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Sahbi Sahbi Puts Morocco’s Culinary Traditions on Display
French firm Studio KO has a love affair with Marrakech. From the Yves Saint Laurent Museum to restaurants Le Grand Café de la Poste and Bô Zin, principals Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier’s brand of rustic minimalism lends itself perfectly to the aesthetic of the Pink City. Now comes the women-led Sahbi Sahbi, a textural temple to Moroccan craft and dadas, the cooks who hold the secrets to the country’s flavorful cuisine and pass them down through generations. Located in the modern Guéliz district, natural tones, sculptural walls, and hand-hewn ceramics set the scene for the centerpiece open kitchen, where female chefs from across the country prepare traditional dishes such as tagines, pastilla, and couscous in a wood-fired oven. —Nate Storey
Eagle + West designed by OMA in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Photography by Jason O’Rear…
OMA completes a pair of stacked, cantilevering residential buildings in Brooklyn.
“OMA has created a pair of skyscrapers called Eagle + West in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood that consist of stacked volumes with cantilevers and concrete paneling. Part of the ongoing Greenpoint Landing development in a post-industrial area, Eagle + West comprises two highrises and a smaller building. Designed for residential with some retail, the two high-rises—with 40 and 30 stories—comprise volumes stacked towards and away from each other, with the taller tower having a wider profile at its height and vice versa, with step-backs every 24 feet. The stepped design was implemented because of the limited space of the site and the desire to optimize the views of the city.” [H/T Dezeen]
Chicago Riverwalk architect Carol Ross Barney receives this year’s AIA Gold Medal.
“Carol Ross Barney, FAIA, has won the AIA Gold Medal for 2023, the first living woman architect to win the award as an individual. (Julia Morgan received the recognition decades after her death; Denise Scott Brown in 2016 and Angela Brooks in 2022 each won with their partners.) Ross Barney, who established her office in her hometown of Chicago in 1981, is widely known for her award-winning public-facing projects, including schools; transit stations; the Oklahoma City Federal Building that replaced the structure destroyed in the 1995 terrorist bombing; and most notably, the Chicago Riverwalk. In 2021, she won the National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.” [H/T Architectural Record]
In a major bet on social commerce, Amazon will soon launch a TikTok-style feed.
“Amazon.com has launched a TikTok-style service that will let shoppers buy merchandise from a curated feed of photos and video. The world’s largest e-commerce company on Thursday said the new feature, called Inspire, will roll out to select US customers in early December and go national in the next few months. Amazon, which has long used static product images and descriptions to create a uniform catalog, has been trying to make it easier for shoppers to discover products rather than simply search for specific items. Despite these efforts, most customers don’t linger on the sprawling online marketplace. More than one in four Amazon purchases take three minutes or less.” [H/T Business of Fashion]
Ai Weiwei with a sheet of A4 paper. Photography courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio…
Ai Weiwei marked Human Rights Day by signing paper with UV ink in Hyde Park.
“Ai Weiwei staged an art performance at London’s Hyde Park on Saturday, signing blank sheets of A4 paper with invisible UV ink and distributing them free at Speakers’ Corner. The event is the renowned Chinese artist and dissident’s way of recognizing Human Rights Day, which marks the anniversary of the drafting of the University Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It’s an occasion ‘to review and re-understand the meaning and value of human rights,’ he explained in an interview.” [H/T Wallpaper]
Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, surpasses Elon Musk as the world’s richest person.
“Bernard Arnault, the CEO of the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is officially the richest person in the world, Forbes reported this week. With a reported fortune of an estimated $186.2 billion and counting, Arnault and his family have surpassed Elon Musk, of SpaceX and Tesla fame, to top Forbes’s list of the world’s richest people. Musk, who Forbes said lost $2.7 billion in the last trading day, has slid to second place. Forbes currently has Arnault far above his main business competitor, François Pinault, another French magnate who also happens to be one of the world’s top collectors.” [H/T ARTnews]
TEFAF names Bart Drenth global managing director, its fourth leader in three years.
“The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF), which owns and organizes two of the world’s largest art fairs, TEFAF Maastricht and TEFAF New York, has appointed Bart Drenth in the newly created role of global managing director. Since February, he has served as the company’s interim director, a position he took up after TEFAF’s managing director Charlotte van Leerdam went on medical leave. He will lead the business alongside TEFAF’s chairman, Hidde van Seggelen, overseeing the brand’s forthcoming fairs in Maastricht (March 11-19) and New York (May 12-16).” [H/T The Art Newspaper]
"Sky’s the Limit in the County of Kings." Photography by Noemie Trusty, courtesy the DUMBO Improvement District and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership…
Today’s attractive distractions:
Japan has been getting inventive when it comes to eliminating food waste.
Mr. Brainwash’s latest art show has a Porsche, Ferrari, and Mercedes-Benz.
The world’s most-searched term this year was Wordle, the online word game.
A sculpture of hip-hop legend Biggie Smalls pops up near the Brooklyn Bridge.
