Designed by NOX architects, the oddly shaped D-tower signals the emotional life of local residents living in the Dutch town of Doetinchem. The eight-metre-high, four-legged structure stands by the roadside at the main point of entry into the town. During the day it is a silvery grey; at night it is lit with one of four bright colours. Each colour represents an emotion: love (red), fear (yellow), happiness (blue) and hate (green). At the base of each support, “we placed [...]
(Extract) Fantastical lamps created by young designer Paul Cocksedge make alchemy look possible In business for just four years, Paul Cocksedge is one of the hottest young lighting designers in Great Britain, the well-lit “It Boy”. Upscale clients such as the Bombay Sapphire Foundation and Swarovski jewelers commissioned him to design lamps and last summer’s Touch Me exhibition on tactile design at the Victoria & Albert Museum showcased his work. Cocksedge’s pieces are also on display at that museum’s Contemporary [...]
Working out of a studio in the east Parisian suburb of Vincennes, French light artist Yann Kersalé famously creates dynamic lightworks, on buildings or as installations. The designs are based on and linked to the surroundings, and often move in response to traffic, people and other types of local movement. He has worked on many high profile jobs around the world. He recently completed the lighting treatment of Jean Nouvel’s Torre Agbar, a bullet-shaped 40-storey skyscraper in Barcelona. What are [...]
“When you work with light, you work for somebody to feel this light,” says French lighting designer and visual artist Thierry Dreyfus. “They feel it with their eyes and they feel it with their skin.” Over the years, his growing interest in light has driven him along a career path from assistant lighting designer at the Strasbourg Opera to the creator of imaginative fashion lighting for Yves Saint Laurent, Helmut Lang, John Galliano and other top designers in Paris, Milan, [...]
Influenced by nature and art, lighting designers Kai Piippo and Niklas Ödmann have been lighting Swedish interiors and exteriors since the early nineties. Based in Stockholm, their company Ljusarkitektur, meaning literally ‘light architecture’, is dedicated to improving and inspiring everyday life with light. Piippo and Ödmann began their lighting careers in the early eighties. They worked behind the scenes at music concerts, operas and in theatres. As a former band member Piippo had already decided that he preferred lighting the [...]
In London it’s Hoxton, in New York it’s Chelsea, but where in Paris do young artists exhibit their work? Rue Louise Weiss is where: a 13th-arrondissement back street that attracts an international audience of contemporary art lovers. What makes it unusual is the solidarity between a group of 10 art galleries: they have synchronised openings and all shows close on the same day. Rue Louise Weiss, named after a French journalist, is part of a gigantic zone of new development [...]
(Extract) Ever since Les Confrères de la Passion established the city’s first permanent theater in 1547 at the Hôtel du Duc de Bourgogne (see the commemorative plaque at 29 Rue Etienne Marcel), the dramatic arts have diversified. They now range from street theater in summer to grandly produced plays, performed everywhere from tiny cellars to sumptuous surroundings. The 1960s counterculture and Culture Minister Andre Malraux’s decentralization plan succeeded in broadening the appeal of theater, and plays everywhere are enjoying increased [...]
(Extract Despite its name, Son-O-House is not a house but a permanent public artwork that is both a pavilion and sound installation. Located on the outskirts of Son en Breugel in the Netherlands, it represents the second joint venture by NOX Architects and Dutch composer and media artist Edwin van der Heide. NOX, headed by Lars Spuybroek, first collaborated with Van der Heide on the FreshH2O eXPO pavilion on the island of Neeltje Jans, the Netherlands, in 1996-7 [RECORD, May 1999, [...]
(Extract) Tents are such wonderful things. Their forms and uses are numerous. The tent is a byword for flexibility, portability and impermanence… Tents are everywhere – and doing all kinds of useful jobs. At any given time, around the world, tents can be found at counterculture festivals, political demonstrations, cities for the homeless, peace camps, at anti-road-building camps and anti-housing-development camps. The list goes on. Think black Bedouin beit sha’ar (or house of hair), the native American tepee, the big top, [...]
In Stockholm’s Djurgårdsbrunn park, a modern mirrored intrigues passersby. The four-metre-high installation, created by UK-based Block Architecture, reflects the park and, on further inspection, reveals an old building behind it. Inside, the curious discover a vibrant café created by French designer Matali Crasset. The fence and café, along with other exhibits by renowned artists and designers, are part of Magasin 3 Projekt, an annual “project room” run by Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall. Block and Crasset were invited this year because [...]