What, at its essence, is a fashion boutique? It’s a space for brands to present their wares, yes – but in today’s luxury landscape, that definition feels insufficient. The most influential brands now prioritise universe-building as much as they do merchandising. Customers aren’t purchasing a garment so much as an aesthetic worldview – and the boutique becomes a tangible expression of that vision.

In 2025, this idea crystallised into a full-scale revival of fashion retail. A series of brands unveiled high-concept stores that treated fashion, art and design as a whole. JW Anderson has restyled its stores as design-driven marketplaces offering not just clothing but ceramics and other crafted objects. Extreme Cashmere introduced a boutique where the clothing nearly disappears into a domestic setting. A series of smaller stores have also emerged: like Jake’s, the Saturday-only store which sees Jake Burt, one half of London-based label Stefan Cooke, sell an ever-changing roster of weekly one-offs designed by him and his friends (pastry chef and model Louis Thompson provides the cakes).

Here, we are focusing on the store design itself: from Stone Island’s experiments with cutting-edge tech to stores-turned-galleries, these were the retail concepts that defined 2025 in fashion.

Acne Studios, Tokyo

Acne Studios’ new three-level Aoyama flagship blends minimalist architecture with playful textures. Designed by co-founder Jonny Johansson and Halleroed, the glass-lined, garage-like space is clad in pink granite and filled with vibrant furnishings by the likes of Max Lamb and Benoit Lalloz. The store remains faithful to Acne Studios’ Scandi roots, but nods to Japan through details like candy-bright ceramics by Takuro Kuwata.

READ: Step inside Acne Studios’ pink-hued Tokyo flagship: ‘fashion is supposed to be fun’

Miu Miu, London 

Miu Miu’s revamped New Bond Street store feels clean and contemporary, defined by an industrial metal grid floor, crisp lighting and bold yellow-green display cases. Upstairs, warmer touches – parquet, plush rugs and a sculptural wooden ceiling – add softness. Crucially, this space is conceived as more than a boutique; it functions as a cultural and social hub.

READ: Inside Miu Miu’s ‘proudly modern and minimal’ new London store

Longchamp, New York

The showstopper at Longchamp’s revamped New York flagship is the vivid green steel-ribbon staircase. Thomas Heatherwick returned to reimagine his 2004 design, shifting focus from theatricality to a warm ‘Parisian apartment’ feel. An opened-up upper floor, green carpeting, vintage furniture and eclectic art create a refined but lived-in atmosphere.

READ: Thomas Heatherwick revamps his New York flagship for Longchamp – 20 years after he first designed it

Extreme Cashmere, Amsterdam

At Extreme Cashmere’s Amsterdam store, opened in April, the display of garments is almost secondary to creating a home-like spirit. Plush carpets, a stainless-steel kitchen block, a ‘cashmere spa’ washing machine and curated objects encourage intimate, relaxed interaction with the brand’s sizeless, genderless pieces, which are displayed market-style.

READ: Extreme Cashmere reimagines retail with its new Amsterdam store: ‘You want to take your shoes off and stay’

Dries Van Noten, London

In March, Dries Van Noten ushered in a new era under creative director Julian Klausner, following the founder’s 2024 departure. A new London store on Hanover Square followed, housed in a former bank. The two-floor space showcases fashion and beauty amid artworks by Hockney, Man Ray and Tracey Emin, plus eclectic furniture, design pieces and a vinyl corner.

READ: Dries Van Noten’s new London store is an eclectic, art-filled haven

JW Anderson, London

Jonathan Anderson is slowly but surely steering JW Anderson towards a lifestyle focus, with stores now mixing in art, ceramics and homewares – from Akiko Hirai pieces to Charles Rennie Mackintosh stools. Gallery-style displays spotlight works by Mary Stephenson, Gwen John, Christina Kimeze, Robert Kulicke and more, underscoring a growing curatorial slant. In December, a Pimlico Road store – designed by Sanchez Benton – continued to hone this vision, seeing fashion, art and interiors converge.

READ: JW Anderson’s new London store is an inviting emporium of fashion, art and homeware

Saint Laurent, Paris

Saint Laurent’s recently opened Avenue Montaigne boutique offers a museum-like experience. Across three levels, muted rooms showcase not just garments, but furniture by Süe & Mare, Paul Poiret, Jean-Michel Frank, Charlotte Perriand and Josef Hoffmann, as well as works from the Pinault Collection, including art by Mark Bradford.

Stone Island, New York

Stone Island boldly stepped into the future with its SoHo flagship, embodying CEO Robert Triefus’ refreshed vision. Designed by AMO, the two-storey space showcases the brand’s ‘lab’ ethos of material innovation, featuring charred cork, stainless steel and immersive digital screens. A subterranean lounge with a DJ booth and bar completes the experience.

READ: With exclusive merch and a secret lounge, Stone Island’s New York flagship is all about discovery

Loewe, Paris

Loewe’s first ‘Casa Loewe’ on Avenue Montaigne evokes an art collector’s home. Colourful ceramic tiles meet marble, brass and concrete, illuminated by abundant natural light. The space is furnished with pieces by Gerrit Rietveld, George Nakashima and Isamu Noguchi, which sit alongside Loewe leatherwork, rugs inspired by John Allen and an eclectic art collection spanning Franz Erhard Walther to Domingos Tótora.

Dior, Shanghai

Christian de Portzamparc’s House of Dior boutique in Beijing is a freestanding, five-storey flagship wrapped in sculptural white resin ‘petals’ and golden glass panels. Not only does this lantern-like behemoth blend couture and architecture, it also incorporates lifestyle – home to a restaurant from Anne-Sophie Pic, OMA-designed displays, VIP salons and art-filled interiors alongside floors of fashion.

READ: Inside Christian de Portzamparc’s showstopping House of Dior Beijing: ‘sculptural, structural, alive’

It seems fitting that Irma Boom – a woman who has done more than perhaps any other living person to alert the world to the possibilities of the book as a desirable, cutting-edge medium for the transmission of knowledge, and whose very surname means ‘tree’ in her native Dutch – should seek to communicate via print, even in person.

‘Every year, it grows by three per cent, whether it’s produced or not,’ she says, laying out three tiny volumes of varying dimensions, each no bigger than a matchbox, on the kitchen table of her premises in Amsterdam’s Oud-Zuid district. These are successive editions of her signature ‘little red book’, cataloguing her life’s work in reverse chronological order with the designer’s ‘comments here and there’. The covers are emblazoned with BOOM in Flintstonian capitals. ‘It works super well in English, too,’ she says of her surname. ‘Because it’s also an explosion.’

Inside are the greatest hits of the so-called ‘Queen of Books’, from her Viktor & Rolf tome, a sort of anti-coffee table volume consisting entirely of dust jackets printed with imagery in inverted colours (if you want straightforward representations of their clothes, she reasons, you can Google them), to her Eileen Gray monograph published in conjunction with a Bard Graduate Center Gallery exhibition on the designer. Its edges resemble Gray’s geometric rugs; the texts and images inside are arranged ‘like architecture’.

These conceptually single-minded yet strangely flamboyant volumes change hands for great sums on the resale market. She has heard that the ink-free book she made in honour of Chanel No. 5, which, at Boom’s behest, originally retailed for $100, can fetch $18,000 secondhand. She disapproves. ‘That is not the idea. What I like about making books is that it is a democratic multiple. If you compare it to architecture, it’s more social housing than villas.’

All being well, the red catalogue will reach 21.92cm in length (roughly the size of a Moleskine notebook) by the time Boom, now 65, turns 100. Who can say how many new and fabulous projects will throng its pages by then? Certainly not Boom, who says she accepts commissions ‘on intuition’ without crunching the numbers or consulting her schedule.

She has two full-time assistants, reads non-fiction voraciously, even in her ‘free’ time, and says of her intensive working process, ‘the creation is solitary, the production is a collaboration’.

Boom remains the youngest ever recipient of the Gutenberg Prize for persons and institutions that have made outstanding contributions to the art of the book. Like her friend Rem Koolhaas – with whom she designed ‘Elements of Architecture’, an exhibition and encyclopaedic Taschen-published opus exploring the fundamental components of buildings for the 2014 Venice Biennale – she seems to straddle the boundary between individual and institution. It was her idea to clad Cuyperspassage, the Benthem Crouwel-designed bicycle and pedestrian tunnel at Amsterdam’s Centraal Station, with 80,000 hand-painted Delft blue tiles that took five years to produce, and she oversees all of the publications by the Rijksmuseum, whose logo she re-engineered to controversial effect.

Irma Elizabeth Francisca Maria Boom was born in 1960 in Lochem in Gelderland, the ‘spoiled’ youngest of nine children, and she continues to maintain a superstitious attachment to the number three and its multiples, which often feature in her work and guide her decision-making. She did not wear hand-me-downs, she notes, ‘but my sisters and I were always dressed the same, as if we were twins of different sizes’. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with its ever-curious heroine who grows in stature and confidence, was the formative book of her childhood. ‘It made such a big impression on me. I don’t know how many times I read it – maybe a hundred,’ she says.

Aspiring to be a painter, she studied at the AKI Academy of Art & Design in nearby Enschede, where the artist and typographer Abe Kuipers would visit every Wednesday with two suitcases full of notable books: atlases, dictionaries, volumes of poetry. On one occasion, he rhapsodised about Turkish Delight and Horrible Tango, novels by Dutch author Jan Wolkers with compellingly lurid cover typography by Jan Vermeulen that captured the intrigue within. ‘I knew immediately: this is what I want. To create something meaningful,’ Boom once told Dutch newspaper Het Parool. She never touched a paintbrush again.

After art school, Boom went to The Hague to work in the design department of the government’s publishing and printing office, where she fell for a handsome colleague, only to discover that he was Jan Vermeulen’s son, Julius. The pair were inseparable until Julius’ death from cancer in early 2024, and his portrait, by their longtime friend, photographer Rineke Dijkstra, dominates Boom’s white-walled studio. ‘He was my most important critic,’ she notes. ‘He always pushed me to my limits and would say, “That’s good, but can it be better?”’

She established Irma Boom Office in 1991, and her first major commission came from SHV Holdings, a privately owned Dutch multinational company whose request for a corporate history was an unlikely catalyst for the aesthetic riot that followed. ‘They don’t create, they only trade. There’s nothing sexy about it,’ she says of her erstwhile commissioner’s business activities. ‘But we turned it into something because they gave us a lot of freedom and trust.’

A 2,136-page medley of internal memos and contracts pertaining to liquid gas, printed on Bible paper and bound in shocking pink, with interstitial pages posing quasi-philosophical questions (‘Has change produced progress?’), this kaleidoscopic ‘think book’ remains, for many, Boom’s defining masterpiece. To see it, I go to the Special Collections unit of the University of Amsterdam, where print curator Mathieu Lommen removes it from its protective box and fans the fore-edge this way and that to reveal, variously, fields of tulips and hidden lines of poetry. ‘Her books are never run of the mill,’ he observes.

Boom’s refusal to see limitations in print’s material constraints has arguably protected her from the vicissitudes of less stable technologies. Had she embraced the SHV commission using the paraphernalia ‘of the day’ – a CD-ROM, say – it would have become obsolete within the five years of the think book’s genesis, she comments. Nevertheless, its numberless pages are inspired by the experience of ‘reading’ on the internet. ‘You really scroll through the book, and you come across things you weren’t looking for.’

The sheer unreasonableness of the project seems to have set the tone for all the relationships that followed. While traditional publishers scrimp on typesetting and license their cover art from Getty, Boom is busy commissioning bespoke paper, articulating spines and experimenting with obscure binding methods to set readers on a multisensory adventure. Don’t her patrons dread the spiralling costs, I ask. ‘If something is lousy, then no one wants to execute it,’ she replies. ‘But I think if you have a good idea, if you come with a good argument, then things work. And anything is possible.’

Adjoining Boom’s home, Irma Boom Office shares a front door with Julius Vermeulen’s fêted Eenwerk art gallery in a purpose-built glass, steel and basalt interruption to the red-brick townhouses on an arterial road in this manicured part of Amsterdam. It was designed by Barend Koolhaas (Rem’s nephew) and contains both a rooftop greenhouse and a glass garage in which a grey Porsche is charging for an imminent trip to Switzerland. Since Vermeulen’s death, Boom has taken over the running of the gallery, which has just played host to a solo exhibition of works by the late minimalist artist Corrie de Boer.

A dummy of the latest book with her long-term collaborator, the artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, has just arrived from the printer and she fingers it with suspicion or reverence (it’s hard to tell which). Next year, she will reissue her red book in Japan, with a ‘Book Activist’ gloss, inspired by her admiration for the writer and Black Panther Angela Davis. To this end, she has just finished writing a text on Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book, although she claims not to have pondered this notorious Chinese antecedent to her BOOM book the first time around. Beyond that, Boom is looking forward to returning to Italy, where, in 2018, she began a design residency at the American Academy in Rome, and a course of study she had to abandon when Vermeulen became ill.

While in Rome, Boom sought access to the Vatican Apostolic Library, which is accessible only to those with ‘acceptable qualifications’. Despite her storied credentials in academia (Boom is an academy fellow at the Yale School of Art), she was subject to rigorous vetting before being granted ten of the coveted day passes. Inside, Boom found many pre-1501 early books, or incunabula, among the fragile bibliographic treasures. She describes her time there in terms of the proverbial candy store. ‘I had too many books open, books everywhere and I was so excited that I was running back and forward between the manoscritti and the stampati on the wooden floor. Can you imagine… in these clogs?’ She whips off her wooden-heeled garden centre mule and taps it on the table in demonstration.

Apparently some studious priests complained about the unholy din, and Boom was summoned to an audience with Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, who was, at the time, the librarian and archivist of the Holy Roman Church. Acquaintances were terrified on her behalf, she says. But the cardinal was intrigued and, instead of reprimanding her, invited her to stage an exhibition, ‘Book! Boom! The Vatican Apostolic Library meets Irma Boom’, for which there was a prosecco-soused opening.

It was here in the Vatican Library, amid some of the oldest printed matter on earth, that Boom says she became aware of something she had always known, albeit unconsciously. ‘What I realised is that you make books not for the past or for the present… but for the future.’

This article appears in the October 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print and on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

When Dutch photography duo Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm met in the early nineties, it signalled the start of a creative partnership defined by provocation and playfulness. Known as Blommers & Schumm, work is at the intersection of fashion and fine art, with a dollop of added humour.

The duo’s editorials for publications include Fantastic Man, The Gentlewoman, Dazed & Confused, Self Service, Purple, AnOther Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine, encompassing an avant-garde informality throughout. Work is defined by an uncanny edge – the details are polished, yet something is a little off.

It is a career Blommers & Schumm are reflecting on as their first major solo exhibition, opens at Foam in Amsterdam, which unites 25 years of work. ‘Through the years we’ve done so many different shoots,’ they say. ‘Now, we are combining the old with the new and somehow, they work together in a way that means the time difference doesn’t matter anymore. We’ve shot photos through the years in similar locations, and it contributes to a kind of timeless vibe.’

Nothing is quite as it seems in images which invite a second look. Today, they seem computer generated in their offbeat composition, but there is nothing unnatural in the intricately staged illusions we see here. A glass, teetering on the edge of disaster, a model holding a seemingly impossible pose and a face made from household items, all stay faithful to an enigmatic perversion of the status quo.

‘We’ve enjoyed tripping down memory lane for this exhibition,’ they add. ‘ It’s so nice to relive all the collaborations and travels. Despite the diversity of our work, we have loved seeing the connection between them all coming through here.’

Blommers & Schumm – Mid-Air at Foam Amsterdam until 23 February 2026

foam.org

It is difficult to define Tilda Swinton. Actor, performer or artist, Swinton’s chameleonic quality sees her flit, effortlessly, between worlds, her work a firm rejection of the stereotypically passive nature of the artist. Swinton is all about the collaboration. An actor has agency, and an opinion.

It’s more than a tokenism for Swinton, who has formed close and fruitful relationships with filmmakers and photographers throughout her life and career. Continuing to push at the traditional parameters of acting, she is acknowledging this component of the creative process with a new role, as curator. The new exhibition, ‘Tilda Swinton – Ongoing’ at Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, marks these meaningful partnerships with the presentation of new work from Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, Jim Jarmusch, Olivier Saillard, Tim Walker, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pedro Almodóvar and the late Derek Jarman.

Significantly, it is the first time the museum has celebrated the role of a performer, as opposed to that of a filmmaker. ‘I am someone who doesn't identify as an actor,’ says Swinton. ‘I don't know how true that idea is of an actor as interpreter, who has no real sense of authorship or authority or agency. We need to tweak the algorithm and make sure that people understand that it's possible to be an interpretive actor, and have a sense of being able to bring yourself with you. But either way, there's a kind of weird fantasy. It's sort of the Wizard of Oz, and we're just looking behind the curtain, showing how it works.’

Here, the mundane, fun, silly, uneventful creative process is as refreshingly considered as the finished product. The first work in the show is a piece with the late Derek Jarman, with Swinton presenting previously unseen archival material. It is an acknowledgement of the vast impact they had on each other’s careers, beginning with 1986’s Caravaggio and 1990’s The Garden through to Swinton’s more recent campaign to preserve Jarman’s home, Prospect Cottage.

‘For nine years, I worked alongside him, and I really learned my way of working with him,’ says Swinton. ‘I am very happy that I have these eight collaborators, and one of them is not with us, but even with him, we managed to find a new work. I found these fragments of Super Eight footage [captured on Super Eight film] that had never been shown before, and I placed them alongside as two fragments. And I placed them alongside the last section of The Last of England [1987] which of course was also generated on Super Eight.’

Taken as a triptych, the three fragments are reminiscent of home movies in their casual content. They are off-the-cuff moments created with friends, the antithesis of an industry which demands the raising of million-pound budgets to create a film, or asks the artist to sit in isolation over a screen play for six months.

Emphasising this reality of the creative process, and shifting the focus away from the glory of the end result, is key for Swinton. ‘I want people to say, is that all? [to the Derek Jarman work],’ she adds. ‘There's really nothing to it. And I would love to think that somebody might say, you know, what are you doing next weekend? Should we go out into that wood and muck around with your iPhone? That's all we were doing. You know, if Derek were with us now, he'd be making films on an iPhone. There's no question. We have it now so much more readily available, we have these practical means of authorship, literally, in our hands. It's very straightforward. You can make work. You can keep it in your hands. You can bring yourself with you, and you can just sort of cook it up with your mates.’

Elsewhere, Swinton has created films alongside close friends and collaborators Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, Jim Jarmusch, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a performance and installation with fashion historian and curator Olivier Saillard and a photography project with Tim Walker.

‘The culture tends to fetishise the product,’ Swinton adds. ‘But I'm just trying to twist the perspective. The relationship is the most important thing, because out of that everything comes. I learned this with Derek. We would sit around at the kitchen table and we would dream up a project, and we would work on that film, and off it would go into the universe, and then we would have another conversation, and out of that would grow an idea for another film, and then that would go out, and it's all at the kitchen table. The relationship was the basis. I don't want to be grandiose, but the culture very rarely focuses on the motor of how work actually comes to be. It may not be true of everybody, but for me anyway, the relationships are the battery.’

Tilda Swinton – Ongoing will be on view from 28 September 2025 to 8 February 2026

eyefilm.nl

Standing before the Rijksmuseum’s Neo-Gothic façade, film director Steve McQueen presents Amsterdam not as a postcard city, but as a layered palimpsest: a place where beauty and brutality coexist, where the mundane masks the monstrous. His 2023 documentary Occupied City is projected onto the museum’s exterior, a building long associated with the serene, ordered cityscapes of the Dutch Masters. McQueen, however, aims to peel back those layers, confronting the histories hidden beneath the city’s charming surface.

On this occasion, McQueen is screening a previously unseen 34-hour version of the film, a monumental project overlaying present-day Amsterdam with the memory of its Nazi occupation. Filmed over several years, it pairs patient, unhurried images of the city – streets, houses, squares, classrooms – with a voiceover drawn from his wife Bianca Stigter’s meticulously researched book, Atlas of an Occupied City, recounting what happened at these locations 80 years ago. Deportations, torture, denunciation: the past runs directly beneath the everyday.

Where once Amsterdam was captured by Vermeer’s delicate light or Gerrit Berckheyde’s ordered symmetry – images of calm domesticity and civic pride that masked contemporary turbulence – Occupied City shows the same streets today, with 21st-century residents going about their lives. McQueen highlights how deceptive the surface can be: a prison courtyard once used for parades is now a quiet plaza; the former Gestapo headquarters functions as a school. These settings appear banal, yet the histories they contain are anything but.

‘It has definitely changed my relationship to the city,’ McQueen says. ‘It’s made me fall in love with it more.’ As a filmmaker, he was granted rare access: ‘Doors were opened to me which will never be opened to others.’ Yet what lay behind them was often harrowing – classrooms where children now learn once echoed with screams; quiet houses were staging points for deportations; entire neighbourhoods carry the memory of betrayal. ‘Through this film, I could never not think about it. It never gets left behind when I exit my door.’

Occupied City functions as a catalogue of absence. The voiceover enumerates addresses, occupations, and atrocities, while the camera lingers on present-day life – dog walkers, cyclists, children spilling out of school gates. The tension is relentless: between what is visible and what is suppressed, between innocence and violence layered one atop the other.

McQueen insists the project is not only about the past. Premiering in a year that marks both Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary and 80 years since the Second World War’s end, the film feels unavoidably contemporary. ‘Art is one of those things where we have to think of the now,’ he says, citing events in Ukraine, Palestine, and Somalia. ‘To look at where we are now, what we’ve come through in the last 80 years, is testament to the idea of freedom. And we have to continue thinking of what it means. As an artist, I’ve never felt more useful than now.’

The Rijksmuseum’s walls, long home to paintings of everyday life and quiet labour, now host McQueen’s film: a reminder that ordinary spaces can conceal extraordinary brutality. To watch Occupied City here is to see Amsterdam as it is and as it was, a city living with its history in every brick and paving stone. McQueen’s achievement lies in making that doubleness visible, showing how the everyday deceives – and how, once revealed, cannot be unseen.

'Occupied City' will be screened until 12 January 2025, rijksmuseum.nl

The Dekmantel electronic music festival (30 July - 3 August 2025) returns within the expansive greenery of the Amsterdamse Bos – the city's expansive park – with its vast programme of international musical guests. This year, Zelt Studio founder Johannes Offerhaus has created a design for the 2025 edition's Selectors Stage, one of seven stages conceived for the festival by a diverse roster of creatives.

Curtain 01 is a canopy-like tensile structure surmounting the Selectors stage, making its debut on Friday 1 August, and which over the course of the weekend will see a plethora of live performances and DJ sets.

Dekmantel Festival 2025: Selectors Stage by Zelt Studio

Designed and manufactured in-house by Offerhaus, a designer with a background in fashion and architecture working predominantly in textile spaces and experiences, the textile canopy is part of an ongoing research and experimentation into tensile structures and their large-scale opportunities.

Rain-proof and kept in place by steel anchors, the curtain will appear effortlessly floating, while in fact held in place by what the designer describes as a hand-made 'intricate system of ropes, aluminium and textile.'

We speak to Offerhaus to discover his work behind the stage design, and delve deeper into his practice's textile focus.

Q&A: Zelt Studio founder Johannes Offerhaus on his stage design

Wallpaper*: How did you transition from small-scale textiles and fashion, to working at this large scale?

Johannes Offerhaus: In the last three years, having worked on textile designs at a small scale – attached to the body, I really felt the need to scale up. I wanted my work to be very big – to offer a space for more than just one person. That’s when I started to explore new spaces for these installations to take life in. Dekmantel is a creatively exciting festival, both in terms of the acts playing, the music they bring to the stage, and the stage commissions themselves.

W*: How this commission come about?

JO: When Albert van Abbe (Creative Director at Dekmantel) and I started talking, it felt natural that we were both excited to apply my design ethos and expertise to the Selectors Stage, to give it a whole new character and experience. He conceptualised a DJ booth assembled from pre-fab concrete elements that would form the ‘perfect base’ for playing vinyl. My task was to find a solution, both practical and beautiful, that would do the “undisputed Dekmantel favourite” stage justice. The heavy concrete - a perfect anchor point - naturally invited in a lightweight (visually and literally) textile tensile piece.

W*: How did you conceive the structure?

JO: My process always starts quite intuitively. I'm a trained pattern cutter/fashion designer, so just like in a draping process where form-finding is done around a human body, I start modelling and prototyping with textiles. Only my canvas is not the human body anymore, it's space.

W*: Did any external factor inform or influence the design?

JO: The location and the identity of the stage formed the outset of this project. The location of the Selectors Stage is so intimate and beautiful between the trees of the Amsterdamse Bos. There is this moment at the end of the day, around 8PM, when the dimmed sunlight shines through the trees and you get this komorebi effect on everything. I just want to add to that experience.

W*: What materials and techniques did you use?

JO: Since my installations are mostly form-focused, I always make use of the same set of materials and techniques. Parachute textiles, webbing tape, ropes, cables, and steel. We use an array of old heavy-duty German sail-making machines to stitch everything together. It's very important for me to keep this in-house; we machine sew everything in my studio in Amsterdam Noord. It gives us a really good understanding of the materials and their limitations. Every time we stitch something together, we learn something for the next time. Stitching all these curves into fabric with a minimum amount of wrinkles is the result of the accumulation of those learnings.

W*: What did you learn by working in this way?

JO: The first time I made an installation of this size, I noticed that the design was very clear, until you get all the fabric cut and you have to assemble it. You quite easily get lost among the heaps of fabric behind the sewing machine. And you can't just easily hang these things to check if you did the assembly correctly (I don’t have a studio that big, yet!). Only two days before a festival like this, we know if you have been successful. So now we have a very dogmatic set of steps that we follow in order to be 100 per cent sure things will work out.

W*: What can you anticipate about the festivalgoer’s experience related to your stage design?

JO: What I think is really nice about my output is that my work is done when a festival starts, I don't have to inform the spectator how to interpret the work, and I don't have to present it to them. I can dissolve in the crowd. This makes me able to just look around for unfiltered moments of people interacting with the work. I always take a moment to walk around alone to observe. Obviously, the moment the festival starts, my work merges together with that of others, light designers, sound engineers, DJs, performers, and so I become the spectator as well.

W*: What other elements are going to interact with your stage structure?

JO: Albert van Abbe commissioned Zalán Szakács to create a light design for the Selectors stage this year. It's inspired by 1970s science fiction film sets and rock concerts from the same era, such as the one from Pink Floyd in Pompei. The lights have a halogen type of character: warm whites, amber, and light blues mix in order to create an interesting interplay and otherworldly feeling. It's interesting, you know. To see Zalán already interpreting this design in his own way. He told me the first time he saw the model that it looked like some kind of intergalactic sailing ship.

W*: How will the stage design contribute to the performance?

JO: I always aim to make my installations visually interesting from all sides, even backstage. In contrast to more traditional festival scenography, it doesn't just look good facing forward, and from the back, you are looking at zip ties, duct tape, and stapled fabric. I aim to make sure the stage doesn't just have a face but that it is a space. I hope performers on this stage will recognize that as well, and feel comfortable and at home while playing. I also focused on integrating a functional rain cover in the design, the circular horizontal tarp. It rains a lot in the Netherlands!

W*: Designing with suspended fabric and tension is a focus of your practice - can you tell me more about how you got to this point, and what key projects have come before this?

JO: I started my career as a fashion designer, and even earlier was interning in a haute couture house. Looking back, I now see that I was basically collaging a lot of scale models for potential large installations, but then it was around a human body. I always struggled to make functional clothing and pieces that were so close to the human body.

Next to these technical couture pieces, I also designed larger installations. I really enjoyed making them. It was a design direction that flowed much better for me. So I decided to focus on my spatial design work. But coming from a fashion design studio, I felt a bit lost not knowing how to give meaning to these pieces or what the function of my installations was.

During a pre master Architecture in Amsterdam, I got into contact with the work of lightweight/tensile architects like Frei Otto. Unfortunately, the focus of the institute I was studying at was not in that direction (we spent all day talking about concrete, double glazing, and optimum positioning of toilets), so I decided to stop my studies and crawl back behind my sewing machines.

I started Zelt Studio (Zelt is German for ‘tent’) and continued making my textile installations, learning on the go. Luckily, I found a really good sparring partner and mentor in Harmen Werkman from the company Tentech, who helped with all my engineering. The time he makes for me within our work relationship to help me grow is invaluable.

W*: How would you define what you do?

OH: By calling my installations “tents,” I am forcing myself to slowly find a purpose and function for them. Last year, I designed a large textile installation for the Down the Rabbit Hole festival. I think this installation was the first one I can safely count as part of my tent designs. Even though it still has little more function than offering designed ‘hammocks’ for tired festival-goers and shading. Ultimately, it is a gateway for the terrain.

W*: Why is it important for you to design and build in this way?

JO: I think the way I build is very complementary to my design language. The shapes are expressive, 3-dimensional, bold, and the building materials and techniques I use are soft, lightweight, and friendly. As much as I am a designer, I am a craftsman. A lot of the aesthetic value of the installations is in the execution of all these technical details. Attention to detail is extremely important to me.

Extreme Cashmere is known for its hospitality: each lunchtime, the team sits down in its Amsterdam head office and dines together, along with any of the day’s guests (Wallpaper* joined for the ritual in 2022). The scene has since been replicated in Paris, where the knitwear brand holds its showroom each season – guests are invited to stay for food and drink served on crockery shipped from Amsterdam – as well as at its various pop-ups in St Moritz, Los Angeles, London and New York.

So, when the brand set about planning its first permanent address in Amsterdam’s Utrechtsestraat district, founder Saskia Dijkstra sought to capture a similar sense of home and comfort. ‘We always make every[where] home wherever we go,’ she tells Wallpaper*, noting that the shop’s location is more of a ‘lifestyle area’ than a typical shopping street. ‘There's a butcher, a record store, a pharmacy, coffee stores... [I] live around the corner, and our head office is a short canal-side walk away.’ (Most importantly, her favourite restaurant, Zoldering, is right next door.)

Inside Extreme Cashmere’s new Amsterdam store

The decision to open a store in Amsterdam was not always on the cards, says Dijkstra, having focused more on international expansion in recent years. ‘But then the opportunity came to us to do something closer to home,’ she explains. ‘A lot of the decisions we make come from instinct combined with planning – we saw the space, and we decided to go for it. It was quite spontaneous.’ That said, it was partly about demand, having found the casual, by-appointment-only store in the Amsterdam head office increasingly busy. ‘We wanted to open up a little.’

As for the store’s design, Dijkstra was determined to do things differently – a reflection of Extreme Cashmere’s renegade approach. Having worked in manufacturing production for major fashion brands including Joseph and Jil Sander, it was founded from a desire to create the perfect sweater, though has since expanded into a colourful, irreverent all-cashmere wardrobe, from classic jumpers to ball gowns, tube tops and muscle tees (‘no limits, no concessions’, runs its tagline). Everything is one size (the brand encourages you to shop instead by shape) and, befitting the ‘Extreme’ name, encourages a new generation to wear the typically bourgeois fabric through fluorescent hues and unexpected campaigns.

‘To persuade women in their sixties to wear cashmere is easy, but to make young people feel cool is not,’ Dijkstra previously told Wallpaper*. ‘To have just one brand, and to dress everybody, it’s good.

‘We wanted to make the most beautiful store in Amsterdam – it had to be luxury,’ she says of the space, which was a collaboration between the Extreme Cashmere team and architect Hidde Dijkstra. ‘But we also wanted to do things differently, so from the beginning we knew there would be no rails – we want to present our products to customers ourselves. That way you get drawn in by the world of Extreme Cashmere; the garments are so precious to us that we want to give the experience more time, personal attention, and weight.’

Many of the store’s design elements had come from observing shoppers at Extreme Cashmere’s pop-ups, particularly a recent New York opening. ‘We picked up on how well the market stall-style way of working with products worked,’ she says. ‘We had a large block in the middle of the pop-up with the products displayed flat, [so we could] connect directly while the customer touched the product; we pulled out styles that we thought would fit, something that catches their eye, almost like how you'd shop for fresh produce at a market. We’re sizeless and genderless, so we feel taking the time to find your style and fit is really important.’

Lushly carpeted, the store centres around a stainless steel kitchen block – the first element to be decided, and a reference to the label’s love of food – while a Miele washing machine nods to Dijkstra’s evangelical approach to garment care (a ‘cashmere spa’, in collaboration with Miele, opened during Paris Fashion Week earlier this year). ‘The space is about contrast, that's very extreme – really leaning towards the idea of soft against hard, and embracing lifestyle as a full expression of our brand,’ she says.

Elsewhere, numerous design objects populate the space, including a Fantana ‘Uovo’ lamp, lamps from Studio Alex de Witte (found during Paris Fashion Week at a flea market), Eames chairs, curtains from Kvadrat/Raf Simons, and a modular sofa by COR. Champagne coupes were Dijkstra’s parents when they lived in Paris for a time in the 1970s, while hand-painted ceramics came from a recent trip the team took to Seoul. The space is completed by a ‘library’, comprising a selection of books curated by the Extreme Cashmere team (Dijkstra says it's her favourite part of the store).

‘We’re so happy to be here – it’s very satisfying,’ she says. ‘It makes sense. It’s surprising. There's no direct retail references – it almost feels like a cool jazz bar, an intimate library. It feels like a place you want to be, you want to take your shoes off and stay there, to try on everything.’

Extreme Cashmere, Utrechtsestraat 143, 1017 VM Amsterdam, Netherlands

extreme-cashmere.com

‘I am really proud of this project and how it is evolving and growing just like my kids,’ says creative director and concept hair artist Asia Clarke about ‘Strands & Structures’, a photo documentary exhibition that explores social and environmental issues in Accra, Ghana using hair and photography.

After premiering in the capital of the West African country in December 2023, and later travelling to Toronto, Canada in June 2024, the ‘educational project’ – as co-creator of the show, creative director and photographer Christian Saint calls it – will make its European debut at the Open Space Contemporary Art Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on 22 February 2025 as part of the ‘What’s the 411’ series curated by Esmeralda Tan.

Clarke and Saint worked with models who were photographed in various locations in Accra to represent six key themes: Air pollution (Tema Station), Water pollution (Accra Art Centre, Borla Beach), Transportation (Madina Zongo Junction), Energy (Tse Addo, La), Construction (Teshie Rasta Road) and Market Economy (Tudu Market.)

‘There are a lot of people doing really interesting things with Black hair, whether in the [United] States or in Europe or across Africa,’ says Clarke. ‘But I feel like there are not very many people who are taking it to the level where they are using it as a medium to have challenging conversations about the state of affairs in and across Africa and in the African diaspora.’

This edition of ‘Strands & Structures’ will include a discussion expanding on the scope of the exhibition's work in the context of Amsterdam, the city’s creative scene, and the African diaspora. The panel members will include Clarke, Saint, Tan, Ama Van Dantzig, founder of the Dr Monk Foundation, and multidisciplinary filmmaker Ebeneza Blanche.

The discussion will reflect on what the work in the exhibition ‘can mean to the African diaspora in Europe [regarding] these issues and challenges that are relatable but are also different’, explains Clarke.

While the exhibition is open to an audience beyond the African diaspora, it is important to focus on the community, adds Saint, so ‘we can be at the centre of creating our own solutions to the problems in our communities’.

He goes on, ‘Art is a vehicle for us to express another way of thinking about maybe an idea that some people are already thinking about.’

‘Strands & Structures’ organisers have collaborated with Amsterdam-based clothing brand The New Originals on limited-edition exhibition merchandise. What’s next for the duo? They plan to explore different mediums, including a book and maybe a film, build on the conversations in the show throughout the African diaspora, and continue travelling the world with the exhibition.

‘Throughout this project, I feel like a very creative person inside and out. I feel like I am always going to be birthing something,’ says Clarke.

‘Strands & Structures’ opens at the Open Space Contemporary Art Museum in Amsterdam, Holland, on 22 February 2025

oscam.nl

Going to Amsterdam? Read The Amsterdam to London Eurostar route has reopened – here’s where to stay, eat and drink in the Dutch capital

As of 10 February 2025, Eurostar has resumed running direct trains from Amsterdam to London. The route had been suspended as a new terminal was built at Amsterdam Centraal, meaning that passengers travelling to London had to go via Brussels, where they were required to go through passport control. Eurostar is now running three return services between London and Amsterdam per day on weekdays and Sundays, and two on Saturdays. The journey takes three hours and 52 minutes, with prices starting from £39 for a one-way ticket.

With quick, cheap and painless rail travel back on the menu, there’s no better time to book a long weekend in Amsterdam. Known as the ‘Venice of the North’, the Dutch capital is criss-crossed by canals, which are now a Unesco World Heritage Site. A weekend in Amsterdam might include perusing the Rijksmuseum (new exhibition ‘American Photography’ is on until 9 June), strolling through Dam Square, or taking in the gabled façades of the city’s charming canal houses.

Recently, Amsterdam has come even further into its own, partially due to an injection of sparkle courtesy of new mayor Femke Halsema. The city has recently seen the opening of the Van Cleef & Arpels Benelux boutique and the Audemars Piguet AP House, as well as art museums such as Drift and Zamu, with the launch of a new Rosewood hotel on the horizon.

Wallpaper* takes the opportunity to revisit some longstanding favourite spots in Amsterdam – read on for the travel desk’s picks.

The hotel: W Amsterdam

Amsterdam’s 238-room W Hotel has to be one of the most attractive stays in the city, and it’s right next to the train station. The hotel – which is spread across a former telephone exchange and a bank – embodies the capital’s cool, with trad-meets-modern interiors encompassing Dutch heritage and avant-garde design. Guests are privy to two restaurants, a rooftop lounge overlooking the Royal Palace, and a rooftop pool.
marriott.com

The bar: Bar Botanique

Situated in the always-lively Amsterdam Oost (East), Bar Botanique is open from morning coffee and acai bowls to late-night drinks and salsa dancing. Its appealing green interior and plant-covered walls curate a tropical feel, housed in a building that was once a primary school gym. Bar Botanique calls itself a ‘neighborhood living room’ – the perfect spot for a cosy drink and weekend party.
barbotanique.nl

The restaurant: Jansz

This is a great spot for effortless yet refined all-day dining in Amsterdam. Jansz is inspired by the Netherlands, serving well-crafted modern-Dutch cuisine made with locally sourced ingredients. The space is beautiful, too – modelled around the memory of founder Volkert Jansz, a 17th-century craftsman with a taste for the finer things, a keen eye for style, and an love of hosting.
janszamsterdam.com

The cafe: Lebkov and Sons Café

Lebkov and Sons is a local favourite in Amsterdam, with numerous outposts across the city. It’s a solid place to go for organic coffee and homemade food, all with a sustainable ethos. If you find yourself in Amsterdam’s ‘Financial Mile’, grab a stylish bite at the Zuidas branch, which is within the distinctive The Rock tower, designed by Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat in 2009.
lebkov.nl

Decorating your own Christmas tree is certainly an art form – although for most of us it may not extend too far beyond choosing a colour scheme and whether to go with or without lights. However, hotel Christmas trees are often elevated to the next level and will wow even the most discerning amateur. Whether adorned with AI baubles or 400 bellboy teddy bears, these are some of the most intriguingly decked-out trees around the world this year.

Hotel Christmas trees around the world

The Tokyo Edition hotels

The Tokyo Edition Toranomon, and The Tokyo Edition, Ginza, offer an alternative take on a classic Christmas tree. This year, the hotels have unveiled two sculptural installations by art director Yuni Yoshida in collaboration with the design brand 130 One Thirty. The concept was to create a ‘hotel within a hotel’. The result is two white ‘trees’ which have a delicate paper quality, and glow from within. Small windows have been carved into the installation to mimic that of lights or tinsel around a tree. Each ‘tree’ incorporates delicate design variations unique to each property.

The Tokyo Edition Toranomon is located at 4 Chome-1-1 Toranomon, Minato City, Tokyo 105-0001, Japan www.marriott.com

The Tokyo Edition, Ginza 2 Chome-8-13 Ginza, Chuo City, Tokyo 104-0061, Japan www.marriott.com

Ritz Paris

At Ritz Paris, the hotel’s bespoke Christmas tree has a focus on childhood nostalgia. The tree was designed by florist Anne Vitchen, who filled the tree with over 400 Ritz bellboy teddy bears. The hotel’s beloved mascot hasn’t just taken over the tree, but can be found in every corner of the hotel in a playful manner.

Ritz 15 Pl. Vendôme, 75001 Paris, France ritzparis.com

The Ned

The Ned has collaborated with whiskey brand The Macallan to unveil a collaborative Christmas tree which focuses on heritage and craftsmanship. The 22ft tree is inspired by the stunning distillery and the natural beauty of Speyside. The tree is adorned with red velvet bows, with copper baubles, an elegant nod to the distillery’s copper stills

The Ned is located at 27 Poultry, London EC2R 8AJ thened.com

Claridge’s

The unveiling of Claridge’s Christmas tree is always a momentous occasion. Last year, Paul Smith took over the 19ft tree in an ode to traditional toy making. This year, it is the turn of Burberry and its creative director Daniel Lee to imagine Claridge’s 2025 Christmas tree. At the centre of the 16ft tree’s design are the numerous bows that adorn it, each one crafted from surplus Burberry fabric (Lee said he chose the leitmotif because the bow was a ‘Victorian symbol of unity’). The top of the tree features a golden crown in lieu of a star or fairy, while the floor around the tree is piled with Burberry cushions and populated with oversized chess pieces.

Claridge’s is located at Brook St, London W1K 4HR www.claridges.co.uk

The Barcelona Edition

With avant garde flare, The Barcelona Edition has collaborated with Fabricio Giordano, founder and creative director of Flore Studio, a floral design studio and flower, plant and orchid boutique. Giordano gave a classic Christmas tree a contemporary twist by wrapping it in a net casing. Sharing on Barcelona Edition’s Instagram, Giordano said, ‘To wrap is to embrace, to contain, to turn inward, and a loving gesture. This year’s festive tree stands as a manifesto to embrace who we are and what we live, through abstract beauty.’

Barcelona Edition is located at Av. de Francesc Cambó, 14, Ciutat Vella, 08003 Barcelona, Spain www.marriott.com

The Rome Edition

You can find the Rome Edition's tree nestled in the hotel entrance. Designed by Milan-based artist, Sara Riccardi, she worked in close collaboration storied Turin workshop, Antica Fabbrica Passamanerie Massia Vittorio for this commission. The result is a striking tree comprised of textile compositions and cascading fringes in various shades of red. More than just a visual spectacle, it also engages sight and sound, with aluminium rods which echo vibrations. This is a contemporary tree not just to be admired, but also experienced.

The Rome Edition is located at Salita di S. Nicola da Tolentino, 14, 00187 Roma RM, Italy editionhotels.com

The Connaught

Outside The Connaught stands a 31-foot-tall Nordmann Fir tree, sourced from Denmark and designed by contemporary visual artist Urs Fischer. This is Fischer's 10th tree for The Connaught, and for 2025 he has taken inspiration from his installation ‘People’. AI-generated faces are placed within spheres, each lit with LED light – the tree captures people sharing collective experiences, and is rooted in togetherness.

The Connaught, Carlos Pl, London W1K 2AL www.the-connaught.co.uk

45 Park Lane

At 45 Park Lane, the evergreen Nordmann Fir has been designed by British sculptor Ian Turnock. For this year’s tree, Turnock was inspired by the stillness of winter, which he captured through sculptural decorations which reflect light and shadow in intricate patterns. There are metal finishes to the decorations which elevates the tree into a mesmerising installation, rather than a decorative object.

45 Park Ln, London W1K 1PN dorchestercollection.com

Terror of Beauty is a debut solo exhibition by Sarah Amrani at Foam in Amsterdam. The Rotterdam-based artist has been working on the show since 2017, which examines the intersection between technology, culture and beauty standards.

But the timing of its opening today (6 Dec 2024) is particularly apt. Just last month, at its European safety forum in Dublin, social media platform TikTok announced new restrictions for under-18s, with users to be blocked from applying ‘glow up’ type filters that distort their appearance: artificially smoothing skin, enlarging features, or altering skin tone. While fun filters providing vintage tints, rainbows and animal ears have existed for over a decade, employed largely to add colour to otherwise routine posts, more recently there’s been a notable revision of our relationship with filters, as those like ‘Bold Glamour’ transform the way we present ourselves online (and subsequently reconsider how we look offline).

‘Terror of Beauty’: Sarah Amrani at Foam

‘The initial project focused on how social media platforms and beauty vlogs impact our perception of beauty and identity. Now, just a couple years later, technologies like AI and Chat GPT have shifted the focus,’ explains Amrani, speaking over Zoom ahead of the exhibit, held in Foam’s 3h project space. ‘There was this online editing tool called Anaface [first launched in 2009], that would rate your beauty and recently I had some conversations with Chat GPT and it said the same thing. So not much has changed but AI is more intertwined with our daily lives.’

‘I talk about it a lot with my friends,’ she continues, speaking on her relationship to beauty. ‘It’s part of our generation, growing up in the 2000s with all these magazines and reality TV. Popular culture shapes our perception of beauty and I’ve always been fascinated by it.’

In addition to the media she consumed in adolescence, Amrani recalls watching her grandmother doing her make-up at home. ‘She would actually say “I’m going to put on my face”,’ the artist notes. In Amrani’s mind, this helped cement her preoccupation with the face as a kind of battleground. (In fact, an earlier subtitle for the Terror of Beauty was The Face as a Battleground of Beauty).

Interrogating how the algorithm operates and the role of bias in these digital spaces – with a particular focus on how this pertains to women from non-Western backgrounds – Amrani’s work assumes multiple forms, including photography, video and textile-based pieces. Here, visitors can watch the Anaface app analyse the symmetry of the artist’s face and compute her ‘beauty score’.

At the same time, on another screen, women can be seen administering Botox injections, as a voiceover describes how ‘make-up accentuates their frown lines’. Elsewhere, and underscoring the perspective from which the wider project developed, the artist reflects on her dual Dutch-Moroccan heritage, referencing Faegheh Shirazi’s 2001 book The Veil Unveiled, with a series of images that separates a woman’s face from her hijab. Here, fragmentation is used as a device to assess ‘the breakdown of beauty and identity in this digital age’.

While Amrani herself doesn’t wear the hijab (despite growing up within the culture (she mostly considers herself an outside observer of Islam) she conceived the idea for Terror of Beauty after watching online make-up tutorials by Muslim beauty vloggers.

‘A lot has changed in terms of the visibility of hijab-wearing women in the beauty and fashion industry, but in 2017 it was a really new community in the online space,’ she says, alluding to trailblazers like Nura Afia, the American beauty vlogger who became the first hijabi CoverGirl ambassador in 2016. ‘Coming from a bi-cultural background myself, I felt very connected to this community. So I started deconstructing these online [make-up] tutorials and became fascinated by how the hijab operates visually, creating a framework and emphasising the face.’

‘By incorporating the hijab in the digital space, it exposes beauty standards and transcends its political and cultural meaning, which I find interesting,’ Amrani continues. ‘It means there’s a broader discussion for how new technologies impact modern beauty standards within different communities.’

‘Other young girls, for example, are starting to use face filter tattoos, like traditional Berber tattoos from northern parts of Africa,’ she says. ‘[Tattooing] is not [a common practice] with the younger generation, but online this group is reconnecting with these roots,’ she concludes. ‘So on the one hand AI reinforces beauty stereotypes, but at the same time it’s possible to create new forms of self-expression and cultural identity, too.’

‘Terror of Beauty’ by Sarah Amrani runs from 6 Dec 2024 - 26 Feb 2025 at Foam, Amsterdam.

foam.org

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam has just welcomed the latest phase in its 150-year evolution – a journey that has included a major renovation and extension by Benthem Crouwel Architects in 2012, the launch of the Stedelijk Base designed by AMO in 2017, and now, the unveiling of its brand-new Don Quixote Sculpture Hall.

Inside the Stedelijk Museum's new wing

Located on the entrance level, the Don Quixote Sculpture Hall features an indoor space that allows the museum to display works from its collections while reintroducing the space's legacy as a sculpture garden. The renovation also aims to return the space to the public to diversify its offerings and activities in the future.

‘It’s a new beginning for the museum. The Stedelijk is constantly transitioning and transforming, and we believe that today, accessibility is more important than ever. By opening up to the public, we strive to inspire people to engage with art,’ says Rein Wolfs, director of the Stedelijk.

Making the Stedelijk Museum addition

French architect Paul Cournet, founder of Cloud in Rotterdam, was tasked with redesigning the entire entrance level to align with the museum's vision. The goal was to create adaptable, future-proof solutions that would ensure the space remains relevant for years to come.

‘It is as much an architectural question as one of identity for the museum – what direction should we take? On one hand, it’s a beautiful 1895 brick structure; on the other, it’s the iconic contemporary addition from the early 21st century. We had to create something new while still giving space to the arts. The new design is present, but we intended for it to remain in the background,’ says Cournet.

Rather than making a bold statement, the architect opted for a more subtle approach with small but precise interventions. A thorough clean-up was done, and modular elements were introduced to create varied functions and flows throughout the space. The information counter in front of the main entrance, where visitors check in, also acts as a transition between the public areas and the ticketed sections.

To the right is the Fonda Bar, which consists of two simple, unadorned volumes that serve as the kitchen and the serving area. The bookshop is now located to the left of the bar, with 1 x 1m storage and display units forming a modular system that can be adapted to different layouts. Taking advantage of the space’s height, 17 vitrines extend above the 2.5m wall-mounted bookshelf, created to highlight the museum’s design collection alongside its art.

‘The kind of innovation we wanted to discuss with the museum in terms of materials is: how can we be contemporary?’ Cournet answered the question with a single materiality: ‘We went for brushed stainless steel for the entire scheme because of its timeless quality – these [elements] could have been built 50 years ago, or they could be designed in 50 years and still feel like they belong here.’

Over the past two years, the team has worked with the Dutch company Rovasta to refine both the engineering details and the finishing. All pieces in the space are crafted from wood and clad in a 2mm layer of stainless steel. The labour-intensive process begins with folding sheets of steel, with each joint welded and hand-brushed to ensure a seamless final appearance. This is how the 10.2m-long information counter appears as one continuous piece of metal; it was fabricated in the factory and brought to the museum as a single unit.

Cournet’s intervention also aimed at enhancing the overall visitor experience. A digital screen was added above the information counter to provide more timely communication, replacing traditional printed collateral, while also doubling as a digital showcase for hosting digital artworks. The existing graphic signage system, originally designed by Mevis & Van Deursen, was transformed into illuminated light bars with an LED system that can customise colours for different events.

The Stedelijk has a long tradition of commissioning design pieces, including the BZ slatted bench by Martin Fisser, designed in 1960 and still produced by Dutch manufacturer Spectrum. ‘We felt it was time for another piece directly connected to the museum,’ says Wolfs. This led to the commission of Sabine Marcelis, whose resulting ‘Stedelijk’ chair features an aluminium form with smooth, flowing lines that extend from the legs to the backrest, accentuating its materiality.

It is the very first chair Marcelis has ever designed: ‘It was difficult because the chair had to be stackable, lightweight, durable, consciously produced, and recyclable, and it is a new material for me. But I think the biggest challenge was working within all those constraints while still trying to create something with its own character.’

Manufactured by the Spanish brand BD Barcelona, the chair appears to be cut from a single sheet of aluminum, but its structure is actually more intricate. It possesses a certain anonymity – detached from any specific aesthetic, time, or trend – that enables it to adapt to various settings, with its longevity rooted in that versatility.

stedelijk.nl

In collaboration with filmmaker Juan Benavides, the behind-the-scenes movie showcases Paul Cournet's process, working with the Dutch company Rovasta, which specialises in custom stainless-steel solutions, and Hypsos to realise the design and installation.

cloud-ism.com

Last week, on a warm September evening during Amsterdam Fashion Week 2024, there was something of a pre-show buzz in the city's Vondelpark as fashion crowds and a curious public gathered together around the park's central lake. All eyes were fixed on an amorphous cloth-covered structure that sat mysteriously at its centre. On the nearby bank, David Mahyari, the young and charismatic co-founder and CEO of stone brand SolidNature, rounded up a speech to mark its unveiling by declaring that ‘the future belongs to the dreamers’, before the cloth was pulled back to unveil a sculptural fountain made up of three stacked blocks of blue onyx. As water began to flow from the geometric volumes, the crowd cheered. Passersby stopped to pull out their camera phones and dog walkers sat on the grass to listen to the sound of the cascading water as the evening sunlight played on the fountain's silvery blue surfaces.

SolidNature unveils ‘The Vondel Fountain, Stacked’

‘The Vondel Fountain, Stacked’ – which will remain in the Vondelpark for at least three months – is the latest project in a decade-long collaboration between Amsterdam-based SolidNature and Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis. Previous works with the brand include a series of rotating marble and onyx chairs and tables, a freestanding pink onyx bathroom, and a seven-metre-long table and bar made using six different types of travertine.

‘The design process in this case was very interesting,’ explained Mahyari at the launch event. ‘Normally, you start from a design and then you ask 'how many slabs do I need?' But in this specific case, there was material available, and Sabine needed to design around the available material, which was a whole different way of designing.’

The blue onyx slabs Mahyari refers to were originally part of SolidNature’s prize-winning installation by OMA showcased at Milan Design Week 2023. The repurposing of materials is something Mahyari is keen to continue in order to minimise waste and reduce the environmental footprint of the brand's designs. ‘We wanted to create impact by creating a shocking contrast,’ he told the gathered crowd. ‘I would say, with the greenness of the park, you will see that it almost feels artificial. It almost feels like it's AI.’

Indeed, the blue onyx has an artificial element, because the blue colour is created by layering translucent onyx with an aluminium honeycomb structure and painted blue to enhance the natural hue of the stone. The vivid shade was echoed throughout the event; in the clothes worn by models who welcomed guests to the drinks reception, in the cups guests drank from and even the drinks themselves.

‘Water has been a recurring element in my work, acting as both a medium and a source of inspiration,’ says Marcelis, highlighting water’s ability to transform spaces through movement, sound, and ambience. ‘My journey has included designing fountains for renowned institutions and brands, such as the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona and luxury fashion house Fendi.’ she adds. ‘We've done a lot of collaborations with fashion brands and my approach is not dissimilar to that of fashion, creating really interesting silhouettes with beautiful materials. We've done many projects together with SolidNature all over the world for fashion brands, so it feels like a full circle moment to bring it back to Amsterdam this time.’

The theatrical unveiling and collaborative nature of the Vondelpark fountain project is part of a longer-term campaign of Mahyari's to position and operate SolidNature much like a luxury fashion brand. This can be seen in its focus on small-scale product launches, one-off installations and the introduction of trend-led colours and materials.

Artistic collaborations have seen the brand partner with luxury cashmere brand Harden on an apparel collection informed by the different varieties of stone, sculptures with jewellery designer Ward Strootman and seating with Iranian artist Bita Fayyazi. ​

Inspired by fashion houses, Mahyari, who founded the company with his brother in 2011 and took over as CEO in 2018, structured SolidNature's offerings into four tiers: Standard (off-the-shelf tiles), Readymade (cut-to-size tiles for larger projects), Made-to-measure (custom designs for architects), and Bespoke (exclusive services for clients with unique requests, like custom-coloured stone or speciality coatings). This approach allows the brand to offer a full range of tailored services, from standard products to highly specialised projects, similar to the segmentation seen in fashion with ready-to-wear and haute couture.

‘We are unique in that we offer all these services–normally companies only do tiles or specialise in innovation, but not everything. We have the whole package,’ says Mahyari, highlighting some of the company’s more elaborate bespoke projects, like developing a waterproof coating for an onyx pool or injecting pink and green pigments into onyx for Prada Foundation elevators.

It’s the day after the unveiling of Marcelis’ sculpture and Mahyari is back at the brand’s impressive production facility and showroom on the outskirts of Amsterdam. As we walk through the space marveling at the factory machines and vast stone library, he discusses SolidNature’s plans for becoming a zero-waste operation.

He plans to create a circular buy-back system whereby stone used in luxury store fit-outs can be installed in such a way that it can be returned and repurposed at the end of its commercial life; how offcuts in his factory’s ‘stone graveyard’ could be used by young designers, and even ways in which stone dust could be reused.

Already his mind has moved on from the events of yesterday. ‘It’s not that I’m not grateful and happy,’ he reflects. ‘But this is my job – to keep moving things forward. The moment we get comfortable, I need to come in to give it another push, create a whirlwind, and then organise it all again.'

solidnature.com

‘The ability of machines to “see” has improved tremendously over the past decades, meaning that computers have been trained, by humans, to recognise and generate images that come shockingly close to a photorealistic image,’ say Claartje van Dijk and Katy Hundertmark, senior curator of Amsterdam photography museum Foam, and managing editor of Foam Magazine, respectively.

‘In reality, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between a photograph and an image created with artificial intelligence (AI). Not only does this affect our understanding of what authorship means, but more importantly, it threatens to ultimately shatter the very foundation of the photographic image for good: its claim to truth.’

‘Photography Through the Lens of AI’ at Foam, Amsterdam

It is a subject the pair are exploring with the project, ‘Photography Through the Lens of AI’ – comprising two exhibitions, an issue of Foam Magazine and a presentation – which considers the multidimensional nature of today’s images, interlinking between the worlds of technology and art.

‘The history of AI is inherently connected to the history of photographic portraiture, and the untangling of the two results in what may be the most polarising conversation photo land has seen since digital cameras were introduced,’ they add. ‘While some are talking about the death of photography, others are fully embracing the new possibilities of AI. [Our] team of editors and curators have spent the past months diving deep into this rabbit hole, learning about the ways in which technology has brought us here, and exploring what this means for our visual culture and where it might lead. The ethical questions around AI need to be handled with careful consideration, while exploring the artistic possibilities of this new tool.’

The project’s group exhibition ‘Missing Mirror’ sees artists dissect the medium, from attempts to remove AI’s disembodied character to considering its humanity, finally dwelling on its habit to bypass the human entirely.

‘As a photography museum, the medium of photography is the jump-off point to Foam’s content development and exhibition programming. For this exhibition, the curators looked at how, in the past, the camera was the tool for people to document their immediate surroundings, their reality. Yet today, AI produces imagery that cannot be distinguished from an actual photograph. One of the important aspects of how AI came into existence and how it continues to take shape is the influence of humans. The [exhibition’s] different chapters provide insight into how humans have created AI and vice versa: how people use and implement AI as it develops into new technological advancements.

‘Rather than shower the visitor with a bulk of information, the exhibition is divided into various sections to give a better understanding of the topic, and the approach of the curators. The four chapters provide different angles as to how AI can be perceived, used, and the danger of AI as its ability to act autonomously continues to further develop.’

‘Photography Through the Lens of AI’ at Foam until 11 September 2024

foam.org

After inviting creative friends to move in during Covid, Amsterdam’s Hotel de L’Europe has welcomed back the city’s most prominent names in art, design, and fashion to translate their talents into a collection of hotel suites. Occupying an entire wing of the hotel, which sits on a street that Rembrandt once called home, the artistic suites have been gathered together under the name ’t Huys, an old spelling of the Dutch het huis, which translates to ‘house’ in English.

Amsterdam’s Hotel de L’Europe introduces new ’t Huys suites

Each designer worked with creative studio D/DOCK to mould their imaginative world into the practical confines of a hotel suite, which has also been given a hybrid function to maximise the space for a mixture of sleep, relaxation, entertainment, and work.

For the husband-and-wife duo behind the Wolfi Pictures suite, actors Daan Schuurmans and Bracha van Doesburgh, a palette of sapphire blue and gold and layers of tactile fabrics create a chic salon that multitasks as a private bar, writers’ room and cinema.

Similarly, D/DOCK’s own suite is a minimalist, monochromatic space where the sparse living room serves as either a private dining room, thanks to a central white table decorated with sculptural vases and Japanese ceramics, or as a wellness space for yoga sessions and in-room treatments using the suite’s tatami mats.

For guests who prefer a homelier setting, jewellery designer Bibi van der Velden has imagined a soothing pied-à-terre that reflects her nature-inspired pieces. Shades of green are a backdrop to vases of dried flowers, decorative chunks of malachite, and on the wall, an oversized shell and coral necklace.

Harper’s Bazaar Nederland editor-in-chief Miluska van ‘t Lam brought a personal touch to her suite by mixing her own possessions with sophisticated neutrals and layers of rich wood and cool marble furnishings.

Fashion also comes to life in Ronald van der Kemp’s suite, which the designer used as a workspace during the pandemic. He opted for immaculate white walls to show off his colourful RVDK couture to full effect – note the extra maxi floral dress that hangs in the suite’s entrance – and puts a modern spin on the traditional four-poster with a curtain of white fringing. Next door, walls dressed with RVDK magazine clippings and a rail of real-life pieces – which guests are free to borrow – create a mini fashion atelier.

A stay in each suite comes with exclusive access to Amsterdam through each designer – think private appointments with van der Velden and van der Kemp, and an after-hours visit to the Van Gogh Museum, whose team has also designed a suite – while downstairs, the hotel's new concept store showcases the work of the ’t Huys designers to both guests and the public.

Hotel de L’Europe is located at Nieuwe Doelenstraat 2-14, Amsterdam, deleurope.com

Amsterdam never ceases to enamour South African-born designer Jacu Strauss, who upon being appointed creative director of the city’s leading hotel brand Pulitzer, moved to the Dutch capital for the entirety of Pulitzer Amsterdam’s 2016 redesign, sleeping a night in each mocked-up bedroom to feel out their unique character. Today, the hotel – which offers 225 rooms and suites across 25 restored 17th- and 18th-century canal houses – continues reinventing itself and finding new ways to celebrate Dutch heritage, all with Strauss (a Tom Dixon Studio alumnus) at the helm. Pulitzer Amsterdam’s newest chapter sees the debut of three new suites and a wellness space: the Flower Collector’s and the Porcelain Collector’s Suites, the three-storey, three-bedroomed Merchant Suite, and a wellness space, The Beauty House.

Tour Pulitzer Amsterdam’s latest additions

It was the Flower Collector’s Suite that marked the first of the four debuts back in March 2024. Described as ‘a tribute to the city’s rich history of flowers’, the new offering reimagines a 19th-century tulip trader’s home by blending traditional Dutch design, horticultural artwork and bespoke furniture. There’s an airy hallway entrance, a spacious double room and an elegant walk-through garden flooded with natural light. True to its name, the suite’s extensive living area features a freshly arranged seasonal bouquet, floral paintings, and a bespoke flower-inspired tableware collection in collaboration with Zoë de Givenchy, founder of the eponymous homeware label. Amsterdam’s renowned flower market is just a 20-minute walk away, providing further opportunity to revel in the city’s blooms.

Another new addition, the two-room Porcelain Collector’s Suite, features an eclectic display of locally sourced porcelain art. Similar to the Flower Collector’s Suite, it includes a separate living space with stunning city views, a spacious hallway and a peaceful king-size bedroom overlooking the canal. However, the real highlight is the sensational objets found within, which blend antique Delftware contours with modern interpretations of traditional porcelain.

Meanwhile, the Merchant Suite is a spacious three-story concept comprising a master bedroom with a private bathroom, two additional bedrooms and bathrooms, a generous study, a dining area and a separate kitchenette equipped with a wine fridge. The set-up, ideal for families or large groups, overlooks the Keizersgracht Canal and is just a four-minute walk from the fabled Anne Frank House. The suite retains the charm of the 400-year-old building it inhabits, featuring exposed beams, original windows and preserved corbels throughout.

In addition to the new suite offerings, Pulitzer Amsterdam has recently delved into the micro-wellness sector with the launch of The Beauty House: an exclusive and design-oriented space offering a wide range of services, including manicures, pedicures, facials, massages and hair styling treatments. With a capacity for up to ten guests, the intimate sanctuary comprises a private treatment room, three beauty and hair studios and a separate social area. While the hotel has plans to feature various international practitioners for temporary residencies and events later in 2024, the space is currently busy promoting its exclusive partnership with the skincare pioneer 111SKIN and beloved haircare brand Chāmpo.

Pulitzer Amsterdam is located at Prinsengracht 323, pulitzeramsterdam.com

Dutch artist Peggy Kuiper’s first solo show at Reflex in Amsterdam, ‘The Conversation That Never Took Place’, is curated across its two galleries, the original art deco space which sits in the shadow of the Rijksmuseum, and the newer, canal-side residence. Walk into the former and you’re immediately confronted with powerful aplomb by The Bathers II, 2023, a work in acrylic and oil stick captured on linen. The four bold figures with their almost identical faces work to pull you towards them, the canvas thrilling with its layers of hot pinks and acid green, slabs of deep red. There are angular limbs and long skinny fingers, and where these figures reside seems entirely abstract.

This particular work is a fine introduction to Kuiper’s signatures: African mask-like faces, exaggerated bodies and sublime colours, all of which result in work that feels steeped in some kind of wonderful mystery.

Peggy Kuiper’s ‘The Conversation That Never Took Place’ at Reflex

There is an immersive relentlessness about Kuiper’s work that is particularly pertinent when you consider them in the show’s accompanying 300-plus-page coffee table book, created in collaboration with her gallerist Alex Daniëls.

Smaller paintings such as Vibrations, 2023, featuring three heads stacked one upon the other, or works featuring only one figure, Blossom, 2024, or simply a tightly cropped head, Wonderer, 2023, all give off a ferocious beauty. Kuiper’s work is intense, intimate and sometimes feels like looking at a Modigliani that has been stripped down to minimalist lines. If these figures were to be costumed, they’d be done by finding a middle ground between Rick Owens and Jil Sander.

‘They are figures I can relate to,’ Kuiper explains of her characters. ‘I prefer the word “figure” because I am not sure they are always human.’ Drawing on memories and diving into her own emotional terrain are key sources for the artist, as are nature and the seasons. ‘In nature, I always come across colour combinations that seem a bit off but somehow work,’ she says. ‘Colour is also very sentimental to me. I visit the same places because daily they are constantly changing.’

Kuiper studied graphic design at St Joost School of Art & Design, graduating in 2010, and went on to work for Anthon Beeke – a Netherlands design icon – before becoming a photographer. She had always drawn as a child – ‘mostly female figures that I could relate to, and interestingly enough the masks were already there’ – though it wasn’t until her thirties that she picked up a paintbrush again. In 2019, she returned to painting full time.

Despite her preference for working alone, Kuiper acknowledges Daniëls' input and influence. ‘If I don’t feel something, I swiftly paint over it, sometimes too swiftly, according to Alex,’ she smiles. ‘Though that’s why my work is often layered; there might be two paintings hidden below the top one. I don’t delete, I just add on, it only enriches the painting for me. I paint in a hurry because I try to grasp on to a moment.’

Daniels also encouraged her explorations of masks, introducing her to face coverings from the Democratic Republic of Congo. ‘They are a great inspiration, especially the wooden Bwami Lukungu masks from the Lega people,’ says Kuiper. ‘Although simple in form, the masks embody complex and multiple meanings which I think are very strong and enrich my imagination.’

The current show features Kuiper’s first work in bronze, Equilibrium, which captures a signature leaning figure. It took her around a year to complete, though has sparked a desire to further explore the medium.

There are also several etchings on display throughout the exhibition. ‘Colour often serves as an emotional language for me in my paintings, but I also wanted to explore what my shapes and therefore expressions would convey in a single colour with an etching,’ says Kuiper. These works showcase the artist's purity of line exquisitely; the 2023 work Mom is a ravishing highlight.

‘I lost my mother when I was young,’ Kuiper reveals to Katya Tylevich in an essay, ‘Ghosts in a hurry’, featured in the show’s book, that explores various topics within the artist's oeuvre, including the Mother figure in religious art. This perhaps goes some way in explaining the show’s ambiguous title – which Kuiper says is connected to a very important memory. The final line in Tylevich’s essay is a quote from Kuiper reflecting on her own figures. It reads: ‘I’ve come to realise they are self-portraits.’

Peggy Kuiper's presents 'The Conversation That Never Took Place' at Reflex Gallery until 13 July 2024, reflexamsterdam.com

‘Meredith Monk is a first-generation pioneer of interdisciplinary art,’ says Beatrix Ruf, director of Hartwig Art Foundation, which co-presents her new exhibition, ‘Meredith Monk: Calling’, alongside Oude Kerk Amsterdam. ‘From the very beginning, she brought together her self-developed unique voice technique – which merges the qualities of sound and movement, and connects ancient and traditional and especially spiritual singing techniques – with a unique way of using the performance space as a multi-sensual place of experiences.’

Monk’s unique talent is currently being celebrated in the exquisite setting of Oude Kerk, Amsterdam’s oldest building. The exhibition comprises a series of concerts, operas, installations and a deep-dive into Monk’s eclectic oeuvre. ‘She is intertwining movement, film, video, with an always-specific spatial design – and therefore lets the [various] media play in a new way together. Her work always also delves deeply into the human experience, connecting all its aspects and forms, from the grotesque to the spiritual. She is immensely influential to generations of artists; think of Björk, Peter Greenaway and many more.’

‘Meredith Monk: Calling’ at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam

The immersive audio-visual experience intertwines live concerts with video and sound installations in performances that include Monk’s haunting Piano Songs, as well as a new piece (in March) that invites collaboration from members of the local community.

The historical and cultural significance of the location adds an emotive layer to Monk’s performances, which resist easy clarification. ‘The Oude Kerk is of course a deeply impressive location, overwhelming us with space and light. It [has also seen] so many human histories, desires, and ways of expression. It is the perfect “stage” to allow for an exceptional encounter with almost 60 years of Meredith Monk’s work, offering the possibility to experience human conditions and the interconnectedness of being an individual, always in relation to a collective, [through] its space but also its history. The images and sound of works experienced with others, with the large installations in the open “singing” body of the church, and the individual experience with the installations in the intimate side chapels and built-in spaces allow us to move between worlds, to connect to multiple worlds.’

What is Ruf most looking forward to visitors discovering in the all-encompassing invitation into Monk’s world? ‘Joy, contemplation and inspiration while experiencing the musical fabric filling the church, the installations and many additional materials provided in the show, to immerse yourself in the oeuvre of Meredith Monk, an artist who continues to surprise us.’ 

‘Meredith Monk: Calling’ is produced by Hartwig Art Foundation & Oude Kerk and runs until 17 March 2024, oudekerk.nl

The show is also running at Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany, until 3 March 2024

Determined to catch more exhibitions in 2024? You've come to the right place. From group shows to piercing retrospectives and exquisite photography, here's our edit of don't-miss art exhibitions to see in January.

Art exhibitions to see in January 2024

Poetry meets performance in Julianknxx’s film installations at Barbican’s Curve in London

Julianknxx, aka artist Julian Knox, is experiencing a sharp rise in his career; his work is currently featured in two London exhibitions, Tate Modern’s ‘A World In Common’ (until 14 January), and his solo show ‘Chorus in Rememory of Flight ’ at Barbican’s Curve (until 11 February 2024).

Drenched in blue from floor to ceiling the latter space is occupied by three film installations: two ‘encounters’ and one longer narrative art film. Taking inspiration from Toni Morrison’s writing on ‘rememory’, and in its title nodding to a book by Lorna McDaniel, the exhibition uses music, dance, poetry and interview footage to explore the Black experience across Europe, where Julianknxx spoke to people in Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, London, Marseille, Barcelona and Lisbon.

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Discover Sheila Metzner’s jewel-toned fashion photography in Los Angeles

Working in tones and textures as rich as classic oil paintings, Sheila Metzner uses photography to make monumental landscapes and delicate still lifes, though she is best known for her unique and elegant work in fashion. 

Her soft-focus, jewel-toned pictures of creamy-skinned models in languorous positions led Getty Museum curator Paul Martineau to include her in his epic ‘Icons of Style’ exhibition in 2017. ‘She invited me to visit her studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and I became intrigued by the beauty of her modernist compositions, as realised through the painterly Fresson process. I imagined an exhibition where I could place fashion pictures next to florals to heighten their formal qualities.’ That exhibition, ‘Sheila Metzner: From Life’ is on view at the Getty Center through 18 February 2024. 

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‘They Got Time, You Belong To The City’: Alvaro Barrington looks back in Paris

The film Breakfast at Tiffany’s opens with Holly Golightly in evening wear as dawn breaks over New York, looking at the jewels in the window while eating a croissant. Where has she been? Why is she alone on Fifth Avenue at dawn dressed for a party? Alvaro Barrington’s ambitious exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac’s Paris Pantin gallery, ‘They Got Time: You Belong to the City’ (until 27 January 2024), opens with this scene, although rather than a pearl necklace, we see Holly Golightly looking wistfully at a gregarious Dennis Rodman with his tongue out, tempting her and taunting her. Holly is on the other side of the glass, looking in at something she can’t have. This exhibition deals with the reality of growing up in a city of dreams.

Alvaro Barrington grew up in New York as the son of Haitian and Grenadian migrant workers, and his memories of his childhood are marked by both the work he saw his family put into raising him and the possibilities that surrounded him.

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Carlijn Jacobs and Sabine Marcelis create a surreal fantasy at Foam, Amsterdam

From the album cover of Beyoncé's Renaissance to fashion campaigns, Dutch photographer Carlijn Jacobs’ work is in demand, her fantastical distortions of reality depicting a world that doesn’t yet exist. Now, Jacobs has united with designer Sabine Marcelis on the design of her first solo photography exhibition, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, at Foam, Amsterdam (until 21 January 2024), presenting existing work and new pieces.

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Olafur Eliasson inaugurates Azabudai Hills Gallery in Tokyo

Looping abstractions formed from spiralling modules of interconnected polyhedra. Circular drawings created by desert sun and winds. Dancing trajectories of water droplets caught in light while falling through darkness. According to the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, these works are threaded together by ideas of ‘deep time, slowness, motion and geometry’ – and they can now be viewed at Azabudai Hills Gallery (until 31 March 2024), part of the major new district and cultural hub in the heart of Tokyo that opened in November 2023 (see our Azabudai Hills walkthrough with Thomas Heatherwick).

The culmination of three decades of planning, Azabudai Hills is inspired by the idea of a modern urban village, with three skyscrapers rising into the clouds, between which flows a green network of Heatherwick Studio-designed lower-level architecture and landscaping, housing offices, residences, shops, health clinics, a hotel and a school.

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‘Inside Other Spaces’: explore women’s immersive art in Munich

Arriving at Haus der Kunst in Munich, you are welcomed by a monumental exterior designed in the Classical style. In spite of a contentious past that began with navigating the complexities of early 20th-century German history, the iconic museum has long since begun an inclusive and optimistic new chapter. This is embodied by an inspiring and immersive new exhibition ‘Inside Other Spaces. Environments by Women Artists 1956 – 1976’ (until 10 March 2024).

In the mid-20th century, the Argentine-Italian visionary Lucio Fontana was the first artist to describe his large-scale, ephemeral works as ambienti spaziali or ‘spacial environments’. They dance a careful line between art, design and architecture. Haus de Kunst’s director Andrea Lissoni describes how, ‘an environment is an immersive artwork isolated from the surrounding space’. A particularly vivid example is the hypnotic blue of Aleksandra Kasuba’s Spectral Passage, 1975.

‘Inside Other Spaces’ brings together 11 women artists known for pioneering immersive art: Judy Chicago, Lygia Clark, Laura Grisi, Aleksandra Kasuba, Lea Lublin, Marta Minujín, Tania Mouraud, Maria Nordman, Nanda Vigo, Faith Wilding, and Tsuruko Yamazaki. To put the show together, a skilled team of conservationists and art historians have sourced photographs and archives to recreate these environments.

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Amsterdam’s Pulitzer hotel is one of the Dutch city’s most unique properties – straddling two canals and spanning the Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht canals, the hotel comprises 25 historic houses, each built between Amsterdam’s golden 17th and 18th centuries and with a unique history and original purpose (the room I stayed in was housed in a former canalside brewery on the Prinsengracht side). First founded by Peter Pulitzer – grandson of newspaper titan Joseph Pulitzer, creator of the famed publishing prize – who bought the then-dilapidated collection of houses in the 1970s, the space was redesigned in 2016 by Jacu Strauss, creative director of the Lore Group which now owns the hotel.

That design, which relies on liberated use of colour, as well as playful nods to the city’s history – the reception desk, for example, is entirely adorned with blue-and-white Delft tiles – largely centres around a courtyard from which one can view the amalgam of architectural styles that make up the Pulitzer. This past November weekend, that courtyard was transformed with a vast new centrepiece – a pink tulle-covered Christmas tree designed by Roksanda, the eponymous London-based brand of designer Roksanda Ilinčić, known for its sculptural, colour-soaked designs which often find inspiration from contemporary artists and creative movements.

Roksanda x Pulitzer Amsterdam Christmas tree

Standing 10m high, the unique pink Christmas tree heralds the arrival of the festive season – one for which Amsterdam is particularly known, the city transformed each December with glimmering Christmas lights and a slew of markets, ice rinks, and seasonal gatherings (officially beginning with Sinterklaas, where on the eve of 5 December, children leave boots at the fireplace to be filled with gifts). Pulitzer says that the Christmas tree offers ‘seasonal cheer and joy to our [two brands’] merging communities’, which span Amsterdam, London and Serbia (where Ilinčić is originally from), as well as the slew of other countries that make up the brands’ respective teams, friends, and collaborators.

‘It started really spontaneously,’ explains Ilinčić of how the project began. ‘They reached out to me, and knowing how special the Pulitzer is, its team’s attention to detail, and the way they celebrate so many different artists, that was the beginning of it all. It was built on a mutual respect for art and design.’

The textile-heavy design – the tree is entirely adorned with drapes of varying shades of pink tulle – reflects Ilinčić’s own collections, which alongside colour and print feature an array of richly crafted materials. Her S/S 2024 show (among our London Fashion Week S/S 2024 highlights), for example, contrasted fluid forms in textures of sand-washed silk satin, naia crepe, georgette and fil coupé with the brutalist architecture of London’s Barbican Centre. Here, the draped pieces of fabric, each painstakingly cut and crafted by the Roksanda team in London, draw inspiration from the Norwegian textile artist Hanne Friis. Friis, who makes use of materials like silk stockings, latex gloves, and discarded textiles, creates intricately ruched and woven textiles which she hopes evoke the ‘corporeal’ intricacies of the human body and the natural world.

‘For one of my previous collections, I used this very particular bright pink tulle,’ says Ilinčić of the tree’s distinct palette. ‘I wanted to incorporate my design language – like my signature colour-blocking – in a conceptual way, a way that isn’t usually seen on a Christmas tree.’ On her own tree at home – which she creates with her daughter – she enjoys experimenting with colour and form (one year, an artist friend created hand-blown glass adornments), though you will always find baubles that Ilinčić has collected throughout her life. ‘They always end up there because they have an emotional value.’

To mark the occasion, Ilinčić invited a number of people to a celebratory dinner, where guests – including the photographer Paul Kooiker, Wallpaper* editor-in-chief Sarah Douglas, founder of Young/The Agency Ashlee Janelle Danso, artist Lissa Brandon, and Dj Zoë Janice, among others – dined in one of the hotel’s historic chandelier-lit dining rooms. The evocative dishes, in part inspired by the colours and textures of Ilinčić’s work included scallop crudo (topped with a shimmer of gold leaf and caviar), burrata, beetroot and fig, sole with sweet and sour pumpkin and radish vinaigrette, and a perfectly pink macaron for dessert in flavours of hibiscus, rose and raspberry. Together, it was the perfect primer – and an artful inspiration point – for a month of celebratory dinners ahead.

‘Christmas is a time to connect people, whether you celebrate it or not,’ says Ilinčić of how to host such a gathering. ’It’s a time to celebrate all the good things about life. To me, the decoration of the table is as important as the tree – the flowers, the setting, it lifts the whole event to something magical. And then there’s the conversation, the food, that follows. And the clothes, of course!’ 

pulitzeramsterdam.com
roksanda.com

From the album cover of Beyoncé's Renaissance to fashion campaigns, Dutch photographer Carlijn Jacobs’ work is in demand, her fantastical distortions of reality depicting a world that doesn’t yet exist. Now, Jacobs has united with designer Sabine Marcelis on the design of her first solo photography exhibition, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, at Foam, Amsterdam, presenting existing work and debuting new pieces.

‘I really liked working in a more 3D way,’ says Jacobs of the dreamlike space at Foam. ‘For the first room, I used a mirroring floor. This is duplicating the work on the walls and gives a surreal effect to the space. It plays with the senses in a way that makes it quite challenging to watch your step, as coloured glass cubes by Sabine Marcelis are placed on the floor and blend in so well that it puts everything upside down; it’s mesmerising.’

All eyes on Carlijn Jacobs at Foam, Amsterdam

Jacobs plays with perceptions, creating a fantasy world for the viewer. ‘The photographs on the wall are tilting towards the viewer, like they are coming right at you. It’s inspired by old castles where they used to hang their paintings on wires, which makes them tilt. When you enter the second room, there is a video with a circle shape, being played in a loop with a model following onto a bed – a beauty that keeps falling asleep, so to say. The circle shape resonates with a curved wall and one of Sabine Marcelis’ ‘Boa’ poufs placed on the floor. 

‘As such, this exhibition echoes itself and comes with many surprises. I and Mirjam Kooiman, the curator, were trying to replicate the different corners of my brain, so to say: each room we created is a world on its own, altogether representing my creative universe. Like, you do a little walk through my brain, through my dreams. When you enter the vernissage, there are on both sides mirrors from Sabine where you can see yourself almost infinitely. There are 18 small prints in the hallway, presenting a dreamlike world that I created through mixing my own photographs with AI. The windows have coloured foil, which creates an interesting play of light.

‘In the final room, there is a mix of different works hanging in a more chaotic yet constructed way – salon-style, resonating with the nostalgic feel of the photographs displayed here – together with a champagne-coloured illuminated totem by Sabine.’

 Jacobs draws on her travels when creating this alternative reality, intertwining references to geishas with the masquerade of Venice’s yearly carnival. ‘Within my fashion work I kind of do the same thing, we free ourselves from reality through masquerade,’ she adds. ‘As this was my first solo show; the most challenging thing was making final decisions, ruling out all other options.’

Carlijn Jacobs 'Sleeping Beauty' is on until 21 January 2024 at Foam, Amsterdam

foam.org

Grimm in Amsterdam has just opened ‘The Painted Room’, a group show celebrating the interior world and curated by Caroline Walker. 

The interior has been an enduring source of fascination for artists, from historical depictions of opulent homes to intimate glimpses into modern bedrooms, bathrooms, and enclosed public spaces. This new exhibition is especially poignant within Grimm’s traditional domestic architecture, complete with ornate wall details, fireplaces, and large windows offering views through the space.

‘Whenever I come to Amsterdam, I’m reminded of how much I love the city, because it’s a nosy person’s paradise!’ laughs Walker when we speak ahead of the opening. ‘You can see into all the windows; all these lives playing out. Lots of pieces in this show feature aspects I find fascinating about interiors, like the objects in them, and how they symbolize different things or become markers of memory.’

Walker’s own paintings have featured her mother doing housework in the home she grew up in; refugee women living in temporary accommodation; and hotel staff cleaning private rooms. She works from her own photographs, and her paintings are often suggestive of rich narratives, as though the viewer is catching the subject in a candid moment. ‘The interior holds so much narrative possibility,’ she says, ‘and it can be a placeholder for an internal, psychological world. I’m also interested in the idea of public interior space and how it is designed for us to occupy it.‘

The exhibition includes a cross-generational group of painters working at varied scale, with some compact works drawing viewers in, and others depicting sprawling spaces that seem to envelop them. Sometimes the viewer is looking into an empty domestic room, as though inhabiting it themselves; at other times they watch another figure lounging in bed, as if participating in a voyeuristic act. 

‘With Mingyoung Choi’s work, there is definitely a feeling of being a voyeur and entering a space you shouldn’t be in,’ says Walker. ‘Elena Rivera-Montanes and Nick Goss create paintings that seem to look out of windows; as the viewer, you then become the person occupying the space. Cece Philips has a painting of a figure in bed, and the viewpoint makes it look as though you’re in there with them. Many don’t have figures, it’s much more about the markers of human presence through objects or the suggestion that someone has just left the space or is going to come into it.’

Memory and nostalgia are woven throughout. While Walker paints from her own photographs, many of the artists – such as Hettie Inniss and Andrew Cranston – work from memory, conveying the slippery nature of domestic spaces in the human mind, even those that we live in. ‘The way Hettie’s work is made seems to evoke that sensation of some things being sharp and focused in memory, and other things melting away,’ says Walker. 

The role of the interior has changed in the collective consciousness since 2020, when the pandemic confined many to their homes. While she has been painting interiors for much of her career, Walker believes there has been a renewed interest in the subject since lockdown, with many artists reexamining it as a psychological realm and redefining the relationship between enclosed spaces and their human inhabitants. ‘Five or ten years ago I didn’t feel like there were so many working with that as a subject,’ she says. ‘I think there are quite a lot of contemporary artists painting domestic interiors now, which is very exciting.’ 

‘The Painted Room’ is at Grimm, Amsterdam, until 22 December 2023

grimmgallery.com

Drift Museum, a vast new experiential exhibition space, is coming to Amsterdam, and is set to open in 2025, in Van Gendt Hallen, a renovated listed building. Art duo Drift, composed of Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, have collaborated with entrepreneur and owner of the building Eduard Zanen to create the museum. 

Architecture firm Braaksma & Roos is at the helm of the new space, which will contain Drift’s performative and large-scale artworks. Since the success of Drift’s 2018 solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, the pair have been keen to create their own space suited to the technologically advanced nature of their work – which spans hovering concrete blocks (Drifter, 2017) and flocking drones (Franchise Freedom saw hundreds of drones take flight over Miami, in 2017, and Rotterdam, in 2020).

‘The Drift Museum is the outcome of everything we have been working towards for the past 17 years,’ the duo say. ‘We hope it will be a place that generates wonder and emotional responses from our visitors and where they feel more connected to our planet and nature.’

The Van Gendt Hallen building is composed of five industrial halls in the centre of Amsterdam, originally designed by architect Dolf van Gendt in 1898. Says Zanen: ‘This listed building fortunately escaped demolition. I see it as my responsibility to preserve this building for the future and to use innovative restoration techniques to transform it into a future-proof, sustainable, and energy-neutral national monument. The Drift Museum, over 8,000 sq m, will be located in two of the halls. The other halls will house sports activities, restaurants, offices and start-ups that stand out in terms of sustainability. This will make it a place where art and technology will come together on over 25,000 sq m of floor space and where new forms of collaboration will emerge, such as this new museum with Drift.’ 

studiodrift.com

Carmen Amsterdam is a unique blend of history, creativity and hospitality nestled on Keizersgracht (‘Emperor’s Canal’), the second of the three main Amsterdam canals forming the iconic canal belt. The latest incarnation of this extraordinary space, housed within two mid-17th-century canal houses listed as national monuments, is the result of a family legacy that started in the last century and which has been brought to life for the public by Joris ter Meulen Swijtink and his wife, Carmen Atiyah de Baets. 

Carmen Amsterdam

The story of Carmen Amsterdam began when Joris' grandmother purchased the two canal houses in 1980. Overseeing a year-long renovation in collaboration with Dutch architect Bart van Kasteel, she infused modernist sensibilities into the space, setting it apart from the opulent features typically found in houses of that era. A year later, she moved into the building and called it her home for 29 years, leaving behind an enduring mark on its architecture. 

Carmen, who is part Lebanese and has a background in fashion PR, and Joris, a chef, were working in London when they found themselves drawn back to Amsterdam and to the Keizersgracht home that they had inherited. The allure of the unique space ignited their passion to create something extraordinary for their hometown. The result is the transformation of the houses into an inspirational contemporary living space that fosters creative expression.

The buildings house a shop, a café and a guesthouse. The thoughtfully selected range of products showcases both Carmen's own creations and brands that hold significance for her. Internationally, there is New York-based label Maryam Nassir Zadeh's footwear collection and Lebanese designer Rym Beydoun's Super Yaya. Dutch creatives are the backbone of the curation, with unique pieces by local labels such as Flore Flore by Florian van Zuilen, football-inspired nostalgia Lack of Guidance and design studio Pien Studio, among others.

The café, Joris’ concept, and open to the public on Thursdays and Sundays, is a culinary haven of natural seasonal food. It opens into a serene private garden, serving as a bridge between the two houses – a quintessential characteristic of Amsterdam's unique canal architectural typology. In the guesthouse, guests are welcomed into a tranquil and historically enriched environment. The interior design strikes a balance between preserving original features, such as the 1980s cabinets in the library, and incorporating vintage and commissioned furniture pieces that add a touch of contemporary luxury. The lounge, doubling as a screening room and an area to relax, radiates warmth with its fireplace and a compact bar. Every Sunday, a movie is selected by the team, providing an intimate cinematic experience.

The pair have left the space's layout as it was, with only necessary interventions, in order to maintain the aura their family envisioned. The two private, en-suite guest rooms are sanctuaries in the historic city centre. The upper-floor room, in particular, offers a peaceful retreat, allowing guests to truly escape the hassles of urban life. In this room, a remarkable set of furniture by a Dutch designer Ate van Apeldoorn takes center stage. Renowned for his expertise in pine wood craftsmanship during the 1960s, the furniture was sourced by Carmen and the London-based vintage dealer, Spazio Leone. Some of the cabinetry has been commissioned from the couple's friend, Liam Dean, while all the lighting features are the result of a collaboration with London-based designer, Elliot Barnes. The attention to detail extends to the quality of every amenity provided, ensuring a tranquil yet luxurious stay.

Carmen Amsterdam is an evolving family story. As the years unfold, Carmen and Joris continue to weave their narrative into the fabric of this charming Amsterdam establishment, making it an ever-evolving treasure trove of experiences for all who enter its doors.

carmenamsterdam.com

'What if work could be extraordinary?' asks Ben van Berkel. Booking.com's office in Amsterdam, named City Campus, is his response, and it's nothing if not ambitious. With its occupants now happily moved in, and a BREEAM Excellent design certificate for sustainable architecture for it under their belt, van Berkel's architecture practice UNStudio proposes this as a model for 21st century workspace. 

When a Dutch student in Eastern Holland came up with the idea for Booking.com in 1996, it was a pioneering thought, and it quickly took off, becoming the global phenomenon of a travel platform it is today, as well as a state-of-the-art tech company. But as the business grew, staff and spatial needs did too, and Booking.com found itself based in several different buildings in Amsterdam, which was neither practical nor efficient. UNStudio's brief was to create a home for the company's some 6,500 staff in town – but one that would stand the test of time, and multitask too. 

Booking.com campus: rethinking workspace for the 21st century

UNStudio landed the commission in 2015 via an invited competition for a site next to the city's busy central station. The architects' ambition was to create a space for a 'small village', as well as a building promoting wellness and community for the employees. 

'It’s really a tech campus building,' van Berkel says. 'I feel it will be one of the most health-oriented offices in the world. It's an active health office, so we encourage walking, natural light and more. It also acts as a “recruiting machine”. People are happier and healthier here, so they are less likely to leave.'

Looking at the building's flowing lines, glazed façades and dynamic volumes, you'd probably think that it's a design-led structure, one of modern aesthetics and expressive architecture gestures. Which is true; but what you won't immediately see is that van Berkel and his team spent hours upon hours perfecting elements like acoustics, climatic conditions inside, glare and material selection – much of it through features invisibly embedded into the building so cleverly you never know they're there. For example, tiny perforations on wall panels help to keep sound distribution to pleasant levels; sensors balance light in each room; sustainable bamboo wood was used for cladding; and a green wall in the dramatic main atrium ensures living plants are part of the everyday experience there. 

Restaurants for the employees offer healthy meals daily, lots of transparency helps with orientation and encourages interaction, while a network of bridges and walkways promotes walking – as opposed to taking the lift – between levels. All the office staples are there too – desk spaces, education and events halls, meeting rooms, private booths, and both breakout socialising areas and quiet corners. But the communal components, circulation and wellness elements are where UNStudio really applied themselves – working on a masterplan for the space, with HofmanDujardin as the lead interior architects, to enhance productivity and health in the Booking.com workforce.

'The focus was on serving the needs and behaviour of Booking.com employees, from the moment they walk in, to the end of their working day, and all the activities in between,' says van Berkel. 'While the individual interior spaces enjoy a truly international flavour that reflects Booking.com’s core business, we wanted the overall concept for the building to serve as a reflection of Amsterdam – its location and the Dutch travel company’s home base since its inception. The architecture therefore combines the robust qualities and the industrial history of the harbour, with glazed detailing that reduces the overall immenseness of the building and gently reflects the glistening of the water and sky. The organisation of the interior, meanwhile, is designed to characterise the vibrancy of Amsterdam’s lively central neighbourhoods.'

unstudio.com 

booking.com 

On the occasion of the much-anticipated Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition (until until 4 June 2023), the Amsterdam institution has teamed up with a series of design brands to create special-edition objects inspired by the Dutch painter. 

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) lived and worked in Delft; he was known for his intimate portrayals of people and interiors constructed with masterful use of light and perspective. The largest exhibition dedicated to the Dutch painter to date, 'Vermeer' features 28 paintings (out of approximately 35 known works by the artist) from international museums, including works that have never been shown to the public before. 

Vermeer at Rijksmuseum: design objects inspired by the Dutch painter

The Vermeer-inspired selection includes design accessories as well as jewellery, referencing that worn by the characters in his paintings, stationery and garments in a colour palette that nods to some of his best-known works. 

Among the collection is Raawii's jug, a 2017 design that marked the Copenhagen-based brand's first foray into ceramics. 'When the Rijksmuseum and Raawii started a dialogue about special-edition products to accompany the Vermeer exhibition, a “Strøm” jug was the obvious product to work on,' reads a statement from the Danish brand. 'For the first time, Raawii now presents one of their designs in raw terracotta.' Jugs and pitchers were often part of the scene depicted by Vermeer, and it was the terracotta jug in The Milkmaid (1658-59) that inspired founders Bo Raahauge and Nicholai Wiig-Hansen to create the new edition as an homage to the painter, in addition to two pieces from the collection in blue and yellow, two shades recurring in Vermeer's oeuvre.

Other pieces on sale to mark the momentous exhibition are a set of candles by Dutch studio Ontwerpduo, and a jacket and trouser set created by Rijksmuseum in collaboration with Amsterdam brand Bonne, specialising in 'seven day, unisex suits'.

'Vermeer' is on view at Rijksmuseum until 4 June 2023

Museumstraat 1
1071 XX Amsterdam

rijksmuseum.nl

The influence of Stanley Kubrick never really ends. The American filmmaker, who died in 1999 having lived much of his adult life in the UK, was a meticulous craftsman with a razor-sharp eye for detail, as well as a keeper of vast archives of research. The director’s impact infuses a new exhibition, ‘I’m Sorry Dave’, opening this weekend at Amsterdam’s Ravestijn Gallery (showing from 5 November 2022 to 7 January 2023).

The common cinematic thread of the exhibits is 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the all-time great science fiction films. Set in a richly detailed future world, 2001 set new standards for special effects and art direction. 

The exhibition’s title, ‘I’m Sorry Dave’, is taken from HAL 9000, the softly spoken, utterly psychopathic computer at the heart of the film.

As the gallery notes, Kubrick’s aesthetic world is ’reflected back in today’s data centres, international space programmes and self-driving cars.’ 

The featured artists have all taken on some aspect of 2001’s influence in their work, either consciously or unconsciously, whether through their subject matter, aesthetic, or exploration of the uncanny and the everyday.

With photography by Vincent Fournier, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Paweł Bownik, Martina Sauter, Philippe Braquenier and sculpture by Koen Hauser, the Ravestijn Gallery sets a scene for a mix of form, futurology and fashion.

Fournier’s fascination with space is well documented, but his fellow exhibitors use image and form to explore the otherworldly and the uncanny.

‘I’m Sorry Dave’, is on show from 5 November 2022 – 7 January 2023, at the Ravestijn Gallery in Amsterdam, Netherlands 

theravestijngallery.com

Explore our pick of the best Amsterdam photography exhibitions for this Autumn

Amsterdam photography exhibitions: a spotlight on the best

Foam Talent 2022Foam16 September 2022 – 18 January 2023

Each year without fail, Foam Talent presents an impressive new generation of artists. Now, as the talent call moves to a biannual structure to further its development programme, we’re keeping an extra keen eye on this year’s edit, which is one of the must-see Amsterdam photography exhibitions of the year. Each artist responds to the world’s challenges in myriad dynamic ways; climate change, political conflict, discrimination, displacement, and social justice issues are all explored from global perspectives. 

foam.org

‘The Showcase: unboxing the Coda collection’ Scheltens & AbbenesUntil 15 January 2023

Dutch duo Scheltens & Abbenes create unique perspectives through their visual interrogations in ‘The Showcase’. After being given free rein to explore the museum archives at Apeldoon’s Coda, the often hidden away histories are revealed in photographic form. Through their box compositions, the icons of still life photography explore the carefully composed act of conservation and the past lives of these objects, noticing a frayed edge or creased tissue paper. Lots of curious questions arise for the viewer, yet we’re encouraged to go astray as we wander through the exhibition that Scheltens & Abbenes, true to form, interpret as a large-scale still life. 

coda-apeldoorn.nl

Installation view of ‘10 Years Muller Van Severen’, celebrating the studio's decade in design, until 6 March 2022 at Design Museum Ghent. The exhibition features work from the studio's history as well as a curated selection from the museum displays and archives. Piece pictured above include a rug by Muller Van Severen for Ashtari, a table by Jean Prouvé, and a black chair by Maarten Van Severen

Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen started their collaboration in 2011, coming from backgrounds in photography and sculpture respectively. In this time, they have crafted a visual style based on the juxtaposition of colour and material, a unique language that has placed them among the strongest figures in the contemporary design panorama. A new exhibition at Design Museum Ghent in the pair’s hometown (until 6 March 2022), titled ‘10 Years Muller Van Severen’ celebrates the past decade of creative collaboration, and invites the designers to share their vision through a curated display of pieces from the museum’s archives. 

Muller Van Severen: ten years of design

Muller Van Severen made its design debut at Antwerp’s Valerie Traan Gallery in 2011. The collection on display, simply titled ‘A Furniture Project’, featured pieces that combined what have since become known as some of the studio’s signature elements. The furniture was designed as mini-landscapes featuring tables, lighting and shelves in bold colours and essential shapes. ‘When the gallery asked us to collaborate we were in the throes of renovating our house and were in need of several things, including a light above our dining table,’ recall the designers. ‘One of our first solutions was to design a table with the table-leg extending and merging into a cantilever lamp. From this first design, a whole family of functional objects emerged. We are still very happy and thankful with this beneficial turn of events.’ 

The visual language of this furniture debut was further developed through several exhibitions, with the addition of seating and interlocking furniture functions into each piece, combining rigorous steel frames with the curved leather or textile seats and colourful surfaces of tables and shelves. The duo’s unique colour sensibility was developed over a series of palettes that have since become a signature chromatic touch for Muller Van Severen, making their work instantly recognisable. A defining moment for the studio was the meeting with Clémence and Didier Krzentowski of Galerie Kreo, in 2013. ‘They saw our work and immediately wanted to work with us: we discovered that we were appreciated at a high level,’ they say. 

Over the past decade, Muller Van Severen has added its unique approach to colour, shape and material to traditional household objects such as cutlery, salt and pepper shakers, rugs, mirrors, cutting boards and shelves; the duo also designed a kitchen for Reform (winner of Best Domestic Design at the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2020) as well as furniture and objects for Hay and a sofa for Kassl Editions. 

Muller Van Severen at Design Museum Ghent

Within the setting of Design Museum Ghent’s historic Hotel de Coninck, the designers present key pieces from their studio’s history, and photographs and sculptures created before 2011. Designs on display range from the wire furniture originally created for Office KGDVS’ Solo Houses development to the ‘Alltubes’ collection, whose design is defined by a repetition of aluminium tubes creating a motif adapted for different forms of seating and cabinets. 

These designs are placed in conversation with the museum’s collections, with a hundred pieces from the archives shown alongside Muller Van Severen’s works. Presented through a large, site-specific architectural installation by the duo, made using colourful paper to define the space, the curation includes pieces by Alvar Aalto, Ron Arad, Marc Newson, Studio Alchimia, Marcel Breuer and more. Each piece in the exhibition was specially selected by the designers with a ‘kindred spirit approach’, and the connections between the modern designs and their creative attitude are evident throughout. 

Among the pieces on display, the designers explain, they feel particularly close to Huub Hoste’s designs. The Belgian architect’s work was influenced by Dutch modernism and De Stijl, and the pieces in the exhibition include a cabinet created in 1926 for the Geerardyn residence in Bruges, consisting in a composition of yellow and green geometries. ‘The cupboard is a very inspiring work,’ say the designers. ‘The handling in form and colour and the direct appearance of it is related to our work.’

The exhibition is accompanied by a book titled Muller Van Severen: Dialogue, published by Walther König and exploring the studio’s creative DNA through contributions by Jan Boelen, Beatrice Galilee, Arno Brandlhuber and Sam Chermayeff. 

‘After a ten-year interval, we are staging our first major exhibition in our home city of Ghent: we are bringing our work back home,’ say the designers. ‘[It’s] a great way to make it more tangible here.’

INFORMATION

‘10 Years Muller Van Severen’ is on view until 6 March 2022
designmuseumgent.be
mullervanseveren.be

ADDRESS

Jan Breydelstraat 5
9000 Gent
Belgium

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Over the last 60 years, Michael Craig-Martin has documented the evolution of objects that have defined our lives. The Irish-born artist, who has just turned 80, will soon unveil his first solo exhibition The Netherlands at Reflex Amsterdam, turning his attention to the most recent additions to our visual vocabulary. 

The Dublin-born artist spent his formative years in the US. He moved to London in the 1960s and began taking the conceptual art world by storm with his majestic take on the mundane. As a tutor at Goldsmiths in the 1980s, he had a searing influence on the then-fledgling Young British Artists, including Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas, and Damien Hirst. 

In the 1990s, the artist pivoted to painting, but his powder-coated steel sculptures – bold-coloured, linear structures that appear like drawings in mid-air – remain an instantly recognisable facet of his work. Fountain Pen (2019), recently installed outside the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, imbues an object synonymous with function with a sense of regal grandeur.

‘All Things Considered’ at Reflex Amsterdam features paintings from the last six years alongside new works. Mostly in 2020, these works emphasise our new over-familiarity with our domestic spaces and the intimacy of household consumer objects. Among his subjects are a bunch of blue bananas, an Apple Watch, and a coffee cup, all reduced to bold, minimal, exacting lines and reimagined in all-consuming planes of colour. 

‘I am always looking for new things to draw and several objects quickly took on a new importance: masks, bottles of sanitising gel, and our laptops’, says Craig-Martin, who created the majority of these new works in 2020. ‘Those objects, but especially the mask, will, in future, immediately recall these times for all who lived through them.’

The paintings are not rendered on canvas, as one might readily assume, but aluminium. ‘There are many attractions about canvas, but for my work, aluminium makes obvious sense. My paintings are made using tape and small rollers, both of which require a surface that resists (which canvas does not do)', he explains. ‘Painting on aluminium allows me to see exactly what I am doing and work directly.’

‘The paintings always start with drawings. I make drawings of individual objects directly on the computer with the mouse. I never make one of these drawings with a particular work in mind. I simply add it to my now vast compendium of such images for possible future use,’ he says. ‘Because of the precise nature of my work, changes when painting are difficult and sometimes impossible. The spontaneity in their creation takes place in the planning which again is all done on the computer. It is a wonderfully flexible tool.’

This bold replication of the ‘things’ that accompany our newly-altered world feels profound; yet the exhibition title, ‘All Things Considered’ feels optimistic. Craig-Martin has turned objects of necessity, banality and consumer culture into luscious, candy-coloured objects of desire.

INFORMATION

Michael Craig-Martin, ’All Things Considered’, 2 October - 15 December 2021, Reflex Amsterdam. reflexamsterdam.com

ADDRESS

Weteringschans 79A
1017 RX Amsterdam

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Daniel Libeskind and Studio Libeskind have just unveiled the National Holocaust Memorial of Names in Amsterdam, a powerful design shaped by reflective volumes and dramatic geometries. The piece, commissioned by Dutch Auschwitz Committee (Nederlands Auschwitz Comité), aims to commemorate the Dutch Jews, Sinti and Roma who were murdered during the Holocaust, and the names of more than 102,000 victims are engraved on the brick plinths’ walls. 

The project is defined by a labyrinth of passages. This is created by a series of relatively low brick volumes arranged at different angles. They support four mirrored architecture pieces clad in stainless steel sheets, each forming a letter of the Hebrew alphabet and together forming a word that translates as ‘In memory of’. While the word can be only fully read from above, the striking composition creates a powerful dialogue with its surroundings, reflecting buildings, light and passers-by and drawing them into the composition. 

The memorial sits in the city's Weesperstraat, covering a generous 1,700 sq m, and is open to all, featuring landscaping and seating areas designed by Studio Libeskind in cooperation with Rijnboutt (also the local architect of record). The site was carefully selected and sits within the Jewish Cultural Quarter. It is adjacent to the Hermitage Museum, and just a stone’s throw from the Amstel River and its Jewish community and landmarks. The use of brick on the structure reflects the local urban fabric. 

‘The Dutch lost the largest percentage of their Jewish population in the Holocaust,’ says Libeskind. ‘The National Holocaust Memorial of Names is the first Holocaust memorial to commemorate the Dutch victims and the first of its kind in Amsterdam. My personal connection as a child of Holocaust survivors has made it increasingly important to be a part of this significant project. I hope it will become a place for contemplation, hope, and an important reminder to fight hate in all its forms for the people of the Netherlands and beyond.’ 

This important memorial is officially inaugurated on 19 September 2021.

INFORMATION

libeskind.com

When Amsterdam-based graphic design collective thonik embarked on the project to build a new HQ, they never thought the process would take 12 long and arduous years. ‘Designing and building your own workspace is still an experimental alternative in our current economic system,' say the practice’s founding duo, Thomas Widdershoven and Nikki Gonnissen. ‘Because the system is full of rules and regulations designed to prevent that sort of experimentation.' The more challenging it became however, the more thonik pushed, managing to lease a plot of land from the city and learning how to operate within a tangled web of municipal and national rules, regulations and constraints and how to negotiate with multiple institutions and experts.

The long-awaited result is a highly graphic six storey building on the city centre’s only post-war urban boulevard – the Wibautstraat – designed by Widdershoven in collaboration with Arjan van Ruyven of Amsterdam-based MMX Architects. Three floors are dedicated to the practice, two to a high-end Omakase restaurant and sake bar that draws you in at ground floor level, and the top floor (and rooftop) is soon to become an events and discussion space.

The most striking thing about the building is the combination of floor-to-ceiling windows that bring the city in and the interiors out, and the façade's stripes – the effect is dazzling and far from subtle, but it’s also radical in its simplicity and highly detailed and elegant in its execution. That the lines on the facade reference the tri-linear striped Mexcellent font designed for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico is an extra playful flourish that characterises the project and the people behind it.

For the bold but refined exterior thonik turned to Trespa, a high-pressure compact laminate made in the south-east of the Netherlands. The practice frequently uses it in graphic design projects (it has a dark core that is useful to create signs and lettering when you mill off the top layer) and it is commonly used in social housing and renovations in the Netherlands because it is sturdy, easy to apply and extremely durable. Here, they used slats of the brand’s Meteon Lumen range in a deep matt grey and slightly off-white and their rich and textured appearance help to create the building’s defined, somewhat cartoonish, alluring aesthetic.

Inside the building, the approach is no less unconventional. Raw concrete ceilings and floors and painted concrete walls contrast with softer elements such as floor-length curtains, large graphic carpets (designed by thonik and featuring motifs taken from past projects) and an acoustic wall wrapped in a wax-printed fabric by Dutch company Vlisco. For the interior Gonnissen and Widdershoven enlisted a plethora of Dutch designers and brands such as Hans Lensvelt, Bart Guldemond, Simone Post and Bas van Tol; the pattern of intermingling geometric lines on the internal staircase was conceived by Dutch design collective Envisions.

Ultimately thonik hopes their new HQ can provide a blueprint for a new mode of production, a more flexible approach to zoning (Widdershoven went to the ‘highest court in the land’ to ensure the building could have multiple uses in the future, office and residential in the upper floors, and hospitality or retail on the two bottom floors) and a future prototype for self-builds by creatives who want to stay in expensive inner cities. ‘The creative sector almost never owns the spaces it works in as almost all of them are owned by big corporations,' explains Gonnissen. ‘If the cultural sector could create its own spaces the quality of the architecture and buildings would almost certainly go up and the sector would become stronger economically and more robust.' 

INFORMATION

thonik.nl

mmx-architecten.com

The Château of Versailles immediately conjures visions of royal opulence – an indulgent 17th century monument to gold-leaf, mirrors, exquisitely detailed fabrics, and ornamental decoration. Lesser known, perhaps, are the black pearls that blemish its gilded history: the prostitutes that frequented the palace grounds; Louise Marie-Thérèse, the mixed-race and reputedly illegitimate daughter of the Queen of France; or Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s painting of Marie Antoinette in a muslin dress, devastatingly provocative at the time. It was these clandestine stories that inspired Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen when she was commissioned by the Palace of Versailles to create a new body of work last year, ‘Venus & Mercury’, as part of an ongoing series of artist collaborations with the estate. 

Now, the series is taking up residence at Huis Marseille in Amsterdam where it will occupy all 14 galleries as well the museum’s gardens. Sassen has imagined a number of new site-specific installations for Huis Marseille, including an homage to the residential history of the canal-side house. The multifaceted exhibition comprises photographic works altered with paint and collage techniques, posters, and monumental free-standing pieces. Anchoring ‘Venus & Mercury’ is a 20 minute video installation of the actress Tilda Swinton relaying fragments of the palace’s history, further complemented with poetic texts by Dutch writer Marjolijn van Heemstra.

The history of Huis Marseille itself, an imposing patrician house built in 1665, coincides with the tumultuous royal court at Versailles. Sassen has cannily capitalised on this overlap, teasing out parallels between the two historic estates. In the Amsterdam museum’s Red Period Room, Sassen’s abstract sequence of metal prosthetic noses – syphilis would cause the nose bridge to collapse – echoes an 18th-century painting by Johannes Voorhout of a mythological representation of the gods Venus and Mercury. (Mercury, or quicksilver, was once used to treat the disease.) The artist’s fascination with sexual decadence continues in her images of classical statues, disfigured with electric and deliberate splashes of paint, other times seemingly discombobulated by Sassen’s choice of composition.

Far be it for the ever-curious Sassen to take her viewers on a staid visual tour of the centuries-old institution. The photographer, who boasts an equally extensive and celebrated fashion portfolio, brings her distinctly playful gaze to the palace with a series of portraits of a trio of French teenagers. Gilded boiserie and the girls’ braids intertwine in Untitled (Braids) (2019), while Charline / Fumé (2019) recalls the formal and stately portraiture that hangs in the palatial estate. Similarly, the Amsterdam showing of ‘Venus & Mercury’ dedicates a gallery to Julia Valckenier (1680–1717), who lived at Keizersgracht 401 but who ended up in a house of correction at a young age owing to her allegedly ‘debauched conduct’. 

In ‘Venus & Mercury’, Sassen confronts the most discomforting and illicit facets of a revered institution, upending traditional historical and sociopolitical codes and challenging us to do the same. With the world seemingly undergoing a revolt of its own, the impetus to view history through a new lens has become more crucial than ever.

INFORMATION

‘Venus & Mercury’, from 1 June, Huis Marseille. huismarseille.nl

ADDRESS

Huis Marseille
Keizersgracht 401
1016 EK Amsterdam

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Dubbed ‘the canal palace', Felix Meritis sits on one of Amsterdam’s most well-known waterways, the majestic Keizersgracht. Now, celebrated interior design studio i29 has reinvigorated everything behind the iconic building's humbling historical façade by embracing its rich history and architecture; its grand spaces were once trotted by illustrious guests, such as Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, while throughout its 200-plus years of existence, the listed building served as a prominent stage for scientists, artists, thinkers and entrepreneurs.

Acquired by investors Amerborgh in 2014, the 1787 building originally designed by Jacob Otten Husly was soon given planning permission for a refresh in a bid also including architecture practice MATH. During the three-year renovation closure, the Felix Meritis retained its first-class spot in the city's collective consciousness. That was down to said history, but also the hosting of Instagram-friendly temporary guerilla projects, such as pop-up restaurants Foyer and Staets, and design boutique the Frame Store (by the namesake publisher, and also designed by i29). 

With the building about to throw open its doors to the public, these now seem like a mere taster of what was to come. For Jeroen Dellensen, one of the two founders of the Dutch interiors studio, taking on the renovation project was as much a creative challenge, as an exercise in logistics and preservation rules and restrictions. Yet the practice achieved a careful and elegant composition of old and new, arranging a harmonious variety of leisure, cultural and commercial spaces in the building's generous halls. 

Upon entering, to eat, turn left for Felix, where a finger-licking three- to seven-course surprise meal delights the senses. Key ingredients in this eaterie are seasonal Dutch products, paired with boutique wines, and a confident spritz of curiosity. For last minute tickets, give way to the right, and walk into a modern interpretation of an 18th-century style room dressed in blues and greens. A bespoke, clean, rectangular-shaped chandelier visually connects this lobby space and the restaurant. A separate area off here offers the option of a more bistro, outdoors-style environment for socialising, complete with stone pavement and greenery. 

Up an impressive, original wooden staircase is the publicly accessible Huslylounge, a flexible event space and breakout area for events in other rooms, set on one of the higher floors. Once a former office space for the political party CPN, it’s now transformed into a vivid ‘garden room' where yellows and gold set the tone. Elsewhere, the oval-shaped Shaffyzaal, named after the French-Dutch singer Ramses Shaffy, pops a whole other bottle. Gradients on the walls give this mutli-functional space a playful edge, ‘although it’s perfectly apt for corporate events,’ Dellensen makes sure to add.

However, the Zuilenzaal is probably the most significant part, in order to understand the great job i29 did here. Seemingly simple and relatively pared down, the room – used for concerts and other events – is handsome with a clear historical twist dominating its decor; yet it is completely prepared for the future, with all necessary invisible technology, lighting and installations integrated.    

‘Dealing with a listed building comes with a whole different set of challenges and regulations,’ says Dellensen, explaining that any design intervention needed external approval, and was only allowed when in concordance with the past interior elements. Take the custom developed textile wall covering in the ground-floor restaurant for example. The work, created together with local studio Buro Belén, is a wall-to-ceiling 21st century interpretation of the Dutch sky; a perfect symbol of this timeless and iconic setting.

INFORMATION

i29.nl

Tuscan stone design expert Salvatori has unveiled its first Dutch flagship showroom within Piet Boon’s Amsterdam Headquarters.

It was 2003 when Gabriele Salvatori first approached Piet Boon with hopes to collaborate, but it didn't work out. ‘They were not what they are today, and I wasn't what I am today,’ says Salvatori. Almost twenty years later, a chance encounter in Milan would finally unite the brands. ‘Salvatori are champions league in marble and bathroom design,’ says Boon. ‘We’re two different worlds, but we fit very well together.’

Multidisciplinary studio Piet Boon was first conceived as a construction company in 1982 and has since taken Dutch design to the global community, joining forces with the likes of, Rosewood Hotels and Resorts, Michelin star restaurant the Jane, and Jaguar Land Rover.

Third-generation CEO Gabriele Salvatori’s parents began involving him in the Querceta-based family business when he was fourteen. During school holidays, he would take to the production lines in Italy’s marble heartlands. ‘That gave me the opportunity to understand whether I was interested in the business or not,’ he says. He took the reins in 1996 and began steering the brand beyond a ‘stone company’, knocking on the doors of design-world greats including Vincent Van Duysen, Kengo Kuma and John Pawson. Some initial collaborations were successful, some less so. ‘Sometimes you make decisions that don’t make economic sense, but you do it because you love it,’ he says.

The striking Piet Boon headquarters is the size of an aircraft hangar and houses a design utopia. Forming part of a new 500 sq m bathroom, home and lighting showroom, the space accentuates Salvatori’s masterful command of stone.

Elisa Ossino’s statement Balnea bathtub, fashioned from a monolithic hunk of Bianco Carrara Marble, celebrates the material’s inherent characteristics. Her floating Ciane drawers defy gravity and pay direct homage to the strict geometry of minimalist artist, Donald Judd. Elsewhere, Piero Lissoni’s Colonnata bookcase uses ten different natural stones to punctuate a dark oak structure.

‘We’re very linked to our heritage and values so are strict about who we do business with,’ says Salvatori. We feel like we’ve found a partner who shares our values.’ With a joint appreciation for down-to-earth design, longevity, and the capabilities of raw materials, the new space fuses two family-owned brands with a bond set in stone.

INFORMATION

www.salvatori.it
www.pietboon.com

ADDRESS

Piet Boon
Skoon 78
1511 HV Oostzaan
Netherlands

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De Meelfabriek (The Flour Mill) – an imposing former complex in the eastern, industrial area of Leiden in the Netherlands – had lain dormant for a deacde following its closure in 1988, after an illustrious 105-year history. The empty mill was purchased in 1998 by a private developer who planned to regenerate the city quarter with a mixed-use development, inspired by the repurposed former warehouses at the old bulk cargo harbours in New York Manhattan in the 1980s. The canal-side property gained the title of national monument stepping into the new decade and Swiss architect Peter Zumthor began the conceptualising its master plan in 2002.  

The complex, significant for its architecture, industrial heritage and archaeology, is built atop a bastion that formed part of the city’s historical fortifications. Over the years, it expanded to 12 buildings representing periods up to the 1970s. Zumthor’s master plan clearly demonstrates his philosophy – that architecture is about bones, structures and anatomy. His approach for De Meelfabriek was to preserve and emphasis the beauty of each of the unique, basic, load-bearing skeletons; to highlight the conservation value of the interior structures of the buildings, while at the same time breathing new life into the isolated zone. This has led to an original and architecturally distinct restoration and remodelling of the complex by the Paris-based Studio Akkerhuis, which continued with the development and realisation from 2015.

‘While the project calls for the preservation of the valuable structures of all the buildings, some of the facades will be restored while others are adapted to their new functions,' explains studio founder Bart Akkerhuis. ‘The use of materials such as concrete, steel and glass relates to the original industrial character of the complex. Structural steel and concrete feature on the exterior of the new additions, mirroring the functional architecture of the past.’

The project, spreading over 55,000 sq m, combines original and new buildings. The industrial complex is divided into 13 new projects. Among them, 14 lofts and eight penthouses are being built in the Meelpakhuis (the 1930s flour warehouse) while the adjacent Silogebouw (the silo building of the same era) will be turned into a luxury hotel with a panoramic roof-top bar and restaurant. The newly added Silotoren (silo tower) will be connected to the Ketelhuis (the 1890s boiler house) and the Schoonmakerij (1930s washhouse) and will be home to office space, a wellness centre and an art centre. The Directiekantoor (1940s executive offices) will house creative start-ups and NGO companies.  

A major aspect of the redevelopment is to open up the area and bring people together. The Meelfabriek public garden and square will be designed by LOLA, which conceived the Singelpark, a 6.5 km-long circular urban park along the banks of the Leiden canals on which De Meelfabriek is located, in collaboration with landscape architect Piet Oudolf, who designed the famed High Line in New York. The first phase of the transformation will be concluded this summer and the delivery of the second phrase is planned for 2023.

INFORMATION

demeelfabriek.nl

Ever since we covered Fosbury & Sons' first Brussels location, the iconic Brutalist concrete beauty of the Constantin Brodzki-designed Boitsfort tower, we knew this was a co-working brand to follow. With a keen eye for great design and a vision that mixes effortlessly style with business and office interiors, while maintaining a sharp focus on enhancing our quality of life, the company was set up in Antwerp in 2016 by partners Stijn Geeraets, Maarten Van Gool and Serge Hannecart; it has been steadily growing ever since. 

So much so, that the brand has now broke out of its home country's borders and just opened its very first international venue (in collaboration with Millten - FB Amsterdam) – Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. Set within a historical 19th century building, which was known as Prinsengrachtziekenhuis until 2014 (a much loved city hospital that needed to move elsewhere in order to upgrade its facilities to 21st century standards), the new Fosbury & Sons location promises to bring Belgian style to the bustling urban Dutch hub. 

So what exactly does working at a Fosbury & Sons space entail? ‘It is an office, a place for the entrepreneurial mind to come and focus and do what you need to do. You can even invite your kids and parents here, our work is about quality of life,' says Geeraets. ‘We have a drive to have a positive impact in the daily life of people and add value. That’s what it’s all about.' To achieve this, the founders put a firm emphasis on flexibility and comfort in their spaces - an office that hovers between hospitality and business, and somewhere where one can feel at ease in order to be productive. ‘Coworking is redefining what an office space can be. This is the new normal', adds Geeraets. 

The firm worked with their long-term collaborator, design studio Going East (and MVSA Architects), to breathe new life to the old hospital and transform its generous halls and rooms into interiors fit for office working life. ‘For the design, we always take our building as a starting point,' says Geeraets. ‘We didn’t try and copy the greatness of the building. We restored elements with great respect and what was added was from a more bold, contemporary approach.' 

Now, the interiors are full of carefully selected and bespoke furniture, marble and stone surfaces, sleek metal finishes, but also art (selected with the help of Grimm Gallery and The Ravestijn Gallery), books and cosy nooks where you can sit and focus on work. Restored old features (such as stained glass and original staircases) blend with new elements (for example the team punched open huge windows in the upper, loft-style level) in a new, fit-for-purpose balance. There is a selection of offices, both permanent and temporary, as well as meeting areas, a restaurant, multi-purpose events spaces and a cultural program for members and the wider public too. 

The first clients have already moved in. This is the brand's first venue outside of Belgium and its fifth in total; but the Fosbury team is not resting on its laurels. There are six more new locations coming up in the next four years, with plans to open a second venue in Antwerp and Amsterdam, as well as projects in Ghent, The Hague and Valencia already underway.

INFORMATION

fosburyandsons.com

The citizenM group is on a roll. In just over a decade, it has opened no less than 19 hotels worldwide, with five having opened this year alone. 

In something of a homecoming though, the no-frills hospitality brand has landed back in Amsterdam - with the city's third outpost - 11 years after its inaugural opening with citizenM Schiphol Airport in 2008. 

A former bank - a striking 1928 red brick pile characterised by a façade of white ladder windows - has been repurposed by the brand's long-time design partner, Concrete into a lively set-up, straight out of the finely tuned citizenM playbook, but with local Amsterdam touches. 

The 88 compact rooms feature the brand's signature XL King beds alongside artwork curated by local gallery, Foam Editions, while the public spaces are a riot of colours, with the brand's trademark furnishings and fixtures by Vitra, Fermob, Aartek and Gubi among others.

Like all the brand's properties, the smart self check-in kiosks, 24-hour food and drink availability at CanteenM, and the hotel ambassadors complete the CitizenM experience, proving that sometimes less, certainly is more.

ADDRESS

Sarphatistraat 47
1018 EW
Amsterdam

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An airport is perhaps the archetypal liminal space. Designed to be moved through quickly and efficiently – and immediately forgotten upon departure – each one is nonetheless a warren of secret corridors and rooms, carefully concealed, almost invisible holdings, which nod to a more sinister operation.

London-based photographer Polly Brown has long been interested in similar institutions, from galleries to office spaces, and their nuanced, quiet control of those who move through them. Three years ago, she was spending more time than usual in airports, working on a new project which involved extensive travel, and quickly realised she hadn’t yet ‘learned the rules about travelling internationally with film’.

With each pass through the security scanner, her unprocessed rolls had been scarred with a new layer of X-ray corruption – fogging, or colour distortion, or pure waves of light which rippled through the resulting images, exposed only upon their return from the lab. Fascinated by the sight of journeys mapped involuntarily through damage, she sought to investigate further. ‘It allowed me to start seeing photographs in a different way,’ she says. ‘It is a kind of non-human photography, that avoids the nostalgia of airports and the romance of travel altogether.’

The extensive investigation which followed resulted in a new series, Airportals, which pairs photographs taken in airports around the world with unrecognisable abstracts, all captured using X-ray scanner-damaged film. From colourful signage in Hokkaido to watery wavescapes in Miami, the resulting images are eerily beautiful, permeated by a sense of unease – and dotted with markings caused by the process they are subjected to.

It’s easy to forget, when stopping to eat at a restaurant or to pick up a last souvenir at a brightly lit shop, that ‘these are friction-filled spaces’, Brown says. ‘They’re places of protest, tension and invasion.’ In a world in which immigration, terrorism and even the ecological impact of aviation have changed what it means to travel, film’s preconceived nostalgia stands in stark contrast with the disquiet these images document.

This week, an exhibition of Airportals opens in Amsterdam, presented by photographic agency We Folk. In the show (the artist’s first solo outing in the Netherlands), the C-type prints are reverse Perspex-mounted, in a reference to the ubiquitous illuminated billboards and travelators that line airport walls. That seeing it – indeed, hanging it – might require international travel seems entirely apt. If carrying film, Brown advises you ask for a hand check.

INFORMATION 

‘Airportals’, 24 October – 15 November. wefolk.com; pollybrown.info

ADDRESS

We Folk Presents
Prinsengracht 371 B
1016 HK
Amsterdam

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Being small, progressive and outward looking hasn’t scared away business from Amsterdam. The city’s bold plans for expansion into former docklands and wastelands – triggered, in part, by innovative technology for building on and under the waterlogged earth – have enhanced its appeal among international businesses looking for a Western European base.

Furthermore, Amsterdam’s high standard of living and ease with English have generated a Brexit Bump. The latest organisation to relocate here from London, the European Medicines Agency, is building vast headquarters in the growing Zuidas business district.

All this activity has had a knock-on effect on infrastructure: hot hotel launches are routine these days, and last year a new North-South metro line began connecting Zuidas with the burgeoning Noord area.

New Courthouse by KAAN Architecten

Public bodies prone to scandal often turn to transparent architecture as a symbol of openness. Open to scrutiny, Amsterdam recruited KAAN Architecten to rebuild the existing law courts in Zuidas, a growing business district south of the centre toward Schiphol Airport. Highly visible from outdoors in and vice versa, the new building cultivates an atmosphere of trust and confidence within the justice system.

Vast banks of glass make it exceedingly user-friendly, too – easy and safe to navigate, flooded with natural light and clean air. KAAN is also currently at work on a new glassy terminal for Schiphol Airport.

Nhow RAI Hotel by OMA

With the bulk of Amsterdam’s corporate architecture rising from Zuidas, housing visitors is an issue. Nhow’s new hotel by the RAI convention centre, due for completion next year, will be the largest in the Benelux region, with 650 rooms above a two-storey lobby and lounge.

OMA’s Reiner de Graaf designed the structure with three triangular volumes, echoing the surrounding Europaplein. Each of the three volumes pivots atop the last, with the highest supporting conference facilities with views over the Amstel River into town. A TV broadcast studio at 91 metres, will be available to residents and guests. 

Crystal Houses by MVRDV, Buro de Binnenstad and RDAI

On Vondelpark’s swankiest shopping street, PC Hooftstraat, architects MVRDV reimagined two heritage Dutch shopfronts with glass bricks. As they climb up the building, the glass bricks gradually dissolve into the traditional terracotta, creating an unusual ombré effect. Early tenants blocked off the first floor with a blind wall, but this year Hermès brought the entire property to life, hiring Buro de Binnenstad and RDAI to revive the entire façade and redesign interiors dominated by natural light.

The French label moved into the two levels, surfaced with interwoven Hermès-orange tilework. Passers-by can now appreciate the brick graduation for the first time, and see through the transparent façade to a sweeping wood staircase and silk scarves framed like artwork. 

Oosterdokseiland by UNStudio

A reclaimed industrial island linked by bridges to Centraal station, Nieuwmarkt and the emerging Noord district will serve as Amsterdam’s newest ‘urban campus’ – one of the largest infrastructure projects on the continent. To pull together the various elements, the city enlisted local firm UNStudio.

They’ve designed sharp, glassy low-rise headquarters for the likes of Booking.com and Vodafone, interspersed with landscaped public piazzas and residential blocks, all due for completion by 2021.

Noord-Zuidlijn stations by Benthem Crouwel

Few cities are less conducive to underground tunnelling than Amsterdam, with its feeble soil and high water table. Its six-mile North-South metro line, unveiled last year, culminates 30 years of planning, engineering research and excavation (the latter unearthing hundreds of thousands of archaeological objects).

Local practice Benthem Crouwel designed all seven new stations according to the space allocated, but linked them with a palette of steel and glass with splashes of colour. Banks of glazing create natural-light beacons to guide riders out to street level. From Zuidas to Noord, the stations form an underground art route, showcasing new works commissioned to highlight the particular neighbourhood.

Three Generation House by Beta

When urban planners convert postindustrial land to residential, Amsterdammers are often given architectural free reign. The Noord-based office Beta took full advantage with this mini-apartment block designed to accommodate one family’s multiple generations. The imposing north-facing façade gives little away.

Only from the south aspect do you notice the fluid indoor-outdoor feel of the ground-floor live-work space, and the series of stairs and voids that travel upward.

A lift rises through the core to deliver the elder generation to the upper levels, which overlook the IJ river to central Amsterdam

Floating Pavilion by zU-Studio

Further north, on a former shipping island where new residents were given carte blanche to design their own terraced housing, zU-Studio has begun construction on a restaurant pavilion that floats atop an old warship. Razor-thin steel walls – inspired by the curious angles of Richard Serra’s weathered-steel sculpture in Amsterdam’s Museumplein – inform the space like a house of cards

Wide glazed panels between them afford views across the IJ river and invite in shafts of natural light and shadow. The pavilion will open next year with an open kitchen in the decomissioned wheelhouse.

Science Park by MVRDV

Science Park isn’t just home to University of Amsterdam’s science faculty; it’s also a hub for tech start-ups, data centres and medical research. Recently it’s enlisted MVRDV to design a new, sustainable lab complex devoted to combatting climate change. The open stairwell encourages collaboration and the flow of ideas.

Science Park by Benthem Crouwel

Meanwhile Benthem Crouwel has designed its new wood, glass and steel building for the Faculty of Science with a modular grid, whose materials can be shifted, disassembled and recycled. Labs devoted to robotics and game design will be encased in glass and visible from the exterior.

For its first full foray into residential architecture, Amsterdam-based firm GG-loop drew up a design vernacular inspired by the ocean. The two-apartment development named ‘Freebooter’ is located at Zeeburgereiland, a triangular island at Amsterdam’s east. Inside and out, oceanic references are in abundance.

GG-loop looked close to home for design inspiration, using the waterside plot as a starting point of reference. Until 1910 the site was a key docking thoroughfare for ships entering the city, and the firm wanted to evoke this local maritime history through its design. As something of a cherry on top, the name ‘Freebooter’ further delves into the annals of Dutch sea-faring history, crediting the historical high-sea explorer of the same title.

The development is comprised of a central block, surrounded by a prefabricated parametric façade made from a hybrid of cross-laminated timber and steel. The latter was produced offsite in the short timespan of three weeks, and takes the form of a ‘ship on land’. The opening cuts can be read as waves, wind or sails.

Contrary to its speedy production time, the exterior’s design is the result of a year-long study into the way light interacts with the site. Based on the firm’s readings, the project assumes the optimal shape to maximise internal light distribution, whilst concurrently creating an appropriate level of privacy.

The interior certainly capitalises on the generous levels of natural light. Airy private and communal spaces unwrap around central kitchens in each apartment, all sporting bright timber and minimal black fixtures. Glass curtain walls envelope each tier, beyond which exterior balconies further bring residents closer to the water views.

In keeping with GG-loop’s eco-friendly ethos, Freebooter fully embraces the practice’s biophilic philosophy. The combination of sustainable materials, construction methods and energy-efficient appliances is mindful, adding an eco-conscious element to the sea-shaped narrative

Information

For more information, visit the GG-loop website

A new generation of fashion makers, unschooled in design but unbridled in creativity, are offering some resistance to the prevailing pop tyranny of shows and sales. The duo behind Symonds Pearmain, for instance, have ushered in a renewed focus on collaboration with their clothes positioned as works of art shared via dance, performance and video. Anne Imhof has staged a brutalist bacchanal in Tate Modern's Tanks, installing the model Eliza Douglas head-to-toe in Balenciaga who sang and writhed through the colossal space. Moses Quiquine is applying new narratives to archival couture, splicing a Charles Frederick Worth dress with African textiles to create a revised ethnographic fable for our times.

The same amalgamation of art and fashion is found in Avoidstreet’s first solo show, open now at Lauwer gallery in The Hague. The label’s Amsterdam-based founder Eduardo Leon treats the endless source of fast fashion garments available in vintage stores like medium resolution images on a hard drive. ‘It was interesting to use fast fashion brands as factories, using what they had already made,’ he says. Launched in 2017, Avoidstreet operates as demi-street-couture, bringing together the anxieties of sustainability with a graphic gall. ‘It’s very one to one – when people come to the studio, the first thing I look at is how they dress. I’m not trying to bring a certain style that is my own. I’m trying to emphasise what’s already there.’

Leon’s approach was shaped by artist and academic Hito Steyerl’s influential 2009 essay In Defense of the Poor Image. Steyerl wrote about the hierarchy of high-definition, the sharing and re-sharing of visuals and how the formats through which we disseminate them alter their meaning. ‘The poor image has been uploaded, downloaded, shared, reformatted, and reedited. It transforms quality into accessibility, exhibition value into cult value, films into clips, contemplation into distraction,’ she said. Similarly, Leon liberates unwanted clothes from their démodé lull.

The look book for Leon’s first collection M&M is printed on A3 sheets of polyester and placed on top of a custom-made brass table. Part graphic design, part fashion, part soft sculpture, the piece has the feeling of a magazine but is floppy and uncomfortable. It has lost its function much like the past season clothes left to languish at the back of our closets. ‘Only now am I beginning to refine what I am doing and finding a practice in some ways. I like the idea of being this archeological designer that goes around the city looking for dead stock or through the wardrobes of friends, making interventions, talking to people. I like the idea of using clothes as a tool for intimacy,’ Leon says. ‘To start a conversation.’

INFORMATION

‘Avoidstreet = Clothes, Jpegs and Lyrics' is on view until 8 June. For more information, visit the Lauwer gallery website.

ADDRESS

Stadhouderslaan 9
2517 HV The Hague
The Netherlands

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Amsterdam is gearing up for the most significant museum exhibition of Dutch photography duo Scheltens & Abbenes to date, set to open at Foam on 15 March. Their preparation for the show echoes the fastidious still lifes they are renowned for: a sharp attention to detail fused with an ability to abstract and elevate the ordinary into the wondrous.

Spanning their 18 years of collaboration, the exhibition guides viewers through new contextualisations of magazine pages, blown up into large prints and diptychs. ‘If the object has the ability to be something abstract besides its figuration and function, there is a good chance we go for it,’ explain Maurice Scheltens and Liesbeth Abbenes. ‘All objects can become worth looking [at]. It’s a matter of observing, turning and investigating closely together with light and shadow, which becomes also part of the object and composition.’

The exhibition’s title, too, is key to understanding the duo’s practice. ‘ZEEN’ – a synonym for the Dutch word for ‘tendon’ in anatomy – sees the artists’ sensitivity to micro elements lay the cornerstones for whole visual structures. It is the pair’s intention that the viewer is immersed in a detailed perspective, sharing their fascination up close. ‘In our more abstract pictures we will always leave a little hint of how things are done or something to recognise,’ add the duo, ‘just enough to make to viewer part of the play and wonder about how familiar objects can also look.’

Their compositions are aesthetically rigorous yet deeply stirring. Concept is always first and foremost as the artists’ lively imaginations turn something as simple as an iron on a shirt into a graphic landscape, soap bars into seemingly infinite pill-like treasures, or tableware into a celestial skyscape.

A site-specific video installation created specially for Foam is inspired by an impulse about how a still life would look in motion, revealing Scheltens & Abbenes’ enthralment with form, pattern and line. This expansion of their practice is a collaboration between the still and the moving, the duo musing that ‘one cannot exist without the other.’ It is this inquisitiveness that is central to the artists’ practice: a limitless yen for experimentation has allowed them to build a genre-defying oeuvre.

INFORMATION

‘ZEEN’ is on view from 15 March – 5 June. For more information, visit the Foam website

ADDRESS

Foam
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam

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‘Sustainability’ in fashion: historically seen as a byword for overpriced, hemp-rich bohemia and aggressive (and often deceptive) greenwashing. But Brooklyn-based design studio Local Projects in collaboration with Dutch company Fashion for Good, has sought to give fashion sustainability a well-deserved rebrand. Through an interactive, educational and experiential space for the new Fashion for Good museum in central Amsterdam the designers have tackled big issues on a palatable, consumer scale.

To the insular eye, fast fashion had felt largely harmless; cheap frills, instant gratification and few side effects aside from the looming, intangible threat of climate change. Fashion is now branded with the unenviable label of ‘second-most polluting global industry’ with manufacturing facilities flushing enormous quantities of chemically contaminated water back into the ecosystem; landfills bursting at the seams and 60 per cent of all clothing being disposed of within a year of being made.

When luxury fashion hopped on the sustainability bandwagon, pivotal moments began to occur – Gucci went fur-free, Tom Ford launched his ‘Made in Italy’ venture supporting Italian craftspeople and Stella McCartney unveiled an alt-leather bag comprised of mycelium (also known as mushroom roots).

Local Projects – the creators behind the stirring and immersive 9/11 Museum in New York – have now turned their hand to cracking the fashion crisis, injecting intelligent, tech-infused concepts into this expanding corner of the industry.

The team – with founder and designer Jake Barton at the helm – first tested the water with a temporary ‘launchpad’ exhibition in the same spot last year. In the newly unveiled permanent space – which weaves both retail and museum elements into one package – visitors are able to commit to making small, personalised changes as opposed to the intimidating prospect of tackling sustainability on an industrial scale.

Each visitor is given a digitally enabled bracelet on arrival (made from recycled plastic dredged from Amsterdam canals) which they can used to tap in at 33 ‘action stations’ dispersed around the space to track, educate in and ultimately reform buying behaviour beyond the museum walls.

‘There’s something for every visitor,’ Barton says, ‘from more traditional museum exhibits that can be experienced passively, to exhibits that are meant to be touched and interacted with.’

On the ground floor, ‘The Good Shop’ is a sleek, carefully curated space where visitors can browse and learn about a collection of sustainable apparel from the likes of Stella McCartney, Adidas x Parley and Kings of Indigo.

In the adjacent room, shoppers can design their own T-shirt on site, using projection mapping and biodegradable fabric which is ‘cradle-to-cradle’ sustainable. ‘Visitors get a sense of ownership, and start to understand just how powerful their influence might be as consumers,’ Barton explains.

Upstairs, the ‘Innovation Lounge’ presents 50 concepts that are set to shake up the fashion industry, posing questions like ‘how is biodegradable glitter created?’ and ‘how can blockchain technology make the garment production processes more transparent?’ ‘The History of Good Fashion’ section traces a timeline of sustainability innovation spanning four centuries including seminal moments in labour rights and environmental advances.

There is no quick solution to fast fashion, but Local Projects and Fashion for Good have garnered attention with their innovative mode of storytelling ready for the world to listen. This venture emphasises the history, joy and potential in fashion retail and despite a turbulent track record, sustainability has never felt so sexy.

Information

The Fashion for Good Museum is open daily. For more information, visit the Fashion for Good website and the Local Projects website

Address

Rokin 102
1012 KZ Amsterdam
Netherlands

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Since it was unveiled in 2009, Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat’s The Rock tower has struck a distinctive pose, its angular bulk a head-turning addition to Amsterdam’s southern Zuidas skyline. And now, office drones from the neighbourhood’s haul of MNCs and institutions – including VU University Amsterdam – have an equally distinctive watering hole in which to gather for a stylish bite.

For the new outpost of local favourite café chain Lebkov & Sons, the Paris-based Studio Akkerhuis has created a concrete space that is styled as a domestic kitchen and living room, its open plan filled with light and demarcated into zones by the strategic placement of modular steel cubes that act as shelves and room dividers, communal tables and long angular benches.

The centrepiece of the industrial-lite space is a huge coffee bar and open kitchen whose base is clad in a crumpled creamy black and white crossed tessellation made of wooden panels engraved with light crosses – the effect calls to mind an oversized Issey Miyake Baobao bag - by Milan-based company Wood-Skin.

The menu offerings are, as one might expect, no-nonsense in the spread of coffee, sandwiches, daily soups, cakes juices, with quotidian bestsellers including the Kenyan filtered Joe and a house-baked lemon poppy-seed cake.

ADDRESS

Claude Debussylaan 130

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You can’t miss the new Soho House Amsterdam. In the city centre, where the rings of canals are lined with slender Dutch gable houses, the sturdy, imposing 1930s Bungehuis dominates its prime corner plot on Spuistraat. This prominent landmark is one of the latest in a line of architectural finds the Soho House Group has commandeered for its network of private members clubs around the globe.

Similar in size to the Istanbul and Berlin houses, the Amsterdam outpost follows the group’s tried-and-tested formula of a Cecconi’s restaurant and Cowshed spa (on the ground floor), guestrooms (79 spread over floors 1-3), a gym and screening room on the fourth floor with the club and House Kitchen on the fifth. It’s crowned by the signature rooftop pool and bar, albeit smaller than most. In this case, the rooftop wraps around the entire building, offering a 360-degree city panorama. It being the ‘dam, there is also parking for 75 bikes, plus a workshop for repairs.

Granted ‘monumental’ (listed) status, the pale six-storey limestone and granite-clad Bungehuis is a blend of architectural styles – art deco, functionalist and Amsterdam School, with a hint of brutalism. Revolutionary at inception, it was the first building in the city to possess a completely concrete structure. Originally the headquarters of a trading company, in recent decades it served as the humanities block for Amsterdam University until 2015 – which meant that heritage details were preserved.

‘Everything was covered up by plasterboard and false ceilings, so basically they protected the interior for us,’ explains Linda Boronkay, design director for Soho House Group. ‘While demolishing these cosmetic additions we discovered all the beautiful original details – wood panelling, marble panelling and glazed tiles – which we uncovered, restored and celebrated by continuing things like the geometric patterns and orange-tinted timber panelling elsewhere.’

Large bronze-framed bay windows lend the façade its rigid geometry, while inside the glazed tilework of the ground floor lobby, lift lobbies and main stairway adds period character. An extraordinary series of stained glass windows lines the grand staircase, running the full height of the building. Their delicate art deco pattern is replicated in textiles, such as bed throws, for the new house. Above the ground floor level, the property is structured around an internal courtyard, so despite its imposing appearance from outside, the interior is composed of compact, moderately-scaled spaces that are flooded with natural light.

In keeping with the House style, the interior design takes its cues from the host building, other key city landmarks and the local vernacular. The fifth floor club room features high-gloss black timber floors, a feature found in historic Dutch residential properties. Meanwhile, the bar front is lined in fabric applied with studs. ‘In Amsterdam rather than wallpaper or paint, they used fabric to warm a place up, so we applied it to the bar front,’ says Boronkay. Most impressive is the lighting. Floor and table lamps are all reconditioned antiques sourced predominantly in the Netherlands, while ceiling and wall lighting is bespoke, made by a local supplier.

Soho House Amsterdam is open for business, but Cecconi’s and the Cowshed spa open in September.

ADDRESSS

puistraat 210
1012 VT
Amsterdam

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Housed in a purpose-built 21-storey ‘living building’ constructed from one-third recycled concrete and clad in over 1,600 responsive aluminium panels that react to regulate internal temperatures, Amsterdam’s newest hotel, designed by architecture firms Mulderblauw, Paul de Ruiter, and Arup, QO has set a new sustainability bar.

Its name is more of a logo, inspired by the closed-loop recycling concept, of which the hotel has adopted an internal grey water system and, more notably, an aquaponic rooftop greenhouse, which serves the bar and restaurant below with over 70 varieties of herbs, vegetables, edible flowers and even fish.

QO’s design reflects its innovative ethos thanks to local firm Tank, which has created a striking first impression with a soaring triple-height lobby, a suspended staircase and an elongated oval bar. Tucked behind that, Persijn restaurant shows off the rooftop’s bounty with dishes such as the Persijn Salad and Josper-grilled vegetables that capture the principals of executive chef Alexander Brouwer and the modern Dutch cuisine movement. This expression of locality in the food, continues in the dusty green and gold interiors, which feature details such as the crawling pattern of tiny black and white tiles inspired by Dutch embroidery.

Upstairs in the guest rooms, London-based firm Conran and Partners has paired exposed concrete ceilings and dark brick bathrooms with bespoke furnishings in a warm and earthy palette in materials such as brass, oak and leather. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows meanwhile, frame long views over the edges of the city. And while the QO’s location lacks the charm of Amsterdam’s historic centre, a metro station across the road zips into Central Station in just ten minutes.

ADDRESS

Amstelvlietstraat 4

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In December 2017, Studio Drift unleashed Franchise Freedom, a formation of 300 drones fitted with a light source that went flying and flocking, as birds would, into the dark Miami night. Using computer algorithms, the studio added starling flight patterns to the drones’ software to emulate a phenomenon previously only seen, on this scale at least, in the natural world.

The Amsterdam-based studio, founded in 2007 by Netherlands-born artist Lonneke Gordijn and her British/Dutch partner Ralph Nauta, aimed to address the balance between the individual and the group, and how animals trade their individual needs for the safety of numbers. It was also a thrilling spectacle and perhaps a defining moment in ‘tech art’, the creative push and pull of technology into new shapes and forms.

The work of the interdisciplinary studio employs a special position in the tech art movement. Using sculpture, installation and performance, Gordijn and Nauta, who are both graduates of the Design Academy Eindhoven, take on the delicate, often destructive, relationships between human evolution, natural forces and technological advancement.

Gordijn rose to international attention with her first light sculpture, Fragile Future, in 2005. Nauta later joined her in developing the project, which features delicate dandelion seed heads attached to LEDs, powered by bronze electrical circuits. ‘We were still finding out what our interests were,’ Nauta says. ‘I am very much interested in science fiction and Lonneke in natural processes. This project became the basis of Studio Drift.’

In 2007 and 2008, further versions of Fragile Future were shown at Salone del Mobile in Milan, where it caught the eye of the talent-hungry media and earned the pair a place in a show during 2008’s Design Miami. There they met Loïc Le Gaillard and Julien Lombrail, founders of contemporary design dealer Carpenters Workshop Gallery. ‘I still remember the emotion Loïc and I both had when we saw the work,’ says Lombrail. ‘It is so poetic and so romantic. What I really appreciate is that Lonneke and Ralph always keep their artistic integrity. They’re still working to their strict code of conduct and pushing for quality.’

A three-dimensional version of the light was developed for the gallery and shown at the 2009 PAD collectible design fair in Paris. To both parties’ surprise, the eight editions plus four artist’s proofs sold out. ‘Suddenly we found our market,’ says Gordijn. ‘But the clients in this specific market are looking for functionality, and we never wanted to make “lamps”. We need to be freed from limitations.’ Studio Drift was part of a new wave of tech-obsessed conceptual designers, including Troika, Random International and TeamLab, who were treading a new path and stretching old definitions to breaking point. If design couldn’t contain them, art could.

Fittingly perhaps, the impact of social media has accelerated Studio Drift’s rise in the contemporary art world. In 2014, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum bought Shylight, a light sculpture that imitates the biological rhythm of plants. Five of its modules are now permanently on view in the new Philips Wing of the museum. Videos of the dancing sculpture went viral on the internet and accumulated 22 million views. This new engagement with more visually dynamic art has transformed the relationship between the museum and its audience.

Last March, Studio Drift entranced the art world again with Drifter, a massive ‘concrete’ block that appeared to float mid-air, tilting as if of its own accord, presented by the Pace Gallery at the Armory Show in New York. ‘Five hundred years ago, concrete was a sci-fi idea,’ says Gordijn, adding that it was Thomas More who mooted the idea of a durable, easy material with which to build robust homes in Utopia. ‘Those powerful wishes and ideas drive innovation, and the human race, forward.’

The internet and social media might have improved the studio’s fortunes, but the pair are cautious about the benefits of virtual attention. ‘It shouldn’t be about how many likes and followers we generate, but the underlying reason for the piece being created,’ says Nauta. ‘Artists should be very careful that what we are doing doesn’t become a fashion; it takes time to produce quality.’

This spring they will get their biggest stage yet when their first solo exhibition, ‘Coded Nature’, opens at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. The opportunity came at the eleventh hour – a Sottsass exhibition was called off, freeing up a key slot on the museum’s calendar. Ingeborg de Roode, curator of industrial design, acknowledges that the museum has been following the pair’s work from the beginning. ‘It is important that they show the public what can be done with technology. While some people feel it is scary, it is good to discuss different views about it,’ she says. ‘Studio Drift uses technology in a positive and poetic way, creating exciting experiences.’

Alongside Drifter, the largest-ever Fragile Future installation and other greatest hits, the exhibition will also include a new installation, Elementism. ‘It is a starting point of a research project, based on the elements that make up our world, to realise what our responsibilities are to everything we take from the Earth.’ Objects will be deformed and reshaped into cubes of their base materials. Gordijn says Elementism shows the very power of ideas. ‘When you take the idea away from an object, you have only the material left.’

The pair are also working on new projects to be revealed later this year, including a large light sculpture that aims to change the landscape and skyline of an American city, and a moving pavilion for the gallerist Philippe Gravier. ‘This time we are creating the whole space as an experience,’ says Gordijn. ‘The scale is challenging.’

Having a wider stage means greater responsibilities, but also the potential to start new conversations. ‘One of our missions is to become a serious partner in important technological developments. We cannot approach it from a purely technical point of view. We have to approach from an intuitive and emotional perspective. After millions of years being human beings, we still need safety, we still need food, we still need love – these are the essentials, and technology should support life in that way,’ says Gordijn.

And Studio Drift is wasting no time. The duo are ready to build a new base, fit for this broader mission. They are collaborating with OMA on part of the architects’ redevelopment of Bijlmerbajes, a former prison complex in Amsterdam, which they aim to turn into a collective workspace, research centre and laboratory. ‘We are recruiting interesting design and art studios that are working along the same lines as we are, and we want to work on future solutions with technology partners,’ Gordijn says. ‘It is also a statement to the outside world.’

As originally featured in the May 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*230)

INFORMATION

‘Coded Nature’ is on view from 25 April until 26 August. For more information, visit the Stedelijk Museum website and the Studio Drift website

ADDRESS

Stedelijk Museum
Museumplein 10
1071 DJ Amsterdam
Netherlands

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What started out as an urban development project has evolved into Sweets Hotel, a concept that is transforming Amsterdam’s 28 bridge houses into an ensemble of one-of-a-kind hotel suites all over the city.

The quirky chambers, which hover over the Amsterdam’s sprawling network of waterways, were once home to bridge operators – choreographers of an industrial ballet of boats that danced beneath them – opening and closing the bridge as needed. Now due to automated technology, these houses have lost their original purpose, with many left neglected. 

In an on-going project first initiated in 2012 – Sweets Hotel is polishing these forgotten gems, offering experience-hungry travellers a truly local, historic experience. 

Tracing a history of Amsterdam’s shifting architectural focus with a variety of buildings that cover a date range from as far back as 1673 to as recently as 2009, these bijou buildings have been restored, rescued and renovated. Inside, local firm Space & Matter has smartly adapted the rooms with space-saving techniques such as walls of shelves and integrated en-suites, to create a modern, functional retreat providing (just enough) space for two adult travellers.

As of now 11 of the 28 bridge houses are available for reservations, with ten more expected to launch before the year’s out. And with a level of immersion you simply won’t get anywhere else in the city, with Sweets Hotel it's not just about bagging a canal-side location, but for a weekend at least, you can own a piece of the canal.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Sweets Hotel website

Brian Eno and longtime collaborator Peter Chilvers have paired up again on an immersive art installation – ‘Bloom: Open Space’ in Amsterdam.

Described as ‘mixed reality’, the installation takes its name, and direction, from an app developed by the duo ten years ago. ‘Bloom’ – part instrument, part composition, part artwork – allows anyone to create elaborate patterns and melodies by tapping the screen, creating an infinite selection of compositions and accompanying visualisations. ‘It’s an instrument for non-musicians’, says Chilvers.

Now, said ‘non-musicians’ have the opportunity to step inside a life-sized iteration of the application. Armed with the gesture controls from Microsoft HoloLens’ virtual-reality headsets, participants will create colourful ‘blooms’ across the walls of the space, which Chilvers affectionately calls ‘Screenhenge’.

Thanks to a newly created, high level networking technology and HoloLens’ spatial tracking features, the blooms created by each user are seen and heard by everyone in the installation. ‘Where the app was a solo experience, this is going to be a shared one,’ Chivers adds. ‘My analogue brain initially found it an odd thing to experience. When I was prototyping the work in New York, a colleague in London was hearing and seeing my blooms as they appeared. It was truly universal music making.’

Though the technology behind it is mindbending in its future-seeking nature, the end result is surprisingly relaxing. It’s a an odd thought: plugging in, to switch off. Eno calls his live installations – like his ‘Light Works’ exhibition in 2017 – ‘quiet clubs’. On entering, people ‘immediately start to slow down’. First they wander, then they lean against the wall, then they slump onto the floor and find somewhere to sit. Chilvers predicts the same effect will consume visitors to ‘Bloom: Open Space’, where its haute-technology construction will, rather than jarring the senses, ‘hang like a nice scent in the air’.

It’s an off-beat take on tech-art, which is so often about speeding, noisily, head first into the future. ‘The world is hyper-stimulated, we’re trying to undo some of that,’ says Chilvers. ‘The space will be as ignorable as it is interesting. It’s a form of “ambient experience” or perhaps “ambient technology”.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the ‘Bloom: Open Space’ website

ADDRESS

The Transformatorhuis (Trafo House)
Westergasfabriek Klönneplein 2
1014 DD Amsterdam

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