Hasta La Ideas

Found objects, dead flowers, wire and more form contemplative arrangements

Within the art of floral arranging there’s traditional Japanese Ikebana, classic fresh and blooming bouquets, and then there’s Chloe Berlin, a Brooklyn-based artist whose work stretches from mini arrangements to large-scale sculptures and floral wall installations that sometimes don’t include any live flowers at all. Her studio—which employs dried and fresh flowers, branches, found objects, wire and string—is equal parts natural and urban, chaotic and beautiful. This contradiction, as well as the variegated materials, offers a fresh approach to the category.

In the artist’s studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the minimal, white-walled space offers a glimpse of Berlin’s meditative practice which started about two years ago. “I began my career in branding and innovations,” she says, but one day “I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease and various autoimmune diseases.” The diagnosis changed Berlin’s trajectory, pivoting her away from her career and toward wellness when traditional medicine fell short. Eventually, that path led into meditation and flowers.

“I started playing with flowers and I was like, ‘you know, this is something that I’m really passionate about.’ I’m not really seeing the style of work that I’m doing out there. For me, it needs to be more than just a flower arrangement—there has to be a story behind it; there has to be meaning,” Berlin says.

The artist’s large-scale arrangements in her commissioned and installation works have an abundance of meaning, as they overflow with juxtaposition and symbolic elements. Some of them contain unconventional florals like weeds or kumquat branches, but all burst with a certain sense of drama and volume. Wire twists and turns high above the arrangement, mimicking the organic movement of vines. Drooping flowers evoke a notion of romantic decay. Large dead branches stick out as if reaching above and through the vase. The design invites viewers to gaze at it as if it’s a painting with various hidden elements.

“It’s a lot about tapping into that creative flow state and that meditation style of work and pulling from those Ikebana philosophies. It was really just about studying the forms, the shapes, the ways the flowers wanted to be displayed, foraging for flowers that weren’t normally put into a vase, using a lot of weeds. With my vessels, they’re all sourced vintage because that’s super-important,” the artist tells us. Berlin’s process begins with collecting flowers, which Berlin does based on availability. “In the summer, I love to go to the Union Square farmers market, because those will all come in local. I’m going to start working with more farms this summer, and then I sometimes forage around Brooklyn. I’ll be that crazy lady with the clippers on the street.”

In the winter, Berlin will work with dried flowers in addition to whatever scraps she saved from previous projects (which is all of them). Many of these leftover florals end up as mini arrangements or what she calls Mini Moments. “A big thing is resourcefulness and sustainability,” she continues. Sometimes it’s this lack of florals that conveys more than fresh blooms.

A blend of wire and stems offers empty space and a thoughtful contrast between nature and the metropolitan, an exploration that runs throughout Berlin’s work. “That idea is really about understanding nature and living with nature,” she tells us. “When we’re in New York, it’s so fast-paced. It’s this concrete jungle and we’ve built this world that has so many sharp lines and clean slates and it’s very harsh. It doesn’t have those organic happenstances that form within nature. I think it’s about figuring out how, as a society, we can continue to evolve with nature and appreciate the nature that we do have.”

“So much of my work is about that balance and even when you look at it, it’s not always symmetrical. There are a lot of imperfections,” Berlin says. As her work bursts with natural materials, discarded city objects blend into the floral background. The unity is often contradictory—and messy—and that is precisely the point.

Every so often, Berlin invites others into her studio to explore this dynamic themselves. She hosts Nature Play workshops, which are more than a class on flower arrangement. The artist explains, it “is all about this idea of play, and that’s a lot of the energy that I bring toward the work that I’m making.” Spontaneous and joyous, the workshop, as well as Berlin’s floral art as a whole, seeks a way to connect with the self and the world around.

Hero image courtesy of Alec Banks

Placing the Global South at the centre of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale created a spirit of openness and sincerity, write Ewa Effiom, Krish Nathaniel, Aoi Phillips in this review of the event.

There are enough Pritzker and Stirling prizes to recognise built work in our industry. For the 18th iteration of the Venice Architecture Biennale, architecture’s biggest festival of ideas, curator Lesley Lokko promotes the process of architecture to the same heights as its outputs. This biennale platforms radical ideas and research from Africa and the Global South to re-energise a younger generation in the belief that architecture can address some of our most pressing challenges. Despite what some would have you think, Lokko’s biennale is far from anti-architectural.

Lokko’s curatorial focus is set around the twin themes of decolonisation and decarbonisation, with the Scottish-Ghanaian architect seeking to provide “a glimpse of future practices and ways of seeing and being in the world”. Departing from the architecture exhibition as an assemblage of finished objects, this year’s biennale positions itself as an agent of change, shifting focus to the process of architecture: the why and how, rather than the what.

Far from witnessing a “discursive self-annihilation”, what’s on show is a kaleidoscopic range of futurisms that bring new vision and direction to the profession. Central to this has been the promotion of emerging Black, Brown and Global South practitioners who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with more established names like David Adjaye and Theaster Gates.

Despite what some would have you think, Lokko’s biennale is far from anti-architectural

As always, the biennale is split three ways between the Giardini, the Central Pavilion and the Arsenale. The Arsenale’s vaulted Corderie building draws on a wealth of young practitioners’ work: a series of graphite block etchings by British-Zimbabwean academic Thandi Loewensen chart the hidden history of Kenya’s first satellite programme, while Arinjoy Sen’s exquisite triptych Bengali Song, a collaboration with the all-female Kolkata-based embroidery collective SHE Kantha, imagines alternative ways of living in the climate crisis.

Alongside national pavilions, some of the Arsenale’s more haunting pieces deal with histories of dehumanisation and exploitation, with Congolese artist Sammy Baloji‘s Aequare: the Future that Never Was exploring Belgium’s bitter legacy in the Congo through film and architectural models. A brass scale model recreates the planned Belgian exposition hall for the 1935 World Fair, a building which would have triumphantly showcased the wares and raw materials from the European nation’s depraved colonisation project.

A welcome surprise from the Giardini’s national pavilions, which have ossified the geopolitics of 19th and 20th century powers, is the presence of indigenous architectural perspectives. This is especially visible in the Nordic and Brazilian pavilions. Nordic pavilion curator, architect and artist Joar Nango, took the commission as an opportunity to platform the Sámi, Europe’s last remaining Indigenous population, in a playful and animated anti-exhibition.

Children and adults climb over tree trunks and animal hides to explore Girjegumpi, a travelling Sámi architecture library. At the Brazilian pavilion, which won the Golden Lion for best national participation, curators Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares centre their theme, earth, on indigenous and Afro-Brazilian relationships to land. There was no shortage of brilliance and talent.

Amongst the weight of geopolitics and land justice, contributions that spatialise their research feel particularly uplifting

This is not to say that all national pavilions “got” the brief, which isn’t new. Japan’s contribution, which feels distinctly lacklustre and uncritical, asks visitors to simply “love architecture”, while the US pavilion’s musings on the qualities of plastic is perplexing. Other undercooked efforts include Germany’s collection of recycled and archived exhibition materials, a worthy topic to cover, but something of a reuse one-liner.

Amongst the weight of geopolitics and land justice, contributions that spatialise their research feel particularly uplifting. The Belgian pavilion’s elegant mycelium structure is a cathedral of mushrooms, communicating its premise in a uniquely architectural way.

Not far away, the hanging scaffold bridge of the Austrian pavilion by architecture collective AKT and Austrian architect Hermann Czech plays on the relationship between public and private space. Attempting to engage with the Sant’Elena district beyond the biennale walls, the pavilion documents the collaborators’ dialogue with officials and catalogue of rejected proposals. In seeking to open up the pavilion to local residents, the space probes at the tension between this walled off cultural enclave and the surrounding city.

But contrary to the spirit of these works, there is often a lack of generosity afforded to the casual visitor, a lack of any displays that require anything less than the commitment of full engagement. In the grand spaces of the Centrale, pavilion works are lost at times, aided only by tiny captions on the wall written in “archi-speak”. As a consequence, some projects are likely undersold, obscuring the depth of meaning that had no doubt led to their selection.

As a biennale that departs so much from previous years by giving practitioners from the Global South centre stage, it does seem to have caught the architectural media off-guard

With complex and intersectional topics to cover, parts of Lokko’s biennale often steer clear of the visual maximalism of past years, in favour of more composed mediums, with many contributors making use of film to showcase their work. But the sheer quantity of film media is at times both overwhelming and esoteric. Expecting visitors, many of whom will be students, to watch multiple 30-minute documentaries on sometimes niche aspects of architectural practice is a tall ask.

Curatorial optimism aside, there was ample reward for engaging with certain film pieces. Longer form documentaries such as the Applied Arts Pavilion‘s Tropical Modernism film, Theaster Gates’ Black Artists Retreat and Killing Architects‘ harrowing investigation of Uyghur detention camps, which drew criticsim from the Chinese government, all play to the strengths of the medium.

But as a biennale that departs so much from previous years by giving practitioners from the Global South centre stage, it does seem to have caught the architectural media off-guard. The response from many critics and publications has been relatively muted, with some reviews wilfully disengaged from the substance of the exhibitions to merely comment on a lack of models or plans. This lack of resonance might be a symptom of a broader issue in our design press, as very few publications sent any critics of colour to cover the event.

But comments from the likes of Patrick Schumacher inadvertently raise an essential question: what is an architecture exhibition for? Schumacher’s view of an “anti-architecture biennale” fails to recognise the challenge that past curators (beginning with Alejandro Aravena in 2016) have tried to grapple with: the crises of climate, biodiversity and late-capitalism.

One of the most unique qualities of this biennale was also its most intangible – its atmosphere

These crises, which are integral to, and sadly often caused by, our industry (ahem, concrete) all require responses “beyond the building”. By not retreating behind the 20th-century crutch of form and function, Lokko has avoided the usual conceit of architecture and delivered something less ostentatious, but no less potent. By contrast, the Neom exhibition, conspicuously adjacent to the biennale seems oddly archaic, airbrushing all its environmental and human rights challenges in favour of a hero image. More expansive than before (and the richer for it), the Laboratory of the Future has drawn supposed edges to the centre, rebalancing discourse with visions from the global majority.

For its opening weekend, one of the most unique qualities of this biennale was also its most intangible – its atmosphere. The city felt transformed with a visibly global community present throughout its islands. The usual champagne-socialist pomposity felt drowned out by a celebratory buzz and a newfound openness, cheer and sincerity. For the young practitioners we spoke to, this year’s biennale also provided inspiration for how to go beyond the confines of practice and use their architectural skillset more broadly. Given that a large contingent of visitors to the biennale will be on university and school trips, this is no bad thing.

Of the 89 participants Lokko selected, half are women and half are from the African continent and its diaspora, a landmark in redressing a global imbalance in our profession. More than providing a spotlight on architectural histories, narratives and visions which have previously been obscured, Lokko has provided a window into a future where the practice of architecture is democratised.

In the central hall of the British Pavilion, a film created by its curatorial team explores the cultural histories of Black and South Asian people in Britain, from Southall to Bradford. On the screen, a James Baldwin quote holds meaning for the whole event: “There is reason, after all, that some people wish to colonise the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend.”

The biennale is not exempt from the recent trend of Western cultural institutions’ reckoning with both decolonisation and the climate crisis. If the Venice Architecture Biennale wants to be more UN and less Eurovision, it needs to look and feel like more of the globe. The biennale isn’t a trade show, and while not the most conventionally architectural, this is surely the most global biennale yet – reason enough for optimism.

Ewa Effiom is a London-based Belgo-Nigerian architect, writer and producer who has written for publications including Architect’s Newspaper, Architects’ Journal, ICON, Wallpaper and Frame.

Krish Nathaniel is an urban designer, writer and artist based in London. His work has been published in newspapers and magazines including The Observer, It’s Freezing in LA! and The Architectural Review.

Aoi Phillips is a co-founder of the collective Afterparti. She currently works at Roach Matthews Architects, balancing practice with writing, graphic design and teaching. She has contributed to the Architects’ Journal, the Architectural Review and for Gestalten publishing house.

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Foldable phones have been in the market for four years now, and despite Samsung’s aggressive marketing, it is still considered a niche and a very expensive one at that. The “regular” book-style foldables like the Galaxy Z Fold, the OPPO Find N2, and the upcoming Google Pixel Fold definitely spark the imagination and open up new use cases, but they also lack the mass appeal necessary to make the product line a success. In a nutshell, they have a hard time explaining why people would want to cough up a large amount of cash for what seems to be an experimental and unproven device. The new Motorola Razr+, also known as the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra elsewhere, is seemingly saying that you really don’t have to, and its latest design might finally succeed by targeting the market demographic that made the RAZR V3 an icon.

Designer: Motorola

Back when clamshells or flip phones were en vogue, the Motorola RAZR V3 turned heads because of its thin profile and chic design that turned what was normally seen as a business phone into a lifestyle choice. Motorola tried to recreate not only that phone’s magic but also its commercial success, redesigning the now ancient clamshell into a modern foldable phone. After a few tries, Motorola might have finally gotten the formula right, not only with the phone’s design but also with its product positioning.

Right from the start, the new Motorola Razr sported one of the largest external or cover displays for clamshell foldables, but the Motorola Razr+ pushes that envelope even further by having that screen take up almost all of the available space on that half of the phone. It makes it possible to use almost any app in that space, presuming you can stomach the still-small 3.6-inch screen. More than just using it as a camera viewfinder for better selfies, you can also use it to watch Videos, check Instagram, or even type with a full QWERTY keyboard if absolutely necessary. It’s not going to be fun, but the idea is that you won’t have to flip the phone open just to use it like a normal phone, especially when circumstances prevent you from doing that in the first place.

The large screen also opens up more opportunities for styling beyond simple stickers and widgets. Along with the stylish color options that include 2023’s “Viva Magenta,” there is plenty for fun-loving and suave people to like in the Motorola Razr+. In fact, most of the brand’s marketing revolves around a generation who loves to take photos, flaunt their style, and see their smartphones as more than just tools. In other words, the very kind of people that gravitated toward the original RAZR V3.

It also doesn’t hurt that the Motorola Razr+ is expected to cost a lot less than the competition, or at least that’s the expectation when it fully launches in the US. Even if it does cost $1,200, which is pretty much the same price as today’s high-end smartphones, the Motorola Razr+’s stylish design and more flexible functions make the idea of a foldable phone a little bit more normal and definitely more desirable.

The post How the Motorola Razr+ will finally make you want foldable phones first appeared on Yanko Design.

Architect Lina Ghotmeh discusses her design for this year’s Serpentine Pavilion in London, in this exclusive video produced by Dezeen for the gallery.

Set to take the form of a timber shelter housing a concentric table for visitors to congregate around, Ghotmeh’s pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens will open to the public next Friday – 9 June 2023.

Ghotmeh is the 22nd architect to be commissioned for the Serpentine Pavilion. She designed the structure, named Named À table, as a space for exchange and celebration.

“The pavilion emerges around this concentric table that allows people to get together,” said Ghotmeh.

“[It’s] named À table, which is the French call to get together around the same table,” she explained. “When you’re young your parents would tell you to come down and get together to eat, discuss.”

The architect described her design philosophy when creating the structure as “archaeology of the future”

“Archaeology of the future is a concept that I came up with early on in my studies of architecture,” she told Dezeen. “It’s a way of looking at architecture as a constant research of traces, of elements coming from various disciplines, that are synthesised into space,” she continued.

“Growing up in Beirut, a city that has been constantly rebuilt after the war, growing up in the city [I was] imagining spaces and completing spaces, because sometimes you would see a ruin and imagine how would this be completed, to be finished as a building?”

“The structure is like a leaf. If you look in a microscope at a leaf, if you will see this main vein,” she added.

The pavilion will be made predominantly from timber, with an emphasis on bio-sourced and low carbon materials.

“The pavilion is really just composed of this cantilevering beam built in wood.” Ghotmeh explained. “As we speak today that pavilion is being built – you can see the skeleton being built, almost like a spider actually, like an organic being sitting and emerging from the site.”

“I’m really looking forward to see it finished, and also to see people inhabiting it and creating a community,” she added.

Ghotmeh is the latest architect to be commissioned to design the pavilion. Her first major commission was designing the Estonian National Museum, near the city of Tartu.

Working with Paris-based architecture office Dorell Ghotmeh Tane (DGT), Ghotmeh won the competition to design the museum in 2005 alongside DGT co-founders Dan Dorell and Tsuyoshi Tane. The museum opened in late 2016.

The 34,000-square-metre museum has a wedged shape, with a huge slanted roof that evokes the old airbase that used to occupy the site.

The ramp-like form was intended to evoke the country’s emerging history, as it “takes of” into a new future.

Floor-to-ceiling glass panels make up the walls of the structure, allowing plenty of natural light into the exhibition spaces, alongside a sheltered courtyard.

Ghotmeh’s more recent projects include her Stone Garden housing project in Beirut and the Maroquinerie de Louviers workshop for fashion brand Hermès.

Stone Garden is an apartment block located in Beiruit, Lebanon, completed shortly after the Beirut explosion in 2020. The project was named architecture project of the year at Dezeen Awards 2021.

The building was constructed from a mix of cement and local earth, and the facade was hand-combed by local artisans to create a ridged effect. Apartments are accompanied by deep-set balconies which act as gardens for residents. The block also houses an art platform.

Ghotmeh wanted the building to reflect the character of Beirut, moving away from a traditional Western canon of architecture. The apartment block is notable for it’s use of Lebanese and Middle Eastern aesthetics, bringing to mind natural structures such as the Pigeons’ Rock on the coast of Beiruit, as well as ancient structures such as the city of Shibam in Yemen.

Ghotmeh’s most recent project is a brick workshop situated in Louviers, France, designed for the luxury fashion brand Hermès.

The  6,200-square-metre workshop is designed to house 260 leatherwork artisans. The building is characterised by large swooping brick arches, which are intended to invoke the movements of a leaping horse.

The building is notable for being the first industrial building to achieve France’s highest environmental labelling, the E4C2 label.

The workshop is heated using geothermal energy from 13 probes that reach a depth of 150 metres, in addition to 2,300 square metres of solar panels. The interior of the structure is designed in order to utilise as much natural light and ventilation as possible, limiting energy needs.

Ghotmeh’s Serpentine Pavilion follows last year’s Black Chapel, which was designed by artist and designer Theaster Gates. Previous Serpentine Pavilions have been built by architects such as Frida Escobedo, Bjarke Ingels and Sou Fujimoto.

Partnership content

This video was produced by Dezeen for the Serpentine Galleries as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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An exhibition has opened at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen filled with models that explore the history and future of the city’s buildings and landscapes.

Copenhagen in Common tells the story of the Danish capital’s successful architecture and urban design, but also identifies the challenges facing designers working in the city today.

With the city named by UNESCO as the World Capital of Architecture for 2023, hosting the UIA World Congress of Architects in July, the exhibition aims to not just highlight the city’s successes but also its issues.

“As the port of Copenhagen has become more attractive, it has also attracted investment, and new apartment blocks and offices are rising along the harbourfront as never before,” said curator Sara Hatla Krogsgaard.

“Analyses show that, over the past decade, natural space per capita has fallen for Copenhageners,” she told Dezeen.

At the heart of the exhibition is a digital model that charts Copenhagen’s development since 1947, when the municipality released its Five Finger Plan urban strategy, up to the present day.

This reveals some of the city’s most successful development schemes and those that have “made blood boil”.

Highlighted projects include Kalvebod Brygge, a waterside office, hospitality and office complex that has been criticised for forming a wall between the harbourfront and the streets.

“It was devastating to see how unused areas along the quayside, formerly serving as common free spaces for Copenhageners, disappeared as the docklands turned into business,” explained Krogsgaard.

“On the other hand, it was also the catalyst for people in the city to begin discussing architecture. It created a new awareness,” she said.

The exhibition features both scale models and full-size architectural fragments, revealing key details from some of the city’s most successful new additions.

Scale models include Kastrup Sea Bath, a circular pier-style building designed by White Arkitekter, and Superkilen, a neighbourhood park created by artists Superflex, architects BIG and landscape firm Topotek1.

Krogsgaard describes this park as “a tribute to the diversity of the neighbourhood and the city”.

“Even though it has become one of the most exposed urban spaces in Copenhagen, it just works,” she said.

“It has become a place for locals and an area that people want to explore and get to know better.”

Among the large-scale installations, the most eye-catching is made up of suspended tree trunks and branches.

This represents Sankt Kjeld’s Square, an SLA-designed scheme that creates green space around a traffic junction.

As well as supporting the wellbeing of people in the city, it integrates rainwater beds that protect local buildings from flooding at times of heavy rainfall.

“For me, this project is the Kinder Egg of modern urban planning,” Krogsgaard stated.

“The idea is not to recreate wild nature in the city, but a new type of natural habitat called urban nature,” she said. “It is a rather humble architecture that gives something back to nature as well as to Copenhageners.”

Palads Teatret, a long-standing but outdated theatre building under threat of demolition, is represented by a model and a huge collage that showcases its candy-coloured facade.

A wall of posters tells the story of Freetown Christiania, while a playground slide draws attention to Kids City, an innovative children’s centre by NORD Architects.

Other featured projects include MAST’s vision for floating buildings and the COBE-designed Israels Plads, a former car park that was reclaimed as a space for public leisure.

Copenhagen in Common is on show at the Danish Architecture Center from May 5 to October 23, 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

The photography is by Astrid Maria Rasmussen.

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