Archinect - News

Through the eyes of Verner Panton; a master of color through contemporary expression

2019-01-03T09:38:00-05:00

If you don't know his name, you probably know of his work. Verner Panton's iconic designs have noted him an innovator in furniture as well as atmospheric design. Deemed the "bad boy" of Danish design, Paton's rise as an icon in contemporary design broke through social convention. His take on design and its accessibility to others was his calling card. Obsessed with the needs of individuals, Panton believed that intelligent design should be available for the masses, and not merely set aside for the wealthy.

A less successful experiment is preferable to a beautiful platitude”

The '60s was a time of the search for the psychedelic and social progress, Panton's design theory and ideals fit well within the needs of the time. Famously said, "A less successful experiment is preferable to a beautiful platitude.” A true optimist in the future of design and social mobility, Panton strived to create objects and spaces that provoked the senses. In his new monograph by Phaidon, writers Ida Enghol...

Arakawa and Madeline Gins' avant-garde, Life-Span Extending Villa hits the market at $2.5 million

2018-08-22T14:13:00-04:00

The Bioscleave House (Life-Span Extending Villa), designed by avant-garde artists Madeline Gins and Arakawa, has hit the market, the four bedroom, two and a half bath house asking for $2,495,000 via Brown Harris Stevens.

Building upon the couple's fifty year body of research into solving death—what they saw as the ultimate design flaw—the house comes with the unique promise of staving off mortality. Commissioned by the art collector Angela Gallman back in 2007, it has been designed to empower its inhabitants to resist their own deaths and reverse the downhill course of human life.

Image via Madeline Gins and Arakawa.

The East Hampton home features walls of more than three dozen different colors and an undulating, dunelike floor that challenges the body in unexpected ways. Windows are placed at varying heights, there is an open flow of traffic, and the kitchen is sunken at the center of the house—all designed to rejuvenate whoever moves in.

The house, which cost slightly less than it...

Moscow's new Avant-Garde Museum opens to the public

2017-07-14T17:22:00-04:00

As government officials in Moscow earmark Constructivist buildings for demolition in a massive project to relocate up to 1.6 million of the city’s residents, a non-profit museum dedicated to preserving Russia’s avant-garde architecture has opened in the Shabolovka neighbourhood.

The new Avant-Garde Museum is located in Na Shabolovke Gallery, which is a part of Khavsko-Shabolovsky housing complex built in the late 1920s by the rationalist Asnova (Association of New Architects). It is part of a district with a rich heritage of early Soviet architecture and design, dominated by the famous hyperboloid Shukhov radio tower. Supported by private grants and volunteers, the museums features photographs, video footage, archaeological fragments, archival materials, blueprints, salvaged interior fittings such as door handle, and tools belonging to the tower's visionary engineer, Vladimir Shukov.

"The idea for the space came from the local historian and activist Ilya Malcow, who has spent years collecting artifacts of the area—many of which are now on show at the museum. The neighborhood is unique, he says, because it was built virtually from scratch after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to house workers for the new factories and institutions.

Photo by Olga Alexeyenk...

Russian pedestrian infrastructure that teaches you a thing about avant-garde art

2015-11-18T18:25:00-05:00

Pedestrian crossings made up of fragments of famous works of avant-garde art have appeared in a residential area in the Russian city of Khimki, located just northwest of Moscow. Fragments of the work of Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich and Vasily Kandinsky feature on five pedestrian crossings in the “Gorod Naberezhniy” complex, chosen for their frequent use. Together with the zebra stripes, there are signs which provide information about the artwork and artist.

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WAI Think Tank Video "Généalogie d'un collage"

2012-12-02T13:07:00-05:00

WAI Architecture Think Tank has released the video narrative “Généalogie d'un collage”. The video displays the creation of the collage ‘Cities of the Avant-Garde’ as well as one of the poems that were developed with the iconic image.

Music:
Asap Rocky “Peso” (2011)
Jan Garbarek & Agnes Buen Garnas “Rosensfole” (1988)
www.wai-architecture.com
www.waithinktank.com

Discovering Khidekel

2012-07-18T09:46:00-04:00

What About the Last Suprematist?

When one speaks of revolutionary art, two kinds of artistic phenomena are meant: the works whose themes reflect the Revolution, and the works which are not connected with the Revolution in theme, but are thoroughly imbued with it, and are Colored by the new consciousness arising out of the Revolution. -Leon Trotsky

October 1917 opened an architectural Pandora’s Box.
During the Russian revolution, the avant-garde exercises of the Cubo-Futurists, Rayonnists, Suprematists, and Constructivists, paralleled to the unmovable inflexibility of the Stalinist “establishment” to reveal the difference between architecture of the revolution and revolutionary architecture.

While architecture of the revolution responds to the iconoclastic demands of the moment and creates a profusion of icons that portray a specific historical period, revolutionary architecture strives to break with the current paradigms, establishing a new architectural language that detac...