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BLUEPRINT ISSUE 322

NOVEL
GRAPHICS

PETE
FOWLER
NEVILLE
BRODY
M/M
• DENYS LASDUN • FABRICA • JEANNE VAN HEESWIJK • KICKSTARTER • K-ARCHITECTURE • M/M • PETE FOWLER • STUDIO TONNE • LE CORBUSIER • GAE AULENTI • LEBBEUS WOODS

JANUARY 2013 £5.99

• JANUARY 2013 • £5.99

28/11/2012 08:50

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Futureproof your
The only certainty is change. Be by Bisley
accommodates and supports organisations’ current
and future needs – whatever they might be

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ur organisation

www.bebybisley.com
[email protected]
+44(0) 20 7436 7111

Are you following us?

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David Rowland’s 40/4

Stacking chair

First produced in 1964, and in continuous production ever since, 40/4 is renowned for
its unsurpassed stacking and handling capabilities and its elegant and spare aesthetic.
Winner of many design awards over the years, our famous chair is included in the permanent
collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Bar height

7/9/12

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Lounge chair

Swivel chair

In continuous production since 1964
Often imitated …never equalled

Howe UK 020 8543 6063 s [email protected] s www.howe.com

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storage...

......united.
The UniteSE Workplace Collection brings together KI’s proven
comprehensive storage ranges with a versatile bench and desk
system.

www.kieurope.com
[email protected]
020 7404 7441

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workstations....

Made in UK

photo©Studio Zaha Hadid

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Barrisol® Lumière® Acoustics®
Aquatics Center - London 2012
by Zaha Hadid

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Exceptional designs
3D

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arch. : Jan Kaplicky (Future Systems)
& Andrea Morgante (Shiro Studio).

PRINT

09:42

ACOUSTICS®

20/8/12

photo©Hufton+Crow

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Barrisol® Lumière®
& Print your Mind ®
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arch. : Alvaro Planchuello

Barrisol® Lumière®
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arch. RSP Architects Planners
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BlUePrINt
Boundary House
91-93 Charterhouse Street
London, EC1M 6HR
blueprintmagazine.co.uk
eDItorIal
T. ++44 (0) 20 7336 5304
EditoR
Johnny tucker
[email protected]
aRt diRECtoR
wes mitchell
[email protected]

Cover Image: Beast reef By Pete fowler
(see Page 54)

ProDUCtIoN
PRodUCtion ManagER
Clare ovenell
[email protected]
PUBlIsHINg
EditoRiaL diRECtoR
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SEnioR EditoR
shumi Bose
[email protected]

CoMMERCiaL diRECtoR
mike Callison
[email protected]

PRodUCt EditoR
gian luca amadei
[email protected]

aDvertIsINg

ContRiBUting EditoR
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[email protected]
CHiEF SUB-EditoR
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US CoRRESPondEnt
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intERnS
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lena sotto mayor
ContRiBUtoRS
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esme fieldhouse
gareth gardner
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roberta marcaccio
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yolanda Zappaterra

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B01-011-Editorial-ph4.indd 1

(IssN 0268-4926)
Blueprint is published monthly for £52/year by
Progressive Media international, John Carpenter
House, 7 Carmelite Street, London EC4y 0BS, England.
no responsibility can be accepted for unsolicited
manuscripts or photographs. ©2013.
all calls may be monitored for training purposes.

22/11/2012 14:36

coURtesY sUshisAmbA

EDITORIAL

11

So 2012 has come and gone and it’s been a year in which
London was very much in the architecture and design
spotlight. Europe’s tallest building is now in the capital in
the very pointy shape of Renzo Piano’s Shard. It seems to
have been pretty much already absorbed into the London
psyche, a natural part of the skyline. It should be even more
interesting when it’s finished. Yes, the building is up but it’s
not exactly a functioning part of the city yet. The hotel, due
to open around now, is off schedule and the first part the
public will get to access looks set to be the £25-a-throw
viewing platform on the 68th, 69th and 72nd floors, set
to open its doors on 1 February.
For £25 though you might as well pop over the river to
the Heron Tower, near Liverpool Street, and take the highspeed lift up to Sushisamba restaurant (above) or the Duck &
Waffle (yes, pretty naff names) where the cocktails easily
match the superb views from the 40th floor. At the ‘inside
out’ bar, open until a very serviceable 3am, there’s no ‘us
and them’ counter, you get to stand next to your cocktail
shaker. So this way, for your money you get a couple of
cocktails and a view that includes The Shard (apologies to
Kohn Pedersen Fox as architect of the Heron Tower). This is
what’s known as joined-up thinking!
So The Shard was very much in the architecture spotlight,

as was much of the Olympic Park. Populous’ main stadium
was a little dull from afar, more powerful close-up and superb
from within – both in terms of the sweeping, uninterrupted
views and earsplitting, ‘crowd-sourced’ acoustics. The
Hopkins-designed Velodrome was as universally welcomed
as was its nickname the Pringle, and applauded almost as
much as the Brit cyclists who used it. This coming year
should see the (water)wings coming off Hadid’s swimming
pool, bringing out the elegance of the original design.
The planting also deserves a mention. The overall
landscape design was good, but the work of planting design
consultants James Hitchmough and Nigel Dunnett of the
University of Sheffield’s department of landscape was truly
amazing. And amid all this was the London/UK, if not world,
design highlight of 2012, Heatherwick Studio’s cauldron. It
was a beautifully eloquent piece of design and it would have
received the ‘wow’ factor from me had it not taken my
breath away. So, the thorny housing issue aside, the Olympic
Park too, hopefully, will be nice when it’s finished...
A good year for London in this sense, but not a great year
all round, so let’s hope 2013 improves the lot of the country
as a whole. Have a great Christmas and excellent New Year.
Johnny Tucker, editor
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BENEWORKS
WITH VISIONARY
DESIGNERS.

The office as a living space, divided into
various zones and areas. Flexible spaces
and open structures – inspiring, diverse
and multifaceted. Together with customers and partners, Bene designs office landscapes that provide employees
with the ideal working environment. Office design, therefore, becomes a management tool and also a contributing
factor to the success of an organisation.
With the DOCKLANDS product range
PearsonLloyd has created an alternative
workplace for individual focused work.
www.bene.com

LUc BOeGLY

46

54

JOHNNY TUcKeR

40

58

cOURTeSY FReAKS FRee ARcHiTecTS

40

cOURTeSY M/M PARiS

FEATURES

SPECIAL K
The French harbour town of St
Nazaire is lifted from its war
history by K-architecture’s
theatre. Herbert Wright learns
how the shell of the new theatre
space is softened by its intricate
cast concrete pattern. The
question is whether the raw
materials and ornamental finish
is enough to counterbalance
the imposing U-boat bunker left
over from the town’s wartime
past, providing a new ‘theatre
for everyone’

46

M/MIXING IT UP
Over two decades the French
graphic design practice M/M,
otherwise known as Mathias
Augustyniak and Michaël Amzalag,
has built an incredible repertoire
of collaborative work. From
Balenciaga to Björk, from
Madonna to M/Mink, its very own
perfume, Yolanda Zappaterra
meets the pair on the occasion
of the release of their monograph
to discuss their canny conceptual
approach towards working with
other artists and disciplines

54

FISH OR FOWLER
While the Shoreditch environs
of his studio have morphed
from dive to des-res over the
past 10 years, Pete Fowler’s
work remains deliciously,
phantasmagorically, silly. Johnny
Tucker meets the artist and
friend of monsters, seafaring
synth creatures and Super Furry
Animals. On the eve of a large
retrospective exhibition in his
native Wales, Fowler talks
technology, synthesisers and
finding inspiration in the ocean

13

58

A PRACTICE BY ANY OTHER NAME
As in other established
professions, architects’ offices
tended to be named for
principals or partners. But in
a saturated environment with
more practices, platforms and
competition than ever before,
company names can help to
create, suggest and maintain a
practice identity. Gemma Barton
approaches several intriguingly
named practices, both emerging
and established, to find out –
just what’s in a name?
BLUEPRINT JANUARY 2013

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REGULARS

67

COURTESY STUDIO TONNE

16
21

COURTESY URBED/COMMUNITY OF ANFIELD & BRECKFIELD

JOHNNY TUCKER

23

33

COURTESY FUSE/TASCHEN

14

77
OPENING SHOT
The RIBA has fully digitised its
Denys Lasdun archive, and this
month’s Opening Shot is a
classic from the collection
VIEW
Cinimod’s unearthly UFO for the
launch of Halo 4; Kickstarter,
crowdfunding and creativity;
art, baking, community in
Liverpool; Dan Hill takes the
helm at Benetton’s Fabrica
research lab; Michael Holt sends
a Letter from Sydney

67

PRODUCE
Mapping and navigation
interfaces are one of the most
innovative and important areas
of contemporary interaction
design. Gian Luca Amadei talks
to Studio Tonne to find out why,
in the era of GPS, revisiting
historic technologies such as
the volvelle or planisphere is
a good strategy. Non-standard
ways of looking can lead visitors
to non-standard places – and
gazing at streets and spaces
rather than at the screen

73

REVIEW
Books: Agata Pyzik unpacks the
motley typographic collection of
FUSE vols 1-20; Johnny Tucker
looks at Le Corbusier’s lessercelebrated furniture and interior
design. Exhibitions: The craze
continues with Corb in Italy
at the MAXXI; Herbert Wright
is rewarded by a retrospective
on the Artists Practice Group
at Raven Row; and Esme
Fieldhouse reflects on the
plethora of pop-up architecture
that overran London this year

82
87

PRODUCTS
ARCHIVE
The Blueprint archive this month
pays tribute to two luminary
figures who are missed: Gae
Aulenti and Lebbeus Woods,
both of whom died this autumn.
Two separate archival columns,
both taken from a 1995 issue,
demonstrate the enduring value
that each placed on the
architectural profession –
a profile on Aulenti’s work is
followed by a review by Woods

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MODEL: AFFAIR by Uwe Fischer
Business means movement, which is why the furniture on which you do business should be just as flexible as the business itself. It goes without
saying that the furniture also has to be exceptionally aesthetic and functional at the same time. In contract, the business collection from COR,
you will find all of these qualities in consummate form. A fine example of this is Affair – a relaxed all-rounder that can be reconfigured endlessly
to create seating islands or never-ending sofas, room dividers or seating corners, just as the occasion and purpose require. Thereby providing the
most relaxed basis possible for any kind of business.

For further information please contact Alex Knowles Agencies t + 44 (0)7967.399759 [email protected]

www.cor.de

16

OPENING SHOT
dENyS laSduN arcHIvE

RIBA LIBRARY PhotogRAPhs CoLLeCtIoN

taken by photographer henry grant, this image show sirs Denys Lasdun and Laurence
olivier poring over a model of the National theatre at the RIBA in 1976, the year it
was completed. this image is part of the extensive Denys Lasdun archive held by the
RIBA that has now been fully digitised. As well as being available to explore via an
arrangement with the RIBA, the content will form the basis of Lasdun online, due to
go live in summer 2014. Curated by Barnabas Calder, of the University of strathclyde,
it will offer a fully comprehensive, illustrated list of Lasdun’s projects built and
unbuilt, accompanied by analytical essays. architecture.com

BLUEPRINT JANUARY 2013

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ENHANCE YOUR
ENVIRONMENT

DESIGN, DURABILITY, ECO-COMPATIBILITY

Werneth Health Centre “the most environmentally
friendly primary healthcare building in the UK”

nora® flooring systems UK Ltd
T: 01788 513 160
F:01788 552 812
email: [email protected]
web: www.nora.com/uk



21
VIEW

Right (l-r): Brian
Eno, Elizabeth
Speirs, Mark Major,
Charlie Paton, Bob
Greenberg, Mark
Fisher, Sarah
Wigglesworth, Dan
Pearson, Andrew
Grant, Tomas Roope
and Peter Zumthor

A wide cross-section of design has
been honoured in the 2012 Royal
Society of Arts Royal Designers for
Industry awards. Twelve individuals
have been given the RDI title, ranging
from sound manipulator extraodinaire
Brian Eno to architects Sarah
Wigglesworth and Peter Zumthor.
Lighting designer Mark Majors
was also honoured and there was a
posthumous award to his longstanding
business partner Jonathan Speirs
(both of Speirs + Major), who died
earlier this year (Blueprint September).
Mark Fisher (Blueprint January),
whose design credits include a host
of stage shows from Pink Floyd’s
The Wall to Robbie Williams’ Close
Encounters tour and events such as
the opening ceremony for the Beijing
Olympics, also became an RDI, as did
Andrew Grant of Grant Associates,
whose most recent project was the

CHRIS LOPEZ

Lights, music, architecture!
The RSA’s latest crop of
Royal Designers for
Industry is revealed,
reports Johnny Tucker

dramatic Singapore Gardens By The
Bay project (the Blueprint October
cover story).
The other new RDIs are: Charlie
Paton (invention of energy-saving
lighting for film and TV), Dan Pearson

(garden and landscape design), Tomas
Roope (innovation in taking
computers into communities), Bob
Greenberg (sustained innovation in
interactive design) and Toshio Iwai
(pioneering work in ‘progressive,

non-aggressive’ video games).
There are now 160 RDIs. Past
recipients have included Eric Gill,
Barnes Wallis, and Gordon Russell, and
more recently, Jonathan Ive, Terence
Conran and Thomas Heatherwick.

ATELIER BRÜCKNER / NILS CLAUSS

The Media Architecture Biennale has announced its 2012
award winners, which will form part of the MAB exhibition at the
Godsbanen (Freightyard) Centre in Aarhus, Denmark, until 15
December. Curator Dr Gernot Tschertau defines media architecture
as ‘when physical space meets digital space’, which can mean
anything from an active facade to an app. The winners included
BIX in the Animated Architecture category for its installation on
the skin of Peter Cook’s Kunsthaus, in Graz, and UNStudio’s
Galleria Centercity facade in Cheonan, Korea, for Business and
Money Architecture, while the Lighting Design Collective’s work
on Silo 468 in Helsinki was a winner in Spatial Media Art. The 60
finalists include Atelier Brückner’s GS Caltex Pavilion (pictured
here), installed for an expo in Yeosu, Korea, and which features a
field of 18m-high swaying blades illuminated by touch. HW

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WWW.IMM-COLOGNE.COM
WWW.LIVINGKITCHEN-COLOGNE.COM

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kitchen show
at imm cologne.

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The London skies were full
of bright lights on Bonfire
Night, but not all of them
were fireworks – Halo 4
also added to the display,
says Johnny Tucker
Right: The Halo 4
Glyph flies along
the Thames in front
of the Gherkin. The
white spot above is
the helicopter
Below: Halo 4’s
Master Chief
was on hand to
welcome the Glyph
at Tower Bridge

The fifth of November was a day of
national celebration, with thousands
gazing at the skies and oohing and
ahhing at... the Halo 4 glyph, a
15m-diameter disc of 20kW worth
of LED lights flying through the air
above the Thames in London. Forget
all that burning the Catholics stuff
– the real celebration on 5 November
was the official launch of Microsoft’s
first-person-shooter game so beloved
of teens and emotionally stunted
man-boys the world over.
Microsoft enlisted the help of
London’s Cinimod Studio, which has
previously created a huge flashing
flying saucer flown over cities beneath
a helicopter. That project morphed
into this enormous 3.2 tonne
structure, which flew along the river
from the O2 to Tower Bridge where
the official game launch was taking
place at the Design Museum.
A Cinimod gathering for the event
included McLaren F1 team principal,
Ron Dennis, who stepped out of the
shadows to reveal his financial
involvement with Cinimod, helping
the expansion of its R&D.

JOHNNY TUCKER

JOHNNY TUCKER

COURTESY MiCROSOFT

Bottom: the
15m-diameter,
3.2 tonne structure
used 20kW of
remotely controlled
LED lighting

23

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24

marco Pavan/fabrica

Left (l-r):
Paul Thompson,
Alessandro Benetton
and Dan Hill outside
Fabrica in Treviso
Below: An internal
agora at Fabrica

for its near-ubiquitous clothing
stores, notorious advertising
campaigns and international presence,
most people would be familiar with
the United colors of benetton. but
you’d be forgiven for being unaware
of fabrica, benetton’s research and
communications centre in Treviso,
italy, which is the creative engine for
much of the brand’s broader activity.
The recent appointment of Dan
Hill (strategic designer) as fabrica’s
managing director and Dr Paul
Thompson (rector of the royal college
of art, London) as head of a newly
formed international advisory board
seeks to pull back the curtain on this
unusual institution.
Established in 1994, in the
grounds of an 18th-century villa
and based in a breathtakingly lovely
building restored and designed by
Tadao ando, fabrica is an anomaly
among corporate headquarters.
Every year, an intake of around
30 design students is hosted in
Treviso, with study fees and
accommodation underwritten by
the company on a strictly portfoliobased scholarship system.

for one year these students are
engaged in real projects, working
within a range of creative disciplines
that include graphic and interaction
design, product design, art
installations, documentary film
making. fabrica is also home to
the influential coLorS magazine,
distributed in four languages and
produced here in a full editorial studio
alongside other printed materials.
These projects are live, often
serving the benetton brand (in the
case of various commercial and
creative advertising campaigns) but
extending to wider organisations too,
for example global awareness
campaigns for humanitarian causes,
such as those for Teachers Without
borders, UnicEf and the WHo.
The recent shake up at fabrica
sees alessandro benetton, hitherto
less involved in the family concern,
stepping up to provide the business
acumen and future direction of the
institution to the revitalised board.
admitting that the brand, despite
its thriving talent incubator, has
perhaps become ‘a little dusty’, the
appointments of Hill and Thompson
suggests that the school – for want
of a better categorisation – should
like to make its presence felt in a
more meaningful and visible way.
Thompson will act as the head
of a new advisory board, thereby
consolidating connections with formal
academia; Thompson’s international
experience prior to the rca makes
him well-positioned to pull in expert
perspectives from an international
panel, including voices from north
america, asia and Latin america,
where the benetton brand has
significant presence.
Hill’s track record makes him

this interstice
of creativity and
business sees
young designers
emerging with real
commercial work
under their belts
an extremely interesting choice for the
mD role – the corporate title itself
sitting slightly at odds with the
broadly educational stance of fabrica.
Hill has worked internationally
at the intersection of design and
institutional operations – at city-scale,
in his consultant role with arup, right
down to pixel-scale, in his former
position as head of interactive
technology at the bbc. in Hill’s last
position, at Sitra, the finnish
innovation fund, his work involved
a confluence of governance and
design, bringing design thinking to
bear on policy and research at the

Helsinki Design Lab. all of which
suggests that Hill brings an agilefooted combination of forward-looking
leadership and strategic thinking, and
an ease with the cross-currents of
creativity and business.
benetton, and especially fabrica,
has long entwined its corporate
interests with artistic and creative
innovation as well as a strong social
agenda, even if these intentions are
hosted through its retail enterprise.
This attitude is increasingly
relevant today, with social concerns
looking increasingly towards private
investment for support. fabrica itself
thrives in its very difficulty in
categorisation – part research lab,
part branding house and, from a
cynical perspective, an in-house
talent incubator for benetton.
but this interstice of creativity
and business also provides an
invaluable training ground for
young designers who emerge from
the institution with real commercial
work under their belts.

francESco raDino/fabrica

The appointments of a new
managing director and
a head to a newly formed
international advisory board
look set to bring fabrica,
the creative and training arm
of benetton, out of the
shadows, reports Shumi Bose

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FRAME BY STUDIO FM MILANO FOR CERAMICHE REFIN
FRAME
DesignTaleStudio, Refin’s experimental
ceramics laboratory presents FRAME, the
new collection developed in collaboration
with graphic design agency Studio FM
Milano. FRAME consists of four
collections – Majolica, Carpet, Geometric,
and Weave - influenced by various design
typologies including traditional Majolica,
Bauhaus, Japanese Shibori textiles and
ancient Portuguese Azulejos.
FRAME tiles are available in 60x60cm
format.
NEW MAXI-SIZES FOR BIGGER IMPACT
In addition to FRAME, Ceramiche Refin
has one of the largest selections of

architectural ceramic tiles on the market.
Recent investment in production has
enabled Refin to create new, large
75x75cm and 75x150cm formats at the
forefront of technology in the ceramic tile
sector. The 75x75cm size is the largest
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a single person working alone, combining
easy handling and installation with
maximum impact.
The 75x150cm format, one of the largest
on the market, intensifies the textures and
graphic effects of the material and reduces
the number of grout lines, enhancing the
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UK Specification Consultant:
Massimo Sferrazza
T: 020 3603 1884 | E: ukstudio@refin.it
W: www.refin-ceramic-tiles.com

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ter e
s
i
g
e
R for fre
onlinaence with
entr code
0
1755

architect meets innovations

© DAPh

Organisation:
Xpo Organisations Ltd.
T 020 7125 0583
[email protected]

ARCHITECT
@WORK
UNITED KINGDOM

Earls Court II - London
30 - 31 January 2013
1st edition - 11am - 6pm
Specially tailored contact days
with a focus on innovation
for architects, interior architects,
designers and other consultants
Strict SELECTION CRITERIA which guarantee a top
level of innovations presented by manufacturers and
exclusive distributors
NETWORKING in an exclusive atmosphere
SEMINARS
Clay & Architecture
EXPOSITIONS
Ceramics selected by MATERIA
Global Award for Sustainable Architecture
2007 > 2012 by Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine /
Institut français d’architecture (Paris)
IMAGES by DAPh
W W W. A R C H I T E C T- AT- W O R K . C O . U K
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BELGIUM

THE NETHERLANDS

FRANCE

GERMANY

SWITZERLAND

CHINA

A LETTER FROM

27

SYDNEY
Tourists stand aside – Sydney is
increasingly making its mark with its
architecture. Michael Holt writes from
the Sydney Architecture Festival
Right: Williams
Feuerman’s The
Mechanics of Visual
Perception at the
DAB LAB Research
Gallery at UTS, one
of several events
curated as part
of the Sydney
Architecture Festival
Below: The £4bn
Barangaroo district,
masterplanned by
Rogers Stirk Harbour
+ Partners, has
fuelled much debate
Below right: The
Frank Gehrydesigned Dr Chau
Chak Wing Building,
at UTS

Its aquamarine waters glimmering
with an effervescence seemingly more
synonymous with a Caribbean island
than a modern metropolis – Sydney
is renowned for its endless flux of
backpackers and teeming tourists.
Whether it is the architectural
resplendence of the shimmering
Opera House or the omnipresence of
the Harbour Bridge that bisects Port
Jackson, the city’s two crown jewels
draw in crowds from near and far.
New South Wales’ state capital
may have once been the destination
for convicts via a British penal
system bursting at the seams,
but today it depends less on its
infamous heritage and legions
of tourists and more on its global
financial and cultural vantage as
a key player in world affairs.
As a city it may well sit alongside
international powerhouses in some
sectors, but in its contemporary

urban fabric its architecture has
often been neglected as some form
of distant relation; geographically
it is too far from its North American
or European counterparts to sustain
itself among Western discourse.
But in recent years there has been
a swell of privately funded projects
and a subsequent upturn in global
interest: the urban regeneration of
the Barangaroo district (masterplan
by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners);
notable competition entries –

SYDNEY COULD BE
AT A POINT OF
TRANSITION, BOTH
IN ITS METROPOLITAN
FABRIC AND ITS
ARCHITECTURAL
PROJECTION

enticing enough to lure architects
of renown like Renzo Piano (Aurora
Place), Jean Nouvel (Central Park
Sydney) and Frank Gehry (Dr Chau
Chak Wing Building, University of
Technology Sydney/UTS), and
collaborative competition entries
between Australia’s Hassell Studio
and Rem Koolhaas’ OMA at the
Darling Harbour Convention Centre.
All are projects of significant urban
importance that transcend regional
parameters and project Sydney
towards a global architectural culture.
Against this backdrop, in late
October and early November Sydney
hosted its annual Sydney Architecture
Festival (SAF). The event’s launch
was through its sleek vehicle, Super
Sydney, where the larger community
was invited to contribute to a shared
‘vision’ of what the city could be.
The festival also curated a
number of exhibitions, most notably
William Feuerman’s The Mechanics
of Visual Perception at the DAB LAB
Research Gallery, UTS. This was an
exhibition which disoriented,
distorted and disturbed, creating
visual flux and imbalances. A series
of reflections, moirés and vicious
swathes of contorted lineworks on
glass-plates hung from the ceiling.
It possibly operated more as
social commentary in a city that
is trying to establish its own line of
sight, and less on the fact it is based
on Feuerman’s visual impairments
after having a stroke in 2007.
Sydney also hosted incisive
architectural debate, some of it
perhaps fuelled by the fallout over
Darling Harbour or Barangaroo –
a £4bn development across 54 acres
and the object of much criticism.
A notable example of public
debate was Public Space, Private
Interest: Urban Renewal in the
Harbour City, an open forum hosted
by Make Space 4 Architecture, in
which urban planners, government
architects, historians and property
investors overtly discussed how
the project has been met with
controversy and public disapproval.
It strived to focus on how the
processes involved in such a
development are outside of the
controls of the public user and

at the behest of private investors.
As well as curating various events
and allowing unprecedented access
to five iconic buildings across the
city – including the new Museum
of Contemporary Art – SAF promoted
an annual competition aimed
at supporting a younger generation
of architects – Open Agenda 2012.
An initiative of the School of
Architecture at UTS, this year focused
on installation works by Sibling, Tina
Salama and Robert Beson.
Sydney could be at a point of
transition, both in its metropolitan
fabric and its architectural
projection. As a writer, I have
recently relocated to the city from
New York believing that, with such
considerable development and
a verbose discourse, Australian
architecture could well develop
beyond merely its immediate built
environment and establish itself
as a more prominent figure through
a global discourse.
And as it evolves, grows in
confidence and transforms, it will
become a harbinger of architectural
ideas, concepts and buildings in
a reversal of the current importation
of Western-centric ideology.

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28
Right: Lebbeus
Woods’ Light
Pavilion, an
intervention within
the massive Raffles
complex in Chengdu.
Stephen Holl was a
collaborator and
friend of Woods,
hosting the latter’s
first and only built
work within his
Sliced Porosity Block

Amid the howling storms and
catastrophic deluge which swept the
American eastern shores this autumn,
we also lost Lebbeus Woods, visionary
architect best known for his unique
Dystopian paper architecture.
Woods’ astute views, which he
continued to register as an active
and generous blogger, combined
architectural practice with political
engagement; the intensity of his
writings was more than matched
by his visceral, provocative and
impossibly beautiful architectural
drawings, constantly revealing the
precarity and instability of space,
of terrain, of building and other
supposedly definite ideas.
His critiques of commercialism
and convention meant that his work

MANTA WEIHERMANN/STEPHEN HOLL ARCHITECTS

At the end of October
American visionary, yet
mostly unrealised architect,
Lebbeus Woods died at
the age of 72. Shumi Bose
marks his passing

was often read as science fiction
rather than being of the real world.
Yet his only built project was
completed this year, as part of
colleague and friend Stephen Holl’s

massive Sliced Porosity Block in
Chengdu, China. In it, visitors inhabit
a Light Pavilion that fills a four-storey
high void in the building, articulated
by beams of coloured light.

Blueprint remembers Lebbeus
Woods in Archive (see p87): in this
we reprint his typically trenchant
review of a monograph on Bruce Goff,
from the October 1995 issue.

BLUEPRINT JANUARY 2013

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COURTESY SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS

Musashino Art University Museum
and Library in Tokyo, by Sou Fujimoto
Architects, in which books line almost every
wall, has picked up the Overall Winner prize
in the 2012 Leaf Architecture Awards.
Daniel Libeskind picked up the Lifetime
Achievement award. The awards are now
entering its 10th year, and the Leaf
calendar has as its next big event its
International Forum in Berlin in October.

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30

Top: Pebble Watch
is a far more
exciting thing than
we’d initially
envisaged – that
is it’s nothing to
do with sitting on
a beach looking at
small stones
Above: Just in case
you turn out to be
a certified genius,
let Memoto visually
log your life

In our only nod to the ‘gifting
season’ in this month’s
typically unseasonal issue of
Blueprint, Shumi Bose takes
a look at some places you
could spend your hard-earned
cash and make a creative
difference into the bargain

Kickstarter, the platform whose name
is so synonymous with crowdfunding
it’s almost become a verb, is now in
the UK, having run as an American
company for the past three years.
Crowdfunding platforms are a
revolutionary way to fund projects,
by-passing corporations and
traditional financial sources and
mostly looking instead to individuals.
If by any chance you haven’t
kickstarted a project yourself, the
premise is relatively simple: an idea
is publicly pitched, anyone is free
to donate any sum and if the project
reaches a given target within a
certain date, it can go ahead.
Kickstarter has seen several
projects pass the $1m mark, including

Pebble Technology, which wanted
$100,000 to create a new watch
design and ended up with $10m. On
a slightly smaller scale, two recent
exhibitions hosted at the Architecture
Foundation in London found part of
their backing on Kickstarter.
Kickstarter isn’t the only, nor
was it the first, platform dedicated to
supporting creativity and the arts on
a micro-finance scale – ArtistShare
paved the way for musicians in 2003,
and SpaceHive, a notable UK-based
initiative dedicated to public space
projects, launched earlier this year.
Platforms such as Kickstarter,
Wefund and IndieGoGo allow for
community-based patronage for
design and creativity. Though not

a specific intention, many projects are
notably geared towards promoting
social awareness and good; famously,
‘the 99%’ raised more than $75,000
for its Occupy Wall Street Media
campaign through Kickstarter in 2011.
Being able to discover, fund and
track projects offers a transparency
and seductive access to the creative
process. Expressing support and
identifying as ‘part of’ something
is of heightened resonance in an age
of immaterial interactivity. That said,
crowdfunding rewards can rise beyond
personal satisfaction to real rewards,
from dedications and VIP access to
events to even a specially designed
character in a computer game. What’s
more, in early 2012 President Obama

passed a law allowing crowdfunders to
be given equity in a project rather
than just a sticker or T-shirt.
It’s not all small-scale creativity
either. Washington-based Fundrise,
set up by two ex-Wall Street traders,
has so far raised more than $300,000
from local residents for equity in
a renovated commercial property.
In Bogota, the BD Bacatá will be
Columbia’s tallest building when
completed in 2014: $145m of the
total $240m cost has so far been
crowdfunded by the sale of shares.
But back to the Christmas spirit
of giving and spreading largesse. If
supporting design and innovation is
likely to give you a warm glow, here
are a few ideas to get you kickstarted:

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31

INDIA 2012 Design & Make
via We Fund
What: A student-initiated design &
make project to build a school in
Dehradun, India in collaboration
with a local charity
Who: Architectural Association
Community Cluster
Target: £6,000 (33 per cent reached
at the time of going to press)
More: wefund.com/project/india2012-design-make/p45525
Cody Dock via SpaceHive
What: Restoration of Cody Dock,
East London – a forgotten space
between the new Airline cable car, the
Olympic Park and Canary Wharf –
which would remove the final obstacle

in a continuous 26-mile walk
alongside the Thames, all the way
from Hertfordshire
Who: Gasworks Dock Partnership
Target: £79,700
Support: spacehive.com/codydock
Bright Eyes LED Glasses
via Kickstarter
What: Kanye-esque shades that
actually encourage people to learn
coding and programming using open
source Arduino software. Think of it
as a gateway device to a world of
maker-driven possibility
Who: Daniel Hirschmann, a South
African-born, London-based artist
Target: £17,500
At time of going to press, Hirschmann

was fast-approaching deadline but
was several thousand short of target
Support: kickstarter.com/projects/
440858363/the-bright-eyes-kit-diyled-glasses-to-inspire-pro
More: If the Kickstarter campaign
doesn’t work out, you can follow the
project at danielhirschmann.com
Floating Cinema via IndieGoGo
What: A floating cinema to animate
and populate East London’s waterways.
It follows on from the success of the
2011 Floating Cinema, designed by
Studio Weave (see page 58)
Who: The project was initiated by UP
Projects, and this latest iteration is
being designed by the London-based
practice Duggan Morris Architects

Target: £11,000
Support: indiegogo.com/FloatingCinema
Memoto Lifelogging Camera
via Kickstarter
What: Memoto is a tiny wearable
‘life-logging’ camera that
automatically registers your life,
organising a searchable and sharable
‘photographic memory’
Who: It is the brainchild of Swedish
designer Martin Källström
Target: $50,000 – but at the time
of going to press it had already raised
$481,889
More: The Kickstarter campaign is
closed, but you can follow the product
at memoto.com

Top: Although they
look like your
average clubbing
goggles, the Bright
Eyes are designed
to encourage people
to learn coding and
programming
Above: Duggan
Morris Architects’
new design for
UP Projects’
floating cinema

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Stem A new view on space


Stem is a revolutionary storage system. Flexible, modular, dynamic and imaginative.
Creating stimulating working environments where you’ll feel more at home. Even when you’re at work. 
To find out more download the app or visit hermanmiller.co.uk/stem

33

Right: Open for
business, the old
Mitchell’s Bakery
in Anfield is now
a community hub
that bakes and
sells food to the
football crowd and
the general public

PHOTO: MARIANNE HEASLIP

Below: Youth and
community
workshops over the
last 18 months fed
into the design
proposal for new
residential units

It’s name might conjure up images of
a cutesy pop-up bakery but the project
Homebaked/2up2Down by Jeanne van
Heeswijk is – to paraphrase one of
many quotes of the great Bill Shankly
– much more important than that. The
result of long negotiation between
Anfield locals and the civic authorities
– as well as collaborations with
artists and architects – this piece
of bottom-up urban revival goes
to the core of challenges in Liverpool,
as a post-industrial city facing the
worst of the UK’s economic downturn.
Yet Homebaked/2up2down is also
a highly specific project; a brick
terrace that has been transformed
in a community-run hub.
Anfield is synonymous with
Liverpool FC, but it is also one of the
city’s oldest residential areas. The site
on which Homebaked/2up2down sits
is overlooked by the stadium, but
despite its proximity Anfield is now
a largely ‘tinned up’ neighbourhood
scheduled for clearance and demolition
in the name of urban regeneration.
Rows of empty terraces are dotted
with a few tenacious residents,
uncertain as to how or when the
end will come.
The ‘end’ comes under the guise
of the optimistic-sounding ‘housing
market renewal initiative’ or HMRI,
which is nevertheless a rather brutal
operation in which neighbourhoods
are eviscerated wholesale. Many view
it as essentially a re-enactment of
Victorian slum clearances, with little
concern for community structures or
the social fabric of place. The result is

PHOTO: JERRY HARDMAN-JONES

In the shadow of the Anfield
stadium and amid rows
of houses earmarked for
demolition, the homebaked
/2up2down project, initially
for the Liverpool Biennial,
aims to reinvigorate the
area for the community,
discovers Shumi Bose

a tabula rasa primed for developers
and a displaced, frequently shortchanged community.
When Dutch artist van Heeswijk
started working on the project some
18 months ago as a commission from
the Liverpool Biennial, the outcome
was uncertain. Laurie Peake, the
biennial’s programme director for
public art, had been looking for
an opportunity to commission her,
given the artist’s track record with
facilitating public engagement with
urban renewal. Van Heeswijk is
described by her architect collaborator
Marianne Heaslip as ‘not a normal
artist’; she is an astute mediator
of public and social confrontation,
with an approach exemplified by
several projects in the UK and
the Netherlands.
Looking at Liverpool’s problem
spots, the Anfield site struck a natural
resonance. Together with Heaslip, from
the Manchester practice URBED, van
Heeswijk has engaged with Anfield
residents, specifically youth groups,
with surprisingly effective results.
Through dialogue, deep involvement
with local politics – resulting in the
formation of a Community Land Trust
(CLT) – and a programme of design
workshops, this condemned corner
of Anfield has been reimagined.
The resulting project occupies
the site of Mitchell’s Bakery, which
was a hub for the community for
more than 100 years, until the elderly
owners shut up shop in 2010.
Consulting local residents, it was
decided that a community-run
operation would return the bakery
to its role as an important focus point
for the neighbourhood.
At the end of October, the first
phase of the bakery refurbishment was

vaN hEEswIjk has
doNaTEd hER PRIzE
moNEy fRom ThE
cURRy sToNE awaRd
To ThE LoNg-TERm
LIfE of ThE PRojEcT
completed, with indoor toilets fitted
and the community primed to begin
a trial run selling sandwiches and
snacks to the hordes attending
Saturday games at the hulking stadium
overshadowing Oakfield Road, the
bakery’s location. These days, a Friday
evening visit finds open workshops
on baking, as well as preparations
for the next day, when the bakery is
open to the public. The group is also
trying to crowd-fund the purchase of
more ovens.
The ultimate aim is that the
bakery and its adjoining properties
will be fully returned to residential
and community use. The two houses
will be converted into four flats. It
is these small terraced properties –
that characterise industrial cities of
northern England and endure as the
des-res spec for most local residents
– that give the project the 2up2down
part of its name. They are also the
kind of properties locals are being
forced from; the Compulsory Purchase
Order compensation is likely to fall
short of buying anything comparable.
There are reasons to believe that
the project may succeed. Recently the
winner of the prestigious Curry Stone
Design Award, van Heeswijk has
donated her $100,000 (£63,000)
prize money to the long-term life
of the project – which means that
Homebaked now has the funds to buy

the bakery and the adjacent properties
outright. But its future is still
uncertain – buying the properties is
only worthwhile if the Homebaked CLT
succeeds in overturning the purchase
and demolition orders on the buildings.
Such long-term vision and
community engagement is in keeping
with the ideas of Sally Tallant, director
of the Liverpool Biennial, who wants
to see the city become ‘as attractive
to creative professionals and artists
as Berlin or Glasgow’. One result of
her efforts is that the city of Liverpool
is currently dotted with art by Dan
Graham, John Akomfrah, Elmgreen
and Dragset, Pedro Reyes and dozens
of other artists.
Most of these will disappear
as the 2012 Biennial fades from
memory. The hope, though, is that
such initiatives will have done their
work in stimulating local creative
energies as well as shining a spotlight
on this vibrant, historic and, in parts,
extremely beautiful city.
While Homebaked/2up2Down
is less obviously glamorous than
such artistic baubles, it is doing its
bit to bring attention to an important
issue to the city and its residents.
Liverpool is rife with Magical Mystery
and Beatles bus tours; capitalising
on this, the organisers of the bakery
project have also created the Anfield
Home Tour, scripted by a local writer
and led by personable local guide
(and actor) Carl Ainsworth.
By turns heart-rending and funny,
the tour not only allows visitors
insight into a living, breathing urban
issue, but also allows the locals to
feel in some small, even illusory, way
empowered; for once, they are given
the chance to tell their own story.
Let’s hope they get to build it too.
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34
New showrooms by piero
lissoni and 6a for Italian
furniture companies cassina
and arper are seen by Gian
Luca Amadei, who finds that
amid design differences they
both reflect the importance
of being in London
The glowing embers of the London
Design Festival were flamed in
October by the opening of two new
flagship showrooms/stores by Italian
furniture companies Cassina and
Arper. The two new spaces could
not been more different, both in
terms of location and design concept,
but both emphasise how important
the London and UK market is to
Italian furniture.
Cassina opted to locate its new
space in the Brompton design district,
commissioned Italian architect Piero
Lissoni to design its showroom, and
adopted a dark palette and more
domestic levels of lighting. By
contrast Arper chose Clerkenwell as
a base and, for its design, opted for
London-based architecture practice
6a, which developed the design
concept around a pale palette.
Cassina is pursuing a retail
market with a showroom set over two
levels within an early 20th-century
building. To give coherence to the
space Lissoni punched through the
Top: Arper’s bright,
minimal showroom
by 6A in Clerkenwell
leans towards the
specifier market
Right: The lower
floor of Cassina’s
showroom in
Brompton, showing
Lissoni’s punched
through staircase;
is a more retail and
homely presentation

floor of the building at the front of
the space, unifying the two floors
with a muscular and blocky offset
staircase. English Heritage took
some convincing. The rest of the
project concentrates on revealing
and restoring original features
of the building.
Original plasterwork and floorings
have been thoughtfully integrated by
Lissoni into his design, creating an
aesthetic that celebrates the history
of the building in a contemporary
treatment by revealing the layers of
its architectural skins. From the
Cassina palette of materials available
for the design of a new showroom
anywhere in the world, Lissoni
selected resins, wooden flooring and
finishing to create a slightly darker

‘many italian
companies are
opening their
own mono brand
showroom in
london to promote
their ethos clearly’
space, rather than a white box.
Lightness and transparency
is what defines the design by 6a
for Arper’s new London store, which
epitomises the company’s vision of
the pursuit of the essential in design,
materials and production. The concept
for the showroom/store is inspired
by this philosophy as well as by the

local environment, its history and
cultural context, aiming to convey
the innate qualities of Arper with the
style and exuberance of London.
The purist language is effectively
delivered by a selection of materials
and finishes in shades of white. The
volume of the showroom is inserted
into a concrete shell to make a
singular backdrop for the furniture.
Natural white plaster, bleached oak
and enamelled cast aluminium form
the finely crafted space, which opens
to the street on two sides. In this
respect the minimal spaces aim to
strike a calming counternote with the
busy district of Clerkenwell.
Although apparently at the
antithesis of each other, Cassina’s
and Arper’s new London flagship
stores emphasise and communicate
how important the London and UK
market at large is to Italian furniture
companies. London is regarded as
a world capital, and as a result space
is very expensive. Because of its
status and visibility, any operation
in London brings some extra pressure
and companies wants to take the right
step with their showrooms.
For the same reason, many Italian
companies are opening their own
mono brand showroom in the capital,
so as to be able to promulgate the
ethos and values of their company in
a stronger and clearer way.
Creating simplicity in spatial and
furniture design is not an easy task,
requiring consistency, clarity of
communication and, most importantly,
integrity in terms of design contents.
Beside the diverse set of aesthetics,
both Cassina and Arper show their
commitment to their values, and
Lissoni and 6a have translated those
values into special experiences.

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63

hm63
design: Nigel Coates
one of a broad and versatile
range of British-made
contemporary seating designs
for corporate, public and
residential projects. To view the
complete Hitch Mylius collection,
visit our website or contact us on
T +44 (0)20 8443 2616
E [email protected]
www.hitchmylius.co.uk

37

ACHTUNG!
ERIK SPIEKERMANN

Erik Spiekermann
set up MetaDesign
and FontShop, and
worked in London
from 1973 to 1981.
A teacher, author
and designer, he
is a partner at
EdenSpiekermann,
which has offices
in Berlin and
Amsterdam

Imprecise language is the expression
of an imprecise mind. So my mother
always said, and mothers tend to know
these things. The word itself is more
precise than its frequently used
synonym, unprecise, which is a weird
mix of Latin (praecisio, a cutting off)
and proto-Germanic. Whenever the
headlines announce ‘the best movies
(songs/actors/goals/cars) of all time’,
I know what they are trying to say, but
our time isn’t up yet and there will be
other good movies, et cetera. How can
one call something ‘the most expensive
transfer of all time’ or the ‘most sold
car ever’, when we know that there
will never be an end to unbelievable
(incredible?) transfer prices and that
the price of cars will keep going up?
I know I’m being over-Teutonic
here and we all know that these
exaggerations are only thoughtless,
stereotypical expressions (by the way:
aren’t those two ‘g’s in ‘exaggeration’
totally and unnecessarily, ahem,
exaggerated?), but the over-use of

MELVIN GALAPON

Cut the meaningless phrases
of praise and superlatives
that are invariably nonsense,
or it’s back to through the
window with you...

adjectives, especially when it comes
to superlatives, will eventually make
all of them redundant.
We should treat language like
fractions. Nobody says ‘two halves’ or
‘four quarters’ (unless they are talking
about sports) when speaking about
one whole thing. So why say ‘…
the well-known, award-winning
artist…’? If the artist is, indeed,
well-known, there is no need to
mention that well-known fact. And the
reader would then know what sort of
award they have won. It means

nothing unless there is some proof
attached. What awards did they win?
Best halloween costume at primary
school? The Nobel Prize?
Just look at any architect’s or
designer’s website or brochure: not
only are they all award-winning,
but they also always work in close
cooperation with their clients to
maximise benefit not only for
their businesses but also for the
environment while emphasising
a responsible use of resources because
they want to leave a better world

behind for our children’s children.
Most of that self-praise could be
cut to about two lines, the remainder
of the wordage then going to feed a
bullshit generator, which is the closest
thing mankind will ever have to a
perpetuum mobile, feeding itself, as
it does, with redundant words.
Whenever I hear a client say
that they provide a dynamic work
environment for their employees to
grow in while working closely with
their customers to make this a better
world, et cetera, I get an urge to
reintroduce the old tradition of
defenestration – that is, throwing
people from windows. (It wasn’t
necessarily fatal because buildings
weren’t as tall as present-day Shards et
al, but it was certainly spectacular and
memorable. More so for those on the
receiving end, but it also never failed
to make an impression on those below.)
Once the PR people have run
out of words like award-winning,
well-known or celebrated, they have
only one level left: ‘legendary’. That,
however, not only describes someone
as a known quantity, but also implies
unreal, as in never really having
existed. It isn’t sheer modesty that
has me cringing when I read – or hear
– this about me (I am 65, by the way),
but that it is pretty impossible to live
up to such a superlative. Unless you
die, of course. Only a dead designer
can become the best designer ever.

Artist-designer Mark Humphrey’s
serpentine Final Encore, a 4.1m-high
public staircase in London’s St James
Theatre, may weigh only 25 tonnes,
but it was carved from a 200-tonne
block of Tuscan Carrara marble, the
same material Michelangelo used for
his David statue. (The left-over marble
did find other uses!) Humphrey’s
portfolio ranges from utensils to
powerboats, and includes a 4m-high
Christmas tree in Perspex for Mayfair’s
Grosvenor House. Humphrey worked
with Italian stonemason Porcelli Marmi
to realise this design, with each
massive support a unique form. HW

COURTESY ST JAMES THEATRE

MARBLE STAIRWAY
TAKES A BOW

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TATE MODERN (LONDON)
WILLIAM KLEIN: FILMS, 1958-99
Until 20 January
Accompanying the exhibition William
Klein + Daido Moriyama are Klein’s
films and documentaries, as
revolutionary as his much-admired
photography. Touching on themes
as diverse as high fashion and world
imperialism, an assortment of Klein’s
films will be screened in the Starr
Auditorium. tate.org.uk

SOMERSET HOUSE (LONDON)
VALENTINO: MASTER OF COUTURE
Until 3 March
The Italian fashion label will be at
Somerset House with no less than 130
haute-couture garments, worn by style
icons including Jackie Kennedy and
Grace Kelly. Photographs, designs and
specially commissioned films will
provide a retrospective of Valentino
Garavani’s career. Most revealing will be
the focus on the processes of hand-craft
and detail. somersethouse.org.uk

BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK (NEW YORK)
OSCAR TUAZON
Until 26 April
A commission by the Public Art Fund
sees the work of Oscar Tuazon installed
in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Tuazon has
created three new sculptures in
response to the park and its role as
a place of play and recreation. Using
both natural and industrial materials,
he has created works which encourage
user interaction, including a tree trunk
that incorporates a handball wall and
basketball hoop. publicartfund.org

MIDDLESBROUGH INSTITUTE OF
MODERN ART
LILIANE LIJN: COSMIC DRAMAS
Until 28 February
New York-born, UK-based artist Liliane
Lijn has been pushing the possibilities
of light and materials since her kinetic
Poem Machines of the Sixties. The
show features three installations,
the result of a decade of research for
a new feminine ikon, and studies and
drawings for the works from the artist’s
archive. visitmima.com

DESIGN MUSEUM (LONDON)
UNEXPECTED PLEASURES
Until 3 March
Curator Dr Susan Cohn, a jewellery
designer and maker, presents some 200
items by designers who are challenging
perceptions of jewellery – it’s more
aptly described as wearable art. Shifts
in values can be seen as many makers
abandon gems and precious metals in
favour of materials with more meaning
and narrative. designmuseum.org

NAIM/BUREAU EUROPA (MAASTRICHT)
PLAYBOY ARCHITECTURE,
1953-1979
Until 10 February
This show explores the influence
Playboy had during its heyday on
the American male’s understanding
of design and architecture. Based
on a research project at Princeton
University, the exhibition shows
Playboy’s use of buildings, furniture
and interiors to help generate fantasy.
bureau-europa.nl

THIERRY BAL

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS
(LONDON)
FOURTH PLINTH:
CONTEMPORARY MONUMENT
Until 20 January
Since 1999, Trafalgar Square’s Fourth
Plinth has attracted much attention.
This exhibition tracks the responses
in the media and from the public to
works, along with process material
leading up to the final installations.
ica.org.uk
ART INSTITUTE (CHICAGO)
BUILDING: INSIDE STUDIO
GANG ARCHITECTS
Until February 24
Following the rise in exhibitions
illustrating the development of an
idea as much as the end product, this
show fully involves the viewer in the
design process. Visitors get to witness
the ideas and creative journey taken
by Chicago-based group Studio Gang
Architects for landmark buildings, such
as the city’s Aqua Tower. artic.edu

ARNOLFINI BRISTOL
GOST LOG: MATTI BRAUN
Until 6 January
The main installation of this
retrospective is an entire gallery
filled with water and ‘bridged’ by
slices cut from an especially felled
tree. Continuing Baun’s exploration
of cultural misunderstandings, this
recreates the opening of a canned
film project by the Bengali director
Satyajit Ray – apparently the seed
for Spielberg’s E.T. arnolfini.org.uk

LUCY WILLIAMS/COURTESY TIMOTHY TAYLOR GALLERY

PARADISE ROW (LONDON)
BEYOND UTILITY– ERRATUM
Until 21 December
A humorous range of dysfunctional
luxuries will be launched at this
pop-up boutique. It is the brainchild
of London-based artist, Jeremy
Hutchinson, who invited factory
workers across China, India and
Pakistan to produce an object they
typically manufacture, but including
an intended error. paradiserow.com

BURT GLINN/MAGNUM/HH

38 DIARY

TIMOTHY TAYLOR GALLERY (LONDON)
LUCY WILLIAMS: PAVILION
Until 11 January
Building on Williams’ collage practice
of meticulously rendered modernism,
Pavilion is inspired by modular
structures. The centrepiece is a
3m-wide collage of a building by
Jean Dubuisson, in which the brutalist
apartment complex is painstakingly
and beautifully depicted in thousands
of bright fragments of card.
timothytaylorgallery.com

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SPECIAL K
k-architecures has brought drama
back to the harbour of St Nazaire
in the shape of a new theatre that
contrasts the old and the new.
reworking pavilions from the old
rail station and hard by a nazi
submarine silo, the theatre is a new
act in the unfolding story of the
practice, reports herbert wright

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Patrick Miara

The Théâtre St Nazaire’s
western facade messages
its function to the
person-in-the-street with
inscribed motifs and
lyrical lettering

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From 1867, trains from Paris disgorged
rail passengers into a station for transfer to
transatlantic liners docked directly alongside
it. The deep port was a perfect base for
Hitler’s U-boat fleet, and in 1941 the quayside
of St Nazaire was blocked by a gargantuan
concrete bunker built to house it. The sheer
mass of it, 18m high and 130m long, cut the
town from the sea and still menaces it today.
Allied bombing took out the railway station
but its two connected entrance pavilions and
a quayside arcade survived.
The station was relocated in the
Fifties, leaving the abandoned remnants
of the original structure hemmed in by the
bunker, and later, a retail shed occupied
by hypermarket chain Carrefour, facing
its entrance. Demolishing the bunker was
considered, but instead the town decided
to launch a competition to design a theatre
behind it, with something of the spirit
of the town. Joël Batteaux, ex-urban planner

Below left: The theatre,
including its single-storey
foyer cafe (left) and
wood-clad artistes’
facilities (right),
borders a new plaza.The
plant pots have
subsequently been
painted in bright colours
Right: The main concrete
volume rises behind
restored remnants of
the 1867 St Nazaire
railway station
Right, below (clockwise):
Ground-level plan of the
Théâtre St Nazaire and
plaza; western facade
of the flytower; Jérôme
Sigwalt and Karine Herman
of K architectures

and now mayor of St Nazaire, notes that
‘the port created the town’. The theatre
fulfills his objective to ‘return the town
to the port’.
The new theatre rises behind the
station’s western pavilion. The main volume
is essentially a solid box matching the
bunker’s height, with a 24.5m-high flytower.
The obvious distinguishing characteristic
is the flamboyant treatment of its concrete
shell. Floral motifs cast into the smooth
concrete repeat across its vertical surfaces.
‘I transformed the material into velvet,’, says
Herman, with satisfaction. ‘I softened it’.
The effect is a clear reference to the
nostalgic magic of theatre, as well as creating
a light, lyrical counterpoint to the rough,
stolid bunker. The motifs’ evocation of flock
wallpaper is heightened by its absence in
occasional vertical strips of blank concrete.
As if Herman’s surface effect was not enough
to signify the building’s function, the long

Luc BoegLy

St Nazaire’s waters in the Loire estuary have
known drama: romance as transatlantic
steamboats came and went, triumph building
France’s greatest passenger liners, tragedy
when the Nazis sank RMS Lancastria with
4,000 aboard and heroism in the 1942 British
raid that blocked the harbour. Now, the town
brings drama ashore, in the shape of the new
€21m Théâtre St Nazaire, designed by Paris
practice K-architectures.
Karine Herman, who along with Jérôme
Sigwalt founded K-architectures in 1993,
says it is ‘quite a radical project’. While the
theatre’s configuration of spaces is dictated
by function, radical certainly describes
the dramatic and defining deployment of
decorative elements. It is a building that
unashamedly performs through visual
flourishes, and with its repurposing of an
abandoned station and the creation of a plaza,
it is an exercise in urbanism that transforms
a grim location into a new cultural zone.

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Luc BoegLy

courtesy of K-architectures

PatricK Miara

43

0

5

10

20m

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the nobility of concrete, and engraving the
bones of the building. The moulded concrete
is structural and is added like a decorative
element. It is inherent to the project. It’s the
identity of the Théâtre St Nazaire; it’s what
people will remember’.
The smaller volume extending north
of the main one, literally the backstage area,
is by contrast clad in horizontal slats of wood,
unvarnished to gain the greying effect of time.
It takes the form of great wooden boxes and
references crates and dock warehousing,
but as Herman explains, the wood is also
‘an answer to the old and new, something
that lives. It responds to theatrical
movement’. Furthermore, it ‘recalls the
ephemeral decors which are assembled
and dismantled with every new play’.
Of the old station pavilions, one now
houses admin offices and the other, once the
railway buffet, is now the public entrance and
box office. Bronze panels salvaged from the SS

Below left: A motif in the
concrete panels is punched
through to allow golden
light from the interior to
shine out
Below: A perforated motif
also allows natural light
into the interior
Bottom: Stairs with
balustrades of perforated,
tainted aluminium channel
theatre-goers to balcony
and stalls seats

France – the world’s longest passenger liner
when built in St Nazaire in 1960 – line the
wall and the ceiling over the ticket desk.
A foyer extends from the main volume,
whose concrete wall becomes the backdrop
to a cafe counter. This neutral space looks
out on to the new plaza, of which more later.
A particularly romantic aspect is the
triple-height space leading off from the foyer.
In another theatrical flourish, the words for
Balcony and Stalls shine in lights suspended
over the staircases leading to them, and the
balustrades of the staircases and landing
balconies are panelled with motif-perforated
aluminium, tainted to look bronze. Beyond
the staircases, three windows in the corner
admit daylight via punched-through exterior
motifs, casting their patterns inside. It may
all reference the past but the effect is chic
and enhances that sense of anticipation
before a show.
The 826-capacity auditorium is an

LUC BOEGLY

PATRICK MIARA

north-south sides are further emblazoned
with ‘Le Théâtre’ in raised metal letters
mounted with LEDs, which are also
scattered across the facades like stardust,
in a joint design between K-architectures
and Autobus Imperial.
This is an example of ‘billboard facades’,
an expression used by Sam Jacobs, founder
of British firm FAT [see page 58], for the use
of a highly decorative and symbolic visual
language to communicate with the street.
Another example is in K-architechures’
cinema concept for the town Montbrison,
which has a full-facade frontage of art-decostyle letters proclaiming the building’s
function and specificity: REX CINEMA.
But are such devices a mere
superficiality? In the case of the Théâtre
St Nazaire, Herman is emphatic: ‘Not at
all. The ornamentation is what carries the
project’. She continues: ‘The budget was tight,
so it was a matter of going back to basics:

LUC BOEGLY

THE VELVET SEATING, STAGE
CURTAIN AND THE ENTIRE
BALCONY STRUCTURE ARE A
CLASSICALLY THEATRIC RED,
CONTRASTING WITH THE RAW
CONCRETE WALLS, PATTERNED
WITH THE THEATRE’S MOTIF.
“I COULDN’T IMAGE A THEATRE
WITHOUT RED” SAYS HERMAN

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45
mounting on double joists for dance. It’s
a hard space without any feature to divert
artistes from perfecting their performance.
Refuge from rehearsal is found in a private
patio, open to the sky and lined with wood.
Also in wood, a roof platform of boardwalks
above the foyer/cafe is accessed by stairs from
the plaza.
The new-build defines the long side
of this plaza, which is open to the street
between the pavilions. Big, brightly coloured
plant pots enhance a de Chiricoesque quality,
evoked by the line of neo-classical arches
opposite the theatre that once interfaced
station and quay, and the hint of industrial
structures on the horizon. The foyer-cafe
looks out on it through full-height glass,
the only window on dreams that otherwise
play out inside the auditorium.
Mayor Bateaux described the work as
‘feminine architecture’, but Herman denies
what was intended as compliment: ‘For me

Below: A rehearsal for A
Midsummer Night’s Dream
underway on the generous
350 sq m stage
Bottom: Longitudinal
cross section of the
Théâtre St Nazaire

there’s not a feminine architecture. Perhaps
he saw the floral detail as feminine. But it’s
inspired by old theatrical motifs, and they
were always by men’.
The motifs may be the icing on the
cake, but it’s a good cake, with its internal
interplay of hard and soft, its nostalgic
references interwoven into an essentially
brutalist structure, and its counterpointed
volumes of wood and concrete. Interestingly,
when Herman is asked which architects
inspire her, she says many but names
Peter Zumthor, for ‘the way he works
with materials’.
St Nazaire has won attention in France,
but Herman is not tempted to design abroad:
‘I don’t have the network for it. I don’t
have good enough English. A lot of French
architects have done terrible things abroad’.
The theatre, then, is not a rehearsal for
a bigger stage, but an entrancing act
in K-architectures’ story.

LUC BOegLY

impressive space and includes an orchestra
pit that can be raised 3m. The velvet seating,
stage curtain and the entire balcony structure
are a classically theatric red, contrasting with
the raw concrete walls, patterned with the
theatre’s motif towards the stage. ‘I could not
imagine a theatre without red,’ says Herman,
who had a healthy debate with Nadine
Varoutsikos, the local director appointed by
the Ministry of Culture, who had contended
that the chosen red was too bourgeois.
She wanted a revolutionary red. Herman
reports that her response was: ‘Do you think
champagne is for rich people and beer for the
poor? I want the theatre to be for everyone’.
Above the generous 350 sq m stage, the
flytower’s unseen technical heights are all
hard metal gangways and chains. Beyond is
the wooden-clad backstage volume, with
two significant spaces. The double-height
rehearsal room feels like another technical
area of unpatterned concrete, with a floor

Flytower

Artistes’ patio

Auditorium

Stage

Orchestra Pit

HVAC plant

Toilets and Cloakroom

Main stairs and foyer

Box Office

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Enfants
tErriblEs
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Michaël amzalag (left) and
Mathias augustyniak are M/M

INez vAN LAmsweeRde & vINoodh mAtAdIN

gRAphIc desIgN stUdIo M/M
– AkA MaThIas aUgUsTyNIak
ANd MIchaëL aMzaLag – hAs
beeN A RAdIcAL thINkINg oUtfIt
fRom the oUtset. 40 YeARs oN the
dReAms hAveN’t dImINIshed. oN
the occAsIoN of the pUbLIcAtIoN
of the m/m moNogRAph, yolanda
zappaterra Looks At the meN ANd
theIR eNdURINg motIvAtIoN

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m/m pARis

CoURtesY thAmes & hUdsoN

Below: Fashion royalty clients
abound, including Givenchy

m/m pARis

Above and left: M/M created
the logo for the Biennale de
Lyon. Right, self-initiated
projects has included M/M’s
own perfume, M/Mink

When Marc Bolan wrote Children of the Revolution
in 1972, Mathias Augustyniak and Michaël Amzalag,
collectively known as graphic design studio M/M,
were Parisian toddlers, unaware of their potentiality
as products of their time and place. Born in 1967 and
1968 respectively, close on the May 1968 protests,
nouvelle vague and a cultural revolution, the pair
would go on to become art students possessed of a
radical je ne sais quoi coupled with a determination to
pursue creative lives. More than 40 years on they’ve
succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Or maybe not
– this pair had pretty wild dreams from the start.
In ‘M to M of M/M (Paris)’, their expansive
monograph designed by Graphic Thought Facility and
recently published by Thames & Hudson, Michaël, a
‘Parisian Sephardic Jew,’ recalls bullying his mother
into buying him the very first generation of Apple
Mac, in 1984, because he knew ‘this would be the
tool that would allow me to do what I wanted’. He
was 16 and a music nut; he’d bought New Order’s
debut album Movement on its release three years
earlier, used the Mac to make a fanzine, and at art
school became, he admits, ‘un peu prétentieux’.
In the monograph, he and Augustyniak recall
their precocious meeting at that school, the Ecole

m/m’s coNcEPTUaL aPPRoach To BoTh
ThE RoLE aNd PRacTIcE of gRaPhIc
dEsIgN makEs IT PaRTIcULaRLy
aPPEaLINg To cREaTIvE cLIENTs,
aNd IT has coLLaBoRaTEd wITh
a wIdE RaNgE of fINE aRTIsTs
dURINg ITs 20 yEaRs

Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, where
Augustyniak, a ‘country boy of Polish descent’ had
decided to spend a year before going to London’s Royal
College of Art.
It’s an enjoyable ‘how we met’ story that gives
insight into a fascinating 20-year relationship and
body of work. Clients include fashion royalty like
Prada, Balanciaga, Stella McCartney, Hérmes, and
Yohji Yamamoto, first-name-only celebrity kings
and queens like Kanye, Madonna, Zidane and Björk,
renowned galleries such as the Guggenheim, London’s
Tate and Serpentine galleries, the Palais de Tokyo and
Centre Pompidou in Paris, and editorial big-hitters
like Vogue and Interview. Self-initiated projects
include their own perfume, M/Mink, created in
response to a photograph of a calligrapher at work and
a block of ink.
M/M’s conceptual approach to both the role
and practice of graphic design makes it particularly
appealing to such creative clients, and it has
collaborated with a wide range of fine artists during
its 20 years. In the book Augustyniak says: ‘To survive
and be competitive with machines, a contemporary
graphic designer has to be an author, a thinker, a
poet, a journalist, a philosopher.’ In our interview,

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INez vAN LAmsweeRde & vINoodh mAtAdIN

49

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NEC
BIRMINGHAM
20-23 JANUARY
2013

THE UK’S DEFINITIVE FURNITURE, LIFESTYLE AND DESIGN EVENT

Save £30 - register now for your FREE ticket at www.interiorsuk.com
Please quote code INT06
Trade only. No children.

m/m pARis

CoURtesY thAmes & hUdsoN

m/m pARis

51

he explains it as ‘being artistically driven and using
the artistic tools appropriate to our time’, citing
Andy Warhol in the USA and Peter Saville in the
UK as artists who used mass distribution methods
like album sleeves to take art beyond the gallery. ‘If
you take something like Peter’s work for Factory,
it’s as interesting as any series of artworks by a fine
artist’, he says, before touching on the importance
of spontaneity in M/M: ‘We like to follow a train of
thought, but not overthink it’, he stresses. For both
of them, he says, urgency is a driving creative force
that informs their style and shapes their direction:
‘Having something to say and wanting to say it, but
also constantly experiencing things. It’s why we have
a monograph in our mid-40s!’
For both men, the work is about expressing the
idea of a dialogue, and in the book artists, designers,
art directors, photographers and musicians all attest
to their collaborative, dialogue-driven approach to
developing ideas and projects. French curator and art
critic Nicolas Bourriaud, for whom they created a
‘graphic scaffold’ for the Palais de Tokyo, describes
the process as ‘a blind date, a very interesting one… a
collective mode of operating’. Artist Sarah Morris says
‘they flicker between very mainstream and very marginal

FOR BOTH MEN THE WORK IS ABOUT
EXPRESSING THE IDEA OF A DIALOGUE,
AND IN THE NEWLY PUBLISHED BOOK
ARTISTS, DESIGNERS, ART DIRECTORS,
PHOTOGRAPHERS AND MUSICIANS ALL
ATTEST TO THEIR COLLABORATIVE,
DIALOGUE-DRIVEN APPROACH TO
DEVELOPING IDEAS AND PROJECTS

Above: The credits created by
M/M for the film About go it
alone on the wall of a gallery
leading to the screening room
at the 1999 Venice Biennale
Left and far left: Fashion clients
have included Prada and Stella
McCartney

forms in a way that questions these categories in the
first place,’ while former Balenciaga designer Nicolas
Ghesquière, who worked with M/M in the Nineties,
observes ‘Their process is much more than artistic
direction – it’s about making a whole world.’
Many of M/M’s collaborators touch on their
technical skills as a solid foundation. ‘From the
outset’, says Augustyniak, ‘we knew our future
would be devoted to self-expression, and having direct
conversations that would be spontaneous. But we
spent a lot of time perfecting and crafting the tools
we would use, and that’s our ethos.’ Punk has been a
big influence, but so too has the nouvelle vague and
‘directors like Agnes Varda and Jean-Luc Godard, who
learned the skills of filmmaking, and then broke all
the rules’.
In many cases, M/M’s ‘graphic’ work literally
breaks out of its comfort zone and imposes itself in
the world through three-dimensional projects. A logo
for the Biennale de Lyon broke out of its 2D form to
become a range of 3D objects, including
a bench and helium-filled balloons; film credits
escaped Phillip Parreno and Pierre Huyghe’s film,
About, to stand alone in a gallery leading to the
screening room at the 1999 Venice Biennale. For
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All imAges m/m pARis

This page shows examples of
M/M’s work for Björk. Clockwise
from far left, the Tree of Signs
sculpture for the Medúlla CD
release; the necklace for the
Medúlla CD; from the Björk
Biophiollia project; the cover
for Björk’s Vespertine CD

Björk’s album cover Medúlla, M/M created the Tree
of Signs sculpture with artist Gabríela Friðriksdóttir
as the imaginary source for the Medúlla typeface,
and for a new city in Korea, Anyang, M/M made
a 3D scaled-up version of the city’s slogan in its
semi-abstract typeface Alphaline. For Parisian hotelrestaurant Thoumieux, a commission to design
a graphic identity led to a set of decorative elements
that included light fixtures, furniture and mirrors
with decorative friezes.
Themes and motifs thread in and out of
their work, and wherever they appear they seem
appropriate – collage reoccurs, famously in early
Balenciaga, in Stella McCartney, in Anna Molinari,
even on a cotton camouflage jacket for Marc Jacobs.
And overlay is a favourite that appears on everything
from a Kanye West silk scarf series featuring a
commissioned George Condo painting and a baroque
M/M typographic frame, to Björk covers and apps,
Givenchy portfolios, Balenciaga invitations, Vogue
Paris spreads and Arena Homme+ covers. Themes
from one project even inform others: elements of the
Medúlla typeface for Björk-inspired speakers designed
for artist Gabríela Friðriksdóttir’s work at the Iceland
pavilion for the 2005 Venice Biennale.

whEN yoU’RE yoUNg yoU TaLk a LoT,
aNd LoTs of IT Is mEaNINgLEss,
BUT IT’s aBoUT ExPREssINg yoURsELf.
as yoU gET oLdER yoU say LEss
BUT ofTEN kNow moRE, aNd wE’RE
doINg ThaT: sayINg LEss BUT sayINg
somEThINg ThaT’s jUsT as ImPoRTaNT

Each time and in different iterations, the
outcome looks fresh and original. ‘Sometimes
I question how I can make something new and
different. What often happens now is that we might
not get so many ideas, but we’ll get one and know
it’s the right one,’ says Augustyniak. ‘A good example
is the dog typeface we recently designed for Man
About Town. Coming up with an idea like that has
a direct charm and quality to it that’s different from
the conversations we might have had earlier in our
careers. In that sense our work mimics the human
scale’s ages of talking. When you’re young you talk
a lot, and lots of it is meaningless, but it’s about
expressing yourself. As you get older you say less but
often know more, and we’re doing that: saying less
but saying something that’s just as important.’
Are there still clients he’d like to work with,
things he’d like to bring into being? ‘I’d love to try
to create a new kind of iconography for someone
like Bob Dylan. I’d like to work with an entire
country. Or just build a house,’ he says. In the
book, he says: ‘This might sound completely
megalomaniac, but we want to design a world from
top to bottom.’ The radicals may be ageing, but the
big dreams aren’t diminishing.

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54

PLACID
CASUAL

This spread: Fowler
on keyboard, accompanied
by his new synth, which
visitors to his new show
in Cardiff will be able
to have a go on
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Pete Fowler is perhaps best known for his
phantasmogorically, anthropomorphically
populated semi-paradisical and somewhat
utopian 2D and 3D worlds, but ‘You know
what?’ he asks, ‘I’m doing less monster-based
work these days.’
But lest you think that this artist,
also known for his long-standing creative
relationship with Welsh musical maestros
the Super Furry Animals, is hitting the
straight and narrow, he describes his latest
output as ‘Seafaring synth people’.
Immediately open and friendly upon
meeting him, you get the feeling he’s a
gregarious guy, but there’s clearly this side to
him where he has to escape to other worlds,
to those he creates within his head and
shares through his work, or to his studio,
where he mostly works alone. The first time
I visited the studio, just under a decade ago,
it was in a largely forgotten, seamy part of
East London. For better or worse the area
is now achingly hip, but the studio hasn’t
change a bit, apart from the evolution of the
work that’s on the walls and piled up with
a sense of organised chaos on shelves.
When we talk he’s just finishing off
a large canvas, including two of the said
seafaring, knob-twiddling Moog-men that
will form part of a major new show opening
this month at the Wales Millennium Centre
in Cardiff. Called Oceans of Fantasy, the

JohNNY tUckeR

ARtist PETE fowLER is goiNg
home to cARdiff foR his New
show oCEANS of fANTASY,
wheRe visitoRs cAN meet his
lAtest cReAtioNs, the sYNth
people. he tAlks to johnny
tucker, who fiNds thAt he’s
evolviNg his woRk iNto
somethiNg moRe peRsoNAl

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All iMAges this pAge COURtesY pete FOWleR

56

show will be a pretty much a 50/50 mix of
old and new. The older stuff will be looking
back at collaborations with bands like the
Super Furries and more recently a video for
The Horrors. It will also include the World
of Monsterism, which saw the creation
of a raft of paintings of fabulous creatures
and a plethora of small toy creatures created
for Sony, which now change hands on ebay
for princely sums.
The new work will include his synth
people, a mural created in situ and all
soundtracked by some original music from
Fowler. ‘The older work is a thread to the
newer stuff. My inspirations have been
pretty consistent over the years, but of late
I’ve got more into the ocean, and space and
sythns,’ he says. In fact he’s even combined
a 3D seafarer with two internet-bought
synthesiser kits to create an instrument
that visitors to the show can have a go on.
Just a quick fiddle on this creation soon
has you developing delusions of recording
a Tangerine Dream-cum-Eno double album
with gatefold sleeve.
Landscapes also feature in the new
show, albeit occasionally Fowlerised with
UFOs. In the past he’s used landscapes as
backgrounds for his World of Monsterism
creatures, but now they are paintings in

their own right. Incidentally, the new work
on show will also be predominantly acrylic
on canvas paintings with some 20 ink and
watercolour works on paper.
Like most artists he’s a prolific sketcher,
‘filling up three books a month’, but this
year he discovered the iPad and it’s had
a big influence on him: ‘I’ve totally fallen
in love with it and particularly an app
called Brushes, the same as Hockney uses.
‘It’s great, it’s like a sketchbook only
in colour and there are also layers and the
magic undo button – a blessing and a curse.

Above: A selection of the
new work, from UFO
landscapes to a customised
child’s piano
Below: Hang on, we
recognise that jumper
and those glasses...

Oceans of Fantasy is at
the Wales Millennium
Centre in Cardiff, 8
December – 24 February

So I have been creating images very quickly
and it has influenced my style both in
illustration and painting.
‘I went to the Hockney show [A Bigger
Picture, Royal Academy] – he used the iPad
and I loved it, but I wasn’t sure about his
images printed out. I think they should stay
on the screen. The luminosity of colour
on the screen is great. And using this
as a creative tool has really made me think
about how I paint.’ He won’t be showing
any iPad work.
Fowler, who is ‘Cardiff born and bred’, is
really looking forward to this homecoming,
not having had a show in the Welsh capital
since the late Nineties: ‘It’s really nice
to go back and show, and doing it at the
Millennium Centre is quite a big deal.
I think it will bring in quite a different crowd
and the people who normally go there don’t
usually get to see work like this.’ Don’t,
however, make the mistake of thinking that
because his work has this fantastical edge,
he’s not completely serious and focused on
the creation and quality of what he does.
He also now seems to be entering
a more deeply personal phase, bringing
together many elements of his life and love
as well as how he has arrived at this point.
That said, it is fun...

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58
STUDIO WEAVE
EST LONDON, 2006
MARIA SMITH, DIRECTOR

‘When we were choosing a name for our practice, we decided that
we didn’t want it to be based on our names. We wanted anyone who
might join the practice in the future to be able to feel like it was
theirs as much as ours and felt that a name of our names would
limit that. So we went about choosing a word. We chose weave
because we like all its connotations: a complex fabric made from
many individual strands, collaboration and integration, skilled
craft, traditional and highly mechanised, and the idea of weaving
a narrative.
‘We expect people will take different things away from the
name, but we hope that they associate it with craft, narrative,
a sense of openness to collaboration perhaps, and of course we hope
people remember it!’

ALL POTRAITS COURTESY OF THE PRACTICES

Studio Weave (l-r): Eddie Blake,
Esme Fieldhouse, Maria Smith
and Je Ahn

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THE
NAME
GAME
does the NAme of AN
ARchitectURe pRActice mAke A
diffeReNce? some pRActices thAt
hAve choseN Not to follow the
tRAditioNAl NAmiNg RoUte tell
gemma barton theiR ReAsoNs
The architect as a figurehead is a
Renaissance invention. It was then that the
man of letters, as outlined by Alberti in
the middle of the first millennium, began
to lay claim to recognition for his creations,
rather than handing off all credit to his (and
it was only ever ‘his’) patron. Undoubtedly,
the complex reasons behind this include
an increased recognition of the artist, the
rise of humanist philosophy, the faith in
the power, even genius, of the individual
in society. Hence we recognise Brunelleschi,
Palladio, Michaelangelo – the cult of the
individual had begun.
Skipping forward to the industrial
and commercial ages, the 19th to the
20th centuries saw a continuation of the
paternalistic tendency in architectural
identity. This was reflected as architecture
practices expanded from single authors
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to small teams, still using the names of
the figurehead or heads to determine the
practice ethos – from the earliest practice
registered in North America, McKim Mead
& White, to the modernist masters such
as Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright
or Alvar Aalto, all individual figures who
eclipse their eponymous studios.
The late-20th century saw a
recognition of the breadth of architectural
practice; in a practical sense, in the form of
assistants, CAD technicians, model makers,
IT consultants, HR and administration.
But the post-war generation also used
their names to display a stance, political,
aesthetic or philosophical. For example,
the London-based collective of Archigram
fused the concerns of architecture with
the communicative immediacy of the

telegram, in which light, its eye-catching
printed output makes complete sense. The
practice of architecture itself, arguably,
enjoyed a broader understanding in the
public eye: and indeed the rise of terms like
‘multidisciplinary’, and ‘cross-boundary
practice’ reflected this.
Many a contemporary and emerging
architecture practice can be sticklers over
the naming of the operation; recognising
that the talents of a fluid cast of individuals
must be balanced with a representation
of a practice’s particular culture, to entice
nd pique the curiosity of an ever-wider and
more disembodied audience of clients
and stakeholders. In the following excerpted
interviews, Gemma Barton asks a number
of firms, of all shapes and sizes, what their
handle really means...

aoc (l-r): Daisy Froud, Vincent
Lacovara, Geoff shearcroft and
Tom coward

AgENTs of ChANgE – Now AoC
est LoNdoN, 2003
Daisy FrouD, co-FounDer
‘We were a loose group of friends with shared interests initially, who got
together with the aim of maybe one day becoming a practice, and in the
short-term of arguing about stuff, entering competitions and such. The name
came out of a day when we mapped out our shared interests and ambitions.
It was part-influenced by Joseph Beuys’ theories of social sculpture and the
idea of art and artists as agents of change, and partly by cheese making
(something we were looking at the time with relevance to a particular
architectural project) – that is, the addition of a tiny quantity of enzyme at
the right time. We liked the idea that an architect could play a significant...
role in a process in an efficient and strategic way – influencing at the right
time, in the right place, without over-dominating or directing the process.
‘We wanted a practice that was free of obvious names, egos, or
ownership, and we still think it achieves that. It also, we hope, sounds both
reasonably uncorporate and unflashy. We also wanted – when we chose to
use the original whole name, as opposed to the acronym – to suggest the
ideas above and something that would age well. Although we liked the idea
of Agents of Change, we felt that a name like that would go out of fashion
pretty quickly and label us as a certain kind of practice from a certain era.
AOC as an acronym can stand for a variety of things and even, in some
contexts, simply the initial letters of three surnames.’

FaT (l-r): sean Griffiths,
sam Jacobs and
charles Holland

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61
FAT
EST LONDON 1995
SEAN GRIFFITHS

‘The name was conceived by accident. It was supposed to be the
name of a magazine rather than an architecture practice.
‘It was a call to arms – FAT as an acronym for Fashion
Architecture Taste. It set us against the idea of architecture as
something abstract and timeless, as something outside of the
fripperies of fashion and beyond the politics of taste. We thought
– and still do – that architecture is part of these phenomena and
that engaging with them directly is a way for architecture to
become politicised.
‘We weren’t influenced by other practices; band names maybe…’

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63
van Berkel & Bos – now
UNStudio – co-founder
Ben van Berkel

UNSTUDIO
EST AMSTERDAM AS VAN BERKEL &
BOS ARCHITECTUURBUREAU IN 1988,
RE-BRANDED TO UNSTUDIO IN 1998
BEN VAN BERKEL, CO-FOUNDER

WE DIDN’T ONLY CHANGE THE
NAME, BUT ALSO ADAPTED
THE WAY THAT WE WERE
ORGANISED TO CORRESPOND
WITH A NEW MODEL [OF
WORKING]...CHANGING THE NAME
OF THE PRACTICE ALSO GENERATED
A NEW FORM OF COLLABORATIVE
STRATEGY

‘In 1988 when Caroline Bos and I originally
founded our practice it was called the van
Berkel & Bos Architectuurbureau. However
we noticed at the time that the practice of
architecture was fundamentally changing
and that as an office we were in fact
organised in a way that was in some
respects too traditional.
‘We wanted to break away from both
the atelier and the corporate model of
architectural practice and to instead invent
a new form of collaborative network
practice which would operate in an
interactive way on different scales. For this
reason we decided to change the name of
the practice in 1998 to UNStudio – United
Network Studio.
‘We didn’t only change the name, but
also adapted the way that we were
organised to correspond with this new
model. This in turn meant more leadership

was required and as a result we now have
three partners in the firm. So changing the
name of the practice also generated a new
form of collaborative strategy.
‘This was done in order to be more
compact, more interactive and parametric
and to facilitate outsourcing and knowledge
sharing. We wanted the office to function
as an adaptive machine that constantly
and flexibly performs with new techniques
for design according to a network model.
‘In 1998 we were strongly advised not
to change the name of the practice, after
having spent more than 10 years creating
the ‘brand’. But thankfully the gamble paid
off and actually we couldn’t have imagined
at the time what a successful effect it would
have. Now of course the complex network
model is widely known. But it is always
good to rethink and re-evaluate your
organisation and how you work.’
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64

FREAKS FREEARCHITECTS
EST PARIS 2007
GUILLAUME AUBRY
‘The name FREAKS came as most of the
good ideas we have do, in a bar, late in the
evening, after a couple of drinks. It stands
for Fire, Rain and Earth Are Kids of the Sun.
No, it actually has no meaning, but it was
something like a statement against a trend
at that time when architecture companies
were named by acronyms based on the
initials of their partners. What we found
tricky in the way it crystallised around
determined people while we were
conceiving FREAKS as an open group –
a group of young and free architects
working together.
‘FREAKS refers to monsters, which
comes from the Latin verb monstrare,
to show or reveal. FREAKS is then
something meant to be shown, showing
what we have integrated in our practice,
since we always carefully work on how
to document and show whatever the project
is, depending on the media, the support,
the viewer. But FREAKS mainly works as
a way of thinking. We use it as an adjective.
‘We were mostly surrounded by
non-exciting office names... And it was
certain that FREAKS had a great potential
for our office to feel a bit unique among
the others.’

NUNSWITHGUNSDESIGN
EST LONDON, 2009
HUW WILLIAMS, FOUNDER
‘I felt it was important to have something
distinctive and unusual as a kind of
standard to raise in the battleground
landscape of British architecture. It was
about not wanting to be perceived as a
typical architecture practice. In this way
the name/logo was a means to sabotage
any preconceived expectations that people
may have had about me being an architect,
of working against the conventions of what
an architect is, and to put the emphasis
a bit more on being an ideas and not a
service provider.
‘The name was conceived together
with a “shadow label” logo, which together
help set up a certain ambience that aims to
be suggestive and slightly mysterious. Of
course it has connotations of rebellion,
subversive practice, irreverence. Many
people find it mildly amusing, which is
good because it means that the name is
more likely to be memorable.
‘I didn’t want the “surname and
surname” partnership names, or the head
honcho “first name/surname architects”
that are the standard issue way of naming
architecture practices. Also I wanted to
avoid the abstract corporate sounding
names that are usually a set of initials, or
the names that are trying too hard to be
trendy – most of these fail to convey
anything about the personality of the
practice and what it is about.’

THE NAME NUNSWITHGUNS WAS
CONCEIVED TOGETHER WITH A
‘SHADOW LABEL’ LOGO, WHICH
TOGETHER HELP SET UP A CERTAIN
AMBIENCE THAT AIMS TO BE
SUGGESTIVE AND SLIGHTLY
MYSTERIOUS...

Above: NUNSWITHGUNS, (l-r)
Huw Williams, Huw Williams
and Huw Williams
Right: FREAKS freearchitects,
(l-r) Guillaume Aubry, Cyril
Gauthier and Yves Pasquet

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67
PRODUCE

A design project has uncovered the
‘hidden’ history of a London borough
through its key geographical,
historical and cultural landmarks
by reviving a navigation system
that has been around for centuries,
reports Gian Luca Amadei

The way in which we navigate urban
spaces has changed dramatically in
recent years, moving quickly from
analogue world maps to handy digital
devices using the Global Positioning
System (GPS), which are accessible
on demand.
But despite their precision and
relatively easy access and use, digital
devices can quickly become obsolete
if not regularly updated. In this
respect traditional maps have
a longer shelf life than their digital
counterpart and, one could argue,
have an haptic quality that digital
devices do not feature.
Partly moved by the dilemma
of the digital versus the analogue,
Brighton-based design practice Studio
Tonne revisited the principles of the
volvelle, or wheel chart.
Mostly found in ancient
astronomy books, these calculation
tools are formed by overlapping two
rotating disk on a pivot. To this day

this low-tech tool is also known
as a planisphere, and is mostly used
for learning how to recognise stars
and constellations.
Just as a planisphere keeps
stargazers and planet-spotters’ eyes
up and their hands tightly gripped
to this paper-made steering wheel,
so the Kingston Navigation Wheel
keeps its users’ eyes fixed on to
buildings, alleys and pavements
to spot any sign of Kingston upon
Thames’ hidden history.
The aim of the project is to
encourage visitors entering Kingston
via its main ‘gateways’, such as
the railway station, to explore areas
away from the main retail centre
(the Bentall Centre) and to uncover
the hidden Kingston through its
key geographical, historical and
cultural landmarks.
Paul Farrington, founder of Studio
Tonne, is not new to projects such as
the Kingston Navigation Wheel that

Above: Walkers find
their bearings
around Kingston
upon Thames, using
the Studio Tonne
Navigation Wheel

Ω

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68

Ω

cross the boundaries between graphic
and interactive design. In recent
years Farringdon’s practice has
handled an eclectic mix of projects,
from sound toys to furniture.
Farrington’s own curiosity for design
objects and architectural
and social history formed the basis
for the painstaking research he
conducted in preparation for the
Kingston Navigation Wheel project.
‘Ever since I can remember I have
collected ephemera – handwritten
signs, letterpress blocks, rulers and
so on,’ says Farrington. ‘These objects
remind me of a time when design was
made by hand and I have always
enjoyed collecting them, not knowing
what use they would have other than
looking nice.’
Supported by the Heritage
Lottery Fund, the Kingston Navigation
Wheel project was inspired by the
Surrey Walking Club and the Victorian
sport of pedestrianism, and stemmed
from two parallel projects.
The first was a commission by the
Stanley Picker Gallery in Kingston,

entitled No Competition!, which
consisted in an off-site programme
of artist projects exploring the
relationship between art and
non-competitive sport. Farrington
was one of three artists who were
commissioned and he was asked to
research the theme of walking as
non-competitive sport. The other was
a commission by the Royal Borough
of Kingston’s Outer London Fund to
suggest design ideas that would allow
people to navigate and explore
aspects of Kingston, as well as access
information that would provide an
alternate view of the area.
‘I had visited Kingston many
times but my journey had always
consisted of just walking from the
train station to Kingston University,
and to be honest the walk itself was
not very inspiring. So when I began
the project I really had no idea what
sort of place Kingston actually was
– all I knew was that people liked to
go shopping and that was about it’,
Farrington says.
After a few exploratory walks

Above right: The
first step in Paul
Farringdon’s
research was to
carry out a survey
of the existing
navigation tools
in Kingston to map
their location,
relevance and
effectiveness
Right: One of the
early sketched maps
in which Farringdon
started to note
some of the details,
symbols, buildings
and even smells
around Kingston

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69

Above: All the
hand-written notes
and considerations
were input into a
digital format over
a Google map of
the area
Left: Early
prototypes of the
Kingston Navigation
Wheel, looking at
how the historical
and geographical
information could
be combined into
each one of the
five walks

Ω

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70



in the area Farrington realised that
Kingston did not have any consistent
signage, making navigation of
the area confusing for people. He
embarked on a study of signage that
allowed him to locate and document
the range of existing community
noticeboards and signage devices
in the town centre, both fixed and
semi-permanent, that could inform
him of the direction to take, rather
than simply follow the flow of people
moving from the train station to the
Bentall Centre.

Above: The final
wheel. The top
revolving disk shows
a map of the area
and locations
around Kingston.
During each walk
the user is asked
questions to unlock
the next landmark
to visit

‘As this project used walking as
a theme, I began researching the
historical representations of walking
– scientific, artistic, medical – and
became interested in the Victorian
sport of pedestrianism, now known
as race walking. From race walking
I became interested in the methods
and rules used in the sport for
orienteering,’ explains Farrington.
By studying the routes into
Kingston followed and the
information collected on them,
various themes started to emerge

and develop, and eventually formed
five distinct walks. ‘For instance,
wherever I walked I would see a crest
of three fish – on the side of bridges,
shops and roads – and by diving into
the archives at Kingston Museum I
found out that these fish relate to
how Kingston used to have three
salmon fisheries in the Thames, as
recorded in 1086 the Doomsday Book,’
says Farrington.
He also conducted research into
the range of devices needed when
walking, such as compasses, maps,

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71

walking sticks, shoes, notebooks,
binoculars and iPhone apps. As the
research material started to reach
a critical mass Farrington also
started to question how would
people actually start a walk and
where would they finish.
Intrigued by the way in which
orienteering devices work, he decided
that people had to answer questions
relating to the spaces they were to
start at and move through in their
walks around Kingston. This defined
the final design of the wheel which,

although very technical in its early
prototypes, in its final version reached
a balance between the amount of
information made available and its
accessibility to users.
‘At the end of my research,’ says
Farrington, ‘my perception of
Kingston had changed dramatically.
I became very excited that Kingston
had so much history, which was
hidden away down alleyways, inside
department stores, above computer
shops, under bridges, behind
buildings, in gardens and parks,

Above: The bottom
disk of the wheel,
containing all the
historical data
uncovered on
Kingston during
research by
Farrington on
Kingston, giving
a different
perspective of
the area

floating in the river, inside books
in records offices, in museums and art
galleries, churches, perfume shops,
in the sky, below bank vaults and
hidden in funeral parlours.’
The rich tapestry of history that
Farrington uncovered in just one
relatively small part of London is also
telling of how little urban history
is accessible on demand, and how
much more there is to be researched,
revealed and communicated –
whether by analogue or digital
navigation devices.
BLUEPRINT JANUARY 2013

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Page 1

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REVIEW

>>ExhIbItIons

73

EvERyThINg Was MovINg
– PhoTogRaPhy fRoM
ThE 60s aNd 70s
Barbican gallery, London
until 13 January

WILLIaM KLEIN +
daIdo MoRIyaMa

Right: Saturday
Morning at the
Hypermarket –
Semi Final of the
Miss Lovely Legs
Competition,
taken in apartheid
South Africa by
David Goldblatt

DAIDO MORIYAMA

Below: Grainy and
murky, an image
taken by Daido
Moriyama, who
rephotographs his
work to enhance
contrast and grain

There’s a big overlap – chronologically
at least – between the two blockbuster
photography shows on at London’s
Barbican Gallery and Tate Modern. Yet
the content, and the presentation, are
radically different.
Everything Was Moving at the
Barbican is a ‘serious show’. Given
a suitably sober environment by
architecture practice Carmody Groarke,
it provides rare proof that ‘overview’
shows, featuring work from multiple
practitioners, can deliver substance.
The work of a dozen photographers
were chosen to explore photography’s
intersection with the social and
political changes of the Sixties and
Seventies. The often astonishingly
brave results still shock, but there is
also work that raises a smile or tugs at
the heart strings, reflecting the quirks
and details of everyday life played out
against a broader canvas of turbulence
and change.
While there’s no weak link in this
epic show, the lower gallery’s emphasis
on racial politics in South Africa and
the Americas provides the most
powerful sequencing of images.The
works of David Goldblatt, William
Eggleston, Bruce Davidson, Graciela
Iturbide and Ernest Cole offer a
shocking reminder of recent history.
That each is given ample wall space
to show significant bodies of work
is welcome; it feels much more than
just a ‘greatest hits’.
Cole’s gobsmacking prints of life
in apartheid South Africa were thought
lost, only recently found in Sweden.
They depict details of a grim existence:

DAvID GOLDBLATT

Tate Modern, London
until 20 January
Reviews by Gareth Gardner

schools with no furniture, pupils
having to kneel on the floor to write,
desperate images of muggings by
Tsotsi gangs. A photo of segregation
on a railway platform (thought to be
Doornfontein Station) communicates
the evils of apartheid in a single
graphic image.
Goldblatt’s exploration of South
African society, accompanied by his
own written recollections, is no less
involving. His images of white privilege
in suburban Boksburg, and contrasting
daily existence for black residents of
Soweto township show a kind of
‘normal’ life taking place within the
most abnormal constructed situation.
‘Nothing in all my life made me more
sharply aware of the power of
apartheid’ the photographer notes.
The surreality is brought home in his
famous work, Saturday Morning at the
Hypermarket – Semi Final of the Miss
Lovely Legs Competition.
American photographers Davidson
and Eggleston are better known. And
while the show reprises some of
Eggleston’s best-known colour work,
there’s also room for his startling
large-format portraits. Eggleston might
seem a surprise inclusion, as his work
lacks the overt political and social

ThE PhoTogRaPhs
REfLEcT ThE qUIRKs
aNd dETaILs of
EvERyday LIfE
PLayEd oUT agaINsT
a BRoadER caNvas
of TURBULENcE...
comment of others, yet the context of
race and social change is ever-present
in his enigmatic images. Meanwhile,
Davidson’s iconic shots of the Civil
Rights movement are shown alongside
subtler observations, underlining the
era’s emotional atmosphere.
At Tate Modern the mood is
different, if no less energetic or
confrontational. There are images of
protest among William Klein’s
photographs of New York, Tokyo and
Moscow. Yet this exploration of his
work, alongside that of Japan’s Daido
Moriyama, is as much about the
presentation of photography as the
work. There are the iconic covers for
Domus by Klein, and issues of Provoke
magazine in which Moriyama and his
contemporaries published their work.
Klein’s documentary photographs

are seen very much as a starting point,
to be repurposed, enlarged and
overpainted. The polymathic Klein
encompasses fashion as well as
reportage photography, movies,
painting and graphic design.
The work of Moriyama is less
in-your-face, but often grainy and
murky. There’s insight into the
Japanese urban experience. Images
from his book Hunter show highways
out of Tokyo, an endeavour inspired
by reading On the Road – you could
describe both Klein and Moriyama as
Beat Generation photographers.
Like Klein, Moriyama is a great
experimenter, giving the exhibition
richness through the extreme variety
of approaches, encompassing Polaroids,
photocopies and silkscreen prints.
Again, images are revisited and
repurposed, sometimes to abstraction,
by being rephotographed, exaggerating
grain and contrast.
The show aims ‘to examine the
relationship’ between Klein and
Moriyama. And here it stumbles. Their
work is presented separately and the
transition between the two artists is
particularly harsh. It’s a shame, as
interweaving the two would have only
added to an already thrilling ride.
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74

>>EXHIBITION
L’ITaLIa dI LE
CoRBUsIER
MaXXI, Rome, until 17 February
Review by Roberta Marcaccio

COURTESY FONDATION LE CORBUSIER

Below: Hundreds of
original documents
illustrate Le
Corbusier’s creative
involvement with
Italy – including
this plan for the
new Venice Hospital,
sketches of
monuments (below
right), and project
schemes (far right)

L’Italia di Le Corbusier, curated by
Marida Talamona, illustrates the rich
and complex relationship that tied the
Swiss master to Italy. It presents the
reciprocal inspiration and influences
from Le Corbusier’s earliest study trips
to his last projects for Olivetti and the
Venice Hospital.
The space of the MAXXI primes the
visitor; moving past Anish Kapoor’s
PVC funnel and Cassina’s reading
corners, one encounters Umberto Riva’s
sequence of self-supporting walls.
The roughness of their timber – a
raw material also used in formwork
– contrasts with the marble-smooth
perfection of the concrete with which
Zaha Hadid gave form to her museum.
The impression is of entering a giant
notebook, the pages flipping to
unravel the sinuosity of the space.
Riva’s and Kapoor’s installations break
the flowing continuity to create a
series of more intimate ‘rooms’ that
structure the vast amount of material
on show.
Between 1907 and 1922 Italy
was above all an object of study and
probably a rather disorienting one for
Le Corbusier, whose early drawings
betray a sense of confusion. Jumping
from style to style, he imitates at
one point the synthetic world of his
master, L’Epplatenier, using rapid
and softly shaded watercolours, then
adopting Ruskin’s meticulous trait to
render the Duomo di Pisa, for instance,
he indulges in the perfection and
sensuality of its decorative motifs.
Only after 1911 do Le Corbusier’s
drawings become interpretative. Details
become increasingly more rare on
the pages of his carnets, giving way
to more schematic representations
rendered with stronger lines and solid
colour-fields. The focus is now on

volumes and the way they react
to light.
Particularly striking is a picture
he personally takes of the Pantheon in
1911: he frames the image to exclude
the heavily decorated lower part of
the building, choosing to capture
only a fragment of the dome and its
vibrant reaction to the light coming
from above. The same attention to the
contrast permeates all the photographs
on show, from the shaded arches of
the Basilica di Massenzio to the strong
lines of the stairs in Piazza di Spagna,
San Pietro, and Villa Adriana.
More than 600 original documents
recreate Le Corbusier’s creative
universe. Mostly courtesy of the
Fondation Le Corbusier, they comprise
his theoretical writings, projects for
Italian locations, paintings that show
the influence of Italian artists, films
and biographical references – ranging
from photos to notes, letters and
sketches of monuments.
Their chronological organisation
not only documents the consistency
of Le Corbusier’s relationship to the
Italian artistic tradition and cultural
elite, but also traces the changing
points of view, approaches, interests
and objectives with which the
Swiss master looked to Italy over
his lifetime.

In October 1920, in Paris, Le
Corbusier founded the journal L’Esprit
Nouveau, together with Amédée
Ozenfant and Paul Dermée. This was a
period of intense exchange with Italian
artistic and literary publications and
of early affinities with the research of
several Italian painters. In a section of
the exhibition, Le Corbusier’s paintings
from the purism period are on show,
presented with works by Carlo Carrà,
Giorgio Morandi and Gino Severini.
Six large and beautiful drawings,
made during the Urbanism conference
held in Milan in 1934, underline the

influence that Le Corbusier’s theories
and architecture had on the young
Italian Rationalists of the Thirties.
As various pictures testify, Le Corbusier
was heavily present in Italy during
these years, interacting with various
cultural figures and taking part
in conferences and lectures, mainly
with the hope of obtaining a
commission from the Fascist regime
that would allow him to implement
his idea of the Ville Radieuse.
Le Corbusier’s architectural
projects for Italy arrived at the end
of his lifetime, when between 1962

COURTESY FONDATION LE CORBUSIER

Right: Umberto
Riva’s rough timber
walls of the
exhibition are a
contrast to the
smooth marble
of Zaha Hadid’s
museum venue

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75

>>BOOK
LE CoRBUsIER
FURNITURE aNd
INTERIoRs 1905-1965

COURTESY FONDATION LE CORBUSIER

COURTESY FLAMINIA NOBILI

arthur Rüegg
Fondation Le Corbusier /
scheidegger & spiess
£140
Review by Johnny Tucker

and 1965 he developed designs for the
Olivetti Electronic Calculation Centre
in Rho and the new Venice Hospital.
Destined to remain on paper, the two
projects occupy the last section of the
exhibition, representing the apex and
conclusion of the affiliation between
Le Corbusier and Italy.
L’Italia di Le Corbusier develops
a portrait of an architect and
draughtsman who notes and comments
on Italy’s history and cities, observing
them as a form of living raw material
to be critically reinterpreted in the
creation of new forms. His drawings
capture an existing situation while
presenting an architectural concept.

This is all too evident in the rarely
seen drawings for the Venice Hospital;
his early studies of the meander, made
as a young student, clearly inform
his proposal, suggesting a frayed
‘plate’ that completes the existent
urban fabric while imposing a new
rigour on it.
The exhibition highlights
Le Corbusier’s positive relationship
to history, suggesting that
a constructive confrontation with
the past is imaginable even in
a complex context like the Italian
one, which too often seems to remain
suffocated under the weight of its
cultural heritage.

Think Le Corbusier and furniture and
you immediately think of the classic,
box-like, and surprisingly comfortable,
tubular steel and leather seat/sofa or
the cowhide seat and chaise longue.
They are the ‘classics’, as it were.
All are still in production and none
designed by Le Corbusier.
I should definitely qualify that –
they were not designed by Corb alone,
but with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret,
with whom he worked for around 20
years, and the accomplished young
interior designer Charlotte Perriand.
There is no doubt that this period
of collaboration – it lasted a decade
with Perriand, starting in 1927 – was
also the golden period. And that fact
is recognised in this huge tome by
Arthur Rüegg.
The book is essentially split into
two parts: the first 200 pages scene
set, place Le Corbusier in context
and draw themes together in a series
of chapters, one of which focuses
specifically on the aforementioned
trio’s prestigious output.
Talking about the pieces from
this period, Rüegg notes that they
have ‘retained to this day, not only
their freshness, but also their whiff
of originality, of bohemian laissez
faire and exclusivity. They have
become magical objects which
continue to fascinate us even now.’
This work also has its own section
towards the back concentrating
on the output of Italian furniture
manufacturer Cassina, which has
produced these pieces and more
under licence since the early Sixties.
Cassina has also of late brought
to the fore the importance of Perriand
in the design process.
Rüegg’s book is a scholarly and

exhaustive tome. He refers to the
opening sections as essays and the
book as a catalogue. And the latter is
essentially what it becomes after the
opening section – a well-illustrated,
highly-detailed attempt to catalogue
everything that passed for furniture or
interior and was touched by the hand
of Corb.
When talking about the specific
pieces and interiors in this part of
the book, the author steers away
from critical analysis, concentrating
on the facts. As a result, it’s only the

HIs INTERIoRs
sERvEd HIm as
a TEsT Pad wHERE
HE CoULd ovERsTEP
BoUNdaRIEs aNd
oPPosE PREvaILINg
CoNvENTIoN aT wILL
obsessive or completist that would sit
down to read this in its entirety. It’s
really a book where you flit between
projects and gradually build up a
vision of how he worked and what
he created. Rüegg’s easy-to-read yet
authoritative style helps you in this
mode, continually cross-referencing
and drawing lines of evolution.
In its totality, the work is hit and
miss, some fantastic and much that
would have been lost in the annals
of time had it not been for the other
masterful output by its creator. That
makes the book no less interesting
though, and it is perhaps the perfect
companion piece to the eight-volume
Le Corbusier Oeuvre complète, which
as Rüegg points out, glosses over this
part of the man’s output.
The importance of the work is
summed up by the author thus: ‘His
interiors served him as a test pad
where he could deliberately overstep
boundaries and oppose the prevailing
convention at will; examples of this
can be found throughout his oeuvre.
Items of furniture transplanted from
the office, a hospital or military
context into a domestic interior thus
became one of the hallmarks of his
slightly odd-looking Purist repertoire,
just as provoking the establishment
was a key motif at the Pavillon de
L’Esprit Nouveau of 1925.’
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77

>>BOOK
FUsE 1-20
Neville Brody & Jon Wozencroft
Taschen, £34.99
Review by Agata Pyzik

Below right: The
book’s publisher
Taschen has
attempted to
reproduce the
cardboard box
format in which
issues of FUSE were
often sent out

From today’s perspective, the Nineties
seem like an under-considered,
even lost, era. We have replayed the
raucous/bombastic aesthetic of the
Eighties in all possible ways, but the
Nineties hold a strange in-between
legacy. Technologies, political systems,
styles from a fascinating decade stand
only partially explored, with its hopes
in technology and a strong futurist
streak now largely obsolete.
FUSE magazine, whose lavish
anthology has been republished by
Taschen, was the brainchild of Neville
Brody and Jon Wozencroft, two high
priests of graphic design, and looks
today like a dispatch from this blurred,
and misunderstood transitional time.
Why transitional? The Nineties
spanned a moment of great
technological change, launching off
the back of the fax, when paper, print
and immediacy were suddenly one
and, more obviously, the personal
computer, which became increasingly

fuse Was desigNed
To creaTe a
mulTiNaTioNal
Workshop of The
NeW possiBiliTies
of TechNology iN
Typography as arT...
ubiquitous during the decade. The
symbiotic development of graphic
design softwares, meant the laborious
techniques of designing, especially
typography, became easy and within
a reach of a click.
As showcased in the V&A’s recent
Postmodernism exhibition, Brody
is an established legend, certainly
within a particularly British strain of
contemporary design and typography
– somehow so much richer in the
latter decades of the last century.
Brody combined punk’s radicalism,
early avant-garde’s rigour and glamour
of Eighties fashion; in fact both
Wozencroft and Brody came from the
sophisticated circles of high art and
music involved in building the visual
language of post-punk and new pop.
Brody designed covers for
Sheffield’s industrial gods Cabaret
Voltaire, Depeche Mode and The FACE
– the original iconic ‘style magazine’,
which defined the erratic, eclectic
aesthetic of the era. Channelling
something of the unpolished, radical,
buzzing energy of the time was key
to providing an intellectual and
visual extension of those creative

IMAGES COURTESY OF TASCHEN

Right: A selection
of Neville Brody
covers for FUSE

movements. That also meant the
pair had higher demands of graphic
art, which at this point was swiftly
being co-opted as the purview of ad
agencies and marketable products.
Already in the Eighties and
worried by the sudden eruption
of easy corporate design, the duo
issued a manifesto called Death of
Typography; FUSE was established in
1991 and continued until the 2000s,
designed to create a multinational
workshop of the new possibilities of
technology in typography as art, as
intellectual provocation, as a catalyst.
A look at Brody’s covers, with their
blurry, fizzy metallic layers of dimmed
greys, oranges and anthracite-greys,
brings to mind the visceral futurism
of filmmaker David Cronenberg just as
much as Sonic Youth’s album covers.
That was the time of floppy disks
and MS DOS ecstasy, now wholly
nostalgic, but FUSE was trying to
combine radical futuristic potential
with a sense of material fragility.
Issues typically arrived in a taped
cardboard box, including floppy
disks, CD-roms, posters, cut-outs
and bitingly intelligent Wozencroft
manifestos, with topics varying from
(dis)information, religion, exuberance,
cybernetics and the virtual. The spirit
of JG Ballard was always present,
providing the more pessimistic
undertones of Wozencroft’s visions
(‘Abuse is part of the process!’).
As a result of versatile softwares
and the treatment of design and
format as a single creative process,
typography and design were finally

one and the same. A host of graphic
luminaries including Peter Saville,
Malcolm Garrett (of the Buzzcocks’
album covers fame), Pierre di Sciullo,
Paul Elliman and, not least, FontShop
founder and Blueprint regular Erik
Spiekermann, were commissioned
to respond to FUSE’s ideas.
Their influence shaped the title
in a truly curatorial sense, as we’d
say today, as seen in earlier the
conceptual magazines like Fluxus
Yearbook and Aspen, which had
contributions in conceptual, sculptural
or other experimental formats.
The result, with such typographic
gems as the Stealth font face by
Malcolm Garrett and Chocolate Runes
by Gerard Unger, is astonishing,

an inspirational remembrance of
the possibilities and ambition that
graphic designers could have.
Taschen’s retrospective – designed
by Brody’s current outfit, Research
Studios – tries to repeat the cardboard
box format, but instead of a floppy
disk you get a graphic card with free
access to the last two digitised issues
and fonts. Certainly, compressing
everything in a chip eludes all the
tangible excitement of encountering
new forms and inventions. Wozencroft
is now more dedicated to his
‘audiovisual’ label TOUCH (again,
the onus on physical sensations is
surely no coincidence), but his darkly
humorous manifestos are something
we truly miss.

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78

>>EXHIBITION
ThE INdIvIdUaL aNd
ThE ORgaNIsaTION:
aRTIsT PLacEmENT
gROUP 1966-79

Right: John Latham
stands beside his
Big Breather,
developed during
his placement
with engineers
Proteus-Bygging,
outside Imperial
College, London
in 1972

IMAGES COURTESY RAVEN ROW GALLERY

Below: Sculptor
Garth Evans had
an APG placement
with British Steel,
resulting in
sculpture, a film
(both showing at
the exhibition at the
Raven Row Gallery
here) and a book

In the Sixties, the artist-in-residence
in a non-artistic organisation was
unheard of (precedents such as war
artists or Leeds University’s Gregory
Fellowship notwithstanding).
In 1965, artist Barbara Steveni
suggested that industrial companies
host and fund artists, and a year later
she and fellow artist John Latham
set up the Artists Placement Group
to serenade British industry with
the serendipitous proposition that it
would gain from the artist’s insights.
A few responded favourably,
resulting in not just an alteration
in the relationship between art
and society, but also with works
well ahead of their time. APG is
now largely forgotten, but Raven
Row’s comprehensive retrospective
highlights its historical significance,
with lessons for today.
Its exhibition is heavy on
documentation, in particular the
correspondence between APG and host
organisations. Early output is most
striking. For example, sculptor Garth
Evans was ‘placed’ with British Steel
1969-70, and a photography book,
film and his own sculpture resulted.
The film, shot outside at a
Greenwich steel works, is wonderfully
atmospheric. In an industrial landscape
strewn with steel beams rusting
before our eyes on a damp day, Evans
discovers a ready-made sculpture in a
welding-exercise structure abandoned
in the semi-desolation. It’s not quite a
David Smith, the pioneering American
metal sculptor, but it has a muscular,

COURTESEY ThE JOhN LAThAM FOUNdATION

Until 16 december
Raven Row gallery, London E1
Review by Herbert Wright

chunky presence. British Steel was
an enthusiastic APG client, and cited
Smith in justifying Evan’s placement.
Other organisations must have
been mind-boggled by the APG
artistic outputs. Ian Breakwell made
a film called The Journey with British
Transport Films in 1975, which is
basically him and a woman looking
out from a train, set to his spoken
reverie about sex complete with
female orgasm sounds. APG was very
single-minded about maintaining
artistic freedom with its placements.
APG’s apogee was probably the
1971 Hayward Gallery show inn7o.
Its centrepiece was The Sculpture –
a room where artists and industrial
figures talked across a table. Visitors
watched through a PVC curtain or
on monitors. It was one of the least
attended and most critically panned
in the Hayward’s history. But who
else (Warhol‘s commoditisation of art
aside) was addressing the interplay
of art and commerce?
After the show, APG targeted

the aPG is larGely
forGotten but
this retrosPective
hiGhliGhts
its historical
siGnificance with
lessons for today
government agencies, perhaps
responding to political criticism
about pandering to corporate culture.
Latham’s 1975-76 placement with
the Scottish Office is notable. Local
bings (huge slag heaps from a century
of oil-shale mining) captivated him,
and in the spirit of Marcel Duchamp
(and Evans at Greenwich) he declared
them ‘Works of Art’. He conceived
a Bing Monument, two giant books
intersecting on a bing, and three
model studies are shown. If built,
it could have redefined West Lothian
like Gormley’s Angel of the North did
for Gateshead in 1996.

Other APG ideas also predated
contemporary developments. For
example, Latham’s Big Breather
(1972), developed with engineering
firm Proteus-Bygging, mounted
bellows on a 9m-high column outside
Imperial College, demonstrating sea
energy harvesting, well before any
renewable agenda. Reminiscence
Aids (1978-79) was a group effort
led by Mick Kemp with the DHSS. It
used nostalgic film clips and recorded
reminiscences to engage the elderly –
art with a community objective.
After 1979, APG’s focus moved
from artist placement to ideas
consultancy. Steveni remains vocal
about APG today, and a 2005 film
of her is included in the show.
The Sixties saw a disconnect
between art and industry; this
excellent exhibition shows that APG’s
bridging of the gap was radical and
productive. In an art world awash
with hype and conceptualist fatigue,
maybe artists should be revisiting
our few remaining factory floors.

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14:29

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An award for excellence in British Design
of Furniture in volume production.
The Design Guild Mark rewards the
work of the finest designers working in
Britain and the best of British designers
working abroad.
Closing date: 28 February 2013.
Apply on-line at:
www.furnituremakers.org
or call: 020 7256 5558.
A Guild Mark of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers

Digital and screen print.
Driven by technology.
Powered by hands-on experience.
T: 01908 308777 F: 01908 308775 E: [email protected] W: www.christycarpets.com

80

>>POP-UPS 2012
TEmPoRaRy sTRUcTUREs
IN LoNdoN
Review by Esme Fieldhouse

Right: Spa guests
relax in the shingle
shed at the Barking
Bathouse by
Something & Son,
where black-painted
board looks
centuries old
Far right, above and
below: While the
Barking Bathhouse
was always intended
to be temporary, the
sheds sit on sleepers
so that they can
be lifted up intact
and relocated
Below right: The
Filling Station, by
Carmody Groarke,
in a defunct petrol
station offers
outside and inside
eating and is
wrapped in a skin
that glows at night

This year London became a citywide
pop-up book; temporary versions of its
public spaces and buildings bubbled
up as part of an enormous process
of adaptation. For the first time, the
Olympics had genuinely concentrated
on legacy at a large scale and the
organisers feverishly calculated
how it would reach a balanced
permanence afterwards – temporary
architecture emerged as the answer.
We didn’t have to suffer an onslaught
of large and showy hulks to support
this transient event, but a host
of buildings that were themselves
transient too.
Of course, 2012 was not the
year that pop-up first popped up;
the approach to the temporary
architecture seen at the Games forms
part of a wider trend that includes
many modest and creative examples,
and which has been growing with
vigour over the past few years (as if
energised by the worsening financial
climate). A more open-minded
attitude seems to have taken hold
of developers and local authorities,
allowing others to take over sites that
were due to sit empty for a while.
The landowners have caught on too,
considering temporary projects as
potential money spinners until the
financial weather picks up.
Many of the projects are not
just physical stop-gaps, but are also
building a community asset, perhaps
reflected in a shift in the definition
of pop-up towards the emergence
of a more ‘long-term temporary’ where
the agenda lies in embedding ideas
in the ground, not just laying them
down like a blanket only to be taken
away when the picnic is over.
So on the one hand we have
the introspective and socially driven
inhabitation of unloved buildings
and sites, and on the other there
exists a more commercialised strand,
in which pop-up offers a sophisticated
branding tool. The former holds a
recession mentality of seeking and
making one’s own opportunities –
embodied in the self-initiated project;
the latter is almost recession-proof,
yet irresistibly fashionable.
Two temporary projects that
opened over the summer in London
illustrate this dichotomy and together
present a more mature version of popup architecture: Barking Bathhouse
by Something & Son and Carmody
Groarke’s The Filling Station. Barking
Bathhouse, an experimental spa
and bar in Barking town centre, was

one of art festival CREATE’s major
commissions in its fifth year and
its first in Barking and Dagenham.
The project called for a structure
to last just eight to 10 weeks but
Something & Son was not happy
to pour so many resources into such
an ephemeral entity. ‘Legacy was not
a major part of the initial brief but
we put that into the project straight
away and had discussions from the
start about what would happen to it
after,’ says Andy Merritt, partner and
co-founder of the practice.
Something & Son, which was
behind 2011’s conversion of an empty
Georgian terraced house in Dalston
into a miniature urban farm, called
farm:shop, has designed and built a
charming huddle of black pitched-roof
forms. ‘It is designed to be pulled
away and can either be moved as
a whole or it can be ripped apart with
different pieces taken to different
places,’ explains Merritt.
The site of the Bathhouse was
always a temporary deal as it holds
planning permission for a new
swimming pool (‘which is in a way
quite nice because it’s similar to a
bathhouse,’ says Merritt). The entire
building rests on sleepers and a
loose concrete mix, which can be

simply knocked out to allow access
to underneath the structures so they
may be lifted up and moved. Trees
burst out from one of the shed-like
structures through the skeletal
roof of the relaxation garden. The
black-painted board is reminiscent
of a material charred from centuries
of industry, a nod to Barking’s
former factories.
Sitting on the corner of another
ex-industrial area, The Filling Station
was designed for property developer
Argent by Carmody Groarke. It inhabits
a defunct petrol station within the
67-acre King’s Cross development and
includes an outdoor food area and
restaurant inside the former kiosk.
The project marks the second
pop-up collaboration between the
architecture practice and trendy
East London restaurant Bistrotheque,
following on from 2010’s Studio
East Dining, which operated for three
weeks on top of Westfield in Stratford
before the mall opened to the public.
The Filling Station will last
a little longer, but is due to be
replaced by housing; there is also
an on-site showroom of an apartment.
‘It is critical to the long-term success
of the wider development that
Londoners and visitors engage with

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COURTERY CARMODY GROARKE

ALL BATHHOUSE IMAGES COURTERY SOMETHING & SONS

81

the area as a destination in the shortterm,’ says Prabha Rathinasabapathy,
project director at Argent. ‘The
challenge was to create something
that had independent pulling power.’
Carmody Groarke’s makeover
is simple and remains loyal to the
original structure, with the addition
of a voluptuous fibreglass skin that
glows at night. The Filling Station is
alluring and somewhat ominous from
the street, becoming a protected
cocoon once inside the skin with
views on to Regent’s Canal and Central
Saint Martins. ‘Not only do temporary
uses bring buildings to life and
maintain a level of activity, but there
is a great demand for new cultural
trends that are spawning in such
spaces,’ says Rathinasabapathy.
While The Filling Station plays its
temporary role in gathering long-term
popularity for the site, the future
of Barking Bathhouse remains up in
the air. At the time of going to press,
the spa had secured an extension
on the site to take it up to Christmas.
However, it must now run as its own
business – Something & Son has used
some of the funding to offer grants to
nurture the growth of a new business.
Projects such as London Pleasure
Gardens have learned the hard way

ThE ENdURINg
aTTRacTIoN of
somEThINg
TEmPoRaRy Is
IN maNy ways
aN oBvIoUs
maRkETINg TooL
that a resilient business case is
crucial. There are two possibilities for
the Bathhouse: to find one new home
or for parts to be taken to various
destinations. One suggestion is that
the self-functioning sauna shed, with
its wood-burning stove, could move
to local allotments. ‘Both situations
we’re happy with,’ says Merritt.
It seems quite fitting that Barking
Bathhouse may find a more permanent
home in allotments, a traditional stopgap use of land populated by informal
structures that offer tranquillity in
the city. Wherever it finally ends up,
locality is important. ‘It was a gift
to Barking; to suddenly take it away
would be a shame,’ adds Merritt.
These two projects are not as
diverse on the pop-up scale as they
first appear. The Filling Station must
sell King’s Cross Central, an area so big

it even has a new postcode, as a new
hub to live and work. For Something &
Son, the brief was to design a building
that would focus attention on Barking
as an attractive location to buy a
house or start a business. ‘The reason
Barking Council was interested in
working with us was that they wanted
to change the perception of Barking,’
explains Merritt.
The enduring attraction of
something temporary is in many ways
an obvious marketing tool. As Peter
Bishop and Lesley Williams observe
in their book, The Temporary City,
published this year: ‘Some are making
use of the glut of vacant property...
and the reduced risks that short-term
leases offer to new businesses. But
there is also a cachet associated with
time-limited exclusivity that has
consumer appeal.’
The future of pop-up architecture
is as uncertain as the sites it inhabits
– but there is a stronger sense than
ever that we have claim to the city.
An empty building or patch of land
that sits empty behind a padlock is
no longer perceived as inaccessible,
but rather invites curiosity.
We have a newfound love for the
city’s debris and a resilience to make
something useful out of it.
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82
IGUzzINI
iGuzzini introduces its new in30
LED system. in30 LED allow
setups of lighting solutions
that adorn the space with
continuous fine lines, whilst at
the same time providing general
lighting solutions. Careful study
of the optics allows realization
of general lighting levels,
normally required indoors, while
simultaneously eliminating
glare, especially in working
areas that incorporate video
monitors. in30 LED incorporates
reduced dimensions, careful
control of light distribution,
easy installation in continuous
lines, and high energy
efficiency.
iGuzzini
[email protected]
www.iguzzini.co.uk

NCS CoLoUR
nCS Gloss Scale. Define gloss levels and see how
seven different gloss levels can effect the way
colours appear. Four colours from the greyscale
are shown based on the lightness distribution
in nCS Colour Space. Works well with the nCS
atlas which has scales of lightness on each page.
Launch promotion online.

KI
KI’s Opt4, which has received a red Dot Design
award, is an easy–to-carry, easy-to-stack and
easy-to-move chair. Opt4 is Greenguard certified.
all the plastic parts and mesh are made from
100% recycled material; the waste matter of
moulding processes in the production of plastic
bottles, food containers and vehicle parts. Simple
construction enables easy disassembly into each
material type from recycling.

NCS UK
01491 411717
www.ncscolour.co.uk

TwYfoRd
BaThRoomS

KI
020 7404 7441
www.kieurope.com

Varicor is Twyfords first solid
surface material for the
bathroom. a new product
category for 2013, as well as
being the first of its kind,
Varicor has taken Twyford
many years of research and
development before launching
at Sleep. Made of polymeric
compounded mineral, Varicor
is fully coloured with a
silkymatt, easy-to-clean surface.
not only is it remarkably
robust and shockproof, it is
also anti-bacterial, pore-free,
waterproof and resistant against
disinfectants and the mostly
used chemicals.

Twyford Bathrooms
www.twyfordbathrooms.com

BENTLEY
PRINCE STREET
available in broadloom,
carpet tile and area rugs,
Iconic Intensity is opulent in
broadloom, chic in carpet tile
and edgy when modular accent
colors are intermixed. Featuring
a reimagined and progressive
color line, Iconic Intensity
represents a bold arrangement
of stripes crafted with various
textures. Smooth, frieze and
velvet texture designs alternate
between wide and thin stripes,
celebrating our vast heritage of
textiles. Its wonderful scale and
luxurious finish makes a grand
statement in hospitality and
retail environments.
Bentley Prince Street
07879 605795
www.bentleyprincestreet.com

ThE INTERIoRS GRoUP
The Interiors Group have successfully completed
The Interiors Group
www.interiorsgroup.ae
a fit out for abdul Latif jameel offices, in the
jumeirah Business Centre in jumeirah Lake
Towers, Dubai. The reception area has been fitted
out with a walnut veneer desk with back lit glass
to add colour and compliment the logo. There is
also a client waiting area to the far side of the
reception desk, where visitors can wait in comfort
on smart leather sofas and armchairs.

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83
VITamIN
The Knot Pendant Lamps come
in two different designs of
hand-blown glass shade, each
supported by a monkey-fist
knot. The knots are tied from a
brightly coloured cable available
in a selection of 5 colours.
The Lamps are aesthetically
versatile and can be displayed in
an illuminating cluster, a line or
alone, creating a single ambient
glow. Whichever way you choose
to display them,the Knot Lamps
will subtly draw attention with
their enigmatic aura.

Vitamin
+44 (0)20 7092 9191
www.vitaminliving.com

KERamag dEsIgN
Keramag Design offers a design-led portfolio
of sanitaryware and furniture for the top end
of the market, from luxury hotels to high-end
commercial properties. using only top-class
materials and state-of-the-art technology,
Keramag Design strives to create bathroom
collections that not only deliver cutting-edge
ideas but also premium quality and timeless
design.

FORBO

Keramag design
www.keramagdesign.de

KOmFORT

as the centrepiece of a brand new gallery at
Forbo
www.forbo-flooring.co.uk/
the roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in
marmoleum
Buckinghamshire, the author’s place of
inspiration, his ‘Writing Hut’, required a suitable
floor feature to showcase the star attraction.
Forbo Flooring System’s Marmoleum provided the
ideal solution, allowing an assortment of words to
be cut into the floor covering using its unique
aquajet Technology.

using advance digital
technology, Komfort’s signage
and graphics division is now
able to offer an extensive
range of standard and bespoke
glass manifestation. ranging
from simple Part M compliant
manifestation through to
bespoke, full coverage graphics,
contravision and electrically
controlled privacy film, there
is endless scope to create a
powerful effect in any office
environment. Komfort is also
able to offer printing on newly
developed film called Optically
Clear, creating the illusion that
the graphics are printed directly
on to the glass

Komfort
www.komfort.com

BLaCK mILLWORK
Colour, sleek aesthetics and
environmental performance
were the deciding factors that
led to andersen windows and
doors from Black Millwork being
specified for a sustainable
construction project in
Guildford, Surrey. Converting a
stable block into an eco-friendly
family home, the developer was
looking for high specification
windows that would complement
the other sustainable features
of the property, which
include a rainwater harvesting
system, substantial insulation
throughout the build and
solar photovoltaic panels for
renewable energy generation.

Black millwork
www.blackmillwork.co.uk

RaK CERamICs
raK Ceramics has introduced the Sandust tile
collection to its porcelain range. Inspired by the
varying tones and textures of the arabian Desert,
the Sandust Collection includes two tile formats
in a variety of subtle sandy shades and finishes.
Sandust’s landscape-inspired design is achieved
using the latest ink jet technology, which
provides great depth and an authentic colour
pallet.

RaK Ceramics
01730 237850
[email protected]
www.rakceramics.co.uk

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84
KähRs
Kährs has introduced a new
collection of three-strip ash
and oak wood floors. Offered
in a variety of wood grains
and finishes, the new avanti
Collection includes seven
designs in a spectrum of shades,
from pale creamy ash Ceriale
to conker toned Oak Supai. all
designs benefit from a durable
satin lacquer, matt lacquer or
oil prefinish and feature Kährs
Woodloc joint for fast, accurate
installation. Individual boards
measure 2423x200x13mm and
all surfaces are three-strips
wide.

Kährs (UK) Ltd
023 9245 3045
[email protected]
www.kahrs.co.uk

Lg haUsys
Wiesbaden architects 3deluxe have transformed
the office floor of the turn-of-the-century
Frankfurt branch of the international design
agency Syzygy into a futuristic working
environment. HI-MaCS acrylic stone has been
used to create a flowing linear design delivering
a striking space-creating effect on the interior of
the central reception area and adjoining waiting
area.

JIs EURoPE
Brand new additions to the JIS Sussex range are a
set of three Fletching rails, substantial towel rails
especially conceived to match the modern trend
towards retro-styled bathrooms. The Fletching
rails are beautifully made to a smart but chunky
design that has distinct overtones of the
massiveness of superior Victorian plumbing. The
Fletching rails are in top quality stainless steel in
a polished finish.

Lg hausys
01892 704074
www.himacs.eu

ModULEo
Moduleo design flooring is
proud to be flying the flag
for eco-friendly luxury vinyl
flooring in the uK. Designed
to reflect the unique patterns
and textures found in nature,
Moduleo flooring combines
the authenticity and beauty
of natural products with the
rugged durability of vinyl
technology. all Moduleo
products contain up to 50
per cent recycled material
of verified origin and are
themselves recyclable; while the
company’s Belgian production
plant meets the strictest Eu air
and water pollution policies.

JIs Europe
01444 831200
[email protected]
www.thecoastalrange.co.uk

Moduleo
01332 851500
[email protected]
www.moduleo.co.uk

INdIgENoUs
Indigenous’ has introduced a
new Caribbean Weave Design
Mosaic to its surface range.
Ideal for bathroom feature
walls, the new holiday-inspired
stone mosaics create a wave-like
natural surface in a spectrum of
delicate seashell shades. Their
naturally bumpy format makes
the mosaics easy to fix to even
the most uneven walls, where
they provide a practical surface
with a strong coastal feel.
Formed from travertine fingers
fixed to a netting sheet, the
new Caribbean Weave Design
Mosaic has a distinct undulating
surface.
Indigenous
01993 824200
[email protected]
www.indigenousltd.com

dELTaLIghT
The Supernova range has grown to become one
of the lighting industry’s most comprehensive
and versatile product families. With its 26cm or
33cm diameter, the Supernova XS (Extra Small)
can be considered to be the baby in the range
when it comes to size, but not when it comes
to performance and skills. The disc of LEDs is
specially designed to guarantee a uniform and
perfectly balanced light output.

deltalight
0870 757 7087
[email protected]
www.deltalight.co.uk

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85
VIasIT
Impulse, designed by ralf
umland in collaboration with
Viasits r+D team was launched
at Orgatec 2012. Impulse shares
the same gene pool as its
predecessors, but is clothed in
and delivers a new innovative
design and ergonomics package
previously unseen in the high
volume market. Impulse work
chairs embrace new and class
leading functional improvements
with fully integrated control
buttons and a unique dynamic
forward tilt. The modular design
principle of the products allows
adaption to fit any and every
scenario.

Viasit
0207 253 7652
www.viasit.co.uk

PHILIP waTTs
new for 2013 Crushed is a fantastic wall tile,
made from solid hand cast resin with a real metal
powder top coat. The top coat impregnates the
resin surface for a super durable vibrant metal
finish in brass, bronze or copper. The tiles can
also be made from solid metal, and shown here in
mirror polished aluminium.

BLUEBELL
FINIsHEs

HITcH MyLIUs
Simon Pengelly’s popular and successful hm86
chair is now perfectly complemented by a
matching two-seat sofa, extending the versatility
of the range and making it the ideal choice
for projects throughout the entire contract
environment. available on either chromed tubular
steel or lacquered oak legs, the moulded foam
shell can be upholstered in a wide range of
fabrics, vinyls and supple leathers.

Philip watts Design
0115 926 9756
[email protected]
www.philipwattsdesign.com

Hitch Mylius
020 8443 2616
[email protected]
www.hitchmylius.co.uk

Tekno by Oikos represents a new
generation of safety doors, it
combines the indispensable high
security standards with great
aesthetic refinement. Firstrate features starting with fire
resistance certified EI90 making
it suitable for situations that
require compliance. application
of Tekno can even avoid the
use in hallways and stairwells
of those unaesthetic fire doors.
Tekno also provides class 3 or
4 break-in resistance, sound
insulation, thermal insulation ,
air, water, wind resistance.

Bluebell Finishes
01371 873313
[email protected]
www.oikos.it

aRTIMEDE
Copernico 500, suspension
lamp, an extension of the range
of the Copernico series. The
articulation with gold-plated
contacts (patent pending)
allows the power supply to pass
between the concentric rings
that make up the low voltage
LED light sources allow users to
configure the light in space by
clasping and physically moving
the object, modulating emission
according to requirements.
The light flow can be oriented
homogeneously in all directions
or directed to highlight a
particular feature.

artimede
020 7291 3853
[email protected]

VoRwERk
Visitors to the annual Vienna Design Week
Vorwerk carpets Uk
witnessed carpet in a completely new light thanks 020 7096 5090
www.vorwerkcarpets.co.uk
to Vorwerk Carpets’ collaboration with designers
Oscar Wanless, of Silo Studios, and Bethan Wood,
of WOOD London. In an attempt to distort usual
perceptions of carpet and explore the notion of
public space, Oscar and Bethan designed and
constructed a freestanding 2.5m dome out of
patches of Vorwerk carpet.

BLUEPRINT january 2013

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87

from the archives
This autumn saw the deaths of two great figures of 20th-century architecture
and design. This month the Blueprint archive pays tribute to pioneering
female architect Gae Aulenti, who died 1 November, by reprinting an interview
with her from the June 1995 issue of the magazine, and to visionary Lebbeus
Woods, who died 30 October (see page 28). In the ferment of postwar Milan,
and as a peer of the likes of Aldo Rossi, Umberto Eco, Aulenti was one of the
very few women architects to gain international recognition, and enjoyed a
prolific career in furniture, scenography and architectural design. Her divisive
Musée d’Orsay transformed a disused Beaux-Arts railway station in Paris into a
spectacular theatrical setting for Impressionist masterpieces; in a sensitive
and telling interpretation, Aulenti referred to the original architect, Victor
Laloux, as an absent collaborator on the project. We mark Lebbeus Woods’
death by reproducing a book review he wrote for Blueprint in October 1995,
on the architecture of Bruce Goff.

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ARPER MEETS
LONDON

Arper London Showroom
11 Clerkenwell Road
London EC1M 5PA
[email protected]
www.arper.com
Arper sponsors the project
Lina Bo Bardi: Together
www.linabobarditogether.com

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