The Art Deco movement of the late 19th century helped create new relationships between architecture and geometry. In a time that was certainly considered flourishing, just before the world wars, Art Deco beautifully combined European sensibilities with Eastern and South-American exotic styles, while expressing itself through simple-yet-complex geometric forms and shapes… quite like Picasso’s Cubist art, but with arguably more attention to symmetry and composition. The Arintzea Collection from Muka Design Lab and Gantri pays a tribute to Art Deco’s influences within Basque architecture.
Click Here to Buy Now: $128$148 ($20 off with exclusive coupon code “YANKO20”). Hurry, offer ends July 5, 11:59 pm PST.
Aptly named after the Basque word for “streamlined”, Arintzea showcases clean geometries and a nod to vintage illumination. Designed as both table and wall lamps, Arintzea is characterized by a mushroom-shaped lamp-diffuser resting slightly off-center from the lamp’s fluted body.
The inverted bowl-shaped diffuser combines antiquated design with Muka’s signature contemporary touch, and creates a sense of warmth when switched on, as the diffused light shines both upwards as well as on the lamp’s textured body, creating just that tiny hint of visual drama! The lamp’s slender body balances well on flat surfaces and can be wall-mounted too. Moreover, its narrow, almost book-ish width means Arintzea can even be wedged into your bookshelf, giving the term ‘light reading’ an absolutely new meaning!
Designed by the award-winning creative studio Muka Design Lab, Arintzea draws influences and references from its creators’ life in the Basque region of Northern Spain. The lamps are realized by Gantri, a California-based design-driven lighting company and a pioneer in 3D printed lighting design. The lamps are manufactured at Gantri’s factory in San Leandro, using their state-of-the-art 3D printing equipment and their custom blends of plant-based PLA filaments. The lamps come in carbon, forest, and sand – three wonderfully muted colors that complement interior spaces rather well, along with Arintzea’s art deco sensibilities, of course!
Designers: Muka Design Lab & Gantri
Click Here to Buy Now: $128$148 ($20 off with exclusive coupon code “YANKO20”). Hurry, offer ends July 5, 11:59 pm PST.
Dezeen Showroom: London design practice Studio Tord Boontje took inspiration from Art Nouveau to create the Light Flowers lamp, which features a delicate-looking botanical form cut from steel.
A table lamp that is well-suited to bedsides, Light Flowers has a lampshade formed by the petals of a flower bulb, and a body made of its stalk and leaves.
Light Flowers is available in two sizes
The design references the Art Nouveau works of Émile Gallé and Louis Comfort Tiffany, who also tried to embody the natural world in functional objects.
The table lamp is well-suited to bedsides or living spaces, and comes in two variations: a smaller single-lamp model and a taller three-lamp version.
It comes in either a white or copper finish
Light Flowers is made in the UK from laser-cut steel that is formed and shaped by hand at Studio Tord Boontje.
The design is available in either a powder-coated white or copper-plated finish, which is applied to the parts prior to assembly.
Light Flowers has been made in a limited edition of 500 signed pieces.
About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
What the Beetle was to Volkswagen, the Super Cub is to Honda. Since its launch in 1958, the Super Cub nameplate has sold over 100 million units; UK motorcycle website Bennetts calls it “the most successful and influential motorcycle ever designed.”
While Super Cubs are common sights in Europe or Asia, Americans are probably unfamiliar with the model. Here’s what the 2022 Super Cub, just unveiled by Honda, features: LED lights, keyless ignition, a new pillion seat with pegs, a 125cc engine putting out 9.7 horsepower. The mileage is an insane 188.4 MPG. The fuel tank, by the way, won’t even hold a full gallon; the capacity is 3.7 liters (0.98 gallons). A full tank is good for around 150 miles of travel.
The 242 pound bike—you all can argue over whether it’s a motorcycle or a scooter—retails for £3,499 (USD $4,833) and will hit European showrooms in August.
Consumer electronics company TCL makes television screens, and now they’ve created one that you wear on your face. Despite being called “smart glasses,” their NXTWear G product has no Google-Glass-like pretensions; instead they’re just a pair of chunky specs that supposedly provide the experience of sitting 12 feet away from a 140″ screen.
The NXTWear G incorporates two Micro OLED panels made by Sony, and the whole rig weighs just 100 grams (3.5 ounces, less than a quarter of a pound). The USB-C cable that you use to plug the things into your device or laptop are another 30 grams.
It appears the unit sits a pretty good distance off of your face, but it does not appear that it can be worn over regular eyewear; the unit comes with a “lens frame for correction [sic] lenses,” so I guess you’re meant to have these fitted with prescriptive lenses before snapping these into the unit.
I am not at all sure how this works, but the company says the NXTWear G’s “transparent display gives you full privacy, yet allows you to see the real world around you safely.”
Here are the company’s proposed use cases:
I’m struck by how dorky they look, but I suppose people said the same thing when Bluetooth earpieces first came out. Assuming these things work as advertised, you can probably expect to see these soon at a café near you.
Those of you watching the Euro 2020 matches may have caught this bizarre sight:
As for what’s going on here, Volkswagen is the Official Mobility Partner for the competition—and also the sponsor of the Official Match Ball Carriers. They’ve used their leverage to bump at least one of the kids’ turns at bringing the ball out to the pitch, replacing them with a remote-controlled scale model of their ID.4 for the opening game between Italy and Turkey.
The next time a kid carrier gets bumped will be for the final match, on July 11th.
We applaud VW for providing this opportunity for even kids to complain that their jobs are being taken by machines.
An easy way to upcycle wood cut-offs is to laminate them into cutting boards, which is why they’re common at your local crafts fair. But UK-based siblings and content creators Matt and Jonny, a/k/a Brothers Make, decided to make an upcycled cutting board out of a more pernicious material: Used plastic. Specifically, “a load of milk bottle tops and other recycled plastic we have been collecting,” they write.
To keep things food-safe, they opted for HDPE, and prepared researched statements to ward off safety trolls:
HDPE is a food-grade plastic, hence why it is used for milk bottles and packaging for other edible goods. This is most likely sourced from raw (or ‘virgin’) polymer which means that it has not gone through a recycling process. This issue with recycling plastic is that there are multiple avenues for the plastic to become contaminated. The 3 main ones being:
1) Remains from the previous content it was holding
2) Labels/residue left on the plastic itself
3) Potential ‘burning’ of the plastic, which introduces toxins (both as fumes and within the resulting plastic product itself)
We are very meticulous when it comes to the cleaning of our plastic. All plastic that we receive is hand-sorted to ensure it is indeed HDPE and that there are no non-plastic contaminants left on the plastic. We run the plastic through at least 3 sorting and cleaning cycles before we ever introduce it to heat. This covers (1) and (2).
HDPE’s burning point is anything over 180 degrees Celsius. We have had enough experience with melting this plastic to know when it has got too hot. We keep our over/grill at around 140-160 degrees, which never introduces any fumes or burning to any of the plastic. This covers (3).
In any case, here’s their process, start to finish:
I’m impressed with their entire process, but particularly with the amount of patience required for the finishing steps, after the bulk of the shaping was done. And while there are limits to what this cutting board should be used for—”the low melting temperature of HDPE means that this should not be used for anything hot, nor should it be used as a surface to rest hot saucepans on”—and it can’t be run through the dishwasher, it’s a perfectly serviceable cutting board. And looks pretty cool too!
This September will feature back-to-back design shows as new events and rescheduled fairs including Salone del Mobile and Design Miami Basel jostle for attention with regular fixtures.
“Super September” will see a hectic programme of fairs and events taking place in cities across Europe and China. As well as regular September events, such as the London Design Festival, the month will also hold a number of fairs that had been moved or postponed.
For many brands, this September will mark the first opportunity to show their products at a physical event in over a year, as the coronavirus pandemic forced most 2020 design shows to move to online-only events.
Salone del Mobile last took place in 2019
The key newcomer this September is Milan, which has moved from its traditional April fixture. The citywide fuorisalone events take place from 4 to 10 September, including Alcova on 5 to 12 September and Brera Design District on 4 to 10 September, while the parallel Salone del Mobile furniture fair runs over 5 to 10 September.
Frech property fair MIPIM has also made the leap to September, after its events in March 2020 and June 2021 were cancelled. The vast real-estate blowout will now be held in Cannes from 7 to 8 September.
Maison & Objet, France’s biannual trade show for decoration, lifestyle and design, will take place in Paris from 9 to 13 September. It will host a series of digital fairs, as well as a physical exhibition and an off-site tour in Paris, which runs in conjunction with Paris Design Week.
3 Days of Design was one of few events to have a physical edition in 2020
Helsinki Design Week takes place at more or less the same time, running from 3 to 13 September. This year the event has the theme Wisdom, and will feature exhibitions, discussion forums and meeting places for design professionals and enthusiasts.
Design Miami Basel, which is curated by Aric Chen, overlaps London Design Festival this year and takes place from 21 to 26 September. The 15th edition of the event, which showcases collectable design from designers and galleries around the world, was set to take place in June as usual but has been moved to September due to the pandemic.
London Design Festival had a low-key edition in 2020
Stockholm Creative Edition, a newcomer to the scene, will showcase Swedish design on September 23 to 29 September. Visitors can check out showrooms, studios and exhibition openings across the city, as well as pop-up spaces.
Another regular September fixture, Vienna Design Week (24 September to 3 October), takes place at the same time. Austria’s largest curated design festival will be the first under new management and will showcase architecture, product, furniture, industrial and graphic design.
Also starting on September 24 is Design China Beijing, a three-day festival that features both local talent and international designers. Talks from more than 30 design icons are on the schedule, with names including Feng Cao and Ab Rogers. The festival ends on September 27.
Finishing up the month is Stockholm Craft Week from 30 September to 3 October. Forty-two exhibitors will show their work at the event, which aims to increase awareness of craft as an art form.
These are just some of the numerous events taking place around the world this September. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
The pavilion was informed by another Siza building, a gallery that was designed to display two Pablo Piccasso pieces, Guernica and Pregnant Woman, for the 1992 Madrid European Capital of Culture but was never built.
Above: the building is part-sunken into the ground. Top image: the pavilion has a forked shape
“This project started with a very uncommon demand from the client and the art director of the park at the time,” studio founder Carlos Castanheira, who has long collaborated with Siza, told Dezeen. “They liked very much one project made for Madrid European Capital of Culture 1992 that wasn’t built.”
“It isn’t usual for us to ‘repeat’ a project in other places because we believe that each building belongs to a certain place or site,” he added.
“But I went to visit the site and met the client and liked both and so we accepted the challenge knowing that it wouldn’t be exactly the same project because the site was different and the program also.”
It was constructed using concrete
The 1,370-square-metre Saya Park Art Pavilion is roughly four times smaller than the building it references. It is located in Changpyeong-Ri in the Gyeongsang Province of South Korea, atop one of the area’s tallest hills.
The pavilion takes shape as a linear, forked structure that is part-built below ground and was constructed using rough board-formed concrete.
It is comprised of two forked volumes
A sunken pathway runs down the hill to the entrance of the building. Concrete walls surround the pathway and act as retaining walls, holding back the earth.
The structure’s largest volume makes up the rectangular body of the building and contains the main exhibition spaces. The second volume, which branches off the first, is curved in shape and contains additional exhibition spaces.
Concrete covers the walls, floors and ceilings
“Regarding the volume, shape and other examples that the client already had built in the park we decided to make it in rough concrete,” said Castanheira.
“We thought that is the best material for the shape, program and – more important – to the landscape because it will adapt its colour with the passing of time.”
The two volumes are connected by a corridor that runs perpendicular to the building’s forked volumes, enclosing a small courtyard.
Inside, the monolithic look is continued. Vast concrete corridors lead visitors around the building, with squared openings in the walls and ceilings providing glimpses of the sky.
The pavilion is used to display work by Álvaro Siza. Photograph is by Jong Oh Kim
“Another very important thing was the approach to the building and how to circulate inside, and how the light and shadow will change by walking along the different closed or open spaces,” said Castanheira.
“The views to the outside are very much controlled and the visitor is only allowed to look outside when the architect allows it. Like with any good architecture it is a necessary movement to absorb space and time.”
Concrete has a textural quality
Like the unbuilt Picasso exhibition space it was based on, the building is used to display sculptures. These were designed by Siza and explore the theme of life and death.
The sculptures were placed within openings in the corridors beneath skylights that illuminate and spotlight the works over the duration of the day.
More recently, the architects used black corrugated metal across the exterior of the undulating, windowless walls of the Huamao Museum of Art and Education building in Ningbo, China.
Photography is by Fernando Guerra unless otherwise stated.
UK studio Citizens Design Bureau has renovated and extended a heritage-listed synagogue to create a museum that “tells the stories of Jewish Mancunians”.
Set between a builder’s merchant and a self-storage company in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, the studio aimed to create a building that would complement the industrial surroundings, but also be intriguing.
Manchester Jewish Museum has a Corten extension
“We wanted the building to make people curious, to ask questions and most of all to make connections,” said Citizens Design Bureau founder Katy Marks.
“It’s essentially an industrial shed clad in corten steel, but delicately perforated so that it acts as an intriguing moment in a cluttered streetscape, sparking conversations in one of Manchester’s most culturally diverse communities,” she told Dezeen.
The extension’s perforations were informed by the synagogue’s architecture. Photo is by Joel Chester Fildes
Citizens Design Bureau renovated the synagogue, which was built in 1874 by Edward Solomons and is the oldest in the city, and added a weathering steel extension alongside it.
The colour of the Corten steel and a series of geometric perforations were designed to complement the synagogue and were directly informed by its Moorish architectural motifs.
The museum has a new entrance. Photo is by Joel Chester Fildes
“Our approach to the new building, therefore, takes a palette of rich, earthen colours and Moorish geometry in abstracted form,” explained Marks.
“Rather than take one pattern and copy it across the facade, we wanted to express a process of enquiry, research and understanding, so the pattern is an exploration of eight-point geometry, with each node slightly different,” she continued.
“We felt that now more than ever, we could express in architectural form the idea that ‘we have more in common than that which divides us’.”
The extension is built around a skylight-topped atrium
Built around a skylight-lit atrium, the extension doubles the size of the museum and contains space for exhibiting and storing the museum’s collection of 31,000 objects that tell the story of Jewish Manchester.
An archive is located on the ground floor, while a gallery space occupies the entire upper storey.
“Inside, the museum has a brilliant social history collection that was previously displayed within the synagogue itself,” said Marks.
“We wanted to give the collection its own space to tell the stories of Jewish Mancunians and allow the synagogue to become a living artefact in its own right.”
The upper floor contains exhibition galleries. Photo is by Joel Chester Fildes
With the aim of attracting a wide range of visitors to the museum, the architecture studio created a large new entrance to the museum.
“We got a lot of feedback that many people found the appearance of the synagogue to be very explicitly religious, which gave the impression that the museum was specifically about the Jewish faith,” said Marks.
“Creating a new and accessible entrance was key to making sure that everyone would feel genuinely welcome.”
Exhibition spaces display some of the museum collection’s 30,00o items. Photo is by Joel Chester Fildes
A cafe and shop were positioned alongside the entrance at the front of the extension to draw in visitors.
At the rear of the site, the museum is completed with a learning and community space that also contains a kitchen.
A cafe was positioned at the front of the museum. Photo is by Joel Chester Fildes
“As a small museum in an unusual out of town location, we were very aware that we would need to think holistically about this project and so the brief evolved to ensure that every single space became an integrated part of the museum experience,” explained Marks.
“Through our test baking workshops, it became clear that not only is food a brilliant unifying force, it’s also a brilliant medium for storytelling,” she continued.
“Visitors to the museum will be able to bake and eat together and learn about Jewish history through the medium of food.”
The museum also contains a community space. Photo is by Joel Chester Fildes
Citizens Design Bureau is a London-based architecture studio that was established by Marks in 2013.
A group show with work by 12 Black artists who’ve contributed to social change in public and private spaces
Channeling an urgent conceptual power that parallels his last two books (The New Black Vanguard and Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists), while incorporating an immersive flair that art enthusiasts today have come to savor, author and critic Antwaun Sargent‘s debut exhibition at Gagosian, Social Works, delivers an engaging discourse on Black artists and the myriad spaces they influence. With community engagement as a prerequisite, the ambitious 12-artist group show succeeds in moments both intimate and grand, surprising and palpable—across sculpture, photography, painting and more.
Within the multi-room space, Sargent creates thematic moments to appreciate, participate and ponder. The artist roster includes many beloved names, as well as emerging talent with works just as thought-provoking and wondrous from David Adjaye and Carrie Mae Weems to Rick Lowe, Titus Kaphar and Alexandria Smith.
Social Works, Installation View, 2021 Photo: David Graver
One work epitomizes Sargent’s vision. Affixed to a ceiling light source in a rear gallery space, Linda Goode Bryant’s dynamic installation stretches toward the floor and incorporates video work as well as living produce. “Linda Goode Bryant started the first Black gallery in a major gallery district in New York in the 1970s. It was called Just Above Midtown and she showed David Hammons, Senga Nengudi and Suzanne Jackson, among others,” Sargent shares with us, as we walk through the room featuring the verdant, organic piece. Video work is projected onto the solid side of the structure. It references the profound impact of Bryant’s gallery. “The projection is really an exploration of her time in the art world over the last five decades,” Sargent says. “It’s about her artists and their relationship to their community, too.”
The other side of the towering installation reveals plant beds and a hydroponic system. This harks back to Bryant’s other influential work. In 2009, “Linda started Project EATS, which is a community garden platform,” Sargent continues. “They have 13 urban farms around the city that provide fresh produce to under-resourced communities. That’s what is happening on the other side of the installation—produce is grown, harvested and then clipped onto the wall. It’s free for visitors to take.”
Bryant’s large-scale work isn’t unmatched in scope and scale. In fact, Theaster Gates‘ installation—an ode to DJ Frankie Knuckles, aka the Godfather of House Music—incorporates more than 5,000 records and a working DJ booth. The comprehensive work, made in collaboration with Gates’ South Side Chicago-based Rebuild Foundation, exudes an electric, invitational energy.
Sharing this room, architect David Adjaye‘s first-ever large-scale autonomous sculpture invites guests to wander within. Composed of rammed earth and limestone, the structure references the soil of New York State while nodding to Adjaye’s interest in the work of architects from West Africa. It’s a staggering site-specific vision.
Social Works, Installation View, 2021 Photo: Robert McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian
Sargent brings everything to life in a thoughtful, nuanced way and his understanding of space allows an artist’s dialogue to flourish—between works, with visitors and even with the venue itself. “Gagosian has some of the best galleries in the world,” he says. “I’ve always loved visiting 555 West 24th, it has so much space to work with. Sometimes that can be intimating, but I embraced that, since this is essentially a show about the way that artists use space—institutional space, communal space, their own space.”
Social Works, Installation View, 2021 Photo: Robert McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian
Of his curatorial process, he explains, “I was thinking about artists and their engagement with community. It was all very organic.” Sargent has long professional relationships with many of the artists in the show. He complemented their work with some from artists that he observed were already thinking about community in unexplored ways. “I shared this idea with all of the artists, and then we went with it,” he adds.
Social Works, Installation View, 2021 Photo: Robert McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian
Gagosian provided the resources necessary to explore the biggest ideas (like an operational urban farming mechanism). This is evident, walking from room to room. It lends the exhibition sensations both larger than life and grounded, empowering and dreamlike.
Social Works, Installation View, 2021 Photo: Robert McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian
“I’ve been doing this work for 10 years,” Sargent adds. “I knew what I wanted to do. Pressure came from the execution. We had an 11-day installation period. Logistically, that was a challenge.” Especially, of course, considering that Adjaye’s work weighs several tons.
Social Works, Installation View, 2021 Photo: Robert McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian
Layered, colorful and conceptual works from LA-based artist Lauren Halsey populate a room of their own. Sargent notes that she was “thinking about her community through these box paintings, which have signs that are taken from historically Black communities or feature advertisements that have been inscribed upon the community.” Alone, each sculptural painting speaks; when viewed together, they harmonize a vantage point of community.
Social Works, Installation View, 2021 Photo: Robert McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian
“It’s important to remember that these artists are rooted in a lineage of social practice that has gone on since the 1970s with Linda, to Lauren Halsey today,” Sargents concludes. The artists’ active engagement with their communities led to social change. Often, their art was a social act. Sargent honors this. His exhibition unites these efforts. And, in doing so, he himself has created something that everyone should see.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
