THE SOLE PURPOSE OF CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN AND THE SECRETS BEHIND FALL'S MOST INSPIRING OBJECTS
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The Sole Purpose of Christian Louboutin and the Secrets Behind Fall’s Most Inspiring Objects
25 ideas in design
IID
A pavilion turns a
coastal hangout in
Spain into a lesson
in green design.
Since last November’s Smart City Expo World Congress,
a conference in Barcelona on sustainable economic and
environmental growth, the city’s Olympic Port has been
home to a jagged, cantilevering pavilion. Designed and One of France’s
built in just two months by professors at the city’s Institute
for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia for Spain’s largest most progressive
electric utility, Endesa, it’s intended to be “a kind of control design minds lends
room to monitor all of [the company’s] solar technologies his vision to the
in real time,” says project manager Rodrigo Rubio. To fab-
ricate the scheme—Rubio calls it “a skin system”—the casual wristwatch.
“Young people don’t normally like to wear
PHOTOS: ENDESA PAVILION, ADRIA GOULA. TAKE TIME, COURTESY LEXON.
team sent digital files to a nearby factory, where panels of watches,” says René Adda, founder of French
laminated pine were cut and assembled into 35 modules. brand Lexon. “But it’s fun. It has something
individual.” The company’s latest unisex
Once on-site, the modules were clad in solar panels and timepiece, Take Time, designed by Mathieu
connected to create the 1,500-square-foot space. The Lehanneur, especially fits this mind-set.
Made of flexible silicone rubber and available
result, which will stay in 10 color options, it is many types of watch
up until late fall, is what in one; it can be worn on a backpack, hand-
bag, bike, belt loop—or practically anything.
Rubio describes as “an For use as a wristwatch, it clasps by secur-
abstract solar solution” ing the loop at the end of the band around
the circumference of its watertight face.
that could be scaled up Unclasped, it’s like a modern take on the tra-
to “a typical Barcelona ditional pocket watch, or a mini version of a
grandfather clock’s swinging pendulum. Of
block or office tow- the watch, Adda says, “It’s always changing,
ers.”—Spencer Bailey always different.”—Rebecca Anne Hart
ideas in design 26
A
t wentieth-century
American legend
in ceramics gets
Before Instagram,
three artists put
his proper salute.
U.S. architecture
into proper focus.
Throughout the mid-20th century, three American photographers largely shaped
the public’s architectural imagination: Ezra Stoller in New York; Julius Shulman
in L.A.; and Balthazar Korab, who shot the above 1956 image of a model of Eero
Saarinen’s TWA terminal, in Detroit. “The late ’50s, ’60s, and even into the ’70s,
when the media industry in general was really booming, was their golden age,”
says University of Minnesota associate professor of architecture John Comazzi,
whose book Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography is just out from Princeton
Architectural Press. Another book, Ezra Stoller: Photographer, edited by critic and
This fall, the Los Angeles County historian Nina Rappaport with Stoller’s daughter, Erica, will be released by Yale
PHOTOS: KEN PRICE, FREDRIK NILSEN. TWA TERMINAL MODEL, BALTHAZAR KORAB. GRETE MARKS, JOHN R. GLEMBIN.
University Press later this fall. Comparing Ezra Stoller, who passed away at 89
Museum of Art remembers the in 2004 and mostly used a large-format camera, to Korab, 86, who often shoots
late California-based artist Ken with a 35-millimeter, Comazzi says: “Stoller’s [work] is very measured and precise.
Korab certainly has shots like that, but I think for the most part his work is slightly
Price, who died in February at more dynamic, at least in terms of the inclusion of atmosphere and people and
77, with a retrospective exhibi- action. You can see that there’s a quickness to the shoot.”—S.B.
tion featuring more than 90 of
his ceramic sculptures. For the
design of the installation, cura-
tor Stephanie Barron felt there An exhibit asks: Can
was “really only one person” a teacup be a crime?
to ask, someone who would To be avant-garde, liberal, or Jewish in 1930s
understand the materiality of Germany was bad enough. Bauhaus-trained
ceramicist Grete Marks was all three. This
the pieces and who Price had month, the Milwaukee Art Museum exhibits
trusted deeply since the ’60s: the designer’s work, including conical tea-
pots that illustrate Weimar cultural produc-
Frank Gehry. Rather than some tion between the wars. After the rise of Hitler
“titanium, shiny, undulating build- in 1933, Marks was labeled a degenerate.
But “how can a triangle-shaped teapot be
ing,” though, Barron says the sub- degenerate?” asks curator Mel Buchanan,
tle design will present the works whose show turns the term into a badge of
honor and suggests that though her Haël
with grandeur, giving “each their Factory became a victim to the Nazis, “Grete
own moment to shine.”—Ali Mills Marks was not.”—James Gaddy
ideas in design 28 29
01
At Design Miami in Citius, Altius, Fortius:
Nike uses dynamic
Basel, history, nature, environs to give
American athletes
and craft collided. 07
08 a boost in morale.
Nike returned to its roots this
summer with Camp Victory, a
(1) Paris-based Granville Gallery exhibited process-laden pieces. One of them (shown here) used
10-day kinetic playground for
chopped wood from a tree branch to blow organic forms of glass, part of a long-running collabo- U.S. Olympic Trials athletes and
ration between Matali Crasset and Dutch glassblower Vincent Breed. (2) Florence’s Antonella
Villanova gallery hosted a solo show of mixed-media works by jewelry designer
visitors, next to Hayward Field at
Manfred Bischoff, including “Less Than More” (2005), made from gold, coral, and the University of Oregon—the site
diamond. (3) Following her recent retrospective at the Hôtel de Duras, New York’s
Demisch Danant exhibited Maria Pergay’s new and old works, such as this new seat
of the track-and-field trials for the
using stainless steel—the material that made her a legend. (4/5) Milan’s Dilmos gal- 1972 games. Portland-based firm
lery showed Mazzolin di Fiori, Italian designer Andrea Salvetti’s domes made of alu-
minum flowers, as well as Nuvole Domestiche, a collection of furniture prototypes
Skylab Architecture transformed
made from oxidized-aluminum springs. (6) Eyal Burstein of studio Beta Tank was the venerable grounds into an
tapped by returning exhibitor Swarovski Crystal Palace. Instead of simply incorporat-
ing the material into his designs, he created seats whose shapes were derived by the
interactive space housed in three
brand’s Chaton-cut crystals. (7) Playing off the U.K.’s Olympic fever, London gallerist tensile pavilions that “aimed to
Libby Sellers exhibited a series of chess sets by designers, including this one by
Rolf Sachs. (8) Playing with themes of technology and light,
create powerful perspectives
Belgium’s Victor Hunt gallery exhibited these LED light that heighten the perception of
boxes by Swedish-German duo Humans Since
1982. (9) This armchair in birch veneer, part of
speed,” says firm director Jeff
the collection of anthroposophic furniture
02
Kovel. Inside, professional and
from prewar Austrian thinker Rudolf Steiner,
was shown by Paris gallery Franck Laigneau.
amateur sportsmen alike could
(10) Fendi continued to explore handmade techniques 09 compete against each other
through young talents supplied with the brand’s discard-
ed materials. This year’s exercise, Craftica, produced
thanks to an innovative series of
luxe results by duo Formafantasma, including this leather visual tools devised by the digital
wall divider.—Dan Rubinstein
agency Hush that, according to
cofounder David Schwarz, sim-
07, COURTESY ROLF SACHS. 10, LUISA ZANZANI.
PHOTOS: CAMP VICTORY, COURTESY SKYLAB ARCHITECTURE.
09
10
plified the “display of unattainable,
03
05
adored, Olympic-level athleti-
cism.”—Julie Baumgardner
05
06
04
ideas in design 32
Visualization is taken
to a new level by Audi.
With a retail concept designed by in-house
architect Floris Dreesman, Audi has entrusted
its vehicles’ appeal to the virtual realm. Audi City,
a brand-immersion showroom that opened near
London’s Piccadilly Circus in July, is intended
as a space for passersby to configure vehicles
to their specs without pressure to buy. Visitors
use touch screens to review every model, color,
and equipment option, with configurations
projected onto a wall at one-to-one scale and
the option to save it to a thumb drive. An Audi
spokesperson says this location is a “blueprint”
for many more to come.—Jonathan Schultz
A design week
that’s off the beaten
track urges us to
consider lost values
of craft.
A drab lobby gets
PHOTOS: AUDI CITY, COURTESY AUDI. BUILDING ACADEMY SALZBURG, FLORIAN HAFELE.
This year’s Budapest Design a digital facelift
using abstraction.
Week, held Sept. 28 through Oct.
7, embraces a strong collective
desire to downshift with its theme
of Slow Design. The emphasis is “We often design geometries that are evocative yet abstract
not so much on tempo as it is on enough to leave room for the observer’s interpretation,”
a more considered approach to says Kristina Schinegger of the Austrian firm Soma, which
creation. Design Terminál, a for- recently extended a foyer at the Building Academy in
mer bus depot built in the cen- Salzburg into a light, airy entrance hall. The firm sought “to
trally located Erzsébet Square create a new atmosphere while still respecting the existing
in 1949, will host the main event, building,” says partner Martin Oberascher. To achieve this,
which will include international they opened up the slab-concrete space and installed star-
and local work from established tling, digitally developed concrete-and-mesh forms.—J.B.
and student designers, includ-
ing those from the nearby
Moholy-Nagy University of Art
and Design. “We try to design
objects that remind us of our
forgotten values,” says 25-year-
old designer Kata Mónus, whose
Hybrid Furniture (above) will be
on view. “These turn attention
to the importance and time-
lessness of natural materials.”
—Jordan Kushins
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