A Candy-Colored Addition to the Vitra Design Museum, and Other News

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Sabine Marcelis’s Candy Cube Enters the Vitra Design Museum

The Vitra Schaudepot contains one of the world’s foremost collections of modern furniture. More than 400 key pieces ranging from the 1800s line the depot’s shelves, highlighting such design greats as Modernist masters Le Corbusier and Gerrit Rietveld to forward-thinking 3D-printed objects and prototypes. Its latest member—Sabine Marcelis’s signature Candy Cube—adds a dose of saccharine flair to the mix. Available in all sorts of rectangular shapes, the Candy Cube’s resin build is light-sensitive, casting a magical glow when sun rays illuminate the edges. The effect feels akin to sugar-coating. 

First introduced in 2014, the Candy Cube forecasted the New Zealand–born designer’s ongoing material experiments, particularly how the reflections of light and water highlight glass and resin’s dazzling translucent properties. The results have propelled her to design stardom over the past decade, landing her high-profile commissions for Fendi, Burberry, and Aesop, among others. Lorde—a fellow Kiwi and noted synesthete—counts herself as a fan, even performing alongside a Candy Cube during her 2017 Melodrama tour.

A Catskills Refuge Where Nature is the Star Amenity 

The deluge of hotel openings in upstate New York continues unabated. On the site of a former bluestone quarry, the latest is Piaule, a 24-cabin retreat from the founders of the namesake DTC houseware brand. From the start, the vision for the property was rooted in an unobtrusiveness that respects its natural surrounding. Prefabricated structures by sustainably focused firm Garrison Architects were delicately placed atop four-foot stilts among the maple and oak trees dotting the Catskills forest range, allowing wildlife and water from an on-site stream to remain undisturbed. 

Sequestered within the hillside, the spa and wellness center offers guests reiki, sound baths, yoga, meditation, and more, as well as a steam room lined in bluestone, cold plunge pool, and cedar-walled sauna with immersive views of the forest. The cabins are done up in organic materials and thoughtful touches sourced from Piaule’s global network of artisans, including ceramics by Kati von Lehman, organic Portuguese bed linens, Japanese-made glassware, and antique French stools sourced in collaboration with Lichen NYC

Toronto is launching a year-long public art program that spans the entire city.

Equipped with a funding pipeline from roughly 100 organizations, Toronto plans to revitalize its cultural agenda through a medley of artworks scattered around town. Titled “ArtworxTO,” the initiative will host more than 350 new murals, exhibitions, and performances that explore themes of homeland, history, and diversity.

The Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to a study of sharp chilli peppers and chill menthol.

Through meticulous research of how skin receptors detect stimuli, such as temperature and touch, American scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian answer the time-old question of how our body mingles with the environment and provides potential non-opioid treatments for chronic pain. The fusion of both scientists’ independent studies earned the team the coveted prize: Julius’ discovery of a nerve cell protein that responds to affliction, using a painful element of chilli peppers, and Patapoutian’s use of a prodding technique to understand how applied pressure translates into electrical impulses propelled their project to the next level—they deployed cool menthol to pinpoint a different receptor that senses coldness.

The Kremlin Museum receives a contemporary facelift by two Moscow design firms.

Situated within a UNESCO-protected museum complex in Red Square, the new Kremlin Museum’s Middle Trading Rows building is slated for renovation by NOWADAYS office and Meganom and will house the institution’s Armory collection. Imbued with modern design cues, the duo conjures a minimalist interior disguised by the landmark’s 19th-century facade to maintain the historic vestige of its surrounding architecture. 

Miami’s cryptocurrency tax has the potential to revolutionize the city’s revenue model.

The partnership between Miami mayor Francis Suarez and non-profit MiamiCoin, an open-source protocol that facilitates the trading of cryptocurrency across municipality stakeholders, is bringing the city more than $7.1 million in crypto-cash. With an estimated sum of $60 million in the next year, Suarez may reimagine the local tax system to revolve around cryptocurrency. “When you think about the possibility of being able to run a government without the citizens having to pay taxes, that’s incredible,” he says.

The RISD Limited Editions sale is raising money for students with financial need.

Developed to support RISD students with high financial need, the inaugural RISD Limited Editions sale is kicking off on eBay for Charity today, Oct. 8. The sale features limited-edition prints of work by RISD trustee Shepard Fairey and fellow alumni Cindy Ji Hye Kim. After the inaugural sale wraps up, the event will be held twice a year in the fall and spring.

OpenSea is offering a large volume of Hitler NFTs under the guise of “openness.”

The digital marketplace, which has become a cult favorite for its vast range of NFTs, has more than a few offerings that depict Adolf Hitler. Presented across various collections in different getups, the contentious works have gathered shocking amounts of engagement and have so far avoided removal due to OpenSea’s hyper-liberal policy of hosting ambivalent NFTs as a means of “open discourse.”

Today’s attractive distractions:

A Canadian court rules that misgendering someone is a human rights violation.

Using AI, Google recreates and colorizes three lost Gustav Klimt paintings. 

“Jerry Gogosian” is Instagram’s sharp-tongued art critic for a new generation. 

Pininfarina and Potrona Frau’s concept car is zooming straight into the future.