From the category archives:

Issue 224

Swiss Style Issue 224

Nouvelle cuisine, literally

Isaac Newton discovered gravitation when he realised that an apple was being pulled to earth. And Denis Papin allegedly had his eureka moment while looking at steam push up the [...]

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Swiss design, SWISS client

While design of clothing, furniture, watches, and other items of la vie quotidienne are regularly recognised for innovation and logic, scant attention is paid to the intricacies of design for [...]

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Sofa, so good

Innovation in furniture doesn’t always work, as even such a genius as Thomas Alva Edison found out, when he tried promoting furniture made of a special light cement. But the [...]

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Funky fiddling

One of the reasons why freelancers do not work too well in big organisations is because they are self-motivators. Having bosses standing over them worrying about bottom lines is about [...]

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The paradox of beautiful things

If there ever was a leitmotiv for creativity that connects the centuries, it is that great works of art, be they in music, literature, plastic and visual arts, or even [...]

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Jolly boating weather?

By now you’ve arrived at page 80 and surely realised that the theme of this splendid edition of Swiss Style is Design. If you haven’t realised it, do please wake [...]

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Illumination factor

Lighting is the ultimate design effect. Paradoxically, though, the best interior lighting effect is not even perceived. Because light is all around us, it is often taken for granted, as [...]

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Mind and matter

“Design is not decoration,” says design historian Alexandra Midal, freelance curator, professor and Head of Master Design programmes at the HEAD – Geneva University of Art and Design. “Design is [...]

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Shock therapy

For the past 30 years and more, perhaps, the neoliberal model of capitalism has ruled supreme, promoting ultimate freedom in markets and the globalisation of finance to apparently deliver endless [...]

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Cream scene

Poets, philosophers, gurus and other thinkers have always suggested that the best way to combat age is to accept it, be yourself, enjoy the moment. But given the chance and [...]

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Health pie recut

Rising healthcare costs: that old chestnut of most countries’ political debate, which gets its fair share of recurrent press coverage – this one among them – has seen legions of [...]

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Meal deals

Recovery or not, 2010 was a tense year for everyone. The penny-pinching set off by the recession affected suppliers to big companies as well. And yet for the catering company [...]

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Geneva trader

Geneva is known for its wealth management industry, its hundreds of banks and independent asset managers, some large, some small, all huddled around the Rue du Rhône. Less well known [...]

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Trials and tribulations

As a youth, François Carrard used to practice breast stroke, but he did not become a swimmer. Instead, he followed in the family tradition and became a lawyer in 1967. [...]

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Comment – Issue 224

Good design is good business. Although lesser known than his famous (and trademarked) “THINK,” IBM founder Thomas J. Watson’s statement “Good design is good business” is, I believe, just as [...]

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Just Rewards

The British-Swiss Chamber of Commerce Business Awards The British-Swiss Chamber of Commerce (BSCC) this year launched its new Business Awards, advancing its mission to promote trade relations between Switzerland and [...]

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Out of the cocoon

Artists and designers sometimes have to wait a long time before achieving recognition. But so do schools, like ECAL, the Ecole Cantonal d’Art de Lausanne, which spontaneously globalised. There may [...]

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