FAT exhibition, Lausanne

Fashion, architecture, taste (FAT) are unwitting iconoclasts, preferring instead to be known for designing buildings that reflect their sense of place and purpose through ornament, pattern and form. In another decade, this approach would have been swiftly dubbed Post Modernism and left to wither. Instead, FAT's work dovetails neatly with our collage-heavy but ultimately meaning-bereft culture, satisfying a hunger for architecture that speaks of place, function, life and memory.

In nearly 15 years of practice, the firm has grown from a small studio of provocateurs to a major player, popular with forward-thinking developers and local authorities. Combining speculative buildings and sculptural objects with realised masterplans, housing and public spaces, there is no typical FAT project, only a unifying visual presentation style that's a hybrid of Pop-art flatness, science fiction landscapes and the bold colours of comic art.

The objects on display in 'Duplicate Array' build on this fascination with the intersection between high and low culture and the desperate quest for meaning in everyday life. Exhibits include a chaise mutated into a model railway landscape, the 'Soft Hercules' stool, a neon sculpture of the archetypal house and images, renders and drawings of FAT's many architectural schemes.

3 November 2009 | Art