barbican ceiling lamp 01 06
02.04.21

Sighted

While on Lockdown at the Barbican, This Duo Made Brutalist Furniture Out of Moving Boxes and Other Scraps

A Space's new Barbican collection is a series of mirrors, lights, and tables whose name references the famed London housing estate where the studio's founders spent the past year living and making it. Having moved in last May, they conceived the series as an homage to their new surroundings, then sculpted it out of the materials available to them during lockdown, including moving boxes, food containers, and plaster of Paris ordered online.
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2019_Jose Davila_Moment of Suspension_KOENIG GALERIE_Opener
11.05.19

Excerpt: Exhibition

A New Jose Dávila Exhibition in A Stunning Brutalist Church

If you've ever visited König Galerie in Berlin, which is housed in a renovated 1967 Brutalist church with a skylit concrete nave, you'll know that there are only a few places in the world to experience contemporary art in such a breathtaking setting. There are also only a few artists whose work would be quite so at home in that nave as Jose Dávila, the Mexican sculptor who trained as an architect and is known for his focus on space, balance, and proportion.
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TEPHRA_PENDANTSCONCEMIRROROpener
08.15.19

Up and Coming

Brutalist Ceramics Inspired By the Pacific Northwest’s Most Famous Volcanic Explosion

LGS Studio, a ceramics brand founded by Thomas Renaud and Noel Hennessy, is currently based out of Los Angeles. But the company actually got its start a few years back in a garage in Portland, Oregon, where the founders were living at the time. Which is what makes their latest collection all the more personal — called Tephra, it's inspired by growing up in the Pacific Northwest in the aftermath of the 1980 Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption.
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Brutalist-inspire ikebana vases by Studio Testo
06.19.18

Eye Candy

These Brutalist-Inspired Vases Will Up Your Ikebana Game

Last time we featured Studio Testo, we noted Giulia Dolci and Giulia Fauro Alessi’s uncanny ability to make pieces that are on-trend and effortlessly cool. So it comes as no surprise that their latest collection of sculptural vases has a similarly refreshing vibe, taking cues from Brutalist architecture and adding in some ikebana by Irene Cuzzaniti and fresh textiles by AH/OK.
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Bauhaus-inspired housewares by Orphan Work
11.08.17

Up and Coming

Brutalist- and Bauhaus-Inspired Housewares and Lighting From the Duo Behind Material Lust

Christian Swafford and Lauren Larson, the creative couple behind Material Lust, introduced their sister brand Orphan Work humbly enough, with a soft launch last year that had us wondering what, exactly, the brand even was. But since its debut, the label has evolved beyond its origins as “an exploration of orphaned material” and developed into a full-fledged brand: lighting, accessories, and what they call “monuments for your tabletop,” inspired at turns by Bauhaus and Brutalism, but mainly by the Vienna Secession.
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002 J. Muecke_Opener
09.14.16

Excerpt: Exhibition

A Breathtaking Furniture Installation Staged Inside a Famed Brutalist House

When we named Jonathan Muecke to our American Design Hot list in 2014, the enigmatic Minnesota architect summed up his motivations with a 1963 George Brecht quote about seeking precision in objects — the same kind of precision, presumably, that he saw in the starkly angular 1974 Van Wassenhove House by Belgian architect Juliaan Lampens, where he recently spent a week making a new body of work for Maniera gallery.
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Fictons by CCC — Photo © Alex Lesage 3
04.27.21

Excerpt: Exhibition

This Canadian Design Show Was Dreamed Up Before the Pandemic. So Why Is It About Mutation, Isolation, and Fear of the Unknown?

Set in an abandoned, somewhat post-apocalyptic-looking building in the middle of Montréal, FICTIONS offers visitors a surveillance-like experience, with four different camera angles offering a glimpse of the half-shrouded pieces, alongside an eerie accompanying score. Though there was no brief, many of the pieces play with ideas about mutation and perception.
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015_PROCTOR_BBCA_opener
03.18.21

Interiors

Peek Inside a Barbican Apartment Full of Period-Appropriate Furniture

If you're one of those people — ourselves included — who have fantasized about living in one of the 2,000 apartments that make up the Barbican housing estate in London, where Brutalism meets Roman ruins meets exquisite landscape design, we have a treat for you: a look inside the home of interior architect Oskar Kohnen, located inside the estate's 1973 Defoe House.
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GH instal Web Res 210221-1
02.27.21

Saturday Selects

Week of February 22, 2021

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week, two wooden, wavy moments, a pair of brightly optimistic gallery exhibitions, and a whole slew of mood-lifting lighting designs.
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gingham_mittens
12.20.20

EDITORS’ LIST

Jill and Monica — plus two SU contributors — share a super-sized list of December picks, including ceramics by a 53-year-old influencer, Murano-glass scented candles, and gingham mittens.
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