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      Tom Postma Design suspends 1,400 porcelain plates in gold-gilded room at Fondazione Prada

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      A Fondazione Prada exhibition about Chinese export porcelain, designed by Dutch firm Tom Postma Design, was housed within three prefabricated timber volumes clad in velvet and real gold leaf.From January to September 2020, The Porcelain Room installation was staged in one large exhibition space in the OMA-designed Torre annexe.
      The Porcelain Room has been shortlisted for this year’s Dezeen Award in the exhibition design category.

      Above: two of the timber volumes were clad in velvet and one in gold leaf. Top image: the final, golden room housed 1,400 porcelain plates
      Visitors passed through the walk-through volumes within it, tracing the history and legacy of Chinese porcelain in Europe and the Middle East.

      The installation progressed in chronological order, showcasing porcelain pieces dating back to the arrival of the Portuguese in south China in the early 16th century, all the way up to the 19th century.
      After passing through the first two rooms, the climactic highlight of the show was the final, gold-gilded room. Here, 1,400 of the approximately 1,700 porcelain pieces in the exhibition were suspended from the walls and ceiling.

      Porcelain pieces were suspended from the walls and ceiling of the Golden Porcelain Room
      This offered a modern reimagining of the porcelain rooms found in European palaces and aristocratic houses of the time, such as the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin and the Santos Palace in Lisbon.
      Then, China plates and other tableware pieces were used as decorative rather than functional items, arranged into lavish displays that covered most of the visible surfaces including the walls and sometimes even the ceiling like three-dimensional wallpaper.

      The room was a modern interpretation of the royal and aristocratic porcelain rooms of the time
      “These porcelain rooms were the first examples of people using objects designed for a purpose, usually dishes intended for the table, in a completely different way as pieces of a decorative puzzle,” said Jorge Welsh, who curated the exhibition alongside Luísa Vinhais.
      “To bring the original concept into a contemporary context, we designed a dense, abstract pattern in which each piece of porcelain is used rather as if it were a pigment, chosen for its colour and shape, to create a kind of mural that engulfs the exhibition space.”

      Black display cases housed rare made-to-order pieces in the first room
      In contrast to this, the first two volumes were much more muted, covered inside and out in deep brown velvet.
      The introductory room housed some of the first porcelain editions, which were made-to-order for Portuguese and Spanish clients in the 16th and 17th century.
      Of the approximately 150 pieces of this type that remain in the world according to Welsh, 53 were displayed here, set against a deep black backdrop and illuminated by spotlights to allow their rarity to speak for itself.

      The second room showcased tableware shaped like animals, vegetables and fruit
      The second room took the form of a 12-metre long corridor, flanked by display cases on either side that contained later tableware designs, shaped like different animals, vegetables and fruit to cater to Western tastes.
      This passageway led the way into the golden room, with a layout designed in collaboration Welsh and Vinhais, who also co-founded the Jorge Welsh Works of Art gallery.

      The second room acted as a corridor leading into the last
      Using cutouts of each of the hundreds of plates, they created a scale model of the room, which was then transferred into a digital drawing by Tom Postma Design.
      “We checked every single plate and assigned it a unique code, indexing its display position, diameter, typology, the distance from the wall and other data,” Paride Piccinini, an architectural engineer at Tom Postma Design, told Dezeen.
      “Then we attached a life-sized print out of the drawing to the walls in order to drill the supports in exactly the right positions.”

      Welsh and Vinhais designed the pattern using a scale model
      This allowed the team to develop an unobtrusive system of fixings and lighting that kept the overall design clean and minimal.
      “This immersive environment needs effective lighting to able to reach all the pieces in all directions, without blinding the visitors or showing the source of light,” said Piccinini.
      “This issue has been solved with a system of diffused and hidden spotlights, embedded into the walls, the ceiling, the floor and the glass balustrade system.”

      Tom Postma Design developed the reuseable lighting and supports in the Golden Porcelain Room
      The gold gilding, which took a group of artisans five days to apply to the interior and exterior of the volume leaf by leaf, mirrored the colours of the porcelain and reflected light onto the plates from behind.

      Formafantasma designs recyclable displays for Rijksmuseum exhibition

      Aside from the smallest spotlights, the lighting system was developed from reused fixtures from Fondozione Prada’s existing supply. The whole installation was designed to be disassembled and used again.

      Underneath the cladding, the installation consists of modular timber panels
      “The installation is entirely built from timber, with modular panels that can be stored and reused for future exhibitions,” said Piccinini.
      “The metallic supports for the plates, the lighting system, shelves and display cases can also be reused for a similar installation.”
      Other projects nominated for Dezeen Awards include a memorial filled with items that belonged to victims of gun violence and ĒTER’s multi-sensory design for an exhibition about ASMR at ArkDes.
      Photography is by Mark Niedermann.

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      Squashed serpents feature in Polly Morgan's How To Behave At Home exhibition

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      Twisting snakes with iridescent scales squeeze through concrete and polystyrene blocks in How To Behave At Home, the latest exhibition by British taxidermy artist Polly Morgan.The How To Behave At Home exhibition, which looks at themes of societal norms and expectations, comprises a series of sculptures that feature the coiled bodies of taxidermied snakes.  Morgan believes the animal is an apt symbol for the way in which people utilise social media, particularly photo-sharing apps like Instagram.
      “The skins of snakes are alluring, decorating what is essentially a killing and eating machine,” Morgan told Dezeen.
      “These patterns are thought to either camouflage the snake or warn would-be predators away; some non-venomous snakes also mimic the bright colours of poisonous snakes to avoid capture,” she continued.
      “The filters we apply to our social media feeds, either literally or just by our careful selection of one image over another, is done for similar purposes; to allow us to blend in and avoid crowd censure, or to allow a particular perception of us to flourish.”

      Untitled, 2020, by Polly Morgan
      Morgan had a loose idea of what How To Behave At Home’s themes would be from the beginning of this year.

      However, as the coronavirus pandemic hit and millions across the globe were placed under stay-at-home orders, the artist gained a heightened awareness of the disparity between reality and the idealised content presented over social media.
      This influenced the new work that she has created for the exhibition, as well as the selection of older pieces that have been included.
      “Watching the changes in my own and others’ behaviour made me think more clearly about what the work represented and exactly how I wanted it to look,” she explained.
      “I was interested to see how peoples’ Instagram feeds would change, with no parties to attend or events to promote; would they let the veneer slip or turn to a new kind of boastfulness,” Morgan added.
      “I felt celebrities flounder; flaunting their luxurious life was irrelevant and unwelcome and they had to reconfigure their online selves – feeling squeezed and trying to be authentic, my ideas evolved a lot in that period.”

      Untitled, 2020, by Polly Morgan
      Some of the slithering creatures in the exhibition have been given a subtle iridescent coating, which takes cues from the colourful trompe l’oeil effects often seen in nail art.
      Morgan – who has used snakes in several of her previous works – also referenced the appearance of sunbeam snakes, which have shiny, rainbow-like scaling.
      “It struck me that using a highly iridescent snake was the ultimate way to represent the vibrancy of our complex lives,” said Morgan, who experimented with paints, varnishes and nail transfer foils to achieve the final effect.
      “Having used the actual skins of snakes for years they suddenly felt inadequate; once they dry onto the form they lose a lot of colour and all their iridescence,” she continued. “I realised I’d been, literally, hidebound by taxidermy.”
      “Uncharacteristically I went to have my nails done and requested an iridescent finish so I could watch the techniques and learn from them – the fact that nails are everyday veneers fed directly into the work I was producing.”

      Every Other Dance, 2018, by Polly Morgan
      In the majority of the sculptures, the snakes appear as tangled piles squeezed through holes in concrete or polystyrene blocks.
      Polystyrene was specifically chosen to mimic the “accidentally architectural” packaging that Morgan would receive whenever she ordered goods online during the lockdown period of the pandemic.
      “The way these objects were cocooned in these protective forms seemed to parallel our own lives during lockdown, safeguarded in our homes,” she explained.

      Sebastian Errazuriz exhibition at New York’s R & Company features taxidermy Bird Chandelier

      The artist also thought the twisting shape of the snakes reflected how people can shape themselves to adhere to societal expectations.
      “The title of the show, How To Behave At Home, comes from a chapter heading in a Victorian book on etiquette,” Morgan revealed.
      “Etiquette, just like architecture, can encourage us to behave a certain way, to contain our baser instincts and to conform to certain rules,” she added.
      “We no longer have books on etiquette but we do have a new set of social strictures that proliferate online, and I see people contort themselves in every direction in order to avoid censure.”

      Nothing Like Before, 2019, by Polly Morgan
      Polly Morgan is based in London and has been practising sculpture and taxidermy since 2004. The artist’s How To Behave At Home exhibition will be showing at The Bomb Factory in London from 14 October until 2 November 2020.
      For more design and architecture events, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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      Villa Cavrois serves as backdrop to Muller Van Severen exhibition

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      Belgian design duo Muller Van Severen is exhibiting a selection of their furnishings amongst the rooms of Villa Cavrois, a modernist 20th-century villa near Lille, France.The exhibition, called Design! Muller Van Severen at Villa Cavrois, will see Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen present both new and old pieces from the oeuvre of their eponymous studio, which was founded in 2011.
      It comes as part of the year-long programme of events that Lille and the wider Lille Metropole area are hosting as the designated World Design Capital for 2020.

      Villa Cavrois is situated northeast of central Lille in the commune of Croix and was built between 1929 and 1932 by the French architect Robert Mallet-Stevens.

      The villa was originally designed as a family home for Paul Cavrois, a successful textile manufacturer, but during the second world war was occupied by German soldiers and turned into barracks.

      It was eventually abandoned and became subject to vandalisation, falling into such a severe state of neglect that it was threatened by demolition in the late 1980s.
      The French state ended up purchasing the villa in 2001 and carried out extensive renovation works to return the building to how it originally appeared in 1932. It then opened to the public in 2015.

      When it came to hosting their own exhibition at Villa Cavrois, Muller Van Severen wanted their furnishings to seamlessly fit in with the modernist grounds and interiors rather than appear as “strange entities”.
      “Time becomes irrelevant in this project,” the pair explained.
      “We want to create the poetic feeling that our objects could originate from the same time as the building. In the same way that the building itself feels very contemporary.”

      One room in the villa that’s lined with green-grey tiles of veiny marble is dressed with Sofa Cavrois, a furnishing that Muller Van Severen has designed specifically for the exhibition.
      The sofa – which is the first the duo has ever designed – curves upwards at two points, merging the shape of a standard chair and a chaise longue. To emphasise its sculptural form, the sofa is upholstered in bright sea-green linen.

      Muller Van Severen constructs Alltubes furniture series from rows of aluminium pipes

      A couple of the Muller Van Severen’s glossy, enamel-topped Emaille tables are also dotted throughout the room.

      Another mint-coloured room with wooden parquet flooring is dressed with the Strangled Rack from the duo’s Future Primitives collection, which comprises two intersecting shelves.
      Muller Van Severen’s Duo seat and lamp, which both boast red tubular framework, is presented just in front of the room’s huge marble-lined fireplace.

      One large maroon-red room displays shiny silver pieces from Muller Van Severen’s recent Alltubes collection, which is crafted from welded rows of aluminium pipes.
      Smaller spaces such as the villa’s kitchen, which features checkerboard floors, is decorated with a couple of brightly-hued Chair 2 models.

      The gridded wire daybeds and rocking chairs that Muller Van Severen originally created for Solo House, an architect-designed holiday home in Spain, are dotted across Villa Cavrois’ yellow-brick terraces outdoors.
      Some of the duo’s smaller homeware accessories are also included in the exhibition – for example, one office-like room features their stainless-steel Bended Mirror #3.

      Design! Muller Van Severen at Villa Cavrois will be showing until 31 October 2020.
      Villa Cavrois isn’t the only building by Robert Mallet-Stevens to become a public attraction. Villa Noailles in the French commune of Hyeres, which Mallet-Stevens designed in 1923, is now an arts centre.
      June of 2019 saw designer and Dezeen Awards judge Pierre Yovanovitch overhaul Villa Noailles’ gift shop, brightening up surfaces by painting them salmon pink, cobalt blue and buttery yellow.
      Photography is courtesy of Fien Muller.

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      Farnsworth House installation replicates Edith Farnsworth's original decor

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      Farnsworth House, the glass house designed by Mies van der Rohe in Illinois, has been redecorated for an installation to feature furnishings and personal belongings of its original client Edith Farnsworth.Edith Farnsworth’s Country House is the centrepiece of an exhibition series called Edith Farnsworth Reconsidered that explores the house’s namesake.
      The installation marks the first time in over 50 years the all-glass residence raised above ground by pilotis is furnished with Farnsworth’s original decor.

      “The Farnsworth House is known around the world as Mies’s ‘gesamtkunstwerk’ (total work of art), but that’s a false history and one that largely ignores the home’s namesake, Dr Edith Farnsworth,” said Farnsworth House executive director Scott Mehaffey.

      For the installation the Farnsworth House and the National Trust for Historic Preservation referenced old photographs of the space taken by Hedrich-Blessing, André Kertész and Werner Blaser. These date back to when Farnsworth occupied it to replicate the design of the space as it would have appeared in 1955.
      Farnsworth, a celebrated research physician, commissioned Van der Rohe to design the country house completed along the Fox River, in Plano, Illinois in 1951.

      While Farnsworth lived there in the 1950s to 60s the house was decorated with her preferred taste of Scandinavian and Italian furniture from designers such as Florence Knoll, Jens Risom, Bruno Mathsson and Franco Albini and with Asian antiques.

      In 1970 the residence was sold to British real estate mogul Baron Peter Palumbo, who outfitted the house with pieces by Van der Rohe and his grandson, Dirk Lohan. These are the furnishings typically on display in the space.
      “For Edith Farnsworth, it was a weekend house – for Peter Palumbo, it was an architectural monument: two fundamentally different viewpoints,” Mehaffey said.

      Geometry of Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House illuminated with red lasers

      “So through this installation, we experience the Farnsworth House as the client actually occupied the space – and I think this gives us a much better sense of who she was as a person, and what the house meant to her.”
      In the main living area, which opens out to the two lifted terraces, there is a wood dining table with white metal legs, a black and white rug with a geometric pattern and two curvy lounge chairs with woven straps.

      The centre of the house is occupied by a large rectangular structure used to divide the space and house its mechanics and two bathrooms. One length of the volume is fronted with the kitchen, while the opposite side is furnished with a daybed and chairs that face a small fireplace.

      The bedroom is located at one end of the wood volume and is partitioned by an office tucked into the corner of the house.
      A glass desk with crossed legs overlooks the green landscape in the workspace. On top of the work surface there is a replica of Farnsworth’s typewriter, a framed family photograph and books and on the ground next to the table is her medical briefcase.

      Most of the furnishings on display are commercially-sold reproductions of Farnsworth’s original pieces, while the wardrobe, daybed and Asian slipper chairs are custom-built replicas.
      In addition to the furniture pieces the installation also showcases personal belongings Farnsworth is known to have owned, including potted plants, dish ware, linens, a violin, and a typewriter.

      “We’ve personalised the installation with replicas of her violin, her typewriter, her books, family photos, monogrammed towels and other personal effects – to help conjure her presence,” Mehaffey said.
      Edith Farnsworth Reconsidered and its components will continue through December 2021 with a VR tour and a number of other programmes in the on-site galleries, including an exhibition that focuses on Farnsworth’s life, career and hobbies.

      “Related programmes and events will also celebrate Edith Farnsworth’s life and times,” Mehaffey added. “All of this places the Farnsworth House in a broader, richer context than ever before – it’s no longer ‘All about Mies.'”
      The Farnsworth House opened to the public in 2004 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006.

      To highlight the house’s unusual geometries and history Iker Gil and Luftwerk projected red lasers across the building and surrounding property. In 2014 there was a proposal to lift the structure with hydraulic jacks to avoid the region’s flooding, however, the system was never implemented.
      Photography is by William Zbaren.

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      Isometric creates toolkit for safely reopening museums following the pandemic

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      Brooklyn design firm Isometric Studio has devised a set of guidelines to help museums reopen safely following coronavirus, including adding signage to encourage social distancing and using masks as entry tickets. Toolkit for Museum Reopening: Design Strategies and Considerations outlines design strategies museums can use to prevent the spread of infection. “Audiences are seeking constructive […] More

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      Lorem Ipsum's experience design shows the “power of dramatic narratives”

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      VDF studio profiles: Lorem Ipsum is a creative studio that crafts exhibitions and experiential installations, such as an audiovisual recreation of an airstrike, that fully immerse visitors in a story. Since being founded in New York in 2000, the company has expanded to include London and Moskow offices where designers and architects, writers and filmmakers […] More

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      in Rooms

      Preview The Met's postponed About Time: Fashion and Duration exhibition

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      New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has created a virtual version of its About Time: Fashion and Duration exhibition, which has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Met’s Costume Institute has made a short Youtube video of the museum’s annual major spring exhibition to coincide with its original opening date this week. The […] More