Jamie Gray can’t pinpoint the moment he fell in love with design. His interests quickly shifted from collecting midcentury pieces to following the new ideas and materials being explored by contemporary designers. Matter, the design shop he founded in 2003 to showcase that work, is now a fixture of New York’s design scene, and Gray is widely known for his discerning eye. MatterMade, the shop’s in-house line, was developed expressly to champion American designers, and to prove that small-scale production—and real design for living—could succeed. With this year’s collection, MatterMade focused on a single designer for the first time, releasing a line of furniture and lighting by Roman & Williams.
How do you find out about new designers?
New designers come to Matter in every imaginable way. I’m immersed in the design community locally, nationally and internationally, so people come to me through other designers, introductions and recommendations. I follow the industry via blogs, magazines and periodicals. I’m always intrigued by what’s happening, what’s current.
Elle Decoration UK is probably my favorite magazine, because they feature the type of work Matter looks for, but there are so many others: Surface, Dwell, Wallpaper, World of Interiors. Online I’m all over the map. I’m always checking Sight Unseen because I think Jill [Singer] and Monica [Khemsurov] are constantly curating and finding interesting new work and talented young designers and creators. David John, who runs You Have Been Here Sometime, puts together a really beautiful blog. There’s also Architizer, Yatzer and, of course, Core77. And the list goes on.
I also receive cold calls, or more specifically, cold e-mails. We receive a lot of work via e-mail, all of which I look through with excitement and enthusiasm. Maybe one in a hundred I will respond or relate to. It’s not even that all the work is good or bad; it’s that the process of curating, or the process of beginning a new project, is such a personal endeavor. Occasionally I’ll open an e-mail and really respond to somebody’s work and I’ll introduce myself.
Peter Saville‘s career kicked off after designing posters for The Haçienda nightclub in Manchester, run by the Factory Records label.
Joy Divison: Closer, 1980
Saville went on to create the artwork for musicians represented by Factory Records, including rock bands Joy Division and Roxy Music.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark LP, 1980
His most iconic cover is widely regarded as Joy Division’s 1979 album Unknown Pleasures (main image), a diagram of pulses taken from an astrology encyclopedia. Disney added Mickey Mouse ears to the graphic for a T-shirt design last year.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Architecture and Morality, 1981
Saville’s design for Joy Division’s second and final 1980 record Closer shows a photograph of a tomb, which proved controversial due to the suicide of the band’s singer Ian Curtis two months before the album’s release.
New Order: Blue Monday, 1983
Saville continued to design covers for the band after they reformed as New Order, taking images from historical artwork out of context and adding modern typography with geometric graphics.
After designing for new wave group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark since 1980, the band asked Saville to create imagery for its latest album Electric English released earlier this year. It references the stripy hazard signs of his original Factory Records posters.
Saville also designed covers for English bands Pulp and Suede. He set up fashion film website SHOWstudio with his friend Nick Knight in 2000 and was made creative director for the City of Manchester in 2004.
Samsung’s newly-formed Lifestyle Research Lab is looking for a Senior Manager to build their research practice for the TV product category. Lifestyle trends fall outside of Samsung’s typical product-oriented research domain, looking to the future to understand the new ways of living that may influence consumer needs and expectations. Areas of coverage include: family, housing, health & wellness, transportation, society, media, culture, education, entertainment, leisure, environment, etc.
If you have a strong innovation/concept development track record, a minimum of 10 years experience in areas such as trend research, design research, and product development, plus a willingness to work in small, agile team within a large corporate setting, this is your job.
Lisbon Architecture Triennale: following budget cuts, boycotts and lukewarm reviews, Lisbon Architecture Triennale curator Beatrice Galilee defends the event that opened in the Portuguese capital last week and explains why she believes architecture exhibitions don’t always need to be about buildings (+ interview).
“Architecture exhibitions don’t deal with the real experience of architecture; they deal with the design and concept of architecture,” Galilee told Dezeen. “Exhibitions are places to be occupied, not just things to be observed. [This] was an opportunity to push the boundaries of what an architecture exhibition can be about and about how it could be presented.”
Legendary Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza was reported to have snubbed the opening festivities of the triennale, which deliberately avoids focussing on the country’s globally renowned older architects and which challenged the orthodox approach to the curation of architectural exhibitions.
“It’s an event for the next generations of architects in Portugal not for established practitioners. We didn’t really compromise on that,” Galilee said.
Working alongside curators Liam Young, Mariana Pestana and José Esparza, Galilee presented a series of exhibitions that focus on public participation, rather than on exhibiting spaces and structures. Instead of showcasing the work of Portuguese masters, she chose to focus entirely on young architects and studios, a move that has prompted a “wall of silence” from established architects such as Siza.
“I think it’s a shame for the Portuguese architects involved that they don’t have the support of their masters,” she added. “But it’s not something that particularly keeps me up at night.”
New Publics civic stage curated by José Esparza
She also explains that her concept to not involve any famous architects was one of the reasons she was chosen as curator.
“We made the discipline of architecture our focus, not Portuguese architecture,” she said. “The discipline of architecture in Portugal is really cherished around the world. We wanted to do something different that would be appropriate for this time.”
Amy Frearson: Can you tell me about the history of the triennale?
Beatrice Galilee: The first one in 2007 was founded by a group of architects who went to the Sao Paolo Biennale and realised there weren’t any biennale structures in Portugal in architecture, any independent institutions of architecture in Portugal, so they founded the triennale. The first edition was quite traditional, it was comprised of exhibitions and a massive conference. It was quite well funded and I actually attended that as a journalist. I felt like it was quite an expensive conference, it was held in the expo area of Lisbon. It was kind of a success in the fact that it happened, but it wasn’t particularly original.
The second edition had a chief curator from the art world. Again, that was quite a major production involving a number of other institutions in Lisbon and looked at art and architecture, but the overall scene was talking about houses.
The previous two editions were quite internal, involving almost everyone on the Portuguese architecture scene. So for the third edition, they decided to have an open call and not choose somebody from within the same pool of people. They just decided to make it more international.
New Publics civic stage curated by José Esparza – photograph by Delfino Legnani
Amy Frearson: What are your aims for this one?
Beatrice Galilee: I applied with a proposal to look at all the ideas around architecture. Architecture exhibitions don’t deal with the real experience of architecture; they deal with the design and concept of architecture. So I wanted to look at all the other work and disciplines that influence architecture and disciplines that architecture is influenced by. They were really happy because I didn’t have any famous architects in my proposal or my curatorial team, so that’s one of the reasons they said they chose me, as well as because I’m British, again because they wanted it to be something more international. So I applied with that team, with Liam Young, Mariana Pestana and José Esparza. They asked for three exhibitions and a public programme as part of the proposal so it was quite defined from the beginning – what I was and what I wasn’t allowed to do.
Real and Other Fictions curated by Mariana Pestana – photograph by Delfino Legnani
Amy Frearson: Can you tell me a bit more about the theme Close, Closer?
Beatrice Galilee:As a group, the idea was to explore the alternate universe of architecture, beyond the aesthetics and proportions that architects deal with; to try and be more public and open about an exhibition. So it was an opportunity to push the boundaries of what an architecture exhibition can be about and about how it could be presented.
We’re not representing architecture, we’re presenting it; exhibitions are places to be occupied, not just things to be observed. So thats the kind of big shift we’ve tried to explain to people: it’s not about demonstrating projects but about commissioning spaces and places that are used and occupied during the triennale.
Real and Other Fictions curated by Mariana Pestana
Amy Frearson: Can you give me some examples?
Beatrice Galilee: We made this huge stage in Casa de la Figera to host our public programme. Afterwards will be occupied by various different people and groups; there will be a skateboarding competition on it, a university public programme, a number of associations and institutions have asked to use the stage, even a horse riding group want to use it. It’s a public programme in that sense; the idea is that its about the city.
The same with The Real and Other Fictions exhibition [a series of installations that explore the former uses of an old palace]. It works on several different levels. It has to be occupied, it has to be used as architecture does. We wanted to explore not just what an architecture exhibition could be but how architecture is understood. Its not about showing ideas that happen elsewhere, its not really that kind of design.
The exhibition The Institute Effect is a kind of homage to the institution. Institutions play a huge role in the field of contemporary architecture, and the individuals behind the institutions become the people who make the decisions about the landscape of architecture. Instead of showing what it is that they do, we’re inviting them to come and make a public programme for Lisbon. So it’s kind of an embassy or season of institutions that keep putting on festivals and talks. The idea is that as a triennale, we’re not international curators that come in and leave again. It has an element of time to it, it sinks in and works for a city, works for people who take time to come back to it and make use of that intelligence and those ideas.
The Institute Effect co-curated by Dani Admiss – photograph by Miguel de Guzmán
The Future Perfect is a kind of experience, an opportunity to walk into someone else’s dream about the visual and aesthetic shape of the future, as well as the atmosphere around it. The programme is a combination of who else is responsible for architecture, what else architecture is. Can we present that in a new, innovative and exciting way?
Alongside that there were other programmes. Associated Projects was a call for anyone to be a part of the triennale, that was also really exciting because it made the triennale into a platform for other people’s projects. We had 100 associated projects, which ranged from architecture installations, a run, urban walks, coordinated clothes wash and research into the pedagogical systems of architecture. Not only did we commission the people we did, but we were also able to commission other people to talk about what they really wanted to.
The Institute Effect co-curated by Dani Admiss – photograph by Luke Hayes
Amy Frearson: How has the establishment reacted to the programme?
Beatrice Galilee: Because the first two triennale exhibitions had been so heavily influenced by Portuguese architecture, I think people felt that the Lisbon Architecture Triennale was an opportunity to promote Portuguese architecture to the world. I think there was an expectation that the third one would do it again. Because we made the discipline of architecture our focus, not Portuguese architecture, I think people were unsure of what their place was in this event.
Ultimately it’s an event for the next generations of architects in Portugal not for established practitioners. We didn’t really compromise on that. We thought maybe we should do an exhibition for the older generation so that they don’t get upset, but we decided that sometimes you have to take a position. We wanted to do something that would supported a different type of architecture practice, a bit more about exploration and invention than about famous names. Because I don’t think there’s really a gap in the market for exhibitions on Portuguese architects because they’re so famous and so well known. The discipline of architecture in Portugal is really cherished around the world. For example there was an exhibition of Portuguese architects in Montreal and last year at the Venice Biennale and in Milan. We wanted to do something different that would be appropriate for this time.
So in terms of animosity, its kind of more like a wall of silence from that generation rather than explicit animosity because no one has criticised me personally. That’s what I have experienced personally and I don’t know what they think.
Future Perfect curated by Liam Young – photograph by Miguel de Guzmán
Amy Frearson: It’s rumoured that Álvaro Siza deliberately left the city because he he hadn’t been involved.
Beatrice Galilee: Yeah he went to Milan for the launch of the new Domus magazine. There was a comment in one of the exhibitions saying: “Why have you gone to Milan?” It’s a bit of a shame really. I can’t imagine British architects being like that if they’ weren’t involved in London Festival of Architecture or Italian architects behaving like that if they weren’t in the Venice Biennale. Its a shame because they’re on the board of the triennale. I think it’s a shame for the Portuguese architects involved that they don’t have the support of their masters. But it’s not something that particularly keeps me up at night.
Cohen Van Balen at Future Perfect – photograph by Catarina Botelho
Amy Frearson: The biggest issue affecting Portugal today is the economic crisis. How has the triennale addressed that?
Beatrice Galilee: In some ways we adjusted by simply managing to exist. The crisis-buster grants [funding given to ten projects that benefitted local communities] were really a direct response to the crisis. It was a real pleasure to see so many of them, such as an ice cream van pulling up, and all of the projects that were made with our grants that were popping up and were really excited and were working really well. It was great. The public programme is really trying to address that.
There’s one practice campaigning for Portuguese architects to stay in Portugal. And that’s their message – don’t leave, your ideas are needed here and you’re needed here. Your thinking is needed here. You can change the city, don’t leave. And thats a really powerful message from a young Portuguese practice. They want their colleagues and their collaborators to think twice before they go to leave to get work in other countries.
So of course the programme isn’t entirely devoted to discussing the crisis, but there’s loads of really exciting things that come out of it. Some people say you’re almost glorifying the crisis but it’s not the case at all. We’re trying to be really productive and proactive. I think that’s the good thing that happens when people come together, you can get inspired and get ideas and a lot of the programme is almost trying to design those moments of conversation like what can we do together, as a group, as a generation, to stop architects leaving the country.
Marshmallow Laser Feast at Future Perfect – photo by Delifino Legnani
Amy Frearson: Was your budget cut?
Beatrice Galilee: I think we ended up with 50% of what we started with which is pretty drastic. It is not exactly what we wanted from the beginning, but I’m just really proud of the curators and participants who slogged and slaved and fought to participate in this, and driven to do it despite all the cuts. Its like a programme that exists in spite of everything. I’m amazed that we did it at all and there are no regrets in a way, we did it, its opened and it happened. Of course there are more things that if we had more money, we would have done it, but then we could also have not done anything.
A three-minute film for Thai mobile brand TrueMove in which a young boy caught stealing medicine for his sick mother is helped by a benevolent restaurant owner has become a worldwide hit
In case you haven’t seen it yet, we won’t spoil the surprise – just watch it here
Incidentally, there don’t seem to be any credits available for the agency or director of the spot.
At the time of writing, the ad has had over 10 million views on YouTube. There have been stories about it in the Mirror, Mail and Guardian, plus many more worldwide. So why has it become such a hit?
It’s really well made with performances that sit just the right side of schmaltz. And it packs quite an emotional punch with many YouTube commenters admitting that it left them dewy-eyed. Plus the advertising message is decidedly (too?) subtle, confined to a line at the end about giving.
Playing the ‘tearjerker’ card is a very tricky thing to get right in advertising, particularly in the UK where viewers tend to have a highly sensitive gag reflex. The Giving spot is sentimental and manipulative but it has undeniably struck a deep emotional chord with viewers worldwide. Which leaves us wondering whether it would work in the UK?
British advertising has had its own snuffly moments. John Lewis’s Christmas ad, for example
And even now JR Hartley’s fruitless trudge around his local second-hand bookshops can induce a lip wobble
Designer Hella Jongerius and architect Rem Koolhaas have renovated the North Delegates’ Lounge at the United Nations buildings in New York (+ slideshow).
Working alongside a team of Dutch creatives that included graphic designer Irma Boom, artist Gabriel Lester and theorist Louise Schouwenberg, Jongerius and Koolhaas have reconfigured the layout and added new furniture to the lounge – one of the key spaces in the complex designed during the 1960s by a team of architects including Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer.
Koolhaas’ OMA began by removing a mezzanine that had been added in 1978, opening up a view towards the East River. Hella Jongerius then added a bead curtain made from hand-knotted yarn and 30,000 porcelain beads.
Furniture is arranged so that one end of the lounge accommodates formal meetings and the other is more suited to coffee and drinks. Jongerius designed two new pieces for the space – the Sphere Table and the UN Lounge Chair – which are accompanied by original Knoll chairs.
A new bar is made from black resin, while the existing information desk is retained and repositioned alongside the original clock and signage.
Jongerius was responsible for the colour palette, adding an orange carpet alongside the purple, blue and green upholstery.
“The renovation and redesign of the lounge is a gift from the Netherlands to the UN,” said the designers.
Dezeen recently filmed a series of interviews with Jongerius discussing her latest projects and why she chose to relocate to Berlin. Watch the movies »
New interior for United Nations North Delegates’ Lounge (New York)
More than sixty years after the opening of the UN North Delegates’ Lounge, Hella Jongerius has redesigned the lounge in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas, Irma Boom, Gabriel Lester and Louise Schouwenberg.
Their aim was to create a space of both comfort and professional informality. The team carefully edited the history of the space, retaining some of the iconic Scandinavian designs and creating a new perspective on the works of art already on display. They removed the mezzanine that had blocked the view of the East River, restoring the open architectural space.
Jongerius designed two new pieces of furniture for the lounge: the Sphere Table and the UN Lounge Chair, produced by Vitra. For the East Facade Jongerius designed the Knots & Beads Curtain, with hand-knotted yarn and 30,000 porcelain beads made from Dutch clay by Royal Tichelaar Makkum. Jongerius was also responsible for revitalizing the colour palette, selecting the furniture and designing the cradle-to-cradle Grid Carpet.
The UN buildings in New York date from 1951, six years after the foundation of the UN. Referred to as ‘A Workshop for Peace’, the complex was designed by a team of architects including Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer and Wallace K. Harrison. In 2009, the UN launched a large-scale renovation project, which is now nearly complete. At the request of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hella Jongerius formed a team to redesign the lounge and bring it into a new era. The renovation and redesign of the lounge is a gift from the Netherlands to the UN.
The lounge will be officially opened on September 25, 2013 by Queen Máxima of the Netherlands and the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frans Timmermans, in the presence of Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Year: 2013 Material: Various Dimensions: Various Commission: United Nations/ Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs Category: Industrial production
The Combi is a robotic vacuum cleaner that cleans your space efficiently. It features an integrated dust buster to get to those hard-to-reach nooks. The robot is designed to look friendly and appealing; it fits well into your home environment. The good thing is that you can set the cleaner to both robotic and manual function. So either let the vacuum do its thing or you do it your way!
Designer: Gwang Chae Jung
– Yanko Design Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world! Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design! (Combi Cleaning was originally posted on Yanko Design)
London designer Paul Cocksedge’s first solo exhibition, at Friedman Benda in New York, features a table folded from a single sheet of steel (+ slideshow).
Paul Cocksedge‘s Capture exhibition at New York City’s Friedman Benda gallery includes two new pieces by the designer.
The first is a table made from a curved Corten steel sheet, which balances on one end and curves back on itself to create the top.
The half-ton sheet folds at an angle so the top and base point in different directions.
His second new design is a large black domed lamp, which glows with a white light across the entire 1.6-metre-wide base.
Hand-spun from aluminium, the hemisphere is tilted to direct the light at an angle.
Friedman Benda will present Paul Cocksedge: Capture the British designer’s inaugural solo exhibition, 12 September – 12 October 2013.
Capture will introduce new works developed by Cocksedge over the last four and half years that push the mediums of light and structure, including a large-scale light installation, a collection of dramatic, seemingly impossible, hand-wrought dome lamps, and Poised, a series of unyielding steel tables inspired by the delicacy of paper. Known for exploring the limits of technology, materials, and manufacturing capabilities, Paul Cocksedge Studio has produced both commercial and experimental work, as well as a series of high-profile public installations around the world. Capture finds Cocksedge presenting a new series of concepts informed by his studio’s commitment to technological ingenuity, expanding the boundaries of physics, and the creation of works that are both thought provoking and unexpected.
The works include Capture, a 1.6-metre hand-spun aluminium dome that appears to “hold” the peaceful glow of a warm white light. The piece is informed by a process of reduction – a recurring theme in Cocksedge’s work – as it subtracts the typical infrastructure around light, instead creating a hemisphere that seems to stop light from escaping.
For White Light, Cocksedge will create a room within the gallery in which everything and nothing changes. For this work, the designer will create an illuminated mosaic of precisely calibrated and positioned coloured panels on the ceiling of the gallery. The ceiling will slowly fade from a spectrum of colours to a warm white light, while the room itself will remain unchanged, demonstrating the ways in which we do and do not perceive the interplay of colour and light.
The inspiration for Poised comes from the elegance and amenability of paper. Half a ton in weight, the steel table appears improbable upon investigation. Created following an intensive series of calculations regarding gravity, mass, and equilibrium, the table looks as though it is about to fall, but is perfectly weighted and stable.
In addition to these new works, Cocksedge will present three architectural models that take conceptual threads from Capture and White Light and reapply them to architectural settings outside of the gallery space. Central to Cocksedge’s work is an appreciation for the ways in which people respond to and interact with his designs. As a result, potential real world applications of these new works will be explored in a series of architectural models.
Le New York City Ballet présente New Beginnings : une vidéo mettant en scène Maria Kowroski and Ask la Cour dans le pas de deux After the Rain de Christopher Wheeldon sur la terrasse du Four World Trade Center à Manhattan. Une performance sublime filmée au levé du soleil annonçant un nouveau départ pour la ville.
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The Matter store in New York
