Nuria CuestaThe material that enriches surfaces is never just decoration. It has a meaning, a message. In architecture and interior design, recent interventions still speak of how important it is to understand this value in order to express the real stylistic features. Architecture and design are always an expression of culture and tradition, of continuity and vision of the future.
Stone Garden is a residential building located in Beirut in an area partially reconstructed after the events of the war. The French-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh makes it a manifesto of the city’s history, as a perpetual reminder of what Beirut has experienced: it is a complete volume whose openings with remains of the mass are signs of war.
She chooses the land because it is an expression of the Lebanese landscape and architecture that lives in synergy with nature. …. “The thick skin of the building is a mixture of earth and cement, projected onto the structure of the building and worked with a metal tool, a chisel. I wanted it to express this strong link with matter, with the subsoil. (…). The horizontal lines express the accumulation of time. I wanted to avoid any industrial process for the construction of the facade: it made sense just leaving the footprints of the many workers who did this project with their hands as artisans”… (Interview with Lina Ghotmeh on Domusweb)
The former convent in the heart of the Belgian city of Hasselt is home to an internationally renowned art gallery, the Z33. Italian architect Francesca Torzo won the competition and completed the work for the expansion and renovation of the complex in September 2019.
The choice of the dark red brick in the shape of a diamond is a formal language that dialogues with the historical context characterized by brick architecture, but which stands out for the precise composition rich in detail and inspired by Roman architecture and for the color scheme.
Matter can be an expression of an abstract and poetic concept.
This year, despite the Coronavirus pandemic, the design fair “Collectible” was held from March 5 to 8 in Brussels. Full volumes and material surfaces were a recurring theme in the different sections exhibited.
The Pool Studio – Lea Padovani and SabastienKieffer – proposed the Achille chair, dressing a simple and complete volume that rested on a metal bucket with a bouclé wool fabric. “Everything begins with a visual language. What is the story we want to tell, what is the purpose of the design?
The Hortensia chair by Argentine designer Andrés Reisinger and Júlia Esqué represents the materialization of a rendering before it was produced: an armchair conceived as a cloud covered with twenty thousand petals of light pink fabric.
Nuria Lleó
Carlos Gandía
Nuria Cuesta
Esther Valero
