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Sensuality Delights at the Moët & Chandon Bar Berlin
How do you translate the sensorial pleasures of sipping champagne into a place of respite? Yabu Pushelberg has an answer with the Moët & Chandon Bar, an alluring new haunt nestled inside KaDeWe’s flagship in Berlin. Every detail was carefully considered to evoke the champagne house’s rich heritage, starting with the marble-topped bar envisioned as a “flowing island,” the studio tells Surface, where “everything stays in motion and there are no dead ends. If you think of champagne, you think of enhancing the mood because you’re thinking about meeting friends, talking, going to an event, and celebrating.”
Splashes of deep red and creamy tones across furnishings and ceiling accents amplify that ambiance, as do removable blocking screens shielding the bar from the department store’s bright lighting. The effect, the studio says, is akin to being encapsulated in a “warm cocoon”—because that’s how champagne in good company is supposed to make you feel. —Ryan Waddoups
After a contentious competition fueled by concerns over its current flag’s imagery deemed offensive to Native Americans, Minnesota has chosen a new state symbol. The winning design, chosen from more than 2,600 submissions, was submitted by Andrew Prekker, and features a simple blue backdrop with a navy silhouette of Minnesota and an eight-pointed star. “It’s my greatest hope that this new flag can finally represent our state and all its people properly,” Prekker said in a statement. “That every Minnesotan of every background—including the Indigenous communities and tribal nations who’ve been historically excluded—can look up at our flag with pride and honor, and see themselves in it.”
The Armory Show names three curators for its thirtieth edition, to be held in September.
The Armory Show has named Eugenie Tsai, Robyn Farrell, and Lauren Cornell as the curators of its 2024 iteration, its thirtieth, which will be held next September at the Javits Center in New York. Tsai will organize the platform section, which features large-scale and site-specific works. Farrell, the chief curator of the Kitchen, will oversee the Focus section’s solo and dual-artist presentations. Cornell, chief curator of the Hessel Museum of Art, will chair the event’s annual Curatorial Leadership Summit. Each project will address themes of “art-historical reverberations and echoes in the present.” This will be the Armory Show’s second edition since being bought by Frieze this past summer.
Image courtesy of Büro Ole Scheeren…
Büro Ole Scheeren wins the competition to design Tencent’s Shenzhen headquarters.
Tencent’s global headquarters in Shenzhen will soon be a reality, taking the form of a spiraling “Helix” designed by Büro Ole Scheeren. Nestled within a new tech hub, the centerpiece will feature interconnected towers, a vibrant incubator core, and verdant terraces, all woven into the city fabric through a permeable public base. Expect dynamic workspaces bathed in natural light, a bustling public forum, and a sustainable oasis built for collaboration and engagement.
At a Stockholm auction, 122 secondhand Ikea furnishings sold for a combined $40,000, demonstrating growing interest in the retailer’s more unusual vintage products. The auction featured items from the 1950s and 1990s, including furniture, tableware, mirrors, and lights. Notably, a 1970s red Impala sofa fetched $2,150. Experts attribute this trend to the rediscovery of earlier designs with unique characteristics or historical connection, highlighting the value beyond Ikea’s usual association with affordability and mass production. While the company’s environmental practices and history of trend-following remain under scrutiny, the auction results suggest a growing appreciation for specific vintage Ikea pieces within the collector community.
Christie’s is painting a mixed picture for 2023, navigating a contracted market with expansion and private sales growth. While overall figures have dipped compared to 2022’s record-breaking Allen collection haul, the auction house says private sales rose five percent and is looking to its new Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong for a more balanced, year-round calendar. Despite whispers of a cooling Chinese market, Gen Z buyers surge in Asia, and Paris sets a French auction record with a Miró masterpiece. While cautious estimate shifts from consignors may impact future bidding, Christie’s is ending the year on a $6.2 billion note, promising an “evenly distributed sales calendar” and more private deals valued at more than $100 million next year.
