Vicky Poriki Imbues a Greek Microroastery With Handcrafted Appeal, and Other News

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Vicky Poriki imbues a minimalist microroastery in Greece with handcrafted appeal.

“From roasting, to brewing, to pouring, the art of speciality coffee making is all about precision and patience. Greek architect Vicky Poriki of Ioannina-based VP Architectural Studio has managed to channel these qualities into the design of Flow microroastery which recently opened its doors in Veroia, a small town in Northern Greece. Located on the ground floor of a modern apartment building, the space combines a minimalist aesthetic that conveys the establishment’s no-nonsense attitude towards coffee making, along with handcrafted furnishings and tableware that reflect the baristas’ attention to detail.” — [H/T Yatzer]

François Pinault will buy French music streaming platform Deezer for $1.16 billion.

“Billionaire François Pinault and the other founders of a blank-check firm are buying music-streaming platform Deezer in a deal valued at more than $1 billion. The family office of Kering SA founder Pinault, as well as two other founding members of I2PO, a blank-check firm that listed in Paris last year, said Monday they would acquire the French company for an enterprise value of 1.075 billion euros ($1.16 billion) and take it public. Deezer is an unprofitable streaming platform that competes with Spotify Technology SA, another loss-making platform, as well as Apple Music.” —[H/T Business of Fashion]

Ellen DeGeneres unveils her eponymous campus for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. 

“Fewer than 100 people a day are permitted to trek into the mountain gorilla habitat in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. But for those who do, “it’s the most life-changing experience,” says Ellen DeGeneres, who first visited the region in 2015. … Now a 60th-birthday present from her wife, Portia de Rossi, has helped underwrite what is known as the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund: a 12-acre complex dedicated to gorilla conservation. It is named for both the TV star and her idol, the self-taught naturalist, who may have single-handedly saved the mountain gorillas from extinction before she was murdered in 1985.” —[H/T Architectural Digest]

Johnston Marklee, SO-IL, and more receive the Arts and Letters 2022 Architecture Award.

“Celebrated Catalan architect Carme Pinós; multihyphenate artist, architect, educator, and writer Anthony Titus; and the husband-wife founding principals of three architecture studios—Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of Johnston Marklee, Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu of SO–IL, and Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa of Ensamble Studio—are the winners of the 2022 Architecture Award bestowed by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The winners were selected from a group of 25 individuals and practices nominated by members of the Academy, a prestigious 122-year-old honor society based in New York City.” —[H/T The Architect’s Newspaper]

A trove of pop culture objects land at the National Museum of American History in DC.

“What do Mr. Roger’s sneakers, Selena’s leather jacket, Prince’s yellow cloud  guitar, and Dorothy’s ruby slippers have in common? They will all be part of a new exhibition on pop culture at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, set to open late this year. It’s the first-ever permanent exhibition dedicated to the history of entertainment at the museum, and has been in the works for more than a decade. … It will chronicle the past of American pop culture, including television, film, music, theater and sports.” —[H/T DCist]

The National Gallery of Victoria receives a $100 million donation to fund a new gallery.

“A former curator of the National Gallery of Victoria has welcomed a $100m donation from the Fox family to help fund the construction of its new contemporary art space, saying philanthropy is needed to make up for a shortfall in public funding. The Andrews government on Tuesday announced the new gallery would be named The Fox: NGV Contemporary, to reflect the donation by billionaire trucking magnate Lindsay Fox and his wife, Paula. It is the largest ever gift made to an Australian gallery of art museum by a living donor, and builds on the $20m donated by the Ian Potter Foundation in 2020 for the same project.” —[H/T The Guardian]

Eli Klein Gallery dedicates an exhibition to Christina Yuna Lee, who once worked there.

“Two months since Christina Yuna Lee was brutally killed in her New York Chinatown apartment, family and friends are finding new ways to pay tribute to her life. The latest comes in the form of an exhibition at Manhattan’s Eli Klein Gallery—where Lee once worked a decade ago—opening in her honor. It features the work of nine Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) artists, and includes an original piece by Lee herself. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Christina Yuna Lee Memorial Fund, which supports causes important to her.” —[H/T CNN]

Today’s attractive distractions:

Mark your calendars for a “Great North American Solar Eclipse” on April 8, 2024.

Yamaha Design Laboratory recreates toy pianos as traditional Japanese furniture.

Video game therapy is emerging as an unlikely treatment for cognitive disorders.

NASA will test a “giant slingshot” contraption’s catapult capabilities on a spacecraft.