INDUSTRIAL STYLE RENOVATION / PAOLA NAVONE

A 200-year-old, abandoned tobacco-drying factory in Umbria is transformed into an inviting home by designer Paola Navone. It is 500m² of open-plan floor area with 9m high ceiling. All the functions have been housed in one room, with an exception of the kitchen which has been closed off, but with a window wall.

//Visitors pass by a sentry wall of lamps on their way to the airy living-dining room with its 52 windows. Beyond, a gauzy wall of Indian cotton curtains leads to the bath. A balcony runs the perimeter of the living-dining room, a solution Navone came up with to deal with existing structural beams, which would have been too costly to remove. The walkway, or passerelle, is about four feet wide. Here, an Ergofocus hanging fireplace is flanked by two Navone-designed leather armchairs for Baxter. Farther along are a library and office. The massive dining table—12 mlong, made of kauri wood thousands of years old, and designed by Mario Botta—sits on a carpet of tile. “I didn’t want to have this old wood sitting on top of parquet,” says Navone. A motley assortment of chairs completes the vignette. “The table is so big, so important,” explains the architect. “You can’t make a statement with a chair.” The overscaled, slipcovered white sofa, a Navone design for Linteloo, is set parallel to the dining area, flanked by two armchairs. An old printer’s trolley, found at a flea market, serves as a coffee table. The rest of the living space is filled with an assortment of objects the couple has amassed over the years. The loft’s bed and bath areas are equally compelling. Andrea bought an old iron-framed bed at a flea market after texting photos to Navone for approval; the bed now takes pride of place in the room, swaddled mostly in white Indian cotton. The bathroom is a classic Navone tour de force. She created the bathroom sink, her own design for Ceramica Flaminia, and the stand is custom made from old discarded wood. The floor and the shower are tiled with more Navone-designed Moroccan tiles from Carocim. A freestanding tub from the Water Monopoly, an English company that specializes in antique tubs as well as reproductions, is installed by the white linen–curtained window.//

[ Dwell ]

WATERGATE HOTEL RENOVATION / BAHRAM KAMALI

// Show me the way 
To the next whisky bar 
Oh, don't ask why 
Oh, don't ask why 

For if we don't find 
The next whisky bar 
I tell you we must die 
I tell you we must die 
I tell you, I tell you 
I tell you we must die //

[ Condé Nast Traveller, Washington Post ]

DOOR 19 / PH.D ARCHITECTS

Situated in an yet uninhabited loft on the top floor of ArtHouse, a new residential building designed by Russian architect Sergey Skuratov, the pop-up club Door 19 is in one a restaurant, modern art gallery and a pre-party bar. Open from 25th September to 31st October 2014, the club, in it's concept and setup, merged together high-class and counter culture. The interior design for Door 19 is the work of of PH.D architects, also Russian based. They left the brick, concrete and pluming exposed and used scaffolding construction to form the bar and gallery above it, creating an atmosphere of a work in progress and accentuating in that way the temporary character of the place and the very concept of pop-up. The rough, metal, industrial, functional was combined with expensive and elaborate details, with wood, soft, color. The best street artists from Moscow and beyond have been invited to leave their mark on the space in the form of paintings, murals and sculptures. The experience was rounded off with best quality of food and drinks prepared by Michelin-starred chefs and top mixologists and bartenders, uniforms were specially designed for the occasion by Vardoui Nazarian and Main in Main took care of the sound.

Usually these kind of temporary venues appear in unused and often most unexpected places - old factories, abandoned tunnels, private homes, and are guided by a child like DIY spirit that asks "Wouldn't it be great if ...?", and is not afraid to answer that question and just go for it. By utilizing unused facilities, these then become places of experiment where urbanism, architecture, team work, events, products can be tested. In it's core anarchic, the idea of interacting with space in way is liberating and exciting, and the factor of temporal calls for immediate action because what is here now, will be gone tomorrow and so waiting or postponing is not an option.

According to professor Ali Madanipour, there are two key regards of pop-ups: //One is that they can be a positive way of making more intensive use of urban space// and, on the other hand, //they can be an aid to consumerism in which brands create a stage setting, adding color and texture to the general mall atmosphere that is the backdrop to many of our urban spaces. Pop-up businesses support shopping – they bring a festival atmosphere to shopping.//

Door 19 was being used as a sails catalyst, introducing the visitors not only to the apartments in ArtHouse but also to the potential of ArtKvartal - a government supported project of urban regeneration of a 500ha area in Moscow. //The project is still at the design stage and is expected to take between 10 and 15 years to realize, with a model of gentrification that will fan outwards from ArtHouse, taking into its fold other upmarket art clusters such as ArtPlay and Winzavod. Once it is completed, anyone working in the creative industries, from fashion or film, will have the opportunity to rent a place to live or work in.//

In general, //Pop-up environments bring the realm of the expected into spaces where it doesn’t belong, and better, where its viewers think they don’t belong. It creates an opening not only for artwork to rediscover itself through engagement with an unusual site, and for the viewer who, through their experience of the site itself, finds vacation from normal life and thought patterns.//

[trendland, the guardian, psfk]

THE LINE HOTEL / SEAN KNIBB

Situated in Los Angeles, California, the Wilshire Radisson Hotel, a high-rise built in 1964, was recently completely renovated by LA designer Sean Knibb.

// “It was going to be human-scaled,” he says of his guest-room proposal. “Nothing to do with the movie business or celebrity.” He drew inspiration instead from the beach, the mountains, and the city. “A true California hotel with a mix of surfing, skateboarding, Spanish colonial style, Latino cultures.” And let’s not forget  mid-century modernism. His 15-foot-wide presentation panel nailed the job.//

// "We started with the concept of repurpose—use as much of the existing structure as possible, and take materials that would not usually be considered luxurious and elevate them through substitution," says Knibb. Towards that end, he photographed the structure's exposed concrete and then had it turned into wallpaper, which is actually what lines the walls of the rooms. It was custom made by Astek in LA. Each room also has a chair upholstered in a vintage Mexican serape, a painted coffee table with a "cityscape" built from books, and a photo collage by Kevin Hanley of LA's Acme gallery. Knibb Design created the rakish lamp. //

[ Sources: Interior Design, Remodelista, Knibb Design, Home Adore, i am koream ]

 

KINTSUGI - TRANSCENDING IMPERFECTION

Kintsugi, which literally means “golden joinery”, is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery or porcelain with gold, or to be more accurate, with adhesive resin mixed with gold dust. The process makes no attempt to hide the crack but rather uses the „injury“ as the central element for the metamorphosis of the damaged vessel into an object of a more profound appearance and adds a whole new level of aesthetic complexity. Originating in the 15th century, Kintsugi is based on aesthetic ideals which evolved in the culture of tea.

 

What started life within the formal system of symmetry, once it is broken this order is disrupted. Mending the vessel in a way that calls attention to the fracture offers a kind of rebirth but within an utterly different system guided by free abstraction. 

In this practice there is the wisdom of accepting change and seeing that there is no permanent self to cling to. Also it is an expression of profound esteem felt for the damaged object through the use of a commensurately prized repair material.

 

As a general rule, the repaired artifact acquires far higher value and enjoys greater appreciation than it had in its previously undamaged state. The explanation for this can be found in a distinctively Japanese aesthetic perception and sensitivity which, rather than considering defects, wear associated with ageing, and imperfections in general as flaws, is able to discover a profound and touching quality in them. 

The roots of this mode of perception and sensitivity can be traced to the aesthetic ideals of wabi and sabi, which originated in the art of poetry and were firmly incorporated into the art of tea by the tea masters in the 16th century. Both words are difficult to translate: the former can be approximately rendered as “poverty and undemandingness”, the latter as “seclusion, ageing, patina and decay”. Not strictly separated in actual practice, wabi and sabi are intimately interlinked and often interchangeable ideals embodying the beauty that inheres in whatever is humble, simple, impermanent and secluded.

In the context of a traditional tea ceremonie in Japan, mended objects are seen as a physical embodiment of the spirit of mushin, term literally translated as “no mind” but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. The term is shortened from mushin no shin, a Zen expression meaning “the mind without mind”. That is, a mind not fixed or occupied by thought or emotion and thus open to everything. Mushin is achieved when a person's mind is free from thoughts of anger, fear, or ego during combat or everyday life. There is an absence of discursive thought and judgment, so the person is totally free to act and react towards an opponent without hesitation and without disturbance from such thoughts. At this point, a person relies not on what they think should be the next move, but what is their trained natural reaction or what is felt intuitively. It is not a state of relaxed, near-sleepfulness, however. The mind could be working at a very high speed, but with no intention, plan or direction.

This meeting of acceptance and care evokes another Japanese concept, that of mono no aware, literally “the pathos of things.” It connotes a compassionate sensitivity to ephemera, an empathy towards, or even identification with transient things. Mono no aware is the appreciation of things in the shadow of their future absence. It is a rare moment when thoughts and feelings become fully formed, the heart of poetry. It is what we feel when we experience something that makes us exclaim “oh!” and express our feelings in poetry, prose, art, or song.

 

When hosting a tea gathering, the tea master carefully chooses utensils that make associations with nature and the season, as well as more personal allusions to the occasion, guests, or to the tea community as a whole. Using mended antique objects, especially those once owned by previous tea practitioners, can impart to the participants a sense of belonging to a great tradition that extends into the past. Investing in the expense of fine lacquer repair represents an endorsement of the utensil by its owner and instills the importance of preserving it for future generations.

Mending utensils is not cheap, and not all damaged objects receive such ministrations. The owner has to decide that the piece has sufficient historical, aesthetic, personal or social value to merit a new investment. A newly-mended utensil proclaims the owner’s personal endorsement, and visually apparent repairs call attention to this honor.

These precious mended objects are seen in the tearoom only during the last two weeks of October. These days of autumn are known in Japan as the season of nagori. It is the time of nature’s seasonal decline, letting go of the old in anticipation of the new. Then the year’s supply of tea that had been brought out for the first time the previous November is running low. While only enough thick tea for three guests may be left , five are invited. And with deep gratitude and pleasure, they make sure the amountof tea offered in the single bowl is sufficient for each one to savor what remains of that year’s tea. This is the strongest expression of nagori – the intense beauty of a communal impulse to cherish and to share that which remains. 

Historically significant mended items are often accompanied by lines of poetry, which enhance the object’s mute ability to evoke a simultaneous sense of rupture and continuity, fragility and resilience, life before the breakage and life after.  

The aesthetic that embraces insufficiency in terms of physical attributes exerts an appeal to the emotions that is more powerful than formal visual qualities, at least in the tearoom. Mended ceramics convey a sense of passage of time and a message that the beauty is in the one that is looking at the vessel and not in the vessel itself.