EXHIBITIONS
Here is a selection of the latest exhibitions that have been held in Boisbuchet, as well as some of our traveling exhibitions. For loan requests and further information you can contact us through info@boisbuchet.org
The Domaine de Boisbuchet is a laboratory of design, located on the border of two geological formations with different minerals. And looking at Nouvelle-Aquitaine, the colours of the earth are even more varied. The region bears prominent witness to the whole range of historical layers on which we have created our living environment – from the Lascaux Cave to the comics on the facades of Angoulême.
This exhibition explores how we have used wood, what wood can do and how we perceive it. Boisbuchet’s own history, as the name suggests, is also based on wood. Today, this place is in many ways an arboretum: a living collection of different woods and therefore of ways to shape the world.
Photography by Deidi von Schaewen, Paris, with installations by Design Village, New Delhi. The thirty-five photographs, most of them large format, presented in this exhibition at the Château de Boisbuchet, are accompanied by two installations created especially for the occasion by students from the Design Village in New Delhi: objects from everyday Indian life under the trees.
The exhibition “Ideas Taking Shape” honours Alexander von Vegesack’s work and collection on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Boisbuchet as an educational institution that is unique in the world of design. For this purpose, some 150 objects have been selected and divided into 14 themes that represent the character of the collection and at the same time trace Alexander von Vegesack’s life and work.
Accompanied by richly illustrated texts, the 80 objects collected in over 40 countries by Alexander von Vegesack, the founder of Domaine de Boisbuchet, will allow visitors to discover the stories from the past, right up until present day. These objects are as much famous masterpieces as they are objects of the everyday. They are contextualized sometimes in a scientific way; sometimes in a more intimate way.
During 2019 the world of design celebrates the Bauhaus – the legendary school founded by architect Walter Gropius 100 years ago in the small German town of Weimar. At this institution, the joint experimentation of arts, crafts, industry, and architecture shaped our image of modernity. It was created there what today means design: all sorts of functional creativity.
Nowadays, the role allocation of women and men and the definition of feminine and masculine are being redefined in all spheres of society. This questioning of sexes partly concerns the appearance, functionality and ethics of our environment— a man-made world created for the hu-man.
Industrial furniture, is the guiding line and leading actor through this exhibition. Following a three-dimensional biographical introduction, which shows the familial background, the 15 year old boy’s first acquisitions on a bazaar in Cairo, and connections to Eastern Europe, for example, the exhibition evolves the collection along von Vegesack’s life, work, travelling and interests.
We see the world falling apart on many levels: ecologically, economically, socially, and even culturally. The resulting conflicts always pose the question: What proved wrong or obsolete and what shall we replace and what shall we repair? This exhibition looks at the idea of repair as a concept against wasting consumption that for thousands of years proved healthy for people and their environment.
Innovate Together values excellence in the crafts of leatherwear, shoe-making, saddlery, and tapestry. Les compagnons du devoir (young craftsmen travelling the country for practical experience) as well as students of design at ENSCI and of design management at IFM present prototypes of their most recent products with a pedagogical purpose and in view of global coherence, economic feasibility, and the collaborative approach.
This exhibition examines the phenomenon with a special view to design, in which the present debate focuses on issues of copyrights, prototyping and redesign. It demonstrates nature as a principle source of inspiration, shows examples of industrial and post-industrial production, and challenges our fascination for the genius and the original.
Naked Shapes showed aluminium objects of daily use, which industrial designer Seiji Onishi, gallery owner Keiichi Sumi and graphic designer Nobuhiro Yamaguchi have passionately assembled over more than twenty years. Cleaned of any sorts of make-up such as paint, labels or excess decoration, these things were stripped bare, down to their essential form. In their simplicity, anonymity and material nakedness, they express a quiet yet crystal-clear poetry of everyday objects.
À Table! presents an extraordinary selection of more than 30 fine examples of tables from the private design collection of Alexander von Vegesack, founding director of the renowned Vitra Design Museum. In order to reflect the different functions and meanings of this everyday object, they are arranged in nine different scenographies – veritable tableaux that reflect the history of table design.
Over the past 20 years, renowned architects from all over the world conceived innovative buildings for the Domaine de Boisbuchet and new projects are now on the way. ‘Paradise is a Work in Progress’ reveals the fascinating diversity of architecture designed for Boisbuchet’s bucolic setting – realised, failed, currently under construction or still in a state of pure vision.
L’exposition des « Albums des jeunes architectes et paysagistes » relaie tous les deux ans la politique du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication en faveur des jeunes architectes et paysagistes. Les lauréats sont sélectionnés pour la qualité de conception de leurs projets, pour leur capacité à répondre à des problématiques architecturales, paysagères ou urbaines d’actualité, ainsi que pour la singularité de leurs parcours.
The exhibition Boro – The Fabric of Life comprises approximately 50 pieces composed of a collection of ingeniously repaired futon covers, kimonos, work garments, and other hand made, household textiles which were created by Japanese peasants between 1850 and 1950 using leftover, indigo dyed cotton. Most come from the private collection of New York based gallerist Stephen Szczepanek. Mr. Szczepanek also contributes to this exhibition as co-curator alongside
The exhibition placed in the park explores the sustainable properties, tremendous structural potential, and skillful craft of Simón Vélez’s bamboo architecture. Found across Domaine de Boisbuchet, Une Architecture Vegetarienne accompanies visitors as they explore the property, encountering three of Simón Vélez’s pavilions previously constructed on the grounds, as well as photographs and videos of his work.
In 2012, Maria Blaisse’s inventive bamboo structures were filling the airy rooms in Boisbuchet’s castle. Serving as costumes or sculptures, expanding, contracting, bouncing and shifting, these forms animate the body and form space. Strong yet delicate, their form is driven by Maria Blaisse’s sensitive material research and her masterful understanding of form.
Domaine de Boisbuchet presented a special exhibition with lighting objects from the collection of Alexander von Vegesack. Inspired by the workshops at the Domaine, the exhibition took an experimental approach in examining the themes of light and design.
This fascinating documentation on the marvels of vernacular architecture around the globe is presented in the spectacular setting of Boisbuchet’s castle, dating from the 19th century and abandoned for the past thirty years. The collection of vernacular architecture at the EPFL’s Archives de la construction moderne is a unique collection of documents and about 700 models that showcase a wide range of spatial, symbolic and constructive solutions.