04/04/2014

Italian Renaissance Theaters: Teatro all’Antica

Teatro all’antica (“Theatre in the style of the ancients”) is a theatre in Sabbioneta near Mantua. A jewel of rare beauty, it was the first free-standing building designated exclusively for theatre performances. In fact, it would anticipate subsequent abandonment of open-air plays in favour of indoor performances. It is the second-oldest surviving indoor theatre in the world (after the Palladian Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza), and is, along with Teatro Farnese in Parma, one of three remaining Renaissance theatres.

In May 1588, Duke Vespasiano Gonzaga commissioned Vincenzo Scamozzi to build a theatre in his idealized town of Sabbioneta. Even though Scamozzi’s design relies on that of his master, Palladio, it was nevertheless compromised by completely different needs in terms of space and form. While Palladio’s theatre in Vicenza is wide and shallow (almost squared), Scamozzi’s is narrow and deep (rectangular), with seating area arranged around an almost horseshoe-shaped plan. Though smaller in scale, with only five rows of seats, the theatre in Sabbioneta retains some of the original Palladian solemnity, adding, at the same time, a unique and innovative element to the structure: a back entrance reserved for the artists, with direct access to dressing rooms.

Currently, one of the remaining elements of the original theatre is the elegant and harmonious lodge consisting of a Corinthian colonnade surmounted by crown statues representing deities of the Olympus. The statues of Gods and the elegant mouldings were built by the Venetian sculptor Bernardino Quadri (school of Veronese), while the raised stage was characterized by sets designed by Scamozzi himself, destroyed in the second half of the 18th century. It represented an urban perspective, a street lined with noble and bourgeois buildings. The sense of depth was accentuated by tilting both the stage and the vaulted ceiling, made of woven river reeds, plastered and painted blue.

The buildings of the scene, as in Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, were made of wood, stucco and painted canvas with faux marble and faux stone, while frescos on the side completed the scene giving the illusion of great distance. While we cannot define the structure built by Scamozzi a proscenium arch in the modern sense of the term, it nevertheless presented a very elaborate stage design. Larger than the one in Vicenza, much of the stage space in Sabbioneta is used to create the illusion of an outdoor perspective, leaving little room for actors. In fact, it proved to be too hampering, and was substituted with movable flats in later productions.

Unlike the theatre in Vicenza, surrounded by buildings on all sides, the one in Sabbioneta is almost free-standing and Scamozzi was free to design three imposing facades, severe enough in style to be defined Palladian – a plain ground floor with rusticated quoins, doorways and windows, and a piano nobile with coupled pillars and niches – a unique and precious gem of Italian Renaissance architecture.

Giulio Ghirardi 
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01/04/2014

The art of Sister Corita

“Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.”, wrote Sister Corita together with her students at the Immaculate Heart College back in 1967, summarizing, at the same time, the enthusiasm, passion, persistence and wit that has characterized her personal output though the years. Sister Corita Kent was born in 1918 as Frances Elizabeth Kent into an Irish-American Catholic family living in Iowa. At the age of five, she moved to Hollywood where she would later (at 18) enter the convent of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Religious Community.

Upon entering the Community, Sister Corita met her mentor and fellow art entrepreneur Sister Meg, with whom she would later travel, teach and work for more than a decade, becoming a sort of an establishment for the local creative community, collaborating and exchanging ideas with personalities like Buckminster Fuller, John Cage, Peter Yates, Virgil Thomson, Josef von Sternberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Saul Bass, Daniel Berrigan and Charles and Ray Eames. While teaching at the Immaculate Heart College, Sister Corita would use a myriad of different and mostly unorthodox techniques in showing her students how to think and look at the surrounding world. Her idea was that art was on the streets and in the marketplace: those were the sources students were asked to draw inspiration from.

In fact, Sister Corita’s work itself was primarily focused on text and vibrant color, manipulated type and images appropriated from the newly burgeoning consumer culture of her era. Rather than using the trappings of materialism to point out its flaws, however, she would radically reframe the elements she extracted from advertising logos and signage by spatially manipulating the text. She would then add quotations from sources as diverse as the Bible, author and philosopher Albert Camus, poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and contemporary pop songs by the Beatles.

After leaving the religious community in 1968, Corita Kent’s work has nevertheless changed, turning into a more subtle, nuanced approach to art making. Currently, two different exhibitions are celebrating her work, one at the Circle Culture Gallery in Berlin, and the other at Galerie Allen in Paris. Both exhibitions aim at retracing the richness and variety of Sister Corita’s work, bringing to life her spirit of collaboration, renewal, positivity and joy, that many students, art workers and teachers could still benefit from today.

“Let the Sun Shine In – A Retrospective” will run until May 10th 2014 at Circle Culture Gallery in Berlin, while “But, There Is Only One Thing That Has Power” will run until April 19th at Galerie Allen in Paris.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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25/03/2014

Shigeru Ban Wins Pritzker Prize

The purpose of Pritzker Prize, viewed as the Nobel of architecture, is to “to honor a living architect/s whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture,” and it usually involves the works keen on leaving a permanent mark on our landscape. Yet, this year’s prize was awarded to an architect whose work is anything but imposing or monumental.

Shigeru Ban, born in 1957 in Tokyo, is known for his unorthodox choice of material. While carton tubes and paper are usually used to build working models, Ban has been using those very materials his projects for disaster relief projects around the world. Rather than praising only formal qualities and stylistic coherence, this year’s prize was awarded to the Japanese architect because “His buildings provide shelter, community centers and spiritual places for those who have suffered tremendous loss and destruction. When tragedy strikes, he is often there from the beginning.”

Combining Japanese tradition with his Western education and influences, Shigeru Ban has been developing unique structural solutions starting from formal explorations with basic building materials. In fact, it was almost 20 years ago that Ban started using paper-tube structure for building temporary homes after the Kobe earthquake in 1995. Since then, his temporary structures were deployed for the Cardboard Cathedral in New Zealand or Paper Concert Hall in L’Acquila, Italy, while other notable projects include Centre Pompidou Metz, Naked House or Crutain Wall House.

Firmly convinced that architects should serve the public and not just a privileged few, Shigeru Ban stated: “Receiving this prize is a great honour, and with it, I must be careful. I must continue to listen to the people I work for.”

Rujana Rebernjak 
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21/03/2014

Trix and Robert Haussmann: Manierismo Critico

Trix and Robert Haussmann have spent their lives challenging design and architecture practices. From their early projects in the 1960s, reductively categorized as post-modern or radical design, until their “Manierismo Critico” manifesto in 1980, the Swiss couple has questioned, subverted and interpreted with irony, humour and wit the rigid forms of the country’s modernism.

With the perspective of time, there is much to be newly discovered in their approach: the so-called ‘Lehrstücke’ (‘teaching items’) series, drawings, poems, fabric collections, or buildings they designed, such as the Boutique Weinberg and Shopville in Zurich’s main railway station; Trix and Robert Haussmann’s projects can be found in a diversity of forms, each offering a critical and idiosyncratic vision of architectural, design and aesthetic conventions.

After a 2012 exhibition at Studiolo in Zürich, paired with a beautiful publication by Edition Patrick Frey, a new show aims at revealing different aspects of the couple’s work. Conceived in close collaboration with the architects over a long period of time, the exhibition will be held at Fri Art, Centre d’art de Fribourg in Switzerland, and will trace the projects developed since the founding of their joint studio Allgemeine Entwurfsanstalt in 1967.

Rather than a simple retrospective, the show will be the perfect occasion to engage in critical discussion about canons of architecture and design practice, revealing how objects can be vectors of meaning and what being an architect today actually entails.

Trix and Robert Haussmann exhibition will open on April 26th 2014 at Fri Art in Fribourg, Switzerland.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Edition Patrick Frey 
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18/03/2014

Sensing Spaces at London’s Royal Academy

In our everyday life, we are used to accepting spaces that surround us just as they are, rarely questioning their forms, structure, light or material, and how all these elements affect us. An exhibition, which opened at the Royal Academy of Arts in London back in January, investigates our relationship with those elements of architecture and space through a series of seven installations developed by an eclectic mix of contemporary architects.

Titled “Sensing Spaces” and curated by Kate Goodwin, the exhibition’s full-scale installations occupy the impressive first floor galleries of the Academy, inviting the visitors to touch, smell, feel and live the works displayed. In fact, the curator describes the exhibition as an immersive experience, about experiencing the power and poetics of architecture: “People will respond to each of these installations in different ways and discover different things,” says Goodwin.

From Pritzker Award-winning architects Eduardo Souto de Moura and Álvaro Siza to Berlin-based African architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, from Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell of Irish practice Grafton Architects to the young Pezo von Ellrichshausen, from subtle interplay of smell and light developed by Kengo Kuma to an immersive labyrinth designed by Li Xiaodong, each architect’s work concentrated on a specific aspect of space. Grafton Architects explored the concept of light and lightness with two sculptural installations suspended from above, while Kéré invited the public to engage with his structure adding plastic straws to a structure made of honeycomb panels. Grand masters Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura explored the tradition and history of the exhibition’s building with installations that challenged our view of the architectural practice itself.

“Sensing Spaces” demonstrates an ever-growing willingness to create exhibitions, temporary projects and installations about architecture where the visitor isn’t only seen as a silent observer, but is actively invited to participate, touch, feel, add pieces and live the spaces on display. Whether this type of show, in between Serpentine Gallery’s temporary pavilion and more structured, yet sometimes equally elusive, narrations about architecture such as the Venice Biennale, actually contributes to our awareness of the spaces that surround us is still to be discussed. In the meanwhile, the beautiful installations at Burlington House wait to be explored, with “Sensing Spaces” running until the 6th of April 2014.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Royal Academy of Arts 
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10/03/2014

Man Machine by Konstantin Grcic at Galerie Kreo

There are few contemporary designers that can take on such complex, diverse and challenging tasks as Konstantin Grcic. From über-technological furniture, to small everyday objects, from warm apartment interiors to experiments with unsual materials and production techniques, Grcic constantly re-affirms himself as one of the boldest and bravest contemporary designers. And, in fact, a new exhibition at Galerie Kreo, the hub of uncompromising contemporary design, demonstrates his ability to tackle and examine production processes, materials, systems and finishings in creating objects that are between functionality and appearance, conceptuality and reality of everyday use.

Borrowing its title from the Kraftwerk album, “Man Machine” is an exhibition that explores the duality between a fragile material and sturdy mechanical components that make it both practical and functional, by showcasing a series of glass objects produced in collaboration with a workshop established in Frankfurt in 1829 from industrial float glass identical to that used in architecture.

Each piece exhibited in the show – a round table, bookshelves, a chair, a side table, a large table, single and double chests, a vertical cabinet – is operated by a simple mechanism that not only meets contemporary design’s demand for scaleability but also truly performs its function. By means of pistons, hinges, cranks and knobs, and through the use of black silicone that allows plates of glass to move whilst highlighting their design, each piece is dynamic and lends itself to human movements.

Cold yet sensual, transparent yet somehow elusive and ethereal, structurally and functionally explicit yet, at the same time, delicate and poetic, “Man Machine” appears to be an exploration into the inconsistencies and discordancies of design production, challenging the way we view our material reality, the way our everyday objects are produced, used and, ultimately, understood.

“Man Machine” runs through May 17th 2014 at Galerie Kreo in Paris.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Galerie Kreo 

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04/03/2014

Design is a State of Mind at Serpentine Sackler Gallery

If you look throughout the history, you will find that not many designers have challenged themselves with designing a bookshelf. Rather, they have taken on simpler tasks, associating their names with chairs or lamps, and it is fairly easy to understand why. Differently form a chair, a sofa or a lamp, a bookshelf is more often custom made then brought home from some branded shop. It needs to fit exact needs in terms of space and form, often growing with our personal collections of books, objects and various knick-knacks. In fact, bookshelves can often be seen almost as a metaphysic piece of furniture more than a merely functional object, containing our personal stories, passions, dreams and inspirations.

This is precisely the narrative about designed objects that a new exhibition opening tomorrow at Serpentine Sackler Gallery tries to pinpoint. Titled “Design is a State of Mind” and curated by Martino Gamper, the irreverent master of design and craft, this exhibition presents a landscape of shelving systems, telling the story of design objects and their impact on our lives. Besides an extensive survey of shelving systems produced from 1930 until today, ranging from pieces designed by Gaetano Pesce, Franco Albini, Ettore Sottsass, Ercol, Gio Ponti and IKEA, the exhibition will also display personal archives and collections of Gamper’s friends and colleagues, among which Enzo Mari, Paul Neale, Max Lamb & Gemma Holt, Jane Dillon, Michael Marriott, Sebastian Bergne, Fabien Cappello, Adam Hills, Michael Anastassiades, Andrew McDonagh & Andreas Schmid, Daniel Eatock and Martino Gamper himself.

Rather than an exhibition about material qualities, form and function of a designed object, “Design is a State of Mind” should be viewed as an exploration of memories, emotions and interests hidden in the form an object. As Martino Gamper states: “There is no perfect design and there is no über-design. Objects talk to us personally. Some might be more functional than others, and the emotional attachment is very individual. This exhibition will showcase a very personal way of collecting and gathering objects – these are pieces that tell a tale.”

“Design is a State of Mind” curated by Martino Gamper will run at Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London from 5th of March until 21st of April 2014.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images Courtesy of Amendolagine e Barracchia, Nilufar, Riboni, Fondazione studio museo Vico Magistretti and Angus Mill 
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27/02/2014

Design Apartments: design collections with an aura

Design in context: is it what end users are looking for? Consumers’ emerging behaviours may be unpredictable, but the ultimate marketing intelligentsia assures that the time of big, impersonal showrooms is finally over. A true design addict, they say, shrinks back from traditional shop windows and prefers to dwell in spontaneous environments such as studios or flats, which have now turned into new epicentres of design on display.

The peculiarity of these new hubs, which have already been branded as “design apartments”, is to be inhabited by real people -both ordinary or members of design studios- who give these spaces a personal touch and offer a genuine interpretation of how new collections should be experienced.

If design galleries led the way to this trend (how not to mention Gallery Fumi?), Lago is undoubtedly the first brand to have actively embraced the new concept. Its network of “Appartamento Lago”, now spread not only in Italy but also in the first European outpost in Alicante, represents the first attempt of a design company going for a systematic and vigorous personalization of their furniture catalogues. Every apartment’s identity is determined by the personality of its inhabitants, but also from a specific genius loci which contributes in the collection’s aura: while each piece of furniture doesn’t cease being a serial product, the different architectural contexts in which they are exhibited – like an old flooring in one of Lago’s apartments near Turin or a groin vault in Salento- revisit and enhance their formal and structural potential.

A natural evolution of this concept has recently found a new address in New York, where a network of small but hypercompetitive Italian companies – including Bosa, Elica, Secondome Gallery, Exnovo, Magis – have teamed up in founding a Design Apart, the very first design apartment in New York, located in Chelsea. With the idea of valorising Italian craftsmanship and design through a new narrative and context, this space combines a series of heterogeneous pieces into a new furniture syntax that can be discovered and appreciated with more fun and engagement.

Thus, design apartments finally embody what we started to miss in the era of ubiquitous Behance and Pinterest platforms: finally an exciting new meeting place, a natural hub for the local creative community, an opportunity for building networks and finding new ideas, even without buying that brand new sofa.

Giulia Zappa 
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25/02/2014

Prima Materia by Studio Formafantasma

How many times have you heard that design was more about the process than the final result? And yet, how many times has the final result influenced the way you viewed, understood and appreciated the process through which it was brought to light? While we can undoubtedly affirm that design is so much more than the physical form of an object, nevertheless, without it, all the social, cultural, economic, technological, productional implications of a designed object couldn’t be brought to light. This is precisely why Studio Formafantasma’s work is so powerful: because it fuses thoughts, ideas, critiques and concepts into an exceptional, intriguing physical form.

Usually developed for specific events and exhibitions, all of their projects have never been shown together. Thus, the exhibition “Prima Materia” currently on show at the Stedelijk Museum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, appeared the perfect occasion to analyse their past projects, sense their poetics and delve in their design process. In fact, the title of the exhibition itself is a sort of a key for all of their projects, where “Prima Materia” refers to alchemy, or the transformation of everyday raw materials into precious goods, a method used for their Botanica, Craftica, Autarchy, Baked or Moulding Tradition projects. In revealing the process which glues together all the different project, the designers have divided the show in two parts: videos, sketches and material samples along the entrance corridor give a look at the duo’s thought and work processes before the finished pieces are viewed in the main space.

To understand their projects, in fact, one must take into account their personal and professional histories. Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin met while studying in Florence and later went to study together at the Design Academy Eindhoven, the hub of speculative, critical, experimental or socially and politically engaged design, that has characterized Dutch design production in the last three decades. In fact, Studio Formafantasma fits perfectly within this strand of design production, while still developing projects whose subtle poetics might appear the opposite of those explicitly bold objects produced by Droog.

In fact, Farresin and Trimarchi have told us a while ago that they really enjoy not belonging to anything or anywhere: “We always say we’re bastards, because if you put together Dutch and Italian design, it seems like nothing can come out of it or have a strong identity.” On the contrary, all of their projects have a strong identity that informed their practice since the very beginning and which draws on the past and exploration of traditional crafts in “offering an alternative vision to today’s consumer society and the role that design plays in it”.

“Prima Materia” runs until the 15th of June at the Stedelijk Museum in s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images © Inga Powilleit 
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19/02/2014

Barber and Osgerby: In the Making at Design Museum

Have you ever wondered how your favourite chair, lamp or simply a mug looked like before they arrived at your home? How many different processes, materials, people or energy was involved in its production? How it looked when it was neither a finished product nor simply a shapeless mass of raw material? Designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby apparently ask themselves those very questions quite often and have tried answering some in an exhibition curated for the Design Museum in London.

Titled “In the Making”, the exhibition showcases a series of objects in their unfinished state. From cricket bats, felt hats, shoes, boots, marbles or light bulbs, to whistles, pencils, coins, horns, lenses and Olympic torches, these objects are meant to reveal the secret processes that result in their finished form. The objects have been selected because they each have an unexpected quality about them in those moments, hours or days before they assume their final, recognisable form. The exhibition captures points in the making process, a peculiar and unconventional slice of time in the production of everyday objects, while also showing a glimpse of Barber and Oserby’s ongoing dialogue with manufacturing that is so distinctive to their practice.

Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby comment “We have always been fascinated by the making process as it is an integral part of our work. We have curated an exhibition that will provide a platform to capture and reveal a frozen moment in the manufacturing process and unveils an everyday object in its unfinished state. Often the object is as beautiful, if not more so, than the finished product!”

Even though the exhibition shows a surprising side of our everyday material reality, it nevertheless fails to grasp the complexity of the production process, such as the 85 processes involved in the manufacture of a MacBook or the raw reality of an industrial facility, with environmental, economic, social and cultural implications of those simple objects we usually take for granted.

In the Making
22 January – 4 May 2014
Design Museum,
Shad Thames,
London

Rujana Rebernjak 
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