Futurium – that’s the name of Berlin’s new museum of technology and society. It’s a place of information, for reflecting on creative ways to solve current problems and co-imagining alternative futures.
About 100 years ago, Carl Zweifel designed a wooden construction kit for children. The toy became a massive bestseller, and was also a valuable educational tool.
Our beady-eyed Museum owl, Hibou Pèlerin, really has no time at all for flight shaming. But at this time of year, her desire for travel and adventure does slow down a bit. So, she took a little surfing trip into the realm of online exhibitions.
African fashion design is flourishing, and has been making waves on the world’s catwalks in recent years. ‘Connecting Afro Futures – Fashion x Hair x Design’ at Berlin’s Museum of Decorative Arts, the Kunstgewerbemuseum, provides current insights and examines the background to this upswing.
As the 19th century drew to a close, Lydia Welti-Escher’s unhappy love affair led to the establishment of the Gottfried Keller Foundation. And the suicide of the daughter of magnate Alfred Escher.
His idiosyncratic aesthetic has made film director Wes Anderson famous. Now, working with Juma Malouf, he has set up an exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The result: a contemporary cabinet of curiosities.
Behind what in 2016 became reality lay over 100 years of planning. Funding issues, quarrels and a retirement stood in the way of enlarging the National Museum throughout the 20th century.