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Selfridges Denim Studio: inside the world's largest jeans emporium

2013-06-18 17:00:00

It was Giorgio Armani who once declared, 'Jeans represent democracy in fashion', while Yves Saint Laurent often lamented not having invented jeans. They were once a uniform staple for factory workers and miners, but you'd be hard-pressed today to find a closet that doesn't harbour a pair (or five). So it's fitting that Selfridges has dedicated 26,000 sq ft of retail space to fashion's most enduring material. The London department store's new Denim Studio has been pegged as the largest and most comprehensively curated denim emporium in the world.

The anchor of the space is the digital 'jeanius bar', taking pride of place in the so-called Fit Studio. London-based Kin Design (and former Wallpaper* cohorts) fashioned an interactive table with three large touchscreen tablets, running a stream of bespoke media, from lookbooks and brand biographies to street-style snaps. The digital bites can be passed around the table with the swipe of a finger and 'thrown' onto the big screen.

Customers can also browse the 11,000 available styles, bookmarking their selections into a wishlist that can be emailed or printed out as a pocket-sized booklet. Also on offer: a Denim Tailor, who offers two-hour alterations across every brand; the Platform, which hosts special projects launches and previews; and the first ever personal shopping suite dedicated to denim.

The denim wonderland currently boasts 52 designers in its portfolio, including Rag & Bone, Junya Watanabe and Christopher Kane (soon to join the fold are Proenza Schouler, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Givenchy). Nearly every brand chipped in to create exclusive pieces for the opening.

Retail architects HMKM, longtime Selfridges collaborators, restored original architectural details to the space, as well as decking out the shopfit with lava stone display tables, acrylic grid racks and a futuristic neon-blue beam.

Although it recently opened to the public, the official celebration kicks off next Monday with the launch of Denim Lovers: a blockbuster two-month programme of denim-centric events. Timed to coordinate, Selfridges will also unveil its summer store windows, featuring one-off celebratory denim pieces by designers such as J.W. Anderson, Stella McCartney and Erdem.

The W* Library: flick through June's top ten titles

2013-06-18 13:00:00

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Maserati GranTurismo Sport

2013-06-18 11:00:00

Like many niche manufacturers, Maserati's models have long lives, burnished by regular updates, enhancements and special editions. The company recently made a play for the big time with the launch of a new mid-size saloon, the Ghibli, hoping to up production levels and sales around the world. If truth be told, the focus on the Ghibli and the likely follow-up model, the Levante SUV, has distracted from the fact that the company's core car, the GranTurismo, is getting rather long in the tooth.

The most recent iteration of this Pininfarina-designed grand tourer, the GranTurismo Sport rolled into the Wallpaper* garage for assessment, following on from a sampling of its drop-top sibling last year. While the Maserati has undeniable presence, we can't help feeling that the original design is showing its age. Whereas competitors like Aston Martin and Porsche get away with slightly conservative design thanks to the innate rightness of the original forms, the Maserati's swoops, ducts and curves become ever more exaggerated and ungainly over the years. The overall effect is akin to a dose of rather obvious plastic surgery.

Likewise, the GT's cockpit is well appointed, lavishly upholstered and spacious, but it doesn't represent cutting edge ergonomic design. To bridge the gulf between heritage and tradition and race car pedigree is a tall order for any designer, but the Gran Turismo Sport does neither especially well. Even the central clock - a quirky signature feature of the cars for decades - looks like an afterthought, not a design delight.

It's when you turn the ignition that this car's raison d'etre becomes totally clear; the GT Sport is an automotive extrovert. The GT is a loud car, amplifying the sound of the big V8 to such an extent that the waffle and thunder follows you down the road, echoing off buildings and snapping heads. It's impossible to drive this car quietly, most especially in 'Sport' mode, which might as well bear the legend 'everyone look at me'. With a pair of Persols perched on your brow and some casual knitwear slung across the (capacious) back seats, the GT Sport is at home as accessory, despite the sound and fury. Perhaps that's all a grand tourer need be in this modern age, but we're still keenly awaiting the GT's successor.

MSGM and ToiletPaper design a range of limited-edition sweatshirts

2013-06-17 13:07:00

For a magazine that prints only images, ToiletPaper has managed to cultivate one of the art media's most distinctive and influential voices. This week the glossy and former Wallpaper* collaborator unveils a series of sensational picture windows at the entrance of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Then, at Milan Men's fashion week next week, the magazine will launch its first partnership with fashion label MSGM: a line of unisex sweatshirts featuring ToiletPaper's audacious imagery and MSGM's simple lines.

The range of comfort wear bearing distinctly uncomfortable prints (one features a gold eyelash curler about to clamp down on a pair of falsies) arrives as ToiletPaper strives to expand its influence beyond the page. Three years into its print run, founders Pierpaolo Ferrari, the offbeat commercial photographer, and satirical sculptor Maurizio Cattelan have recognised the limits of arthouse bookshop shelves and Tumblr pages, no matter how clever.

'We are interested in trying out our images in different mediums,' says Ferrari. 'We discovered that a toad in a sandwich works just as well on a sweatshirt.'

For Massimo Giorgetti, the young creative director of MSGM, the collaboration follows the natural order of avant-garde Italian design, marrying like-minded innovators who use bold imagery as their draw. 'I have found thousands of similarities between the subjects of the prints used in my collections and the images printed in the magazine,' says the designer. 'The images in ToiletPaper have always captured my attention, inspiring and entertaining me.'

Giorgetti will make the capsule collection available online later this month through the Parisian concept store Colette, as well as designer fashion sites Lane Crawford, LuisaViaRoma, SSense and The Corner.

Delvaux's new store concept by artists Martine Feipel and Jean Bechameil

2013-06-17 11:57:00

The Belgians may have had a love affair with Delvaux since 1829, but on an international playing field, the world's oldest fine leather goods house has not had the renown it deserves. All that is set to change. Luxury spenders are falling out of love with trend-driven 'in-your-face' product, and in a sea of fast fashion it's the bespoke, handmade item that is garnering the ultimate cachet. Armed with only the best leathers, stellar production values and now a new store concept, which embraces its heritage yet concurrently looks to the future, Delvaux's discreet revolution looks set to take over the luxury world.

A new global store concept, freshly unveiled in the brand's historical Galerie La Reine boutique in Brussels, comes courtesy of Luxembourg-based artists Martine Feipel and Jean Bechameil, together with architect Tiziano Vudafieri. La Reine was chosen as the launch boutique owing to its reputation as one of Brussels' oldest shopping hubs, and the Art Deco arcade exterior serves as a welcome foil to Delvaux's new space.

Dominating the interior is an airy white and grey palette, peppered with industrial wire-mesh panelling and elegant brass fittings. Overall, the feeling is modern, but with notable references to classicism and Surrealism - the later being a very big part of the nation's cultural history. Look closer and seemingly simple display cabinets are bordered with subtle curves and come with hidden compartments. This duality - the contrast of rough industrial material and luxurious finishes, the mix of secrecy and theatricality - is at the heart of Delvaux's store concept.

Feipel and Bechameil have clearly designed it as an elegant ode to Delvaux's Belgian heritage, and yet, crucially, the themes are subtle enough to be applied to stores worldwide. 'My strategy is "think local, act global"', Jean-Marc Loubier, president and CEO of Fung Brands, the privately held investment firm who owns Delvaux, said at the opening. The group's acquisition of the family-owned brand may have caused rumblings when it was announced in 2011, but the fact of the matter is the move has clearly injected funds and international expertise into the running of this small luxury Belgian house.

Loubier reveals that Delvaux's international client base has increased from two per cent to 15 per cent in the past couple of years. He expects this number to grow exponentially and cites the new store concept, which will be rolled out in a 'cluster strategy' of shop-in-shops and boutiques around the world, as a key player in that vision. 'We now have a universe to welcome clients and connoisseurs and tell them a story, which is out of the ordinary. Clearly rooted in Belgium, the project is a global one.'

We caught up with artists Martine Feipel and Jean Bechameil at the opening to talk and asked them about their vision for Delvaux's store concept...

How did your collaboration with Delvaux come about?

Christina Zeller [Delvaux product and image director] invited us to think about the new store concept for Delvaux after she saw our work at the 2011 Venice Biennale, so I guess it was natural that we always had the installation in the back of our minds when ideas were being thrown around for Delvaux. The Venice work was in a typical Venetian pavilion that you walk through, and we used the context of the place and also architectural elements, twisting them to create a new story for Delvaux based on what the brand evokes for us.

Run us through your store concept for Delvaux.

We wanted to start from the idea of 'encapsulation', a concept in computer systems where you are able to create a part of the program which acts almost like a container. The program is locked and you are able to open it, but you can't intervene, you can't change it. There is something about this 'encapsulation' we like - the fact that you have this thing contained in another thing, which contains another thing. We wanted to play on this ambiguity of hiding things and revealing things, where a door opens into another door or a mirror, before showcasing the final object - in this case, the precious bag.

The store concept is in keeping with your work, then, which is based around creating elements of surprise and introducing the unknown into a seemingly ordered space.

We really like the idea of opening things in another dimension. There is a lot of play on dimension in our work, because we often have this thing of working in a place and taking the existing elements and kind of twisting them around, treating the space like an origami that you can unfold and refold in many possibilities, and each time find yourself within another space.

So did you come in with the concept, the 'feeling', first, rather than working to the specifications of a fixed space and then creating fixtures for it?

Exactly. Right from the very beginning, the 'idea' was the root of it all. To make this understood by Delvaux, we decided to build a set, a 'fake shop' if you like, where we experimented with all the different ways of creating a shop over six months. This way we were able to evolve the space and make changes to parts as we went along, taking into consideration any technical problems that we would have never thought about before, being artists, and making changes. The fake boutique was our way of having a physical relationship with the concept, because in our artwork, we do a lot of the work ourselves even though we have assistants helping.

The storage panels look as though they have been deliberately cut with a line that runs through them. It is interesting how even the discreet spaces have a subtle detail that draws the eye.

It really homes in on this idea of encapsulation, but also playfulness. So you can open the doors, move things around, there's something joyful and also surprising. The molded panels, which have been skewed and twisted, immediately look like they are not really in the place they should be. And like you say, they have these borders that intervene in between, giving the whole scene a collage effect.

It's very pleasantly unexpected…

Yes. That's exactly what we wanted to build on - the surprise, the idea of the unexpected, the twist. It starts from something that is in a way traditional, but then is kind of flopped around completely to create something a little bit surprising and even strange.

Being artists, this is the first time you've delved into a commercial project. Did you find it very challenging?

In art we are basically free, there is no 'functionality' to consider, it's just our fantasy, our ideas, so I think it was challenging in that respect. But we did then have this great collaboration with Tiziano [Vudafieri], who worked with us and helped us grapple with the technical and architectural details. Our work touches on different mediums - architecture, design and even performance - and it's nice to jump out of the art box and touch other mediums. It's very refreshing.

Design Miami/ Basel 2013: an insider's view

2013-06-14 14:31:00

The 2013 edition of Design Miami at Art Basel is a new and most definitely improved version of the twice yearly exhibition that brings together international design galleries each December in Miami and every June in Basel to show their wares simultaneously with Art Basel. There is plenty of colour and quality, and a new tendency to combine the old and the new.

Perhaps it is the new venue - Herzog and de Meuron's addition to the Basel Messe site, identified by the monumental latticed metal ring at the centre of its design - that has inspired gallerists to up their game. Or that Design Miami, now eight years old and being deftly run by Marianne Goebl, has grown into itself and has a new sense of credibility.

Among the highlights are two new works at Paris-based Galerie Kreo by Hella Jongerius, both exercises in colour. The 'Dragonfly' coffee table overlays laquered glass and aluminium to create sections of solid colour, the glimmer of metal and moments of transparency; the 'Niebla' is a standard refectory table turned into a piece de resistance by a gradual layering of blush pink over its walnut top.

Meanwile, London gallerist Libby Sellers' stand is similarly chromatic. She commissioned recent RCA graduate Anton Alvarez to make new designs with his Thread-Wrapping Machine (see W*163) in colour schemes to co-ordinate with the other pieces on her stand. The results - appealing stools, totems and more - are flying off the stand and Sellers has had to warn buyers there'll be quite a wait, as each piece is hand-made.

The London-based Frenchmen behind Carpenters Workshop Gallery have teamed up with Galerie Steinitz, purveyor of antique rarities, to prove that Studio Job sits very nicely next to a unique 18th Century commode, once the property of Madame de Pompadour. A lush 19th century apartment was constructed by a team of 21 over five days. The result, a room lined with embossed leather by contemporary designer Ingrid Donat and furnished with her boxy leather clad armchairs; another lined with George II boiserie, boasting a pretty minimal Rick Owens dining table finished in a dark matte lacquer.

The re-thinking of the W Hotels Designers of the Future award, which invites three young designers to create new work for Basel, has produced some worthy results too. This year, Jon Stam, Bethan Laura Wood and Seung-Yong Song were each sent to a W Hotel for inspiration - a mission with clear success. Stam's stint in Verbier has led to a black mirror in which views of the mountains throughout the seasons can be seen - a poetic portrayal of a place. Wood roamed the streets of Mexico City and returned to London to work with both Mexican and Italian glassmakers to create flower-like wall and table lights and large-scale chandeliers. And Seung-Yong Song - seeing how the city's sellers will attach wheels to just about anything on Bangkok's streets - has added them to his own neat contemporary storage systems in anodized aluminium.

Meanwhile a whole other side of design is celebrated by artist Mickalene Thomas at Better Days, an installation she devised as part of the Absolut Art Bureau initiative in the city's Volkshaus. In the spirit of her glistening portraiture, which features 1970s-styled women in heavily wallpapered interiors, she has reconstructed a fantasy 1970s suburban New York sitting room, complete with period chairs, wallpapers and even plug sockets. Fair goers dance on the patterned carpet until 2am every night, drink sticky 1970s style cocktails from a variety of chipped glasses and mugs and the American ones even get to charge their cell phones. It is just the sort of time travel and entertainment everyone needs at the end of a long day. Artful indeed.

An exclusive preview of 'White Snow' by Paul McCarthy

2013-06-13 12:00:00

Hot sun blisters the parking lot of a Los Angeles sound stage, about 30 miles north of Disneyland. A gaggle of actors outfitted as dwarves with phallic bulbous noses and coloured tights stand in the shade, smoking. My first thought was that this was a completely Paul McCarthy moment. Actually, it was a lunch break from McCarthy's demanding day of shooting for his project on Snow White. McCarthy himself is playing a character he calls Walt Paul, and has been transformed into a middle-aged Walt Disney.

A major artist who has redefined the nature of sculpture and performance, McCarthy announced himself with his installation 'The Garden', part of the game-changing 1992 show 'Helter Skelter' at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art. This is his most ambitious project to date. For one thing, McCarthy bought this 60,000 sq ft sound stage. As he says, 'it is really risky - a museum would look at this and see a storage and archival problem. I have to be real and say: 'Paul, you have made a piece that probably won't be sold.'

Any doubt that the piece will be a difficult sell is dismissed on entering the building to see a giant forest (a recurring theme in his work) of leafless trees and ferns. It is a lovely but entirely artificial sight, and the illusion is occasionally broken by gaping holes in the tree trunks, left by the moulding process. Furthermore, costumes once worn by Walt or by White Snow are strewn along the path, and there is a bottle of erotic lubricant under a bush.

McCarthy leads me along the path. We come across the naked figure of a woman, a rubber life cast of one of the actresses playing White Snow. 'This object was fucked,' he explains. 'It is not a real human. It may have something to do with how we see reality and desire,' he continues. 'And art. This is a kind of hyper-reality of desire. A Disneyesque landscape that does not exist. A dreamscape. And in the middle is my house.'

Sure enough, McCarthy's childhood home - a modest bungalow with white lace curtains in Salt Lake City, Utah - has been reconstructed at three-quarter scale. It is just a stage set façade, but in other sets McCarthy has had every room painstakingly reconstructed, and the interior completely trashed: the kitchen is slathered with chocolate; in the parlour, naked life casts of White Snow and Walt are splattered with what looks like blood.

At the Park Avenue Armory in New York, where the artist's installation 'WS' (as in White Snow) goes on view on 19 June, viewers will see the forest, the house and the sets from ground level or from a mezzanine, but will not be able to walk through it. Instead, they will watch the action on giant screens. McCarthy's earliest performances, in the 1960s and 1970s, were influenced by the man who invented the Happening, Allan Kaprow. These performances were improvisational and that remains McCarthy's comfort zone.

The complex relationship between the older Walt and the younger White Snow recalls another film completed by McCarthy last year, 'Rebel Dabble Babble', which will be on view at Hauser & Wirth New York from 20 June, along with some of McCarthy's White Snow drawings or sculptures. Based on the film Rebel Without a Cause, it features messy erotic encounters between director Nicholas Ray, played by McCarthy, and the Natalie Wood character, played by Elyse Poppers, with James Franco in the James Dean role.

However, 'White Snow' remains the more personal piece, exploring McCarthy's past and Mormon upbringing. Yet he insists that this is more than autobiography. 'It is an intentional work of art. You need more than psychology to make a work of art,' he says. 'I think it is not so much about who I am today, but me through my history. There is something poignant about the 1950s when Disney formed Disneyland as dreamscape. It's about a kind of enjoyment and dream, as opposed to accepting who we are in reality.'

The full, unabridged version of this article appeared in W*171

Editor: Michael Reynolds. Special thanks to Andrea Schwan

The 2013 Aston Martin DB9 Volante

2013-06-12 14:46:00

Taking stock of the revised Aston Martin DB9 is a little bit like revisiting a classic Corb chaise or Aalto stool, or even something as ubiquitous as an iPod. From the outside, not a lot appears to have changed. But with materials, manufacturing techniques and muscular forms all given a steady, ongoing and almost imperceptible improvement over the years, the car you see here is very different to the

Highlights from the London Festival of Architecture 2013

2013-06-12 11:34:00

This has been a year of change for the London Festival of Architecture. Launching in early June, this year's architectural festivities stretch over a whole month (as opposed to 2012's two-weeks), while 2013 also marks the first edition of the festival since it turned annual, setting the whole celebration off to a different pace.

Added to this, the 2013 festival - orchestrated by a quartet of initiating partners, including the Architecture Foundation, the British Council, RIBA London and the NLA - engages with many of London's cultural institutions that haven't been officially involved before, such as the Design Museum and the ICA. 'This year's festival throws the spotlight on the important role that architecture plays in the cultural life of London, with a programme of exhibitions, talks and events involving 25 organisations,' explains the British Council's Vicky Richardson.

The undercurrent of change can also be detected in several of the displays on offer this year. The Architecture Foundation show focuses on the work of Superuse Studios, promoting a change in our attitude towards material and energy re-use. The British Council's impressive Atlas of Unbuilt World designed by Pernilla Ohrstedt Studio, presents future projects from around the world, offering a glimpse of how the global landscape is changing; you can even 3D-print your project live, courtesy of printing agency 3Dpeasy. And RIBA's Welcome To The Social, created by architecture practice Hawkins\Brown, highlights the transformative effect of life - and design's - social aspect.

After all 'change' has always been part of the Festival's agenda. The theme was even reflected in the keynote debate organised by RIBA London earlier in the month, entitled 'London Architecture: what would you change?'. 'I'll consider the festival a success if it generates debate and discussion about architecture, deepens our understanding of the subject and makes us think about it in new ways,' says Richardson. 'I also think it's a chance to break down the artificial barriers that often exist between architects, clients, and the public.'

Other Festival highlights include the small yet perfectly formed Lesser Known Architecture show at the Design Museum, created by Elias Redstone, Theo Simpson and Wallpaper's very own Ben Mclaughlin (the latter two form Mass Observation), which brings the cream of London's crop of hidden architectural gems to the spotlight. Open studios, architecture tours (including a bicycle tour of Brutalist London) and workshops are also part of the program. And summer staples such as the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion (this year by Sou Fujimoto), and the architecture schools' summer shows - including the AA, the RCA and the Bartlett - are back as well.

And while most exhibitions opened during the festival's first week, events will be running throughout the month in both the core program and the fringe. More treats are in store for later too - the Barbican's playfully disorientating Dalston House installation by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich is not opening till the 26 June - so stay tuned.

The Haas brothers' bestial new furniture launches at Design Miami/ Basel

2013-06-11 17:27:00

If artists, musicians and furniture designers Simon and Nikolai Haas feel they don't have a sufficient number of adjectives before their collective name, they can surely pick up a few this week at Design Miami/Basel. The Haas brothers' latest range of furnishings - launched in Basel by New York contemporary-design gallery R 20th Century - comes with a list of descriptives a mile long, and when viewed at once it casts a whole new light on the craftsmen.

The new collection of reptilian brass tables and feral fur seating has a brutish quality that both attracts and repels. The brass coffee tables and stools employ the designers' groundbreaking hexagon-tile surface to unusual amorphous effect, creating a shape that appears to physically skulk. Combined with Plexiglas to form the 'Unique' lamp and shade, the hexagonal tiles take on a phallic quality that will shock and delight in equal measure - even among the cosmopolitan crowds at Basel.

Sheepskin seating with carved-wood horns and cloven brass feet is reassuringly luxurious - which may explain why when it came to designing the stool, the brothers chose to add feet textured like amphibian skin. One buffalo-fur bench is finished with a matching tail yet remains puzzlingly headless.

These are grand gestures, to be sure, but the Hass brothers - like their similarly outré clients Donatella Versace, Lady Gaga and Peter Marino - have unusual talent to back up their statements. They were both trained in the family business by their stone-carving father. And Simon attended the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design before they began collaborating in the Los Angeles workshop, where they are known to experiment with materials and temperatures like chemists. This collection features pottery that, rather than take on a straightforward glaze, has a so-called 'hand-grown' finish and the title 'Fungus Accretion'.

At Basel this week, their new works will appear alongside those of Greta Magnusson Grossman, Joaquim Tenreiro, Christian Wassmann, David Wiseman and Jeff Zimmerman.

'Prima' installation by Zaha Hadid for Swarovski at the Vitra Campus

2013-06-11 11:00:00

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Zaha Hadid's iconic Fire Station at the Vitra Campus in Germany and Swarovski has joined the celebrations by commissioning a new installation by the architect for the company's HQ in Germany.

The Fire Station was a landmark project for the architect. 'I'm equally proud of all my projects as they each represent different times of my career and periods of research, but I have a particular affection for Vitra Fire Station as it was my first building,' says Hadid, whose full monograph, The Complete Zaha Hadid, also comes out this summer, published by Thames and Hudson.

'[Vitra Chairman] Rolf Fehlbaum shares my passion for architecture and was inspired by my early visualizations,' the architect adds. 'He dared to engage me without seeing a prior track record and without the certainty of public success. Returning to Vitra to work with Swarovski on this installation has been a very rewarding experience.'

The new work, entitled 'Prima', is created out of five individual parts that form a larger abstract piece, inspired by early sketches of the Fire Station. Prima is gun-smoke metal-coated, with a highly reflective sheen. The parts are made out of MaxPlatten, a composite material usually used for exterior cladding in buildings, combined with CNC milled hard foam for the sculpting of the piece's double curved surfaces. Spanning an impressive 11m in length and 8m in width, the art piece will be lit by led light strips.

The commission forms part of Hadid's long relationship with Swarovski; the luxury crystal company is well known for its creative collaborations with some of the big guns of the art, architecture and design world. In this case, a display of Hadid's original sketches and architectural models of the Fire Station will accompany Prima, giving an insight into her creative process.

The installation will be unveiled on 11 June, coinciding with the Art Basel fair, and will be on show for two months.

Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik wins the 2013 Mies van der Rohe Award

2013-06-10 17:38:00

A team comprising Henning Larsen Architects, Studio Olafur Eliasson and Batteriid Architects have won one of Europe's most coveted distinctions for contemporary architecture, the biennial Mies van der Rohe Award. Their winning project, the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavik, opened in May 2011 and its design, as the architects reveal, 'was inspired by the Icelandic landscape'.

The award ceremony was orchestrated by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation in Barcelona and its dynamic new director Giovanna Carnevali, who this year also handed out an Emerging Architect Special Mention to Spanish practice Langarita Navarro for its Red Bull Music Academy in Madrid.

The shortlist, put together by a team of national architecture bodies and international experts, included key names of European architecture such as Belgians Robbrecht en Daem, German Juergen Mayer H and Danish practice Bjarke Ingels. The winning design was a building that defied the economic crisis that hit Iceland in 2008, standing out for its creators' skill and determination. 'It is a symbol of recovery,' the judges explain. This year, the Foundation is also celebrating the award's 25 anniversary with a retrospective exhibition of all the previous winners at the MNAC, next door to the German Pavilion in Barcelona.

We caught up with Giovanna Carnevali to talk about her future plans for the Mies van der Rohe Award.

What traits are you looking for in a building, and what is the criteria for the award?

The work has to be well built in terms of construction, and it has to maintain an interesting architectural quality and level of research. It also needs to display sustainability and innovation.

What inspired you about this year's winner?

In keeping with the Prize's tradition, this building was an important addition to its city; it characterizes it. The jury also decided to award the Harpa building to motivate Iceland. The building was still in progress when the economic crisis hit them and its financial backer went bankrupt, but the government decided to invest in it because literature, culture and music are sectors they want to support.

You must see so many different buildings. Are you able to spot differences from country to country?

This is a very interesting question. Up until the First World War, the differences were very clear. After that, especially in the last 25 years, these differences started to fade and we have seen more globalized approaches. But I think we can still see some differences between countries. This year we are celebrating 25 years of the award and we should use this moment to reflect on what was the task 25 years ago and what is the situation now? Do we have a uniform European culture? Let's talk about architecture, not architects. This is what the prize is about.

What is your vision for the Foundation?

I want to use this year's celebration to work on three key events; this award ceremony, an event in December at MoMA and I am hoping to do the final instalment of the discussion at the Venice Biennale. In between those three big events, we will do more, smaller events, talk to local architects and institutions and gather as much information as possible to work out how we can judge architecture from now on.

So, will the way you judge the prize change?

Yes definitely. That doesn't mean that we want to completely break from the past. It means that we want to also give opportunities to young people, the ones who will shape the architecture of the future.

'Verbier Mountain Climbers' exhibition: the classic ski gondola reimagined

2013-06-10 16:41:00

An action movie standby, the (dramatically dangly) classic ski gondola is a lesson in understated industrial design. 'Verbier Mountain Climbers: Revisiting a Swiss Icon', the brainchild of three Swiss art and design entrepreneurs, recognises and celebrates those credentials.

The trio have called upon some of Switzerland's leading designers to have their creative way with a collection of retired gondolas. The results will be shown at Design/Miami Basel this week before returning home to Verbier for a summer exhibition and then on to Geneva Airport for a final showing. They will then be auctioned by Christie's with the proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

'The Gondola we are transforming for the project is a beautiful and typical example of industrial design,' says Albert Schrurs, founder of the architecture and design firm Allegory Studio, and one of the organisers of Verbier Mountain Climbers. 'We asked the designers to give these objects a second life, as interesting and emotionally strong as was their first life. And they approached the project in different ways. The gondola was perceived as a volume, a source of material or as an emotional trigger.'

Atelier Oï's contribution, 'Cabine del Papa', is a fantastic white pod with spinning rope wings while Adrien Rovero's 'Rock' - a piece already given an airing last year - is a four-seater rocking chair. Taking his cues from Optimus Prime and the Transformers, Nicolas Le Moigne's gondola has become an indestructible looking table while Jörg Boner and Lela Scherrer have taken a number of gondola doors and created a series of heavy-duty screens.

Baker Wardlaw and Yves Décoppet meanwhile have taken a more tangential approach and turned their gondola into a giant gum-ball dispenser and Philippe Cramer has taken away the gondola away altogether and left the plexiglass windows hanging heroically in mid-air. The photographer Anoush Abrar, charged with provided a suitably dramatic image to be part of - and promotion for - the exhibition, has his gondola held aloft by its own cloud.

'Campana Brothers: Concepts' at Friedman Benda, New York

2013-06-10 14:00:00

It seems fitting that Fernando and Humberto Campana should toast 30 years of creative partnership with their first solo show on American soil. This week sees the Brazilian brothers take over the Friedman Benda gallery in Chelsea, New York, with 'Campana Brothers: Concepts', a group of dramatic prototypes the duo has been developing since the start of the year.

The brothers have taken the opportunity here to reiterate the principles that have consistently informed their work: sustainability, handcraft and experimentation with materials. This show charts their progression in each of these areas while underlining the playful, lighthearted and wholeheartedly Brazilian approach we've come to love.

At the centre of 'Concepts' is the 'Circles' chair, an exploration of the tennis racket chair conceived back in 2010 and ultimately written off as a mistake. The Campanas have revisited the woven, organic form in their 'Racket' series, a family of brass-framed benches, consoles and screens that incorporate nylon-stitched lattice and woven elements of old Thonet chairs.

The pair's longstanding affection for natural materials manifests itself in the gallery walls themselves, which have been covered in coconut fibres, creating an immersive environment. Stitched cowhide panels cover parts of the 'Boca' wall-mounted bookshelf and brass table, making them appear to emerge from the walls and floor. The 'Ametista' series of cabinets boast large amethyst crystals inserted within the glass. And a cabinet coated in tanned pirarucu skin (a large, sustainably farmed freshwater fish from Brazil) stands out in all its eco-conscious glory.

Speaking in tandem, the Campanas took stock of the exhibition's main threads. 'We like the time that it takes to make a piece,' they said, 'because we learn that we have several paths for reflection. Different materials allow us to investigate different concepts. We want to investigate natural materials more and find new possibilities to be as environmentally conscious as possible.

'Sometimes we don't achieve this, but [we've] liked to push in this direction since the beginning.'

Designer Fotis Evans' conceptual store windows for Hermès, New York

2013-06-10 11:38:00

Great furniture doesn't always make great theatre, but the designer Fotis Evans has managed both. His multitasking modular furnishings amuse with both their form and their function, which is why his commissions often come from brands looking to turn product display into a major event.

Evans' windows for Hermès in New York dispense with the function entirely and focus on abstract forms borrowed from classical furnishings. Using as a text the remarkable 'Thomas Jefferson's Paris Walks', a visual chronicle of Jefferson's walking routes by the San Francisco-based boutique publisher Arion, Evans tells the history of late 18th-century Paris in five complex structures. Each employs elements of porcelain, black lacquer and verdigris tones to depict the era's spirit of discovery - however conceptually.

The London-based Greek isn't the first artist to have played window dresser for Hermès; the label recently launched a new store in Greenwich, Connecticut, with a scene by the Spanish installation artist Pamen Perreira. But here amid the high-end boutiques of Madison Avenue, Evans may have provoked a sea change - not only for his own burgeoning career but for shop windows as we know them.

We caught up with Evans in the run up to the launch...

What do you think it was about your work that first got Hermès' attention?

The director of digital merchandising mentioned that he saw the Book Stall System I designed for Somerset House. He suggested I design some sort of flea market installation in the windows, something that would display books, but I thought, 'Why make something so similar to what I'd made before?' I wanted to create something completely new from scratch.

Talk us through the concept.

I did a lot of research on Thomas Jefferson. Aside from the obvious, I learned about his sportsmanship - he loved horseback riding - his interest in architecture and the new innovations of that time. What really inspired me was that he was in Paris at the moment the city was seeing a building boom. And the most exquisite pieces of furniture were made at that time with exquisite detail. The city had reached the peak of excellence in craftsmanship.

My thought was to make some sort of sculptural work related to the settings of his walks. I looked at furniture and objects made by craftsmen at that time and isolated the materials - gold, silver, mahogany, porcelain, marble, Japanese lacquer - and said, 'OK, let's create something monumental,' because obviously this is what it was all about at that time. I put all the materials together into abstract figures - though some might say they have a specific meaning.

They do seem like they possess very specific qualities or functions.

There was lots of innovation happening at that time, so I wanted to reference it in the sculptures: the spinning jenny, hot-air balloon, the telescope… but again it's very abstract. In the end, the idea was to create some kind of memory, like a sculptural collage.

Were you nervous about taking a departure from the typical shop window, with all its flourishes and activity?

I think people are actually very bored of the literal. My idea was to take these over-the-top ideas and translate them with the epitome of craftsmanship. If you had 10 seconds to go back to that time, to tour all these places Jefferson went to, this is what it would look like reconstructed.

What I did was deconstruct all the scenes and furniture I found through my research and separate all the materials and recreate a memory that combines the innovations of that time.

It must have been a challenge to create a single object that would dominate each window space.

The challenge was to give focus to a specific point on each window. Your eye is completely lost if you can't focus on one thing at a time. But by collecting memories, images, materials, I wanted to give the person who passes by the idea that he has seen that moment in one single object. Every window tells a story of that time. But at the same time, it doesn't tell the same story for every passer-by. The object of the exercise was that every person who passes by says something new.

We haven't seen anything like this from Hermès. Was it a tough sell?

They're up for a challenge and always looking for new artists to create their windows. But they were also surprised when they first saw the sketches. They were worried how they'd make them. The objects combine so many materials, they had to be crafted by the best people in the city.

Where did you find those people?

I designed the project 100 percent, but I couldn't create it in London, so we trusted a group called Two Seven, which has experience making complicated things like this for window installations. I supervised them in how to make these five sculptures step by step and they followed to the letter.

What else have you been working on?

I recently worked with the jeweller Fernando Jorge, creating a series of stands for London Fashion Week that were made from volcanic sand. I took that material to another level. And that's what I'm planning to do again now. For quite a few months I've been working on a new material project - combining very new technology with very traditional, old materials, trying to take those materials to the next level.

Matali Crasset exhibition at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Pantin, Paris

2013-06-07 15:00:00

There's something apt about making the trip to Pantin, just beyond the ring road that demarcates central Paris, to take in 'Voyage to Uchronia', Matali Crasset's new show. Uchronia, for starters, refers to a theoretical construct of unspecified time rather than place (the word was coined by 19th-century French social thinker Charles Renouvier as a portmanteau of 'utopia' and 'chronos'). The trip isn't far - a half hour on the Métro or commuter train - but it allows the necessary distance before arriving at an installation based on reflection and respite.

Crasset has created a sort of otherworld within one of the buildings that makes up Thaddaeus Ropac's fourth gallery (formerly a heating factory, it opened last November). And the compound's contemplative, contemporary design is conducive to Crasset's environment - an imagined setting where modules of grey felt furniture are meant to represent a primitive community. Accent walls of vibrant orange and calming blue are connected by grooves of black tape that suggest a river current.

The upright alcoves (each built from metal and padded before being covered in felt) have been shaped into pointed hoods, giving them an anthropomorphic look (picture an avant-garde cult) that contributes to the enveloping sensation when experienced from within. Stand or sit inside and the sound levels instantly change (two pieces are actually

equipped with overhead speakers that pipe in a mix of nature and industrial noises). More impressively, they seem to block out the world.

'It's this idea of not resting in the superficial external world but bringing ideas towards you to reflect, to compose,' she said

yesterday as finishing touches were put on the installation. 'I also wanted to give a human presence to furniture.'

Variations on the theme include two hooded forms decorated with photographs of prominent social thinkers (with a copy of Nobel Peace Prize-winning Jane Addams' 'The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets' tucked into a pocket); one is equipped with an old Chinese wood bell and another is placed prostrate, resembling a canoe.

Crasset acknowledges how, as an industrial designer, she must tweak her thinking when inhabiting an art space. 'I'm doing something between furniture and sculpture,' she says. Anyway, her signatures - graphic, ephemeral, vegetal elements - are just as evident here as, say, in her public commissions or budget hotels.

But perhaps this is where the 15-minute film, directed by Juli Susin with Julia Rublow, establishes an additional 'art' layer. Projected onto the far wall, it was shot in a forest near Vienne, France, and features a small group of her friends and family playing the inhabitants of Uchronia. They perform a ritual in the presence of a a herd of wild boars and soak up the sun wearing campy futuristic reflective dishes around their necks.

Calling it an 'initiatory' experience, she says the narrative reinforces the link between our primitive ways of gathering and a sort of ideal future. Of course, this is merely Crasset's interpretation of a Uchronia and one, she hopes, of many. 'I want people to feel the idea of this community first and then I want them to understand the role of permanence - the permanent part of ourselves which exists in every type of society - and also the idea of introspection.'

Crasset says she is unsure what will come of the pieces after the show (they would make for novel meditation zones in a home or hotel). 'It's uncalculated,' she says. Which, in a way, makes perfect sense. A show conceived around eliminating the constraints of time should not require any further planning beyond the present.

'15 for 150': leading artists mark 150 years of the London Underground

2013-06-07 12:00:00

When you're talking about the world's oldest underground network, every birthday is a big one. But when it turns 150, a serious celebration is in order.

Earlier this year the London Underground launched a commemorative Barber Osgerby-designed £2 coin and a series of artworks by artist Mark Wallinger, now displayed in all 270 stations citywide.

Now, as part of the festivities, and in keeping with the 13-year strong Art on the Underground initiative, Transport for London has commissioned visual tributes from 15 international artists. The 15 works - one for each decade of the Tube's existence - vary wildly, though each is a contemporary take on the London institution.

One of the most poignant is Corin Sworn's 'Waiting for a Train', for which the artist researched the Underground's photography archives to represent passengers of different ages and eras in recurring poses. Their silhouettes take on the colours of the network lines and patterns from the Tube moquettes.

These days London's Tube stations double as public art galleries (it's been noted that with more than a billion customers passing through them each year, the network may very well be the largest art gallery in the world). 'The Tube is a rich environment for artists,' says Justine Simons, head of cultural policy for the Mayor of London's office and member of the Art on the Underground panel, 'and these incredible artists have come to the challenge with an openness and a curiosity which has resulted into fantastic projects.'

Full sets of the posters can be admired at Gloucester Road, St James's Park, Southwark and London Bridge stations. Proceeds from the limited-edition prints, available to purchase through Transport for London, will go on to support future Art on the Underground initiatives.

Artist Richard Woods installs 'A Maze for Yorkshire' in Wakefield

2013-06-07 11:53:00

If you've ever visited the 18th-century Orangery in Wakefield, Yorkshire, it might have occurred to you that the historic grounds would be the ideal setting for a garden maze. You might not, however, have imagined the sort of maze the artist Richard Woods is unveiling this weekend in front of the Georgian folly.

Woods has always surprised with his hyper-real interpretations of ordinary façades like red brickwork and mock-Tudor cladding. True to his modus operandi, this work applies a postmodern veneer to Renaissance-era terrazzo and medieval English drystone, forcing a dialogue between the affectations of the past and the intellectualism of the present. The palette is what pushes the work into the realm of artifice.

'Colour in my work is never naturalistic,' says Woods. 'I wanted to take the drystone wall away from the real thing and into the comic world - a drawing of a drystone wall and not a real drystone wall.'

'A Maze for Yorkshire' was commissioned by the art and design charity Beam, whose offices are located in the Grade II-listed cottage. The idea developed over months of discussions with Woods, who hit the history books to devise a logical structure. He eventually finalised the scheme with the help of Neil Matthews at DLA Design Group, a project collaborator. The structure took five people two weeks to install.

Like the mazes of yore, 'A Maze for Yorkshire' amuses with unexpected turns. But like good contemporary art, it also disturbs. 'It's surprisingly difficult to navigate,' says Woods. 'Even though you can see over the top of the 4-ft walls, the repeating nature of the stone pattern trips you up and confuses your sense of direction. It's a bit of an assault on the senses, so be prepared before you set off.'

'One Night Only Roma': Giorgio Armani's fashion blockbuster in Rome

2013-06-07 11:00:00

Putting faith in Italy when the rest of the country is running for economic cover, Giorgio Armani poured major funds into Rome this week, conducting a triple-decker fashion show for his Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani and Armani Privé labels, plus an extravagant dinner and late-night party for 600.

One of the few luxury behemoths that is still privately owned, the Giorgio Armani Group is beating the odds: sales were more than two billion euros last year, up 16 percent from 2011. Feeling understandably cocky during a press conference in Rome this week, the celebrity designer waxed lyrical on a variety of issues, including Italian designers who do not show in Milan during fashion week (an indirect reference to Valentino, Miu Miu, Costume National and others). 'Milan needs to remain the fashion capital of our country and of the world,' said the designer at the dinner. 'The designers who count shouldn't be decamping to London, Paris or New York. They need to show in Milan.'

The 78-year-old designer put his money where his mouth was, announcing he will open, for the first time, his Tadao Ando-designed Teatro Armani in Milan as a venue for fashion shows by young designers. Andrea Pompilio, a hot up-and-comer, will be the first to benefit during Men's Fashion Week in Milan in two weeks' time.

Back to Rome: the Milan-based designer loves it. Humming lyrically about the city, he said: 'Rome always fascinates me. It is such a powerful city, rich in history and unique sights.'

One of those sites is the colossal Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, a paean of Italian rationalist architecture built in 1940 in Rome's EUR district, where the fashion show took place. The venue also hosted an expanded version of Armani's touring 'Eccentrico' exhibit, a selection of statement-making designs that fall outside the bounds of Armani's reputation for greige.

Armani also unveiled a newly refurbished 900 sq m store on Rome's upscale Via Condotti, which features a bespoke accessories department where customers can dream up one-of-a-kind items from Armani Privé.

Swiss artist Zimoun's sound installation in Dottikon, Switzerland

2013-06-06 15:34:00

The art installation is a fine way of exploring new applications and technologies, dovetailing performance with design. Over the past few decades, the Swiss artist Zimoun has built a number of large-scale installations, often in close collaboration with architects and engineers. Best known for works that repurpose prosaic materials like cardboard and cotton in orderly patterns, the artist sets his constructions in motion with specially designed compact DC motors, the actions of which create esoteric noises.

Zimoun's latest project in Dottikon, Switzerland, was developed with the architect Hannes Zweifel, a longtime collaborator. Inside a vast 1950s storage tank once used to house the industrial solvent toluene, they rigged up a system of 329 tiny motors with wires connected to 329 cotton balls. The motors cause the balls to jiggle, twitch and bounce off the surface of the tank. The result is a hypnotic loop of noise reverberating around the white space.

The 13m tank stands on the edge of a chemical plant in town, its industrial exterior giving no hint to the activity - and cacophany - within. There are no official opening hours, though spectators are welcome during working hours.