Fabio Novembre
Stuart Weitzman, Via Condotti, Roma Photography by Alberto Ferrero
The American shoe brand’s 95-square-metre shop is situated in Rome’s fashion district. The shoe box-shaped architecture is marked by a potentially boundless band that seemlessly loops around the walls to design the shelves and folds that envelop the entire space. The interior is the work of highly skilled craftsmanship in so far as the folds are connected by handmade “welds” created by a complex system of moulds and dies that draws on skills normally asssociated with fibreglass boat construction. Novembre arranges a continuous loop of planes in revolt. This “Folding Architecture” is subject to the turbulent fascination of the surface. It is a melted whole that ignores, confuses and overcomes the codes and forces the layers beyond the vertical/horizontal limit. The space is characterised by over-abundant but openly declared movements, driven by the obsession of an infesting vegetable force. The materials, above all Corian, are used with amazement, always bringing out the virtuoso side with the same spirit as those who first sounded out the folds and continuity of matter with stuccoes. Francesco Librizzi
Tokujin Yoshioka
Maison Hermès, Ginza, Tokyo
Photography by Nacása & Partners Inc.
For the windows of the building designed by Renzo Piano in the heart of Ginza, Tokujin Yoshioka puts on “Paris in the air” at Hèrmes. These are not snapshots of Paris but the traces they leave in our memories. Tokujin uses the windows as devices to register indeterminable moods, sensorial imprints, 3D images like souvenir pictures on intangible plates. The space is filled with 300,000 transparent straws that create ethereal cavities and give the illusion of an oneiric, cloud-filled landscape. Here, the large number of components provokes a change of state in the material, triggering a configuration that verges on chaos.
Francesco Librizzi