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Dutch design duo Kiki & Joost has opened a public exhibition space attached to the pair’s Eindhoven studio, allowing them to showcase their work in a more “open and free” way than in a traditional gallery. More
The Warren Technical Center in Michigan, the first solo project by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, showcased the unity of mid-century architecture, design and engineering in the United States. More
As part of our mid-century modern series, we portray Florence Knoll Bassett, who transformed how we think of office design with her streamlined furniture and leadership of design brand Knoll.
Under Knoll, Florence Knoll, as she was then called, brought modern lines and a human-centric design ethos to the American office environment. As well as leading the company’s interior design arm, the Planning Unit, she designed furniture for its collections and developed its aesthetic identity.
She was also known for professionalising the mid-century interior design industry, combining her extensive architectural training with an eye for form and combatting the notion that interior design was the same as decorating.
Florence Knoll (left) worked with designers and architects including Eero Saarinen. Photo courtesy of KnollIn a 1964 New York Times article about her, titled “Woman Who Led an Office Revolution Rules an Empire of Modern Design; Florence Knoll Gave Business ‘Living’ a New Look”, she said that offices had changed from being ‘decorated’ to being designed.
“I am not a decorator,” she said in the article. “The only place I decorate is my own house.”
Knoll was founded by Florence Knoll’s husband Hans Knoll, who was in the process of developing the company in New York City when the pair met in 1941.
In 1943, Florence Knoll joined the burgeoning company as a designer and soon after became a full business partner upon the couple’s marriage in 1944.
Office design pioneer Florence Knoll Bassett dies aged 101
Today, Knoll is known for its portfolio of office furniture, including notable designs such as the Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe, the Wassily Lounge Chair by Marcel Breuer, and the Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen – three pieces Florence Knoll commissioned herself through her many long-standing connections in the architecture world.
She also created seating, tables, and storage systems for office interiors that were meant as “fill-in” pieces – uncomplicated designs that complemented the more flashy products by her peers.
“People ask me if I am a furniture designer,” she said. “I am not. I never really sat down and designed furniture. I designed the fill-in pieces that no one else was doing. I designed sofas because no one was designing sofas.”
Among her best-known pieces are the T Angle series of tables, which were constructed from a steel base and have laminate tops. These include a dining table, coffee tables and numerous other versions.
Her Executive Desk, part of her Executive series and also known as the Partner’s Desk, with its rosewood top and splayed chrome-plated steel base, still looks modern today and is still produced by Knoll.
Planning Unit specialised in corporate office interiors
Her Lounge Collection, created in 1954, also epitomizes her approach. It encompassed a tufted lounge chair, sofa, settee, and bench that sat upon geometric, metal frames.
Today, these pieces are treasured additions to household or corporate spaces, but Florence Knoll originally created them as a backdrop for the office interiors she designed while she led the Knoll Planning Unit.
Founded by Florence Knoll in 1946, the Planning Unit consisted of a small group of Knoll designers that created corporate office interiors for prominent companies such as the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Cowles Publications and CBS.
Led by Florence Knoll’s exacting eye, the small team was tasked with designing furniture, textiles and objects for a space.
Florence Knoll designed the interiors for the CBS building in New YorkIn the 1960s, Florence Knoll designed the interiors of a new CBS headquarters in New York City, housed in a black-clad skyscraper by friend Eero Saarinen.
“Her job embraces everything from the choice of wall coverings – sometimes felt or tweed for the sake of acoustics – to ashtrays, pictures and door handles,” the New York Times said of her involvement in the project.
“She has led people to see that texture in fabrics can be as interesting as a print (she dislikes prints) and that steel legs on tables, chairs and sofas can have grace and elegance.”
Bespoke pieces usually custom-made for interior projects
The bespoke furniture that Florence Knoll designed for projects such as the CBS headquarters would then be folded into the Knoll catalogue.
“The spaces suggest the furniture, and sometimes that furniture was not in our catalog,” Vincent Cafiero, an early member of the Planning Unit, said.
During this period, Florence Knoll also started a textile program at the company, which would become Knoll Textiles. This saw her develop a “tagged sample and display system”, a technique used industry-wide today.
As Knoll grew, Florence Knoll would also shape much of the company’s identity and practices.
She worked with designer Herbert Matter to create branding for Knoll, including its advertisements, stationary and logo, imbuing its branding with the same straightforward style as her personal work.
Florence Knoll also filled the company’s catalogue with commissions from her many connections, gathered during her architectural training at schools including he Cranbrook Academy of Art, Columbia University, Architectural Association and Illinois Institute of Technology.
Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair is among the pieces commissioned by Florence Knoll. Photo by Adrià GoulaBorn and raised in Michigan, her training began in earnest at age 12, when Florence was orphaned after the death of her father at age 5 and mother at 12.
Her guardian encouraged her to choose a boarding school, where the young Florence chose the Kingswood School for Girls, a school on the same grounds as Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Eilel Saarinen, Cranbrook’s then headmaster and designer of both schools, noticed Florence’s interest in architecture and eventually “virtually adopted” Florence into the Saarinen family, according to Knoll.
Mies van der Rohe was “teacher and friend”
She would go on to befriend his son, Eero, and other prominent designers during her studies and beyond including Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia, Isamu Noguchi and George Nakashima.
Florence was also mentored by architects Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.
Designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who she studied under at the Illinois Institute of Technology, had perhaps the most lasting influence on her style, as seen in her methodical, detail-oriented approach.
“Like her teacher and friend Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ms Knoll Bassett’s attention to detail was all-encompassing, relentless, and, over time, the stuff of legend,” said Knoll.
The organic designs of Eero Saarinen went “beyond the measly ABC” of modernism
Her colleagues held her “unerring” taste in high regard.
“Each time I go East I see something you have done,” wrote Charles Eames in a 1957 letter to Florence Knoll. “It is always good, and I feel grateful to you for doing such work in a world where mediocrity is the norm.”
Upon Hans Knoll’s sudden death in 1955, Florence Knoll took over leadership of the company as president until 1960, when she switched back into a design and development role and moved to Florida with her second husband Henry Hood Bassett.
She officially retired from the company in 1965 at age 48.
Under her five years as president Knoll doubled in size, cementing its status as a leader in the design industry.
“[Florence Knoll] probably did more than any other single figure to create the modern, sleek, postwar American office, introducing contemporary furniture and a sense of open planning into the work environment,” wrote The Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger in 1984.
In 1961, Florence Knoll became the first woman to receive the Gold Medal for Industrial Design from the American Institute of Architects, and in 2003 she was presented with the National Medal of Arts.
“We have lost one of the great design forces of the 20th century,” Goldberger said when Florence Knoll died in 2019. “Florence Knoll Bassett may have done more than anyone else to create what we think of as the ‘Mad Men’ design of the midcentury modern workspace.”
Illustration by Jack BedfordMid-century modern
This article is part of Dezeen’s mid-century modern design series, which looks at the enduring presence of mid-century modern design, profiles its most iconic architects and designers, and explores how the style is developing in the 21st century.
This series was created in partnership with Made – a UK furniture retailer that aims to bring aspirational design at affordable prices, with a goal to make every home as original as the people inside it. Elevate the everyday with collections that are made to last, available to shop now at made.com.
Read more: More
Mid-century modern design may meet our needs even more now than when it first appeared, but that doesn’t mean we should idolise the style, writes John Jervis.
I love mid-century modern, but it makes me sad. In its beauty and simplicity, it speaks of postwar optimism, and a belief in a better world – one of prosperity and peace, with large homes and larger pay packets. It’s not the fault of a bunch of attractive designs that this proved to be a mirage, even a fraud. But mid-century modern was wrapped up in that delusion, even contributed to it. And the design industry enjoyed, and continues to enjoy, the ride just a little too much.
In the 1950s, mid-century modern design promised a lifestyle free from markers of wealth and privilege, free of decorative excess, of clutter and dirt, free from the past. In reality, there were few progressive ideals involved. Before the war, modernist designers had struggled to bring their ideas to mass production, but still sought to raise living standards in cities, designing ‘minimum dwellings’ with floorplans, kitchens and furnishings calculated to maximize space and improve lives.
Their postwar successors – all those heroic, big-name designers we celebrate as prophets of a modern, democratic future – turned out to be less public-spirited. When mass production of modernist designs became a reality, they chose lucrative careers working, almost exclusively, for high-end manufacturers.
Then, as now, class was deeply embedded in design’s power
And those manufacturers rarely considered, pursued or achieved affordability or accessibility, and still don’t. There may well be perfectly justifiable arguments – and realities – around balancing profitability, quality and investment, and achieving sustainability. Yet it is fair to say that most such companies have never sought a mass consumer market – the sort of market that would erode the cachet and returns of their intellectual property. Then, as now, class was deeply embedded in design’s power, even as its pioneers proclaimed the advent of a classless era.
To be fair, that worked both ways. The golden age of mid-century modern design barely stretches a couple of decades, partly because it was never that popular. Even when incomes grew, and aspirational furnishings became just about affordable, most consumers turned not to sanctioned ‘good design’, but to products with other, perhaps more important, meanings – nostalgia, craft, ornament, community, warmth.
To the despair of critics, heavy ‘baroque’ furniture remained the preferred choice of consumers during the German economic miracle, while Americans showed a similar predilection for colonial styles. In the heyday of the Italian furniture industry, many manufacturers stuck to an aesthetic decried by Domus editor Ernesto Rogers as ‘Cantu Chippendale’.
“There was a profound belief in the power of the polymath during the mid-century period”
Just as tellingly, when the wider population of mid-century modern poster child Finland was finally able to afford the country’s furniture, the new ‘Tower’ suite was the immediate bestseller. Released in 1971, this three-piece sofa-armchair combo – a typology anathema in design circles – adopted a traditional ‘English style’, with comfortable upholstery and oak veneer over foam and chipboard. It turned out that imported British TV shows were more influential than lecturing from design’s great and good about a modernist canon.
In the postwar era, that great and good – a pale, male and privileged elite – secured its status rapidly, with a raft of government- and industry-backed organizations such as Britain’s Council of Industrial Design and the Industrial Designers Society of America, all dedicated to imposing universal standards of ‘good design’.
Soon, even receptive audiences – including many young designers – began to find both the discourse and the results tedious, turning to Victoriana, pop and eventually postmodernism as the 1960s progressed. Some rejected ‘design’ in its entirety, looking to alternative culture instead, epitomised by the success of the Whole Earth Catalog.
Why has mid-century modern now become the default style for contemporary interiors?
The reasons behind changes in taste are always hard to pinpoint, but in this instance, it seems many were looking for a richness, diversity, vibrancy and meaning in their lives that mid-century modern was failing to provide – an opportunity to express their personality and creativity through their home decor. So why has mid-century modern now become the default style for contemporary interiors? As with Victorian design’s comeback in the 1960s, or art deco in the 1980s and brutalism in the 2000s, such revivals are far from unusual, but it’s still curious that mid-century modern meets our needs more than during its heyday.
Some of that may be practical. As more and more of us are crammed into ever smaller homes, squeezing a spindly faux-mid-century modern desk into a bedroom is more realistic than some glorious art deco behemoth. And, as we constantly move from space to space, its lightness and modularity make perfect sense. Other reasons are less tangible, less knowable – perhaps mid-century modern offers a clarity, calm and sense of control that is hard to find in the rest of our lives.
Mid-century modern design “embraced a more human aesthetic while remaining aggressively forward-looking”
The financial equation hasn’t changed over the decades, though. Manufacturers still have a tight grip on their ‘originals’, leaving the vast majority of us buying knock-offs, or flat-packed imitations, as we attempt to Marie Kondo our existence.
But how long will everyone want to live in these ranks of pristine waiting rooms? My aspirations for a mid-century modern bachelor pad – a Julius Shulman photo on the cheap – have long since fallen away. Leaving behind that quest for a lifestyle that never existed in the first place has improved my lot considerably. It is the (slightly mannered) accumulation of battered paperbacks in the Penguin donkey and the coffee stain on the Aalto stool that give them their charm. And their submersion in the general detritus of life gives them context and meaning.
Maybe we just don’t need another generation of Eames loungers
And there is another thing that might speed up a mid-century modern rethink. In promotional literature, its timelessness and durability have long been trumpeted as the route to a sustainable future. Perhaps this claim is no longer quite so convincing. Regenerative and circular design requires us to instead embrace age, imperfection, decay, decomposition, even odour – to view products as a passing moment in the life of a material, with longevity as a potential drawback. So maybe we just don’t need another generation of Eames loungers.
In this context, mid-century modern’s ‘timeless perfection’ can seem a cold quality, one throwing a harsh light on our own imperfections and frailties – our human nature – while overlooking our concern with and capacity for joy. The obsessive repetition of this mantra, and of outdated concepts of ‘good design’, invites the backlash that brought mid-century modern design to a shuddering halt last time round, viewed as sterile, inflexible, lifeless.
Certainly, like so many others, I will always find mid-century modern beautiful, even sublime, and I’ve got my eyes on a few more alluring examples. But I wouldn’t want too much of it in my life.
Main photography by Joe Fletcher.
John Jervis is a writer, editor, project manager and ghost writer across a range of media, including Icon, Frame, RIBA Journal, Apollo, ArtAsiaPacific, Thames & Hudson, ACC, WePresent, Laurence King and others. He has just published his first book, 50 Design Ideas You Really Need to Know, with Greenfinch Books.
Illustration by Jack BedfordMid-century modern
This article is part of Dezeen’s mid-century modern design series, which looks at the enduring presence of mid-century modern design, profiles its most iconic architects and designers, and explores how the style is developing in the 21st century.
This series was created in partnership with Made – a UK furniture retailer that aims to bring aspirational design at affordable prices, with a goal to make every home as original as the people inside it. Elevate the everyday with collections that are made to last, available to shop now at made.com.
Read more: More
Timber pillars and PVC pipes were left bare to blur the boundaries between the interior and exterior of cafe and sweet shop in Funamachi, Japan, designed by Schemata Architects.
Named Funamachi Base, the combined sweet store and cafe is located next to a park in the centre of Funamachi, a riverport town in central Japan.
The cafe is located close to a riverThis location inspired the design of its three buildings, which house a restaurant, sweetshop and a structurewith an office, kitchen and workshop.
“We envisioned the facility as an extension of the park, including the courtyard connected via flowerpots, so that the boundary between the inside and outside of the site would disappear and one would be gradually drawn inside,” the studio said.
Part of the foundation of the building forms a counterSchemata Architects’ founder Jo Nagasaka told Dezeen that the aim was also for people to wander into the space as they walk along the river.
“The main idea was to incorporate the greenway along the river into the facility,” he said. “The design is based on the expectation that people will find themselves entering into the shop as they walk along.”
Schemata Architects designed the cafe and sweet shop with large overhanging roofsLarge roofs extend out from the buildings of the 326-square-metre Funamachi Base, creating sheltered spaces where visitors can sit and enjoy the cafe’s bean buns.
“The distance between each building is taken and a roof is placed between them to create a semi-outdoor space, but to avoid clear boundaries between the inside and outside, the idea was to use the same materials inside and out,” Nagasaka said.
The same materials were used for the interior and exterior of Funamachi BaseMade from concrete and Douglas fir wood, Funamachi Base also features visible PVC pipes, a design choice that Schemata Architects made to underline the interaction between the interior and the exterior.
“The same materials were used inside and outside: calcium silicate board and putty coating, PVC pipes generally used for outdoor gutters were sandblasted and placed across the inside and outside of the building, and the eaves extended to create a space where the inside and outside are interchangeable,” the studio said.
Schemata Architects transforms 145-year-old townhouse into Le Labo flagship
The foundation of the building was designed to bulge out, forming a counter from which to sell the sweets.
It was also used to create a bench for visitors to rest on and a well, as water is needed to create Japanese sweets.
A light-brown pattern decorates the facadesThe facades of the buildings have a light-brown pattern, adding to their industrial feel.
“White walls would make it look like a stylised Japanese building, so we dared to deviate from that,” Nagasaka explained. “We have chosen this so that the construction process is reduced and the finish is unusual.”
Schemata Architects recently designed the Komaeyu bathhouse in Tokyo, which was shortlisted for a Dezeen Award 2024 in the interiors category.
The photography is by Yurika Kono.
Project credits:
Architect: Jo Nagasaka / Schemata ArchitectsProject team: Yuko YamashitaConstruction: GikenCollaboration: Monochrome (solar panel integrated roof), Fukushima Galilei (kitchen)
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Anhelina L Starkova explains how her experience of living through the Ukraine war has shaped her approach to curating the 2024 Tallinn Architecture Biennale in this interview.
Starkova, who was chief curator of this year’s biennale, is from Kharkiv in north-east Ukraine – a city that has suffered heavy bombardment since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, coming close to being captured early on in the conflict.
According to the curator, she experienced something close to an epiphany not long after the war began, while taking refuge in the bunker in her house as bombs fell around it
Anhelina L Starkova is chief curator of this year’s Tallinn Architecture Biennale. Photo by Helen Shets”I remember that planes were flying around, and the building was shaking, and it was really the moment when you understand that it’s probably your last minutes,” she recalled.
“I was standing with this wall, and I was thinking that this wall was a continuation of my body – this is me,” she continued.
“It was, for an architect, [a] very interesting feeling. Because I finished university, I had my 10 years in practice, and I still was not really immersed in architecture.”
“You always think it intellectually, but when I was in this bunker I started [to] think, ‘oh my god, this is the only one thing that can really save me – this wall is the only one thing that I need’. It was a very existential experience.”
Titled “Resources for a Future”, the exhibition explores innovative ways of using materials in architectureLater, while spending some time in Bucharest, visiting a shopping mall made her reconsider the value of architecture.
“There’s all this commercial architecture, and I feel such a disgust,” she told Dezeen. “Like it’s a cartoon, it’s not real. I felt it not with my brain but with all my body: we live in a world of complete illusion.”
In other words, Starkova said, the traumatic experience of the war has given her a new sense of clarity about what really matters in architecture.
“When the war started in the Ukraine, that was crucial for me as an architect,” she explained. “I didn’t expect that it would influence me so much personally.”
“Everything kind of started to be very clear: many, many things that we add to architecture – these addictive visions – are extra things, and they are not making buildings in a total way.”
“If I would like to continue [in architecture] then I would need to isolate myself from all this gallery of thinking, which I can’t stand anymore.”
Eight highlights from Dundee Design Festival 2024
Instead, Starkova, who as well as running her own studio lectures at the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons and Kharkiv School of Architecture, has become more interested in the bare essentials of architecture.
“Really great architecture, it’s about durability factors, the functionality, but also giving people a kind of stability and safety,” she said. “In the end, it’s mostly about our immersion.”
Starkova has applied this back-to-basics philosophy to her curation of the seventh Tallinn Architecture Biennale, which opened in the Estonian capital last week.
Pihlmann Architects presented a proposition for changing the function of a building by changing parts of its floorplates into rampsAt the centre of this year’s biennale is an exhibition exploring the theme of Resources for a Future, hosted by the Estonian Centre for Architecture.
Featuring 14 exhibits from studios including Gus Wüstemann Architects, KAMP Arhitektid, Déchelette Architecture and Pihlmann Architects, it examines different approaches to using local resources for creating new buildings and prolonging the life of existing ones.
“I had conversations with each architect that you have to look at the basics and the fundamental, real feel of what you are doing,” Starkova said.
“And even asked each architect, when you’re talking about resources, what really fosters you to do architecture, what supports you? And each installation showed the answers.”
For instance, Denmark-based Pihlmann Architects created a large model of a stripped-back building shell where part of each floor had been cut out and sloped downwards to form a ramp up from the floor below.
“It was really about this idea of purification,” said Starkova. “You see an old building and you just do not add anything. You see the nature of the building and you’re trying to heal it or to reformulate its elements.”
Déchelette Architecture’s exhibit showcased rammed-earth pillars using material dug locally to TallinnThat, she said, is a lesson she learned while working on repairs to damaged buildings in Kharkiv during the war.
“You’re trying to compose it again, to heal it, and then it gets another conceptual environment – another feeling, and it’s already architecture.”
“Architecture is the constant process of thinking of your relation to materials, different elements, and assemblage of them in a holistic way.”
At the centre of the exhibition are a series of pillars erected by rammed-earth specialist Emmanuelle Déchelette of Paris studio Déchelette Architecture, with the material dug locally to Tallinn.
“It’s about doing a lot with nothing, that complete purification,” said Starkova. “To avoid this ideological or even social architecture.”
Cobe set to transform “treasure box” steelworks site into Tallinn neighbourhood
The participating architects were given a deliberately open brief, because Starkova felt the exhibition was “not about dogmas”. As a result, the exhibits are highly varied in form and approach.
They range from a huge chunk of a restored traditional Estonian log house by Apex Arhitektuuribüroo (pictured top) to an abstract proposal for a public space created only by digging by Romanian architect Laura Cristea and Swiss architect Raphael Zuber.
In another, Estonian studio KAMP Arhitektid presented research on the surprising breadth of potential building materials that can be found on one specific 15 square-kilometre piece of land in the country.
“Each project was a surprise because I didn’t know them personally before the exhibition, none of them,” said Starkova.
A research project by KAMP Arhitektid demonstrated potential building materials found on a single plot of landThat effect was only heightened by the fact that Starkova managed the whole project remotely, only arriving in Tallinn a few days before the exhibition opened.
She began with a list of more than 500 architects whose work she admires, eventually selecting those who she felt “were the most radical in their thinking”.
The Ukraine war is referenced in one installation, produced by Elina Liiva and Helena Manna in collaboration with PAKK, composed of a series of images of apartment living rooms printed on translucent fabric and placed in a line, with chunk of concrete lying nearby that corresponds with a hole cut into the scene.
But beyond that, Starkova deliberately avoided making the conflict a direct focus of the exhibition, believing that it may detract from a sense of immediacy.
“During the war, it’s not a place for architecture – mostly a place for thinking,” she said.
“And yes, architects are trying to think, with the support of international world architecture, what could be done [after the war]. But I just wanted to stay honest and not be futuristic.”
The only exhibit to directly reference the Ukraine war looked at approaches to changing buildings damaged in the conflictOverall, Starkova hopes the exhibition will enable visitors “to learn from architects that architecture is simple to do, and that the formulas are quite simple”.
As well as leading curation of the exhibition, Starkova was also head judge for the biennale’s customary pavilion commission competition, this time for a bus shelter at Tallinn’s Balti Jaam transit hub.
Out of more than 80 entries, the winner was No Time to Waste by Belgian architecture duo Brasebin Terrisse.
The central concept of the pavilion, which is still completing construction, was that the design would be led by whatever construction off-cut materials could be sourced in Tallinn.
“This was the only project who said that we have an open end – we do not propose [a] form of the installation, we prepare that we come to Tallinn, we test a local situation and after we will develop a form given when doing the work on it,” said Starkova.
A competition to design a pavilion for the biennale was won by Brasebin Terrisse’s project No Time to Waste (front)”So the rendering of the project itself is just a library of technology that they would like to use, but the form must be made later during the working process,” she added. “It followed the course of the biennale.”
With the biennale’s opening-week programme complete, Starkova has now returned to Kharkiv, where many buildings lie in ruins in a city that was previously celebrated for its rich and varied architectural heritage.
“It’s all so difficult,” she reflected. “Kharkiv is changing, it is in constant change.”
“It’s absolutely impossible to live, because you live in that mode of always existential crisis – on the edge, always. You go to bed, you don’t know you’re going to wake up. You go outside, you don’t know you’re coming back.”
“Maybe it brings some beauty, because we actually live in this way, all of us – right on the edge.”
The photography is by Tõnu Tunnel unless stated otherwise.
Resources For A Future will run until 1 December 2024 at the Museum of Estonian Architecture, Ahtri tn 2, 10151 Tallinn, Estonia. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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Swedish designer Gustaf Westman displayed existing and new objects including a colourful “puzzle” shelf during a three-day pop-up event in New York City.
Named Gustaf Westman in New York, the show was located in an industrial storefront in Williamsburg and displayed the designer’s colourful objects and furniture on a meandering pink and orange pathway.
Swedish designer Gustaf Westman held a New York City pop-up that gave nod to a museum experienceSmall descriptions were placed on the ground in front of the objects, as “a nod to a museum experience”, while printed pamphlets similar to museum guides were available to visitors.
“The decision was very organic,” Westman told Dezeen. “When we came here, it was like a gallery space. It’s also a bit ironic, because I’ve only been doing this for four years and I’m not really ready to do a museum.”
A brightly coloured pathway weaved through the space, which was divided by Westman’s screens and a larger display wall towards the front.
Gustaf Westman and Swedish Stockings transform nylon tights into “terrazzo-like” tables
Among the new objects displayed was Puzzle Shelf, a shelving unit made of interlocking, stackable rectangular forms that conclude in puzzle-shaped feet. Westman noted that the shelf is 3D-printed and processed to resemble the material qualities of his other ceramic and metal objects.
“I have an obsession with trying to test all different materials and trying to make them look the same,” said Westman. “Even if I work with wood or ceramics or glass, I want to keep the same finish, so [3D printing] is the next step.”
The shelf was made in a host of bright colours such as red, pink, cream, and dark blue.
Existing and new objects from the designer were displayedThe remaining space was filled with pedestals and shelving outfitted with existing glassware and objects such as a spiralling book stand and flower-shaped mirrors, along with furniture such as a coffee table that pinches wine glasses in place.
The designer previously used nylon tights to create “terrazzo-like” tables and displayed his objects during Day Two from Stockholm Design Week 2024.
The photography is by Kate Fatseas unless otherwise stated
Gustaf Westman in New York was on show at 25 Fillmore Place, Brooklyn from 10-13 October. For more events, exhibitions and talks in architecture and design visit the Dezeen Events Guide.
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Dezeen has announced the sustainability shortlist for this year’s Dezeen Awards, which includes designs by Mater, Tengbom, Kvadrat and Kirkby Design.
The 35 shortlisted studios, in the running for awards in six different sustainability project categories, are located across 19 countries, including Brazil, Thailand, Spain, Poland and Switzerland.
Shortlisted projects include a modular seating system made from old cork wine stoppers by Paul Crofts for Isomi and a spiral installation made of algae bricks for Chicago Architecture Biennial.
A collaboration between Dutch studio’s MVRDV and Hirschmüller Schindele Architekten saw firms retrofit an office building into a bright yellow workplace with a zigzagging outdoor staircase in Berlin, is also shortlisted.
Dezeen Awards 2024 shortlists revealed this week
Dezeen Awards 2024, in partnership with Bentley, will reveal all shortlisted projects this week. The architecture, interiors and design shortlists were announced earlier this week.
This year’s nomination-based Designers of the Year and Bentley Lighthouse Award shortlists will be announced tomorrow and next Monday respectively.
“The calibre of this year’s sustainability shortlist demonstrates the invaluable and pioneering work that is pushing the industry forward,” said Chris Cooke, head of design collaborations at Bentley.
“The breadth of innovation is fantastic,” he continued, “ranging from hyper-local to industry-wide solutions that address key issues around waste.”
Aesop Diagonal by Mesura. Photo by Maxime DelvauxThe shortlisted projects were scored by our sustainability jury which includes Henrik Taudorf Lorensen, Noella Nibakuze, Mina Hasman and Jonas Pettersson.
All shortlisted sustainability projects are listed below, each with a link to a dedicated page on the Dezeen Awards website, where you can find an image and more information about the project.
The winner of each project category will be announced live at our annual Dezeen Awards party on 26 November at Hackney Church in London. All six winners will then compete for the title of sustainable project of the year.
Buy your Dezeen Awards party tickets now!
Tickets for the Dezeen Awards 2024 party are now on sale! The event will be a chance for everyone who entered this year’s Dezeen Awards to celebrate their achievements alongside fellow nominees, winners and our esteemed Dezeen Awards judges.
Click the link here to find out more and secure your tickets before they sell out!
Read on for the full sustainability shortlist:
Angsila Oyster Scaffolding Pavilion by Chat Architects. Photo by W WorkspaceSustainable building
› Angsila Oyster Scaffolding Pavilion, Angsila, Thailand, by Chat Architects› Praia JK Sports Complex, São Paulo, Brazil, by Soek Arquitetura› Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture, Gashora, Rwanda, by MASS Design Group› Sporthallenprovisorium Gloriarank, Zurich, Switzerland, by Itten+Brechbühl AG› Tuusula High School and Cultural Centre, Tuusula, Finland, by AOR Architects› Zhengxiangbaiqi Grassland Community Center, Hohhot, China, by Inner Mongolia Ger Culture and Technology
This category is sponsored by Urban Future.
Browse all projects on the sustainable building shortlist page.
Maison Melba by Atelier L’Abri. Photo by Alex LesageSustainable renovation
› Alsterschwimmhalle, Hamburg, Germany, by Architekten von Gerkan, Marg und Partner› Haus 1, Berlin, Germany, by MVRDV› Maison Melba, Frelighsburg, Canada, by Atelier L’Abri› Park Street, Melbourne, Australia, by Breathe Architecture› The Blue by Just Inn, Taipei City, Taiwan, by Tszwai So› Wuzhen Rural Brewery Renovation and Renewal, Tongxiang, China, by Lichao Architecture Design Studio
Browse all projects on the sustainable renovation shortlist page.
Plantonia Vegan Aparthotel by Kreatina. Photo by ONI StudioSustainable interior
› Aesop Diagonal, Barcelona, Spain, by Mesura› AWM Münster, Münster, Germany, by Urselmann Interior› Gachard 88, Brussels, Belgium, by Ncbham› Plantonia Vegan Aparthotel, Krakow, Poland, by Krea.tina› Sustainable Workspaces, London, UK, by Material Works Architecture› Tengbom’s Office, Stockholm, Sweden, by Tengbom
Browse all projects on the sustainable interior shortlist page.
Alder Collection by Patricia Urquiola for Mater. Photo by Nicklas HemmingSustainable design (consumer)
› Alder Collection by Patricia Urquiola for Mater› Aloe by Kirkby Design› Circular Ceramics by Sara Howard Studio and Kevala Ceramics› Ibuju Collection by Side Gallery› Monc Mycelium Packaging by Monc› Tejo by Paul Crofts for Isomi
Browse all projects on the sustainable design (consumer) shortlist page.
Heritage Portland Stone Bricks and Darney Heritage Natural Stone Bricks by Albion Stone. Photo by Ivan JonesSustainable design (building product)
› Airiva wind energy system by Airiva Renewables› Bio-Block Spiral by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill› Heritage Portland Stone Bricks and Darney Heritage Natural Stone Bricks by Albion Stone› iQ Loop by Note Design Studio and Tarkett› Luna by Harvest Moon› Tea-earth Brick by Kooo Architects
Browse all projects on the sustainable design (building product) shortlist page.
Bio-Based Tiles by StoneCycling and Biomason. Photo by StoneCyclingMaterial Innovation
› AI Timber by Maestro Technologies› Ame by Teruhiro Yanagihara Studio and Kvadrat› Bio-Based Tiles by StoneCycling and Biomason› CornWall by StoneCycling and Circular Matters› Other Matter Decals by Other Matter
Browse all projects on the material Innovation shortlist page.
Dezeen Awards 2024 in partnership with Bentley
Dezeen Awards is the ultimate accolade for architects and designers across the globe. The seventh edition of the annual awards programme is in partnership with Bentley as part of a wider collaboration to inspire, support and champion design excellence and showcase innovation that creates a better and more sustainable world. This ambition complements Bentley’s architecture and design business initiatives, including the Bentley Home range of furnishings and real estate projects around the world. More
