Glenfiddich reimagines time through its rare aged whisky

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Ikea ‘Obegränsad’ tech-friendly furniture is pitched at home studio owners and designers

‘Obegränsad’ is an Ikea furniture collection with a difference. Created in collaboration with Swedish House Mafia, the electronic music collective consisting of Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso, it’s a series of furniture aimed at home studio owners, be they designers or musicians.  Image: courtesy of Ikea Obegränsad is Swedish for ‘unlimited’, and the collaboration taps into the country’s long cultural association with Ikea. The Swedish House Mafia team highlight the role the furniture maker has played in the democratisation of good design throughout their lives. ‘We used to find a creative way to make Ikea furniture accommodate our teenage lives as creatives, so the collaboration’s purpose was formed around our own personal journey in life,’ they say. Image: courtesy of Ikea The collection comprises 20 different products, ranging from the ‘Obegränsad’ record player (Ikea’s first turntable since the 1970s), a USB-powered minimal black rectangle with an intersection circular platter, to a series of three LED lamps, and a clock.  Image: courtesy of Ikea There is also a set of all-important stands, capable of holding laptops, tablets, and speakers, as well as places to stack records for easy access. There’s a home office desk, a chair, two different kinds of shelving units – derived from Ikea’s best-selling ‘Kallax‘ with an added spot for amplifiers – and a bunch of matching accessories. These run to rugs, bags, and even cushion covers, for ultimate Ikea catalogue-aping. Image: courtesy of Ikea ‘Hopefully, our collection inspires and enables more people to be more creative within their home, and it does not have to be restricted to only music making. It can be so much more,’ says Swedish House Mafia. The slick black aesthetic is far removed from Ikea’s more familiar wood veneer, and the fact the collection embraces everything from throws to turntables, clocks, and lights, illustrates Ikea’s mighty, all-encompassing range. §  
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Oslo Architecture Triennale 2022 spotlights neighbourhood and community

The Oslo Architecture Triennale 2022 has opened its doors, and with it, a window into how we build our neighbourhoods. Discussing shared space, community and the urban corners we call our joint home, Norway’s festival of architectural celebration (now, in its eighth iteration) touches upon one of our time’s most critical issues – the quality of living in the urban realm. Chief curator and the triennale’s director, Danish cultural strategist and academic Christian Pagh, elaborated on the multi-dimensional element of his chosen topic during the opening: ‘What is a neighbourhood? This is my definition: it’s a place where people live, a physical place but also a social one. There is a real community aspect. It answers to both individual and social needs, both in meaning and function.’  These layers of living and the different interpretations of what this shared space can be is exactly what Pagh and his team, as well as the main Oslo Architecture Triennale 2022 exhibition’s participants, have sought to explore. The main show, titled ‘Mission: Neighbourhood’, after the festival’s overall theme, is housed in the city’s Old Munch Museum (a modernist 1963 structure by architects Einar Myklebust and Gunnar Fougner that has remained empty since the collections moved to their new home within Estudio Herreros’ Munch Museum in the city centre). The display is a well-put-together, thorough survey of case studies, viewpoints and calls to action from across Europe – with a distinct Nordic focus.  ‘We want this to be an international, critical, independent forum, and at the same time, Oslo is growing, so let’s also pay attention to our own environment, and have a regional, more Nordic perspective here. What if we front a Nordic renaissance of collective urban solutions?’ asks Pagh. ‘Support diverse urban ecologies? The quality and diversity of neighbourhoods are under threat. We need to talk about them at a systemic level.’ The research compiled several examples of urban spaces and ideas in the region, from Malmö’s ‘Noisy Neighbours’, which examines noise levels as a planning tool; to a collaboration between JAJA Architects with Aalborg University Institute of Planning, and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts featuring outdoor furniture specialist Vestre, on the role of cars in cities; and a project by BIG, which looks at the use of thermal energy for empowerment in hyperlocal growth. Topics such as biodiversity in urban space, rewilding and courtyards are also investigated.  Case studies from further afield include London, with Croydon Placemaking’s work on inspiring civic agency towards creating meaningful connections between people and places; and Zagreb, through Croatian art and design collective Oaza’s craft-focused local production initiative Project Ilica (a revisiting of independent maker spaces in the city’s longest street). In separate areas within the Old Munch Museum, a section on Peter Cook’s work zooms into colourful, imaginative drawings and utopian explorations that offer a kind of free-form bank of ideas in the British architect’s signature style; and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design offers an element of dynamism through an ongoing discussion into ideas for cities on site. Creating ‘nice, generous space’ has fallen behind on our list of priorities, Pagh explains: ‘But the good news is that there are many people who are trying to create change and make things better.’ Launching their investigations through ‘Mission: Neighbourhood’ and following up with a variety of events over the triennale’s month-long duration, the team behind the festival also hope for it to grow. There is talk about understanding existing spaces, reimagining social infrastructure and governance, underlining the role of nature and alternative solutions. Pagh sees his triennale as a ‘critical hub for thinking’, which will hopefully have a rich afterlife. Beyond the relatively formal exhibition structure of the triennale’s main show, a variety of further displays, activities and events unfold across town throughout the festival’s duration. The Oslo National Museum’s triennale exhibition ‘Coming Into Community’, for example, is a captivating riot of colour and sound, shining the light onto what shared space means for the queer community, and providing a valuable perspective on placemaking. Curated by Swedish art and architecture collective Mycket – a creative force to keep an eye on – the display is an interactive installation that is hard to resist. Between this, the main exhibition, and the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2022’s various screenings, building tours, book projects, and meet-the-architect events beyond the Old Munch Museum’s central hub, there is opportunity aplenty for locals and visitors to dive deeper into the festival’s main theme – imagining and celebrating neighbourhoods, and their origins, life and future. §    
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Service Delays (particularly Art Reproduction)

We're into peak season and thanks to a combination of reasons, timelines are getting longer, sorry! Details within...
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Wallpapers that make the Dynamic Island pop on iPhone 14 Pro

Show off your iPhone 14 Pro with wallpapers designed to make the Dynamic Island pop. Yes, they look good on notches too!
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Tom Dixon marks his studio’s 20 years with a show of design experiments

In the 20 years since launching his studio, Tom Dixon hasn’t stopped experimenting, and the latest exhibition, coinciding with London Design Festival 2022, is a testament to his non-stop enthusiasm for design experimentation. The British designer (who also happens to be a maker, entrepreneur and more) celebrated his 20 years in business with an exhibition at Coal Office, the design studio, shop and restaurant he debuted in 2018.  ‘A 20th anniversary provides a moment to review, adapt, upgrade and rethink some of the designs that we have produced but also to introduce some of the latest thinking in materiality, longevity and luminosity for the near future,’ comments Dixon, introducing the show.  The ‘Bird’ chaise in eel grass, the ‘Flamecut’ chair and mycelium perfume towers Aptly named ‘Twenty’, the display presents the studio’s recent and current areas of experimentation, ranging from material research to formal compositions and products. These span from the lightweight aluminium chair that Dixon created in collaboration with Hydro, and has expanded into a collection that includes ceiling lamps, to the ‘Underwater Project’, and the ‘Flamecut’ chair, an archive piece made of heavyweight, thick steel plate, almost impossible to lift and promising a 1,000 year warranty.  The ‘Biorock’ chair, the designer explains, ‘is an experiment in underwater factory production’, essentially a collaboration with nature. The chair features a thin metal frame, charged with a small amount of electricity, allowing for a natural concrete to form on top of the structure over two years under the sea. Conceived by 1970s scientist Wolf Hilbertz, the biorock concept was part of the experimental utopia of building cities under the sea, but, notes Dixon, ‘has a great potential in coral regeneration and stopping beach erosions’. ‘Biorock’ chair More pieces on display include the ‘Dichroic’ chandeliers, a new interpretation of Dixon’s ‘Melt’ lamps, and the ‘S-Chair’ (among his most iconic designs and one, he notes, ‘that has been following me around for years’), this time reintroduced in latex, its original material. ‘It’s a natural material, a forest plastic,’ he explains. For this version, he partnered with Dead Lotus Couture to achieve an inflatable version of the chair. ‘It’s a bit kinky,’ he concedes, ‘but it enhances the curves of the chair.’ The exhibition also includes some work-in-progress prototypes, such as an eel grass version of the ‘Bird’ chaise, and perfume towers made with mycelium from the Magic Mushroom Company. ‘It’s about trying new stuff, and sometimes things don’t work,’ concludes Dixon, ‘but it’s good to show the mistakes as well.’ § ‘Hydro’ chair and lamp ‘Melt’ chandelier with dichroic filter Cork furniture prototypes  
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Wallpaper* Smart Space Awards 2022 winners: best design and tech for the home

Welcome to the Wallpaper* Smart Space Awards 2022, where we announce the winners of our second annual exploration of the fast-changing worlds of new domestic technology. This year we were honoured to be joined by Industrial Facility’s Kim Colin, as well as Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri of Neri & Hu as judges, overseeing a wide array of devices, gadgets, appliances, and more.  These awards are a welcome chance to see what’s new and next in the world of product design, exploring both innovative ideas and updated approaches, with a weather eye on goods that will go the distance and give good service and lasting pleasure.  Wallpaper* Smart Space Awards 2022: the winners FOOD, DRINK AND DESIGN Sinonimo Essentials coffee tools by Sinonimo Image courtesy of Sinonimo This delectably simple set of espresso-making tools was created by the San Francisco-based company Sinonimo and made in Taiwan. The neatly stacking set is formed from textured hybrid coated solid aluminium, oak and cork, and was explicitly intended to emphasise the ritual and delight of the coffee-making process. The company has even thought of things like the sound each material makes when the grounds are tapped out, and the level of quality ensures these utensils will last a lifetime, whether it’s at home or in the studio.   sinonimo.us COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR  Lick Palette 05: Maximalist Brights by Yinka Ilori x Lick Reflection 01. Image courtesy of Lick Acclaimed artist Yinka Ilori partnered with the British home decor brand Lick to create a dazzling range of paints and wallpapers. Ilori’s polychromatic powers are well-known, and his collaboration with Lick taps into the vibrancy of his art and installations. The Palette 05: The Maximalist Brights collection includes five colours and two geometric wallpaper prints, all designed to harmonise in a bold and relentlessly refreshing way.  lick.com COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR  Kohler x Daniel Arsham Our second award-winning collaboration paired contemporary American artist Daniel Arsham with Kohler. The result was Rock.01, a strikingly sculptural 3D-printed sink. Kohler, which has nearly one and a half century’s worth of experience in stone manufacturing, worked with Arsham to create this limited-edition piece. Debuted at Design Miami 2021, Rock.01 marks the start of an ongoing partnership between the artist and American manufacturer.  Kohler x Daniel Arsham  MOST MASTERFUL MUSIC DEVICE Cell Alpha by Syng Image courtesy of Syng We’ve all been seduced by the aesthetics of Syng’s Cell Alpha speaker. An unashamedly bold piece of industrial design, the circular Cell Alpha uses sensors to measure up your room and shape the soundfield accordingly. Best used in open-plan rooms where you can maximise the feeling of space, Cell Alpha can be floor-standing, wall-mounted or even suspended from the ceiling. ‘The product makes me want to listen,’ says judge Kim Colin of Industrial Facility, who chose the Cell Alpha as one of her favourite entries in the Wallpaper* Smart Space Awards 2022, ‘because it looks like Syng know something about how the future could be better!’ syngspace.com LIFE-ENHANCING OBJECT OR SERVICE  A Space for Prayer rugs by Katsuki Connection Image courtesy of Katsuki Connection Katsuki Connection’s new rug collection snared our Life-Enhancing Object category, thanks to the rich combination of hand-crafted technique and bold colourways. ‘A Space for Prayer’ is a design that evokes the traditional art of ink brushed onto washi paper, with the shifting array of textures intended to trigger sensory cues. The colourful rugs also hint at the art of origami, and the whole collection is fully customisable in terms of size and thickness. Wallpaper* Smart Space Awards 2022 judge Rossana Hu praised the company for taking ‘a traditionally boring and one-piece product and twisting its visual playfulness to provide a culturally inspired aesthetic that enhances its function’. katsukiyuko.com MOST ELEGANT HI-FI COMPONENT Sonos Soundbar Recessed Wall Mount by Wall-Smart Image courtesy of Wall-Smart One of our two winning Hi-fi components worked with a market leader to transform the way their product was used. Wall-Smart’s Sonos Soundbar Recessed Wall Mounts provide a simple and straightforward alternative to the norm. Capable of being changed into a number of different wall finishes, the carefully shaped mount allows you to seamlessly incorporate Sonos’ award-winning streaming tech into your space.  wall-smart.com MOST ELEGANT HI-FI COMPONENT Alva TT V2 turntable by Cambridge Audio Image courtesy of Alva A stylish and minimal way to get back into vinyl, the Alva TT V2 impressed our judges with its no-nonsense aesthetics and wireless capability. Cambridge Audio has paired a quality cartridge, arm, and platter with the convenience of Bluetooth streaming.  cambridgeaudio.com MOST IMMERSIVE BRAND HOME  Polestar Spaces Image courtesy of Polestar Polestar has pushed the boat out with its retail design spaces. From the outset, this off-shoot of Volvo’s automotive division was determined to do things differently, whether it’s with the design of its cars, its use of materials, or even the way it goes about selling things. Rather than rely on conventional showrooms, the Swedish company is creating a series of ‘Polestar Spaces’ to inform and educate potential customers – all of whom will complete their ordering experience online. The spaces are straightforward and minimal, with a design-led focus on the car’s finishes, materials, and components.   polestar.com MOST ILLUMINATING LIGHTING ‘Echo’ table lamp by Caussa Image coutesy of Caussa Caussa’s ‘Echo’ series of table lamps impressed with its ability to work seamlessly in both home and office. Designed by Simon Busse, the lamp base was informed by the shape of a tuning fork, creating a narrow loop-like rail to hold the adjustable circular lamp head. Offered in black, white, red, and blue, ‘Echo’ is made from powder-coated aluminium and acrylic glass and can easily switch from formal to informal.  caussa.de MOST WONDERFUL WEARABLE Charge 5 by Fitbit Image courtesy of Fitbit The Charge 5 proved that Fitbit’s focus on dedicated trackers was a smart move. Way less bulky than even the slenderest smart watch, the Charge 5 offers just about every level of functionality packed into its slender band. Fitbit’s holistic approach to all facets of wellness metrics expanded still further with the addition of high and low heart-rate monitoring, as well as a special sensor that keeps tabs on your stress levels. Built-in GPS, exercise modes and sleep tracking all come as standard, wrapped up in a recyclable aluminium housing.  fitbit.com BEST SUSTAINABLE STEP FORWARD Cradle to Cradle Certified® Gold Level range by Grohe Image courtesy of Grohe Grohe’s first attempt at bringing design circularity to market hit a chord with our judges. The German manufacturer has revisited four of its best-selling products to ensure that they meet the Cradle-to-Cradle Products Innovation Institute’s rigorous Certified Gold Level. As a result, key products like the Grohe Eurosmart basin mixer and Grohe BauEdge mixer, along with shower sprays and fittings, are now manufactured in such a way that their core materials can be recycled and reused endlessly. All four also benefit from Grohe’s EcoJoy water-saving technology. grohe.co.uk MOST INTELLIGENT DOMESTIC DEVICE Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra Robot Vacuum by Roborock Image courtesy of Roborock Our domestic futures are looking increasingly clean. Our panel was impressed by Roborock’s S7 MaxV Ultra Robot Vacuum, which combines the usual sweeping mode with the ability to mop, giving this puck-shaped device the ability to switch between surfaces and scrub as well as suck. With a charging dock capable of storing seven weeks’ worth of dirt, this little machine is designed to fire up and forget.   roborock.com MOST INTELLIGENT DOMESTIC DEVICE Jet Bot AI+ by Samsung   Image courtest of Samsung Samsung’s Jet Bot AI+ takes the day-to-day drudgery out of dusting with the addition of a 3D sensor and AI mapping to increase the accuracy of its navigation and cleaning speed. Unlike some of its rivals, the Jet Bot adopts a more overt sci-fi aesthetic, with clean white lines and an onboard camera that can stream imagery to your smartphone for home security check-ins.  samsung.com MOST INTELLIGENT DOMESTIC DEVICE Hypertouch surface by Iris Ceramica Group Image courtesy of Iris Ceramica Group Iris Ceramica Group developed Hypertouch to give the smart home a more seamless aesthetic. A capacitive switching system, it’s limited only by the imagination of the designer and can be integrated into any of the Italian ceramic specialist’s huge variety of material finishes. The end result is a completely smooth control surface that’s indistinguishable from its surroundings, allowing the operation of lighting, heating, cooling, and audio-visual equipment to be almost invisible.  irisceramicagroup.com MOST REVOLUTIONARY TRANSPORT Ami by Citroën Image courtesy of Citroën Citroën has hit the jackpot with its electric Ami, a city car that debuted as a concept, took Paris by storm and now looks set to do the same in the UK. The imminent arrival of Ami 100% Ëlectric will be a rare chance to savour what the French already know; purpose-built urban EVs make far more sense in crowded European city centres. The 46-mile range and top speed of 28mph is all you need for short hops, and the micro-car footprint doesn’t take up any more space than it needs. A delivery van version is also available; all models share a commitment to recyclability and low, low impact.    citroen.co.uk MOST WATCHABLE TV The Sero by Samsung Image courtesy of Samsung Samsung’s Sero TV flips convention on its head by catering to the inexorable and unstoppable rise of vertically formatted content. Sero is a high quality 4K QLED screen, capable of delivering conventional TV and cinema content in stunning resolution. Pair it with your smartphone, however, and the display rotates through 90 degrees to tally exactly with what you see on screen. That vertical mode is also ideal for minimising the TV’s presence in your life when it’s not required.  samsung.com SMARTEST LUGGAGE The Carry-on Pro by Carl Friedrik Image courtesy of Carl Friedrik Carl Friedrik’s latest foray into lovable luggage is the Carry-on Pro, which melds a hard-shell front pocket for peace of mind for laptops and tablets, an aluminium frame and ultra-light ribbed polycarbonate shell, making it one of the best carry-ons around. The vintage look is enhanced by Italian leather detailing in a choice of three rich colours (cognac, chocolate or black) and there are four silent spinner wheels that won’t draw unwanted attention to your treks through the terminal.  carlfriedrik.com §  
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This Upstate São Paulo retreat is designed as three light pavilions

Upstate São Paulo’s green nature, rolling hills and smaller, sleepy towns offer respite to many São Paulo residents who have second homes there. This was also the case with YJD House, a countryside weekend home for a family that was after a place to escape the big city. Designed by Jacobsen Arquitetura, the house offers just that – a dramatic, yet minimalist Upstate São Paulo retreat that allows the eye to travel and the soul to relax within a backdrop of green nature, which the design puts centre stage.  The house is conceived as three, seemingly independent pavilions, which are in fact connected through a series of pathways and covered routes. This helps the interior be divided into two main sections – the main house, which is split into a private and more entertaining-orientated pavilion, and the guest house. This arrangement also makes the fairly generous structure – at over 2,000 sq m – feel lighter and more permeable, sitting softly on its land and feeling less intrusive against the greenery. From afar, this appears like a one-storey house, but upon closer inspection, two levels are revealed.  Making the most of the site’s enviable position and natural landscape, the architects placed the building on top of a hill, allowing long views from every point in the house. To this end, there are plenty of outdoor areas scattered across the floorplan – terraces, gardens, smaller patios and a swimming pool deck all offer opportunities for spending time outdoors.  ‘To [allow residents to] enjoy the day, we created a pool house in the annex, located at a lower level of the land, following the slope of the site,’ the architects say. ‘With an extensive programme of leisure areas, such as a gourmet kitchen with a wood stove, a spa, and a playroom, in addition to the swimming pool, this space was a special requirement made by the clients, who wanted to throw large parties and set up meetings in there.’  Materiality was also important in the design development. There is a mix of concrete and metal surfaces, but timber becomes the real protagonist, appearing on ceilings, walls and bespoke elements in various parts of the structure. ‘I think one of the great challenges of this project was the desire of making a two-storey cantilevered house appear to be made entirely of wood, even though it is not,’ says the studio’s founder, Bernardo Jacobsen. §
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Design history rediscovered: Molteni&C reissues Ignazio Gardella’s ‘Blevio’ table

Italian furniture company Molteni&C succeeds in a rare feat: promoting contemporary design through collaborations with the likes of Michael Anastassiades and Jasper Morrison, and preserving the legacy of design’s legends, from Gio Ponti to Aldo Rossi through its Heritage Collection. The company’s painstaking work in collaboration with foundations and archives has brought back to life icons of the past that have been lovingly revisited and seamlessly integrated into a contemporary design collection.  A drawing of the ‘Blevio’ table by Ignazio Gardella, from the Gardella Historical Archive. Image courtesy Molteni&C Ignazio Gardella’s ‘Blevio’ table is the latest addition to this ongoing portfolio of reissues, in collaboration with the Gardella Historical Archive. Originally designed in 1930, the table was a unique piece conceived by the architect for his family home, Villa Usuelli in Blevio, on the shores of Lake Como. The design, which a note from the company fittingly describes as ‘harmonious and timeless, combining the purest features and intrinsic simplicity’, is simply characterised by an elongated top with curved edges, supported by semi-cylinders on each side. While the original table was coated in copper (a material that would be difficult to use in contemporary furniture manufacturing), Molteni&C’s research and development team substituted it with a metal powder varnish to create the same shine achieved by Gardella, but with greater resistance. For the tabletop, two versions are available, a wood top with a metal powder varnish as well as Breccia Capraia marble. A detail of the Breccia Capraia marble tabletop The formal, sculptural simplicity of the ‘Blevio’ table looks surprisingly modern for a design created nearly a century ago. While at Villa Usuelli, the table was part of richly decorated environments, its new iteration imagines it as a transversal piece that can adapt to a multitude of spaces.  ‘The Heritage Collection is forward-looking, as it safeguards the group’s artistic and cultural heritage for future appreciation,’ continues the company’s statement. ‘A duty of choice, a legacy to be treasured and enhanced.’ § ‘Blevio’ table photographed at Villa Usuelli in the 1950s ‘Blevio’ table with metal powder varnish top
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Yinka Ilori transforms afternoon tea at Bulgari Hotel, London

September 2022 sees the Bulgari Hotel in London’s Knightsbridge celebrate its tenth anniversary through a collaboration with multidisciplinary designer Yinka Ilori, whose exuberant vision for an afternoon tea is served in the Bulgari Lounge. Bulgari commissioned the London-based British-Nigerian designer to use his distinctive visual language, which draws on his multicultural heritage, in a unique interpretation of the popular afternoon repast. Ilori’s work is underpinned by a firm belief that art and design should be accessible to all; using the city as his canvas, he reimagines spaces to encourage a sense of community and invite audiences to engage with his work and its surroundings. Ilori’s joyful combination of colour and pattern perfectly complements the elegant glamour of the Bulgari Lounge, which has recently been redecorated as part of its anniversary celebration. Traditional afternoon tea stands have been reimagined as bold artworks in the form of fantastically colourful stacked spheres – a motif that pulses with energy and life, and recurs with an exciting takeover of the building’s façade, as well as on the linen napkins. Ilori comments, ‘I am extremely excited to have worked with Bulgari Hotel London for its momentous tenth anniversary. My designs for this collaboration celebrate London’s cultural mosaic and the joy of coming together over food. The tea stands are based on the geometry of the sphere and the meeting of different cultures, and I hope people will gather at the hotel and enjoy a vibrant and colourful dining experience through the afternoon tea.’ Fittingly for a brand whose heritage is rooted in high jewellery, the cakes presented by Bulgari are gem-like – neon-hued and dazzling, and designed to complement the striking geometry and colouring of Ilori’s work. The designer joined forces with award-winning Italian pastry chef and chocolatier-in-residence, Gianluca Fusto, whose carefully considered creations, sweet and savoury, are a delight to the palate as well as the eye. Guests may select from a menu of fine and rare teas, including a Scottish black tea named ‘Nine Dancing Ladies’ of which only one kilo a year is made. For those that prefer a different kind of drink in the afternoon, Ruinart champagne and cocktails are also listed. The launch of this special afternoon tea experience coincides with the opening of Ilori’s first institutional show at the London Design Museum (showing now, ‘Yinka Ilori: Parables for Happiness’), as the city also celebrates the London Design Festival 2022 and gears up for Frieze London. Which makes the Bulgari Lounge the perfect haven for a refreshment stop as you take in the capital’s art and design events. Should you wish to take a piece of Ilori’s work home, a limited-edition of 200 Yinka Ilori x Bulgari Hotel London napkin sets are available to buy. §
http://dlvr.it/SYlbWH

Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2022: meet our 20 studios to watch

Conceived in 2000 as an international index of emerging architectural talent, the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory is our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe. While always championing the best and most promising young studios, over the years, the project has showcased inspiring work with an emphasis on the residential realm – across styles and continents, and now including more than 500 alumni. Now, the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2022 is back, with the series’ 22nd edition.  This year’s survey spotlights 20 young studios from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Japan, Nigeria, Paraguay, Thailand, the UAE, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam with plenty of promise, ideas and exciting architecture. From sleek, minimalist homes to inventive urban reimaginings, and from sustainable architecture marvels to exercises in reuse; these young practices are masters in the art of residential architecture, and pave the way for an exciting future in their field. All the entries are now here for you to explore in full.  Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2022 In the following stories, we take a deep dive into the Who, What and Why of each practice.  Alcorn Middleton, Australia Peakaboo House by Alcon Middleton. Photography: Jad Sylla One of the youngest studios in this year’s Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory, Alcorn Middleton was set up in 2019, by Joel Alcorn and Chloe Middleton. ‘Our journey began well before Alcorn Middleton materialised in 2019,’ they explain. ‘It started back in 2013, very organically and unexpectedly, when we began working with each other, brought together by a mutual friend from university. And once we got to talking, we’d surmised that we both shared even more mutual friends, having studied at the same university throughout our undergraduate degree, without ever crossing paths. It didn’t take us long to realise we shared synergies in work ethic, drive, and passion for design.’  Architensions, US Architension’s House on House, in Babylon, Long Island. Photography: Michael Vahrewald Based in New York and Rome, Architensions was founded in 2010 by Alessandro Orsini, with Nick Roseboro joining in 2013. The studio works at the intersection of theory, practice and academia, rooting its projects in detailed research. Roseboro describes Architension’s practice as one grounded in learning and experimentation: ‘For us, the studio is also a learning environment, a space for experimentation, failing and trying again, a place to search for something new.’ The studio’s growing portfolio varies from public installations, such as the steel-frame Playground at the Coachella festival in California, to residential projects, such as Blurring Boxes, an apartment renovation with extensions clad in charred wooden slats, and the more recent House on a House (pictured). There’s also education spaces such as Children’s Playspace, an indoor playground in Brooklyn that consists of colourful plywood structures. Additional writing: Shukri Sultan ARP – Architecture Research + Practice, Greece Avlakia House. Photography: Yorgos Kordakis ARP stands for Architecture Research Practice, and was set up in 2014 by architect Argyro Pouliovali, with offices in Athens and the small island of Antiparos. Pouliovali, who trained at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and ETH Zurich, also brings experience gained at the offices of Meili Peter Architekten in Zurich and decaArchitecture in Athens, to her dynamic, fast-emerging practice. This is a studio that aims to offer a fresh take on contemporary Greek architecture, balancing 20th-century modernist teachings, 21st-century global influences, and the traditional local vernacular and what it means for the Greek built environment of today.  Atelier Luke, Australia and Japan  Terrace House near Demachiyanagi. Photography: Yohei Sasakura Founded by Luke Hayward in 2013 and co-led by Japanese interior designer Junko Nakatsuka, Atelier Luke effortlessly blends Japanese and Australian design traditions. Hayward is registered as an architect in both countries, bringing a unique balance of the two architectural heritages into the studio’s projects. Atelier Luke’s works vary wildly depending on their location: from exposed, rusted farm shelters in rural Australia to compact family homes in Kyoto (such as the Terrace House near Demachiyanagi, pictured here).  Equipo de Arquitectura, Paraguay Casa Intermedia by Equipo de Arquitectura. Photography: Federico Cairoli Asunción’s Equipo de Arquitectura is the brainchild of Chile-born Horacio Cherniavsky and Paraguay-born Viviana Pozzoli. Since 2017, the small studio – now eight-people strong – has been operating from the Paraguayan capital tackling projects of various scales – from single-family houses to larger housing developments, and from religious structures to cultural architecture. At the heart of its work sits an approach that favours tactile materials, earthy textures and colours, and inspiration that stems from Paraguay’s climate and urban conditions. The results are designs that have already won the practice several national, as well as international awards. Estudio Felipe Escudero, Ecuador Magnolia House, Ecuador. Photography: Haley Lee Felipe Escudero founded his namesake practice in Quito in 2015, after working in London, Beijing and New York, in the offices of Heatherwick Studio, MAD Architects and ​​Space4Architecture respectively. ‘The reason why I decided to come back to Ecuador was that after a while, I began to see all the similarities between these big cities and I was interested in finding something unique here,’ he says. Escudero has built several residential, commercial and cultural projects, such as Magnolia House (pictured) for his mother; his own residence; and the concrete embrace of Casa Roca. Most recently, the studio built the Foresta restaurant, which features cooking ‘islands’ made from volcanic stone sourced from Cotopaxi in Ecuador. ‘The speed and informality of Latin America can be beneficial, in the sense that you can build things quite fast. It has been a journey in making the most of local conditions with a global perspective,’ says Escudero. Additional writing: Shukri Sultan HAS Design + Research, China and Thailand Phetkasem Artist Studio in Bangkok. Photography: Ketsiree Wongwan This China- and Thailand-based studio was founded in 2019 by architects Jenchieh Hung and Kulthida Songkittipakdee, whose initials partly form its name, HAS (Hung And Songkittipakdee). The pair combine impressive accolades and experience, such as a stint at Kengo Kuma & Associates (Hung) and a scholarship from the Renzo Piano Foundation to work at Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) in Paris (Songkittipakdee). Focusing on the Asian context and identity, the two founders blend cultural buildings, religious architecture, installation art, exhibition design and experimental projects in their fast-growing portfolio. ‘HAS explores Asia’s architectural language through an approach that engages design and research in parallel,’ explain the duo. ‘It emphasises the relationship between nature and man-made environments, looking for another kind of natural architecture through the city’s own conditions. We call it “Improvised Architecture”.’ Hayatsu Architects, UK  St Anne’s Close, London. Photography: Max Creasy Japan-born architect Takeshi Hayatsu trained at the Musashino Art University in Tokyo and at the Architectural Association in London. Having worked in the UK since the turn of the millennium (his experience combines time at David Chipperfield, Haworth Tomkins and 6a architects), he founded his eponymous practice in 2017. His work is defined by three key notions, he explains: ‘construction, conservation and community’. Hayatsu Architects’ work is characterised by crafted, thoughtful, sensitive and playful approaches tailored to unique situations and the requirements of users. ‘We believe that well-considered, well-crafted buildings can bring a positive impact on individual lives and their wider community,’ Hayatsu continues. Working with delicate, historical settings has always been at the core of the architect’s work – something he explored extensively with projects such as Raven Row gallery in Spitalfields (Grade I-listed) and South London Gallery in Peckham (Grade II-listed), during his time at 6a.  Hé! Architectuur, Belgium Karper, Belgium. Photography: Tim van der Velde Chance encounters sparked the partnership between Hanne Eckelmans and Renée Verhulst, leading them to form Belgian architecture studio Hé Architektuur in 2017. Eckelmans and Verhulst lived and worked in the same neighbourhood prior to starting the studio and after regularly crossing paths, gradually transitioning into working together. In 2020, they began collaborating with a third team member, Isabelle Marchal, and since then the all-female studio has operated as a trio, continuously innovating their practice by inviting ideas from external designers too. Additional writing: Martha Elliott Isso Architects, Indonesia YD House, Jakarta. Photography: Ernest Theofilus One of our youngest entries this year, partners Wibisono Soegih and Stephanie Tatimu launched Isso Architects in 2017. Based in Jakarta, the architecture and interior design firm works across a variety of commissions that span the residential and hospitality realm – but is looking to expand more into commercial architecture, with a few live commissions already underway. Its breakthrough project, YD House (pictured), is a compact, inventive and site-sensitive home in Jakarta; while other work includes the Locaāhands Dining club, a restaurant in Surabaya that transforms an existing structure into a contemporary hospitality experience.  JA Architecture Studio, Canada 44 Foxley, Toronto. Photography: Felix Michaud Toronto-based JA Architecture Studio was established by architect Nima Javidi and landscape designer Behnaz Assadi in 2013. Working across residential, cultural and curatorial projects, the co-directors have been recognised for their proposals for a Bauhaus Museum in Dessau and a Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki. Among their accolades are a Progressive Architecture Award and four Canadian Architects Awards of Excellence; and they have been shortlisted twice to represent Canada at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Their studio, as well as a few of the homes they have built (such as 44 Foxley Street, pictured, and The Corbel), sit within the neighbourhood of Beaconsfield Village in Toronto. Javidi explains the challenges of designing homes there: ‘There is a lot of opposition to projects beyond three storeys, so there is this push to find ways to densify a low-rise neighbourhood.’ Therefore, each of their residential projects becomes ‘an experiment in typology’. Additional writing: Shukri Sultan Kanan Modi Associates, India Sireniti House, Hyderabad. Photography: Ishata Sitwala Kanan Modi’s architecture studio was established in Hyderabad in 2013, born out of an existing family business that operated in the realm of building construction. Now, Modi heads her namesake practice (which took on its current name in 2018) with co-director Nirav Pramod Modi, and the young, dynamic office has been rapidly expanding its portfolio, operating also in Mumbai and New Delhi. The architect, who was educated in Mumbai, New York and Milan, enjoys blending tradition and modernity in her designs, as well as taking into account critical issues such as climate, materiality, daylight and spatial experience in the development of her architectural solutions. ‘The firm strives to achieve design excellence with architectural interventions that blur boundaries between the indoors and outdoors, with a strong focus on creating energy-efficient, climate-responsive environments. [We strive] to build spaces that encourage dialogue between art and architecture, with daylight playfully bouncing off raw textures and evoking varied emotions throughout the day,’ Modi says.  MMA Inc, Japan House in Hasami. Photography: Katsuhiro Aoki As a child, Momoko Kudo, the head of MMA Inc in Tokyo, dreamed of working in theatre. ‘I spent much of my upbringing in Switzerland, and my mother would take me to see a lot of plays. I really loved the intimacy of the stage,’ she says. After five years at MHS Planners, Architects & Engineers, including a long stint based in Vietnam working on hotel projects, Kudo went back to school and completed a master’s degree at Terunobu Fujimori’s studio at the Kogakuin University. She says: ‘I was really lucky to be able to work with Fujimori. For some reason I was one of the few people he chose to interview for the degree, and luckily I got a spot.’ After graduating, Kudo established MMA Inc in 2016. ‘First I called my practice Momoko Kudo Architects, but architecture is such a collaborative effort and I didn’t want to take credit for all the amazing work my staff contributed, so I changed the name to MMA,’ she explains. Additional writing: Jens H Jensen ODDO Architects, Vietnam and Czech Republic TH House. Photography: Hoang Lee Based between Vietnam and the Czech Republic, ODDO Architects is led by partners Marek Obtulovič, Nguyễn đức Rung, and Mai Lan Chi. ODDO’s broad portfolio contains designs for restaurants, landscaping, resorts, studios and homes. Highlights include playful cylindrical wooden light structures and a catwalk-inspired birdhouse, demonstrating a fun and explorative tone in the studio’s approach. Aside from its adventurous designs, ODDO is keen on making the most of sustainably sourced materials, having used repurposed timber and fast-growing locally sourced wood in its projects. The studio’s residential work in Vietnam, including TH House (pictured), showcases ‘hit and miss’ brickwork, a style of masonry that allows gaps between blocks, encouraging the breeze to travel through. Subtle glass doors ensure foliage is visually present within buildings, creating playful areas between inside and out. Similarly mindful of their context and surrounding conditions, houses built by Oddo in the Czech Republic tend to follow the country’s vernacular, while still making ample use of the open natural spaces that wrap around the houses. Additional writing: Martha Elliott Roar, United Arab Emirates  Anas Bukhash House. Photography: Oculis Project United Arab Emirates-based architecture and interior design studio Roar has been led by founder and creative director Pallavi Dean since 2013. Having worked internationally as a designer and lecturer, Dean brings an eclectic mix of influences to projects that span all scales and typologies. The studio combines freeform creativity with evidence-based methods in research, construction and design. The studio works across public, educational and residential spaces, as well as designing products such as lighting, seating and rugs. Partnerships – with Vitra and American Hardwood Export Council, amongst others – are sprinkled throughout its portfolio, demonstrating the wide range of opportunities that this creative team has embraced since its inception. The designs produced by Roar are both grand and refined. While the style of its projects may vary widely, depending on their respective use and needs, they are all cleanly finished and purposeful. Some are more minimalist, monochromatic spaces, while others use well-placed bursts of colour and eccentric fittings to achieve a distinctive identity, exhibiting Roar’s range and capacity. Additional writing: Martha Elliott Saba Ghorbanalinejad, France Nanterre extension, Paris. Photography: Maxim Verret Saba Ghorbanalinejad’s practice embodies her appreciation for ‘things that are on the verge between beautiful and ugly, poetic and aggressive’, resulting in delicate designs and unassuming, pared-down minimalist architecture. Ghorbanalinejad set up her Paris-based studio after years of working in Paris and London as well as participating in collaborations across the US, France and the UK. Her designs are often defined by their simplicity. Another of the architect’s key fascinations is material impact, as the studio aims to expand its knowledge and capacity on the subject, collating a network of interior designers, creatives and craftspeople in order to provide the most fitting and refined skills for each project. Additional writing: Martha Elliott Soft-Firm, US Generation House by Soft-Firm. Photography: Michael Vahrenwald Lexi Tsien and Talitha Liu form the New York-based interdisciplinary studio Soft-Firm. Founded in 2018, the practice works across speculative research, art installations, exhibitions, and residential and commercial projects. As its playful name suggests, Soft-Firm does not consider itself a traditional practice but a platform ‘to expand hunches, glitches and inside jokes into architectural ideas’. The studio’s design process is an open-ended exchange between themselves, their clients and the surrounding context. Liu describes their role as ‘provid[ing] an infrastructure or toolkit for our clients to use and adapt’. Tsien adds: ‘We want them to take over the spaces, for the design to be of service to them.’ Additional writing: Shukri Sultan Studio CL, Chile DSP Residential Building by Studio CL. Photography: Bruno Gilberto Chile’s Studio CL was founded in 2012 by architects and friends Daniel Lazo and Gabriel Cáceres. ‘We approach design as an editing process: a search for the essential elements involved in communicating an idea, from conceptual to technical,’ they say. ‘It involves constant revising, and excision of the dispensable. We aim not only for our design solutions to look simple, but to be simple in their manufacture. We strive for elegant solutions that achieve multiple goals in a single movement. Our pursuit is a raw, abstract design quality, a sort of nakedness.’ The duo work on a variety of projects, but housing takes a special place in their hearts. Working with urban plots is also an area of interest; they enjoy tackling the challenges of city life and see architecture as a tool for shaping and improving urban living. Their recent work for innovative developer Ochoalcubo – DSP Residential Building (pictured) – is a key example. Public space design is another field in which Studio CL strives to excel, using Santiago as a case study: the city is going ‘through an accelerated process of change without a clear model for the city it wants to be, but with a lot of room for improvement. As a byproduct, our work is not bound to any specific architectural scale or niche,’ they say. Studio Contra, Nigeria  Red Clay Villa Studio Contra co-founders, Olayinka Dosekun-Adjei and Jeffrey Adjei, are an emerging force in the Nigerian – and global – architecture scene. The husband-and-wife team established their joint practice in Lagos in 2016 and were propelled to global prominence by winning the commission for the Institute of Contemporary African Art & Film in the country’s Ilorin, Kwara State. The project, low and sculptural, anchored to its site but also intricate and intriguing, is currently in construction. Not only is it the studio’s very first cultural build of this scale, it’s also Nigeria’s first purpose-built museum of visual and cinematic arts. Dosekun-Adjei and Adjei, however, are no one-trick ponies. Their growing portfolio includes pretty much every typology, from retail and cultural spaces to leisure and hospitality work, as well as a wealth of private house schemes, which are currently in design or under construction. Red Clay Villa (pictured) exemplifies their approach, which is about blending global influences with local identity, working to define contemporary Nigerian architecture. Unknown Works, UK and Hong Kong  CLT House, East London.  Furniture in partnership with Twentytwentyone. Founded by a trio of co-directors, Ben Hayes, Kaowen Ho and Theo Games Petrohilos, Unknown Works is a dynamic London- and Hong Kong-based architecture practice that jumps with ease between scales, typologies and territories. Multidisciplinarity is the name of the game here for the three partners, who met and became friends when they were all studying at The Bartlett School of Architecture before setting up Unknown Works in 2017. Now, the team tackle anything from architecture, urban design and immersive events to exhibition design, installation art, graphics and digital media, from their east London base. ‘Unknown Works is fascinated by the human condition, the development of cities, the interactions of social and urban environments and the mechanics of space distribution,’ say the trio. Their works reflect their fascinations, and include plenty of inventive, fun houses that balance the functional with the experimental, such as the bright yellow CLT House (pictured); prestigious exhibitions and cultural spaces (the team are currently hard at work on the Energy Revolution gallery for the Science Museum); Brightbox, a prototype for an off-grid interconnected classroom, clinic and community hub for communities that lack vital infrastructure in Uganda; and the award-winning Scotts Taikoo Li restaurant in Chengdu, China.  Continue exploring... Scroll through the 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 Wallpaper* Architects’ Directories for more residential architecture and inspiring studios from across the globe – whether you are planning a dream home or are simply after some moments of architectural escape and inspiration.  §
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Vitra unveils new London home in the Tramshed, Shoreditch

To coincide with the London Design Festival 2022 (17 – 25 September), Vitra unveils its new London showroom, with a renovation of the grade II-listed Tramshed. The building was originally designed in 1905 by Emmanuel Vincent Harris, and served as an electricity transformer station for the Eastern London Tramway. The showroom’s main entrance on Rivington Street This is the first time Vitra has undertaken a renovation project of this scale and ambition, and the team, led by the company’s creative director of scenography, Till Weber, respectfully restored the space to highlight its original features. The building, Weber explains, was designed in classical mannerist style, featuring a stock brick façade introducing a double-height hall that allowed cranes and machinery to operate in the space. Inside, the company will showcase its contemporary collections – by the likes of Jasper Morrison and Barber Osgerby, who also happen to be neighbours – as well as reissues of design legends and pieces by Artek. ‘We approached the project with tremendous respect,’ explains Weber, ‘as it is a pleasure and a privilege to maintain historical buildings and their precious rare detailing and materials, preserving what is possible, revealing and showing the traces of time instead of covering them up.’ Throughout the space, original features were maintained as close to the original as possible, stripping out the unnecessary elements left from previous renovations and celebrating the building’s patina.  The final result, Weber notes, is ‘a reaction to the space’, showing how the colourful, modern forms of Vitra’s furniture and objects can interact with historical surroundings, the old and the new enriching each other.  Vitra London showroom: an eclectic harmony of spaces Artworks by Erwan Bouroullec for The Wrong Shop behind the new Abalon sofas by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, launching in Spring 2023 and being previewed at the space for the first time The showroom’s structure offers a sense of discovery: the grand hall’s space (the centre of what is dubbed ‘The Club’) is interrupted by a silver curtain at its centre, creating a secluded oval space and dividing the front area from the back.  On one side, a terrazzo bar (‘a communal centrepiece’, comments Weber) contributes to enliven the space, while the side aisle opposite presents a showcase of office furniture responding to a diverse range of needs – from meetings to workshops to focus work.  Behind the silver curtain is a composition of the ‘Soft Work’ sofa by Barber Osgerby. The rug is part of Peter Saville’s collection for Kvadrat Upstairs, a mezzanine area is treated as an aesthetically calming retreat, and, as Weber notes, an opportunity to ‘show a collage of the Vitra approach to home interiors’. Plants, accessories and artworks (including a new body of work by Erwan Bouroullec for The Wrong Shop) complete the interiors.  Downstairs, the building’s basement was transformed to create ‘The Gallery’, an industrial white box that will be used for exhibitions – and that makes its debut with a presentation of Jean Prouve’s classics in a newly curated palette of colours. A further event and hospitality space (‘The Loft’) at the back of the building will open in 2023.  The side aisle opposite presents a showcase of office furniture responding to a diverse range of needs. The chairs are ‘Fauteuil Direction Pivotant’ by Jean Prouvé (the reissue of a 1951 design), while the shelving system is ‘Kaari’ by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec for Artek ‘It was necessary to find an interior language compatible with the impressive industrial architecture of the Tramshed,’ explains Weber. The colour scheme chosen for the main space – based on white, dark red and green – echoes the building’s existing architectural colours. ‘Carefully curating the selection of furnishings, we aimed for a novel interplay between the historic building’s existing colours and materials and new elements and furniture by Vitra and Artek. ‘This space for us is an opportunity to play, and it offers it all: we can do a museum-style set-up, we can present new pieces, and we can offer different ways to look at focused and communal work. It shows that Vitra can do transversal spaces well.’ § The gallery in the building’s basement is dedicated to a display of Jean Prouvé’s designs reissued by Vitra. The exhibition includes the Fauteuil Kangourou (1948, centre of front row) a newly-reissued limited edition of 100 pieces The terrazzo bar  Pieces from the Alcove Work collection by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec The showroom’s material and textile library at the back, currently featuring the palettes that characterise the interiors of the space The mezzanine, designed as an aesthetically calming retreat and featuring chairs and shelves by Jean Prouvé, the Polder sofa by Hella Jongerius, Fauteuil de Salon by Jean Prouvé (1939) and pieces by Artek including the Tea Trolley 900 by Alvar Aalto (1930). Lighting includes an Akari lamp by Isamu Noguchi (1951) hanging over the space  
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Rogan Gregory conjures up extraterrestrial designs in New York

Perfectly spherical bulbs jut out of strange, organic figures. Their bright lights seem to peer downwards; unfamiliar forms and globular, fluid-like masses of clays and bronze are suggestive of an extraterrestrial being. Rogan Gregory’s exhibition at R & Company in New York seems closer to the invention of an imagined reality than it does to a furniture show.  The pieces, which Gregory has configured into a living and a dining space as well as a gallery of chairs and lamps, are on show at R & Company until 28 October. Simultaneously sculptural and functional, they meet in an adventurous middle, with irregular curves dominating the orchestrated rooms. Chair and bronze lamp by Rogan Gregory, on show at ’Imperfect Truth’ 2022. Photography: Joe Kramm, courtesy R & Company Soft material covers ‘croissant’ sofas and chairs, as well as a lamp, like a slender Dr Zeuss character covered in fur. A large coffee table is splayed across the floor, made from sandalwood that is partially rounded into the smooth fragments of a flat surface, partially left to display its imperfect knots. The use of natural materials in Gregory’s designs only adds to the near personification of the objects. The curve of a lamp craning its neck over an armchair is tongue-in-cheeky, introducing a playful element to interior design.  It’s clear that the designs represent an exploration – of the designer’s creative internal world (see more in our 2020 visit to Rogan Gregory’s LA studio) and of the bounds of what we choose to have in our homes. He draws on natural forms to conjure up characters in table legs and lamp bases. ‘My work is about reintroducing organic forms and stimulating textures and colours into our flat, rectilinear environments. In doing so, I hope to evoke joy, and emotion more broadly, and to encourage new connections to and awareness of nature’ he explains. Bronze chair by Rogan Gregory, on show at ’Imperfect Truth’ 2022. Image courtesy R & Company Gregory’s decade-long stint in the fashion industry is apparent in the humanistic forms of his lamps, he takes a simple curve and dresses it with angular cones of light and surreal cylinders, reminiscent of coral. The pieces sit at a crossroads between art and furniture. In the gallery, Gregory’s chairs and stools seem to have taken any route but the simplest to find their structure. A hanging chair, seemingly taking inspiration from the ‘egg’ chair, has no back, only a ring of dripping black matter; it is ominous and dainty. Heavy-bottomed chairs mirror footrests and a brass throne has holes, lumps and bumps – and somehow seems to peek at you through its extended orifice. § Lamps by Rogan Gregory, on show at ’Imperfect Truth’ 2022. Photography: Joe Kramm, courtesy R & Company
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iPhone 14 inspired wallpaper gradients

Apple created new advertising wallpapers to showcase the Dynamic Island. These fan alterations make slight changes for the better!
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Apple Watch Ultra headlines the brand’s new products for autumn 2022

The big news from Apple’s annual roll-out of shiny new things was its move on the ‘gorpcore’ market. The new Apple Watch Ultra is a big, muscular, multi-adventure tool for a generation of consumers suddenly obsessing over Arc’teryx cagoules, Snow Peak firepits, and the Blackbird Spyplane newsletter (even if they never do anything more outdoorsy than beers and a barbie in the local park).  Apple Watch Ultra: beautifully tooled for the rugged outdoors The new Apple Watch Ultra, from left to right: emergency mode, elevation metrics, Oceanic Plus app Safety Stop feature Actual mountaineers, ultra-runners and deep-sea divers will take some convincing that the Ultra is worth the investment. Garmin currently owns the serious sports and adventure watch market – as anybody who has lined up for a half-marathon, triathlon or ultra-run will tell you. And in the rugged outdoors, the Apple Watch Ultra will have to out-pace and out-spec Garmin’s flagship Epix and Fenix watches, which is very stiff competition indeed.  Inevitably, the Ultra has it on looks. It has a beautifully tooled 49mm titanium case and a flat sapphire crystal screen. It’s also 14.4mm thick, making it far chunkier and more imposing than even the new Apple Watch series 8, which now clocks in with a 45mm case and 10.7mm thickness. (Also see the latest Apple Watch Hermès series 8 for a playful, equestrian twist.)  The new Apple Watch Ultra, from left to right: Depth app and two versions of the Wayfinder face To ensure you can operate the Ultra while on the go at speed or wearing gloves, Apple has upsized the crown and added a big, orange customisable ’Action’ button that means you can start tracking runs or dives without fiddling with the screen. All of which adds to the watch’s air of utilitarian purpose. It will certainly have more appeal to lovers of big, expensive-looking timepieces, who have found previous Apple Watches too demure. In terms of features, the Ultra offers dual-frequency GPS, an ultra-bright screen (to the tune of 2000 nits, twice as bright as any other Apple Watch), night mode, which reduces everything on the screen to a very readable-in-the dark red, and an improved and redesigned Compass app with wayfinding and backtracking modes. There are also three nifty new activity-specific bands, Trail, Alpine and Ocean – though your ’legacy’ Apple Watch bands will still fit. Also unveiled, the Apple Watch Series 8 The Ultra also offers 36-hour battery life (and promises 60 hours in the yet-to-launch low-power mode). Very good for an Apple Watch but nowhere near as good as a Garmin. And in truth, as highly featured as it is, the Ultra is still function-light compared to the Epix or Fenix. Apple has just released WatchOS 9, which adds a lot of the kind of nerdy metrics that committed runners and triathletes obsess over and closes that gap, but there’s a way to go.  The launch of the Ultra, though, isn’t about just about eating Garmin’s lunch, starter, dessert and all, it’s about reinforcing the idea that health, fitness and performance metrics are the ticking heart of all Apple Watches. Also new: Apple iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max  Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max In terms of Apple’s meat and potato business, all eyes are still on the iPhone. The other big news was the debut of the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max and the rebirth of the much-maligned notch as the ‘Dynamic Island’.  Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max, ’Dynamic Island’ Essentially the notch, or ‘TrueDepth camera array’ as Apple prefers, houses a lot of other clever stuff. It’s a smaller ‘lozenge’ that doubles as a multi-functional widget, displaying key information about incoming calls, messages and other alerts and notifications. As an all-new, dynamic bit of screen real estate, the pressure is now on Apple and third-party app developers to come up with other fun and useful things to do with it. Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Available in 6.1inch and 6.7inch models, the 14 Pro also boasts Apple’s first always-on display, something its key competitors have been offering for years. The 14 Pro’s main camera now packs 48MP and there are a whole host of other photo and video-making upgrades to ensure that Pro promise delivers. § Also unveiled, the second generation Apple AirPods Pro, with more Active Noise Cancellation and Personalised Spatial Audio  
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A tantalising tale of art and Gothic horror in Norway’s Arctic archipelago

Vågakallen is the ‘old man mountain’ which stretches out across the bay from Storvågan village. He lies on his back, head pointing towards the sea – crossed arms and raised knees rising in undulating peaks and scarps. Like many of the mountains in the region, Vågakallen was once a troll, his backstory involving a failed pursuit of a young virgin, a horseman, seven sisters baking bread, and an arrow shot into a hat of the king. As the saga concludes at dawn, each of the story’s characters is turned irrevocably to stone.  Folklore of this kind is the lifeblood of Lofoten, where centuries of fishermen have journeyed to reach these arctic cod-spawning waters, their navigation way-marked by distinctly sculpted geologies; myth and memory settling onto the land with each century of snow drift.   The historic harbour of Kabelvåg, the oldest town in the Lofoten archipelago, and backdrop to five of the six venues for the Lofoten International Art Festival 2022 It’s storytelling which steers the ship of contemporary culture in Lofoten, an archipelago in Norway’s Arctic Circle, host since 1991 to Scandinavia’s longest-running contemporary biennale, the Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF). Themed ’Fantasmagoriana’, the 2022 edition’s guiding star is the anthology of German supernatural tales chosen as writing inspiration by Byron, Shelley, Polidori and Clairmont during their infamous gathering at Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva in 1816. (‘The year without a summer’). The fact that Shelley went on to set the first chapter of Frankenstein in the arctic midnight, had not escaped LIAF’s Italian curating duo, Francesco Urban Ragazzi. Through three chapters of their own (Venice, Oslo, then Lofoten), LIAF 2022 remaps a new archipelago of literary, political, and geographical references, with 37 artists in tow.  Stan VanDerBeek Panels For the Walls of the World, Phase 1, 1970-2022, pasting the exterior of the Blue Black Box festival venue LIAF being ‘nomadic’, the curators’ ultimate decision to set the festival in and around the town of Kabelvåg was both for its historical potency — as the place where Kurt Schwitters was confined during the Nazi occupation of Norway — and also for its film school, Nordland Kunst, to whom the entire festival is dedicated. Thus moving image and its history become a wellspring for the ‘cinematic’ in various dimensions: from Sille Storihle’s meta-narrative film on the power play of ‘The Group Crit’, 2022, as side-splitting as it is unnerving, to an outdoor mural of collaged fax imagery (‘Panels for the Walls of the World’, 1970-2022), in homage to multimedia pioneer Stan VanDerBeek. Meanwhile in a solo presentation at the ’Museum Under Destruction’ (the elementary school building due to be razed), LA artist Jennifer West turns to another ruin, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, documenting its demolition against a backdrop of social uprising. “The world was on fire”, the artist recalls of that summer of 2020. “Everything was ruptured”. The Museum Under Destruction venue (soon to be demolished), housing a solo show by Jennifer West and exterior prints by Eivind H. Natvig, One Hundred Seconds to Midnight, 2022 Her engagement with American cinema surfaces through a catalogue of “broken technologies”, from 16mm film to ‘holofans’, designed as seductive shopping mall devices. Towering cranes sway amongst palm trees. Piles of rubble are plinths to screens, others cascade waterfall-like from wall to floor, flickering with the lesions of damaged photographic negatives. Then in a room of their own, four crystals of chandelier glass (the only vestiges of the museum) are suspended, spinning like psychotic ghosts in the dark. If Ed Ruscha’s painting ‘The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire’ is a premonition, West’s work acts as a death mask for the museum. “You have to allow for the new. But there’s no sense of preservation”, she says.  Bassam Al-Sabah’s video piece, Dust, 2017, installed in the upstairs corridors of the Haunted School Fire, as a source of fear but also comfort and healing, haunts the work of Elina Waage Mikalsen, in Áhcagastá - Tales of the Ember, 2022. Reinterpreting a Sámi weaving method for making belts, Mikalsen’s ‘fire-braid’ installation is fueled by a multi-layered understanding of the role of fire in her community and its history: the World World Two destruction of her family’s land, the burning and erasure of Sámi cultural heritage, and the historical ‘vete’ system of coastal bonfires as warnings of a coming threat. Yet Mikalsen’s resolve is more hopeful: how ‘when objects are burnt and disappear, they can start anew or become something else’, she says.  Elsewhere, images emerge from the darkness. ’The Museum of the Sun’ is a reincarnation of Galleri Espolin, housing a collection of the 20th-century Lofoten artist Kaare Espolin Johnson, who suffered from cataracts and sight loss. At a scale almost troll-like to Espolin’s intricate works on paper, looming black bas-reliefs by Swedish Olof Marsja flank a doorway. Titled A lonesome flower’s dream of the past, 2022, these lumpy flower-headed figures seem to hail from a palaeolithic era, yet manifest via robotic milling and 3D scans. Some of the thousands of drawings which contributed to Christine Rebet‘s 2021 animation piece, Otolithe, presented at the Museum of the Sun Relief from darkness of another kind is found in a triumphant series of black and white photographs by Lithuanian Rimaldas Vikšraitis (At the Edge of the Known World, 1978-2008). Pastoral nostalgia up-turned for the darkly comic, Vikšraitis’s shrewd, often lewd depictions reveal both the clutter of rural life and the gaping societal voids following post-Soviet occupation. Some staged, others candid, his images dare to expose “the wounds of society that are very painful”, he says, wielding humour with surgeon-like precision. Storytelling is a survival strategy, as it was for the fishermen and islanders of these extreme lands.  Emma Talbot’s silk hanging Ghost Calls, 2020 and Aage Gaup’s Sleeping War Machine - a phallic-shaped comic protest at the patriarchal apparatus of war Four hours of sunlight will be lost during the duration of the festival. The quest for light, for visibility, for the appearance of an image, even lightness itself, is a constant refrain. Emma Talbot’s 30-metre silk hanging, Ghost Calls pertains to the possibility of monumentality without weight. It is a poetry mirrored by filmmaker icon Jonas Mekas’s video statement (Orquestina de Pigmeos, 2017), protesting the gigantism of art world institutions and events. Escaping the institutional setting altogether, South African Nolan Oswald Dennis voyages to the Barents Sea, to examine the role of black bodies in past and future arctic exploration. Then in the Adjourned Courtroom (the courtroom of the former Nazi-era prison), we encounter the Poupéees poubelles sculptures of Marianne Berenhaut, whose entire family was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Holocaust. Here is the radical potential of the weak body: fragile nylon stocking dolls as figures of resistance.  Drawings on paper from the studio of film-maker Tsai Ming-liang, occupying the sports hall of Kabelvåg’s primary school, Improvisations on the Memory of Cinema and Beautiful Night, 2017 Finally, it’s the trauma imprinted in the spaces themselves. In the ‘Haunted School’ (Kabelvåg’s primary school), Tomaso de Luca questions the promise of modernity, through his series of mock booby-traps quietly installed in the school’s changing rooms and communal showers. Ridiculing the structures of minimalist sculpture, de Luca lays his mechanisms bare, such that the traps betray even their own horror. Instead, he suggests, we must be vigilant against the ‘violence embedded in architecture’ – in this case, ‘the experience of a queer kid in school’, the artist exemplifies – and against the ‘traps’ of society more broadly. Lest we forget early depictions of the vampire were not as a literary motif, but as 18th-century political allegory: a critique against the authority, or even the critic themself.  One of the six of garbage doll sculptures by Marianne Berenhaut occupying the Adjourned Courtroom. (from Poupées Poubelles, a large body of work from 1971-1980) Kindred to Polidori’s The Vampyre, there is shifting, fluid ambiguity in the narrative mode at LIAF. And without conclusion, just as the blood-sucking Lord Ruthven escapes at the end of Polidori’s novel, unfound. But soon, whispers and spectres begin to take shape in the dark – and the longer one spends amongst the spaces of LIAF, the more that emerges both from its archive of mythology and its new cast of characters. Even the mountains cannot conceal their stories for long. § One of the six of ‘garbage doll’ sculptures by Marianne Berenhaut occupying the Adjourned Courtroom (from Poupées Poubelles, a large body of work from 1971-1980)  Christine Rebet Otolithe, 2021, an animation tracing the origins of the fijiri, the traditional song of pearl fishermen from the Persian Gulf  
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Honor Titus, punk band frontman-turned-painter: ‘jazz is the catalyst for everything’

Sitting down to write about Honor Titus – one of five contemporary creatives spotlighted by Wallpaper* guest editor Kelly Wearstler in her October 2022 issue takeover – scrolling through images and recalling the instances I have pondered on his work, I feel the immediate compulsion to play jazz. ‘I listen to jazz because it makes me feel good. Jazz is the catalyst not only for my work, but for everything,’ he tells me later when I mention this. This much is clear.  Before transfixing the art world with his flat planes of colour, Titus was the frontman of hardcore punk band Cerebral Ballzy, which he formed with his friends as a teen. Music is in Titus’ genes. His luminous tones captured within thin black lines give musical drama to his faceless figures. Portrait of Honor Titus. Photography: © Gia Coppola. Courtesy of the artist and Timothy Taylor, London/New York They are stills from recalled memories: a woman rushes down to the subway in white stilettos under a red sky; a penny-loafer-wearing girl swings her legs on a balustrade; a tennis player contorts backwards to meet the racket with the ball with such extremity that she almost skews the perspective in the composition. They are whimsy and wonder, with a touch of knowing irony that makes it endearing. ‘My parents danced in front of a piece entitled Brownstone Waltz at my first exhibition in New York,’ Titus divulges. Such a scene would work well within his oeuvre. ‘Honor is one of the most coveted artists working today. His paintings feel both fresh and timeless, they are clearly part of a tradition, but are also full of life’ – Kelly Wearstler How does Titus think of his work? Narrative and feeling play heavily into the imagery: ‘I’ll say that I am quite sentimental in my work. What does the produced picture conjure? How does it make me feel? Said produced picture can be very comparable to a perfect stanza, chapter or tune.’ The work is extremely self-referential, but when has it been possible to strip the lives of the artist from art-making? With Titus, it seeps through with purpose and conscious awareness that putting paint to canvas conjures intimate passages in artists’ lives. ‘This makes me think of Pierre Bonnard and the Intimist movement, when these fabulous French painters would depict their domestic lives. Both are very personal and also quite anonymous,’ says Titus. Honor Titus, Roland Garros, 2020. © Honor Titus. Courtesy the artist and Timothy Taylor, London/New York ‘The scenes conveyed are inspirational and inviting; they also make me think of my found photo collection. I love to imagine their struggles, hopes and trysts. Also to admire their beauty in that very specific moment.’ Standing in front of his work, we question which page we are on, what moment has been crystallised and why this crystallisation of moments feels unstable. ‘I’ve been told that my work feels as though there is a before and after. I love that.’ In his new series, to be unveiled at his solo exhibition at Timothy Taylor in London in November, Titus looks at traditionalism and class, to make a ‘loose yet dynamic take on debutante culture’. He adds, ‘to capture coming-of-age youth at parties, in ballrooms, dancing, in gowns and bow ties makes for a good picture. It can be that simple.’ Honor Titus, Self Protrait, 202. © Honor Titus. Courtesy of the artist and Timothy Taylor, London/New York Titus is deftly straightforward yet enigmatic at once. While telling it as it is, he leaves room for flourish and drama. Much like his references: pop, French painters such as Félix Vallotton and Maurice Denis, a fusion of bold, bombastic and intimate, romantic sensibilities. Where does that put Titus? ‘I’m just a sentimental Black boy from Brooklyn who has read Evelyn Waugh, played with Black Flag and The Strokes, now dances to Charlie Parker, sat with the works of Édouard Vuillard and Edward Hopper, who is still seeking to learn after all these years.’ §
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Kyoto’s Maana Kiyomizu boutique hotel is the epitome of modern craftsmanship

A contemporary sunken bathtub in soft sand shades with views across a 16th-century shrine; a clean-lined Danish sofa alongside a room of delicate washi paper panels; and an abstract French pendant light plus crafted screens of woven bamboo. Welcome to Maana Kiyomizu, home to a sleek Kyoto collision of past and future. The latest addition to the ancient city’s hospitality and creative scene, the boutique hotel spans a network of renovated century-old machiya townhouses on a quiet lane in the Higashiyama district. Eating, sleeping and shopping at Maana Kiyomizu One of the suites at Maana Kiyomizu The project ticks off a hat-trick of activities – eating, sleeping and shopping – with three suites for overnight stays; POJ Studio, a shop specialising in modern Japanese craftmanship and art; and Kissa Kishin, a stylish cafe serving up seasonal cuisine. ‘Our vision for this project is to bring the essence of ancient Kyoto into the modern world, through an intimate journey of food, crafts and stays,’ explains Hana Tsukamoto, co-founder and COO of Maana Homes, which produced the project and also runs two other machiya residences in Kyoto. View from a suite Co-founder Irene Chang adds: ‘We wanted to bring creative and vibrant energy into the neighbourhood community with an unexpected, refreshing approach to machiya. We hope to inspire a renewed perception towards them, and how they can be reimagined to fit into our modern lives.’ From the outside, Maana Kiyomizu – which opened its café and shop this month and will launch suites in November 2022 – blends in easily with a typical Kyoto streetscape of low-rise machiya. Stepping inside, however, the ambiance immediately tilts into a more contemporary dimension. Renovated by Kyoto architects Shigenori Uoya and Takeshi Ikei, the spaces are contemporary and minimalist, with smooth textures, soft curves and a light-toned palette that evokes a refreshing edge for machiya interiors. The first suite has a calming backdrop of sand-toned walls, which encase the bed and flow into a sunken bathtub, alongside abstract paper lanterns and a wall of windows overlooking nearby Toyokuni Shrine. The second has a contemporary living space, with a serene ‘Petal’ pendant light by Elsa Foulon, Karimoku Case Study dining chairs and a nook room with a minimal arc entrance, wrapped in a warm orange shade by Copenhagen’s St Leo. The bathroom – a signature feature for Maana Homes – has a bespoke Shigaraki ceramic bathtub handmade by artists in Shiga, beneath a delicate eggshell-like hanging pendant crafted by artist Gaku Nakane (whose work will feature in a POJ Studio exhibition from October). Bathroom Upstairs is another scene of modern craftsmanship: the master bedroom is wrapped in lattice-like screens of woven bamboo known as takekomai – a structure that is normally hidden beneath traditional tsuchikabe (wattle and daub) plaster walls. A further guest room is serenely cocooned in panels of handmade washi paper by artist Wataru Hatano. The modern Zen-like atmosphere continues in the third suite, with its smooth, softly toned expanses of plaster, minimal seasonal blooms and antique wooden bench, balanced by the clean, modern lines of a sofa from Danish brand Menu. Peppered throughout are POJ Studio details, from the clutches of abstract chochin lanterns to the amenity boxes, plus items such as tea sets, all available to buy next door. The shop itself sells a curated selection of its homeware and crafts, while also offering intimate workshops in activities such as kintsugi (repairing broken pottery with gold) and a concierge service specialising in access to artisans and artists. Interior and exterior of Kissa Kishin café Kissa Kishin is the final ingredient. The little sister of a celebrated restaurant in Kamakura, a coastal town just outside Tokyo, the new Kyoto café has a clean-lined façade of glass walls and a white noren curtain. Inside, against a contemporary backdrop of bespoke Maana Homes-designed Aria furniture, paper lanterns and artworks by Akari Karugane, relaxed Zen-inspired cuisine is served up (the signature breakfasts are already a favourite locally).  ‘Our design process has always been organic, not constrained by any style or trends,’ adds Tsukamoto. ‘For Maana Kiyomizu, we really aimed to push the boundaries and challenge typical perceptions of machiya. Until now, there hasn’t been such a risky, contemporary attempt at machiya renovations.’ § POJ Studio at Maana Kiyomizu
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Modernist design codes breathe new life into a 1960s São Paulo house

A 1960s house in São Paulo has been given a modernist rethink by BG Studios, which has created a minimalist base for furniture brand Wooding from Nino Ferraz’s original 1962 design. The house, in the residential neighbourhood of Alto de Pinheiros, now encompasses the clean design codes of Rafael Espíndola’s furniture brand. Wooding, created in 2018, is defined by its sleek pieces that incorporate wood, making for streamlined forms. Inspired by the pure elements of Scandinavian design, the refurbished house design drew on the original drawings as a starting point for the refurbishment. Everything from the structure to the aesthetic was reworked, from a broken floor in the entrance hall being lovingly restored to the intensity of the lighting adjusted. ‘We wanted to make our language more plural, to bring different perspectives with regard to design,’ says Espíndola of the concept, which reflects Wooding’s distinctive aesthetic. ‘Discovering how to approach a redesign process was fundamental,’ adds architect Murilo Gabriele, who centred the design around Rodrigo Oliveira’s naturalistic landscaping. Outside, the rich green tones of the foliage make a verdant frame for the deck, originally a patio and pool area and now covered by a wooden marquee. A reworked metalwork main staircase makes a striking focal point for Wooding House, which is filled with furniture from both Espíndola’s own brand and Brazilian and European brands Zanini de Zanine, André Grippi, Rodrigo Ohtake, Ricardo van Steen, and Studio 3955, making for an elegant space that will also act as a destination for art, design and architecture events and exhibitions. ‘We had the vision to breathe new life into the house, not just as our space, but as an architecturally significant building for the city, a project worth saving, and preserving for future generations to enjoy,’ adds Espíndola. §  
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Purple iPhone 14 wallpaper pack

With the iPhone 14 Pro in Deep Purple and iPhone 14 in Purple, I am really excited about the upcoming lineup. While the iPhone 12 also came in purple, this is the first time a Pro level device is being...
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These home accessories by Massproductions feature ‘the rules plus some magic’

When Massproductions’ design director Chris Martin presented the company’s new collection of domestic accessories, he dubbed the collection ‘the rules plus some magic’. The Swedish furniture brand is known for its neo-modernist furniture collections that blend well-considered design and attention to the manufacturing process. ‘The Little Things’, as the collection is called, includes smaller furniture pieces and accessories, objects ‘with the ability to gild everyday life’. ‘Trippy’ vase, £1,303, shown at the Massproductions store within an installation by Paul Vaugoyeau  The Little Things includes mirrors made of polished aluminium, a candle holder, a rubber door wedge, a shelf, a wine rack and a vase and a small table. Cushions and wall hangers, launched by the brand over the past few years, complete the collection.  ‘I wanted to change the scale of the things I normally design,’ says Martin. ‘It turned out that it is a similar process as when I design furniture; it is the same struggle, even for smaller objects. But the reward is worth it, because as the saying goes, it’s the little things that make a big difference.’ ‘Universal’ door wedge, £82 Martin describes the creative process for the collection as a transition from the rational to the madness, creating a contrast between an object’s functionality and the design approach. The shape of the ‘Trippy’ glass vase, for example, is defined by ‘the mood and creativity of the glassblowers that day’, while the ‘Memory’ mirrors simply feature a folded piece of polished aluminium (a decision based on learning the environmental impact of glass mirror manufacturing). The collection is presented at Massproductions’ store, which opened in February 2022 in an Art Nouveau building in Stockholm’s Södermalm, originally designed in 1912 by architect Sam Kjellberg with new interiors by Massproductions’ creative director and CEO Magnus Elebäck in collaboration with Specific Generic. For the launch, multidisciplinary designer Paul Vaugoyeau created a foil-clad room at the back of the store. ‘Although all objects in The Little Things come from one and the same hand (Chris’ left hand), they have no obvious relationship,’ comments Elebäck. ‘But just like with our furniture collection, it is only when you look closer and live with the products that the common thread emerges. A thread that is spun by ingenuity, function, relevance and tactility.’ § ‘Marcel’ coat rack, £570 ‘4PM’ table, £576 ‘Silo’ modular winerack, from £127  
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Wolfgang Tillmans on shaping photography as we know it: ‘I want to lay reality bare’

Wolfgang Tillmans has shaped the world of photography as we know it. Over a prolific, 35-year career, the German photographer has infused an unvarnished intimacy and a playful sense of observation into his images. Today, his fascination with the everyday is emulated in so much of the imagery that envelopes us. The full extent of his wide-reaching influence is palpable when walking through his first major survey in New York, now taking over the entire sixth floor of the Museum of Modern Art. Titled ‘To Look Without Fear’, the stunning retrospective brings together approximately 350 photography, video and multimedia works, displayed in a loose chronology for the first time.  Curated by Roxana Marcoci, MoMA’s senior curator of photography, the exhibition is a profound and emotional look back on Tillmans’ career. Spread over 11 galleries, it charts the artist’s depictions of identity, sexuality and gender, his political and social engagement and activism, his fascination with astronomy, science and technological advancement, as well as his passion for music, instrumentation and composition. An accompanying catalogue and a separate tome of interviews and writings, titled A Reader, complete this deep dive into Tillmans’ multifaceted practice. Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans: ’To look without fear’, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from September 12, 2022 – January 1, 2023. Photography: Emile Askey A culmination of eight years of work – including five devoted to shaping the show and over a year-long delay due to Covid-19 – ‘To Look Without Fear’ is intricate and multilayered. It begins in 1986 with early abstract experiments with a photocopier, including Tillmans’ first self-portrait, and soon gives way to images chronicling the development of his non-confrontational style, representing sexuality and gender in the mid-1990s. Among the notable bodies of work are his odes to club culture, as seen in Chemistry Squares (1992) a series of intimate close-ups taken on a single night at the weekly Chemistry party at London’s Soundshaft nightclub. Elsewhere, the artist’s obsession with Concorde is captured in a wall grid of 56 photographs from 1997, documenting the plane’s take-offs and landings. There is a beautiful tension in directing attention to the mundane – instead of elevating it, Tillmans recognises it for what it is. ‘That insistence on being honest was at the core of what I wanted to convey in the early 1990s,’ Tillmans says, a week before the opening. ‘To take an honest look at life and to take me and my generation seriously, not to look at us as a passing phase or as crazy young people, but to look at the seriousness of life, which now I say without fear. I felt all the joy and exuberance of partying, but I also felt the weight of existence. It’s hard to be alive and hard to bear that hardship. I guess that’s what sets [those pictures] apart. It’s not something one can claim, because it can’t be faked. I want to lay reality bare. Somehow, the pictures show reality and life in its complexity and its beauty, but it’s also not embellished.’ Wolfgang Tillmans, The Cock (kiss) (2002). Image courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner, New York / Hong Kong, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin / Cologne, Maureen Paley, London This authenticity is especially pronounced in the way Tillmans has configured the exhibition, which he personally installed over 16 days with his studio team. In defiance of institutional conventions, the work oscillates between being taped, hung with bulldog clips and mounted in frames on the walls. There are also magazine pages and the artist’s collections of newspaper clippings that have been printed and exhibited with equal reverence. The scales and formats at which images have been printed and displayed are also specifically designed for MoMA, reflecting Tillmans’ push for creating a visual democracy. By ignoring institutional norms and signals, the installation reassigns values to the works on view. ‘I like the viewer to attribute value [to images in] the way they see things themselves, and not to guide them by a system [like] the biggest picture is the most important and the smaller ones are some flotsam or side dish,’ he says, while explaining how a small picture of a Shaker building in Maine (Shaker Rainbow, 1998) was actually presented as a 12-foot-tall print in another major museum exhibition. ‘It’s really a question of play; I wanted to retain a playfulness in the process of making this exhibition because that element has also led to other exhibitions which people loved, and only because I did those exhibitions, did I end up at MoMA. Not being burdened by the exceptionality of the setting was important.’ Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans: ’To look without fear’, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from September 12, 2022 – January 1, 2023. Photography: Emile Askey He adds, ‘When discussions first started, MoMA was still holding two concurrent exhibitions on the sixth floor. In 2019, that policy changed with the opening of the new building [by Diller Scofidio + Renfro], and since then they have occasionally opened solo shows on the entire floor. I feel incredibly lucky that I was taken forward as the first exhibition to reopen the sixth floor, [which] had been shut since the Donald Judd exhibition [in 2020].’ ‘Now that I look at 35 years of work, it’s become justifiable for me to actually order it chronologically, which I normally don’t do in exhibitions,’ he continues. ‘A large part of the audience will not have been old enough, or even born, to have seen my exhibitions in the 1990s, so I wanted to give people this experience to see the work in the context of its own time, and to revisit its relevance.’ Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans: ’To look without fear’, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from September 12, 2022 – January 1, 2023. Photography: Emile Askey With so much of Tillmans’ past and present work focused on forging togetherness and human connections, there’s an added poignancy that comes with the retrospective opening after people have endured prolonged periods of isolation. The first rooms of the show and being met by a plethora of candid portraits and documentary images depicting youth subcultures, fashion and music from the late 1980s and early 1990s, revives the original subject matter with a deeper resonance, simply by capturing what we have been recently deprived of – revelry, spontaneity, physical contact. ‘The friendliness of people going out and sharing a safe space in a club is something quite spiritual,’ Tillmans reflects. ‘I’ve often felt that a loving club moment is not so dissimilar [to a spiritual experience] because there’s a sense of solidarity, which is the only thing we have. The word sounds kind of socialist, but solidarity is actually only putting yourself in the shoes or in the mind of someone else.’ Wolfgang Tillmans, Silver 152, chromogenic print, (2013). Image courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner, New York / Hong Kong, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin / Cologne, Maureen Paley, London Empathy is a grounding element in the artist’s work, even beyond Tillmans’ portraiture. His ‘Silver’ works from the 2000s, where photographic paper is fed through a developer that has purposefully not been cleaned, capture unpredictable chemical reactions, encounters and reflections, which are then enlarged, prompting introspective contemplations about existence and humanity. There are also new additions to Truth Study Center (2005-present), which features collections of photocopied news articles, printed online stories, photographs and other ephemera that mingle together collage-style on architectural display tables, and continue the artist’s interrogations of what we think of as truth.  The survey also notably includes Tillmans’ first ever listening room, where his inaugural full-length album, Moon in Earthlight, primarily made during the pandemic, makes its debut. Each of the album’s 19 tracks is accompanied by a video work, ranging from footage of hermit crabs on the beach to strips of paper arranged on the bed of a photocopier, creating a full, sensorial experience that digs into the interpersonal, while articulating both the strength and fragility of relationships.   Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans: ’To look without fear’, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from September 12, 2022 – January 1, 2023. Photography: Emile Askey ‘Wolfgang’s interest in new forms of technology comes from his very early engagement with astronomy and his passion for understanding his own position [in] on a larger planetary context,’ says exhibition curator Roxana Marcoci. ‘You can truly appreciate how his work crosses genres and is about the intersections between nightlife and portraiture, cameraless abstractions and documents of the social. Regardless of format or medium, Tillmans continues to bring authenticity and sincerity to his images, which is especially potent in an era where there is a camera in almost everyone’s hand. ‘As I look through the [MoMA] show, I can really say why something is where it is and what it signifies in this ongoing consideration of thinking [about] what pictures mean today, and what making pictures mean. When I started, I had no idea that photography would be so at the core of everyday life, and [that] the work [would] still have its own territory,’ he reflects. ‘I’ve always felt that I want my photographs to look like what it feels like to look through my eyes.’ § Wolfgang Tillmans, blue self–portrait shadow (2020). Image courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner, New York / Hong Kong, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin / Cologne, Maureen Paley, London  
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