#ArchinectMeets is a series of interviews with members of the architecture community that use Instagram as a creative medium. With the series, we ask some of Instagram’s architectural photographers, producers and curators about their relationship to the social media platform and how it has affected their practice.
Social media has undeniably affected the way we perceive, interpret and share opinions about architecture today. While we use our own account, @Archinect, as a site for image curation and news content, we wanted to ask fellow Instagram users how they navigated the platform.
We spoke to Daniella Ohad, Ph.D, the curator of @daniellaondesign. As a design historian that regularly lectures on the subject, Ohad uses Instagram to advocate for the significance of design history through its most stunning precedents and their most seductive photographs.
What is your relationship to architecture? Has Instagram affected your views toward the profession?
I am a design and architecture historian, educator, and tastemaker. I teach, write, blog, curate and moderate programs on stage, lecture in conferences, and host a talk show on design and architecture. IG has not affected my views toward the profession, but it has supplied a platform, a tool to reach out to a wider audience interested in the education and the taste that I promote.
My motto is 'the more you notice and appreciate design, the more beautiful your world becomes,' and that knowing history is the most important key in shaping impeccable taste.
How did @daniellaondesign begin?
Daniella on Design started as a diary to chronicle and share my experiences in the world of architecture and design. It features the talents I meet, the exhibitions I love, the studios and buildings I visit, the dazzling homes I am invited to, the cultural organizations I support, the books and articles I read, the influencers I encounter, and the lectures I teach. I blog five days a week, documenting these experiences which are of interest to my readers. The blog has been and still the starting point for my page on FB and for my IG feed.
View this post on InstagramSpace Age water tower in #malmo #sweden #1972 by #karlivarstål #watertower #architecture #spaceage #spaceagearchitecture
A post shared by Daniella Ohad, Ph.D (@daniellaondesign) on
What have you hoped to communicate about architecture or the built environment through your posts?
To me, every post is first and foremost a way to educate my followers and readers, to sharpen their perceptions and to elevate their tastes.
While the curated selections are made through the filter of my own taste, it is a way for anyone to learn something, by being exposed to the highest-brow taste, the stories behind the scenes, and the visuals that are not often found in other feeds.
Were you collecting these images before you had a social media presence, or did social media encourage you to take image curation more seriously?
The images I post relate directly to my professional activity in that particular moment. I am an educator, involved in teaching, writing articles, advising collectors and architects on the acquisition of design pieces, leading tours to the finest exhibitions, etc.
View this post on InstagramMy new course @nysid about the patrons who commissioned the radical buildings of the 20th century, allowing modern architecture to evolve, and about the relationships between patrons and architects, and the stories behind the curtains. Here’s the #johnsonwaxbuilding in the #Netherlands by #huigmaaskant #1960 #architecture #moderndesign #modernarchitecture
A post shared by Daniella Ohad, Ph.D (@daniellaondesign) on
When I work on a lecture on French design of the 20s, I would extract the most inspiring image, possibly by Jean-Michel Frank or Alberto Giacometti, and post it on IG and on FB; when I visit a museum or gallery show, then I post the one piece I like the most; when working on an interview with an architect or an architecture critic who has just published a book, I would comprise the image of my post of the day; when I travel to Italy to see the architecture of Carlo Scarpa, this is what I show; if I spend a couple of days in Miami for the occasion of Design Miami, then I make the selection of objects I like the most, while touring the fair. My inspiration is related to my daily experiences.
View this post on InstagramModernist #villa in #Budapest by Jozsef Fischer #1930s #modernist #modernism #whitearchitecture #jozseffischer
A post shared by Daniella Ohad, Ph.D (@daniellaondesign) on
How do you typically find the images you post on Instagram?
I am fortunate to constantly receive images from those who wish to be featured in my IG and FB. This list includes design galleries, museums, architects, designers who contact me on a daily basis with news about their work and with supply of images in high resolution of exhibitions, publications, and new work. Additionally, many of the images I post are related to design and architecture history and those I tend to take from various sources which I consult for my own lectures, including archives, old journals, and vintage books. I am a poor photographer, and thus very rarely post photos I take using my iPhone. I believe that the photography of the highest quality is essential to become successful on social media.
View this post on InstagramSTYKKISCHÓLMUR Church in Iceland by #jonharaldsson #icelandarchitecture #architecture #churcharchitecture #1990
A post shared by Daniella Ohad, Ph.D (@daniellaondesign) on
What are some of your favorite Instagram profiles to follow?
I follow my colleague James Zemaitis who analyzes important objects in the history of design from the provenance, historical, and collecting points of view; I follow my colleague Michael Jefferson whose involvement in the world of design I find inspiring; I follow design galleries which I find intriguing, not just for the images and material they show, but also for the way they utilize the platform to make a case: Nicholas Kilner; R & Company; Friedman Benda; Laffanour Galerie Downtown. Interior designers whose work I find compelling: Amy Lau; Brian McCarthy; Pierre Yovanovitch; Joe Nahem
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