The brief asked designers to explore two options for the building: to retain it as a stand-alone library or to extend upwards and convert it into a mixed-use complex. The architects will now work together with library staff to decide the best approach.
“My dream is that people will start to love this building so much that they even bring their books from home to read in the library,” said Mecanoo principal Francine Houben, during the design presentation.
She continued: “We will pay respect to Mies van der Rohe and research what is possible to prepare this building for the library of the future. But most important is bringing out the values of Martin Luther King. My dream is to make this building to reflect his ideals.”
Ten architects were originally shortlisted for the project, including OMA and SOM, and the list was whittled down to three at the end of 2013.
Six British architecture studios including Zaha Hadid Architects, Hopkins Architects and Studio Weave have come up with designs for water fountains for different sites across London.
The six studios, which also included Eric Parry Architects, ADAM Architecture and Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), were asked to design water dispensing structures for sites in Kensington, Soho and on the South Bank.
This image: Hopkins Architects. Main image: Zaha Hadid
Each fountain incorporates contemporary Turkish ceramics, referencing the Ottoman-inspired marble kiosks that could be found across Turkey during the seventeenth century.
The fountain by Zaha Hadid Architects features a large cantilevered canopy that extends up from the water collection pool.
“Traditional Ottoman fountain kiosks became meeting points, gathering places for a community to connect,” said project architect Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu. “With large protective cantilevers, the fountains often include ceramic tiling and our proposal translates these characteristics to contemporary use within a design informed by the continuous loop of the water cycle.”
Studio Weave
Studio Weave‘s design comprises a series of colourful Watering Poles that can accommodate plants. Studio co-founder Maria Smith explained: “In marking points around the city from which free drinking water can be collected, the Watering Poles also create wayfinding markers and new informal gathering spots for London.”
Eric Parry Architects
Eric Parry Architects proposes a structure that can also host a news stand or drinks vendor, while Hopkins Architects has designed a structure that curves over to form a shelter.
“Our kiosk aims to make the dispensing of water a celebrated urban event which will draw people together and add drama to the public realm in London,” said Ken Hood of Hopkins.
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
The design by AHMM is for a dispenser that would source free water from the mains beneath the ground and the fountain by ADAM Architecture is conceived as a mural of patterned tiles.
Dezeen promotion: the annual Munich Creative Business Week design festival in Germany is taking place from 22 February to 2 March 2014.
This image: Rosenthal München showroom. Main image: visualisation by PlanA, to be exhibited during MCBW
Designers, architects and businesses from across the world are set to meet in the Bavarian capital for the third Munich Creative Business Week (MCBW), which kicks off later this week.
Kinetic installation at the BMW Museum in Munich
Exhibitions around Munich will highlight design and architecture from the city and region. Visitors to the city can attend conferences and workshops, plus designers and brands will open their studios to showcase new projects to the public.
Exhibition at Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich
Included in the programme is this year’s iF Design Awards presentation and after-party, taking place at BMW Welt on 28 February. For further details about events taking place over the course of the festival, visit the Munich Creative Business Week website.
Read on for more information from the organisers:
International design expertise in Munich
From 22 February through 2 March 2014, designers, architects, representatives of the economic and business sectors as well design aficionados from around the world will meet in Munich for the third time at MCBW 2014. Their objective: to sensitize the public to design and its relevance to our society, culture and economy.
Connections are everything – the motto of the third Munich Creative Business Week, MCBW 2014, is Design Connects.
It takes connections and the exchange of ideas and opinions across industries to ensure the depth that creative people need to develop truly innovative works. Players in all disciplines of design are confronted today and will continue to be confronted in the future with technical, cultural, economic, social and demographic developments. These players require and need to promote connections across disciplines, and themes from which novel areas of work can evolve. This is only one of the reasons why MCBW has become the industry’s cynosure and meeting point since its inception two years ago.
Munich Creative Business Week (MCBW) 2014 will host a wealth of conferences and workshops for visitors from around the world. In addition to diverse exhibitions and presentations in and around Munich, one of the focuses of the third MCBW will be on interaction – in line with its motto Design Connects.
Munich’s Kongresshalle will host exhibitions during the festival
Conference competence
Top-caliber events such as #qved 2014 – Editorial Design Conference Munich, the 7th German Innovation Summit and TOCA ME Design Conference 2014 will enrich this unique design exhibition’s program. At the Re.Set symposium, members of Plan A will discuss the utopian moment in architecture, design and business. In its event titled “Creating Change | innovative – brand shaping – human centered” designaffairs will illustrate how companies must reinvent themselves continuously to adapt to changing markets. The MCBW Lectures conference organised by Bayern Design will shed light on new perspectives gained through design as well as on contemporary developments in design in the area of tension between technology and poetry.
Professional groups participating in MCBW will include the Association of German Industrial Designers with its design breakfast focusing on the changing role of the industrial design profession and the Association of German Communication Designers with its workshop dedicated to train travel.
Talent forged in Munich
MCBW will offer amateur designers, start-ups, students and young professionals a host of exciting opportunities including a debate on the legal aspects of design and brand protection (Vossius & Partner). Blocherer Schule will provide insight into interior design studies, and Baumeister magazine will hold the Baumeister Campus Talk on modern careers in architecture. Young designers will engage actively in MCBW as well: 18 students from the Academy at Einsteinstraße U5 will present their diploma theses.
Bowl to be shown at Trimarchi’s Way exhibition by Alessi during MCBW
International elites
In line with tradition, one of the highlights of MCBW 2014 will be iF Design Awards Night. Approximately 2000 representatives of the design, media, business and political sectors from around the world have been invited to BMW Welt to celebrate the recipients of the 2014 iF Design Awards on 28 February, followed by a get-together and a roaring party.
Conferences, workshops and labs – for 2014, the special exhibit MCBW Moments – Mindscapes for Design has evolved into a forum for design knowledge. Supplementary exhibitions will provide further depth of detail for the focal points of the conferences. Simultaneous workshops will interconnect design and business, the economy, and society – all under the guiding principle of MCBW 2014, Design Connects. MCBW Moments – Mindscapes for Design will take place at the Old Congress Hall in Munich.
Portuguese studio CVDB Arquitectos has created a tapestry museum with vaulted ceilings, marble walls and funnel-shaped skylights inside a twelfth-century hospital building (photos by Fernando Guerra + slideshow).
The Tapestry Museum is located on the edge of a plaza in the small Portuguese town of Arraiolos, which is famed for the embroidered wool rugs and carpets that have been in production there since the Middle Ages.
CVDB Arquitectos planned the interior of the two-storey building so that galleries on both floors surround a double-height atrium with an arched ceiling.
Square windows offer views through into the galleries on the two long sides, while a single first-floor balcony at the far end offers a vantage point where visitors can survey the space.
A local marble combining shades of grey and white covers the atrium floor and continues through the rest of the ground-level spaces, occasionally wrapping up onto the walls.
“It’s a very local material,” architect Joana Barrelas told Dezeen. “Because we were refurbishing an existing building that is itself very noble, we wanted to use a material that has the same character.”
Vaulted ceilings added during the eighteenth century were retained and repaired in the galleries and multi-purpose spaces of this floor. Each have been painted white and feature decorative mouldings.
Marble staircase treads lead up from the atrium to the larger exhibition rooms on the top floor, where the floor surface switches to Brazilian oak that has been left unpainted to display natural yellow and pinkish hues.
“It’s a different noise as you walk over the first floor, rather than the ground floor,” added studio co-founder Diogo Burnay.
The roof and first-floor ceilings were completely restructured to create a series of funnel-shaped skylights, allowing light to filter evenly through each of the galleries.
Only one room maintains the old roof construction, which comprises a row of wooden trusses topped by a long narrow skylight.
Glazed doors reveal a first-floor terrace with a marble bench. From here, guests can look out over the town or down to a small courtyard just below.
The historic exterior of the building was restored and repainted, while a new staircase was added at the rear to allow tapestries to be easily transported in and out of the building.
The Tapestry Museum in Arraiolos occupies an existent building that once was Espírito Santo Hospital. The building is located in the main square of Arraiolos (Lima de Brito Square), a small town in Alentejo, Portugal. This public space streamlines the town’s social and cultural life. It gathers the Municipality and some commercial services. The Tapestry Museum contributes to consolidate the character of the square as qualified public space, in the urban tissue of Arraiolos.
The existent building congregates a diversity of interventions and transformations registered along its history. Some of its features needed to be preserved and integrated in the rehabilitation process. The project is based on the adaptation of a contemporary architectural language to the existent building, in order to guarantee a consistent exhibition path explaining the process of making Arraiolos’ Tapestries and their history.
The rehabilitation process was developed in compliance with functional programme requirements and technology demands. The programme is organised according to a central axis which contains the access and distribution areas. The central distribution space establishes the connection between the three main public areas of the building (temporary exhibition/multipurpose room on the ground floor; exhibition area on the first floor and education services on the ground floor).
This space is considered the core of the Tapestry Museum. The architectonic features of the space rely on its double-height and vaulted ceiling. The existence of window-like openings and passages allows a diversity of visual connections through the core to the surrounding areas.
In the ground floor of the building, the vaulted ceilings were preserved. In the multipurpose room the structural system was remade with metallic beams, according to a contemporary architectonic language.
The intervention in the first-floor ceilings was more comprehensive. All the roof area was replaced by a set of ceilings shaped as “inverted funnels” with a skylight on the top. The structure of the roof was maintained only in one room, characterised by a sequence of wood trusses topped by a long skylight.
There’s a new light over the old Espírito Santo Hospital, coming from the new Tapestry Museum, a building that enhances the cultural life of Arraiolos.
Location: Lima e Brito Square, Arraiolos, Portugal Architecture: CVDB Arquitectos – Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay with Tiago Filipe Santos Design team: Joana Barrelas, Rodolfo Reis, Ariadna Nieto, Ângelo Branquinho, Hugo Nascimento, Inês Carrapiço, José Maria Lavena, Laura Palma e Miguel Travesso.
Structure, foundations and services: AFA Consult Landscape: F&C Arquitectura Paisagista Rehabilitation consultant: Prof. Arq. José Aguiar Client: Câmara Municipal de Arraiolos Total cost: €1.000.000,00 Gross area: 1.200,00 sqm
Architect Sergio Rojo has renovated a dilapidated nineteenth-century cultural centre to create a hostel for weary travellers on the Way of St James pilgrimage route in northern Spain (+ slideshow).
Sergio Rojo transformed the former liceo – an educational facility for arts and literature – to create a sanctuary in the town of Logroño in Spain’s La Rioja wine-growing region.
The town is a frequent stop for pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St James in Galicia, on Spain’s northwestern tip.
The building fell into disrepair at the beginning of the twentieth century, after a new theatre with similar facilities was completed close by.
“It seems that its different inhabitants, like the soup kitchen of the city or the funeral home, didn’t appreciate the strength of its outstanding architectural qualities and therefore didn’t take care of it,” said Rojo. “That is why the liceo fell into oblivion for decades until now.”
Rojo retained the surviving five wooden trusses and beams in the roof, but used new timbers to provide support directly beneath the tiles.
When entering through the restored facade, a hospital room is located to the right and a kitchen plus storage areas are on the left.
Straight ahead, a ramp leads up to a large communal dining room with red chairs, columns and light fixtures breaking up the plain white surfaces.
Two small sleeping areas and washrooms are situated behind the eating area on this floor, while the majority of the accommodation can be found on the floor above.
Upstairs, internal walls only extend to the height of a standard room to leave a open space under the roof so the large trusses can be appreciated.
A void contained by glass walls in the centre of the space brings daylight from a hole in the roof down to the ground floor.
Bunk beds are arranged in rows down the outer walls and bathrooms are clustered along the centre, plus there are two private rooms with ensuite bathrooms.
Three more double bedrooms are fitted in at the front of the property, facing onto the street.
A balcony on top of these is accessed via the same staircase that connects all three floors.
Read on for more information sent to us by the architect:
During the last years of the nineteenth century, this building hosted the Liceo Artísitico Literario, a cultural society which needed urgently a stage while the main theatre was being built.
Coinciding with the inauguration of the Teatro Bretón de los Herreros, towards the first years of the twentieth century, the decadence of the Liceo started.
It seems that its different inhabitants (like the soup kitchen of the city or the Pastrana funeral home, among others) didn’t appreciate enough the strength of its outstanding architectonic qualities, and therefore didn’t take care of it.
Fortunately, the power of the Way of Saint James has saved it from ruin, given that the new owners have found in it the perfect place for exploiting a pilgrim hostel.
Moreover, the restoration of this place has permitted to reinforce the urban links that existed among other Jacobean milestones as the stone bridge over the Ebro, the San Gregorio’s chapel or the imperial church Santa Maria de Palacio, first pilgrim hospice known in Logroño.
The recovering of the main facade, and above all, the original roof, elevated on five centenary wooden trusses, whose typology is a rare example at this part of the country, are the focal elements of the refurbishment.
Stockholm 2014: Swedish designer Gunilla Allard’s Cajal sofas and armchairs feature slender tubular steel frames that support chunky upholstered seats (+ slideshow).
Allard designed the collection for Swedish furniture brand Lammhults, and said the line of steel that forms the frame was influenced by a cosmetic called kajal (or kohl) which is often used as an eyeliner.
“My process began with the small sofa,” said Allard. “A petite sofa with a visible tube frame that wraps around the back like the stroke of a pen, or why not a kajal pencil?”
Lammhults asked Allard to design a collection that was “slender, contemporary and restful”, and particularly suited to use in offices, restaurants or waiting rooms.
The resulting pieces are developed around the minimal steel frame, which follows the shape of the armrests and back and can be specified in colours that complement or contrast with the upholstery.
Its slim profile provides a visually lightweight base for the seat, which seems to balance on slanting rods that connect the back legs to a bar running along the front of the frame.
The shell of the seat is made from glass-fibre reinforced polyurethane covered in foam that can be upholstered in fabric or leather.
The range comprises an easy chair and a sofa in large and small variations. The armchair and large sofa feature a deeper seat cushion than the less imposing small sofa.
The Rotsee rowing regatta takes place every summer on a lake outside Lucerne, Switzerland, and this wooden tower raised over the water accommodates the officials who observe, time and marshal each race (+ slideshow).
Designed by Swiss studio Andreas Fuhrimann Gabrielle Hächler Architekten, the Zielturm Rotsee, or “finishing tower”, is to be used for just three weeks of every year when Rotsee lake becomes the venue for the final leg of the World Rowing Cup.
The three-storey pine structure sits over a concrete pier that projects out across the still waters of the lake – nicknamed “Lake of Gods” by rowers in reference to the almost imperceptible current due to the protection of surrounding hills.
Wooden shutters fold and slide away from the facade to reveal windows and balconies that can be used as viewing platforms during races. The rest of the time they can be locked shut, turning the structure into an opaque wooden cuboid.
“[The building] usually remains closed and stands still on the reflecting water surface, transformed in an enigmatic sculpture-like house, with its shutters closed,” explained the architects.
The three storeys of the building are connected by staircases both inside and outside, and each floor is slightly offset from the one below.
“By subtle offsets of the three levels, the volume seems fragile and delicate, despite its considerable volume,” said the architects.
The building was prefabricated using a specially treated pine that will absorb less water, making the structure more stable and durable.
Zielturm Rotsee was used for the first time in 2013 and replaces another structure that had lasted for 50 years.
The topographical situation on the Rotsee-Delta is a unique landscape, embedded in between two hill chains the lake is very calm. Through its ideal character for rowing regattas the lake is called the “Lake of Gods” amongst rowers.
The requirements for the new finish tower were various and complex. Based on its function and the surrounding landscape the main aim was to create identity. By stacking the spacial units, the vertical volume achieves a point of reference on the wide horizontal plane of the Rotsee. By subtle offsets of the three levels, the volume seems fragile and delicate, despite its considerable volume.
The finish tower is part of the first phase of the Naturarena Rotsee area development. The opening of the rowing centre is scheduled for July 2016. The finish tower and the future rowing centre will form one architectural ensemble, perceivable by the mutual materialisation, constructive and aesthetic themes. The three-storey high, prefabricated wood construction is carried by a pillared concrete platform above the water level.
The statically active concrete platform provides access to the tower from the water and the shore. In combination with the stairway on the rear, but no less prominent facade of the building, the concrete structure anchors the building close to the lakeshore. This allegorises the hybrid character of the building, being a functional active building on one side and a sculpture in the lake on the other.
While the building is in use only during the rowing regattas, three weeks every summer, it usually remains closed and stands still on the reflecting water surface, transformed in an enigmatic sculpture-like house, with its shutters closed. This metamorphosis taking place every year was the ambitious challenge in designing the finish tower.
An architectural manifestation for this prominently situated finish tower in the picturesque landscape is necessary in order to find the balance between the practical functional and the sculptural-aesthetic requirements.
The aesthetic impression of the tower is emphasised once the building is closed and the sliding shutters are retracted. The large-sized sliding shutters give the facade a relief-like expression and let the tower appear plastic and house related.
Similar to a classical sculpture, the tower changes its appearance depending on the position of the observer and blends into the surrounding natural landscape, influenced by the constantly changing days and seasons. The intrinsic, however abstract form has a strong recognition value, and therefore conveys identity for the rowing sport; illustrating the function of the building, the context related access of the tower and the stacked units.
The functional units OK-FISA, Jury-Timing and Event-Speaker are axially arranged with the finish line, one above the other. Whilst the shorter facade is pointing towards the finish line, the longer facade is facing towards the finish area indicating the end of the sports ground.
The wooden construction of the finish tower consists of prefabricated elements, in order to build cost- and time-efficient. The wood used for the facade is a specially treated pinewood, from sustainable forests. A innovative method using pressure, heat and acetic acid brings the wood to reaction so that the ability of absorbing water can be reduced essentially, making the wood dimensionally stable and extremely durable.
Graffiti depicting gangly imaginary creatures by street artist Phlegm is currently on show at an east London gallery (+ slideshow).
Sheffield-based Phlegm normally paints giant murals of fantasy beasts and scenes on walls and sides of buildings around the world.
However for this exhibition the street artist has created reliefs of his typical artworks indoors, as part of a large-scale installation made from wood, clay and plaster at the Howard Griffin Gallery in Shoreditch.
“Phlegm creates surreal illustrations to an untold story, weaving a visual narrative that explores the unreal through creatures from his imagination,” said the gallery’s owner Richard Howard-Griffin.
The imagery shows greyscale fantasy figures with exaggerated limbs set amongst woodland animals, ropes and snares.
A group of the humanoids appear to be gripped by the tentacles of a monster and one is in the process of being consumed.
The artist has also illustrated a bestiary – a compendium of beasts – displaying bizarre half-real, half-imagined creatures in specimen jars on wooden shelves.
A boat loaded with these jars is being unloaded by a team of the long-limbed figures further into the space.
The embossed paintings and sculptural elements emerge from a patchwork of reused wooden boards, which have been installed across the gallery walls.
The Bestiary exhibition opened earlier this month and continues until 4 March. Photography is by Marcus Peel.
More information sent to us by Howard Griffin Gallery follows:
The Bestiary
A bestiary was an illustrated compendium of animals, half real and half imagined, setting out the natural history of each beast within and its moral significance. A bestiary was not a scientific text and while some beasts and descriptions were quite accurate, others were completely fanciful. Such bestiarys belonged to the ancient world and were popularised during the Middle Ages as didactic tools.
For The Bestiary, Phlegm creates a modern bestiary within his own universe through an immersive and large scale installation in wood, clay and plaster. Here Phlegm presents a taxonomic categorisation of his creatures and collects them in one place for the first time. Within the expansive sections of the installation, and working in bas and high relief, Phlegm displays a series of works akin to the Lascaux cave paintings. Inspired by the bestiarys of old, these works contain untold fables and narratives.
Phlegm Biography
Phlegm is a Sheffield based muralist and artist who first developed his fantastical illustrations in self-published comics. His work now extends to the urban landscape, and can mostly be seen in run-down and disused spaces. Phlegm creates surreal illustrations to an untold story, weaving a visual narrative that explores the unreal through creatures from his imagination. His storybook-like imagery is half childlike, half menacing, set in built up cityscapes with castles, turrets and winding stairways.
At other times the city itself is the setting for his long limbed half-human, half-woodland creatures. In this dream world a viewer comes across impossible flying machines and complex networks of levers, pulleys and cogs, set beside telescopes, magnifying glasses and zephyrs. Working solely in monochrome, his fine technique and intricate detail can be seen as a curiosity cabinet of the mind. Each drawing forms part of a grand narrative that extends worldwide, in countries including Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, USA, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Slovakia and Spain.
Some thoughts by Richard Howard-Griffin
Artists like Phlegm are very interesting as they are helping to redefine the dynamics of the art world and causing a revolution in the delivery of public art. High level globe-trotting muralists like Phlegm are reaching huge audiences around the world by painting on an unprecedented international scale. The international breadth and scope of Phlegm’s mural work is staggering as is the quality of the work itself. Artists like Phlegm are not dependent on the patronage of traditional art institutions, museums, critics and curators for their success. By painting outdoors on a grand global scale they have effectively cut out the middle man, it is a democratisation of art. These are the artists that we represent at Howard Griffin Gallery.
News: two British entrepreneurs are constructing a hydroponic farm in a network of tunnels under south London that could supply local restaurants and retailers with fresh herbs and vegetables.
Richard Ballard and Steven Dring’s Growing Underground project is located in tunnels beneath the London Underground’s Northern Line that were originally built as air-raid shelters during the Second World War.
Intent on demonstrating that it is possible to operate a commercial urban farm with a minimal carbon footprint, the entrepreneurs plan to transform 2.5 hectares of the disused air-raid shelter into growing space that will supply produce to London businesses, reducing the amount of food miles “from farm to floor”.
Ballard and Dring collaborated with horticulturalist Chris Nelson to develop a hydroponic system that makes the most of conditions in the tunnels and enables them to grow a variety of micro herbs, shoots, miniature vegetables and other foods.
The hydroponic farming method involves growing plants in a mineral-rich solution on specially constructed growing platforms under controlled temperature and lighting conditions.
The farm’s subterranean location means that the farmers don’t need to worry about pests and diseases, or Britain’s unpredictable weather.
After spending the past 18 months conducting growing trials in the tunnels, the entrepreneurs have launched a crowdfunding campaign that aims to raise £300,000 to support the business’ expansion.
“Integrating farming into the urban environment makes a huge amount of sense and we’re delighted that we’re going to make it a reality,” said Richard Ballard. “There is no ‘could’, ‘might’ or ‘maybe’ about our underground farm. We will be up and running and will be supplying produce later this year.”
The farm’s carbon neutral credentials are achieved by utilising low energy LED grow lights, locally sourced green energy, a recirculating water system and the 33 metres of earth above the tunnels, which helps maintain a consistent temperature.
Growing Underground founders Richard Ballard and Steven Dring
Growing Underground has received backing from celebrity chef Michel Roux Jr, who lives close to the farm’s entrance near Clapham North station.
“When I first met these guys I thought they were absolutely crazy,” said Michel Roux Jr. “But when I visited the tunnels and sampled the delicious produce they are already growing down there I was blown away. The market for this produce is huge.”
The disused underground air-raid shelter before refurbishment
The first crops grown at the farm will include pea shoots, rocket, mizuna, broccoli, red vein sorrel, garlic chives and mustard leaf, as well as edible flowers and miniature vegetables. Following further development it will become possible to grow crops including mushrooms and heritage tomato varieties.
Full-scale farming is set to commence in March, with the first produce expected to be available in late summer.
The tunnels will provide 2.5 acres of growing space
The curving lines of this steel wire chair by French designer Constance Guisset are intended to represent fabric draped over the seat and back (+ slideshow).
Bent steel rods that form the surfaces of the backrest and seat of Guisset‘s Drapée chair appear to gather in one of the seat’s front corners.
“I am very much interested in fabric and soft materials,” Guisset told Dezeen. “A drape is fascinating because it recalls fluidity and a certain impression of movement. I wanted to recall this movement with a few lines, as if a fabric had been left on a chair frame.”
The frame is made in two sections; a front piece with angled legs and a rounded back that are joined at the rear of the seat and held in tension by the steel wires.
The designer worked with a metal fabricator to develop the position of the lines, which were originally drawn using computer-modelling software but required an iterative process of refinement in the workshop.
“As the chair is made of free-form wires it was quite a challenge to make it comfortable and rigorous,” Guisset recalled. “After each wire was welded, we tested comfort and observed the shape, unwelding lines as many times as necessary and doing it again. In the end we spent three full days in the factory, just for a tube frame and 16 lines in wire!”
The chair is designed to be used in homes or restaurants and therefore needed to be lightweight so it can be moved easily, and stackable for saving space.
“It was a real desire to make it strong, comfortable, stackable and light at the same time,” said Guisset. “It was also about visual lightness that is a deep aspiration in my work. As it is built with just a few lines of tube and wire, physical lightness is a natural consequence.”
The product is available in black, white, gold and pale blue finishes. A separate cushion pad features a pattern that replicates the lines of the seat.
Guisset’s promotional photography presents the product alongside marble statues wearing the sorts of draped fabric garments that inspired the design.
“I often visit museums and take pictures of draped sculptures,” said Guisset. “I feel a very soft sensuality in them, so it was quite natural for me to use some antique and Italian sculptures. I wanted the pictures to express the freedom, lightness and dancing qualities of the object. The drape was highlighted by the sculptures’ presence.”
Drapée was exhibited by French design brand Petite Friture at last month’s Maison&Objet fair outside Paris.
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