FIRST LOOK

INTEL

New and noteworthy in global design.

CRAFT AND CULTURE

Released this fall at an exhibition in Paris and available to the public in January 2022, Charles Zana Mobilier—the new furniture brand from French architect and interior designer Charles Zana—focuses on elegance and high-quality craftsmanship while embodying the restraint Zana is known for. The collection, which includes tables, a desk, chairs, headboards, sofas, and lighting, takes cues from the work of great designers of the 1930s: the natural materials favored by Jean-Michel Frank, the tension in Pierre Chareau’s compositions, and the sensual curves of Gio Ponti’s creations. Zana worked with French craftspeople to execute his designs, and he placed a premium on longlasting materials including leather, solid oak, and travertine.

OPPOSITES ATTRACT

In the fashion world, designer collaborations happen so often that it’s easy to lose track of (or interest in) which brands are partnering up. It takes a special pairing, like that seen in Sacai Women’s Pre-Spring 2022 collection, to really turn heads. Launched last summer (and available from late December 2021), the collection marries the innovative, technical details found in Acronym’s garments with Tokyo-based Sacai’s signature fabrics and shapes. Riffing on the theme of bonding, both as a metaphor for unity and as a technique for joining two materials, Sacai founder Chitose Abe created both men’s and women’s lines (the latter includes Acronym’s first dress silhouette), recontextualizing some of the brand’s fabrics (a paisley bandana print, buffalo checks, and woven jacquards) and applying them to waterproof technical nylon. »

ACADEMIC EXPANSION

Adding to its robust offering of creative and arts-based educational programs, New York’s Pratt Institute is now offering a master’s degree in landscape architecture. Announced in the spring of 2021, and with the first cohort starting in January 2022, the three-year program (part of Pratt’s School of Architecture) will provide students with a foundation of ecology, representation and digital practices, terraforming (the hypothetical process of modifying the atmosphere, temperature, topography, and ecology of a planet to make it more habitable), and landscape history and theory, as well as design studios where they can apply what they’re learning in a hands-on setting. With an interdisciplinary approach to design and problem-solving, the new program will emphasize collaboration and creative alliances, both within the program and across academic departments and organizations within the institute. »

BUILDING FOR ART

Looking to raise Uruguay’s prominence in the global arts scene, Pablo Atchugarry—an artist known for his abstract, sculptural works— has funded the design and development of the country’s first contemporary art museum. Designed by architect Carlos Ott, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry is an outgrowth of Fundación Pablo Atchugarry, which the artist founded 15 years ago to promote the visual arts in Uruguay. Opening in early January 2022 in Punta del Este, the museum includes an auditorium, galleries, an outdoor amphitheater, and a 99-acre sculpture park. Constructed from curvilinear concrete and timber volumes, the building has an ark-like profile—its central atrium is dominated by wood (large Uruguayan eucalyptus trees were treated, cut, and numbered in France, then shipped back to the site). The lower level houses a cinema, as well as gallery rooms with low lighting and black-painted walls— a striking contrast to the grand, open feeling of the upper levels. »

DESIGN IN CRISIS

During the COVID-19 pandemic, designers around the world proved time and again their ability to pivot and use their skills to help the communities around them, from hospital and medical staff to small neighborhood businesses. Starting on December 10 (and running through February 20, 2023), New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will highlight many of these stories in its latest exhibition, Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics. Curated and designed by architecture collective MASS Design Group (with Cooper Hewitt), the show will examine the role of design in times of crisis—as well as what happens when communities and individuals unite to aid one another—and feature the work of designers, artists, doctors, engineers, and neighbors who asked, “How can I help?” —Rachel Gallaher h

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The Charlotte Valve and Mask, by Cristian Fracassi and Alessandro Romaioli of the Italian research institute Isinnova. In the 1880s, Dr. Albert Freeman Africanus King proposed erecting a screen over Washington, D.C., to keep out mosquitoes (photomontage by Jeffrey Mansfield, MASS Design Group). A mosquito net veil modeled by a man in the early 1900s. An illustrated poster created by artist Kayan Cheung-Miaw in 2020.

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THE ARTS

A CURATED EXHIBITION OF ARTISTS, GALLERIES, AND MUSEUMS OF NOTE

Exhibition: Packaged Black: Derrick Adams and Barbara Earl Thomas. Dates: Oct. 2, 2021–May 1, 2022 Thursday 10 a.m.–7 p.m.; Friday through Sunday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. | henryart.org | @henryartgallery

Sculptor David Robinson explores potent themes through figurative imagery. Complex relationships between figure and environment reveal the conceptual underpinnings of his work. Shown: Plunge, 2021, bronze, cable, 37” x 23” x 13,” edition of 9.

ROBINSONSTUDIO.COM

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