360 DEGREES Weblog

“Porsche means looking at the world from a different angle. The fact that, unlike other cars, the ignition switch is located to the left of the steering wheel is just one indication that this company, these sports cars and this family are different from other automobile dynasties.” Thus begins Generation Porsche, a brilliant new volume published by teNeues in the wake of the opening of the new Porsche Museum at Zuffenhausen’s Porscheplatz in Stuttgart. The most comprehensive and best-designed pictorial history of the marque we’ve seen to date, it contains a brilliantly curated collection of artfully layered images, taking full advantage of the museum’s archives and displays showing how three generations of the Porsche family have defined automobile history, and in particular the saga of the sports car. Until you can actually get over to Germany, this book is the next best thing.

The famed marque officially celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, but its history in fact goes back 110 years to 1900 and 24-year-old Ferdinand Porsche’s visionary Lohner electric car concept, debuted at that year’s World’s Fair in Paris; that’s where Generation Porsche kicks off. In merging the highest standards of design with advanced technology, Porsche has since become a byword for four-wheeled works of art, ranking among the most coveted cars in the world. As avid Porsche collector Jerry Seinfeld puts it, “Driving a Porsche always gives you a futuristic feeling.” The high-tech museum certainly conveys that. Construction began on the building, designed to be an architectural emblem of the Porsche brand, in October 2005, making history as the most spectacular building project ever undertaken by the company. In addition to 80 ever-changing exhibits, the museum also features workshops, a Porsche boutique, the Porsche archive, a restaurant, a caf

When does retro go too far?

Italian Lucedentro

A pretty girl jumping out of an over-sized cake is so pass?! With a more mature audience gracing your parties, you need to look for some more innovative and creative options. Now that doesn’t mean you pull of a Michael Jackson and plan an elaborate entry sequence for yourself, but there are some nice people helping you do that with more ?lan and panache. Why not try the ‘Happy hour Chandelier’ instead? The brain child of award winning choreographer and dancer Nanine Linning and the talented designer Marcel Wanders, the strong and elegant chandelier will have the ‘Dancing Angel’ dangling at the center while will pour out champagne to her audience through her 20- minute dance performance!

I am usually all meh when it comes to new cases for notebook computers, but a new and really cool one for MacBooks has turned up called the Book Book. I am guessing that if you have a Windows machine sized along the lines of a MacBook it would fit inside the Book Book too, but you might have to call it the Book PC or maybe PC Book.

The case looks like a book on the outside (if you hadn

Longevity and success in both acting and directing of the type Clint Eastwood has enjoyed is quite unusual, as is the film icon’s long-standing relationship with Warner Bros. Thankfully, it’s this relationship that makes Clint Eastwood: 35 Films, 35 Years ($135) possible. This encyclopedic box set packs every WB Eastwood film since 1968′s Where Eagles Dare, including the full Dirty Harry series, 1992′s Oscar-winning Unforgiven, recent standouts Million Dollar Baby and Gran Turino, and many, many more, as well as the all-new documentary The Eastwood Factor, which offers a rare look at Eastwood as both an actor and director.

I do my best to avoid McDonald

When in Barcelona, you will want to check into one of the several new or refurbished and distinctively cool hotels that have opened there recently. Among them, W Barcelona, located on La Barceloneta and designed by architect Ricardo Bofill

The latest hotel launch capturing design media attention is Mandarin Oriental Barcelona. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group operates in 25 countries, but this is its first entry into southern Europe. Mandarin Oriental Barcelona?s official opening was celebrated in November 2009 with a lavish gala attended by the city?s style leaders and elite.

The hotel?s cool factor is a lucky combination of three elements: The convenience of the central location on Passeig de Gr?cia, the good bones of the refurbished 20th-century former bank building, and most significant, the tour de force of design by Spanish-born Milano-based architect, Patricia Urquiola, responsible for the interior decor of the 98-room hotel, including most of the furnishings.

Urquiola is best known for her prolific career in designing clean-lined furniture and accessories for brands such as Foscarini, B&B Italia, Alessi, Capellini, Cassina, Knoll and Moroso. At Mandarin Oriental Barcelona she has created a strong sense of timeless elegance by using white confidently and lavishly, and by applying a Scandinavian sense of scale and clean lines.

To soften the linear angularity, Urquiola added beautiful touches that reflect the weightlessness and precious fragility of origami or intricate lace. The overall effect is stunning.

Remember the excitement you felt receiving mail as a child? That’s the inspiration behind San Francisco-based Little Passports, a new educational subscription service that aims to turn 5-to-10-year-olds into world travellers, one country at a time. Little Passports delivers monthly travel packages designed to provide a fun, hands-on way for kids to learn about other countries without leaving home. The first shipment in the USD 10.95 per month subscription prepares little voyagers for their global adventure with a mini suitcase, passport, world map and a letter and photo introducing their travel guides, Sam and Sofia.

Each following month, children receive a personalized letter and package from Sam and Sofia, which includes travel-related items like a passport stamp, suitcase sticker and collectible boarding pass to access online games and activities that teach geography, history, culture and vocabulary. As the months pass, little travellers notch up a jetsetter’s stamp-filled passport, personalize their suitcase, and pack it with country-specific souvenirs.

In an era dominated by electronic communication, people are embracing concepts from a slower age, like the company that transforms emails into paper letters and one that resurrected the classic telegram. Little Passports combines that nostalgia for ‘real’ mail and combines it with the convenience of a subscription service.

Already been to Aspen this season, but there