A fitting finale

Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

A rare standing ovation greeted the conclusion of Véronique Nichanian’s autumn-winter 2026/27 menswear show at Hermès last weekend – a fitting tribute to her 38 years leading the house’s men’s offer. The moment was capped by a showreel of her work over the years and a performance by one of her favourite artists, Paul Weller. It was a privilege to be present and witness the passing of the baton to Grace Wales Bonner, who shows next year. In the meantime, we bathed in a final walk defined, as ever, by the designer’s precision and elegance – a tutorial in contemporary tailoring that came with more than a flash of Véronique’s rock ’n’ roll spirit, with its inclusion of blush shearlings and high-shine crocodile suiting.

Modernism on the move

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

This week involved a bit of travel at the architecture desk. First, I visited Villa Beer, the newly reopened Viennese modernist classic by Joseph Frank and Oskar Wlach. What a treat it was to explore this rare 20th-century gem (as well as pay a visit to Hermann Czech’s beautiful miniature icon, the Kleines Café in central Vienna, where I bumped into none other than Mr Czech himself).

On Wednesday, meanwhile, I hopped on a preview tour of the upcoming Kanal-Centre Pompidou in Brussels. The Belgian capital has seen nothing like it – until November 2026, that is – when this significant (40,000 sq m) cultural destination will open, complete with an architecture centre, art galleries, public plazas, hospitality offerings and a playground by Assemble. Set in a former Citroën factory and showroom from the early 20th century, the building has been reimagined by a trio of collaborators: EM2N, noAarchitecten and Sergison Bates architects.

The project is nothing if not ambitious, and its authors are passionate about becoming an active and inclusive presence in the city’s urban realm. 'We are creating a museum where the centre of gravity won’t be the exhibitions,' said its managing director, Yves Goldstein, at a press conference held within the structure’s advanced building site. 'It will be the public space. We want to create a public space.'

A blues-beating ritual

Tianna Williams, staff writer

After what seems to be the longest January in history, I am grateful that we are inching closer to spring. Though the cold, wet months are not for the faint of heart, I have recently been trying to shift my perspective and embrace 'the cosy'. This includes journaling, sipping warm drinks and eating pastries in weather that can only be described as grim.

Central to this is a good candle (I have been thoroughly enjoying Ashley & Co’s Tui & Kahili scented candle, as well as their Coffee Date lip balm), your favourite mug (I love Nkuku), and blank pages on which to jot down your thoughts.

A world of craft

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

A trip to Paris Design Week a couple of weeks ago yielded many beautiful destinations, but one stop has lingered: Astier de Villatte. Located on the Rue Saint-Honoré, just behind the Jardin des Tuileries, the boutique is an enchanting space devoted to ceramics, perfume and books. Astier de Villatte feels suspended in time, its old-world interior a higgledy-piggledy assemblage of objects that wouldn’t feel out of place on Diagon Alley.

The brand’s world also encompasses a letterpress printing atelier in l’Haÿ-les-Roses – one of the last in the world still printing books using lead – a publishing house and a perfume workshop. Founders Benoît Astier de Villatte and Ivan Pericoli have built its reputation almost entirely through word of mouth – relying on people who, like me, are so charmed by this shrine to craft and tradition that they can’t help but pass the story on.

A Portobello pit stop

Jamilah Rose-Roberts, social media editor

Last week, while wandering through Portobello in search of secondhand books and old cameras, the need to eat crept in slowly. Portobello has a way of doing that through all the walking and browsing. What I was craving was breakfast that felt solid and well made – somewhere I could sit, eat properly and carry on with the day.

Almost by accident, I stumbled upon Cleanse Juice Bar and Kitchen, a health café tucked neatly on the vibrant street, offering everything I was craving. The space is light-filled and unfussy, and the food leans into organic, fresh, carefully prepared ingredients.

Breakfast here feels super restorative. Vibrant bowls layered with seasonal fruit, grains and seeds arrive looking alive, with flavours that are clean and well balanced. The juices taste purposeful rather than sweetened – each one clearly built with care for the body. There is a sense that ingredients matter, that provenance is part of the pleasure. I recommend their Moroccan tea, which is delicious.

In a neighbourhood overflowing with choice, Cleanse Juice Bar and Kitchen feels dependable and consistent. If you are nearby and want a good breakfast, coffee, or buildable bowl, stop in – it is well worth it.

Few may be familiar with Villa Beer, an example of the Austrian-Swedish modernist architect Josef Frank's work in Vienna – and even fewer will have visited the home, which was until recently left unoccupied and neglected, known mostly to architecture aficionados through history books and archive photography, its rundown exterior glimpsed at in sadness by the select few Viennese aware of its existence.

This is about to change. From March 2026, the newly restored villa in the tiny Viennese suburb of Hietzing is opening its doors to the public, following a careful restoration process which brings the rare example of Viennese modernism back into the spotlight. In short: if you savour a modernist architecture visit and look forward to seeing places like Mies van der Rohe's Villa Tugendhat in Brno and Eileen Gray's renovated E-1027 in Côte d'Azur, a tour of this 20th-century gem might be in order.

Step inside Villa Beer in Vienna

Villa Beer was built in 1929/30 to a design by the famous Austrian-born architect, artist and designer Josef Frank, who worked on the project with Oskar Wlach (at the time, the duo was in partnership in the architecture firm Haus & Garten). It was a private commission by the art-loving couple Julius and Margarete Beer and their Viennese Jewish family of four.

The house features many hallmarks typically associated with modernist thinking – clean, white, geometric volumes, large windows and a flexible floor plan with plenty of internal connections and fluid living space. Interestingly, it was built in brick instead of concrete, which was more commonly used in other modernist homes.

Importantly, the layout and forms of Villa Beer highlight Frank's spirit of eschewing modernism's dogma and allowing for flexible usage and daily life to take centre stage – a 'people-friendly' modernism, the architects involved in its restoration underline.

The property is generous, set within a large garden, and spanning a total of some 650 sq m. It comprised several living areas, overlooking ample outdoor space through oversized windows, a music room, a library, four main bedrooms for the family as well as staff quarters (it counts ten bedrooms in total), a modern kitchen, a garage and a number of large sun terraces, which nod to modernism's goal of promoting wellness.

Unfortunately, the Beers ran into financial hardship soon after the house was completed, never living in it for long, and renting it out often to cover their loan instalments. Furthermore, tragically, eventually, most of the family fled Austria with the rise of antisemitism later in the 1930s - as did Frank, who went on to live in Sweden and became a leading figure in the design world through his involvement with the interior design store Svenskt Tenn (Oskar Wlach also left for the US). The couple's daughter, Elisabeth Beer, was murdered in Maly Trostinez in 1941.

From that point, Villa Beer suffered neglect and changing hands, when it was acquired in 2020 by the current owner, Lothar Trierenberg, who founded (and currently is managing director at) the Villa Beer Foundation the following year. Through this vehicle, he embarked on a journey to protect this rare sample of Viennese architectural heritage - kick-starting a restoration project so that the public can rediscover the stories of its architects and owners, and their legacy.

Trierenberg writes in a book published on the occasion of the reopening of Villa Barr: 'When I first entered the house five years ago, having discovered it by a fortunate coincidence, I knew little about its past. Yet the significance of its architecture - and what it reflects - revealed itself immediately. Despite its abandoned condition, with much of its original charm faded, the character and power of the architecture were immediately palpable. One thing was clear: This story and its meaning must not remain private, but rather reach and move as many people as possible.'

Trierenberg worked in collaboration with architect Christian Prasser, the Federal Monuments Office and landscape architects Auböck + Kárász to breathe new life into the tired and much-altered landmark. The main home was brought back to its original state, and two lower levels were discreetly added, adapting the garage into what will be the main entrance and shop, and expanding to include offices, an archive and storage space, alongside a new mini auditorium.

The house had undergone several subdivisions over the years - even split into a two-property arrangement at one time. The restoration work returned the interior to the home's original, single-residence, open-plan layout. While the Beers' loose furniture was long lost, several preserved built-in elements were saved and refreshed - missing parts reconstructed where needed and often in a way that indicates what's old and what's new, to showcase both what the home would have looked like in its freshly-constructed fabric - and what the patina added through the passing of time.

A high standard of craftsmanship and historical accuracy were prioritised, and the team often engaged the project's original contractors for the reconstructions and replacements. As a result, floors, fireplaces, security grilles, the dumbwaiter and radiators were repaired, alongside several windows.

Even the music room was reinstated with a grand piano of the same era, replacing the long-lost Bösendorfer one owned by the Beers, who frequently hosted recitals and musical soirees.

Aiming for the house to become a beacon for culture and learning, Katharina Egghart, the managing director of the Villa Beer Foundation, flags that a diverse programme of activities is currently in the works. This will include anything from guided tours, discussions, music and literary events, to symposia and educational workshops.

The newly renovated top floor (furnished with textiles and furniture designed by Josef Frank for Svenskt Tenn) will be available to even host guests overnight, bookable through the Villa Beer's website, while creative residences and research programmes are also in the house's future. Meanwhile, the main dining room and kitchen can be used to host creative dinner parties.

Trierenberg said: ‘Villa Beer is also intended to become a place of learning and teaching for architecture as well as for the complex history of the interwar period.' Egghart added: 'Even though Villa Beer will be open to the public in future, its character as a residential building will be preserved as far as possible. Visitors should feel like welcome guests.'

You can book your visit to Villa Beer online from February 2026. The home is open for visits from 8 March 2026

Villa Beer, Wenzgasse 12; 1130 Vienna

Richard Hawkins operates as a fan, information he offers during a walkthrough of his latest show – ‘Potentialities’ at Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna – providing a window into a practice that has long engaged with the pleasure of looking and the dynamics of desire, often in tandem with pop culture, frequently concentrated on the heartthrob. Preoccupied with Teen Beat magazine in his adolescence, most recently the American artist has found subjects in so-called internet boyfriends: actors Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor appear in his 2025 works All Hands on D*ck and Dandy Floriculturists, respectively, while Adam Driver’s likeness features in Softly yet Weirdly Ways (2020). Justin Bieber, Timothée Chalamet and Jack O’Connell are other recent protagonists, and each is present in some form in Vienna.

‘There’s an impulse that's probably inexplicable at first, this area of fascination, then I start reading everything I can, wondering if those initial impulses are explained,’ says Hawkins, reflecting on the obsessive enquiries that shape his work. ‘Part of it's not knowing – once I’ve realised what the attraction is, if it can be figured out, it becomes less of a mystery. Keeping it open and spectral even, is part of the fun.’

Part of a larger group of works on canvas (‘They've never been all together,’ notes the artist, ‘so that was a kind of dream’), the paintings are brightly coloured, some with lines of poetry woven around the figures (usually depicted only from the shoulders up), many with marks that from afar (or as seen on a screen) read almost as felt tip pen, a playful aesthetic that speaks to the young Hawkins whose curiosity was confined to periodicals. Today, he is invariably online – a proponent of AI, whose research embraces OnlyFans as much as TikTok or YouTube.

Continuing through 6 April 2026, before moving to Hannover’s Kestner Gesellschaft, ‘Potentialities’ is Hawkins’ first institutional show in over a decade (and his most substantial to date), and is comprised of more than 100 pieces made between 2011 and 2025, grouped into nine distinct bodies of work. As well as paintings, several of the artist’s collages, for which he is perhaps best known and which tend to guide his wider engagement with areas of personal interest, also feature, while sculpture and video are represented too; the last bookends the show, with Cheerful and Scary film compilations, made between 2023 and 2025, hosted in rooms at either end of the space.

Stretching his interpretation of and ongoing study into fandom and obsession are three bodies of work, made between 2012 and 2025, that directly reference other creative figures. Physically positioned nearby one another but with visually contrasting attributes, works about the Japanese choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata, the French writer Antonin Artaud, and the American painter Forest Bess showcase this other thread, in which Hawkins reconsiders their narratives. ‘I'm trying to recreate things, or re-manifest the intent of the original,’ he explains, alluding to his reinterpretations, like the Ankoku collages from 2012, which riff on the choreographer’s own scrapbooks (the Bess works, moreover, which saw him cross-reference Bess’ own lexicon of symbols and colour codes with archives of surviving correspondence, are simply titled The Forrest Bess Variations). ‘I always consider these collaborations,’ he continues. ‘Maybe not Artaud, he was a bit more difficult.’

For all the garishness accounted for in the space, there is an overwhelming understanding of the darkness that underpins it (prior to Teen Beat, Hawkins would fill scrapbooks with images of Dracula and Frankenstein from monster magazines, he says, ‘early self-identifications or something, probably cries for help’). One avenue for this here is a series of wallpapers that reference his earlier haunted dollhouse sculpture. ‘Part of the idea of doing those haunted wallpapers was to insist on a dark presence – things can look cheerful on the surface, but I wanted a kind of depth, a darkness,’ he says. ‘I like the fact that fans aren't just fans, that it goes from adoration of the star to, “I need that star to look back at me”. I love the interchange of energies and the forms of relationship that are unbalanced between the two. I’m interested in the friction about interpersonal relationships.’

At an earlier press conference to introduce the show, Hawkins’ initial silence is broken by his asserting a hope that ‘Potentialities’ ‘doesn’t look too much like a group show’. ‘Maybe to the detriment of my career commercially,’ he clarifies to Wallpaper*, ‘I tend to jump off into a different direction with no consideration that it might have nothing to do with the rest of the work. It’s just how my brain works – I like to follow a fascination until it peters out. Doing is a way of thinking for me, and “Potentialities” [as a title] became a way of describing why it does look like a group show: they’re deep dives into different elements that may be reflective of facets of my personality. It’s a fascination, not a destination.’

Richard Hawkins is at Kunsthalle Wien until 6 April 2026, kunsthallewien.at

At Wallpaper*, movement is second nature, and savouring it is an art. Whether on assignment or off-duty, our editorial team is perpetually combing the globe, visiting places that are mind-expanding and spirit-lifting. This year, we paused to gather the places that truly stayed with us. Consider this selection of travel highlights, handpicked by our staff, as a starting point for the year ahead, compiled to spark curiosity and fuel your future travel plans.

As such, follow the sun to Mexico, Greece, Spain and Italy, or embrace the stark beauty of Finland and Iceland. Looking for adventure? Uzbekistan, Egypt and Kenya deliver. For a spiritual reset, Japan and South Korea offer ritual and depth. From European mainstays such as Vienna and Lisbon to American icons including Miami and Joshua Tree, let’s get globetrotting.

Amanohashidate, Japan

‘Last April, adding a few days to a long-haul work trip felt like the responsible thing to do, particularly when long-haul now extends to a 16-hour dog-leg to Osaka via Doha, which is how I came to visit one of Japan’s most revered destinations, Amanohashidate, site of a 3.6km sidebar known as ‘the staircase to heaven’ that cuts across Miayazu Bay in Kyoto prefecture. Amanohashidate itself is a quiet village with a national landmark at its heart and a well-run ryokan (Monjusou) to relax in, but the surrounding area is blessed with no less significant points of interest. Ine is a ‘floating village’ of 230 fishing cottages, protected as a heritage site, that offers good walking with splendid sea views and great coffee in one of its repurposed properties. Sometimes all you need is sea air, the odd stroll and the chance to indulge in something as silly as matanozoki, or peering between your legs atop Kasamatsu Park, at which point the now-inverted sandbar appears as a bridge across the sky.’

– Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

Athens, Greece

‘This past autumn, I celebrated a milestone birthday in Athens. The city feels as though it was shaped by accumulation rather than careful urban planning, its layers of typeface, texture and attitude stacked across eras, politics and glitzy inconsistencies. Visually, Athens is unrelenting: everything speaks loudly and constantly, and nothing is treated as too precious. Even the Acropolis feels unresolved, its original fragments scattered between the exquisitely built Acropolis Museum and far beyond Greece’s borders. I enjoyed long lunches with generous pours of Assyrtiko from aluminium jugs, and late nights drifting into hot spots like SMUT, where Athens’ spontaneity really kicks in. I chose Athens as my favourite of the year because it thrives in chaos, offering moments of beauty and excitement, and rewarding those who stay longer, pay attention and arrive hungry.’

– Gabriel Annouka, senior designer

Brittany, France

‘On something of a nostalgia trip to the south coast of Brittany, France – the destination of my first-ever trip abroad – now with my own teenagers in tow, I was relieved to find it a still-lovely, laidback and low-key escape with none of the hussle or hassle a beach break during the summer holidays can entail. The sea was utterly clear – too freezing for me, even in July, for more than one cold plunge, but perfect for kayaking or admiring endlessly from coastal walking paths. Bike hire in this cycling-obsessed nation was ubiquitous and the paths plentiful and well sign-posted; they even continued across estuaries, courtesy of short ferry hops on which bikes were not just bienvenue but (bafflingly for a Brit used to transport-network shortfalls) positively encouraged. And a day’s hire extended through to the evening, allowing ample time for a thoroughly civilised French lunch break en route with (savoury) galettes and (sweet) crêpes galore. Pancakes for all courses is a concept close to my heart.’

– Bridget Downing, executive editor

Cairo, Egypt

‘In November, I visited Cairo and spent a few warm, autumnal days watching the light shift over the Art D’Égypte installations, set in the sand beneath the pyramids of Giza. I was particularly drawn to SolidNature and Studio PROBA’s organically shaped, naturally coloured stone sculptures. Seeing them positioned against the pyramids was both wondrous and surreal: two forms of stone, prehistoric in material yet composed millennia apart, held in quiet dialogue with one another. The experience was utterly mesmerising, leaving me feeling incredibly small in the face of such magnificence and scale. Other highlights across the city included losing track of time in the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) and wandering through the calming gardens of Adam Henein’s gallery house.’

– Olly Mason, head of interiors

Évora, Portugal

‘When my sister moved to Lisbon in 2024, I dreamily imagined endless weekends of wandering, but life got in the way and it never quite happened; until this summer, when we managed to bring both our families together for ten scorching days in Alentejo, a more off-the-beaten-path part of Portugal, around 90 minutes east of Lisbon. We stayed in gloriously serene countryside, awash with olive groves and vineyards, occasionally popping into the medieval, walled UNESCO city of Évora for ice cream (Pezagno, delicious!). On one visit, we explored the Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones), a 16th-century chapel within the Church of St Francis, built by Franciscan monks as a memento mori to inspire reflection on the transience of life. Its walls and columns are clad with thousands of strikingly arranged human skulls and bones, previously buried in Évora’s medieval cemeteries. Above the door, an inscription reads: “We bones are here, waiting for yours.” At the entrance to this macabre chapel is a simple modern mural by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira – a counterpoint to its meditation on mortality.’

– Anne Soward, production editor

Helsinki, Finland

‘While others escaped to hotter climes, last February, I decided to embrace the cold and wintry feel of Europe and headed further north, to Helsinki. It was one of the best travel decisions I ever made. The day was short, but the city was fun, and the cultural offerings were plentiful and welcoming. Helsinki was frozen – not that you would be bothered with the right clothes and shoes, especially in the city centre, where pavements are heated so that the snow doesn’t build up. A short ferry ride, breaking through the icy waters, took me to the magical Suomenlinna sea fortress - thank you, Laura Iloniemi, for the tip! I also explored the numerous art offerings the city has to offer, from the Amos Rex museum to the Temppeliaukio church of the rock. I stayed at a timber-framed hotel by the water, Solo Sokos Pier 4, paid a visit to the renovated Finlandia Hall, and enjoyed sticky Korvapuusti (Finnish cinnamon rolls) and warm and creamy salmon soup. As travel reviews often conclude, “would definitely recommend.”’

– Ellie Stathaki, architecture and environment director

Hydra, Greece

‘This year I’ve been lucky to visit great European capitals including Vienna, Paris and Athens, but somehow it’s my day on the small Greek island of Hydra that was most memorable. Big cities are filled with great things to do and see, but Hydra offers an escape from it all, with no cars, no museums, and practically no phone reception. And yet it still has everything you might possibly need on a nice autumn day: a lunch at a taverna followed by a dip in the sea, and a walk along the coastal path, suspended between the blue sky and the Mediterranean.’

– Léa Teuscher, sub-editor

Joshua Tree, USA

‘In May, I made the three-hour journey from Los Angeles into the Mojave Desert to Joshua Tree. It had long been on my list to visit, likely prompted by endless interviews with musicians who enthused about the desert’s mystical energy. There are no shortage of incredible architectural stays to book in the area, but after much deliberation, I settled on this geodesic dome, far enough away from civilisation to get the full experience (the drive back from dinner in the pitch black was a little hairy) but just twenty minutes from Joshua Tree National Park and the must-sees of the Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms. I loved every single thing about this trip. From the weird roadside stops along the route – a desert crochet museum? A shrine to fifties hairdressing? A park filled with many, many statues of Christ? – to dinner at The Copper Room, drinks at Mas o Menos and obligatory live music at Pioneertown institution, Pappy & Harriet’s (the nearby Red Dog Saloon was a little quieter when Pappy’s is packed). I can’t wait to return.’

– Charlotte Gunn, director of digital content

Kyoto, Japan

‘I loved visiting Kyoto this year, and discovering its rich history, gorgeous food and beautiful surroundings. The highlight, though, was being able to get to know some of the locals, who were as generous with their time as they are cultured, intelligent, and extremely kind.’

– Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches and jewellery editor

Lake Como, Italy

‘Until last year, I had never been to Italy; now, I can say I’ve been three times. A run of good fortune took me to Milan for Salone de Mobile, and Venice for an immersive exhibition hosted by Golden Goose. In addition, to mark the beginning of the summer season, I was invited to Lake Como to stay at Il Sereno’s new listening suite, designed by Patricia Urquiola. The lake in the foothills of the Alps took my breath away. It was scenery I had not seen before, and I was captivated by its beauty. There was an effortless air of Old Hollywood glamour and relaxed sophistication coupled with the calming nature of the lake, which makes the location entirely unique. I cannot wait to go back.’

– Tianna Williams, staff writer

Menorca, Spain

‘The Menorca Experimental hotel had been on my bucket list for years, and I finally made it there for a short break in September. Designed by Dorothée Meilichzon, the interiors strike a balance between playful colour and subtle Art Deco references, incorporating local designers and materials. It felt considered yet relaxed. The weather was still warm enough for sea swims in some of the clearest water I’ve seen in Europe, and it was easy to find quieter spots that felt untouched. There’s a quiet, understated rhythm to the island that encourages you to slow down, making it a perfect mid-season reset.’

– Cindy Parthonnaud, acting photography editor

Mérida, Mexico

‘I spent 10 days in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula this summer and enjoyed soaking up Mérida’s rich history, intense summer heat and xtabentún, the local firewater. The city is about 30 miles inland, meaning those craving a swim-up bar or large beach resort won’t find it here. Instead, they’ll discover a mix of unhurried streets, bustling markets, pretty boutiques and innovative cuisine that spotlights traditional Yucatec cooking. My husband and I checked in at Hotel Cigno, an elegant boutique property located in Mérida’s historic heart, before hiring a local guide to take us to Uxmal, one of the Mayan world’s most important sites, and an azure blue cenote, a naturally occurring limestone sinkhole that peppers the area. There was still an opportunity to hit the beach, though: an hour-ride taxi will take you straight to the coast, where you can take in tranquil waters, white sand beaches, bright-pink salt lakes and – my favourite – droves of flamingos.’

– Anna Fixsen, U.S. editor

Miami, USA

‘I came to Miami for the Grand Prix – where Lego had built ten fully drivable cars – but stayed for the art deco architecture, palm-lined boulevards and viscerally cinematic sunsets. Miami’s expansion in the 1920s and 30s left it with a remarkable concentration of art deco buildings, which I completely fell in love with. A stroll down Ocean Drive – one of the finest showcases of the style – took me hours, slowed by pastel façades and kitsch vintage cars that demanded to be photographed. Little Havana, shaped by Cuban émigrés after the 1959 revolution, is home to cigar shops, graffiti tributes to Celia Cruz and Old’s Havana Cuban Bar & Cocina, which, with its yellow walls and mojito production line, is an institution. So, too, is Delilah – swathed in pink velvet and favoured by A-listers – though in an entirely different vein. Miami is a place I’d return to in a heartbeat.’

– Anna Solomon, digital writer

Nesjavellir, Iceland

‘My yearly travel mainly comprises the movement between Milan, Paris and New York for fashion week (and the freneticism and overstimulation these trips bring), so when I’m not working I seem to be attracted towards the vast and the desolate – Lanzarote has become my go-to escape, and this spring I loved losing myself in its strange, moonlike landscapes once again. Though it was another otherworldly (and volcanic) island that was my favourite trip of 2025: Iceland, which I visited with 66 North last month (the outerwear brand was founded on the island a century ago). I have been a couple of times before, though each time it is surprising in its vastness and scale: speeding across the snow-covered mountain ridge Thórsmörk – named after the Norse god Thor – on off-roading buggies was a truly cinematic experience (and the perfect release). We spent the second night at the Ion Adventure Hotel, a Brutalist box on stilts that looks out over the geothermal fields of Nesjavellir – in the silence, it was my best night’s sleep of the year.’

– Jack Moss, fashion and beauty features director

Seoul, South Korea

‘About two hours from Seoul, in the mountains of Wonju, Museum SAN (Space Art Nature) heralds an architectural feat by Tadao Ando: a 25-metre-wide subterranean dome beneath the museum’s flower garden, topped with an oculus rising more than seven metres high. Titled Ground, it was commissioned to accompany Antony Gormley’s exhibition Drawing on Space.’

– Jason Hughes, creative director

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

‘I spend much of my year bouncing around beautiful design-led hotels. But at least once a year, I make it my mission to step out of this bubble as a reminder of why I love to travel in the first place. And this year, my trip to Uzbekistan was a welcome reset. It’s not a destination known for luxury, but with tourism on the rise, you can feel the energy in Tashkent’s creative pockets and across Samarkand and Bukhara, which just hosted its inaugural biennale. From the staggering detail of the Islamic architecture to the small, genuinely local boutique hotels, there’s an incredible history and a rawness that was not just compelling, but a reminder that stepping away from the familiar is not just refreshing, but important to keep your curiosity alive.’

– Lauren Ho, travel director

Tokyo, Japan

‘Tokyo had been calling for some time, and this October I was finally able to answer. Japan’s capital is an urban sprawl of ritual, contrast, beauty and tradition, where even the smallest details feel deliberate and meaningful. It was my first visit, and I tried to stay fully present, absorbing as much of the city’s energy as possible; yet I still feel I barely scratched the surface. There are countless moments I hold onto, but one stands out: waking to a bright, clear morning and, from my hotel room on the 34th floor of Fairmont Tokyo, spotting Mount Fuji in the distance. It appeared as a majestic presence on the horizon, wishing the city a good day.’

– Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

Vienna, Austria

‘Vienna is a really great city for a short getaway, especially for those interested in design. The city is filled with hidden gems, such as the interiors and ambience of Café Prückel, located just across the street from the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK). Be sure to check out the numerous storefronts designed by Hans Hollein throughout the city, including the iconic façade of the Retti candle shop. One of the highlights for me was the Roman Catholic church depicted above, built in the late 1970s by architect Viktor Hufnagl.’

– Sebastian Jordahn, head of video

Watamu, Kenya

‘Earlier this year, I travelled to Kenya and spent time in Watamu, a coastal town known for stunning white-sand beaches, coral reefs, mangroves and a large marine life. I was there for a private yoga retreat with a yoga company called Pana and stayed in a one-of-a-kind treehouse, Watamu Tree House, near Watamu Beach. Our treehouse retreat, built by the family who runs it, rises through the landscape, from the ground to the top floor, with shimmering coloured glass mosaics. Each day in Watamu began with yoga in the studio at the top of the building, which offered quiet and perspective. Practising yoga above the ground, with the sea nearby and trees in the distance, felt grounding. Fresh vegetarian meals formed the core of each day, as each meal came with coconut water and juices made fresh each morning.’

– Jamilah Rose-Roberts, social media editor

‘Looking at Helmut Lang’s store architecture, it became obvious: his stores were all about directing the gaze. This is also what exhibitions need to do, but here it was essential. A photo wouldn’t suffice; you have to experience it,’ says Marlies Wirth, curator of ‘Helmut Lang: Séance de Travail 1986-2005’, the first retrospective of the Austrian designer’s oeuvre, now open at Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK).

It is a statement that encapsulates the extraordinary precision and intelligence behind Helmut Lang, who shaped the look of modern fashion in the 1990s with his cool, razor-sharp minimalism and continues to influence today (he is one of contemporary fashion’s most oft-referenced designers, alongside Martin Margiela). In MAK, every detail of the space has been choreographed to immerse visitors in his world: even the floor itself maps the layout and name tags of front-row guests – from Isabella Blow to Edward Enninful – of a runway show, or ‘Séance de Travail’, as Lang liked to call them.

‘Here is another European designer who literally brought the water to the well… of course I had an out-of-body experience at a Helmut Lang show,’ says the late Vogue editor Andre Leon Talley in an archival interview, discussing Lang’s A/W 2002 collection, that plays in one exhibition room. Another is filled with screens showing rare runway footage, backstage fittings, and further interviews, including with Lang himself. It is clear from the display that identity, for him, was a gradient: a man could wear a transparent shirt; a woman could wear sharply tailored, clean-cut, menswear-inspired jackets. There is an almost architectural discipline to the work: lean, aerodynamic lines run throughout, and silhouettes feel sliced in a single decisive gesture.

‘He didn’t formally study fashion,’ Wirth continues. ‘He grew up in the countryside; his grandfather was a shoemaker. He was exposed early on to workwear and utility wear, and said in interviews that he was fascinated by how things make sense when you understand their purpose. If a shoe looks a certain way because it needs to function, you understand the logic.’

This is clear from some of the garments in the archive, like the ‘Astro Biker Jacket’ from the A/W 1999 collection, which combines elements of classic motorcycle gear with references to astronautics and aeronautical engineering. Its metallic finish feels almost extraterrestrial, while concealed straps and a foldaway harness – meant to be worn on the back when the jacket isn’t being worn – give it Lang’s signature mix of futurism and functionality. Alongside his practical designs, he drew on images, such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s stark, coded photography – a perennial reference. Even his branding was memorably minimal: in two vitrines in the exhibition are objects from his famous late 1990s campaigns, which saw New York cabs emblazoned with ‘Helmut Lang’, no clothes on show. The brand spoke for itself.

But Lang’s minimalism was anything but muted. From lacquered eel skin to sheer, cut-out mesh tops, his mostly monochrome lines were punctuated with flashes of texture and fluorescent colour. Strips of leather became dresses on the body; light-wash jeans bore splashes of white paint; while stingray skirts paired with diaphanous tops, and latex-lace dresses, balanced fetish and fragility. Even bursts of cerulean or citron interrupted his mostly monochrome palette. Though some of these garments are displayed in the exhibition as physical objects, they are largely captured through runway film, ephemera and campaigns.

Instead, Lang’s conviction that clothing and space are inseparable provides the throughline of the exhibition. Sections of his Paris and New York flagships are recreated as sculptural environments, with sleek black cube dividers by Richard Gluckman sitting alongside Jenny Holzer LED texts (Lang undertook numerous collaborations with artists during his career in fashion; since exiting his label, he is now an artist himself). ‘How do I communicate to visitors how special these stores were? Not just because they sometimes casually housed incredible artworks, including Louise Bourgeois’ metal spider sculptures, but because their architecture made you look a certain way,’ Wirth says, speaking about the exhibition design.

‘It was clear there needed to be a section devoted to backstage,’ she continues. ‘And backstage not only in the literal sense, with footage from the Paris shows, but as a lens on work-in-progress and process.’ Life-size video installations allow visitors to experience the original ‘Séance de Travail’ presentations with their original soundtracks, while lookbooks, Polaroids and fittings also feature. ‘From 1993, his collaboration with Juergen Teller brought new intensity. Immediacy, fragility, and fragmentary perspectives replaced the externally constructed visual aesthetic typical of fashion photography and gave backstage photography increased public visibility.’

Lang and Teller established a new model of visual communication that not only reshaped the image culture of the 1990s but has become a defining component of contemporary fashion and advertising photography. Fashion commentator Simon Doonan famously observed that Lang ‘casts his shows like a Fassbinder movie’. Cinematic and precise, the runways often mixed Viennese friends, like photographer Elfie Semotan, with models who defined 1990s minimalism: Stella Tennant, Amber Valletta, and even Kate Moss, at the height of her fame, appeared for a look. Among the vitrines displaying Lang’s archive are staff notes, including one from December 2004 that reads: ‘Sent Bill Murray, who seems to be getting quite a bit of press lately, some clothes for the cover of Time magazine. Maybe he has decided to get a publicist.’

Collaborations punctuate the exhibition, underscoring Lang’s interdisciplinary practice. Holzer’s LED and scent installations, his close friendship and work with Bourgeois, and Mapplethorpe’s disciplined lens converge with Lang’s preoccupations of materiality, memory, and surface, creating a networked practice where fashion, art, and architecture intersect. The exhibition’s title, ‘Séance de Travail’, embodies Lang’s philosophy: creation is iterative, continuous, and interconnected.

The exhibition also makes one thing clear: today’s designers rarely enjoy such autonomy. Making certain choices, including to show in New York instead of Paris and structuring a collection around concept rather than commerce, are nearly impossible today. Yet Lang’s precision, tension and spatial intelligence continue to inspire young creators, offering fertile ground for thinking critically about clothes. Even details like his carefully curated soundtracks, including classical music fused with synth-pop and folk, speak to a holistic approach. The exhibition captures a designer who is quiet, precise, uncompromising – a blueprint for creative autonomy, and proof that one person, a small team, and a singular vision can still change the way the world sees fashion.

It feels particularly charged that the first retrospective of Lang’s oeuvre opens not in Paris, London, or New York, but in Vienna, the city where he was raised and where he first began reimagining what clothes could be. MAK holds the only official public archive of his work, a 10,000-piece compendium he donated in 2011. Bringing it into public view now feels like both a revelation and a return. In an era saturated with spectacle, ‘Séance de Travail’ reminds us why Helmut Lang’s radical understatement endures.

‘Helmut Lang: Séance de Travail 1986-2005’, is now open at Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), until 3 May 2025.

mak.at

For Brazilian artist and designer Danilo Reis, the path into design didn’t begin with academic choice. Instead, Reis started out as a carpenter’s assistant at the age of 12. ‘It was rather an intimate encounter with materials and manual creation. I painted with oils as a child, and at 12, I became a carpenter's assistant – my second craft. Years later, while studying architecture, I rediscovered my passion for woodworking. I am certain that this early contact with these ancient art forms in my youth was crucial to developing my signature style.’

Today, Reis works at the intersection of visual arts and design, crafting handmade wood pieces. ‘These works carry within them elements that evoke memory and ancestry, forming the core of my artistic identity,’ he says. This is best seen in his new series, titled ‘Ascensão’, which debuted at Vienna Design Week 2025 (26 September-5 October), where he is the first Black Brazilian designer to participate.

Get to know designer, artist and teacher Danilo Reis

Reis was born in Penha, located in the eastern part of São Paulo, and descended from migrant families from Minas Gerais and Bahia. Moving on from carpentry as a child, he went to architecture school, and later founded AYO Escola de Marcenaria (AYO School of Carpentry). At the forefront of his designs is a connection between ancestry and contemporary creation.

For his ‘Ascensão’ series, the word itself – meaning ‘rise’ – was a starting point. ‘It’s an invitation to materialise concepts,’ says the designer. ‘My inspiration comes from many sources: nature and the forces that act upon materials, architecture and its morphologies, and the ritualistic dimension that breathes life into the everyday.’

The collection comprises altars crafted from salvaged materials such as wood, stone and ceramics, and described by Reis as having ‘spiritual power’ and prompting ‘decolonial discourse’. ‘I believe spirituality was, and still is, a source of strength for the victories that the children of the African diaspora in the Americas achieve daily. I see this force manifest in all the acts we materialise, especially in the work of our people.’

The creative process encompasses three stages. Reis researches materials to salvage, deliberately using wood together with fragments of tools. ‘[These are] elements from the material base of society,’ he says, and he aims ‘to erect altars that celebrate this very heritage. I am reinscribing into the material world the presence and power of the energy that was offered to these elements.’

Next, he uses his carpentry skills to build the altars, which take the form of cabinets. But it's the final step that is perhaps the most intriguing. Reis conducts ritualistic performances to spiritually charge each piece. 'This final stage is the moment the piece ceases to be an object and becomes a vivified altar,’ he says. ‘It is an intimate moment where I consecrate the piece, suggesting its use. '

For the designer, it is important that his work taps into the ‘energy’ of the user. ‘I believe this is one of the great lessons that traditional peoples can offer us, in contrast to the massification of design, which suggests that thousands of people can use the same pieces in the same way. In this performance/ritual, I incorporate elements that complete the assemblage and carry a great symbolic and energetic charge.’ He likens this charge to that imbued in family photographs, or candles or water used in religious rituals.

Ultimately, Reis wants users of his work to feel at home with and be able to connect with his pieces, thanks to their materials, the signs of their making, and the performances conducted. ‘It is deeply satisfying to imagine people creating new ways to connect, both physically and spiritually, with design pieces.’

'Pit stop at Wiedner Hauptstraße 52!' Vienna Design Week proudly proclaims, announcing that its 2025 headquarters will occupy a former Mercedes-Benz showroom in the Austrian capital’s fourth district. The building’s past life as the home of a German automotive giant feels particularly fitting this year, not least because Germany’s financial powerhouse, Frankfurt, is Vienna Design Week’s 2025 ‘exchange city’ ahead of its tenure as World Design Capital in 2026. The car dealership-turned-design-hub becomes more than just a venue: it’s a metaphor for motion, momentum, and a festival constantly on the move.

Vienna Design Week’s ever-mobile headquarters have always acted as a vehicle for driving the festival forward. This year’s location feels particularly apt, and as its thoughtfully curated programme demonstrates, Vienna Design Week remains one of Europe’s most exhilarating design events as it enters its nineteenth edition.

The festival has long had a talent for re-inhabiting forgotten gems and ghosts of Vienna’s architectural past. Previous editions have unfolded within spaces such as the former Sophienspital, a decommissioned hospital in the seventh district. Last year, in a significant departure, it took over a new – and as yet incomplete – building for the first time in its history.

Rooted in the past yet reaching towards the future, Vienna Design Week remains in constant, deliberate motion. Its itinerant nature – shifting locations, reoccupying forgotten spaces, reinventing its identity with each edition – is perhaps the most honest expression of what design means in the twenty-first century.

Asked how this sense of movement resonates in a world where many feel displaced or unsettled, Roland adds: “The responsibility to make these transient fragments of home accessible and beneficial to people in equally transient situations is something for the design weeks of the future to realise.”

In an age defined by flux, perhaps a design festival should never stand still. Vienna Design Week’s restlessness is not simply logistical; it is philosophical. The target is always moving, and so, perhaps, that’s exactly what Vienna Design Week is: a pit stop. A place to pause, reflect, and reimagine – before continuing the journey.

This delicate balance between past and future is woven into the festival’s DNA and beautifully accentuated in its programming. Designers and design institutions alike are once again invited to explore Austria’s cultural legacy while simultaneously speculating on its future – a future that feels increasingly uncertain in the face of social, environmental and economic shifts.

'Each festival format tackles its own aspect of urbanity,' explains Vienna Design Week Director Gabriel Roland. 'Within Urban Food & Design, the Biofabrique Vienna utilises unused material streams to generate new resources. Stadtarbeit employs the tools of design to shape the way people live together in the city. Re:Form brings local manufacturers and studios together, aiming for sustainable products.'

HIGHLIGHTS FROM VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2025

Ikea x Laura Karasinski

A standout project this year pairs Viennese interior designer Laura Karasinski and her studio, Atelier Karasinski, with Swedish home-furnishing powerhouse Ikea to curate an installation exploring the versatility – and democratic potential – of domestic design.

As part of the project, Karasinski pays tribute to legendary Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, one of the first women to study architecture in Vienna and a pioneer of functional, inclusive design. 'I developed the kitchen as an architect, not as a housewife,' Schütte-Lihotzky once declared. Her words echo across decades into the present, where Karasinski’s installation becomes a shrine to inclusivity, showing how adaptability and accessibility remain at the heart of Ikea’s collections.

'Ageing in Design' by Sandra Nuut

Elsewhere, the festival’s fourth edition of its ongoing group exhibition format, Fokus, sees esteemed Estonian guest curator Sandra Nuut assemble an ensemble of objects responding to the theme of 'Ageing in Design'. The results are diverse yet united by a shared ethos: to view ageing not as a constraint, but as a creative force.

Passionwege

Few aspects of Vienna Design Week embody this idea of ageing-as-potential better than Passionwege, the festival’s oldest ongoing format and perennial highlight. Passionwege brings together international designers and Viennese craftspeople in collaborative experiments that bridge tradition and innovation.

This year, Swedish design duo Swedish Girls — Mira Bergh and Josefin Zachrisson — team up with Cucina Alchimia, a self-described 'restaurant, lab and playground' run by Sendi Gbinia, Jakob Bretterbauer and Michael Moser, to concoct gastronomic grandeur that blurs the line between design and dining.

Meanwhile, the other half of this year’s Passionwege sees Dutch-German designer Kai Linke collaborate with the Viennese woodcarving workshop Stadlhofer, renowned for preserving and passing on historic Alpine craft techniques. Their dialogue results in a series of humble wooden houses – part sculpture, part storage box – each one adorned with hand-carved façades. Every floor of each house is intricately decorated with a distinct pattern, showcasing the meticulous artistry embedded in Stadlhofer’s craft.

Here again, the past becomes fertile ground for future innovation. Frankfurt-based Linke ventures beyond his usual creative territory, adopting – and adapting – centuries-old techniques to imagine new design possibilities.

Gast - World Design Capital Frankfurt 

'Vienna Design Week has always been an international platform – locally grounded and site-specific, but decidedly global in outlook,' Roland reflects. 'Exchanges like the one with our GAST (German for ‘guest’) programme – which this year welcomes Frankfurt ahead of its tenure as World Design Capital 2026 – are testament to a network of likeminded organisers, practitioners, thinkers and creators all over Europe and the world.'

Germany’s second-largest metropolitan centre, Frankfurt, plays a starring role in this year’s Viennese design spectacle. Its presence as exchange city feels particularly poignant against today’s volatile and increasingly polarised socio-political backdrop. This collaboration signals more than just a cultural partnership: it reflects a shared European design conversation about heritage, innovation, and resilience in uncertain times. Looking ahead, the festival’s twentieth edition promises to be especially exciting, building on its rich history while continuing to explore new territories, ideas, and collaborations that define Vienna Design Week’s ever-evolving identity.

Vienna Design Week runs until 5 October 2025

viennadesignweek.at

As soon as I left MUDAM Contemporary Art Museum and stepped into the crisply cold Luxembourg air, I whipped my phone from my pocket, tapped into the social app Bluesky, and up-posted a photo of workers at Maryland’s National Cryptologic Museum covering up the Hall of Honor of Women in American Cryptology with brown packing paper. The chilling image captured Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s anti-diversity executive order in real time as it crash-landed across the cultural landscape. Suddenly and sadly, the exhibition I had just seen, ‘Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991’, felt even more timely.

Curated by Michelle Cotton, the show doesn’t pretend to portray the totality of tech in art but cleverly takes the specific 31-year period of the title to shed light upon 48 women artists who engaged critically with computation: the start date determined by the decade that computation became more affordable through academia and institutions, filtering through artistic experimentation, and the end-date marking when the first files were available on the newly founded World Wide Web.

Since 1991, computation has penetrated all elements of society deeply. Including art – so deeply, in fact, it can now be hard to differentiate between analogue and digital creation. As AI audio and imagery become standard in music and film production, 3D printing integrated into traditional craft practices, and tech integral to how all creatives research, communicate, and make, it can be useful to stop, pause, and remind that it’s still a relatively recent stage of deep art history – and that the narratives we learn of that short history might be more complicated and broader than the men in charge suggest.

Laying across the floor, without a pedestal, is Grau-grünes offenes Ellipsoid by Isa Genzken. The 1977 wooden sculpture stretches and distorts a hollow three-quarter sphere into an abstraction just as Hans Holbein’s skull cut across his painting The Ambassadors 444 years before. Where that painting spoke to mediation between religiosity and Scientific Revolution, Genzken’s sculpture addresses how a transition from analogue craftsmanship to digital future might be symbiotic, not destructive. Hung on a nearby wall is a 5.47m-long computer drawing the artist gave to her carpenter – the optical and digital flattening of the sphere questioning ideas of modernist perfection and order.

Genzken’s works are presented in Zeros and Ones, the first chapter of Cotton’s five-themed exhibited journey, but one which allows for curatorial overlap so periods, themes, and media speak across open galleries to one another, offering new conversation. This is, after all, a show determined to break down simple linear narratives and transcend a patriarchal artistic canon. While deeply rooted in research and academic rigour, the exhibition is led by the aesthetic and experience of the work in a richly diverse presentation covering shifts in creative potential that maps Moore’s Law as technology progressed from binary to text to image to video – though a richly presented parallel publication allows space for Cotton and others to explore more deeply in essay and interviews.

Line drawings by Vera Molnár, pioneer of generative computational art, carry the romance of early experiment, especially her 1974 drawing Hypertransformation, presented on ripped plotter paper headed with the output title: ‘JOB FROM MOLNAR’. Lily Greenham’s graphics made on a home computer in 1982, using keystroke characters, sit between typewriter-made concrete poetry and digit collage with similarly playful, curious intent.

Text is used more directly by Agnes Denes, an artist celebrated now for ecological and land art works and who explored technology after abandoning painting for finding its ‘vocabulary limiting’. In Hamlet Fragmented – Wittgenstein’s ‘Pain’ (1970-71), she entered Shakespeare’s play into a computer then reduced and reformed it into lines of abstracted prose, and replaced all instances of the word ‘Pain’ with ‘Pleasure’ in Wittgenstein’s text.

Weaving recurs throughout the curation. As with many exhibitions delving into institutional archives to extract women’s works rarely considered for prior exhibitions, sewing, weaving, stitching, and crafts are transformed from what a patriarchal society may have designated as feminine labour into processes of creative exploration. Here there are also conceptual connections to the origin story of computing: Joseph Jacquard’s 1801 mechanical loom stored pattern data on punch cards, a method Charles Babbage later proposed for use with his Analytical Engine in 1837 – a machine described and theoretically expanded on by Ada Lovelace in her 1840s text Note G, admonishing ideas of artificial intelligence.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Rosemarie Trockel created wool paintings on a computerised knotting machine, trained weaver Charlotte Johannesson produced digital designs on computer, and Beryl Korot’s multimedia Text and Commentary – comprising videos, woven textiles, and pictographic notations – pushed the multiplicity and potential of fusing historic craft with a digital future. It was the decade that followed these, however, when computing sunk deeply into capitalism, the home, and business, that technology became resolutely gendered, presented as a male pursuit.

This isn’t to say, however, that even if tech was marketed as a tool for men, not only male artists used it in their works, with a wall of 11 video works here from across the 1980s testament to the radical, transgressive, playful, and punchy ways women artists employed it. Together they shout the noise of the transitional 1980s: pop music videos, digitised 16mm film, video game spaces, protest politics, queering provocation, and glitching aesthetic.

Samia Halaby’s kinetic crunchy, pixelated paintings seem to fight against romantic technoutopianism. Gudrun Bielz and Ruth Schnell’s digital transmogrification of found footage creates a between-aesthetic of awkwardness. Barbara Hammer’s No No Nooky T.V. explores how women’s sexuality and feminism enter the digital age with a full-frontal force that cuts through intervening decades and speaks directly to the swipe-dating, tickbox-desire, neoliberal-marketplace of the self that 2020s sexual identity has become.

There are other works that also now sing with poetic resonance, knowing as we do how our technoscape evolved. The House of Dust, a 1967 Alison Knowles computer-generated poem spools out of a Dot Matrix printer into a concertina pile of paper, endless four-line poems shifting words and context, foreshadowing ChatGPT and AI literature. A decade later, Ruth Leavitt created a triptych portraying axonometric plotter-outputted 3D landscapes that directly speak to the polygon landscapes millions of avatars run around in video game territories daily. Miriam Schapiro's medium may be acrylic and spray paint on canvas, but her 1971 geometric scene created digitally as a preparatory study carries a sublime lighting and hue we are now overly-familiar with through alluring, misleading property development aesthetics.

This foreshadowing, or forewarning, of a world to come is most present in the final of Cotton’s themes, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess, a line adopted from Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto and here used to explore a genderfucked sci-fi future not written by men. Here, women are centred in the frame, but on their own terms. Anna Bella Geiger’s 1969 Self-Portrait is an early compression of the self into digital form, here rendered in ASCII symbols. Valie Export’s 1989 images put her own face and body into digitally manipulated photographs. The ideas here are perhaps presented best in a prescient non-digitally-made Lynn Hersman Leeson drawing – X-Ray Woman, showing an imaginary cut-through of a female body, womb and spine connected to clockwork electronic mechanical systems, computation compressed to the biological. In a hipbone, a cogwheel is made of Vitruvian man, an about-turn of gender structures that have become embedded into the digital since 1966, when the work was made.

Within the origin story of Meta, now one of the world’s largest and most consequential companies, is Mark Zuckerberg’s sophomore side-project Facemash, a website made to rate the looks of women on the Harvard campus. When not wielding chainsaws on stage at the Conservative PAC, giving fascist salutes, or undermining democracies, Elon Musk is pushing a pronatalist agenda that seems to solely see the female body through biopolitical usefulness. The Silicon Valley they and others preside over is one where men are the geniuses, thought-leaders, instigators, and leaders.

A sheet of brown packing paper urgently hung over the faces and legacies of female, Black, brown, and queer people who have created technological histories we all benefit from – but could more equitably benefit from – will not stop their stories. ‘Radical Software’ is an important part of the multitude of stories remaining central, but more than that, perhaps also provoking and presenting alternative models for our shared technological futures. We are all becoming cyborgs, but in whose image do we get to enact our virtuality, avatars, and digital selves. In these works, we are reminded of utopian, complicated futures, full of ambition and excitement, sure, but also care, community, agitation, politics, agency, and identity.

Stopping to pause and reflect on the impacts of technology on our lives is also useful right now. Techbros have increasing control over society: Elon Musk is parading around the White House; three decades of Jeff Bezos’ Amazon growth has seen an online bookshop become a gigastore of $600bn revenue; TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook algorithms affect elections, mental health, and taste. Seven of the ten richest people in the world made their estimated $1.4 trillion fortune from technology. They are all men.

‘Radical Software’ seeks to remind that there is more to both culture and technology than the few men who rise to the top, the 100-plus works packing the two main galleries of MUDAM Luxembourg don’t just celebrate the rich roots of computational art, they invite us to imagine what societies might have created (or still might) if the technologies we inject into our world were rooted more in empathy, care, curiosity, and exploration than the than hypercapitalism and authoritarianism of today.

‘Radical Software’ is showing at Kunsthalle Wien until 25 May 2025
It was initially presented at MUDAM Luxembourg, 20 September 2024 until 02 February 2025.

kunsthallewien.at

Bill Prince, Editor-in-chief

'This week I was hosted by Van Cleef & Arpels for the launch of their latest high jewellery collection inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island at Vizcaya, an extraordinary, mock-Italianate villa on the outskirts of Miami. The work of early 20th century industrialist James Deering, the setting - on Biscayne Bay - and the architecture, faithfully reproducing the style of the Veneto region of northern Italy principally in reinforced concrete, served as the perfect backdrop to a lively evening of entertainment topped off with a hornpipe performed by an athletic troupe of brigands. Not your average high jewellery launch, then.'

Jack Moss, Fashion Features Editor

'Yesterday evening I celebrated the launch of JW Anderson’s somewhat unexpected collaboration with Guinness at a special dinner hosted by creative director Jonathan Anderson at The Devonshire in Soho. The reason for the location? The buzzy Denman Street pub is purportedly the best pint of Guinness in central London (though I’m sure there are plenty of claims to this title – I’m not getting involved). Comprising sweaters and T-shirts adorned with Guinness logos and historic branding, it was first revealed as part of the designer’s S/S 2025 menswear show in Milan this past June. ‘When I was younger, I was obsessed by the Guinness campaign, [the one with] the horses running,’ he said at the time. ‘Not to be cliché and Irish, but there’s something nice about the iconography of Guinness... It’s been the same forever.’ The four pieces are available now on jwanderson.com and the brand’s London store in Soho.'

Hannah Silver, Arts & Culture Editor

'This week I marked the opening of María Berrío's exhibition at Victoria Miro gallery with a special dinner at Michelin-starred Italian restaurant Luca. The art is surreal, the food, sublime - all in all, the perfect London night out.'

Nick Vinson, Contributing Editor

'I spent four days in Vienna, with Wallpaper* Alumni Matt Hranek and Hotel Sacher. We started with a private tour with Carl Auböck IV of the 400 objects on display at Iconic Auböck; A Workshop Shapes Austria’s Concept of Design at MAK Vienna. A visit to Lobmeyr included looking through original sketches by Joseph Hoffmann and Oswald Haerdtl from 1919 and 1925 respectively. That was followed by a dinner in their historic store put on by Hotel Sacher, who got out their special hand painted porcelain from Herend for the occasion, commissioned by Anna Sacher and last produced in 1959. After dinner a quick visit to the 1909 American Bar by Adolf Loos. Saturday we snuffled around the flea market, retuned to the MAK to see Adam Štěch's Elements exhibition, and the Biedermeier and Baroque rooms. Dinner was even more splendid than the night before; Hranek likes to dress up so I donned my Berluti black tie, sipped Ruinart from Hoffmann’s Patrician coupes from Lobmeyr (no stemware works better), ate Beef Wellington off another splendid service from Herend in The Sacher's Grüne Bar and went dancing at Eden, a club built in 1911 by architect Rudolf Erdös. Vienna at its very best.'

Jason Hughes, Creative Director

'Zen surrounding and modern Japanese cuisine at Yakumo Saryo in Tokyo. Owned by renowned designer Shinichiro Ogata, the restaurant is a former Japanese mansion that has been transformed into a dining retreat with tranquil garden view. '

Ellie Stathaki, Architecture & Environment Director

'Having had a sneak preview tour of the new home of Thames Distillers in South London before it opened, for our article, a couple of months ago, I was delighted to join COO George, his wife and Wallpaper* contributor Fiona, and architect Zoe there for a drink earlier this week. It was lovely to see the space alive with action and sample the company's delicious product.'

Hugo Macdonald, Global Design Director

'I’ve been in Milan this week, meeting the great and good of the local design brands. Even after two decades, visiting the HQs of these mighty manufacturers still takes your breath away; their legacies are so much more than furniture. This trip I was charmed by a photo of Giuseppina and Angelo Molteni (the founder of Molteni) on their wedding day in Giussano, 1941. Such cockle-warming happiness and humanity.'

Charlotte Gunn, Director of Digital Content

'On Monday night MJ Lenderman brought his brand of alt-Americana to London's Garage. Lenderman is a wonderful wordsmith. His second, album, Manning Fireworks – one of my favourite of the year – is packed with comic tales of tragic characters from his home in the American south ("Go rent a Ferrari, and sing the blues / Believe that Clapton was the second coming") but there was a sombreness to his performance on Monday. Lenderman's hometown of Asheville was recently hit by a devastating hurricane and he took a break from the 'hits' (see Wristwatch, above) to play an eight-minute charity track, released to raise money for Asheville's residents, and remind us they've been 53 days without water. His delivery is deadpan, he's flanked with a band who look like they'd be better placed in a hair-metal tribute act but, in my opinion, he's singlehandedly making male guitar music interesting again.'

Kris Bergfeldt, social media manager

'I recently visited The Mercer Hotel in New York to see its newly renovated rooms and attend Japanese contemporary artist Yaman Nkymn’s exhibition '(Atomi:)WHITE2BLACK∈division'.

On arrival, I was greeted with big smiles in the hotel's elegant lobby and guest library. The new rooms were minimalist but cosy, with an air of sophistication about them. For the exhibition, they transformed one such space into a traditional Japanese living room, complete with three vintage TVs on the coffee table and stacks of classic Japanese anime VHS tapes. Despite being in the heart of SoHo with the terrace doors wide open, a sense of calm prevailed.

The exhibition itself was fascinating. I learned about Shinto philosophy—a belief that everything in the world possesses a spiritual essence—while exploring the artist’s comparison of the Japanese tea ceremony with anime, separated by 450 years. Rare and valuable items, some dating as far back as 16th-century Japan, were also on display. All in all, a memorable experience.'

Adam Štěch is a passionate advocate for the enduring legacy of modernism and – as an architectural historian, curator, writer and photographer, not least for Wallpaper* – seamlessly blends history with contemporary insights. In his current showcase, the exhibition ‘Elements’, at the MAK Centre for Art and Architecture, which opened during Vienna Design Week 2024 and runs until 2 March 2025, he curates his own rich visual survey of modernist architectural details, from 1900 to 1970.

By categorising these elements that he has photographed – from entryways to fireplaces – Štěch invites viewers to explore the diversity and innovation inherent in this transformative era of design, celebrating how different architects approached similar functions with unique solutions.

Reflecting on the evolution of his travelling exhibition, Štěch highlights its growth from its initial London showing, in 2017, to its latest iteration, which features 3,000 photographs. His dedication to documenting modernism transcends geographical boundaries, revealing how cultural nuances shape architectural expressions worldwide.

With a keen eye for detail and a deep appreciation for the stories embedded within buildings, Štěch continues to inspire renewed interest in the richness of modernist architecture, and its significance in today's design landscape.

Adam Štěch on his modernist odyssey

Wallpaper*: Tell us more about ‘Elements’ in Vienna – what was the inspiration behind curating a collection of modernist architectural details?

Adam Štěch: Last year, I decided that it was time to gather my archive of details and exhibit them all together to see the diversity captured in such a large quantity. The idea was to create a huge visual survey of modernist architectural elements from the period 1900 to 1970. So, for the exhibition, I divided the selection into different typological sections, like entryways, handrails, clocks, fireplaces... In documenting as many details by as many architects as possible, we can see some similarities, influences and completely different solutions to specific functions and forms.

W*: This isn’t the exhibition’s first appearance. How has it evolved over the years?

AŠ: We exhibited the first iteration back in 2017 in London, at the Brompton Design District, with curator Jane Withers. It was called ‘Objects of Refinement’ and included only around 400 photos. Then the exhibition travelled to Prague and Nancy. Last year, I decided to do it again but this time with 3,000 photos. We changed the name to ‘Elements’ and asked Dropcity – a new Milanese centre for architecture and design – if we could exhibit it in their venue at Salone del Mobile 2024. We did that and then the exhibition went to MAK, Vienna.

W*: What is it about modernism that captivates you?

AŠ: It is the movement of ideals… it is the movement for a better future for all. You can feel how architects and designers of that time held the belief that they were changing the world. I admire the avant-garde ideas of that era and how artistic the solutions to our problems were. It was a golden age of design. I also like the diversity of the movement. It is not just about white simple boxes, modernism is so much more.

W*: Do you approach each project with a specific narrative in mind, or do you let the architecture guide you organically?

AŠ: Both ways. I have some focused topics that have interested me for a long time, which I investigate gradually and travel in order to document some phenomenon or style as much as possible. Some examples of these topics include: sculptural houses in France; works of Ico Parisi in Como; European influences of surrealist architecture; French 1950s interiors; alpine modernism; summer houses in general; Argentinian 1930s modernism; Belgian art deco; Gesamtkunstwerks; Czech emotional functionalism; and French regionalist modernism. I have many areas of interest. I try to travel often to capture these, but many buildings I just explore by chance when I am walking around or researching areas where I've gone primarily for something else. I love these accidental discoveries.

W*: How does your work differ when you’re documenting architecture in, say, Europe, compared to other regions like Asia or South America? Are there cultural nuances you try to capture?

AŠ: I go to these places to observe those nuances and transformations. My ongoing search for all varieties of the modern movement has lead me to understand just how differently modernism is translated in different regions of the world. It is often based on many factors, including history, culture, climate, geography and so on. It is actually so exciting that you can still discover some particularities on a global scale, rediscovering modern movements in regional cities and so on. This richness of cultural identity of architecture fascinates me.

W*: How do architectural details shape our experience of a space?

AŠ: They are very important. They connect, divide and lead us. They are also psychological and can influence our state of mind. They are ornamentations, yes, but they are also functional devices. Without them, architecture would be soulless and functionless.

W*: Is there a particular building or detail that holds a significant personal memory for you?

AŠ: All of them. But I really like Casa Kohn in Quito, Ecuador, by architect Karl Kohn. He was working in Prague in the 1930s with his brother Otto but because they were Jewish they emigrated. Kohn then became the pioneer of modernism in Quito. His house, built in 1950, is still owned by his daughter Katya. We went there and stayed with her in the house for a few days. It is completely authentic and preserved. It is a testament to the tragic history of the Second World War. All the furniture was Karl’s own; he shipped it to Ecuador by boat when emigrating. Then, he designed the house around his furniture. So many stories surround the house, but it is like this in almost all the houses I visit.

W*: Have you collaborated with anyone during your projects? How does this influence the outcome of your work?

AŠ: Of course. Collaboration is the absolute key on so many levels. My closest collaborators are Jan Kloss and Matěj Činčera. In 2009, we founded OKOLO together as a platform for collaboration. They are graphic designers and I am a historian/curator. So, we connected our different skills and started to work on projects like curated exhibitions, books, magazines, installations and so on.

We started only with self-initiated projects but then companies and institutions came to us and asked us to curate something or collaborate and so on. It is great that we still do it, even if OKOLO is just an informal collective. Each of us also has different projects that we work on but when a particular project needs everything – from curating to design – we can do it all as a team, which is great.

W*: What’s next for you?

AŠ: A slightly different iteration of the ‘Elements’ exhibition will go to Das Gelbe Haus, in Switzerland. Some parts of my collection of details will be exhibited next to authentic elements and objects collected by architect Rudolfo Olgiatti, who founded the museum. Then, in April 2025, it will be in the French city of Royan – famous for its modernist architecture. And then hopefully we will find some other locations. I would love to exhibit it in the US and the UK, for example.

We are also doing a pocket modernist guide together with website SightUnseen. It will be a selection of around 30 cities around the globe, each with a dozen modernism-related tips, including hotels, restaurants, bars, always authentic places. All with my photos, and my texts.

W*: Do you have long-term goals or dream projects related to architectural photography or design?

AŠ: I want to create a database, an archive where professionals can see various typologies in many individual artistic and design solutions. I want to document as many buildings as possible in as many countries as possible to create a database that could serve as learning and research material for students and practitioners. The dream would be to include it in some institution or museum.

okolo.cz

‘Elements: Adam Štěch’s Perspective on Architectural Details’ is at MAK Vienna until 2 March 2025, mak.at

Vienna, renowned as the birthplace of numerous artistic and intellectual movements, hosts one of the most dynamic design festivals in the world, characterised by an ever-roving epicentre – Vienna Design Week’s headquarters. ‘We're a nomadic festival, so we travel through the city,’ explains the annual spectacle’s director, Gabriel Roland during this year's event (20 – 29 September 2024). Traditionally, Vienna Design Week has established its headquarters in various pre-existing buildings across the city. However, 2024 marks a pivotal moment in the festival's nearly two-decade history, as it temporarily inhabits a newly constructed project for the first time.

Vienna Design Week 2024 highlights

As well as hosting the festival’s dedicated team throughout the event, the headquarters also serves as the backdrop for several of Vienna Design Week’s engaging exhibitions, workshops, and installations, including ‘Design Revolution Now! and A Designer’s Toolbox for Revolution’. Developed by a temporary artist collective from the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the project challenges traditional design narratives while presenting a fresh definition of the discipline. Serving as both a mock-up and a critique, the exhibition – built entirely from re-used cardboard – emphasises the importance of discourse in design evolution and marks its public debut during this year’s festival.

It is worth noting that Vienna Design Week’s rich programme is not confined to its headquarters; it extends across the city, showcasing a diverse range of innovative designs. Among the highlights, the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts) stands out with two major exhibitions. The first, AUT NOW: 100 × Austrian Design for the 21st Century’ showcases Austrian design innovations from the year 2000 to 2025, in 25 categories. From furniture and lighting to conceptual solutions addressing mobility and health, the exhibition emphasises the ingenuity and versatility of Austrian design. Visitors are invited to explore how these objects intertwine poetry with purpose. The second exhibition, ‘Elements: Adam Štěch’s Perspective on Architectural Details’, features almost 3,000 modernist architectural details compiled by Prague-based historian Adam Štěch. Each piece, meticulously documented, highlights the rich architectural heritage of the 20th century. Through an engaging mobile display, Štěch’s work, in collaboration with Matěj Činčera and Jan Kloss, guides the viewer as they embark on a visual journey of design elements that have shaped modern interiors.

Yet another standout installation inhabiting the festival’s headquarters is ‘Exquisite Corpse’, a collaborative experiment in the tradition of French surrealism. Architects Eldine Heep and Barbara Gollackner, based in Vienna and Salzburg respectively, engage in a playful process of co-creation, with each designer building upon the other’s work without prior discussion. Like a modern game of artistic ‘tag’, objects are sent back and forth between the two, who each add their unique interpretations to the evolving design. Their pieces, which cannot be fully attributed to one designer alone, embody a unique synergy of styles, representing the confluence of proximity and distance.

Heep and Gollackner’s work is as much about creative conversation as it is about the final product – a living embodiment of the festival’s ethos of collaboration. This ongoing project, bridging geographic and creative gaps is reminiscent of other design partnerships in history, like the transcontinental collaboration between Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann and Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which similarly thrived despite the physical distance between them.

Vienna Design Week has long embraced its identity as a festival of movement – both in the literal sense, with the annual relocation of its headquarters, and in a metaphorical sense, as it pushes the boundaries of design itself. At the heart of its philosophy is the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk – the 'total work of art'. This idea, originating in 19th-century utopian visions of uniting all the arts, finds new expression in the festival. The lack of a permanent home could easily be seen as a disadvantage, but for Vienna Design Week, it’s a defining strength. The festival's transitory nature allows it to weave its way into different corners of the city, constantly reinventing itself with each passing year.

When asked if a fixed, permanent – read bricks and mortar – headquarters could ever be on the cards, Roland remains open but sceptical. 'At the moment, I can't imagine Vienna Design Week becoming sedentary.' This openness to change, alongside the festival’s refusal to be confined by physical limitations, ensures that the event will continue its evolution, offering a platform for experimental, forward-thinking design for years to come. As it looks to the future, its nomadic spirit remains at the core of its identity. For now, at least, Vienna Design Week remains a festival forever in flux.

Vienna Design Week 2024 ran 20 – 29 September, viennadesignweek.at

Landstrasse, Vienna’s alluringly out-of-the-way third district, has a regal past, most notably defined by the presence of the Belvedere, the sprawling, must-see Baroque complex of museums and gardens. Not far from it is the Imperial Riding School, another cultural marvel.

Imperial Riding School, Vienna

Born as a palace in 1727, the building served as a military equestrian school during Emperor Franz Joseph I’s reign. Later, it became one of the city’s largest movie theatres and also functioned as a garage for postal buses before its life as a hotel. Now, the 342-room property, part of Marriott International’s Autograph Collection, has been revitalised by London and Porto-based interior design studio Goddard Littlefair, in collaboration with local firms BWM Designers & Architects and Lindle+Bukor.

‘Much was discovered during the research phase of Imperial Riding School. Everyone thinks of horses, but that’s not necessarily the whole story,’ explains Goddard Littlefair’s director and co-founder Martin Goddard. ‘We found those things that were a bit hidden and tapped into them, particularly the cinematic element.’

In its previous iteration, the hotel had been attracting a steady stream of conferencegoers and tour groups, but the team were keen to push it in a bolder direction. The formerly compartmentalised ground level, for instance, needed a fresh approach. ‘We wanted to open the whole space up,’ says Goddard. ‘We moved the reception from the front to the back so that everything beyond it could be about the guestrooms.’

Before giving way to those private lairs, the lobby, with its wood flooring that evokes the site’s past as a stable, invites both contemplation and community. Ample seating areas, including one backdropped by an antique Franz Joseph sign salvaged from a staircase, allow guests to savour the monumental original arches and columns juxtaposed with bespoke lighting fixtures, crafted from metal, glass, and horsehair, and the ring-shaped sculpture of Goddard Littlefair’s own design that acts as ‘a visual clue pointing you toward reception’, as Goddard puts it.

Off the lobby are The Farrier bar and Elstar, the restaurant named after an apple variety widely grown in Europe, an homage to the hotel’s orchard roots that's reinforced with soft red and green hues.

While The Farrier is distinguished by swoops of metal, Elstar is graced with decorative Secessionist-style mirrored panels and flows into a gorgeous private garden. The latter's sense of serenity is matched only in the wellness area, complete with pool and tiled seating alcoves.

Guestrooms – reached by corridors covered in carpets that depict hoof marks based on the gallop size and gait of the horse owned by Empress Elisabeth ‘Sisi’ of Austria – abound with subtle equestrian references.

Elegant cocktail cabinets and sofas are balanced with lighting bolstered by bridle-like leather straps and bedside tables reminiscent of stirrups, swathed in a sprayed resin finish for a cracked-leather effect.

Even the bathrooms’ scalloped vanity detail recalls a saddle. ‘We wanted to make sure the rooms felt Viennese,’ says Goddard, ‘layered with shadowing and colour.’

Imperial Riding School is located at Ungargasse 60, 1030 Vienna, Austria, imperialridingschool.com

The Hoxton, Vienna opens its doors in the city’s culturally affluent third district: an area with a rich cultural landscape, including renowned museums and prestigious art and music schools. Situated near historic landmarks like the 18th-century Belvedere Palace and the 19th-century Vienna State Opera, the hotel splices the city’s rich heritage with the modern, thoughtful design that defines the British hospitality brand.

The Hoxton, Vienna

The new hotel, which serves as The Hoxton group’s 15th property globally (from London, including Southwark, to Los Angeles), is housed within the former headquarters of the Austrian Economic Chambers, constructed in the 1950s by Austrian architect Carl Appel. BWM Designers & Architects undertook its conversion, ensuring the façade retained its original characteristics while eschewing modern additions. As Markus Kaplan, partner at the studio, describes, this approach brings ‘the starkness and austerity of postwar architecture to contemporary building culture’.

Within the marble-clad landmark, 196 homely rooms and a dynamic range of amenities designed by AIME Studios emerge; first in line is a two-storey lobby boasting original terrazzo flooring, columns wrapped in fluted anodised aluminium and a dramatic back-lit staircase. From the Paris- and New York-inspired Bouvier bistro restaurant to the basement speakeasy named Salon Paradise, and Cayo Coco, the Cuban-inspired rooftop bar and pool, it becomes clear that the Ennismore-founded interior design firm has succeeded in honouring the Austrian midcentury aesthetic while incorporating playful and elegant touches, such as the locally sourced, vintage furniture, rich textures and geometric shapes seen throughout.

A first for The Hoxton brand is the hotel’s Auditorium, featuring tiered cinema-style seating, striped walls and striking electric-blue drapes, all within a spacious 300 sq m area. The versatile venue can host myriad events, from comedy shows to acoustic performances. Meanwhile, a meeting and event room dubbed the Apartment blends classic coffeehouse culture with a traditional Austrian restaurant atmosphere. Unique artwork curated by Sterling Art adorns The Hoxton, Vienna, including an abstract botanical piece by Austrian artist Rini Spiel in the lobby and an oil painting of the Konzerthaus façade by local artist Rudolf Fitz.

The Hoxton, Vienna is located at Rudolf-Sallinger-Platz 1, thehoxton.com

For over a century, the Auböck family has stood at the forefront of Austrian design, spearheading the Wiener Werkstätte movement and creating some highly collectable modernist designs, including brass candlesticks, elegant glass and leather carafes and hand-shaped paperweights. Now under the helm of the fourth generation of the family, the company is the focus of a new exhibition at MAK, Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts, titled ‘Iconic Auböck: A Workshop Shapes Austria’s Concept of Design’ (until 13 October 2024).

‘Iconic Auböck: A Workshop Shapes Austria’s Concept of Design’

The handmade classics of the Carl Auböck workshop have influenced Austrian design since 1906, starting from the collectible animal statues of Karl Heinrich Auböck I, inspired by the turn-of-the-century craze from Vienna Bronzes. He was followed by Carl Auböck II, one of the first students to attend the Bauhaus; Carl Auböck III, an architect inspired by his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Carl Auböck IV, who today works from the exact same Viennese workshop, in the Bernardgasse of Vienna’s 7th District, as his forebears.

Featuring around 400 exhibits, including many unique items and prototypes, the MAK’s comprehensive show ‘explores the materiality of Auböck’s hugely diverse creations in brass, wood, horn, leather, and natural fibres’. It focuses mostly ‘on the workshop’s stylistically formative interwar and postwar years and on the experimental 1980s’, highlighting beautiful everyday items such as corkscrews, chess sets and clocks, most of which were designed by Carl Auböck II.

Auböck II, a Bauhaus student mentored by painter and art theoretician Johannes Itten, was interested in the form-giving qualities of line and movement, and the concept of the objet trouvé. His avant-garde creations often combine abstract and organic elements with a touch of surrealism, with his set of paperweights (a miniature hand, foot, and egg – an homage to Constantin Brâncuși) taking pride of place on the writing desk of none other than the Bauhaus’ Walter Gropius.

Curated by Bärbel Vischer and including a selection of exceptional standing and table lamps from the 1950s, the MAK exhibition explores this surrealist slant, highlighting Auböck II’s taste for ‘irreconcilable combinations, abstract compositions, and visual jokes’ that ‘often hide – in a tongue-in-cheek way – their real purpose from both observer and user’.

The MAK also presents for the first time works by Carl Auböck II’s wife, the sculptor and textile artist Mara Uckunowa, whom he met at the Bauhaus. Influenced by the works of Itten and Josef Albers, her abstract fabric designs from the 1940s boast remarkable textures and colours.

‘Iconic Auböck: A Workshop Shapes Austria’s Concept of Design’ is on view until 13 October 2024

MAK
Stubenring 5
1010 Vienna
Austria

mak.at

Marina Abramović returns to the consideration of the body in the exhibition 'Energy Clothes', at Vienna’s Galerie Krinzinger until 29 July 2023. Abramović is showcasing work created especially for the show, including a large-format new photo series and installation, alongside drawings and videos. 

Marina Abramović, ‘Energy Clothes’

Abramović also returns to early photographic works in the exhibition, with works from performances Rhythm 2 (1974/1994), Rhythm 4 (1974/1994), Rhythm 10 (1973/2014) and Freeing the Voice (1975/2014) emphasising her fascination with performance as a visual art form. They mark the pinnacle of Abramović’s pursuit of physically and emotionally challenging performances, which have seen her pushing the boundaries of her own identity, creating works that rethink the accepted conventions of time. Either in a partnership with German artist Ulay, from 1975 – 1988, or solo from 1989, she explored the capacity for pain and endurance.

The pieces also build on Abramović’s desire to share her work with her audience, exploring energy forces as a two-way relationship between performer and viewer in works that consider Asian philosophies and ritualistic ceremonies in Latin America and Australia. 

'Energy Clothes' expands on her sculptures, videos, sounds and objects exhibited all around the world, including in group exhibitions at the Biennale di Venezia (1976 and 1997) and at the Documenta VI, VII and XI in Kassel.

Marina Abramović ‘Energy Clothes’ runs until 29 July 2023 at the Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna

galerie-krinzinger.at

The places Gregor Sailer visits in his long-term projects are beyond perception, geographically and figuratively. They are sites where raw materials are extracted, political buffer zones, humanless landscapes, ‘backdrop’ cities, and areas of camouflage and deception.

His photographic journeys are preceded by meticulous research and often years of preparation to reveal the dynamics that lead to the existence of these places. Sailer presents them in a reduced, calm and deserted visual language.

Titled 'Unseen Places', the thematic exhibition in the Kunst Haus Wien orchestrates parts of six of Sailer’s photographic series across two floors. The works span from his beginnings of shooting underground spaces in German cities (Subraum) to his latest project, The Polar Silk Road, which culminated in an impressively illustrated book, including a collector’s edition, published by Kehrer Verlag. 

Curated by Verena Kaspar-Eisert, the exhibition opens with images from The Potemkin Villages that capture the deceptive phenomena of settlements constructed of nothing more than cheerfully painted façades and the Russian myth that underpins them. With images of backdrop cities used for military close combat training and vehicle testing in the USA and Europe, as well as the detailed replicas of European cities in China, Sailer's pictures give the viewer access to the world of fakes, questioning absurd excesses of contemporary society. 

‘Three images printed oversized on tarpaulins demonstrate the tension between truth and deception even more drastically,’ explains Kaspar-Eisert. While Sailer’s work often takes him to remote, inhospitable parts of the world, he doesn’t shy away from unravelling the oppressive truths at his doorstep. This is potent in The Box, which illuminates a dark chapter in Schwaz, Tyrol, where the photographer was born in 1980. During the Second World War, forced labourers worked in historic underground mine tunnels, which became a factory for building aircraft. To light these tunnels, and their complex history, Sailer brought his equipment 2,000m underground.

While the series Closed Cities highlights artificially created urban zones hermetically sealed off from the outside world, The Polar Silk Road deals with the economic exploitation of the Arctic regions. Enduring snow storms and minus 50°C temperatures for over four years, Sailer documented research stations and oil platforms, but also the silent arms race in the neighbouring countries, making the global power struggle for the Arctic economic area tangible. 

Sailer describes his curiosity in capturing the structural transformation of the landscape and the complex political, military and economic implications of architecture: ‘I'm much more interested in transporting substantial content via architectural objects than I am in showing people,’ 

Sailer’s father worked as an architect, offering him formative access and sensitisation to architecture, space, spatial effects, and the context of light and landscape from an early age, and now form the characteristics of his work: diffuse light illuminating spaces and the voids of shadows. This is how the architecture comes into its own, he says. Giving the objects space and rarely getting caught in the detail; quiet, poetic transcendence reigns in Sailer’s often surreal images. Using only one shot per subject, he’s a perfectionist in taking images with his analogue, large-format camera. ‘It's very slow and static, and I have to accept the basic prerequisites for the setting, the geography and the elements,’ Sailer says of his process.

Alluding to the austere eeriness in his images, curator Kaspar-Eisert comments: ‘Gregor Sailer is not an artist who makes it easy for his audience. He challenges because his work is so concentrated and precise... Sailer doesn't allow you to look the other way.’

INFORMATION

'Unseen Places' is on view at the Kunst Haus Wien, Vienna, until 19 February 2023, kunsthauswien.com; gregorsailer.com

It makes sense that ‘SHOW OFF: Austrian Fashion Design’ is huge in scale. It is, after all, the first ever major exhibition of Austrian fashion. Hence, enormous, visually ambitious, displays show the work of 66 designers, 34 photographers, and 250 fashion objects. It’s not just a numbers game, though. Curators Ulrike Tschabitzer-Handler and Andreas Bergbaur balance size and audio and visual spectacle with historical sensitivity as they carefully guide the viewer through five themed spaces about the social and cultural factors shaping Austrian fashion since the 1970s, from fashion education, distribution, and publications to the garments themselves.

Upon entering, the viewer is confronted by talking heads, a video installation showing projections of interviews with agents, stylists, journalists, and managers about Vienna’s fashion scene. This, logically, leads to a look at the fashion department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (‘die Angewandte’). Since the 1980s, guest professors like Karl Lagerfeld, Jil Sander, Raf Simon, and Vivien Westwood have informed the work of young Austrian designers. This information is blasted at you from either side as you walk a runway framed by two huge LCD screens by projection artists Lumine showing output from the school over the years.

SHOW OFF’s centrepiece is a huge scaffolding-like sculpture designed by architect Gregor Eichinger containing 40 years of clothing, shoes, bags, and jewellery from designers including Helmut Lang, Rudi Gernreich, Andreas Kronthaler, and newcomers like Kenneth Ize. It allows a 360-degree-view, accessible by stairs from several levels. Most importantly, since the Austrian state does not have a permanent fashion collection, the viewer has the unique chance to get close to garments without them being stuck behind glass like traditional museum pieces.

The exhibition ends with two neon-lit glass cases containing examples of fashion publications about or from Austria, including issues of Wallpaper* and i-D from the late 1990s and locally important magazines like Wiener, Take, and INDIE. This not only places Austrian fashion design in the wider context of style shifts in graphic design, photography, and typography, but shows that, though the Alpine republic isn’t the first place you think of when it comes to contemporary fashion, it is more than a museum for classic styles from the past.

INFORMATION

‘SHOW OFF: Austrian Fashion Design’, MAK (Museum of Applied Arts), until 12 July. mak.at

ADDRESS

Museum of Applied Arts
Stubenring 5, 1010 Wien
Austria

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

In Josefstadt, the trendy eighth district of Vienna, in a beautiful 19th century Grunderzeit building, Stephen Vary’s architecture and design studio Labvert was tasked with renovating a 130 sq m apartment for a nomadic client who travels between Paris and Vienna.

‘To compose an entire apartment from scratch like this is rare,’ Vary says of the project, that was assigned to him by a former university peer. ‘I greatly enjoyed developing an overall vision together with the client that leaves nothing to chance and is adapted to the needs of the apartment owner down to the smallest detail’.

Vary and his team fully embraced the flowing, open spaces graced by natural light. Aesthetically, the Vienna-based team took on a uniform consistency in colour, shape and material, while a subtle nods to midcentury modern comes by way of Charles Eames Vitra chairs, Harry Bertoia Knoll kitchen stools and a 1960s black leather sofa group by Johannes Spalt for Wittman. Elsewhere, among Joe Colombo lighting produced by Oluce, contemporary elements peep through in the Kvadrat blinds and Tai Ping carpets.

Atop the light-coloured oak floors and between the grey terrazzo countertops, sits a warm teakwood table with slanted legs in nickel plated steel, elegantly designed by Vary himself. Parked around this are upholstered Arne Jacobsen chairs produced by Danish manufacturer Fritz Hansen.

This complimentary mix-and-match formation results in a peaceful ambience. Layers of dulcet tones and detailed high-tech textile weaves, maple and leather lined cupboard interiors, steel and glass room dividers and mustard yellow and brown striped rugs present a dynamic environment.

Vary and his team at Labvert enhance the character of the space via the artworks, which include abstract forms from German artist Peter Kogler and photography by Margherita Spiluttini and Michael Dürr.

INFORMATION

labvert.com

Europe Hotels Private Collection (EHPC)is on a roll. With the paint barely dry on its newly launched Sir Victor hotel in Barcelona, the Amsterdam-based group continues its ambitious expansion, this time pitching up in Vienna.

The fifth property to join the group's playful Max Brown brand, the Vienna iteration, like its other outposts in Amsterdam, Berlin and Düsseldorf, flies the local flag, first with its location in the city's creative 7th district and second with an all Viennese art collection to rival any of the city's notable assortment of museums.

Curated by London-based art consultant Idit Orni, there are over 480 original or specially commissioned pieces, including a giant hand-painted wall mural, emblazoned onto the neighbouring building, by artists Käthe Schönle and Sebastian Schager; thought-provoking, provocative works from Renate Bertlmann and Julia Faber, that dot the public spaces; and photography by Raffaela Bielesch in the 143 guestrooms.

Here, the brand's signature recyclable Auping beds take centre-stage, alongside chairs by Amsterdam-based furniture company Pols Potten, textured wallpaper from BN Wallcoverings, bespoke lighting and quirky Max Brown details, such as the basketball hoop and Crosley record players, in a colourful palette of bold yellows, greens and dusty pinks.

Downstairs, Seven North, designed by Jakob Turgeman, is a convivial spot from Israeli celebrity chef, and man behind the Miznon series of restaurants, Eyal Shani. Here, Shani's clean, fresh, signature South Mediterranean dishes - from the cabbage cake topped with crème fraîche to the whole roasted baby cauliflower and the wood-roasted fish - are sent out from a lively, open kitchen and plonked at the centre of each table for all to tuck in. A great way to begin an evening before settling down to watch a film in the hotel's very own cinema.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Schottenfeldgasse 74

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

In Vienna, something momentous is brewing that could provide a roadmap for navigating our digital future. Through nine distinctive exhibitions, the 2019 Vienna Biennale for Change aims to help us sift through the dizzying cocktail of rhetoric, buzzwords and media fearmongering to make sense of it all.

As Biennales go, this one occupies a unique corner of the landscape. Since its inception in 2017, it’s found a niche in merging disciplines and inspiring change. According to Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, General Director of MAK (Museum of Applied Arts) and initiator of the Biennale, dividing to conquer is never the answer. ‘Keeping creative disciplines separate is never a good thing’ he says. ‘No discipline is inferior. What you need is a dialogue.’

This year’s title, ‘Brave New Virtues: Shaping Our Digital World’ stems from Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World. But where do dystopias come into this, what exactly are ‘Brave New Virtues’ and how do we practice them?

The post-war era promised consumption with no limits, breeding a culture of instant gratification and abundant choice. But with this wealth of potential came the exploitation of resources, little regard for conscious consumption, a scenario where supply exceeded demand, and eventually, a global climate crisis.

Vienna-based design studio Eoos (Martin Bergmann, Gernot Bohmann and Harold Gruendl) have condensed the subject of climate change into five palatable projects. ‘The transition from the current world-destroying lifestyle to a future-proof, sustainable one is not only a question of design, but also of a participative society,’ says Gruendl, who advocates a ‘circular economy’, whereby waste is minimised. Their projects are speculative, but some look only a few tweaks away from the production line.

As a culture, we’re all too familiar with technology designed to fail. Greenfreeze 2 (2019), a sleek modular fridge with detachable components, seeks to defy the idea that if one part breaks, the entire appliance must be binned.

Aware that transport is one of the key culprits of climate change, Eoos developed their lightweight electric vehicle SOV (Social Vehicle, 2018), which consumes one tenth of the resources guzzled up by the average medium-sized car. Its most impressive trick is positioning itself – like a heliostat – towards direct sunlight to recharge.

Meanwhile, Kitchen-Cow (2019) turns food waste into heat. On its worktop, a funnel gobbles food waste into a glass ‘belly’, which ferments to produce biogas and comes full circle as fuel for the hob.

Eoos’ Lunar Lander (2018) looks like a prop from a Stanley Kubrick film and makes use of an unorthodox fuel source: the microbes found in human urine. In practice, if every visitor to this year’s Donauinselfest music festival in Vienna used the Lunar Lander loo, it could generate enough electricity for a 30-million hour phone call.

Thanks to some unfavourable press, Artificial Intelligence has become synonymous with anxieties over job loss, androids overthrowing humanity, and downright confusion. How can we bin its Frankenstein’s monster reputation, and make meaningful use of its skillset? The exhibition ‘Uncanny Values: Artificial Intelligence and You’, curated by Paul Feigelfeld and Marlies Wirth, explains the past, present and future of how AI can infiltrate society, touching on themes from fake news to product design.

In 1970, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term ‘uncanny valley’ to describe robots made with such an uncannily human interface that it induced both fascination and terror. Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s Probably Chelsea (2017) does just that. Thirty 3D-printed versions of American whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s face hover over the exhibition on strings. But these aren’t Manning’s face as we know it. Using a single hair sample, these algorithmically generated masks eerily explain how the same strand of DNA could have culminated in different genders, ethnic backgrounds and bone structures.

Product designers Philipp Schmitt and Steffen Weiss have shaken up the traditional roles of human and machine. Their project, Four Classics (2019) sees eccentric twists on classical seating made with an AI designer and a human maker.

Over the last two decades, digitalisation has reconfigured the requirements for living spaces, and expectations for sustainability in construction have escalated. ‘Space and Experience: Architecture for Better Living’, designed by Tzou Lubroth Architects and curated by Nicole Stoecklmayr, presents ten international architecture and design firms tackling these demands.

In this exhibition, algae seems to be the dernier cri. A large 3D-printed prototype, H.O.R.T.U.S. XL Astaxanthin.g (2019) by London-based architecture office EcoLogicStudio illustrates the capabilities of blue algae as a self-sufficient architectural material. As the algae grow, photosynthesis generates oxygen and biomass for building materials.

Their Photo.Synth.Etica (2018) is an ‘urban curtain’ of microalgae that can be draped over building façades to sap up air pollution. Other projects include Rotterdam-based MVRDV’s Seoul Skygarden (2017); a 1970s overpass turned horticultural haven, and Civic Architects’ LocHal (2019) – part co-working space, part exhibition hall.

The Vienna Biennale puts raw data in visual context, clarifies the blurs in public discussion and finds altogether more exciting ways of approaching these issues. So how should we view our digital future? The Biennale suggests that while utopian ideals can offer hope, dystopian fear can also help generate momentum for change. Perhaps we need both to forge a path for much needed revolution.

INFORMATION

Vienna Biennale for Change is on view until 6 October. For more information, visit the website

As anyone who likes art and design in equal measure knows, it’s very difficult to fuse the two successfully in your home. Too often you end up with a white-walled gallery-like space filled with great art, but a predictable check-list of design classics and none of the emotional paraphernalia that real life brings – or you get the furniture and fittings right, yet the art looks wrong. However, Francesca von Habsburg, a member of the aristocratic von Habsburg dynasty that ruled Austria and much of Europe for 600-odd years, has spent her life surrounded by both and takes living with them to another level.

The daughter of German steel magnate Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, founder of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, von Habsburg grew up with Canalettos and Cézannes, Rembrandts and Renoirs on her walls, so for her, taking up where her father left off and moving into the realm of 21st-century art was a natural progression.

In 2002, she rented a four-storey palace in Vienna’s UNESCO-protected first district, set up home there and opened TBA21, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary foundation, in the same building. Until her arrival in the former imperial capital, the von Habsburg clan had been barred from the city since it lost its grip in 1918, and the fact that such a vivacious, wild party girl had married into the family became regular tabloid fodder.

But that’s all behind her these days, and now she attracts attention mainly with her avant-garde activities. Last summer, she organised ‘Küba’, an exhibition by Turkish artist Kutlug Ataman, in which he interviewed residents of the Istanbul slum Küba. It took place on a barge that sailed down the Danube from Romania to Vienna. And, at the last two Venice Biennales, on Habsburg has colonised the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni with a beautiful slatted wood art pavilion designed by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and British architect David Adjaye. This is the first of a series of art pavilions that she would like to open. They are still at the concert stage, but could include an eco pavilion in Rio de Janeiro, to be designed by Foreign Office Architects; another on the Croatian island of Lopud by Adjaye; a third on London’s South Bank, by Adjaye and artist Matthew Mitchie; and one in Iceland by Eliasson.

‘Art and architecture work really well together. It’s a natural partnership, and learning to live with art is important,’ says von Habsburg, who had a head start in that department. Her father owned the world’s second largest private art collection after Queen Elizabeth II, and Francesca spent much of her time in her father’s house, Villa Favorita in Lugano. She remembers, as a teenager, visiting the Hermitage in St Petersburg with him. ‘It was 1982, the height of the Cold War, and we were in the basement with torches, looking at Matisses and Van Goghs, all these fabulous paintings that no one had seen for years. My father persuaded the Russians to exhibit them in Europe in exchange for lending them his collection in what was the country’s first European show since the Revolution. Thyssen is a name engraved in marble in Russia.’

Gestures like this typified the baron’s attitude towards his art, and von Habsburg shares her father’s desire for her collection to be seen, rather than hidden away in storage. ‘It’s not just about having a collection, but about what you do with it,’ she says. To this end, she regularly switches pieces between her apartment and gallery where she puts on about five shows a year. Her staff of eight and a full-time curator manage her collection of around 250 pieces, and these days she prefers bankrolling four or five projects a year with her favourite artists – Eliasson, Ritchie and Canadian Janet Cardiff among them – to buying from auctions.

Many of these one-off collaborations have been absorbed into, or made specifically for, her apartment. Ritchie’s drawings and motifs appear randomly all over the walls, while the kitchen is a psychedelic swirl of red and orange floor tiles and 40 ceiling lights by Cuban-American artist Jorge Pardo. Two of von Habsburg’s three children sleep in bright, futuristic ‘pods’ designed by Swiss artists Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann; the luxurious bathroom is an organic mass of sparkly Bisazza tiles; and in the hallway next to her bedroom is a film projector rattling out a 1974 performance piece by Dennis Hopper, in which he surrounds himself with dynamite and lights it. In the attic, a giant, gloopy sculpture made of nylon stockings by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto hangs eerily among giant wooden beams. It’s fantastically atmospheric. ‘In summer, we go and hang out up there with a bottle of wine,’ says von Habsburg.

Yet despite the kooky stuff and the Freuds, Pollocks and Mapplethorpes in the walls, the apartment manages to feel like an unfussy, lived-in place, buzzing with a sinuous stream of guests, staff and children. ‘I hate the elitist element of art. People want to experience it rather than be taught about it, that’s what I’m aiming for.’

As originally featured in the April 2007 issue of Wallpaper* (W*98)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the T-B A21 website 

ADDRESS

Köstlergasse 1
1060 Wien
Austria

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Where in Vienna can you see Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana and Maria Lassnig under one roof? At the palatial headquarters of Dorotheum, where a series of sales will take place from 27-29 November with a focus on contemporary and modern art. More than 500 works are on offer, spanning 20th-century international and Austrian art as well as watches and jewellery. Dorotheum’s auction evenings cap off a buzzing period for the city with Vienna Art Week recently coming to a close – but the action isn’t over just yet.

The centuries-old European auction house first initiated Vienna Art Week in 2005 with the aim of boosting the Austrian capital’s flourishing art scene onto an international stage. It has since acquired a life of its own, with numerous independent art spaces, galleries, museums and academies taking part in the annual event. And while other cities are gripped with end-of-year lethargy, Vienna is seemingly energised by the frost (the glühwein and Sachertorte certainly help). Many of the exhibitions in the festival’s programme extend into the new year, continuing to attract crowd numbers akin to summer showcases.

At the Kunsthistorisches Museum, filmmaker Wes Anderson and his partner, the writer and illustrator Juman Malouf, have combed through the institution’s vast historical collection to assemble more than 400 objects into various themed rooms – think ‘miniatures’ or ‘green’. From emu eggs to Spanish powdered wig boxes, the pair’s cabinet of curiosities has all the aesthetic trappings of an Anderson film, with each object’s placement treated with studied care in bespoke display cases upholstered in Kvadrat textiles. (This is the third and latest instalment in an ongoing series of collaborations between the Viennese museum and renowned artists, which has previously seen curatorial efforts by Ed Ruscha and Edmund de Waal.)

Over at MAK (Museum of Applied Arts), graphic designers Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh have transformed the historical venue into a multimedia investigation into beauty. The interactive exhibition invites visitors to ponder on this very broad notion through graphic design, product design, architecture, and city planning. Elsewhere, Olafur Eliasson’s permanent installation Yellow Fog transforms the façade of the Verbund-Gebäudes each night after dusk, while Mumok in the MuseumsQuartier is staging an intriguing photography exhibition tracing major political events in Vienna over the past century.

INFORMATION

Dorotheum Auction Week runs from 27-30 November at Palais Dorotheum; ‘Spitzmaus in a Coffin and Other Treasures’ is on view until 28 April 2019 at Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien; ‘Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty’ is on view until 31 March 2019 at MAK; and ‘Photo / Politics / Austria’ is on view until 3 February 2019 at Mumok. For more information, visit the Vienna Art Week website and Dorotheum website

Vienna Contemporary may be opening today for what is only its fourth edition but the budding European art fair has cemented its staying power, having committed to its location at the city’s Marx Halle for the next ten years. With hundreds of fairs vying for collectors’ attention, Vienna Contemporary stands out for its dedication to Eastern European galleries, boasting the highest concentration of any art fair on the circuit.

New to the fair this year is the Explorations section, presenting curated booth exhibits by featured galleries and overseen by curatorial advisor Nadim Sammam. Artists here seem to be preoccupied with the turmoil of global events from this year, from Philip Aguirre’s meditations on the refugee crisis to Maen Florin’s macabre sculptures. Vienna’s Croy Nielsen provides the antidote at its Explorations stand, with an open bar transported from its gallery space.

The relatively young state of Armenia comes to the fore in a special presentation curated by Sona Stepanyan – the first overview ever of contemporary art from the former Soviet Union republic at an international art fair. Nodding to the city’s rich musical heritage, the Living Image programme hits a high note, bringing music performances by artists to life in augmented reality.

Meandering further into the lofty surrounds of Marx Halle, there’s a number of gems to be found at Vienna Contemporary. Brigitte Kowanz’s Instagram-friendly light-based work Connect the Dots (2018) at Galerie Krinzinger seemed to regularly stop fairgoers in their well-heeled tracks, and Julio Rondo’s new series of acrylic paintings on glass at Galerie Andreas Binder’s was a revelation.

One to watch at the fair is young Lisbon-born artist Valter Ventura at Portugal’s Kubik Gallery, whose complex photographs and multimedia installations have won him this year’s Q21 artist residency scholarship. In other Prize news, Nana Mandle (represented by Vienna’s Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer) scooped the Bildrecht Solo Award, while the Artproof grant for photography went to Armenian artist Piruza Khalapyan.

Elsewhere in the city, the Curated By gallery festival (14 September – 13 October) marks its ten year anniversary: Francesco Gennari’s mesmerising wooden ‘mausoleums for worms’ – an ongoing series sitting at the interstice of sculpture and architecture – are worth a look at Galerie Hubert Winter. Several institutions located in MuseumsQuartier Wien will also be open for extended hours on Thursday 27 September as part of MQ Night.

INFORMATION

Vienna Contemporary 2018 runs from 27-30 September. For more information, visit the Vienna Contemporary website

ADDRESS

Marx Halle
Karl-Farkas-Grasse 19
A-1030 Vienna

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

It was a very different world 12 years ago when Vienna Design Week was first conceived. The Western world was prospering and Europe carried with it the confidence of an affluent democratic continent in the new millennium, whilst today in many ways societies seem to be going backwards and our moral and physical existence are constantly being challenged, not to mention the digitalisation of the future of human race. Design has helped to shape contemporary Vienna, but what is the role of Austrian creativity in reflecting and reacting to the world’s challenges and how it is to make impact? Curated by Lilli Hollein, the 12th edition of the Vienna Design Week views its task as seeing design not in isolation, but as a crucial component in how the future unfolds and how we see our part in it. Here are the unmissable highlights...

Guest country: Poland

In a dual celebration of its northeastern neighbour’s vibrant arts scene and, equally, the 100th anniversary of its restoration of state independence, Vienna Design Week is hosting Poland as its guest country this year. ‘The ABCs of Polish Design’ showcases the country’s modern-to-contemporary design icons, presenting its finest works across many disciplines, from furniture, glassware and porcelain to humble daily necessities. At the Polish Institute in Vienna, ‘Symbol to Logo’ is a visual history of the rarely publicised story of logo design in communist Poland and what it says about the changes that have taken place over the last seven decades. Photography copyright Maciej Blaźniak, Vienna Design Week

Festival Headquarters, Apollogasse 19; Am Gestade 7

Protest

The theme of this year’s design week, ‘Protest’, can be seen in many parts of the programme. Protests, in their many guises, have long been an inspiration for designers as a means to highlight their vision to make a statement, the campaigning poster being a perennial favourite way to communicate a point a view. For design week, a selection of critical thinkers has created posters on subjects close to their heart, and the results will be displays at a show titled ‘STUDIO PROTEST’, curated by Erwin K. Bauer at the main exhibition of design week. At ‘Flags Of Utopia’, graphic designer Theresa Hattinger looks into the symbolism of flags and how it could be and should be interpreted to reflect and influence the status quo of our countries, social systems and models of coexistence.

Festival Headquarters, Apollogasse 19

Passionswege

Always a highlight, and core element of the annual event, Passionswege connects local and international creatives with the finest specialist craftsmanship in the country, reviewing and rejuvenating the century-old production processes with innovative design visions. Two from this year’s line-up – the German and Austrian visual art duo Markus Hanakam and Roswitha Schuller – transform a table setting from the glass manufactory J. & L. Lobmeyr into a party-like board game for visitors (render pictured). Meanwhile Polish duo Gosia and Tomek Rygalik of Studio Rygalik work with Vienna’s long-established silversmith Jarosinski & Vaugoin, channeling the maker’s design DNA to create designs for a new generation. Photography copyright Hanakam & Schuller, Vienna Design Week

Kärntner Strasse 26; Zieglergasse 24.

Virtual and augmented reality

An inevitable topic in design nowadays, the impact of virtual and augmented reality experience in design, will be viewed from different angles. In Emanuel Gollob’s multidisciplinary creation ‘Doing Nothing With AI – A Neuro Reactive Robotics Installation,’ the designer suggests idleness against the overloading of our senses by technology. He has formulated a physical space for inactivity and introspection with a variety of areas, from a default mode network in the human brain, to machine learning to robotic choreographies. Elsewhere in ‘Vr Reshape – Rearranging And Reshaping Existing Aesthetic Forms In A Virtual Room’ by local studio Lost In The Garden, visitors are invited to reimagine and remix the space according to their personal whims by transforming virtually the existing design elements into new shapes.

Festival Headquarters, Apollogasse 19; Am Gestade 7

Urban food and design

As climate change continues to bring about more extreme weather, and an increasing global population puts a strain on the earth’s ability to feed itself, food is increasingly becoming not just a matter of pleasurable sustenance, but a hot political topic. In addition to the prospect of turning carnivores into insectivores, scientists are now also turning their attention to lichens as a possible future staple of our diet. In ‘Unseen Edible – Lichens As A Source Of Nutrition’, Julia Schwarz envisages a cuisine based on this fungal-like ingredient, and visitors will be invited to taste tests, in the form of lichen bread and lichen brandy while watching a movie. Eating is an interplay of all the senses, says Teresa Berger at ‘Beyond Taste – A Multi-sensorial Series Of Tableware’ and her sensory exhibition of gastrophysics invites us to abandon the digital world for the duration to look at new ways of creating food for the table (pictured).

Festival Headquarters, Apollogasse 19;

INFORMATION

Vienna Design Week is on view 28 September to 7 October. For more information, visit the website

In 1974, Hungarian artist and writer Tamás Szentjóby was arrested for participating in the Samizdat movement in Hungary. The following year he had to flee the then-communist Eastern European country for Geneva. ‘In 1972-73 there was a shock and the left, the communists, the hardliners came to power, so many of the artists, for example Tamás Szentjóby, had to leave,’ said Hungarian critic and art historian József Mélyi.

Although many of Hungary’s artists of the seventies lacked international recognition, the country’s neo-avant-garde movement is now experiencing a resurgence thanks to an exhibition curated by Mélyi, ‘Two-Way Movement’, on view in the Focus section at Austrian art fair Viennacontemporary. ‘There was a two-way movement from Hungary to the world, and from the western world to Hungary,’ explained Mélyi. Three galleries from Budapest — Kisterem, Vintage Gallery, and Budapest-based Acb Gallery — provided the works by more than two dozen Hungarian artists including Gábor Attalai, Ferenc Ficzek and Vera Molnar.

[embed]https://vimeo.com/233344181[/embed]

During the 1950s communist law deemed abstraction illegal in Hungary. ‘You can’t exhibit, you can’t sell,’ said Mélyi. The laws loosened up in the sixties, but because of the restrictions, artists gravitated towards performance, creating happenings, like Kálmán Szijártó did in the 1977 piece immortalised in a series of nine black-and-white photographs called Transformations, where he strips off a mask.

Artists like B István Gellér, who made the acrylic Particular Fruits III, and Ferenc Lantos — who created a graphic red, blue and beige 1970 polycolour diptych— embraced the dismantling of the laws in the mid-60s that prohibited abstraction. ‘They had their own world, so they built an avant-garde world to live,’ said Mélyi. ‘They had this inner circle of avant-garde artists. They had no public possibilities to show their work.’

The fair also showed a strong selection of works from the region and abroad, Dubai’s Carbon 12 exhibited works by Austrian artists Monika Grabuschnigg, Philip Mueller and Bernhard Buhmann. Vienna-based Galerie Nathalie Halgand displayed pieces by Austrian photographer Julian Mullan and Greek artist Yorgos Stamkopoulos, while Vienna’s Galerie Krinzinger hung a self=portrait by Marina Abramovic.

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Viennacontemporary website

For her first solo exhibition in Austria, Nathalie Du Pasquier presents a comprehensive journey through her work. On show at the Kunsthalle Wien, and curated by Luca Lo Pinto, the exhibition brings together paintings, patterns, sculptures, designs and other creations covering 35 years of her career, to construct a new understanding of her artistic development.

Born in Bordeaux, Milan-based Du Pasquier began her career in product design, becoming the youngest founding member of influential Milanese design and architecture collective Memphis at 23. In 1987, she switched her main focus to painting, and now sees herself primarily as a visual artist.

‘Big Objects Not Always Silent’ strives to see how Du Pasquier looks at still life in a fresh way, understanding how she considers and plays with the complex arrangement of forms and their spaces. Choreographed intuitively through their expressive and emotive relations, the exhibition is not structured chronologically, with Lo Pinto and Du Pasquier choosing to place pieces from completely different periods of her career side-by-side. Organised as different rooms or ‘houses’ in ‘a city’, each room presents a creative phase in order to demonstrate a natural evolution, as well as highlight recurring elements and processes in her work. ‘In the end,’ the artist says, ‘I wanted to create a “setup” with the elements collected during this long period, which could be considered as one single piece.'

Some of these include a ‘House of Drawings’, featuring works from her period as a designer in the 1980s, as well as her return to drawing in 2009; and ‘House 2’, which showcases paintings created from meticulously arranged sets of objects. The ‘streets’ of the installation city are adorned with linking pieces and carpets that Du Pasquier has designed over the years. As part of the exhibition, Kunsthalle Wien will also present a series of serigraphy workshops and tours open to the public.

INFORMATION
‘Big Objects Not Always Silent’ is on view until 13 November. For more information, visit the Kunsthalle Wien website

Photography courtesy Kunsthalle Wien

ADDRESS

Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

TELEPHONE

43.152 1890

After two decades at Vienna’s famous Naschmarkt, Johannes Lingenhel traded in his much-loved deli stall to set up a brick and mortar establishment that not only houses the city’s first cheese production facility, but is, as he says, an urban food workshop that comprises a food shop, bar, restaurant, private event space and cookery school.

Occupying a former manor house dating from 1795, the food emporium has been converted by local firm Destilat to feature rare Austrian terazzo tiles, golden viper granite and a custom-designed butcher block that draws visitors into the street-front shop, where specialty chutneys and fine wines can be bought to go with the mouthwatering selection of cheeses and salamis sliced to order behind the counter.

Beyond the bar, where custom angular shelving and sleek taps decant house-made vermouth and tonic, historically protected archways mark the entrance to two Michelin star chef Daniel Hoffmeister’s intimate restaurant quarters from where he produces fresh, seasonal dishes such as creamy burrata with elderflower, cucumber, apple and berry or succulent pork belly served with octopus and aubergine.

Intentionally located in the former stables where the labour originally took place, diners are invited past the restaurant, through the open kitchen to the private dining room, where guests can watch the production of camembert, yoghurts and mozzarella, among other cheeses, made from the milk of Lingenhel’s local water buffaloes. Here, elegant Meshmatics chandeliers by Dutch designer Rick Tegelaar accompany original wrought iron hay bales, while restored water basins - no longer used to nourish the stables' tenants - have been repurposed as ice baths for libations.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Landstraßer Hauptstraße 74

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Hotelier Florian Weitzer's latest project – a 1950s concrete block formally home to Austria’s domestic intelligence agency - may be one of the less grandiose buildings of Vienna’s Innere Stadt, but its black granite and sandstone facade, sympathetically preserved by local architecture firm Atelier Heiss, is now under historic preservation, and is no less impressive than the grandes dames it neighbours.

Inside, a large hand-crafted chandelier modelled on traditional designs by Viennese glassworker Lobmeyr hangs above Thonet chairs on the ground floor, and 188 rooms and suites feature gunmetal grey walls, Anglepoise lamps, white marble table tops, dark parquetry and round, leather rimmed Jacques Adnet-style mirrors by Gubi.

There are three dining options; the stately 200 cover dining room serves a modern take on Austrian classics such as veal kidneys and Tafelspitz, the more intimate Gulasch & Champagne is suited to early evening aperitifs, while the Grand Étage rooftop bar sits alongside the pool and has knockout views across to Prater Park in the east. For us the option to sip Mumm champagne from the comfort of a cast-iron art nouveau tub in-suite was too much to resist.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Schubertring 10-12

VIEW GOOGLE MAP

Viennese gourmets prize Steirereck as much for chef Heinz Reitbauer’s daring mod-Austrian menu (think mountain trout seasoned with lime salt, and char cooked in hot beeswax) as for the fin de siècle charm of its Art Nouveau dining room overlooking the river Wien. The restaurant’s enduring popularity, however, meant that despite a renovation a few years ago, diners were beginning to feel somewhat cramped. Steirereck’s recent extension by local architects PPAG looks sets to win over more converts. Occupying what used to be a terrace leading to the children’s playground, the new wing comprises a series of silvery glass pavilions. Depending on the weather, entire panels rise vertically like escape pods on a mother ship to open up the dining room to the park outside. Inside, compact concertina screens – made of industrial timber and curling like lemon peel – section off clusters of tables. All the better, we think, to provide the illusion of serene isolation while tucking into the chef’s tart pudding of quince served with burnt milk and lavender.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Am Heumarkt 2A
Vienna
Austria

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Sans Souci might translate to 'without a care', but the interiors of this new Viennese property have been put together very precisely indeed. A former inn dating from 1872, the grand building in the central bohemian quarter of Spittelberg, has now received a vigorous makeover by Philippe Starck and John Hitchcox's London-based Yoo Studio. On the outside, deep purple window coverings against the building's classic white façade have an instant and dramatic impact, while the interior is a sumptuous mix of modernist and antique furniture. The 63-room lodging's standout feature is a vast collection of modern art, including original paintings by Roy Lichtenstein and Steve Kaufman, while an eclectic assortment of chandeliers grace almost all the public spaces, including the indoor swimming pool in which guests can unwind after a day of culture at the nearby MuseumsQuartier.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Museumstraße 1
1070 Wien
Österreich

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

A polished port-holed façade gives little indication of the eco-ideology behind the Hotel Topazz, Vienna's latest upscale hotel arrival. The architecture and interior design is by Vienna-based Michael Manzenreiter and pays homage to Viennese art luminaries Moser and Dagobert Peche, and owner Martin Lenikus. The exterior meanwhile is by Viennese firm BWM Architekten & Partner, known for their extension to the Folklore museum in Graz and their restoration of the Otto Wagner Pavilion. Topazz seamlessly blends into the historic first District of the city and takes to the podium as Vienna's greenest hotel, with everything from construction materials to the bed linen locally sourced. Lying at the heart of the hotel is an intimate Salon where Lenikus' own eco-friendly wine is served and guests are encouraged to converse, read and share ideas in the space, updating the salon etiquette at the turn of the 20th century.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Lichtensteg 3
1010 Vienna
Austria

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Housed in a former office block built by architect Georg Lippert in 1962, the Hotel Daniel is the third addition to the eye-catching Weitzer boutique hotels. Designed by Vienna-based architecture firm Atelier Heiss, the listed building is Austria's first to feature a curtain wall façade. Guests enter into an inviting open space known as Bakery, which incorporates a lobby, bakery, café and lounge area in one. The space is filled with vintage furniture from the 1960s, mixed with wood palettes used as coffee tables. The 115 minimalist rooms, decorated in shades of grey and white, with concrete ceilings, offer fabulous views across Vienna. The hotel doesn't come with lots of bells and whistles. Don't expect a mini bar or even good cupboard space. But you will like the rooms, as long you travel light, and there are little extras like hammocks, ideal for relaxing in before a night out, and Vespa scooters and bikes to hire, for exploring the city.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Landstraßer Gürtel 5-7

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Design groupies seek to make sense of all those design festivals (and justify all that travel) by finding originality in each city and its creative community. They might see Vienna Design Week as being large enough to lure a heavyweight roster yet still small enough to offer an authentic, local feel.

The eighth edition of the design fair - together with Viennafair and the Parallel art fair - ended last Sunday, after offering Austrians and their neighbours, who made up most of the visitors, a creatively rich week in the capital. True to its reputation, it mixed up the calendar with showings by newcomers and veterans, national to international, and with passions ranging from heritage to contemporary, from everyday design to collectable art.

Curated by Lilli Hollein, director of Vienna Design Week, the Passionswege (Paths of Passion) exhibition at the heart of the festival showcased contemporary innovations with traditional craftsmanship. This year's event saw Wiener Silber Manufactur (Vienna Silver Factory) and BIG-GAME, a Swiss design trio, create the Hammer lamp, the historic silversmith's first lighting design. Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto of Dutch collective BCXSY created J(oy) & L(ove) wine tumblers for J&L Lobmeyr, a glassworks with a workshop in central Vienna. It was inspiring to see one craftsman work on a contemporary concept while another recreate an 18th-century chandelier for the Liechtenstein City Palace.

Sotheby's hosted Austrian-Polish design duo Chmara.Rosinke, who displayed works in a private space at the Palais Wilczek. Viennese gallery Design & Art showcased a new collection by local ceramic artist Matthias Kaiser, which explored shifts in form by replacing conventional materials with plastic - and vice versa. Design practice Dottings solicited creative input from its local peers, including mischer´traxler, Vandasye and Madeleine Plass. Together, they worked with people with physical disabilities or mental illness to develop charming household objects.

Elsewhere, the festival used design as a means to explore the city's culture and traditions. Lucy.D curated a delicious collection of contemporary cakes for Café Landtmann, a popular meeting place in the first district opposite the Burgtheater and patronised by leading politicians, thinkers and artists for more than a century. The outrageous assortment of cakes and pastries could be customised to personal tastes. In the third district, at the back of Parfumerie Leni, the alternative art space SWDZ presented Ritual Beauty, featuring 'The Alchemist's Dressing Table' by British designer Lauren Davies and a series of experimental hand mirrors by Viennese designer Andreas Pohancenik.

We unearthed two hidden gems at the festival headquarters, located at the monumental Palais Schwarzenberg. The palace's legendary - but neglected - restaurant rooms by Austrian architect Hermann Czech were reopened to the public before the complex is ultimately remodelled. Also at Schwarzenberg was Soundweaving, a project initiated by Budapest's Monoly-Nagy University of Art and Design. Participants transformed the traditional motifs of cross-stitch embroidery into melodies by transposing them through a music automat with punch cards.

Our final stop was an unexpected highlight. Supersense, the new concept store by Florian Kaps, founder of The Impossible Project, exhibited a story of modern innovation in analogue Vienna. Kaps is working with the Norwegian olfactory icon Sissel Tolaas to offer clients bespoke scent memories, which he plans to launch at the store in November. That alone is a good reason to return to the city before next year's fair.

The Vienna University of Economics and Business university (or Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien) has just welcomed a new addition to its star-studded campus, which already features buildings by Zaha Hadid, Hitoshi Abe and Carme Pinos, and a masterplan by BUS Architektur. The latest pair of buildings were designed by London's CRAB Studio, headed by renowned Archigram founder Sir Peter Cook and established architect Gavin Robotham.

Located in its southwest part, the buildings house the university's Law Faculty and central administration. The structures span 200 meters, snaking west to east, and are set to bring a welcome dash of colour to the Austrian capital's grey winter skies. The colourful facades curve, jut out and fold into roof decks, courtyards, sitting areas and balconies. A layer of natural Siberian Larch timber louvers covers part of the façade and has a dual role; it provides shade but also links the new structures to the surrounding Prater woodland.

Cook and Robotham - both seasoned academics - led this dynamic design. Responding to the needs of the students, the pair have created university buildings that include generous and engaging spaces that are able to support vibrant university life, even outside seminar hours. Special 'capsules of quiet' in the library and 'sound clouds' in the seminar rooms offer pockets for independent meetings and study. Meanwhile, the buildings' overall undulating, playful form matches the firm's vision for a dynamic and attractive environment for learning.

The Vienna University project is not the firm's only new offering in the education sector; next up is the Architecture Faculty building at Bond University in Queensland, Australia, which is swiftly gearing up towards completion this February.

The new campus section, located on the university's southwest side, comprises a pair of buildings that house the university's Law Faculty and central administration.

CRAB is headed by renowned Archigram founder Sir Peter Cook and established architect Gavin Robotham, who won the competition to design the new buildings in 2008.

Cook and Robotham are both seasoned and respected academics and have throughout their years of experience, developed strong ideas about how a university building should be.

'The aim is to try to enrich the city. If you work with a historic city like Vienna, you have to be ambitious to want to add something', says leading French architect Jean Nouvel. Which is why for his latest completed project, the Sofitel Stephansdom in Vienna, Nouvel didn't exactly make things easy for himself opting for state-of-the-art design with a heavy injection of art.

See more of Jean Nouvel's Sofitel Stephansdom

This latest addition to the Sofitel family is not only a comfortable place to stay in an enviable location by the river Danube, a stone's throw from the city's historical centre and St Stephen's cathedral. But, after nightfall is a beautifully illuminated beacon that plays down its height (it towers most of its neighbours at about 80m tall) with a string of horizontal bursts of bright colour, the work of renowned Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.

During daytime, the light creates reflections, mirrored at the neighbouring Hans Hollein complex that houses the Generali Gruppe offices. Daylight, brought inside through different openings and shimmering on several glass and mirror surfaces, is accentuated by Rist's work, creating a kaleidoscopic effect. 'I wanted to create a building that would be as abstract as possible. A presque rien monochromatic composition, where the horizontal element would be the colour' admits Nouvel, 'I didn't want to create a tower, but more a volume, a composition'.

Together with the neighbouring, earlier Hollein building, the Sofitel completes a sort of 'urban gate', according to the Pritzker Prize-winning architect's intention, who designed it in almost literal alignment to the neighbouring Hollein façade's inclination.

The cathedral's tiles are referenced in some of the glass skin patterns, creating a dialogue between the old and new, while the breathtaking city views were something the architect wanted to make the most of. Highlights in the guest rooms include bespoke blinds whose position can be adjusted by the visitor to frame their customized vista of choice.

The concept is simple. The tall building seems straightforward and unadorned and follows a trapezoidal footprint. A large lobby, clearly defined by a separate external volume, leads to the hotel reception and circulation areas, as well as a design retail complex on the ground and first levels, outlined on one side by a Patrick Blanc-designed green wall. The 182 different rooms span the floors above, while the top level hosts Le Loft, the hotel's main restaurant.

The external shape is underlined in three different levels by Rist's colourful ceiling compositions, one at the entrance, one on the lobby's high ceiling and thirdly on Le Loft.

Contrary to the artist's bright and intricate artworks, the interiors by Nouvel are kept in simple colours, which is the key to why the two styles blend so well together. Only grey, white and black are used, while simple handwritten transcribed lines on the walls made by a selection of students from the Vienna School of Fine Arts, present the guest with a little art surprise in each room.

Even the furniture - much of it designed by the architect himself - follows each room's colourway (they come in full grey, full white, a playful full black, and combinations of these). Overall, grey dominates the public spaces. 'Grey helps reveal the spirit of the design. It is a very useful colour', explains Nouvel.

The main centrepiece however, is without a doubt the magnificent top-level Le Loft restaurant, headed by 3-Michelin-starred chef Antoine Westermann of Parisian Drouant Restaurant fame. The wonderful French food is not the only attraction. The colour explosion that is Rist's ceiling creation is certainly worth the climb, beautifully enhanced by Nouvel's clever near-floating roof design. By tipping the ceiling edges slightly upward and adding a subtle angle to the glass walls, Nouvel created a beautiful impression of infinity through the reflections.

A globetrotter himself, Nouvel is no stranger to hotel and short-stay visits and understands the inspiration and sense of excitement required from such an architectural environment. 'A hotel is always a little adventure, so you want to create emotions. Monochrome is almost the opposite of what traditional hotels do. It gives a certain identity', he says.

With mini-dwellings and public pavilions springing up everywhere (take for instance SANAA's pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery, which is currently under construction), architectural art spaces and semi-buildings are writing a new language for architects around the world.

Taking this cross-pollinatory shift between art and architecture as its cue, Vienna's Thyssen Bornemisza Contemporary Art will this week open its latest show, Transitory Objects, displaying work from key international architects and artists caught in the ever-shrinking gap between their two disciplines.

See more of where architecture meets art in the show at Thyssen Bornemisza Contemporary Art

Among them, Olafur Eliasson and David Adjaye's collaborative project from 2005, Your Black Horizon, will be on show, featuring a custom-designed pavilion by Adjaye filled with Eliasson's horizontal, alternating light show.

Also up will be Matthew Ritchie's 'Anti-pavilion', The Morning Line - a black, beetle like structure designed to represent a ruin of the future - and Hernan Diaz Alonso 's Pitch Black - exoskeletal robotic structures lurching out of the floor like light-up spiders. Transitory Objects aims to expose a new type of architectural practice, an energetic architecture rooted in flexibility, immediacy and ecological efficiency.

A key figure in the Thyssen show is Neri Oxman. Oxman's award winning Materialecology project may sound complex but her ultimate aim is to use advanced photo sculpting techniques in order to better understand the relationship between architectural objects and their environments - and if that fails to get you going, the milky, boiled-sweet-esque objects Oxman produces are also utterly mesmerising.

ADDRESS

Himmelpfortgasse 13
1010 Vienna
Austria

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS