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It's easy to fall for a pretty package. But when it comes to transportation, Patricia Urquiola and Giulio Ridolfo believe it's the inside that counts. So when the two designers were asked to create an installation revealing the new BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo at this year's Salone del Mobile, the result was The Dwelling Lab, an exploded sculpture in the Kvadrat showroom that aimed to transform the way we think about cars.   MORE >>

It's easy to fall for a pretty package. But when it comes to transportation, Patricia Urquiola and Giulio Ridolfo believe it's the inside that counts. So when the two designers were asked to create an installation revealing the new BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo at this year's Salone del Mobile, the result was The Dwelling Lab, an exploded sculpture in the Kvadrat showroom that aimed to transform the way we think about cars.

Upholstered in a quartet of thermo-welded Kvadrat textiles and lit with bespoke OLED versions of Urquiola's Chasen lamp for Flos, the car forms the nucleus of five conical protrusions that draw onlookers to the roadster's monotone interior. Each exploded surface is covered with suitcases, jumper cables and other gadgets likely found in a car, post-road trip. Inside, the designers sought a user-focused, living-room environment with easily accessible storage compartments fitted to seatbacks-giving new meaning to the mobile home.

The accentuated chamber explores the emotional connection we make with the objects we travel in. After all, it's the vehicle's cabin that protects and comforts us during a journey-doesn't it too deserve our loving attention? bmw.com, flos.com, kvadrat.dk   << LESS

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Like the Guggenheim, the Tate and the Louvre, Paris's Centre Georges Pompidou has gone into the franchising business and spun off its first satellite museum. Opened to the public last May in the northeastern French city of Metz, the Centre Pompidou-Metz was designed by the Japanese/ French duo of Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines. Ban and Gastines not only beat out Herzog & de Meuron and NOX Architects to win the competition, they delivered the museum on budget (10 million euros) and in record time-just three years after construction began.   MORE >>

Like the Guggenheim, the Tate and the Louvre, Paris's Centre Georges Pompidou has gone into the franchising business and spun off its first satellite museum. Opened to the public last May in the northeastern French city of Metz, the Centre Pompidou-Metz was designed by the Japanese/ French duo of Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines. Ban and Gastines not only beat out Herzog & de Meuron and NOX Architects to win the competition, they delivered the museum on budget (10 million euros) and in record time-just three years after construction began.

While the original Pompidou, designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, looks like a factory turned inside out, the Pompidou-Metz excites folksier comparisons. The mayor of Metz called it the "Smurf House," while The New York Times described it as "an enormous snow-white toadstool." One over-the-top critic even described it as a kind of mythical beast, a phantasmagorical hybrid of a duck, walrus and horse.

The Pompidou-Metz may appear to be all those things, but first and foremost, it has a spectacular roof. Imagine a pristine white handkerchief floating down from the sky and draping itself over an undulating, hexagon-patterned, wood-framed canopy. From afar, the white Teflon-fibreglass roof looks like Cool Whip with glass-ended rectangles protruding through its sides. The concrete structure beneath the canopy consists of three stacked "shoebox" volumes, as well as a box and a cylinder that house the museum's exhibition and office spaces, restaurant, cafe, bookstore, auditorium and concert hall.

"The priority of this museum, even before being an art museum, is to be a gathering place for the public," says Ban. "Instead of making a sculptural kind of building, or a box with a door to go in, I wanted to create a strong motivation for people to enter." By stretching a canopy over the entire building, Ban and Gastines have created flexible indoor/outdoor public spaces as an alternative to visiting the museum's exhibitions. The sheltered patio outside the Patrick Jouin-designed restaurant on the second floor is one of these areas. So is the lobby-like Forum on the ground floor with shuttered glass walls that open up entirely to the outdoors in good weather. "Not all people are interested in contemporary art," says Ban. "The roof creates a space that is between inside and outside. In the winter, people will enjoy sitting outside under the canopy. And little by little, they'll come into the museum."

Canopies have long been a subject of meditation for Ban, explored in his temporary pavilion for Expo 2000 in Hanover and an installation piece he created for the Rice University Art Gallery in Houston in 2002, called Bamboo Roof. Like the paper tube structures Ban is best known for-most famously his temporary Paper Church in Kobe, Japan, which was taken down in 2005-canopies function as lightweight shelter. Ban has reconciled the ephemeral, nomadic spirit of a tent roof with the durability and permanence a museum requires. He meets those conditions with the concrete containers, but it's a tense amalgam of a flight-of-fancy roof soaring over concrete geometry. For one thing, combining the two has created substantial unused space. The empty roofs of the rectangular, ground-floor bookstore and first-floor gallery are no-man's-lands visible from the third floor but physically inaccessible, and sure spots for pigeons to flock. Ban argues that the interstitial spaces produced by juxtaposing box and roof constitute the museum's defining areas: the indoor/outdoor Forum lobby where people gather, and the Grande Nef exhibition space on the ground floor, with it's monumental three-story-high walls. "The Forum and the Grande Nef are in-between spaces," says Ban. "The space created between the canopy roof and the boxes … are the most important ones in the museum."

The Pompidou-Metz devotes a grand total of 53,000 square feet to displaying art, making it the country's biggest temporary exhibition space and the perfect showcase for the Paris Pompidou's vast collection of 20th-and 21st-century art. The Pompidou is gambling that its high-powered collections and idiosyncratic new home will turn the Metz museum into a destination spot for cultural tourists. The city of Metz, of course, hopes to lure visitors out of the museum and into town. To that effect, Ban positioned one of the glass-ended galleries to peer out at Metz's Gothic St. Stephen's Cathedral like a telescope. Another, meanwhile, is pointed in the direction the city's main rail station. With Paris only an hour-and-a-half away, Ban has created a subtle link to the institution's mothership. Let's hope it's just the first of many.centrepompidou-metz.fr,shigerubanarchitects.com
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If its possible for a fashion designer to reconcile the radical with the wearable, Anna Larson has done it. The talent runs her one-year-old label Erro out of her SoHo apartment, which embodies the grunge-gone-glam spirit of the collection via a strict black-and-white palette and gothic decor. The inky garments lining the walls seamlessly fuse rock n' roll with a layerable, salable, lust-worthy aesthetic-traits that made the 28-year-old Larson (left) the clear winner of the inaugural Surface Discovery Award. The raven-haired designer was chosen from 75 other rising stars at the first-annual Capsule women's show, a biannual showcase of emerging high-end fashion labels than runs during Market Week in New York, Paris and Las Vegas in conjunction with its menswear show, which launched in 2007.   MORE >>

If its possible for a fashion designer to reconcile the radical with the wearable, Anna Larson has done it. The talent runs her one-year-old label Erro out of her SoHo apartment, which embodies the grunge-gone-glam spirit of the collection via a strict black-and-white palette and gothic decor. The inky garments lining the walls seamlessly fuse rock n' roll with a layerable, salable, lust-worthy aesthetic-traits that made the 28-year-old Larson (left) the clear winner of the inaugural Surface Discovery Award. The raven-haired designer was chosen from 75 other rising stars at the first-annual Capsule women's show, a biannual showcase of emerging high-end fashion labels than runs during Market Week in New York, Paris and Las Vegas in conjunction with its menswear show, which launched in 2007.

After studying economics in her native Sweden, Larson decided to quench her curiosity for design by moving to New York in 2006 for an associate degree program in fashion design at Parsons. After a year she left her studies to intern with Giuseppe Zanotti, and soon after started the now-defunct showroom All That She Wants, which represented emerging designers including Pudel and J Dauphin. It was there she met former Eventide designer Christian Stroble-then a buyer for Pudel-who encouraged Larson to design a line of her own. With Stroble's guidance and the help of patternmaker Nicolas Caito, she launched Erro the following year.

Her lambskin leggings, floor-length fringe vests, shearling accessories and variety of hand-treated leather details speak to her attention to craft, reflected in the line's previous two seasons. The meticulous detail characteristic of Erro (meaning "to stray" in Latin) demonstrates the handiwork of a mature designer despite Larson's youth. "Erro is for wanderers and urban warriors who are effortlessly cool, restless with energy and keen to veer off the beaten path," Larson says. "For me, the effect of putting these pieces together is like seeing light slant through half-open blinds," she explains. "You're only getting a fraction of the story, so you gather one of your own out of the shadows."erronewyork.com, capsuleshow.com   << LESS

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Hand-built bicycles represent a unique and largely unsung marriage of design, craft and art. While the world is full of bicycle manufacturers and bike shops have sprung up in major cities seemingly everywhere, these compellingly beautiful objects stand apart in "Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle," currently at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York through August 15th. But while planes, trains and automobiles have all been the subjects of worshipful museum shows, these transportation masterworks have never been honored before. Sacha White, owner and master bicycle builder of the Vanilla Workshop in Portland, Oregon, had long wanted a showcase for his work. "When history is written, I want my name to be there," says the sandy-haired 33-year-old.   MORE >>

Hand-built bicycles represent a unique and largely unsung marriage of design, craft and art. While the world is full of bicycle manufacturers and bike shops have sprung up in major cities seemingly everywhere, these compellingly beautiful objects stand apart in "Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle," currently at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York through August 15th. But while planes, trains and automobiles have all been the subjects of worshipful museum shows, these transportation masterworks have never been honored before. Sacha White, owner and master bicycle builder of the Vanilla Workshop in Portland, Oregon, had long wanted a showcase for his work. "When history is written, I want my name to be there," says the sandy-haired 33-year-old.

He got his wish when he sold one of his machines to Michael Maharam, principal of his family's eponymous textile company, a self-confessed object junkie and an ardent lover of design. Hand-built bicycles are among Maharam's many passions. "I thought it was amazing that no one had ever done a hand-built bicycle show before," he says. "It's a craft, the same as jewelry-making is a craft." Maharam convinced Holly Hotchner, director of MAD, to stage the exhibition and suggested to White that they join forces as co-curators. "The choice of builders was left up to me," says White. "But the bulk of the work putting the show together was done in New York by Michael."

The exhibition features the work of six builders: Mike Flanigan, Holliston, MA; Jeff Jones, Medford, OR; Dario Pegoretti, Calonazzo, Italy; Richard Sachs, Warwick, MA; J. Peter Weigle, Lyme, CT; and White himself. The men range in age from the early 30s (White) to 50s (Pegoretti). The only thing they share in common is their passion for hand-built bikes, created in a painstaking process that involves master metalwork and an artist's eye in the application of paint and decorative finishes. Pegoretti, who builds racing bikes for world-class professionals, is just as famous for his boldly painted designs as he is for his craftsmanship. (He uses no lugs and builds his frames using state-of-the-art steel.)

The 21 works on view in the show range from fixed-gear to road racing, cyclocross to mountain, as well as commuter machines and a randonneur bike designed exclusively for long-distance racing. There's even a tricycle built by White for his daughter. White, who has been called the Picasso of frame building by Bicycling Magazine, has a passion for variety. Another builder in the show, Richard Sachs, aims for perfection via one design, making endless iterations of his elegantly sleek red racing frame. White will give no specifics as to why and how he picked the craftsmen for the exhibition, saying only, "I chose the ones who inspire me. The way they stay true to their vision helps me." He estimates that worldwide there may be as few as 150 custom builders.

White started out with a passion for vintage scooters but, after he moved to Portland to become a bike messenger, his interests changed. When his bike broke down, he brought it in to a friend to be repaired. That was the moment he realized that bikes could be built; it inspired him to set up his company. "The bicycle is an incredible invention," he says. "You can do the same thing on a bike as you can in a car."

White has two brands: He's the sole builder for Vanilla, producing only about 30 bikes a year; Speedvagen, his other company, makes racing bikes, fabricating around 300 annually. His six-person shop does the prep work for Speedvagen machines, and White sometimes brings in other master builders to finish them. But the shop follows the same production methods and there's no difference in the cost: Prices range from around $5,000 to $12,000, depending on the complexity of the details. But he doesn't want people to view them as luxuries. "If we're seen as only making luxury goods, that's not good. We make machines to be ridden," he says. "There's real value-fit, design and fabrication-that's melded into one machine that will perform amazingly." madmuseum.org, vanillabicycles.com
PORTRAIT: DAVID NEEDLEMAN   << LESS

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Behind two industrial gates in a once-wealthy São Paulo neighborhood called Santa Cecília, the studio of Brazil's renowned design duo the Campana brothers hums with life. Light saturates the interior through factory windows, polycarbonate walls and graphical louvers, revealing a high-ceilinged anteroom crowded with children's plush toys. The toys are actually their oft-celebrated (and heavily collected) armchairs, constructed from piles of stuffed alligators or dolls hand-stitched in the country's northeast. There also sits chimeric hybrids of wicker and monobloc plastic, made for Artecnica in 2008 for a project called TransPlastic, that resemble patio furnishings devoured by ravenous hedges.   MORE >>

Behind two industrial gates in a once-wealthy São Paulo neighborhood called Santa Cecília, the studio of Brazil's renowned design duo the Campana brothers hums with life. Light saturates the interior through factory windows, polycarbonate walls and graphical louvers, revealing a high-ceilinged anteroom crowded with children's plush toys. The toys are actually their oft-celebrated (and heavily collected) armchairs, constructed from piles of stuffed alligators or dolls hand-stitched in the country's northeast. There also sits chimeric hybrids of wicker and monobloc plastic, made for Artecnica in 2008 for a project called TransPlastic, that resemble patio furnishings devoured by ravenous hedges.
 
Past this clutch of seating, the street-level floor and ceiling fall away to expose a basement where a goggled man welds the curly steel canopy of what seems to be a tree. An evolution of the brothers' scribble-like Corallo seating for Edra (2003), this tree will become La Gloriette, a sustainably created pavilion perched on looping stalks of native and pliable apuí wood. It’s set to make an introductory splash at this spring's Salone del Mobile in Milan, and in 2011 will entertain guests at the 19th century-style garden of Veuve Clicquot's historical Hotel du Marc in Reims, the company's executive retreat. It's the latest commission in a growing list of collaborations between the brand and a list of international designers such as Tom Dixon, Front Design and Karim Rashid.
 
Having just wrapped up their Antibodies retrospective at Vitra, they opened their midtown Manhattan Camper flagship, whose windows drip with molded rattan, in February. They also published their first monograph, entitled Campana Brothers: Complete Works (So Far), with Rizzoli in March, and later this year they'll launch tied-bamboo bowls and baskets with Alessi. Humberto (eldest, reticent, a former lawyer) and Fernando (youngest, architect, the talker) are Paulistanos by birth and established their studio out of this space, which was Fernando's apartment, in 1983. With their collaged aesthetic, hands-on fabrication, collaboration with artisans and research into ordinary materials (plastic tubing, scraps of wood), the two have helped put contemporary Brazilian design on the map. "We call what we do ‘contamination," explains Fernando. "We give form to banal situations and 'potentialize' those banalities."
 
While theirs isn't an aesthetic immediately associated with Veuve Clicquot, it's nevertheless a modern celebration of tradition and sustainability (environmental and social) that suits the champagne maker to a T. La Gloriette exemplifies the brothers' use of eco-friendly and regional materials, as well as the craft-based character of their work, which constantly drafts languishing artisans into service: seamstresses, welders, weavers. "We try to make a portrait of our environment," says Fernando. His brother agrees: "The treasure of the Third World is the time people take for the banal. Other countries don’t do that anymore."
 
Indeed, Brazil is a rich assemblage of ethnicities, eras, aesthetics and materials both high and low. The Campanas' salvaged-then-collaged aesthetic bows its head to the resourcefulness of the favelas and is representative of, even seminal to, contemporary Brazilian design. They stand self-consciously between the favela residents who create "an architecture of scarcity" and the São Paulo businessmen who jockey for the latest Hermès helicopter. With all the brothers' metaphorical and literal seams, La Gloriette also merges these unlikely worlds. After all, they know a bit about stitching things together. campanas.com.br   << LESS