Colour is being injected back into contemporary architecture in a big way. The current use of colour to define space or create identity is the subject of the V&A's show, which uses images, models and materials to illustrate the cultural, historical and emotional associations that colour has in architecture. The exhibition features classics such as the Rietveld-Schroder House alongside new explorations of colour such as Five Beehives for Olaf Nicolai by Sauerbruch Hutton (pictured).
www.vam.ac.uk

This two-part exhibition on Italian architect Michele Valori concludes with a show at Zaha Hadid’s award-winning MAXXI museum in Rome. Not widely known outside Italy, Valori made valuable contributions to research into public housing through building, lecturing and planning. Examples on show include his low-cost residential complex in Catania, and the Ina-Casa plan, a programme to build 350,000 worker’s homes that helped to reshape Italian community and identity after the second world war.
www.fondazionemaxxi.it

The principle of Common Roots is to transcend the political borders that divide the countries of central Europe, and draw a new map that connects its designers along cultural and ideological lines. With ten countries and more than 50 participating designers, it promises to be a wide platform for discovering new design talent. Look out for Croatian designer Viktor Matic – whose web-inspired shelving, WWW, is pictured above – as well as Matej Chabera and Atelier SAD.
www.dmh.org.il

Cologne’s Museum of Applied Art is dedicating a show to romanticism in contemporary design. Presenting works that “balance between poetry and provocation” like Maurizio Galante’s cactus sofa (pictured) and the narrative decoration of Hella Jongerius’ Four Seasons porcelain collection, the show looks at “poetry, irony and inscrutability” in romantic design. The exhibition is timed to coincide with trade fair IMM Cologne, where Luca Nichetto is this year’s guest of honour.
www.museenkoeln.de

Hamburger Bahnhof’s Secret Universe series is dedicated to thinkers outside the established art scene. The latest subject is Kentucky-born savant George Widener – whose “number pictures” interweave complex dates, statistics and calculations to analyse world events and predict an artificially intelligent future. By 2045, Widener believes the human brain will be melded with the super computer, with consciousness and software intertwined. See his perplexing works in Berlin this month.
www.hamburgerbahnhof.de

Regular visitors to Vienna Design Week will know about Passionswege – the programme that pairs emerging designers with Viennese manufacturers to exchange ideas and collaborate on a product or installation. This month, an exhibition of the best Passionswege products of the past six years, curated by Sophie Lovell, is being staged at the city’s Museum of Applied Arts. It includes work by Max Lamb, Philippe Malouin and Daphna Laurens (whose Chair 01 is pictured above).
www.www.mak.at

Olafur Eliasson, Anthony McCall and David Batchelor are masters of using light as a medium. Hayward Gallery’s Light Show explores works by these artists and many others, looking at works of colour, shadows, neon and projection. The show also expresses how light can address politics, science and architecture, alongside sensory perception. The chance to see rare installations, some of which haven’t been exhibited for decades, makes this show an exciting prospect.
www.southbankcentre.co.uk

This is the first major US retrospective of film-maker Stanley Kubrick; whose incredible skill for cinema produced cult movies such as The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick’s 50-year career is presented though a selection of annotated scripts, photos, set models and promotional material, as well as special effects work and unfinished projects. The show is designed by Patti Podesta, a production designer on TV series Homeland and the film Memento (2000).
www.lacma.org