As the World’s Fair loomed on Chicago’s horizon, architects Willoughby J. Edbrooke and Franklin Pierce Burnham built a 98-unit hotel to house visitors. After the exposition was finished, the Romanesque Revival building with a large central courtyard was converted into apartments and became known as Mecca Flats. Chicago adhered to strict segregation codes in the […]
In 1933, Alfonso Bialetti and his son Renato began to market an aluminum contraption for brewing coffee that would make an indelible mark on Italian culinary culture and beyond. Called a moka pot after the Yemeni city of Mokha, the appliance is still manufactured today by the coffee equipment company Bialetti under the name Moka […]
Artist and filmmaker Jessica Oreck cultivates what she calls “a collection of collections.” From tiny glass eggs to lone toy shoes to colorful beads and dominoes, the Office of Collecting & Design contains thousands of minuscule objects that Oreck has gathered over the years. Previously housed near downtown Las Vegas, the archive of miniatures recently […]
From layered pieces of paper, Zim&Zou recently created a series of patterned cassette tapes and a vibrant portable stereo. Known for their elaborate, large-scale installations, the artists scaled down in size—but not color—for this playful throwback. Zim&Zou have recently collaborated with the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris to design an interactive family play area, and […]
Nestled among the vineyards of Andalusia, a bold intervention creates a space for gathering in the small village of Montemayor. “Pasera” is the latest addition to Javier de Riba’s ongoing Floors series, a project focused on reclaiming small plots of land as communal sites. “Pasera” refers to the fields where grapes shrivel up into raisins, […]
Imagine being about seven years old when you suddenly begin to see images from your past as if they were happening now. What if that’s all you could see? In “Slow Light,” a short film by Warsaw-based animation studio Kijek/Adamski, we trace the memories—and visions—of a man whose eyeballs are so dense that it takes […]
Emile-Allain Séguy, better known as E.A. Séguy (1890-1985), was a prolific French designer. He was active during the Art Nouveau movement of the 1920s and created Papillons, a timeless collection of prints inspired by butterflies. Séguy skillfully employed pochoir—a printing method using stencils—to produce vibrant illustrations of the winged insects. Nervous System gives the artist’s […]
An unassuming cacao tree in Indonesia has made a unique connection to a high-tech artwork in China. Thanks to ecological data artist Thijs Biersteker, “ORIGIN” is a sculpture — a “digital twin” — that reflects the sensors monitoring the growth and elemental experiences of the tropical tree through pulses of light. “When it rains in Indonesia, […]
From the humble backyard plot to the royal Water Theatre Grove at Versailles, gardens have long been a source of sustenance, beauty, and spiritual communion. A forthcoming book from Phaidon sprouts from this history as it celebrates how these sites of joy and grandeur endure throughout the ages. The Contemporary Garden travels to 300 green […]
Every year, in the town of Blackburn, Lancashire, a vibrant festival erupts with creativity in a celebration of art, craft, and industry. This year marked the seventh edition of the National Festival of Making, organized along the theme of “Art in Manufacturing.” Acclaimed artists and designers teamed up with industry leaders to create works using […]