Last Wednesday of the Month Architecture: Bathing Beach Seeburg at Küssnacht am Rigi

GKS Architekten + Partner AG studio from Lucerne, has developed this project at Küssnacht am Rigi, in Switzerland on Lake Lucerne. The project was conceived by the architects in 2006, and it was finally built between 2009 and 2010.

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Introducing Senta Amacker

Zurich based designer Senta Amacker was encouraged by her large family, and since a very young age, to explore and expand her creative vision. She found inspiration in the traditional crafts of her native Switzerland, which involve the rawness of nature, the smells of the countryside, and the incredible variety of shapes and colours that this country is famous for.

She graduated last March from the Northwestern Switzerland Academy of Art and Design Basel Fashion Institute with a Bachelor in Arts and Fashion Design, and since then she has been invited to present her collection over the summer at Basel’s blickfang, and at the Designers Open’s opening show in Leipzig in October.

“The freedom that I show as a designer in my collections is the freedom of an adventurer, equipped with the appropriate accessories and clothing to discover the world, and live the adventure that reality is. My latest collection was inspired by Amelia Earhart, a pioneer in aviation history and a role model in many ways: she was an incredibly strong woman”, stated Senta about her approach to fashion design.

Her main focus, and trademark, lies in the way her materials are cut. Cotton, leathers and metals are remodelled according to the designer’s artistically unrestrained vision. Individual pieces of fabrics are reconstructed and brought together through a minimalist intervention of folds, seams, and cuts, retaining an authentic sense of tradition, but re-discovering it through a new reading.

In today’s fast paced, mobile world, Senta believes it to be of primary importance not to forget where you come from, what your origins are, and how to keep developing and improving whilst keeping you feet on the ground. It’s a delicate balance between expressing your creative vein to the fullest and abiding to those values that have shaped you into the person that you have become, a formula that seems to have worked so far.

Should you be in her neighbourhood, why not drop her an email and meet her for a coffee.

While in Zurich, tuck yourself into a creative corner at Greulich Hotel. With rooms directly located on their patio garden, underneath the open sky, you’ll be forgiven if in the first moments after waking up you forget you’re in a city center at all.

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Contributing Writer: Fier Management

Photo credits: Senta Amacker

The Necessity of the Forbidden at Ammann Fine Art

Sometimes you need a story like the following to remind you that, despite what so many politicians have told you over the last decades, whatever number of real or dramatized “graphic instances” we see in an average day has not reduced the general global populace to a slack-jawed and unshockable throng. Our case in point is the display of Martin Kippenberger’s Fred the Frog Rings the Bell at the newly opened Museion in Bolzano, Italy in May 2008. Quickly members of the government, clergy, the Vatican – even the Pope himself – denounced the work and called for its removal. This was subsequently backed up by the public with a petition signed by 10,000 citizens, and protest march, and one act of a hunger strike. At just 4-feet tall, it was an awful big outcry for a small-to-moderately sized sculpture, but a very clear message that – at least when it comes to religion – not every taboo has been obliterated. It was also a very clear message that when someone says you shouldn’t be allowed to see something, it’s going to get even more attention.

In Verboten (that’s German for forbidden), the artworks of an anonymous collector, whom we shall call Mr. “Verboten” have been curated by an anonymous curator, whom we shall call Mr. “Verboten 2”. Does the mystery there sound as seductive to your ear as the idea of something being banned does? That’s no mistake. The works in Verboten – which include Maurizio Cattelan, Tom Friedman, Gao Brothers, Damien Hirst, Martin Kippenberger, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and relative newcomers Bruce High Quality Foundation – play with the joy, strange seduction, and outright necessity of prodding and challenging a society whose attention is dependent on bans. If we can’t know the answer, we’re dying to find out. If we’re not allowed to see it, nothing’s going to stop us from trying to. Despite appearing to appeal to our less noble qualities, mysteries and bans tap into one of the best parts of being human: curiosity.

Now aren’t you just dying to see what other works aside from Kippenberger’s Fred the Frog Rings the Bell were included in the show? Go check it out until September 30^th at Ammann Fine Art in Zurich.

No mystery, and not banned, but plenty seductive nonetheless, White Line Hotels edit The Greulich Hotel is your place to stay in Zurich.

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Contributing writer: Melissa Frost

Photo: www.ammannfineart.com, Reproduction © Estate Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne,

Deadlines, the Other Mother of Invention

Whoever said “necessity is the mother of invention” — and seriously, we mean “whoever” because it’s one of those sayings that seems to have been invented without a mother, if you’ll pardon the bad joke… — probably brought that expression into the world before deadlines existed, so we’ll cut the anonymous author some slack and just update it for him/her: “necessity and deadlines are the mothers of invention.” If you consider that deadlines are indeed themselves a necessity, then we’re back at square one with no need for the update on the old adage, but a step further in explaining that TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO ENTER THE WHITE LINE HOTELS ALPINE EDIT CONTEST.

Will inspiration strike before midnight?

Photo of the Mothers of Invention record sleeve taken from the fabulous www.sleeveface.com

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Just a reminder: only 5 days left to enter White Line Hotels’ Alpine Edit contest to win 4 nights of alpine summer lushness. You can check out the competition, or vote for your favorites, on our facebook page.

Countdown clock photo: Steven Depolo