Didier Faustino presented “Broken white cube” during the first Paris Design Week earlier this month. Elaborated as a movable piece, the dimensions of the volume are matching with the shipping pallet where it is set on. The idea of transportation is increased by hand suction cups fixed on the upper block suggesting to open or close the white cube. The spectator is urged to look deeper and go beyond the surface appearance of things. Read the rest of this entry »
Didier Faustino is presenting a series of new pieces at the Calouste Gulbekian Foundation (Lisbon) from 14th January to 3rd April 2011. Five new installations produced for the exhibition will immerse visitors in the permanent confrontation of the body with architecture and architecture with movement, via visual and sound tools implemented by Faustino. Entitled “Don’t Trust Architects”, the exhibition will present “Future Will Be a Remake“, a game which invites the spectators to reclaim part of the architecture by playing with it, “Trust me“, a sound installation about the distortion of messages, “Flatland“, a reflection on the borders between fiction and reality, “Instrument for Blank Architecture“, a mobile sound device dedicated to mental exploration, and lastly “Exploring Dead Buildings“, a video exploring the confines of architectural utopia.
Insiders will know that 39V, signed by Naço Architectures, has been open since September. A small haven of peace at 39 avenue George V on the top floor of a Haussmann building, nestling under the eaves of the Parisian rooftops. It is an ultra Parisian address without the usual clichés and with a gift for distancing itself from the city providing every reason to linger.
From a 1930’s house situated in the greenest district of Shanghai, Naço Architectures has produced a radiant contemporary villa, given rhythm by a sequence of varying sized cubes made from pure materials: wood, stone, metal and glass. For Marcelo Joulia, founder of Naço, “The objective was to produce a house destined for Europeans in Asia. To conceive a family house which opens onto the exterior, but which is also a refuge protecting from bad weather and the aggression of the city. It was obvious that the house should be luminous and airy. The latter being my trademark.’ Read the rest of this entry »
From 26th August to 23rd November 2010, Didier Fiúza Faustino will present ‘Agnosian Fields’ at Le Forum de la Maison Hermès in Tokyo. The exhibition comprising two new installations as well as previous work indicates the different scales and obsessions that the work of an architect is based upon. The term ‘agnosia’ – the loss of the ability to recognise objects and perceptive amnesia – sums up the state in which the architect wishes the visitor to be immersed. His work, mainly based on putting the body under tension in its environment, leads him to explore the fields of architecture and contemporary art, assuming equally status as designer and architect.
This area dedicated to adolescents and designed by Mathieu Lehanneur for the Centre Pompidou (Paris) opens on 11th September 2010. This initiative called “Studio 13/16″, inevitably risky for a museum when aimed at a volatile teenage population, finds a functional and formal solution based on the ergonomics of the desire “I dreamed about a place which was conceived and built like a television, cinema or music studio. I wanted this place to offer teenagers the same potential for action and creation as the professional equivalent. A far cry from an attempt to reconstruct a hypothetical ‘teen’ style, from adolescence I have only kept this desire – and at times this capacity – to contort things and places. I admire this unique way of making the world more flexible to better integrate into it. And what is true for a town or for clothing is even more so for institutions like museums…” sums up Mathieu Lehanneur.
L’Atelier des enfants at the Centre Pompidou has been up and running from 10th July in the new area designed by Mathieu Lehanneur. It now offers a more spacious setting (300m2), which is better adapted to activities for children aged from 2 to 12 years. With its rounded corners, a direct allusion to a skate park as recreational scenery, the preview last Saturday confirmed the delighted ease with which the children became immersed in the venue! Read the rest of this entry »
Photos of BSL Gallery by french photographer Eric Laignel are now available. The on-site architecture by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance breaks with the international white cube standard for art galleries – a model that may suit contemporary artworks but does not cover the needs of a design gallery. Noé has re-shuffled conventional object display codes by proposing a white Corian spiral scanned by sequences, a sculpture extrapolated to architectural scale.
