The never-ending urban highways, the pale and empty grandeur of Tian’anmen Square, the heavy traffic and the mantle of dust which is just occasionally swept away by the bitter winds from Mongolia—these don’t necessarily make China’s capital a place you fall in love with at first sight. On the…
Continue Reading…
The Louvre Lens, a new outpost of the Musée du Louvre by Japanese architects SANAA and New York studio Imrey Culbert, opens to the public next week in Lens, northern France (+ slideshow).
Comprising a chain of rectangular volumes, the 360-metre long-building has walls of glass and brushed aluminium that appear to be straight but actually feature subtle curves.
Above: photograph is by Hisao Suzuki
“The project avoids the strict, rectilinear shapes that would have conflicted with the subtle character of the site, as well as of free shapes that would have been overly restrictive from the perspective of the museum’s internal operations,” explain SANAA architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. “The slight inflection of the spaces is in tune with the long curved shape of the site and creates a subtle distortion of the inner areas while maintaining a graceful relationship with the artwork.”
SANAA and Imrey Culbert won a competition to design the museum back in 2006 and it is located on the site of an overgrown coal mine that had been closed down since the 1960s.
“In keeping with a desire to maintain the openness of the site and to reduce the ascendancy of this large project, the building was broken down into several spaces,” said Sejima and Nishizawa. “Through their size and layout, which follow the gradual changes in terrain elevation, the buildings achieve balance with the scale of the site and the shape of the paths and landscape features, evoking its mining history.”
Visitors enter the building through the glazed central hall, where curved glass rooms contain a bookshop, a cafe and other facilities.
Doors at opposite corners of this hall lead through to the two exhibition galleries. To the east, the 125-metre-long Grande Galerie provides the setting for a permanent collection of artworks dating back through six centuries, while to the west is a gallery for temporary exhibitions that adjoins an auditorium.
Daylight filters into the galleries though glazed panels on the roof, but rows of louvres prevent direct sunlight from entering. Meanwhile, the aluminium walls create fuzzy reflections inside the rooms.
“Context makes the content of art speak differently to each of us,” architect Tim Culbert told Dezeen. “The palette and forms of the gallery wings heighten our perceptive awareness in a subtle way, impacting how we look at the art.”
Beyond the Grande Galerie is another room with walls of glass, used for displaying art from the neighbourhood of Lens.
Above: photograph is by Hisao Suzuki
Storage areas are buried underground and can be accessed from the central hall, while two additional buildings accommodate administration rooms and a restaurant.
Above: photograph is by Hisao Suzuki
The architects collaborated with landscape architect Catherine Mosbach to surround the buildings with gardens and pathways.
SANAA is best known for designing the Rolex Learning Centre in Switzerland, but also designed a pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery back in 2009. See all our stories about SANAA »
Photography is by Iwan Baan, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s some more information from the design team:
Louvre Lens
The Architectural Design
The choice of placing the museum on a former mine illustrates the intent of the museum to participate in the conversion of the mining area, while retaining the richness of its industrial past. The Louvre-Lens site is located on 20 hectares of wasteland that was once a major coal mine and has since been taken over by nature since its closing in 1960. The land presents some slight elevation, the result of excess fill from the mine.
Above: ground floor plan – click above to see a larger image
The Japanese architects from SANAA, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa wanted to avoid creating a dominating fortress, opting instead for a low, easily accessible structure that integrates into the site without imposing on it by its presence. The structure is made up of five building of steel and glass. There are four rectangles and one large square with slightly curved walls whose angles touch.
Above: basement floor plan – click above to see larger image
It is reminiscent of the Louvre palace, with its wings laid almost flat. The architects wanted to bring to mind boats on a river coming together to dock gently with each other. The facades are in polished aluminum, in which the park is reflected, ensuring continuity between the museum and the surrounding landscape. The roofs are partially in glass, reflecting a particular advantage to bringing in light, both for exhibiting the works and for being able to the sky from inside the building.
Above: section AA – click above to see larger image
Natural light is controlled by means of a concealment device in the roof and interior shades forming the ceiling. Designed as an answer to the vaulted ceiling, the surface retains in its light the change of seasons, hours and exhibitions.
Above: section BB – click above to see larger image
The entire structure of 28,000 square meters extends over 360 meters long from one end of a central foyer in transparent glass to the other. The buildings located to the East of the entrance – the Grande Galerie and the Glass Pavilion – primarily house the Louvre’s collections.
Above: floor plan of La Galerie du Temps- click above to see larger image
To the West of the entrance is the temporary exhibition gallery and La Scène, a vast «new generation» auditorium, whose programs are in direct relation with the exhibitions.
Above: section of La Galerie du Temps – click above to see larger image
The museum also includes a large, invisible, two level space, buried deep in fill from the site. This space will be dedicated to service functions for the public, but will also be used for storage and logistical functions of the museum. Two independent buildings house the administrative services, to the South, and a restaurant, to the North, thus establishing a link between the museum, the park and the city.
Above: elevation – click above to see larger image
The post Louvre Lens by SANAA
and Imrey Culbert appeared first on Dezeen.
This may look like a pair of barns in a field, but its actually the new home that Swiss architecture studio Herzog & de Meuron has completed for the Parrish Art Museum on Long Island (+ slideshow).
Herzog & de Meuron drew inspiration from the archetypal house to create the two gabled structures that comprise the building, which is reminiscent of the stacked volumes the architects created for the VitraHaus furniture gallery in Germany.
Above: photograph is by Matthu Placek
“Our design for the Parrish Art Museum is a reinterpretation of a very genuine Herzog & de Meuron typology, the traditional house form,” said Jacques Herzog. “What we like about this typology is that it is open for many different functions, places and cultures. Each time this simple, almost banal form has become something very specific, precise and also fresh.”
Galleries and other rooms are arranged in two parallel rows beneath the shallow-pitched roofs, while a long corridor is sandwiched between to create a run of ten sub-divisible exhibition spaces at the centre.
“All galleries have large north-facing and small south-facing skylights, which fill the spaces with ever-changing daylight and allow direct views to the sky and the clouds passing by,” said Herzog & de Meuron senior partner Ascan Mergenthaler.
Overhanging eaves create sheltered terraces around the building’s perimeter, including a cafe terrace that the gallery hopes to use for events, workshops and performances.
Above: photograph is by Matthu Placek
Chairs and tables designed by Konstantin Grcic furnish this terrace and offer visitors a place to look out across the surrounding meadows.
Above: photograph is by Matthu Placek
The new building doubles the size of the museum’s previous Southampton home on Jobs Lane, where the arts institution had been based since it was first established in 1897.
Above: photograph is by Matthu Placek
The galleries open with a special exhibition celebrating the work of artist Malcolm Morley, while the permanent collection will contain artworks from the nineteenth century onwards.
The architects revealed the finalised designs for the building in 2009, following a series of budget cuts that forced them to reconsider their original concept.
See more stories about Herzog & de Meuron, including interviews we filmed with both Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron at the opening of their Serpentine Gallery Pavilion this summer.
Photography is by Clo’e Floirat, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a design statement from Herzog & de Meuron:
The starting point for the new Parrish Art Museum is the artist’s studio in the East End of Long Island. We set the basic parameters for a single gallery space by distilling the studio’s proportions and adopting its simple house section with north-facing skylights. Two of these model galleries form wings around a central circulation spine that is then bracketed by two porches to form the basis of a straightforward building extrusion.
The floor plan of this extrusion is a direct translation of the ideal functional layout. A cluster of ten galleries defines the heart of the museum. The size and proportion of these galleries can be easily adapted by re-arranging partition walls within the given structural grid. To the east of the gallery core are located the back of house functions of administration, storage, workshops and loading dock. To the west of the galleries are housed the public program areas of the lobby, shop, and café with a flexible multi-purpose and educational space at the far western end.
An ordered sequence of post, beam and truss defines the unifying backbone of the building. Its materialisation is a direct expression of readily accessible building materials and local construction methods.
The exterior walls of in situ concrete act as long bookends to the overall building form, while the grand scale of these elemental walls is tempered with a continuous bench formed at its base for sitting and viewing the surrounding landscape. Large overhangs running the full length of the building provide shelter for outdoor porches and terraces.
The placement of the building is a direct result of the skylights facing towards the north. This east-west orientation, and its incidental diagonal relationship within the site, generates dramatically changing perspective views of the building and further emphasises the building’s extreme yet simple proportions. It lays in an extensive meadow of indigenous grasses that refers to the natural landscape of Long Island.
The post Parrish Art Museum by
Herzog & de Meuron appeared first on Dezeen.
A museum of contemporary art designed by Zaha Hadid for Michigan State University opened to the public this weekend (+ slideshow).
As shown in photographs revealed last month, Zaha Hadid designed the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum with a pleated facade of stainless steel and glass that contrasts with the surrounding red brickwork of the university’s Collegiate Gothic north campus.
The building is named after philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, who have spent four decades amassing two prominent collections of contemporary and postwar artworks.
Exhibitions will be dedicated to modern art, photography, new media and works on paper.
Double-height galleries are included within the museum’s 1600 square metres of exhibition space, which is split between three storeys that include two floors above ground and one basement level.
The plan of the building was generated by the directions of surrounding pathways and sight-lines, and the architects hope this will help the building to integrate with its surroundings. ”Cultural engagement is paramount,” said Zaha Hadid. “The design of the Broad invites dialogue with the university, the community of East Lansing and beyond.”
Hadid won a competition in 2008 to design the museum, which also contains an exhibition space, an education wing, study centre, cafe, shop and outdoor sculpture garden.
The museum’s inaugural exhibitions include Global Groove 1973/2012, an exploration of current trends in video art, and In Search of Time, which investigates the relationship of time and memory in art.
See the competition-winning designs for the building in our earlier story, or see the first photographs of the building revealed last month.
See more stories about Zaha Hadid Architects, including the recently completed Galaxy Soho, a 330,000-square-metre retail, office and entertainment complex in Beijing.
Photography is by Iwan Baan.
Here’s a project description from Zaha Hadid Architects:
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, located at the northern edge of the Michigan State University campus, is influenced by a set of movement paths that traverse and border the site.
The vitality of street life on the northern side of Grand River Avenue and the historic heart of the university campus at the south side generate a network of paths and visual connections; some are part of the existing footpath layout, others create shortcuts between the city and the campus side of Grand River Avenue.
The circulation travelling in an east-west-direction on Grand River Avenue, along the main road of East Lansing and also on the main approach street to the campus produce an additional layer of connections that are applied to this highly frequented interface between city and campus.
Generating two dimensional planes from these lines of circulation and visual connections, the formal composition of the museum is achieved by folding these planes in three-dimensional space to define an interior landscape which brings together and negotiates the different pathways on which people move through and around the site.
This dialogue of interconnecting geometries describes a series of spaces that offer a variety of adjacencies; allowing many different interpretations when designing exhibitions.
Through this complexity, curators can interpret different leads and connections, different perspectives and relationships.
These detailed investigations and research into the landscape, topography and circulation of the site, enable us to ascertain and understand these critical lines of connection.
By using these lines to inform the design, the museum is truly embedded within its unique context of Michigan State University, maintaining the strongest relationship with its surroundings.
The Broad Art Museum presents as a sharp, directed body, comprising directional pleats which reflect the topographic and circulatory characteristics of its surrounding landscape.
Its outer skin echoes these different directions and orientations – giving the building an ever-changing appearance that arouses curiosity yet never quite reveals its content. This open character underlines the museum’s function as a cultural hub for the community.
Above: site plan – click above for larger image
Above: basement plan – click above for larger image
Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image
Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image
Above: section A-A – click above for larger image
Above: section B-B – click above for larger image
The post Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum
by Zaha Hadid Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
While OMA is busy finalising designs for a new home for the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, the arts organisation has temporarily moved into a pavilion with cardboard columns by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban (+ slideshow).
Garage will occupy the pavilion during the entire construction period, which will see a 1960s building in Stalinist-era Gorky Park renovated into an exhibition centre with moving walls and floors.
Ban’s oval-shaped pavilion is located in the same park and has chunky cardboard columns surrounding its entire perimeter.
A single rectangular exhibition space is contained inside, alongside a bookshop and cafe.
In late 2013 Garage will relocate to their new building and the pavilion will then be used for experimental projects.
The inaugural exhibition, entitled Temporary Structures in Gorky Park: From Melnikov to Ban, focusses on the history of temporary pavilions in the park, which was planned in the 1920′s by Konstantin Melnikov.
Find out more about OMA’s design for the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in our earlier story, or hear about it in our interview with Rem Koolhaas.
Shigeru Ban has created a few structures using cardboard, including a temporary tower and a tea house.
See all our stories about Shigeru Ban »
Here’s some more information about the exhibition:
Garage Center for Contemporary Culture will present a new exhibition entitled Temporary Structures in Gorky Park: From Melnikov to Ban from 20 October to 9 December 2012 in a newly created temporary pavilion in Moscow’s Gorky Park, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. Showing rare archival drawings –many of which have never been seen before – the exhibition will begin by revealing the profound history of structures created in the park since the site was first developed in 1923, before moving through the Russian avant-garde period to finish with some of the most interesting contemporary unrealized designs created by Russian architects today.
By their nature, temporary structures erected for a specific event or happening have always encouraged indulgent experimentation, and sometimes this has resulted in ground-breaking progressive design. This exhibition recognizes such experimentation and positions the pavilion or temporary structure as an architectural typology that oscillates between art object and architectural prototype. In Russia, these structures or pavilions – often constructed of insubstantial materials – allowed Soviet architects the ability to express the aspirations of the revolution. They frequently became vehicles for new architectural and political ideas, and they were extremely influential within Russian architectural history.
This exhibition reveals the rich history of realized and unrealized temporary structures within Moscow’s Gorky Park and demonstrates important stylistic advancements within Russian architecture. Temporary Structures also reveals the evolution of a uniquely Russian ‘identity’ within architecture and the international context, which has developed since the 1920s and continues today.
The post Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture
by Shigeru Ban appeared first on Dezeen.
News: Michigan State University has unveiled the first photographs of its Zaha Hadid-designed museum of contemporary art, which opens to the public next month.
Featuring a pleated stainless steel facade, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum stands in contrast to the brick buildings of the university’s Collegiate Gothic north campus.
Zaha Hadid won a competition in 2008 to design the museum, which contains 1600 square metres of exhibition space, alongside an education wing, study centre, cafe, shop and outdoor sculpture garden. The three-storey building has one basement floor and features double-height galleries for showing modern art, photography, new media and works on paper.
The museum opens on 9 November with the inaugural exhibitions Global Groove 1973/2012, an exploration into current trends in video art, and In Search of Time, which investigates the relationship to time and memory in art.
See images of the competition-winning design for the museum in our story from 2008, or see images of the final design in our most recent update.
Other new projects by Zaha Hadid include a pop-up hair salon in London and a streamlined government building in Montpellier.
See all our stories about Zaha Hadid »
Photography is by Paul Warchol.
The post First photographs of Eli and Edythe Broad
Art Museum by Zaha Hadid unveiled appeared first on Dezeen.
Continuing to captivate the world with her kawaii cuteness, Hello Kitty is the focus of the new hardcover collectible book Hello Kitty, Hello Art!. The book features more than 200 full color pages of Hello Kitty and her Sanrio friends My Melody, Keroppi, Badtz-Maru, Little Twin Stars, Tuxedosam and…
Continue Reading…
This art museum by architect Renzo Piano straddles a canal in Oslo’s harbour (+ slideshow).
Named the Astrup Fearnley Museet, the museum of contemporary art opened to the public this weekend and was completed in collaboration with local firm Narud-Stokke-Wiig.
A curving roof of fritted glass unites the three timber-clad buildings that comprise the complex, while two bridges cross the canal to link them at ground level.
The architects selected naturally weathered timber for the facades and interiors of each block, to reference the traditional Scandinavian construction of local buildings and boats.
Ten galleries are split between the three buildings, and one block also contains offices within four of its upper storeys.
Between the buildings, promenades stretch along both sides of the canal to lead to a sculpture park and sandy beach on the southern side of the water and a local ferry terminal on the northern side.
Other recent projects by Renzo Piano include The Shard, which opened earlier this summer, and the new wing at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
See all our stories about Piano here, including a past interview with the architect.
Photography is by Nic Lehoux.
Here’s a project description from Renzo Piano Building Workshop:
The Tjuvholmen development commissioned by Selvaag Gruppen / Aspelin Ramm Gruppen in Oslo is located southwest of the centre of the city and is a continuation of the Aker Brygge development built in the 90’s. The site of the Tjuvholmen project is one of the most beautiful places in Oslo. The project will transform the formerly closed harbour into a public area connecting the Fjord and the centre of the city.
The RPBW project is on the western part of this development and consists of cultural programmatic elements as part of an agreement with the City of Oslo: the project includes 3 different buildings under a unique glass roof, one for Offices and Art exhibition and two exclusively for the Art Museum, the landscape design with bridges over the new canals and a small Sculpture Park.
The urban design creates a visual link between this cultural platform and the City centre of Oslo, developing the visual axis from Aker Brygge to the new complex. The integration of Art related activities in all three buildings and the mix with offices and leisure activities, makes the complex a vibrant part of the new urban fabric that will attract a very broad public.
The Design
Overlooking the fjord, it seems inevitable to continue the sightline from the city along the Aker Brygge promenade to the far end of the new development. The entire promenade along the sea will be 800m long. Almost half of that length will consist of the new promenade of the project. The promenade will start at the bridge on the dock at Aker Brygge and continue along Strandhagen over to Skjaeret until it ends at a floating dock, from where a ferry may depart to other destinations along the inner Oslo Fjord.
The promenade along the canal will provide to the visitors the visual contact with the sea and nature, as an important experience of the journey.
On Skjaeret, the promenade is embraced by the building complex and the location of the art building along the canal, instead of along the sea as proposed by the city’s zoning plan, creates an active dialogue between the 3 buildings.
Between the art museum and the sea a softly undulating sculpture park fills the rest of Skjaeret and finishes in a sandy beach, protected by the wind and from the waves. It will be an open space for children and their parents to play and swim, to enjoy nature and the sea.
A café is planned alongside the beach with a facade that can be opened during good weather to enjoy views of the park and the wind gusts from the fjords as well as to extend the relatively small internal area of the café.
Across the canal over a wide bridge that links the two opposite banks, visitors will find the entrance to the other exhibition spaces at the quay level. A wide stair between them leads up to an urban Piazza where café’s, shops and entrances to other functions find their place.
Visitors will be able to continue along the quay of the canal to the tip of the new development which allows a spectacular view out over the Fjord, but also back to the centre of Oslo.
The Roof
The roof is a curved surface which covers all three buildings to emphasize their interaction as a cultural destination and the architecture of the complex.
The design strongly identifies the project. Its curved shape, formed by laminated wood beams, crosses the canal between the buildings. The beams are supported by slender steel columns, reinforced with cable rigging, which refer to the maritime character of the site.
The roof geometrical shape is derived from a section of a toroid and it slopes down towards the sea. On Skjaeret, the roof almost touches ground in the Park, over a small water pond that prevents people to climb on the glass.
The roof surface is fully glazed and a ceramic fritting gives the glass the right solidness and the right transparency where needed. Some of the exhibition spaces, the museum lobby as well as the office atrium will receive daylight through the roof.
The edges of the roof extend generously outwards to reinforce the lightness of this glass plane and while obstructing daylight to a minimum, giving protection from rain and wind.
Exhibition Spaces
The project will have different kinds of exhibition spaces: visiting the museum will be a cultural journey going from one space to the other. This journey includes all three buildings on both sides of the canal and will bring the visitor through a series of 10 rooms, each with a different ceiling height, material and shape.
The exhibition spaces of the Art Museum on the north side of the canal will house the permanent contemporary art collection, which expands at ground level under the office building. This part is an open flexible space, extending under the Tjuvholmen Allee and the main stair between the quay level and the upper Piazza. In this area also educational activities of the museum will take place.
Site plan – click above for larger image
The building on Skjaeret, on the south side of the canal, will be for the temporary exhibition. The main exhibition space consists of two floors: one floor at ground level and one on the mezzanine, with natural light from a spectacular skylight in the roof. On the second floor a generous roof terrace will allow for the placement of sculptures outside. A small cafè is located next to the lobby and its terrace extends to Park and the beach.
Cross section – click above for larger image
Office Building
The office building along the Tjuvholmen Allee, has four floors and a mezzanine under the roof. A naturally lit atrium in the centre of the building connects the office floors. All floors will be rented to one tenant, which was very much involved the layout of the offices. The conference rooms as well as the common areas for the occupants are on the upper floors, taking best advance of the views and the terraces on these floors.
Long section – click above for larger image
Materials
The materials for the new buildings are few in order to emphasize the unity of the complex and are subdued to emphasize the roof as the most important architectural element.
The roof structure will be made of laminated wood beams, sometimes with steel elements, supported by steel columns. The glass of the roof has a dotted pattern, resulting in a light colour, a white ceramic frit that covers the whole surface reducing the transparency of the glass by 40%.
Elevation – click above for larger image
The facades have glazed areas on the ground floor where the public view is desired. The glazing is executed with low iron glass, as much as possible without coatings to enhance the transparency and to minimize the discoloration of the light into the exhibition spaces. The office glazing and less public facades may need coatings, with internal shades for glare control.
External sun shades on the facades, will make them more dynamic and will bring some color to the monochromatic wood facade.
Cross section detail – click above for larger image
The lobby to the temporary art space is completely glazed and allows the visual contact with the park and the sea, even from the Piazza on the Tjuvholmen Allee.
Naturally weathered timber was selected for the opaque parts of the façade (Aspen), which in a short time acquires a soft silver-grey color due to its exposure to the weather, The wood planks have a particular shape and the gaps between the planks increase where ventilation of the buildings is required.
Sectional perspective – click above for larger image
The use of wood as a material for structural elements, for the bridges, exterior paving and in the interiors, follows Scandinavian traditions. The use of wood is also a reference to the materials used for boats, while the slender steel elements in the bridges and the columns relate to the masts in the Oslo harbour, anchoring the building complex even more in its location.
The post Astrup Fearnley Museet by
Renzo Piano Building Workshop appeared first on Dezeen.
London Design Festival: a new gallery showcasing socially responsible design has opened in Soho and its inaugural collection features furniture from Brazil curated by US specialists Espasso plus pieces by designers including Studiomama and Australian collective Supercyclers.
Launched to coincide with London Design Festival, 19 Greek Street has been established by Marc Péridis, creative director of design studio Montage.
Montage occupies the top floor of the Victorian townhouse alongside an exhibition space for Supercyclers, a collective of designers who seek to reuse waste materials in their work.
Above: chairs and cabinet by Studiomama
On the first and second floors, Espasso showcases Brazilian design from the middle of the 20th century to the present day, including contemporary designers Arthur Casas and Carlos Motta.
Above: chairs by Studiomama and David David
The third floor gallery contains furniture from a number of international design studios, including pieces made from reclaimed pallets by Nina Tolstrup’s Studiomama and cardboard furniture to be used after natural disasters by Parisian studio Nocc.
Above: Asturias Armchair by Carlos Motta
On the lower ground level is a screening room and an exhibition space featuring non-commercial works, including woven plastic chairs produced by former prisoners in Colombia for fashion house Marni.
Above: Oscar chair by Sergio Rodrigues
“A big focus will be on private events for press, architects and collectors,” Péridis told Dezeen. “Since our furniture is very craft-driven, we will use these events to demonstrate how the furniture pieces are made.”
Nina Tolstrup’s Studiomama recently contributed a chair to the Stepney Green Design Collection curated by Dezeen. We also previously featured a Studiomama cabinet made from reclaimed wood currently showing at 19 Greek Street.
See all our stories about galleries »
See all our stories about London Design Festival »
Here’s some more information about the gallery:
New Design Gallery for Soho merges storytelling, craft and social responsibility
19 Greek Street is London’s hub for craft, excellence and socially responsible design. Established by Marc Péridis, designer and creative director of the design studio Montage, and opened to coincide with London Design Festival, this six-floor Victorian townhouse is a centre for distinctive design storytelling bringing together handpicked pieces from international design studios, as well as housing the UK outpost of Espasso, the much acclaimed US specialists in modernist and contemporary Brazilian design.
Fuelled by an innate sense of curiosity and exploration, Péridis’ extensive travels through the world’s design hubs of New York, Miami, São Paulo, Berlin, Milan, have set the tone for the space. Its inaugural collection showcases works by an international stable of established design talents alongside emerging newcomers.
19 Greek Street features both commercial and non-commercial pieces in exhibition and showroom environments, while also featuring a screening/lecture room and a workshop space where guests can engage with the process: the work behind the work.
Péridis says of his decision to set up 19 Greek Street: “I am one of those people who plays with design like a child plays with his toys – with amazement and bewilderment, seeing an infinite potential in everything I find. This is design. So, for me, the idea was simple. I found a building that was looking for stories to tell, and I found stories that were dying to be told.”
Espasso UK
At the heart of this new venture is Espasso’s dedicated two-floor area, featuring works by mid-century modernists Sergio Rodrigues and Jorge Szalzupin, as well as contemporary designers such as Etel Carmona, Arthur Casas and Carlos Motta all showcasing the comfort, sensuality and lasting appeal of Brazilian design.
Carlos Junqueira, founder of Espasso, says of the launch at 19 Greek Street: ‘We are excited to open a London showroom, which allows us the opportunity to show our collection to a broader audience, as well as more convenient access to the works of our designers for our existing clientele based abroad. Collaborating with 19 Greek Street is a natural fit for us, and we look forward to bringing the best of Brazilian design, past and present, to London.’
Third Floor Showroom
19 Greek Street presents commercial works from a range of international design studios all with a socially responsible slant:

The Pallet Project by Danish London-based designer Nina Tolstrup is an egalitarian design that constructs furniture from the reclaimed wood of unused pallets. An organisation has now been set-up by Tolstrup in Lugano, Buenos Aires to help the locals emerge from this poverty stricken area through design training and development.
Winners of the OneHundredDays competition for sustainable design, Amsterdam’s design duo, Social- Unit, introduce the hotel version of their bed unit produced from recycled waste plastic, and used in homeless shelters across the country.
Parisian studio Nocc present their HM Darwin furniture range, which can be printed from cardboard through a common template and assembled anywhere in the world to provide emergency furniture relief for homeless survivors of natural disasters. 19 Greek street highlights the sustainable “pop-up friendly” nature of these cardboard constructions in a completely new context.
The Workshop
The top floor design studio/workshop allows users to engage with the design processes of highly crafted pieces from the Australian collective supercyclers.
The A-joint by Henry Wilson is an intuitive and utilitarian joinery system constructed to connect a variety of standardised timbers permitting users to create their own pieces from work-stands, to tables, plinths, stools and shop fit-outs fixtures.
Tamara Maynes, the undisputed queen of craft, launches an iPhone app by which the template to her famous quilt light can be downloaded and users can create their own edition of the piece using recycled cardboard. With several book titles and over 100 projects published in print and online, she democratises design so that others can take advantage of her skill and enjoy the process themselves.
Blakeborough + king launch their stackable coffee shop chair made entirely of recycled coffee bags from Colombia.
Lower Ground Gallery
The lower-ground level is an exhibition space and screening room featuring a series of non-commercial works, each contributing to the contemporary design conversation.
A few pieces from Marni’s range of 100 brightly coloured woven plastic chairs created by ex-prisoners in Colombia are featured here as well as the Chair Farm project: the brainchild of Berlin’s Studio Aisslinger demonstrating a harvesting process by which design can be “grown locally” and exported globally.
Also harnessing nature in the production process, German designer Markus Kayser uses the abundant and untapped supplies of the sun and sand of the Saharan desert to fabricate glass objects through a solar powered 3D printing device.
Montage also uses this space to feature its very first collection of wallpapers and patterns printed on cardboard furniture in collaboration with Nocc.
The post 19 Greek Street design gallery
opens in London appeared first on Dezeen.
Andrea Zittel’s color block installations take over Andrea Rosen Gallery
“I have one of these at home covered in cat hair,” Andrea Zittel says, indicating a large, color-blocked woven panel hanging in “Fluid Panel State,” her 10th solo show at Andrea Rosen Gallery. The panel in question, “A-Z Cover Series 2 (Rust and Gold Geometric),” is one of dozens…
Continue Reading…
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.
