What’s an hourglass? Oh yes, it’s an ancient time piece, flowing fine sand quietly marking time in a perfectly balanced glass. Or, as everyone should know by now, it is the main prop at Never Stand Still. It was the kick-off party to start the countdown for BMW’s European launch of the latest model of BMW 7 series, slated to take place this fall. The car, displayed in the world’s largest hourglass in the Red Square, has not received much coverage but as soon as the construction of the hourglass marvel began four months ago, online buzz about it has been consistent. The 12-meter-high glass contraption was the centerpiece of the party thrown to 400 invited guests and celebrities. At the start of the build-up, more than 180,000 silvery balls concealed the car that was gradually revealed as the balls fell to the lower level. Moscow is a strong and growing market for BMW, and what better place to strut its latest but the historic location against the backdrop of the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral and G.U.M. – all veterans of many a communist-era motorized military parade. By Tuija Seipell
The team behind the Danish pavilion at the World Expo 2008 in Zaragoza, Spain consists of three Copenhagen-based firms — architects Spektrum Arkitekter, graphic agency Loop Associates and communications agency 2+1.
The
Danish pavilion houses Círculos de Agua (Circles in the Water), an
exhibition about sustainable living and lasting solutions that echoes
the World Expo 2008 theme of water and sustainability. Círculos de Agua
highlights Danish technologies that have started out small yet have the
potential to affect global change. The underlying message is that
everything we do spreads like ripples through water. The pavilion will
be used again at the COP15 Copenhagen — United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009.
The pavilion consists of five cylinders with five themes. The Wind
Cylinder explains how the tiny country of Denmark with only five
million inhabitants has become a leading supplier of wind power
technologies. The Water Cylinder explores the planning of cities to
cope with rising water levels and the extreme climate of the future.
The Daylight Cylinder showcase natural light as a vehicle for both
style and sustainability. The Biomass Cylinder extols the virtues of
bio fuels produced from harvest waste. The Restaurant & Shop
Cylinder, dedicated to creativity, showcases the latest in Danish
design and crafts. The World Expo runs till September 14, so it's not
too late to see it. - Tuija Seipell.
Karl Largerfeld never puts a pedicured foot wrong and hispresentation for Chanel at this week’s Couture shows proves that he isstill one of the most innovative and creative minds on the planet.Largerfeld unveiled his collection amid an extraordinary 50-foot setmade up of steel-grey tubes inspired by organ pipes. Lagerfeld workedthe tubes theme into the collection, showing tubular shapes in severaldifferent manifestations.
Lagerfeldis one of the masters of catwalk theatrics, dreaming up incrediblelarger-than life sets that seem to get more elaborate each season. Forsome of the best of recent shows check out Runaway Runway Success. By Lisa Evans via Fashionation
In 1877, Antonio Fluxá went all the way from the island of Majorca to
England to learn about shoemaking. Whatever he learned there, he put
into action immediately and founded a shoe company that his grandson
Lorenzo turned into Camper Shoes
in 1975. Today, the family's fourth generation is at the helm, the
company is still based in Majorca and its shoes are sold worldwide. If
you were lucky, you received an invite to this fun-and-games Campy
party held in Germany recently, to celebrate the launch of the
Spring/Summer 08 collection. AstroTurf, retro gear, great music and
sand in your sandals. We're in. By Tuija Seipell
The work of Belgium’s Rotor Group
is popping up in more and more visible places. Rotor covers a wide
range of projects, from basic design, branding and packaging, to
events, lighting planning, interiors, showrooms, products, trade shows
and art. We especially like the work they have done with Belgian
lighting firm Modular Lighting Instruments
creating events, showrooms and surroundings that defy definition. A
great example is Rotor Designer Toon Stockman’s retro-futuristic
showroom for Modular that pays homage to Modular’s Beam Squad and
consists of six enormous cages supported by a skeleton of fluorescent
tubing. The wild narrative for this installation — a typical Rotor tale
— tells of life-destroying peril but luckily, all will be well and in
about 2069, lighting will be manufactured in peace again. By Tuija Seipell
It is tough to make an impression in New York,
but Google is not afraid to try. To celebrate the official launch
(finally!) of its new artist themes for iGoogle,
it held a candle-lit media bash at One Little West 12 (a club located
at 1 Little W 12th St. in the Meatpacking District) and then let San
Francisco’s Obscura Digital loose outside with a three-night
illumination gallery.
At the hub of the district, the
intersection of Little West 12th, Ninth Avenue and Gansevoort, Obscura
projected moving images of the iGoogle artwork onto the facades of
buildings for three nights from 10 pm to 2 am. The facades of St. Hotel
Gansevoort, Pastis, Theory and Inn LW12 were the canvases for work by
Jeff Koons, Michael Graves, Yves Behar and others. At a white tent
sporting a Google logo at Gansevoort Square, passers-by could play with
the images a battery of computer stations.
At the media bash, a
panel of the iGoogle contributors consisting of architect Michael
Graves, photographer Anne Geddes, artist Jeff Koons, Marc Ecko, and New
Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff discussed their views of how the
Internet is changing their industry. Other luminaries whose designs are
available at iGoogle include Dolce & Cabbana, Diane von
Furstenberg, Philippe Starck,Oscar de la Renta, Tory Burch and Ivana
Helsinki. By Tuija Seipell
Camping out a music festival need no longer be a boggy, muddy affair thanks to this smart-as-a-whip innovation dubbed Myhab.
Essentially it's a temporary, waterproof, completely recyclable tent
made from durable recycled plastic and and waterproof cardboard. The
tent is fixed on a raised platform to stop it from slipping into a
muddy bog in the case of rain.
Myhab was created by a student
and there are plans to for "myhab" villages at all of the UK's major
music festivals. by Lisa Evanns (via Springwise)
Berlin’s Magma Architecture
won several awards for its entry in the JETZT | NOW series of temporary
installations at the Berlinische Galerie, Museum for Contemporary Art,
Photography and Architecture. Magma’s installation, 11th in the series,
was called fittingly “head-in | im kopf” and its concept is based on
exploring the properties of materials, form, color and light.
The
main feature of the installation is an alarmingly orange flexible
fabric (polyamide-elastan mix) stretched between the walls, ceiling and
floor. The fabric is the most visible part of the exhibit, yet it is
also the tool with which the viewers can focus on smaller details.
Visitors bend down under the fabric into which openings were cut.
Through these holes, visitors pop their heads up into the orange space
to view drawings, models and photographs suspended from wires. These
items are from Magma’s work and include representations of the
revitalization of the former GDR Radio Centre (Berlin, Nalepastrasse,
2007), a bridge over the Landwehrkanal river in Berlin (competition
entry in 2006), the new Nexus Productions headquarters in London, and
the exhibition Trial & Error in London (2003). Luckily, we have
images to show how it all worked as the full effect of the experience
is quite impossible to describe in mere words.
The project team
for head-in | im kopf included Anke Noske, Hendrik Bohle, Dominik Jörg,
Lena Kleinheine, Ksenia Kagler, Yohko Mizushima, Lena Kleinheinz,
Martin Ostermann and Ben Reynolds.
Magma was established in 2003 by Martin Ostermann and Lena Kleinheinz.
The Ohio native Ostermann is a former senior architect at Studio Daniel
Libeskind. The Denmark-born Kleinheinz is an exhibition designer. Magma
is known for its inventive, experimental and experiential approaches to
architectural work. By Tuija Seipell
Creativity has always been at the heart of CHANEL since its very
beginnings; it is the thread that unites Mademoiselle Chanel to Karl
Lagerfeld, a visionary spirit known for his skill in anticipating the
future of his times.
A modern brand, constantly moving forward, cultivating the
extraordinary and its innate sense of the moment, CHANEL is resolutely
open to the world and turning towards the future. It is this propulsion
that incites CHANEL to perpetually create surprise, from one continent
to the next, and to so deeply impact on our collective imaginary
consciousness.
A travelling project, with entry free to all, Mobile Art will circulate
for two years throughout Asia, the United States and Europe.In a
futuristic pavilion created by the architect Zaha Hadid at the request
of Karl Lagerfeld, some twenty international artists will exhibit work
that was inspired by the elements that give the CHANEL bag its
identity. Through this collaboration, resulting from their singular
points of view - poetic, audacious and as yet unseen - the multiple
facets of this mythical bag and its universe are revealed.
Mobile Art is a revolutionary event, uniting one of the greatest
architects of our time, some of our most innovative artists, and an
icon of the fashion world: the quilted bag. Mobile Art is founded in the
continuity of Gabrielle Chanel's strong relationship with the arts, and
reaffirms once more our devotion to creativity and to the avant-garde.
If it is creative and cool and has an edge that others don’t, we want
to know about it. This time, we are particularly interested in hearing
from the event industry.
Although we now can experience all sorts of “reality” just sitting down
in our own environments, nothing beats a real live experience of an
awesome party. One of our all-time favorites is the breathtakingly cool
Prada VIP do at the Central Market
in Valencia, Spain, to celebrate the America’s Cup. Talk about
awakening all of your senses in one lavish event!