The Monocle Minute On Design – Wednesday 26 July 2023

London / Zürich / Milan / Tokyo / Bangkok / Singapore / Los Angeles Wednesday. 26/07/23 The Monocle Minute: On Design Monocle Minute On Design SPONSORED BY V-ZUG Monocle BEACON OF LIGHT As things heat up with the unveiling of the Paris 2024 Olympic torch, a Menorca house provides us with some cool relief. Plus: we take to the stage at a theatre festival in Zürich, visit an art house in Finland (pictured) and follow architectural artist Brian Clarke’s journey through the looking glass. But first, Yvonne Xu on how Singapore is reshaping its design future. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01/07 OPINION / YVONNE XU BUILD FOR THE FUTURE Earlier this month, two designers and six projects received one of Singapore’s highest creative honours: the President’s Design Award. The biannual prize is organised by Design Singapore Council and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, whose 17-member international jury panel includes creative professionals as well as experts in the fields of education, healthcare, communications and digital technology. This broadening of the judging team is part of the council’s ambition to widen an appreciation for design in the city-state beyond architecture and furniture to include the likes of information systems and engineering. “Designers are crossing traditional boundaries and are innovating across disciplines,” says Dawn Lim, executive director of Design Singapore Council, explaining that the evolution of the prize was a natural process. But the move is also part of a broad shift, as Lim and her team look to celebrate projects that solve complex social, economic and ecological problems – issues that are best tackled with big-picture thinking and wide skill sets, which smart cross-disciplinary teams (and jury panels) possess in spades. For proof, you only have to look at this year’s winners, with projects such as Hack Care: Tips and Tricks for a Dementia-friendly Home – a book and toolkit for dementia caregivers by Lekker Architects and industrial designers Lanzavecchia + Wai – receiving recognition alongside buildings and parks. By highlighting good design that meets the shifting needs of Singapore and the world, the award not only sets new benchmarks but gives the industry a necessary steer – one that should allow for more cross-disciplinary collaborations and designers to solve problems in fields beyond their own. Here’s to keeping an eye on the prize. Yvonne Xu is a Singapore-based design journalist and regular contributor to Monocle magazine. For more insight and analysis, today. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02/07 THE PROJECT / JULIÀ ORIOLA HOUSE, SPAIN ALL AT SEA Mallorcan architect Esteve Torres Pujol drew inspiration from traditional shoe workshops in the Balearics when he designed the Julià Oriola House in Menorca. Located in a former garage, the sunny residence is set back from the road, providing a tranquil haven behind its external façade. D “We wanted to pay tribute to its simple exterior,” says Torres Pujol, whose firm, Estudi E. Torres Pujol, is based in Palma. The home’s garage-style opening allows the building to function as both a private and professional space for its resident artist: when open, it feels like a gallery, combining ambient natural light with the public area outside. Design decisions were made to reflect the home’s Mediterranean location: there are rusty-orange interior accents, exposed timber beams and hexagonal clay tiles that cover the bathroom floor and walls, which are synonymous with the region’s traditional architecture. Sunshades and a pergola also provide some respite from the heat, allowing cool sea breezes to filter through the home. “The house is the essence of the Mediterranean,” says Torres Pujol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPONSORED BY V-ZUG 3 U ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03/07 DESIGN NEWS / CHAPPE ART HOUSE, FINLAND HUMBLE BEGINNINGS In Tammisaari, an idyllic holiday town on the southern coast of Finland, the scaffolding has come down from an eye-catching new cultural building. Nestled among quaint 18th-century villas, the Chappe Art House cuts a striking figure with its angled design and black spruce façade, courtesy of Helsinki-based JKMM Architects. The three-storey venue will host regularly rotating exhibitions focused on Nordic art and was commissioned by the late genetics researcher and art collector Albert de la Chapelle (the museum’s name comes from his nickname) as a gift to the municipality. “In the competition brief, one aim with the museum building was to make it a work of art in itself,” says Asmo Jaaksi, founding partner at JKMM Architects, a firm with a portfolio that includes the blockbuster Amos Rex museum in Helsinki. “We needed to be both humble and bold.” The architects took a traditional Tammisaari gable-roofed timber house as a starting point and gave it an asymmetric twist. Inside, gallery visitors are rewarded with sloping ceiling beams, generous natural light from two skylights and, from the top floor, impressive views over the gulf. “It doesn’t just sit there nice and quietly,” says Jaaksi. “But it doesn’t shout either.” jkmm.fi ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 04/07 WORDS WITH... / BRIAN CLARKE, UK WINDOW ON THE WORLD Brian Clarke is widely regarded as the most important creative working in stained glass today and has consistently pushed the boundaries of the medium throughout his long career. His vision for stained glass is fundamentally architectural and his portfolio includes contributions to projects by architects such as Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Renzo Piano. His work is now on exhibition at London’s Newport Street Gallery until 24 September. Here, we ask Clarke about his craft and its evolution. How has your work with stained glass changed over time? One of the great challenges of the medium is making it fit in with modern architecture. Leaded glass is not a natural bedfellow with a curtain-wall skyscraper or a modernist museum. I have had the good fortune of working with some of the greatest architects of our time but the buildings that they designed were not suitable for the craft, so I had to find new ways of expressing myself in sheets of glass that could be immense in scale. That caused me to have to remove lead from the equation and develop certain new technologies. What is the perception of stained glass in the design world? It has changed a bit now but if you wanted to find books on stained glass in the past, you had to go to a library’s minor arts section. It has always been my intention to change that perception – stained glass is only a minor art when it’s designed by minor artists. When it’s designed by great artists, as the Middle Ages more than adequately demonstrate, it’s truly great. Its architectural essence lends it a unique quality: it’s a kinetic art that shifts and moves over the course of the day as light filters through the glass. This choreographic work across the interior spaces of buildings is a magical and mysterious aspect that is impossible for a painting to deliver. What is the future of stained glass? We used to make wonderful mouth-blown glass in England but that has disappeared now. It’s now an extinct art in the UK; all my glass is blown in Germany. When I began my career, it was already a dying medium – and it still is – but I like to entertain hopes and ambitions that it will survive. It can be tremendously exciting and beautiful so I remain entirely convinced that the craft has a potentially thrilling and splendid future. To hear more from Brian Clarke, tune in to ‘Monocle On Design’ on Monocle Radio. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- V-ZUG   MONOCLE V-ZUG’s intuitive design principles prioritise emotional interfaces and instinctive usage. Users can customise its Excellence Line appliances for a highly personalised experience. Combining industrial design and intuitive functionality, V-ZUG ensures simplicity in operating its products. The innovative CircleSlider, set into the touch display, merges digital convenience with the familiarity of a classic dial. With a focus on tactile interaction and user enjoyment, V-ZUG creates appliances that seamlessly integrate into daily routines and become an integral part of home life. Discover more ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 05/07 FROM THE ARCHIVE / NESTING TABLES BY GRETE JALK BENT TO PERFECTION Danish designer Grete Jalk was ahead of her time in more ways than one. She studied furniture design and opened her own office right after the Second World War, becoming one of the few women designers in the canon of Danish modernism. In the 1950s she showed carpenter Poul Jeppesen her sketches for curved plywood furniture. The designs were so unusual that it would take seven years for them to go into production and once they did, they were a commercial dud. Today it is precisely those pieces, including this set of nesting tables from 1963, that are Jalk’s most sought-after works. The GJ Nesting table, as this piece is known, was the accompaniment to the GJ (or Shell) chair, and served as a side table, footrest or both. Jalk had been inspired by the famous bentwood experiments of Alvar Aalto and Charles Eames but she pushed the craft to new limits: the sharp angles in the laminated plywood were so difficult to achieve that only a few hundred were ever produced. The GJ chair was reissued by WonderWood Amsterdam – and its space-saving companion deserves the same. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 06/07 AT THE GAMES / PARIS 2024 TORCH, FRANCE FUEL TO THE FIRE At its best, an Olympic torch is a sleek work of industrial design and an enduring icon of the global event that remains in people’s memories long after the sporting competition has wrapped up. It’s an ambition that the organisers of next year’s games in the French capital are looking to emulate. The design for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games Torch, which was unveiled yesterday, was conceived by Paris-based creative Mathieu Lehanneur and its striking look reflects the three themes of the event: equality, thanks to its symmetrical form; water, courtesy of its wave-like shape and rippled surface; and peacefulness via its gentle curves. In a celebration of French craftsmanship, the torch will be produced by steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal in its facilities in Châteauneuf and Florange. The firm will use 100 per cent recycled steel to create the torch: melted steel will form its base while sheets cut from the material will be shaped to form its body. The torch’s flame will be powered by a hydrogen fuel cell that produces zero emissions – an essential feature given that the torch will embark on a long journey prior to the Games. It will be lit in Olympia, Greece, next year and then carried by 10,000 torchbearers on a 68-day trek across France and its overseas territories before finally arriving in Paris on 26 July 2024 for the opening ceremony. mathieulehanneur.fr ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 07/07 IN THE PICTURE / THEATER SPEKTAKEL, SWITZERLAND BETTER TOGETHER The international theatre and performing arts festival, Zürcher Theater Spektakel, is returning to the Swiss city this summer, with the 44th iteration running from 17 August to 3 September. Also returning is its partnership with Studio Marcus Kraft, a Swiss graphic-design firm that has been tasked with creating a graphic and advertising campaign for the event. The work includes posters and digital media that feature graphics of hand-cast plaster panels with a single word in relief. ZURCHER - ZURCHER ZURCHER - ZURATER THEATER THEATER SPEKTAKEL SPEKTAKEL SPEKTAKEL 1783923 178-3923 1783923 A The design draws inspiration from the plaster objects that feature in Belgian choreographer Miet Warlop’s acclaimed performance piece, “One Song”, which will be on show as part of the festival. “I am delighted that the visual communication is so directly linked to the high-quality programme this year,” says Matthias von Hartz, Zürcher Theater Spektakel’s artistic director. It’s a link that other designers who are working with 3D and 2D mediums should also look to make.marcuskraft.com; theaterspektakel.ch ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Feedback? get in touch   Read this email online   Manage Newsletters   Share on Twitter   Share on LinkedIn Images: Tuomas Uusheimo, Adrià Goula, Mary McCartney, Anje Jager, Felipe Ribon, Marcus Kraft  from The Monocle Minute On Design To stop receiving all Monocle newsletters, please click here This email is from Monocle whose registered office is at Midori House, 1 Dorset Street, London, W1U 4EG. You have received this email because you have previously provided us with your email address and subscribed to Monocle bulletins. © 2023 Monocle. M Stay up to date in your downtime with Monocle’s new weekly newsletter.