euromaxx highlights

On this edition:

Wolfgang Joop Sketches
The German designers latest creations usually start life as sketches. And these sketches aren't normally seen. But now there's an exhibition of the sketches for 14 designs dating from the years 1973-2007.

Wood is Good
A wooden apartment building in a Berlin tenement district is a big hit. Eco-friendly timber-frame buildings are gaining in popularity.

250 Years of Roller Skates
The first historical account of roller skates relates an incident which is supposed to have taken place in 1759. According to legend, a violin-playing Belgian Jean-Joseph Merlin crashed into a mirror at a London party while skating in boots with wheels. This story may be apocryphal but it has now been adopted as the birthday of rollerskating. Euromaxx joins in the celebrations with a cultural history of roller and inline skates.

City Gardens
One innovative way of bringing nature into urban environments is the vertical garden. Architect Anna Lambertini has presented some of the most spectacular green facades and courtyards in urban areas in a book called Vertical Gardens.  

Summer Sking  
A futuristic summer ski venue in Oberhof is creating quite a stir. Billed as central europe's first ski tunnel it's 8 m wide and 5.5 m high. A day pass costs 35 euros.