In the latest in a regular column for CR, art director Gem Fletcher highlights the work of Arielle Bobb-Willis, who uses the materiality of the human body as a lightning rod for the expression of deep emotion
The post Exposure: Arielle Bobb-Willis appeared first on Creative Review.
Two new graphic novels, which a Le Corbusier figure makes an appearance in, depict the uncomfortable side of modern architecture, writes Owen Hatherley.
The story of modern architecture is usually told as being a matter of heroes and villains, and one figure, Le Corbusier, has always had the luck to be portrayed as both. The destroyer of cities, the giver of form, instantly recognisable by the thick, round, black-rimmed glasses and the thinning hair, a uniform embarrassingly copied by hundreds of architects ever since the 1920s.
It’s entirely unsurprising that a man treated in his lifetime as a godlike demiurge and a comic book villain has, in fact, been portrayed as an actual villain in actual comic books, and as a hero in others (there is actually a French-language graphic novel biography aimed at teenagers, Le Corbusier – Architecte Parmi Les Hommes).
There are more and less subtle ways of doing this, however – and some comics have been more nuanced about modern architecture than a lot of the published histories. Two new graphic novels – Viken Berberian and Yann Kebbi’s The Structure is Rotten, Comrade, and Charlotte Malterre-Barthes and Zosia Dzierzawska’s Eileen Gray – A House Under the Sun – are accounts of the uncomfortable sides of modern architecture in which Le Corbusier either appears as a real character, or as a parodic figure.
There are dozens upon dozens of depictions of both terrifying and exciting modernist cities that would make Chandigarh look like Poundbury
In comic books about development and destruction, such as Robert Moses – Master Builder, Le Corbusier and his ideas get a walk-on part as the inspiration of urban disaster (before the everyday superhero figure of Jane Jacobs saves the day, of course). These two books try and tell stories in which the architect is more than just one-dimensional.
Comic books, being for most of their history a celebration of dystopia, chaos and modernity, aren’t naturally a good place for moralising. There are dozens upon dozens of depictions of both terrifying and exciting modernist cities that would make Chandigarh look like Poundbury, from famous future metropolises like Gotham City and Mega City One, down to the more mundane level of the child psychics in the Brutalist apartment complex of Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga Domu.
One of the most interesting examples frankly acknowledges its architectural source – Dean Motter’s 1980s comic series Mister X, in which an architect-detective modelled very obviously on Le Corbusier moves through the psychotropic buildings of Radiant City, a combination of the Ville Radieuse with the kitschier future cities of Hugh Ferriss and Fritz Lang.
Neither The Structure is Rotten, Comrade and Eileen Gray – a House Under the Sun are about imaginary cities of the future, but are in some way about actual events, and the ways in which architects’ ideas have rubbed up against reality in unpredictable ways.
The book begins with Le Corbusier’s presumably intentional death by drowning in front of E1027
They both have something of the dreamlike about them, exploiting the form’s lack of interest in realism. A House Under the Sun tells the story, now pretty familiar to people who know their architectural history, of how this Irish designer moved briefly into architecture. How she created, almost casually, one of the masterpieces of the 20th century in the form of the house E1027 on the Cote d’Azur, and of how that masterpiece was wrested from her first personally, and then conceptually, as her partner Jean Badovici and then Le Corbusier laid claim to it.
The book begins with Le Corbusier’s presumably intentional death by drowning in front of E1027 – boxed in among the panoramic views of the bay are panels of people lamenting how the great architect died in front of his great work.
From there, Gray’s life – sketched in lightly, through vignettes of her life as a child born into the Irish upper middle class, of her brief career as a Parisian cause celebre through her design emporium Jean Depart, her relationship with Badovici, and the notorious defacing of E1027 by Le Corbusier’s garish, misogynist murals, which can at best be seen as an unrequested tribute to a building he loved, or at worst, as an attempt to make it his own.
In any case, if it was the latter, he was successful – press cuttings montaged into the book’s later pages show news reports citing the building as Corbusier’s. By the end, Gray has literally disappeared from the narrative, a ghostly absence.
Its central hero is a Le Corbusier parody and there are similar themes of architecture’s aspirations to purity and autonomy coming into conflict with sexuality and money
The story is stylishly told, while the look of A House Under the Sun is relaxed, muted and melancholic, though frequently verging on the twee. In places, it falls into a sort of Etsy aesthetic that is not entirely well-suited to the glinting, harsh Mediterranean clarity of Gray’s own designs.
While its central hero is a Le Corbusier parody and there are similar themes of architecture’s aspirations to purity and autonomy coming into conflict with sexuality and money, the style of The Structure is Rotten, Comrade couldn’t be more different – a riot of slashing lines, scrawls and bright colours.
The plot of the comic book is similarly elliptical, but contemporary, and semi-fictional. Frunz, a young French-Armenian architect from the diaspora with Le Corbusier specs and an enthusiasm for Beton Brut, moves to Yerevan, the capital of independent Armenia, to work for his father’s construction company.
In love with the greats of architectural history, he intends to bring luxury skyscrapers, avant-garde design and Aalto stools to what he evidently regards as a sleepy and provincial post-Soviet town. Showing little interest in the city’s actual architecture – a coherent, neoclassical ensemble of the 1930s t0 1950s, masterplanned by the architect Alexander Tamanyan – he becomes embroiled in a series of scandalous demolitions. Then both he and his family are targeted in the revolution of 2018, which built on a series of earlier protests against rampant overdevelopment.
What the book’s violent, vehement style registers, though, is just how much architecture matters
Although the types are convincing – the corrupt developers and macho militamen, the emigre princeling going back to his ancestral homeland and trying to tell it what to do, the grizzled market traders and eager young students of Yerevan – the book distorts some of the architectural history.
The book alludes to the Northern Avenue, a mega-development plunged through the historic centre of Yerevan against fierce opposition. But this was hardly some avant-garde work of western modernism, rather a stone-clad neoclassical boulevard; some of the stories in here seem like they’ve come from neighbouring Georgia, which really has been a playground for dubious modern architects for the last decade, something which hasn’t alleviated its drastic poverty.
What the book’s violent, vehement style registers, though, is just how much architecture matters – what the destruction of a much-loved building can do to people’s lives, and how often architecture’s international role is to offer a veneer of modernisation to the poor world as a patronising sop. This comic book has its villains, but its hero is the collective who fight the developers, and win.
Image from Eileen Gray – A House Under the Sun.
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Vicki Ling est une illustratrice actuellement basée à Chicago. Dans sa série « Hanging By a String », l’artiste présente des moments de fragilité et d’instabilité.
En capturant l’instant précédant la catastrophe, elle met alors en avant l’instabilité de la vie. Une ficelle rouge est enroulée autour de ses compositions, la retirer fait alors tout s’écrouler. Cette ficelle représente la tension de la vie quotidienne.
« Nous pouvons observer que la société actuelle a atteint un haut degré de développement économique et technologique, mais nous luttons en même temps pour suivre le rythme de plus en plus rapide et la nature matérialiste de la vie » explique Ling.
There’s nothing quite as special as a hand-written note sent through snail mail and, with the USPS currently under threat, there’s no better time to buy stamps. There are 78 designs to choose from online, and our pick—priority mail postal stamps—features an illustration of Big Bend’s Rio Grande by Dan Cosgrove. These four stamps, each valued at $7.75, allow for more than the passing along of a note, but perhaps even a gift to a loved one. You can also write to your representatives, or text “USPS” to Resistbot (50409) to easily pass on a message of support for the post office to congress.
Film shorts and bitesize content have often been overlooked in favour of Hollywood feature-lengths. We explore whether new platforms and evolving viewer habits mark a new era for short form video
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With every passing year, we are seeing the effects of pollution seep deeper into our lives. Earlier it would only affect your health if you spent too much time outdoors, especially in an urban setting, but now we are learning that the air indoor can be 5x more polluted than outside. While a long term solution is adopting a sustainable lifestyle, you can make changes in your immediate environment overnight with appliances like air purifiers to improve the air quality for your health. Air purifiers are generally not something we consider as an accent piece in our homes but Air O, a conceptual air purifier, is here to change that.
Air purifiers have slowly become essentials in homes after the US EPA and WHO stated that PM2.5 indoors air quality is more toxic than outdoor air. It prompted people to monitor their living spaces, especially those with existing conditions like asthma or families with newborns. In addition to appliances, people also get indoor plants to naturally purify the air, but having both take up space and increases maintenance. Air O is the perfect fusion of a purifier and a planter that not only frees up and make corners of your home look tidy, it also gives your interior style a minimalistic upgrade. You can control Air O through an app on your smartphone and get timely reports on the air quality or notifications about changing the filters.
The designer’s idea to combine plants with an air purifier was like adding a turbocharger to make the appliance perform better while retaining the soothing presence of plants. The appliance is designed to look like a luxury plant holder with pineapple-like grooves that add texture to the otherwise matte black gadget. Air O’s sleek make it a perfect fit in any space and you won’t have to worry about a bulky air purifier being an eyesore in your home. Also, the plant really elevates the environment apart from having emotional benefits. I bet no one will be able to tell its an air purifier and they’ll assume you are a real adult now with real thriving plants in your home – nice feeling, isn’t it?
Designer: Sheng-Wen Wang
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Architect Timothee Mercier of Studio XM has converted a ruined farm building in France into an “intimate refuge” for his parents.
MA House is located in Vaucluse, a picturesque part of southeast France that boasts vineyards, lavender fields and quaint villages.
It takes over an old farmhouse on a plot of land that architect Timothee Mercier’s parents purchased back in 2001.
Mercier’s parents initially failed to obtain planning permission to turn the dilapidated structure into a home, so decided to build a property on a neighbouring forested hillside.
The farm building sat deserted for a further 15 years before the local council agreed that a residential conversion could take place. The parents turned to Mercier to carry out the works.
“More than a simple reconstruction, this house was imagined as a renewal,” explained Mercier, who leads his own architecture practice, Studio XM.
“Respectful of the aesthetic constraints and wishes of the clients the house was designed to be an intimate refuge buried in the hills – one that would respect the site and the architectural history of the region.”
MA House sits over the footprint of the farm building and has largely been kept to the same proportions. Stones from the original structure have been used to form the home’s facade.
A mixture of green and red tiles, some of which are over 30 years old, have been applied across the roof.
Inside, there is an expansive open-plan living space that Mercier has deliberately finished in a pared-back aesthetic.
“I decided early-on to infuse the house with the monastic qualities of its surroundings,” Mercier told Dezeen. “It had to be a spectacle, but a discrete one.”
“The project tried to stay clear of fuss and clutter – flexible and open to people’s interpretation of intimacy,” he continued.
On one side of the living space is a dining room that’s centred by a chunky timber table. The other side accommodates the kitchen, which has been finished with low-lying oakwood cabinetry.
The countertop has been crafted from grey-blue limestone and plain white pendant lamps dangle from the ceiling.
A splash of colour is provided by a couple of bright-orange Tembo stools from Note Design Studio.
At the centre of the living space is a lounge. Across the floor there’s rug from French brand Codimat, woven to feature concentric rust-coloured circles.
Perched on top are a pair of cane armchairs and a wooden coffee table that was found in a Parisian flea market.
A blocky stone plinth has also been inset with white cushions to form a sofa. The plinth then dog-legs around a wall to form the first tread of the home’s staircase.
The light-hued material palette of the ground floor continues upstairs. Mercier used oak wood and raffia – a type of palm tree – to create a headboard for the master bedroom.
Oak has then been used to make the room’s desk, which sits directly behind a large picture window. It’s accompanied by a curved, aubergine-coloured chair from Cassina.
One room also has a floor-to-ceiling oak storage unit, placed beside a white daybed.
In the bathroom, the custom-made tub is crafted from Hinoki cypress – a type of wood that’s native to Japan. A tall pane of glass has also been erected to separate the shower from the rest of the space.
Sections of the home’s stone exterior have been left exposed inside the home to form textured surfaces that have then been white-washed with chaux – a local lime plaster.
Timothee Mercier isn’t the only architect that has designed a house for his mum and dad. Back in 2017, Michael Viviano created a contemporary gabled house in Houston, Texas for his parents.
The house is filled with furniture pieces that Vivivano’s mother, an antique collector, sourced herself.
French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier also built the revered lakeside home, Villa Le Lac, for his parents.
Photography is by Simone Bossi.
The post Timothee Mercier transforms rural French farm building into home for his parents appeared first on Dezeen.
With the toxic political rhetoric that surrounded the Brexit debate, and a dramatic rise in hate crimes over the past few years, Britain has, in many ways, started to feel like a nation divided. Documentary photographer Katie Waggett began her photo series Sunday Best in order to shine a light on a different side to Britain – specifically to celebrate London’s long history as a welcoming home for people of all nationalities, ethnicities and beliefs.
The series has now been turned into a book by Hoxton Mini Press, featuring an array of images of London’s largest faith groups in a series of Sunday encounters, and accompanied by the subjects’ written testimonies.
Here, CR speaks to Waggett about the process of bringing her initial idea to life, the importance of including her subjects’ own voices in the book and why now, more than ever, is such an important time to celebrate our communities.
Creative Review: How did Sunday Best come about?
Katie Waggett: Sunday Best is a response to increasing intolerance and growing nationalism in Britain. The idea for the project developed during the aftermath of the EU referendum, and [was] further shaped by the London terrorist attacks of 2017. As a new mother I felt anxious and pessimistic about bringing up a child in Britain. Then the Grenfell Tower fire happened, and I was reading tweets from voices around the world saying how they admire the way the British, irrespective of religion or ethnicity, always pull together in times of crisis. The lens through which other nationalities saw Britain seemed far more compassionate than that with which we view ourselves.
It made me want to reinforce that label and contribute to a more positive dialogue about what it means to be British. So I set about making portraits to offer an alternative story to the divisive ones that dominated the media. I wanted to use photography to show the best of who we are. Sunday Best is a story about progress.
CR: What is your own relationship with religion, and did this have any bearing on your approach to the photo series?
KW: I’m agnostic. I think being from a background that’s not religious and being around friends who are largely not religious, and occasionally discuss the ways in which religion can be problematic, unconsciously influenced my own views. So when I went into the various places of worship it became really apparent to me how little I knew, and how it really is a simple lack of understanding that breeds mistrust, resentment and, effectively, separatism. What religion meant from one person to the next varied hugely, but fundamentally what it brings to peoples’ lives in terms of creating a sense of belonging, companionship, and community far outweighs any negatives.
Many people talked about problems with depression and how prayer helped them fight feelings of loneliness. Others talked about the afterlife: I recall one conversation with a 94-year-old war veteran who talked fondly of his relationship with his parents and his excitement at seeing them again. When you understand what religion brings to individual lives, it fosters empathy. Being an outsider showed me that there’s a lot of unnecessary fear and cynicism surrounding the topic of religion that stems from ill-informed assumptions. I hope that the book will promote conversations in a different direction.
CR: How did you approach finding your subjects and taking their portraits?
KW: Finding subjects was a combination of research – locations were planned in line with an early decision I made to represent London’s six most popular religions proportionally to their population size – and chance encounters with houses of worship. I could be at a church one Sunday morning and walk out to be met by Hindus gathering outside the temple next door. That’s the wonderful thing about London, all of these places of worship stand side by side, so finding portraits was often very spontaneous.
I tended to approach congregants as they left a service. The portraits themselves were very quick interchanges; rarely did I spend more than one or two minutes with a person. Sometimes I would talk to the participants while shooting; I’d ask them questions about their life, and try and capture that uninhibited, off guard moment in between. That tended to relax people, and I got more of a sense of who they were.
One of the nice things about photographing people in their Sunday best is that it’s often an outfit which celebrates one’s ethnic and cultural background, and there’s a real sense of pride which comes with that. Photographing people outside their respective places of worship, in the familiarity of an environment steeped in one’s cultural traditions and practices, created a sense of comfort – people were proud to show off their cultural heritage.
CR: Why was it important for you to include written testimonies alongside people’s portraits?
KW: The written testimonies provide readers with an intercultural dialogue that serves to challenge the divisive politics that come with a fear of the unknown. When a dialogue takes place and you learn about people from different cultures, you understand why people do the things they do, and you see the commonalities instead of the differences. People are more ready to cooperate with each other when they understand the things they have in common – shared stories will strengthen a sense of shared identity.
As well as highlighting the commonalities, the quotes also illustrate the variation in perspective that exist within any religious group: there are many ways to be a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist. Social media and other sources mean people are constantly exposed to a flow of opinions which reinforce lazy stereotypes. I hope that the personal narratives in the book will go some way in countering the kinds of tired stereotypes often depicted by the media.
I think it’s also important to note that, in this day and age, the camera is widely considered to be a tool of exploitation. I’ve always been very aware of that and careful in my consideration of how to represent people. The written testimonies arguably build a more collaborative and authentic process in determining what is being communicated – without them it would simply be my view from the outside.
CR: Were you surprised by the amount of positivity about Britishness and multiculturalism that came out of these encounters?
KW: This is something that’s at the core of the project. When I started making portraits, against the backdrop of divisive political debate, I was expecting to be met with the same pessimism as the bubble in which I was living. I never expected people from minority groups to say that they felt proudly British, and valued members of society. These kinds of responses are made possible by living in a city where citizens have the freedom to stay true to their roots and cultural identities, and that sense of belonging to a British identity gave me a sense of hope that I wanted to put back into the work.
The reality is that multiculturalism in London works. Racial conflicts, riots and terrorist attacks are rare, and for the vast majority of time people live side by side in mutual respect and cooperation. In areas that are not so diverse, people keep their differences in the home, but in London, as you will see from the project, people show up with their differences. It’s celebrated. I don’t think I would have got the same responses in many other cities.
Sunday Best: A Celebration of Diversity is published by Hoxton Mini Press; katiewaggett.co.uk
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Dezeen Awards has introduced two new design categories for 2020, including one that will honour the best architectural lighting design project of the year.
This year’s awards programme, which is open for entries until 2 June, features 36 categories spanning architecture, interiors and design with eight new categories across all sectors.
Newly introduced design categories include architectural lighting design and exhibition design.
Judging criteria calls on judges to score projects according to how beautiful, innovative and beneficial they are for both people and the environment.
A panel of 75 stellar judges that includes will choose the winners of Dezeen Awards 2020. Daan Roosegaarde, Natsai Audrey Chieza, Paola Antonelli and Michael Anastassiades will be judging the design project categories this year.
Architectural lighting design
Any architectural lighting project, designed specifically for a building or structure including retail, business and educational spaces.
Exhibition design
Any design project for an interior or exterior space including but not limited to art, design and science exhibitions within galleries, museums or public spaces. These can be temporary or permanent.
Studio categories
Designers can also enter either the design studio of the year, or the emerging design studio of the year categories. You can see all of the studios that made the shortlist last year here.
Many categories remain unchanged from last year, including furniture, lighting, workplace, wearable and product.
See all our architecture, interiors and design categories here and start work on your entry by creating an account or signing in.
The final deadline is 2 June 2020. If you have any questions, please contact awards@dezeen.com
Good luck!
The post Dezeen Awards 2020 is accepting entries for architectural lighting designs and exhibition designs appeared first on Dezeen.
Looking at the haul of winners and shortlisted entries from this year’s Sony World Photography Awards open competition, our pre-coronavirus world feels like a lifetime ago.
The annual photography prize would typically be in the midst of last minute preparations for its accompanying exhibition at Somerset House but, as we’re all too aware by now, this year is anything other than typical. As galleries closed their doors and widespread travel restrictions were implemented, the art and design world has been forced to reimagine the cultural calendar virtually.
Instead of a physical show this year, the winning and shortlisted photographs will be celebrated across the World Photography Organisation’s online channels, while competition organisers have also launched Stay Connected, a campaign featuring a programme of online initiatives, activities and resources to inform and inspire photograhy fans and budding imagemakers.
The open competition shortlist and winners join the previously announced category shortlists including professional, student and youth photographers of the year, with the overall winners set to be revealed online on June 9. Read more about the ten open competition winners below.
Architecture: Rosaria Sabrina Pantano (Italy)
Pantano’s black and white image focuses in on 38° Parallelo, a pyramid shaped sculpture by Mauro Staccioli at Fiumara d’Arte in Sicily, which stands at the exact point where the geographical coordinates touch the 38th parallel.
Culture: Antoine Veling (Australia)
From a crowd of manically dancing fans to a stage assistant struggling to keep people at bay, Veling’s photo captures the moment when members of the audience were invited on stage at an Iggy Pop concert in the Sydney Opera House on April 17 2019.
Motion: Alec Donnagh (UK)
The four cooling towers of Ironbridge Power Station were a feature of the Shropshire landscape for 50 years, before they were demolished in December 2019 to make way for a new development. Donnagh managed to capture the moment they came down from his garden, which is on the hillside opposite the site.
Landscape: Craig McGowan (Australia)
In an image that feels particularly poignant in the current fight against global warming, McGowan depicts a solitary iceberg set against the fjord walls in the Northeast Greenland National Park.
Natural world and wildlife: Guofei Li (China Mainland)
Taken in Botswana, this picture features two cheetahs licking each other clean following a successful hunt. The title of the image, Tai Chi Diagram, nods to the position of the cheetahs in the frame resembling the shape of a Yin and Yang symbol.
Portraiture: Tom Oldham
Pixies frontman Charles Thompson (aka Black Francis) has been subjected to countless photoshoots over the course of his musical career. Painfully aware of this fact, Oldham asked him to acknowledge his frustration with the process during a shoot for Mojo – resulting in the article’s lead image of the singer burying his face in his hands.
Street photography: Santiago Mesa (Colombia)
Demonstrations have been a regular feature in Latin America in recent years, for reasons that include the rising cost of living, inequality and lack of opportunity, among others. Mesa’s photograph shows a protester in the Colombian city of Medellin, as a riot squad attempts to disperse the crowd.
Still life: Jorge Reynal (Argentina)
As the fight against plastic pollution goes on, Reynal’s image of a fish seemingly struggling for breath in a plastic bag is a powerful reminder that we still have a long way to go.
Travel: Adrian Guerin (Australia)
This image was taken from the top of the rear carriage of the iron-ore train in Mauritania as it was making its 700km long journey from the coastal town of Nouadhibou to the Saharan wilderness of Zouérat. Stretching 2.5km in length, it is one of the longest trains in the world.
Creative: Suxing Zhang (China)
Featuring a portrait of a young woman with a collage of different graphic symbols, this single image is part of the series Hua (meaning flower in Chinese) which looks at flowers as a metaphor for femininity.
(Banner image: Submerged in the Collection Puddle © Julian Fabiolato, United States of America, Shortlist, Open, Creative, 2020 Sony World Photography Awards)
Find out more about the Sony World Photography Awards here
The post Introducing the Sony World Photography Awards 2020 open competition winners appeared first on Creative Review.
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