...the white Leopold (by architects Ortner & Ortner)...


...and the black monolithic MUMOK made of lava blocks(also by architects Ortner & Ortner).
A lovely Renaissance style building.


A brick-clad building, used as an auditorium for the University. Check the metallic details.

Secession then! This exhibition space, designed by architect and designer Joseph M. Olbrich to house artworks and exhibitions from the Secession artists in Vienna: Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffman and many more.The building is a far cry from the rest of the Ringstrasse, simple, small and elegant, with only a golden leaf dome on the top a sign of restrained extravagance (if one can say that). one of the reasons it is called "golden cabbage" by some locals.


The entrance is impressive, with ivy leaves designed around it and golden details - I shivered thinking about the artists that had crossed this very threshold to enter. I had come mainly to see the Beethoven frieze, one of the biggest and most impressive works of Gustaf Klimt, which is now permanently displayed here. No photos were allowed, so I will post below some taken from the official website.

First wall of the frieze - the Golden Knight (Armoured Strength with Ambition and Sympathy)

Second wall: The Hostile Forces

Third wall - part one: Poetry

Third wall part two: the Arts, Choir of Angels and Embracing Couple (Kiss of the World).

The exhibition space of the frieze - remember it was inspired by Beethoven's 9th symphony

The Beethoven Frieze was originally intended as an ephemeral work of art and, like the other decorative paintings, it was to be removed after the close of the exhibition. It was only owing to fortunate circumstances, that the frieze was not destroyed as planned: the Secession was to present the following year a major Klimt retrospective (XVIIIth exhibition, 1903), and it was decided to leave the work of art in place. After passing through a couple of owners, in 1973 the Beethoven Frieze was purchased by the Republic of Austria and restored over the course of ten years. Finally, in the course of the general renovation of the Secession in 1985, a room was created in the basement for the Beethoven Frieze. The dimensions of this room exactly correspond to the climate controlled space required for the frieze for reasons of conservation, and here the frieze can be shown separately from ongoing exhibitions. Since 1986 the wall cycle has again been made permanently accessible to the public at the Secession as a loan from the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. It is a sight not to be missed, along with the accompanying sketches exhibited there and the history of the building in the antechamber.

Entrance of the Secession building

The building keeps seving its original purpose as an exhibition space - the one I saw there was by US artist Sharon Lockhart, called Lunch Break. Over the last 15 years she has made films and photographs that frame moments of everyday life while exploring the subtle relationships between the two mediums. Shown for the first time at the Secession, Lockhart’s latest films and accompanying photographic series describe a specific place and time: Maine’s Bath Iron Works at the start of the 21st century. Lockhart spent the last year looking at the lives of workers in the historic shipyard and each of the five projects included in the exhibition examines a different element of their everyday experience. A very interesting show indeed - especially the lunch box portraits (below) and the projected film.

Moving on, I passed in front of the famous Musikverein (above), one of the most famous concert halls of the world, seat of the Vienna Philharmonic, (with the famous New Year's Concert) ,the Wiener Symphoniker and the Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Otto Wagner is the architect most linked to Vienna: he transformed the whole city in the 19th century, with his master plan for everything: building, transportations, amenities. His Metropolitan stations, elegantly designed in Jugendstil (or Art Nouveau) are scattered in the city, some still in use (like the one below) and some turned into something else, like the Karlplatz Pavillion cafe above.

Under the Karsplatz there is a huge underground passage, where there is an amazing work of art installed, using mirrors and led numbers that give you "useless" statistical information, like for example the number π, seen below. The information that the numbers give you though may lead to interesting thoughts while one passes by (I immediately thought of Kate Bush and her π song!).

But what is the artwork? The media installation Pi by the Canadian artist Ken Lum. A team experienced in art production developed, over a period of several months, the individual details together with the artist and the architect overseeing construction on site. A group of social scientists from the SORA Institute did the groundwork for the digital programming of statistic data sets which are now permanently shown on LED displays. This process initiated in a dialogue with the internationally active artist Ken Lum (who also spends a lot of time travelling) and the curators thus requiring a trans-disciplinary communication over an extended period of time within a large, constantly growing production team. Both in this respect and on the technical level as well as in terms of the scientific work done, the media installation Pi can be seen as an extraordinary example of contemporary art production, well suited for setting standards for art in public space. Oh, and there is a club at the underground passages too, named (what else?) Club U. Walking further to reach the Untere Belvedere, I saw the Akademietheater (which now hosts part of the repertoire of the Burgtheater) from afar:


After seeing the frieze earlier in the day, I had decided to see more Klimt - I knew there was a show centered around him currently in Vienna, so I headed towards the Unteres Belvedere to see it. Schloss Belvedere is considered one of the world's finest Baroque palaces, designed by a master of the kind, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt for Prince Uegene of Savoy, the man who masterminded the victory against the Turks in 1718, becoming a hero for Vienna. The Unteres (lower) Belvedere was built first, as a summer residence, and a long garden rivalling the Versailles connects it with the Oberes (upper) Belvedere, the main palace. Both now serve as museums, with extraordinary collections, which include works by Klimt.

Entrance of Unteres Belvedere

The Unteres Belvedere main building

Around the time of my visit, a magnificent show was under way: the recreation of the 1908 Kunstschau due to its 100th anniversary. Part of the original exhibits - which were partly presented in replicas of the former exhibition rooms and additional works by artists that were presented at the Kunstschau 1908 as well as documentary photographs, models, original plans, and a film, illustrated the details and dimensions of this extraordinary event. An architectural model made of wood demonstrated in amazing detail the location of the Kunstschau premises within their urban context. Of course the main attraction of the original show, as well as it's re-incarnation, was “Room 22” which was designed by Koloman Moser using major works by Gustav Klimt.

The recreated Klimt room.

Among other works, Gustav Klimt presented:

Fritza Riedler (1906)

Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907)
(a black and white copy was presented as the original is in New York in a private gallery)

The Three Ages of Woman (1905)

Danaë (1907/08)

Wasserschlangen I (1904/07)

The Medezin mural
(1900/07, depicted in black and white since the original was destroyed by the Nazis - here a detail showing Health)

Judith I (1901)

and his most famous work The Kiss (1908), which was acquired for the collection now housed in the Belvedere while the exhibition was still running. I cannot describe in words the feeling that overwhelmed me when finally facing the Kiss for the first time. It is one of these rare works of art that defy any description and make you stand there humble and helpless to grasp their full extend, but at the same time pulling you inside them and help you rise to higher levels. Amazing experience indeed. I did not want to leave the room. Unfortunately no photos allowed again (and the Kiss had a guard positioned right next to it) so the photo below is not mine.


Having enjoyed both the exhibition and the walk to and from the Belvedere, I had a good walk around the downtown shops of Vienna. I had a coffe at Sacher, along with a piece of the famous Sacher torte, but did not sit at the stuffy old cafe, but at it's younger sibling, Sacher Eck: no tourists, much more modern and quiet, same excellent coffe and desserts. Shopping turned out good: sales were still on, and soon I found myself with a gorgeous pair of Hugo Boss black shoes (a steal under 100 Euros at the Humanic), a Benetton turtleneck (unfortunately not the orange one I coveted) and the most gorgeous piece of all: a plaid shirt in green and yellow at an amazing little shop called Dick And Jane. This is a relatively new clothing brand in Austria which merits its own post.

Walking past the Viennese Opera!

Some Christmas decoration left-overs...

After a quick shower and change (plaid shirt and new shoes on!) I headed towards my date with the Taylor couple and their friends Chris and Denise, for dinner at Schnitzelwirt (Neubaugasse 52) to eat, what else, schnitzel! The portions are incredible (two huge schnitzels), the cooking excellent, the place is very traditional and cozy (the narrowness of it helps I guess) and the company was great - all elements of a perfect dinner! We headed next to a lovely Turkish bar for drinks, ending the night in the best possible way.

Make a moodboard!!!

Mydeco is a decorating website aimed at helping you make your home more... you! Whether your style is Laura Ashley chintz romantic or Karim Rashid ultra-pop colorful, they are all about bringing you everything you need to make your home the best it can be. They trawled the High Street searching for the perfect sofa, tried to visualise statement walls from a one inch paint swatch, and wondered; Why isn’t there a place on-line where one can find everything one needs, and try it before buying it? So they created one. Mydeco brings together the widest possible range of products from high street stores to niche retailers, thousands of inspiring looks to fit your budget, expert designers on hand for advice, and simple 3D tools to help you plan your room before you even open a tin of paint. You can also join the community to share ideas, swap decorating tips and show off your designs.

One of the most interesting tools you will find in Mydeco is a moodboard tool: you can create one using this, using every product available in the website: from flooring and wallpapers, to color swatches and furniture, lighting fixtures and even perfumes and accessories - the sky is the limit - and your imagination. I created the moodboard you can see above this paragraph in less then ten minutes - easy and fun! Just try it. You can also design your room in 3D and check out how various items and materials go together - such a useful thing when trying to make up your mind about changing something in your home. I will definitely be using these tools many times in the future!

Award for stand design at Infacoma 2009!

The stand of Exalco for the Infacoma 2009 exhibition (designed by me) was awarded as one of the best stands of the show. I am really happy for this as is the client. Below are photos of the actual stand and a couple of coloured renderings of the submitted proposal.

Tetragon Ltd. also got another design award for the stand we did for Doral/Alustar. My contribution there was preparing the soundtrack for the ambient we created for the client: the forest sounds that complimented the big prints of woods and birds graphically illustrated added to the general impression of nature and relaxation. Check some photos below:

Design Walking in Athens

Taking the InterCity Express train to Athens last Friday afternoon, I was overwhelmed with the thought of a great weekend approaching: meeting friends that I had not seen for a while, going around the creative design studios in Psyrri and around to see their new ideas, experiencing once again the Athenian nightlife - once more, like last year, I was going to be Design Walking! And as I arrived in Athens a little before midnight, I had to postpone the walk for Saturday. Instead we went out to Grand Dame and Hoxton, the first a major disappointment (Kolonaki crowd transplanted to Gazi with 90s music, expensive drinks and rude service), the second a classic choice for the area with good music and interesting mixed crowd.

So, after a strong coffee to wake me up, I took my host to down town Athens to shop some ribbons (sometimes it feels weird to know more shops in Athens then the locals) and we were ready to start walking! So our "boots" took us first to Designpark and their Lettair concept.

What am I doing in the photo? Trying to design something with light into thin air, so that a camera can capture it and project it onto the wall right next to it. The Designpark team had made four fonts in this way, which they had printed onto black posters and shared them with us, along with others printed with words made with the fonts. Needless to say I picked the "bad" word out of them to take back home!

We then headed off to Design Insane. The name prepared us for something crazy: instead we discovered a cosy office space painted in bold colours and decorated with inspired posters about changing the world, which was their motto. The guys had moved into this space almost less than a month ago and warmly welcomed us into their office. We talked a while about the current situation in design in Greece and they invited us to a party that night with the famous Cast-A-Blast cooperative. We said we might come and left with their beautifully designed leaflet, which opened becomes a poster with their motto.

The mural decorating the main space of the Design Insane offices - impressive.

Do you agree with the quote above? I surely do!!!! This is written on the stair wall going up to 3 In A Box offices - one of the most beautifully designed spaces we visited (and one I had not been able to visit last year). Their concept was Homopictographicus - presenting, through pictograms, the evolution of mankind's history from pictopithecus to homopictographicus sapiens. Fun and simple but it felt like going to a museum.

Then we visited MNP. Under the Observation concept, they had us all sketching in freehand as it is one of the major ways of observing what is around you (one which my friend Richard Haines makes so elegantly in his blog). When we visited, our model was a belly dancer, resplendent in her red embroidered outfit.

Of course, when I see blank paper and pencils, crayons, pens and brushes around, no one can stop me drawing - so that is what I did!

Thankfully our model was very obliging and posed wonderfully, while oriental music filled the air. More people joined me as I was advancing with my work.

Here you can see the almost finished sketch - I decided to let it unfinished as it looked better to me - the guys from MNP posted it on the wall along with the other sketches by their visitors - this is a photo of it I found in Facebook, taken by Michalis Baboussis:

I was eager to visit G's offices: last year, their Cog concept about collaboration was so much fun and I had made my own art there. This time, their "Glows In The Dark" concept transformed their almost white space into a black hole (actually half of their office space was covered in black). With a black light and lots of day-glo markers, they encouraged us to let out our creativity onto their walls, floor, furniture, ourselves - you name it!

It was a bit difficult to find empty space to write, even at the ceiling!

Slowly getting used to normal light again, we headed off to Sereal Designers and their Jukecity. 50 buildings, 2053 inhabitants (all with song lyrics in word balloons), a Godzilla, 300 policemen, a group of aliens, seven dancing queens, numerous records, thousands of notes and cables... a dream scape was painstakingly created into their studio, drawing admiration shouts from everyone visiting - but their impressive eye-aquarium was the piece de resistance!

The buildings had even air conditioning units incorporated! The advertising billboards on the terraces were sometimes very inspired, like the one with Madonna advertising "Magdalena's Sex Shop"!

The guy above is singing (?) Moby...

Where the streets have no name...

The aquarium from the back - you can see the goldfish swimming!

The flock of doves being fed by a granny - how many hours did this take to make?

We then moved right around the corner to see the videos made by the Play team. Their Loop concept had seven people making one single video, each one taking over from the last frame of the previous creator, making an unusual film. The small clips shown on other screens in the studio were very entertaining too!
The gallery SCAN²ER is beside the Π6 studio which was next in our route. Achilleas Fakiolas makes incredible lighting fixtures from Plexiglas, that are more art objects then utilitarian stuff. I could not make up my mind which one was more beautiful, they all were very impressive. Below you can see his work "The Prayer":

This group below is based on various blue artistic interpretations: the films Betty Blue, The Big Blue and Blue Velvet, Claude Debussy's De L'Aube a Midi Sur la Mer.

Our next stop was Π6. And suddenly we found ourselves in a playground: the concept "Ready Or Not, Here I come" or "Ftou Kai Vgaino" in Greek, allowed them to fill their studio with games for us to play: board games, life games, politics games, love games, street games, solitary games, team games, memory games and many more, drawing parallels between actual games and things that we do in reality.

We finally arrive at our friends, Poordesigners, exhausted but also filled with that sense of elation when you meet creative people and see their work displayed for you. We knew their concept beforehand, having seen small previews online some days ago, but the full force of it was overwhelming: the team created a company called NoProb, that makes objects to relieve the stress that engulfs people in their everyday mundane life. The result was a series of hilarious videos as advertisements for the objects they made, all in bright pink of course and the objects themselves displayed on their podiums:

The Internet loss kit displayed below should be a staple in every house!

What is this guy doing to my dear friend? Watch out!!!

After spending lots of time there drinking the InstantZen shots from test tubes and eating InstanZen cookies and candy (in multicolors of course), and getting an amazing set of coasters (illustrated by T-Drom and printed by Giota - thanks guys!) we made the trip two floors usptairs to Design Shop, one of the three studios that started Design Walk three years back.

At seeing lace doilies hanging on walls and from the ceiling, at first I thought my mother had gone through there the day before - then their concept became more apparent as we saw the banners made with repeating patterns.

Step And Repeat: that was the concept here, everything displayed was made with that process, mathematical patterns and motifs found in nature and repeated in art, architecture, design and music. They even had a computer where one could make his own pattern and see it instantly repeated infinitely onto another screen:

Here is the pattern my friend did, finished:

At that point we decided to call it a day, regarding design walking, and the hour was a bit after the normal closing time for the creative studios - they have to rest too!!! We did not have many places left to go, so we went for diner at Kouti, a lovely restaurant in Adrianou street. Excellent food (I recommend the chicken with orange and sesame seeds and also the orange pie) and very interesting decoration with angels:


We headed for home satiated, rested a while and went out into the night - first stop was the brilliant Pop, where they make amazing cocktails (Zombie is a smash), play great music and one can see many interesting people gather into its minute space. Thanks to my friends for taking me there, I had a blast (and thanks to Vassilis the barman!). The skies starter raining cats and dogs then and I barely made it to Hoxton again, soaking wet...

Sunday started sunny and warm: I went with friends for a coffee at Urban in Glazi, where I had to wait one hour to have a waitress come and take our order and another hour for her to bring it. Of course she made a mistake: instead of a double cappucino, she brought me two cups of cappucino... I then went to visit an architecural show at Benaki Museum at Pireaus street, about the Greek Residence from the 20th to the 21st century - interesting buildings, boring display. After having rakomela and dakos at Pseirra in Psyrri (of course) we headed to Typical Mutations and their Origami project: in three seperate videos they taught us how to make three different origami objects. The visitors then were videotaped and made part of a digital video to be uploaded online after the end of Design Walk. Their project of last year was much more creative and intriguing, but the guys are so likeable you forgive them everything - and the origami stuff rocks!



That was the end of our Design Walk this year. My opinion is that apart from a few teams, the overall inspiration was not as good as last year's, an opinion shared by many others that I talked to these days. Not all projects made people actively participate and some seemed hastily made to justify their participation. Of course all of them have their day to day projects to work on also, but I think that if they all had made the effort they had last year, everything would have been that much better. The feeling of camaraderie and friendship that permeated everyone was there this year too, we saw lots of friends, met others for the first time and promise to come back next year for more!!!

P.S. I did not have the time to see The Switch Design Agency and their OFF.ICE project as well as the collective exhibition in Bios from studios not situated in the Design Walk area - what I heard from other people who did visit was very positive. I hope I can see everyone next year!

Design Walk 2009!

Tomorrow starts one of the biggest annual events in Greek design, Design Walk. Although it is a walk we are used to taking, nobody would call it a usual walk. In the course of three days, Design Walk allows us to familiarize ourselves with the graphic design scene of Athens (particularly the studios located around Psyrri area) through a series of exhibitions and happenings. The events hosted in the studios attempt to discuss and showcase the various aspects of design.

The idea emerged three years ago when three design studios (pi6, g and the design shop) were striving to stir things up a bit in the local design scene and has ever since gained through its innovative spirit an overwhelming and ever increasing response from a diverse audience.

Every year the city centre is filled with people wandering around, holding maps, and drawing their routes between the creative studios. You can download the map here.

Design Walk has become an essential part of the beginning of the year calendar. The 13 participating studios are members of a new generation of graphic designers who, having become aware of the role of design as an expanded platform of communication, invite a wide variety of people to take part in a dynamic and productive dialogue. The main aim is to challenge standard preconceptions about design and provide with the ground for exploration in a field that is becoming more and more essential to our everyday life. Lets not forget that through design we communicate, get informed, learn, find or lose our way.

The participating studios and their concepts are:

3 In A Box - Homopictographicus

Design Shop - Step And Repeat

Design Insane - First Of All We Think The World Must Be Changed

DesignPark - Lettair

G - Glows In The Dark

Mnp

Pi6 - Ready or not, here I come!

Play - Loop

Poor Designers - NoProb® / The Swift Relief

Sereal Designers - The Jukecity

The Switch Design Agency - Off.Ice / Campaign against boring working spaces

Typical Mutations - Origami

I will be there and report back next week with all the brilliant stuff and people I will see! If you are in Athens this weekend, do not miss this!