Hella Jongerius creates limited-edition cover for Wallpaper’s May 2021 issue

Hella Jongerius chose a textile (opens in new tab) piece from her Woven Windows series to grace her limited edition for Wallpaper’s May 2021 issue. Focusing on previewing exceptional designs, collections and projects, the issue features Jongerius’ latest body of work, a series of textile experimentations presented through an immersive and interactive exhibition at Berlin’s Gropius Bau.

The Woven Windows series is part of this ‘Woven Cosmos’ showcase, created over several months by the multidisciplinary designer and her team, who set up a studio in the museum’s spaces to work on the exhibition pieces on-site. Jongerius had been exploring textiles for a few years, and the exhibition formed an opportunity to go in-depth into the medium.

The cover artwork is titled Undertone View, and features cotton, linen, paper, viscose, wool, and recycled mixed materials from dead stock, woven on a digital loom – a tool Jongerius has been using extensively, alongside machinery she and her team created ad-hoc for their textile explorations. The pieces illustrate imaginary windows, abstract landscapes and panoramas created experimenting on the loom, a creative process Jongerius described as ‘painting with yarn’. Each window is created by playing with dimensions, patterns, colours and three dimensional yarn arrangements to create outside views. 

‘During [the pandemic], I had time to weave and I thought we were all inside our house looking through our windows to the outside world, so I wanted to weave windows,’ says Jongerius. ‘I like the idea that a window is the eye of the house. The window is also a threshold: you can only pass with your eyes, your body can't go out and that's also been the case in the past year. I wanted to frame this private view everybody was having, as private life becomes more important, our view to the outside becomes more important.’

Read more about ‘Woven Cosmos’ by Hella Jongerius, and discover Wallpaper’s edit of the most exciting new design projects from our May issue – now on newsstands and available as a free PDF download.

INFORMATION

Hella Jongerius’ cover is the latest addition to the Wallpaper* limited-edition cover series, which features a specially created artwork by a different artist, architect or designer each issue. Limited-edition covers are available to subscribers only; for more information, see wallpaper.com/subscribe (opens in new tab)