Tag / architecture
House rules: Richard Wentworth captures the inner sanctum of maison Alaïa
Of all the exhibitions that have been mounted thus far at the Galerie Azzedine Alaïa, an evocative presentation of photographs by Richard Wentworth is the first to turn inward on the maison. The estimable British artist treats one of the most venerated names in fashion with remarkable closeness; yet his access and acceptance as an insider yields a series that reveals details little by little, free of linear structure or imposed emotion. Each glimpse feels spontaneous, yet nonetheless in deference to Alaïa’s rarefied craft and communal culture.
But the full extent of intention is largely communicated through the show’s scenography, which actually exists as an on-site sculpture. Nailed onto plywood boards staggered throughout the versatile atrium – the same one that has been transformed into a runway venue or showroom – the unframed prints could be alternately perceived as fragments of activity, output and architecture surrounded by expanses of space; presumably all the moments left und..
A quiet modernist gem in Suffolk opens its doors in fundraising bid
Single-storey, flat-roofed, grey, minimalist houses don’t usually feature on the postcards and calendars for Suffolk. But these buildings, and the architects who created them, are increasingly gaining recognition. The stark, simplistic lines are now being seen as complementary with East Anglia’s broad skies and flat North Sea.
‘We tend to think of modernism in an urban context,’ says Emily Richardson, an artist-filmmaker who is currently profiling three modernist architects in this region. ‘Historically people have not really liked modernism – some kinds of building have a stigma attached to them,’ she says. ‘But, as time moves on, with a greater distance, things are seen differently. I’m interested in the fact that there are so many wonderful examples in East Anglia.’
Richardson is highlighting the work of John Penn in East Suffolk, Jim Cadbury-Brown in Aldeburgh, as well as a house designed by the architecture firm Team 4, commissioned by Humphrey Spender in Ulting, Essex. Initiall..
Doctor’s orders: graphic design is good for you, reflects a new London show
There isn’t a catch-all response to the question posed by the Wellcome Collection’s new exhibition, ‘Can Graphic Design Save Your Life?’ The answer, as curator Lucienne Roberts has discovered after several years of sifting through the archives, is contradictory to say the least. As co-founder, with Rebecca Wright, of GraphicDesign&, a publishing house that explores graphic design’s social role, Roberts has long been interested in ‘demonstrating the value’ of the discipline. ‘There are very few subjects that are as essential as health,’ she says. ‘We knew the pharmaceutical industry was a really rich area to explore. It lends itself to quite a minimal, abstract approach.’
Drawing on Wellcome’s own massive collection, as well as loans from companies and individuals, Roberts worked with Jason Holley and Satoshi Isono of Universal Design Studio to shape the exhibition. ‘We looked at it as a graphic space,’ says Holley, ‘using composition, architecture, colour and iconography.’ From the (f..
Shape shifter: artist Barbara Kasten dons an architect’s cap in a new body of work
She might be entering her eighth decade, but Barbara Kasten is still going strong. On Friday the American artist opens an exhibition at New York’s Bortolami gallery, showcasing new photographs, a sculpture, and the photo-sculpture hybrids she’s been working on of late, which relate to her freestanding sculptures and Amalgams of the 1970s.
As ever, architecture is at the heart of Kasten’s thinking as an artist. The show’s title, ‘Parti Pris’, refers to the common term for the big idea behind an architect’s design, usually presented as a diagram. Kasten’s parti pris here might have been ‘bridging dimensions’, but this being art, not architecture, it’s all left open to interpretation.
Progression Two, 2017
What you will see at Bortolami is plenty of dimensional play: in Collisions, a series of grand, colour-rich Fujiflex photographs of acrylic fragments started in 2016, with new additions presented at ‘Parti Pris’, 3D structures are perceived but flattened – an ambiguous space in betw..
Brutalist Boston Map unfolds the story of the city’s most controversial buildings
Brutalist buildings often represent a distinct time period in the span of a city’s life – they are icons of change, modernity and idealism. For Boston, brutalism represents the period of transformation in the 1960s and 70s that was known as New Boston. The latest in Blue Crow Media’s brutalist maps series traces this period with over 40 concrete buildings, unfolding the story of Boston’s most controversial phase of building.
Telling the story are editors Chris Grimley, Michael Kubo, and Mark Pasnik, authors of Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston 1960-1976, who chart the revival and rise of Boston after a mass exodus of factory work to the countryside, which allowed architects to plan infrastructure and design the buildings that still shape public life in Boston today.
The trio bookend the occurrence of New Boston between the arrival of Edward J Logue as a ‘powerful and visionary leader of the Boston redevelopment Authority in 1960’ and ‘the reopening of Quincy Market and..
A1 Architects’ latest project satisfies a Prague family’s lofty ambitions
The concept of humble yet sophisticated luxury is essential to a recently completed three-storey apartment in Prague’s Vinohrady district. Occupying the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of an elegant 19th-century residential building, the spacious apartment showcases the crafty ingenuity of the prolific A1 Architects studio.
Based in Prague, A1 Architects was founded by partners David Maštálka and Lenka Křemenová. Both studied at Prague Academy of Arts and Design (UMPRUM) – their 2009 graduation project, a wooden tea house, was located in the garden of their house. Throughout their projects, the duo have brought a tactile sensibility and Japanese-style approach to space and structure in contemporary Czech architecture.
Inspired by their travels to Japan and their friendship with Japanese master Terunobu Fujimori, the couple use minimal and humble materials to create simple forms, enhancing the beauty of the everyday.
The open plan living area with a decorative stained glass window de..
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Design Thinking
If you like this article, you probably want to sign up to be notified when my new book on Visual Thinking is out (in less than a month, I promise!) Also, there is discussion and some clarification on the Medium version of the post.
When I first heard about Design Thinking, I thought it was a clever rebranding effort by IDEO to charge twice as much for user-centered design. What can I say, I’m an old fart of a designer, and when I read about design thinking, I didn’t really see the big whup. And I wasn’t alone.
But over time I’ve discovered that the oft-parodied approach to Design Thinking — a lot of post-its and a lot of prototyping — works better than nearly any other approach to product and service innovation.
Why?
Do designers truly think in a different way?
The key is the word “thinking.” I want to make an argument that Design Thinking is a kind of thinking based on three key cognition theories:
Distributed Cognition Expertise Thinking Iterative World Modeling Let me break ea..
Letter from Washington DC: the projects getting the green light in a city of red tape
Every presidential election throws Washington DC into demographic flux. Politics aside, though, the city is also welcoming young families and graduates by the trainload as it gradually repositions itself as a great all-rounder of a place. With breakneck gentrification and a foodie revolution introducing Washingtonians to New York-style living, you’d think the city fabric would be turning itself inside out.
Yet it’s remarkably difficult to get things built here. Red tape is a fact of life, as are conservative old-timers galvanised against change. It took a new baseball franchise to kickstart the redevelopment of the crumbling Navy Yards, and David Adjaye’s lauded National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened last year, was a century in the making.
In a bureaucratic city characterised by government office space, local designer/developer Brook Rose saw potential in a rare landmark warehouse once used to manufactured some of the first rotary gyrocopter engines. Me..
Wonder walls: a new book celebrates the modernist house as a cultural icon
Fetishised in the new book Ornament is Crime: Modernist Architecture, the modern house has never felt so iconic. Editors Matt Gibberd and Albert Hill have curated a visually-led book of black-and-white photographs showing detached modern houses. Modernist architects of the world – from Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe and Eileen Gray, to Sean Godsell and Arne Jacobsen and many more – unite across double page spreads, where houses are organised by formal similarities, regardless of chronology or location.
‘The purpose of this book is to identify its key aesthetic characteristics and show how this most trailblazing of architectural styles is still thriving in the twenty-first century,’ writes Gibberd in the introduction. Here he visualises the great modernist architects as a family tree, with Smiljan Radic, Tadao Ando and John Pawson on the lower branches, and the greats at the top – Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. Yet beyond the introduction, which draws connections betwee..
Apollo Bar & Kantine
Copenhagen chef Frederik Bille Brahe’s newest venture, within the Kunsthal Charlottenborg gallery, cements his status as the current chef du jour. The Apollo bar and canteen boasts soaring ceilings and generously proportioned windows. Décor, by designer Rune Bruun Johansen, is sparse but full of thoughtful touches, such as Børge Mogensen’s ‘J39’ chairs – inherited from the art school next door, these come with gentle scuffs and paint splatters.
Meanwhile, a row of plaster cast statues, raised against a red wall, brings a dash of drama. The canteen offers one lunchtime dish, while the more intimate bar serves three meals a day, plating tantalising creations such as beef tartare with piment d’espelette and grapefruit. In the warmer months, the adjacent courtyard is the perfect spot to while away time admiring the palatial architecture of the Kunsthal.