| | Jonathan Bell, Tech and Transport Editor It’s been a busy week across transport and technology. The third biennial IAA Mobility exhibition in Munich took place with a bolstered sense of importance for European manufacturers – and Germany in particular – in the face of a growing number of new Chinese brands. That’s not to say that there weren’t impressive new models from the latter, particular in the concept space – the Avatr Vision Xpectra was a particular highlight.
This week also saw the IFA Berlin tech show as well as Apple’s customary September keynote, with news of the iPhone Air. And let’s not forget the London Design Festival, opening today, which tends to wrap up every discipline, approach, activation and collaboration and scatter them across the capital for our delight and delectation.
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I’m looking forward to a few weeks’ respite from travelling, after a packed schedule that included Munich, the launch of Aston Martin’s new DBS X in Mallorca and an extended US trip with General Motors. This was an unmissable opportunity to do a deep dive into GM’s design culture, including the stunning Eero Saarinen-designed Technical Center in Warren, Michigan and the firm’s new Advanced Design studio in Pasadena. Highlights included a meal in the note-perfect midcentury executive dining room at the Technical Center, complete with push-button Lazy Susan.
One of the delights of writing for Wallpaper* is the discovery and insights I glean from my colleagues. This week I’ve been tempted by an apartment in the Cité Radieuse, found the work of artist Jonathan Schofield and am greatly enjoying Jehnny Beth’s blistering new album, You Heartbreaker You.
And finally, it was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of designer John Morgan. Having worked with John a number of years ago, I’ll miss his knowledge and enthusiasm and refined, ascetic work.
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Inside Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse, meet 12 residents living the dream |
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A self-sufficient community for around 1,600 people in Marseille, built between 1947 and 1952, Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse, or Unité d’Habitation, as it's also known, responded to the urgent post-war need for low-cost housing, yet also achieved a timelessly human appeal. Thanks to the ever-present proportions of the architect’s Modulor measurement, based on the average human body, but also to the sensory effects in the light-filled, double-height living spaces, with their framed views of the mountains or Mediterranean sea, its residents seemed to enjoy both new perspectives and psychological wellbeing. Now, more than 70 years on, has this utopian vertical village stood the test of time? Despite having to cope with strict cabin-style living and ageing infrastructure, the residents that Harriet Thorpe met for this article answered this with a resounding ‘yes’. The most common highlights include (developers take note): rooftop sunset apéros, the harmonious balance of independence and community, and the ever-present horizon line that spiritually elevates apartment living from prosaic to transcendental. Join us for a peek into 12 apartments at La Cité Radieuse and meet their occupants. |
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Take a trip to Tbilisi, where defiant creatives are forging a vibrant cultural future |
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Its politics may be sinister at present – the disputed ruling Georgian Dream party has introduced a raft of laws that signal an isolationist, regressive and anti-democratic stance, dismantling the country’s pending candidate status for EU membership – but Georgia’s culture is passionately independent. It has been safeguarded through periods of occupation and dissent, by a population that is fiercely proud of its cultural heritage. We first visited Tbilisi 15 years ago, when former president Mikheil Saakashvili was in power, and busy dismantling the civil service in the name of progress. The mood then was febrile – with generations pitted against each other in a battle between preserving the past and forging the future. Tbilisi’s young creative community was ignited by this tension – called upon to define and redefine identity through art, design, food, architecture, music. Fifteen years later, in a very different political reality, it is precisely this plucky and defiant cultural resilience that we set out to document in a new portfolio, by Hugo Macdonald. Meet some of Tbilisi’s diverse and determined creatives – each individual is a success story in their own right; together, they say something bigger about culture’s capacity to hold truth and inspire hope for future generations. |
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How Michael Anastassiades turned poetry and precision into timeless designs
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If you look up or around you in some of the world’s most sophisticated spaces, chances are you'll see some of Michael Anastassiades’ lighting designs. Created with intense precision and a sense of visual poetry that is perhaps closer to magic, his pieces combine precise proportions and a sense of balance that have made him a design icon in the 30 years since he founded his studio.
This week, Anastassiades was announced as the recipient of a London Design Medal, celebrating excellence in the field of design and remarkable contributions to the city’s designscape. Honoured alongside him were Norman Foster, with a Lifetime Achievement Medal; Sinéad Burke, receiving the Design Innovation Medal; and Rio Kobayashi, awarded the Emerging Design Medal.
Here, Ali Morris explores Anastassiades’ rise to design luminary (for lighting and much more), delving into his career and greatest hits – to know and to own.
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