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June design news: forgotten modernist gems, wonky watches and inside Noma’s kitchen | Life and style

June 24, 2024

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This month we celebrate the old and the new. There’s a report on graduate show New Designers, where you can see the latest ideas coming out of the UK’s universities, but also a new book that celebrates the largest concentration of second-hand dealers in the world, Les Puces de Paris. Something for everyone.

The Kelpure pregnancy test designed by Will Falch-Lovesey, graduate from Falmouth University. Photograph: New Designers

New Designers is a graduate showcase which lets students from British universities present their ideas to industry experts, though it’s also open to the general public. Over 3,000 designers have exhibited at the event since it started in 1985, newly qualified in everything from furniture design to illustration and textiles. As well as providing a platform for undiscovered talent, New Designers also shows the ideas and trends percolating through the design community. Sustainability and recycling are key themes in many of the students’ works. A great example is sustainable product designer Will Falch-Lovesey from Falmouth University, who is exhibiting this year. He’s showing an alternative product to the spiralling amount of single-use plastic in healthcare in recent years (hello Covid tests). Made purely from kelp, Kelpure is robust but will degrade in soil after use, acting as a fertiliser. Falch-Lovesey is even looking into the use of waste seaweed from agar production as his base material.

Falch-Lovesey says: “I aim to produce impactful designs that leave the planet better than I found it. I think many of my peers share this ethos, so I’m really looking forward to seeing all the innovation that’s coming out of my generation at New Designers.”

New Designers runs from 26–29 June and 3–6 July at the Business Design Centre, London

The retro futuristic B/1 watch by Toledano & Chan. Photograph: Toledano&Chan

When the Apple Watch launched back in 2015, there were many reasons for the traditional Swiss watch business to be sniffy. Regardless of the existential threat it posed to their livelihoods, one of the odder complaints concerned the new smartwatch’s shape. “Why has Apple made it square?” wailed one Biel-based CEO. “Everyone knows people don’t buy square watches.”

Leaving aside the fact that Apple has gone on to sell 230m square (technically, square-ish) watches since, so-called “shaped” watches have always had their fans – the 1970s, in particular, was a time when horologists broke the circle and embraced all kinds of weird and wonderful forms. Perhaps it’s a 50-year cycle that explains why offbeat and unusual cases define 2024’s hottest new watches.

The asymmetrical B/1 timepiece is made by newcomers Toledano & Chan and is influenced by Brutalist architecture. Anoma has created the A1 which was inspired by Charlotte Perriand’s plectrum-shaped 1950s freeform table. Or, you can go full-on Blake’s 7 with the Bamford Neprosolar – a solar-powered digital watch – or the Amida Digitrend, a diving watch first released in 1976. Round watches? Strictly for the squares.

The Casa Albero in Fregene designed by Giuseppe Perugini with his wife Uga de Plaisant and their son Raynaldo Perugini, 1968-1975. Photograph: Archivio Studio Perugini

Founded as a Facebook group In 2019, Forgotten Architecture started life as a niche platform for architecture enthusiasts and professionals to celebrate the modernist buildings and projects that had been unfairly overlooked. Some are little known works by the masters – such as a house created for Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro by Memphis Group founder Ettore Sottsass, or the experimental, biomorphic building known as the Binishell created by industrial designer Dante Bini in the 1960s. Other featured projects are just beautiful examples of the genre: simple, modern masterpieces discovered in cities around the world.

Now this collection has been turned into a book by Bianca Felicori, the Italian curator and architect who founded the Facebook group. This features photographs, plans and drawings taken from architectural archives and museums which bring the stories of these buildings to life, with essays from some of the original Forgotten Architecture members explaining why these hidden figures are worthy of the spotlight.

Forgotten Architecture edited by Bianca Felicori (Nero Editions) is out now

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Noma Projects test kitchen, opened to the public for the first time this month for 3daysofdesign, Copenhagen. Photograph: Theis Bothmann

Danish design festival 3daysofdesign is fast becoming one of the high points on the design calendar; and one of the highlights of this highpoint is the design hub in the Refshalevej district of the city. The warehouses and outbuildings of this former shipyard have been repurposed as homes for students, and premises for startups and leftfield businesses ranging from an urban organic farm to clubs and music venues. At this year’s 3daysofdesign, Refshalevej hosted The Material Way, an exhibition of experimental bio-materials held in a yurt; Transcendence, a curated show of sustainable products displayed at local nightclub Werkstatt; a floating office space made with the help of Velux; and the first chance for the public to visit Noma Projects. This offshoot of the famous restaurant was founded in 2022 to develop food products that people can enjoy at home. This was the first time the test kitchen opened its door to the public to explain their research into fermentation, food sourced from the ocean and fungus delicacies. Hopefully this is set to become an annual event.

For more information, go to the 3daysofdesign website

Nicolas, who works restoring chandeliers at Antiquités Rodriguez Décoration, a vendor in Saint-Ouen. Photograph: Photo © Toby Glanville

Les Puces in Paris are shopping legend. The stalls and sellers of the Saint-Ouen flea market have been selling antiques, vintage and second-hand furniture, and goods since 1853. Over the centuries the trade has diversified so that what was once an unofficial market for rag pickers has become a world-famous destination of 11 different specialised bazaars. The Paris Flea Market, a new art book by Kate van den Boogert, tells the history of Les Puces alongside profiles of vendors and interviews with regulars at the markets. As well as sharing the secrets and treasures of dealers such as Samuel Collin, names including industrial designer Philippe Starck and Ramdane Touhami, the entrepreneur behind toiletries brand Buly 1803, explain the value and appeal of Les Puces. Photographer Toby Glanville provides the lavish imagery of the art, design, fashion and furniture you can see there.

As Van den Boogert says in her introduction: “Each dealer’s taste contributes, making the old new again, invigorating the market with forgotten talents and styles. With its variety and profusion, it’s an invitation to sharpen your eye. And learning to see is an adventure that gets more and more captivating. The best part of it is, entry is free.”

The Paris Flea Market: Les Puces de Paris, Saint-Ouen (Prestel) is out now

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Heat Wave Doesn’t Stop Mermaid Parade on Coney Island

June 23, 2024

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Dolly McDermott and her mother, Patricia McDermott, were making their way along Surf Avenue on Coney Island shortly after noon on Saturday. They were trying to get to the registration table for Brooklyn’s annual Mermaid Parade, but it was slow going — spectators kept asking them to pose for pictures.

The daughter was wearing light-rimmed sunglasses, peach-colored frills, necklaces, bangles, and a foam seashell anchored to her back. Her mother struck a gothic contrast in black and white, with face paint and a full mermaid skeleton running the length of her outfit.

“One more! One more!” a photographer pleaded with them.

“It’s taken us half an hour to walk this far,” the younger Ms. McDermott, an artist and a self-styled “professional eccentric,” said. “Only because we look as good as we do,” her mother added.

The pair said they had been marching in Coney Island’s pageantry of aquatic weirdness for several years, and that they had not been deterred by a citywide heat advisory. The temperature was already 86 and climbing as costumed marchers and spectators assembled under a cloudless blue sky.

But the mood was upbeat as DJs on floats tested their speakers and marching bands tuned up near the staging area at Surf Avenue and West 21st Street.

On a side street, Elijah Thomas of Harlem stood under the shade of a tree with several of his bandmates from Honk NYC!, a nonprofit that promotes brass and percussive street music and participates regularly in the parade.

Mr. Thomas, 24, spoke about the inspiration that the Mermaid Parade, founded in 1983, drew from the street marching culture of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. A repeat performer at the Mermaid Parade, Mr. Thomas said he had come for “the pageantry, the community music making and the parading.”

Nearby on Surf Avenue, Dmitry Brill — better known as DJ Dmitry of the pop group Deee-Lite — did a soundcheck with his laptop mounted on a small float. The float was adorned with the name of a Berlin, Germany-based band he is producing, Nauti Siren, whose members were using their first turn at the parade to roll out a new single entitled, aptly enough, “Mermaid of the Year.”

Brill, 60, said this was his first time officially participating in the parade, though he attended it once as a spectator in the late 1980s.

Another first-time marcher, Leah King, wore a gold tiara, a bikini top and an eight-legged octopus skirt in the style of Ursula, the queenly villainess from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.” She wielded a gold-tipped trident as she, too, stopped repeatedly for photographs.

“I’m a cosplayer,” Ms. King, 40, said. “I was made for this. The mermaid is my alter ego.”

The parade kicked off with this year’s official King Neptune and Mermaid Queen — New York husband and wife artists Joe Coleman and Whitney Ward — riding in an electric tricycle under a canopy trimmed with gold. Mermaids, ship captains, pirates and people dressed as various forms of marine life trailed behind, followed by musical floats and bands playing techno and pop hits.

The procession rolled east along Surf Avenue past rows of cheering spectators, past the original Nathan’s hot dog emporium, and toward its eventual turn onto the Boardwalk, and on to its end point at the towering metal Parachute Jump, one of Coney Island’s most recognizable landmarks.

Jenni Bowman, 42, of Brooklyn, watched with friends behind barricade fencing from under the shade of a four-pole party tent.

Ms. Bowman said she comes to the parade for its offbeat celebration of “ocean mythology,” as well as for its artistry. “It’s an art parade,” she said. “The people of New York City are incredible. This is a representation of their artistry and their love for this community.”

Acknowledging the weather, Bowman added, “My friends and I bought a tent to stay in the shade because we want to be hydrated and safe.”

As it happened, the weather eased as the afternoon wore on and a light cloud cover helped keep the temperature below 90 degrees.

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brazilian flora envelops community living project by laurent troost architectures

June 22, 2024

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Co-Living INGÁ advocates for urban green spaces in Brazil

Laurent Troost Architectures has designed Co-Living INGÁ, a community living project in the heart of Manaus, Brazil. Situated just one block from the iconic Teatro Amazonas, this development aims to encourage private investment in the city’s historic areas by blending residential spaces with nature. The project comprises three 43 sqm one-bedroom apartments and three 52 sqm two-bedroom apartments, all surrounded by native flora and unconventional edible plants (PANCs). The building stands out in an urbanistically underdeveloped area with its street-level transparency and lush vegetation, advocating for increased greenery in city centers.

all images courtesy of Laurent Troost Architectures | image by Susan Valentim

Laurent Troost Architectures’ project features six apartments

The apartments designed by Laurent Troost Architectures feature large sliding glass doors, offering residents flexibility and a sense of spaciousness. Each unit is enhanced by cross-ventilation and natural shading, ensuring optimal comfort. Community amenities include a collective laundry, shared storage room, vegetable garden, barbecue area, and a deck with a shower offering views of Teatro Amazonas. The Manaus-based firm has created compact and highly efficient floor plans by eliminating service areas within the units. The project revitalizes its surroundings with improved public lighting and urban art by Amazonian artists Curumiz and Wira Tini, who have adorned the nearby walls.

this development promotes private investment in Manaus’ historic areas

three 43 sqm one-bedroom apartments and three 52 sqm two-bedroom apartments are housed in the building

native flora and unconventional edible plants envelop the residence

street-level transparency and lush vegetation advocate for greenery in city centers

units benefit from cross-ventilation and natural shading

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STUDIOTAMAT Co-Founder Matteo Soddu's Apartment Encapsulates Rome's Suprising Mix of Wonder and Chaos

June 21, 2024

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Located on the second floor of a late 19th century building opposite Rome’s Termini train station, the home of architect Matteo Soddu, co-founder of architecture and design practice STUDIOTAMAT and his partner Sergio Marras, artfully mixes contemporary design, bold colours and vintage charm in line with the practice’s signature style of past-meets-present minimalist playfulness.

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Parking Lot Becomes Colorful Hub for Early Childhood Education

June 20, 2024

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In Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil, Estúdio Protobox has converted an underused parking garage into the Children’s Studio at Colégio Salesiano (part of the Salesiano Jardim Camburi School), a dynamic, flexible space dedicated to early childhood education, embodying principles from the Montessori method and the guidelines of the National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC). The primary goal of the project was to create an environment that fosters autonomy, collaboration, and interactive learning among children.

To achieve this, the design was divided into five key education areas:

The Self, the Other, and the We: This area promotes social interaction and communal learning without the constraints of walls, encouraging children to engage and exchange ideas freely.
Bodies, Gestures, and Movements: Focused on physical activities, this section supports the development of motor skills through body movement and exercises.
Traces, Sounds, Colors, and Shapes: This is reflected in the engaging furniture and floor designs that stimulate sensory and cognitive development.
Listening, Speaking, Thinking, and Imagining: Featuring an arena for storytelling and idea exchanges, this space nurtures creativity and verbal expression.
Spaces, Times, Quantities, Relationships, and Transformations: Designed for flexibility, this area allows children to explore and interact with their surroundings, leveraging appropriately scaled furniture.

The choice of materials was crucial to meeting the project’s objectives. Blanket vinyl flooring was selected for its comfort and versatility, allowing for the creation of visually distinct and inviting areas. The material’s color flexibility enabled the demarcation of different zones with attractive, child-friendly designs.

The bright color palette extends beyond the vinyl floors and bespoke furniture with playful elements like abstract trees and an accordion ceiling that draw the eyes up and around the vibrant space, which spans 415 square meters (approximately 4,467 square feet).

Renata La Rocca, founding partner of Estúdio Protobox, emphasized the importance of the layout: “We’ve created very flexible spaces, with every element designed for teachers and students to make the most of. We have colorful and stimulating environments for children, but without neglecting the functionality necessary for teaching practice.”

The project also integrates various practical and imaginative facilities to enhance daily activities and learning experiences for the children, including a mini kitchen, mini workshop, grocery store setup, art studio, children’s bathrooms, a mini grandstand, and verandas for outdoor activities.

In addition to the architectural redesign, Estúdio Protobox developed custom furniture to align with the project’s educational objectives. This includes small builds resembling tree houses, elements that challenge physical coordination, and portable beds, all designed to fit the children’s scale and stimulate their development.

The transformation by Estúdio Protobox not only revitalizes a previously underutilized space but also sets a benchmark for innovative early childhood education environments, blending functionality with creative design to nurture the minds of young kids effectively.

Before:

Photography by Thiago Santos.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.

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Gunjan Gupta: Bridging Furniture Design and Jewellery Art – Solitaire International

June 19, 2024

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Gunjan Gupta: Bridging Furniture Design and Jewellery Art Solitaire International

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Free expressionism: a fresh look at revolutionary art collective the Blue Rider | Art

April 18, 2024

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The story of expressionist art, with its bold colours, off-kilter figures and presciently unsettling atmosphere of pre-first world war Germany, is usually told through the prism of two groups of artists: Die Brücke (The Bridge), operating out of Dresden and featuring Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel; and Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) in Munich, which was led by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. But a new exhibition at London’s Tate Modern focusing on the Blue Rider – the first major show on the subject in the UK for more than 60 years – explicitly seeks to both expand and complicate that established narrative.

A clue to the show’s thesis comes in its title, Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider. Gabriele Münter was a wealthy photographer, painter and partner of Kandinsky who had undertaken part of her art education and development in the United States. Her elevation above Marc in the Blue Rider story not only sees a woman placed at the centre of this remarkable artistic enterprise, but also serves to expand it beyond the borders of Germany and to celebrate a genuinely international experiment.

“From the beginning the Blue Rider was less a strict group than a broad-church community of artists,” explains Tate curator Natalia Sidlina. “They were transnational and were linked through various friendships and relationships – intimate, unconventional and professional – as well as through artistic collaborations, and shared quests and beliefs around spiritual and social renewal. And at the core of these webs of relationships were Kandinsky and Münter.”

In Munich salons – and even more so at Münter’s rural Bavarian home in Murnau – she and Kandinsky created a space for intellectual exchange where artists, literary critics, composers – Arnold Schoenberg was a friend – and performers could mingle with academics, scientists and many others. In 1911 and 1912 the group staged two influential exhibitions and published an ambitiously experimental almanac that included multi-disciplinary art as well as editorial and criticism.

Münter was in effect exercising the traditionally male privilege of patronage, and into this orbit came misfits and marginalised artists from all over Europe. The relatively liberal and permissive atmosphere of Munich allowed innovative ways of living, exemplified by the androgynous dancer and choreographer Alexander Sakharoff and the relationship between Russian artist Marianne von Werefkin, who declared: “I am not a man, I am not a woman, I am I”, and the painter Alexej Jawlensky. Painters such as Marc, Paul Klee and August Macke were joined as equals by female artists including Elisabeth Epstein and Sonia Delaunay. About 40% of the paintings in the new show will be by female artists – some of which have not been seen before in the UK – alongside sound, performance and archival content.

The Blue Rider effectively dispersed in the face of the first world war, but Sidlina says its legacy and example speaks with remarkable clarity to many modern artists today: “The challenges and issues they faced feel very familiar: the trauma of war, the migrant experience, fluid identities, ethnic and gender chauvinisms. Their response was friendship and solidarity of spirit as well as experimentation and radicalism. They sought and found the much-needed support of a community at a time when it was needed. It is an idea and a lesson that continues to resonate.”

Four more images from the exhibition

Marianne von Werefkin’s The Dancer, Alexander Sacharoff, 1909. Photograph: Fondazione Marianne Werefkin, Museo Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Ascona

Marianne von Werefkin – The Dancer, Alexander Sacharoff, 1909
Sacharoff was known for disturbing gender norms through his costumes and groundbreaking free movement performances. This portrait offers a challenge to the male gaze in that it is a woman portraying a man portraying Salome on stage. It is an entirely empowering image that not only gives Sacharoff the right to explore his identity, but for Werefkin to explore hers too.

Photograph: © DACS

Gabriele Münter – Kandinsky and Erma Bossi at the Table, 1912
Here Münter turns the tables on the male-dominated art world. She places Kandinsky, who may well be mansplaining to fellow artist Bossi, in a traditionally feminine interior space. The confident projected male persona is further undercut both by Kandinsky’s childlike Bavarian shorts and Bossi’s authoritative teacherly outfit.

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Elisabeth Epstein – Self-Portrait, 1911
Epstein, at some personal cost, left her husband and young son to pursue her life as an artist. She was instrumental in bridging the artistic and creative communities of Paris and Munich, and here she depicts herself as a mature, independent woman unapologetically breaking from social convention and imposing her persona on the life choices she has made.

Photograph: Lenbachhaus Munich

Franz Marc – In the Rain, 1912
This hidden portrait of Marc, his partner Maria and – calmest of all in the face of a dramatic deluge – their dog Rossi illustrates Marc’s awareness of the avant garde’s command of cubism and futurism.

Wassily Kandinsky – Study for Composition VII, 1913 (main image)
Kandinsky’s work would prove hugely influential on the direction of 20th-century art with this image becoming particularly important in terms of post-second world war art theory and the rise of abstraction.

Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider is at Tate Modern, London, 25 April to 20 October.

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Faith Ringgold Perfectly Captured the Pitch of America’s Madness

April 17, 2024

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Faith Ringgold, who died Saturday at 93, was an artist of protean inventiveness. Painter, sculptor, weaver, performer, writer and social justice activist, she made work in which the personal and political were tightly bonded. And much of that work gained popularity among audiences that didn’t necessarily frequent galleries and museums. This was particularly true of her series of semi-autobiographical painted narrative quilts depicting scenes of African American urban childhood, subject matter that translated readily into illustrated children’s books, of which, over the years, Ringgold published many.

Altogether, hers added up to a landmark-status career. But the art establishment, as defined by major museums, big-bucks auction houses and a few talent-hogging galleries, never knew quite what to do with it, or with her. So they didn’t do anything. No mega-surveys, no million-dollar corporate commissions, no Venice Biennale-type canonizations.

Recently, though, very late in the day, came a serious uptick in attention. In 2016, the Museum of Modern Art finally brought Ringgold into its collection with the acquisition of several pieces from early in her career. One of them was a monumental 1967 painting titled “American People Series #20: Die.” It shows a crowd of panicked men, women and children, white and Black, screaming and bleeding, and stampeding in all directions as if under lethal attack from some unseen force.

It’s useful to remember where Ringgold stood in her life at the time she painted the picture. Harlem-born, she’d had a classical art education, was teaching art in public school, and was painting what she herself described as Impressionist-style landscapes. She was also reading James Baldwin, listening to the news, and seeing American racial politics shift from civil rights-era passive resistance to a newly assertive Black power. The country was on red alert, just as it is today, and her art responded to the emergency by turning topical.

In the paintings she called the “American People Series,” of which “Die” was one, white people and Black people appear together, but with skewed power balances made clear. In an early picture, “The Civil Rights Triangle” from 1963, five men — four Black, one white — form a pyramid, with the white man on top, indicating that to the extent the civil rights movement was white-approved, it was also white-controlled.

In “Die,” the culminating picture in the series, a full-on war has erupted, though one that goes beyond being a clear-cut race war. All the figures in the picture look equally stunned and traumatized by the blood bath they find themselves in.

And for Ringgold at this time, art itself went beyond being the seismic recorder of a culture. It also became a vehicle for path-clearing and ethical advocacy. She organized protests against the exclusion of Black artists from leading museums, and designed posters in support of the Attica inmates and the activist Angela Davis. In a painting series called “Black Light,” she eliminated white pigment from her palette and mixed black into all her colors. By the 1970s she had become convinced that Black liberation and women’s liberation were inseparable causes. In 1971 she painted a mural for what was then the Women’s House of Detention on Rikers Island.

She knew that the country she lived in was actively, murderously crazy. For an artist to find a voice for that craziness, to get the pitch of the madness right, was unusual and daring. For that artist to be Black and female was more than unusual, and met with pushback from many sources, most of them within the art world itself.

The kind of painting she favored — figurative, storytelling, polemical — was out of fashion with the establishment, which well into the ’60s touted abstraction as the only “serious” aesthetic mode. (Even within Black art circles a debate over whether modern art, Black or otherwise, should admit political content was very much alive.) And her work continued to run against the grain throughout the Minimalist and Conceptualist years. It’s only recently, with figurative painting hugely in vogue, that her work has gained something like market currency.

And over the decades she continued to develop in new directions. Her formal means grew ever more craft-intensive, incorporating weaving, sewing and carving. Her political content drew less from the news and more from art history and her own life. Her determination to share this content, often determinedly Black-positive in tone, with young audiences through 20 published children’s books is all but unique in contemporary art annals.

The full range of these developments was on display in an overdue retrospective, “Faith Ringgold: American People,” organized by the New Museum in 2022. But back to Ringgold at MoMA in 2019.

For the opening of its newly expanded premises, the museum was rehanging, top to bottom, its permanent collection galleries, and “Die,” a relatively recent arrival, was chosen for inclusion. More than that, it was awarded a starring role. It shared an otherwise sparsely installed gallery with a major MoMA attraction, Picasso’s 1907 “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” a confrontational image of five nude Catalan prostitutes with sliced-up bodies and faces like African masks.

The two paintings were placed cater-corner in the gallery, so you could take them in together at a glance. Both are violent. (The colonialist implications of “Demoiselles” have been much noted, and art historians have read the picture as, among other things, an expression of male sex panic.) Both register as scorchingly political, while leaving their precise politics unclear. Paired at MoMA, they seemed to be visually and conceptually duking it out.

For me, Ringgold — an avowed Picasso fan — won the match. But what really mattered was simply that she was there, smack in the center of Western Modernism’s ground zero institution, and with her most radical image. I admire Ringgold’s later art, much of it materially innovative and expressively buoyant. But it’s the early work, from the pivotal period that produced “Die,” that I keep coming back to.

What she managed to do, in those early paintings, was put aside all the conventional art tools she’d been schooled with, beauty among them (she would later reclaim it), in order to face down the world as it really was, including an art world that had no use for her — a Black woman — and was, in fact, fortressed to keep her and everyone like her out.

Certain artists manage to leap over walls. Picasso was one. And some tunnel under those walls, hit resistance, tunnel some more and, once inside, open a door to let others in. That’s what Faith Ringgold, artist-activist to the end, did.

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conceptual ring platform floating near gaza sets up a domino of all countries’ pavilions

April 16, 2024

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‘Our common home’: Domino project calls for a space for peace

Multidisciplinary Studio Nab, led by Nicolas Abdelkader, proposes Domino, a symbolic three-kilometer circumference ring located north of Gaza. Situated near the Erez checkpoint on the border with Israel, 90 kilometers from Jerusalem, the circular platform sets up pavilions for all countries that house spaces for commemoration, diplomacy, cultural discovery, language learning. A footbridge drawn from the border connects the structure to the land. The concept calls for a space for peace, dialogue, and mutual discovery, to organize fraternal collaboration between peoples and promote the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

198 flags for all nations, all linked and interdependent | all images courtesy of Studio Nab

Nab’s Domino aims to organize collaboration between peoples

‘All interdependent and interconnected, we are all one. Peoples are pillars, like dominoes supporting the same home, our common home, the Earth. When a domino falls, a nation falls, people fall, and we all fall in an inexorable chain reaction. The domino effect. The consequences vary from one individual to another, but we all have something to lose, and the poorest and most disadvantaged among us are always on the front line. The wars that disfigure the world today and the quest for power and domination that accompanies them, are a real scourge for all forms of life on Earth. Pride, predation, and selfishness provoke tensions and struggles that shatter our sense of brotherhood. Every conflict situation, as in the Middle East, Ukraine, Haiti, and Sudan, brings in its wake the suffering of millions of people — men, women, brothers, sisters, children, the elderly, and entire communities. These needless massacres and appalling ruins only serve to heighten the sense of generalized fear and escalating conflict; the domino effect,’ comments Studio Nab’s Nicolas Abdelkader.

Domino is a space for peace, dialogue, and mutual discovery, promoting peaceful resolution of conflicts

And continues, ‘Weighting, justice, human rights, and negotiation should become the only objectives to be achieved, the use of force, hostility, violence, and belligerence should be banished from our existence. Yet we are not strangers to one another, nor are we superior to one another, and we can no longer ignore one another, for we are all seated at the same table, that of humanity. It has become urgent to recognize the value of the peoples of each nation in order to build a bridge between beings and create an unshakeable pact of brotherhood for all present and future generations. Teaching people to live in peace, promoting the peaceful resolution of conflicts, and developing friendly relations between nations — these should be the top priorities of the international community and the individuals responsible for the greatest number, instead of the quest for power and the arming of nations. War is the denial of all rights, putting down weapons, means showing forgiveness, clemency, and generosity, this should be the objective to achieve. Stemming the phenomenon of escalation of conflicts means stopping the attack on human rights and in particular violence against the poorest. Organizing fraternal collaboration between peoples means facilitating coexistence between nations by giving everyone, without exception, a place to shine, a place to express themselves, and a real megaphone. It means creating a new system of international life that is stable, enviable, and sustainable. Promoting the cultural and ethnic richness of each people means getting to know the other, means no longer being afraid of them, means facilitating her discovery so that we can understand and accept our differences. Accelerating economic and social progress means being able to establish a system of international solidarity, it is marking a founding step in the development of mankind, it is looking towards a serene future. To aspire to the dignity of life, to freedom, to the hope of concord and peace, is to capture the highest in human wisdom, for grasp his sacred nature. To honor the voices of the living and the dead, it’s making them ours. It’s paying tribute to us.’

pavilions standing on the Mediterranean Sea house spaces for commemoration, diplomacy, cultural discovery

the Ukraine pavilion is a space encouraging dialogue, negotiation, and peace process with neighboring Russia

a footbridge drawn from the border allows access to the three-kilometer circumference of the project

Domino is located north of Gaza, near the Erez checkpoint on the border with Israel, 90 kilometers from Jerusalem

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A Multi-Use Venue Catering to Chengdu’s Youth is an Immersive Urban Oasis

April 15, 2024

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Exiting from the elevator, visitors go ‘through the looking-glass’, stepping inside HOPE DESIGN’s imaginatively crafted, multi-layered venue that seems to fuse Chengdu’s urban fabric with the natural world. Left exposed, the building’s concrete structure is intertwined with pipes, steel stairs, and railings, conceived as a representation of the frenzied cityscape, while sand, stone and water elements alongside verdant plants add a soothing natural component to the overall scheme. The mix of natural and manmade materials such as natural stone and red sandstone, combined with cement and metal comprise a rugged canvas that the vegetation unexpectedly encroaches, imbuing the space with wonderment that begs to be explored.

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Sha Wang of Atelier Fen Strikes a Balance in Her Modern Abode

April 14, 2024

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Sha Wang, the principal and founder of Atelier Fēn (formerly Space 9), transforms a 1960s ranch-style house in the heart of West Vancouver, Canada, into something of a laid-back West Coast abode. Despite lacking an ocean view, Wang appreciates the unique allure of her home’s adjacency to a creek and lush surroundings, which offers a serene and enchanting atmosphere. Wang’s approach to her residence’s redesign is meticulous, leveraging it as an opportunity to experiment with textures, colors, and design philosophies.

Drawing inspiration from the mid-century modern era, Wang aims to balance the home’s architectural essence with elements from her signature aesthetic, including pops of color and clean lines. While the original cherry-colored wood floors, characteristic of the structure’s period, are replaced with white oak to create a brighter space, the living room retains its unique lace-patterned ceiling. Other touches include a few coats of No. 239 Wimborne White paint from Farrow & Ball and versatile USM cabinetry.

The dining room, connected to an exterior patio, blends indoor and outdoor living, complemented by linen wallcoverings and velvet curtains whose texture and color harmonize with the natural setting. The kitchen showcases custom white oak cabinetry with unique arched panels and brass hardware, set against a backdrop of large porcelain and marble slabs, achieving a mixture of sophistication and warmth. In totality, tiny changes showcase Wang’s ability to meld historic charm with modern simplicity to evoke a laid-back, West Coast lifestyle paced for modern family life.

To learn more about Sha Wang’s Atelier Fēn visit spacenineinteriors.com.

Photography by Tina Kulic and story production by Karine Monié.

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Leo Lei translates his passion for minimalism into his daily-updated blog Leibal. In addition, you can find uniquely designed minimalist objects and furniture at the Leibal Store.

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A guide to the Arab pavilions at Venice Biennale 2024 – The National

April 13, 2024

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A guide to the Arab pavilions at Venice Biennale 2024 The National

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‘War, refugees, destruction’: colonialism and conflict key themes of Venice Biennale | Venice Biennale

April 12, 2024

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This year’s Venice Biennale is being billed as an event rooted in the now, in a world of conflict and division – or, as one newspaper put it, the celebration of global art will be full of “war, refugees, destruction”.

Another theme that runs through many of the pavilions is colonialism: both its legacy in the form of restitution debates, and Europe’s lingering presence – physically and psychologically – in those countries that were formerly colonised.

More than half a dozen of the pavilions taking part – including Ireland, Portugal, Brazil, the Netherlands, Ethiopia and the UK – contain art or artists who are wrestling with ideas of colonialism and its influence more than half a century after many states gained independence.

The Irish entry features a film made by Eimear Walshe, which combines ideas around the 19th-century land contestation and the current housing crisis in Ireland, while the Dutch pavilion features Congolese collective Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise who have secured a loan of a contested colonial-era artefact. The UK’s representative, John Akomfrah, has consistently interrogated ideas connected to colonialism since the early 1980s.

The Brazilian pavilion has been renamed the Hãhãwpuá pavilion, which refers to the name the Pataxó people use for the land that is now known as Brazil.

The team behind it say that that decision chimes with the Biennale’s theme of Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, and is intended to highlight indigenous voices in a country that recently apologised to Indigenous groups for persecution during the dictatorship. “Many Indigenous peoples are still foreigners within Brazilian territory: perceived as outsiders,” says Gustavo Caboco, one of three indigenous curators of the pavilion.

The Biennale’s artistic director, Adriano Pedrosa, is also a Brazilian whose own curation has regularly spotlighted Indigenous artists and culture, while the 58-year-old has invited many artists from the global south to the Giardini and the Arsenale.

Brazil’s former coloniser, Portugal, has a pavilion curated for the first time by three women of afro-descent (Mónica de Miranda, Sónia Vaz Borges and Vânia Gala), and looks back at the European state’s legacy in Africa where it colonised Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea, Mozambique and islands in the Gulf of Guinea.

At its centre is the concept of the “creole garden”, which were the pieces of land enslaved people were allowed to cultivate. The garden – full of plants with a connection to Portugal’s colonial past – will take up the main space in the palazzo, and also references Amílcar Cabral, an agricultural scientist turned revolutionary leader who defeated Portugal in Guinea-Bissau.

De Miranda said: “The forest was always the place that [Cabral] was safe and able to plan the strategy to defeat the colonial power, so for us the forest is a place of refuge as well.”

The Ethiopian pavilion has a special significance: it’s the first time the country has taken part at Venice and the invitation to came from Italy, a state that occupied it for five years but never managed to colonise it.

Its curator, Lemn Sissay, said the presence of Ethiopia at the “Olympics of the art world” was a significant moment for the African nation, which makes it harder for countries like Britain that hold its artefacts to retain them.

The Nigerian pavilion has an even stronger connection to the restitution debate: it is being curated by Aindrea Emelife, the curator of modern and contemporary art at Mowaa, the Museum of West African Art, which has been at the forefront of the debate over the return of the Benin bronzes.

Emelife said the eight artists taking part – including Toyin Ojih Odutola, Precious Okoyomon and Yinka Shonibare – have been asked to create work about the “potential” of Nigeria, from the colonial era to the present day and into the future.

“There’s definitely a post-colonial element to what the artists are making,” she said.

“If you think of moments of optimism for any nation post-independence, there is this galvanising force, so it’s natural that that comes to play. But the artists who are discussing colonialism are also trying to resist it … and not repeat the mistakes.”

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