Even though we are all up for saving the environment and a paperless society, hoarding beautiful magazines remains one of our few eco-sins. And if they happen to be at a design-oriented and dedicated magazine store, it’s just the best combination ever for paper junkies.

Do You Read Me? designed by Mark Kiessling of Greige design studio in Berlin takes its inspiration from the culture section of Colette in Paris and Soda in Munich, features an excellent international selection of art, design, culture, architecture,  photography, music,  literature and theater magazines from around the world.

The magazine store’s stark black walls and grey floors, unfinished wooden tables and Eames chairs set a perfect atmosphere to flick through magazines that includes such titles as Spike, Code, Crash, Turps Banana and Dumbo Feather to name just a few amongst its vast collection.

Jessica Reitz who runs the store will even take your suggestions if you think the store should carry certain magazines that are currently not stocked.

We would so love to see a store like this in Dubai!

Together with Lane Crawford, Design Link, a designer furniture company founded by German Nils Neckel in 1998, invites Spanish designer and artist Jaime Hayón, one of the most influential designers in years, to exclusively showcase his collections in Lane Crawford’s Pacific Place home store, where the Courtyard Centre Studio is transformed into an exhibition to display the designer’s extraordinary pieces. On October 23, Lane Crawford will launch Jaime Hayón Works, the first monograph, a highly detailed and thoroughly documented book about Jaime Hayón that presents the full spectrum of his work and published by Gestalten.


Being a multifaceted creator, Hayón’s work has developed in diverse areas encompassing curatorial roles, artistic roles and design work. As a curator he has organised, along with the British Council and Experimenta, events of relevance such as the latest edition of the Lisbon Biennial of Design. As an artist, his exclusive furniture design work was first brought to life at London’s David Gill Gallery, and has been presented in numerous cities, such as Barcelona, Minneapolis, Lisbon, Paris and Cologne, where they received tremendous success and attention.

ArtQuitect collection by Hayón

AQ Hayón collection for ArtQuitect

Hayón’s Showtime furniture collection for BD Barcelona has received worldwide attention and recognition for its innovative shapes and finishes. Furthermore, he has designed several light collections for Metalarte, such as the Josephine and the Funghi Collection. Hayón’s latest exhibit, Stage, was first shown at the Aram Gallery in London and was awarded Icon Magazine’s Best Installation prize for Design Week 2006. Stage was recently exhibited at the Vivid Gallery in Rotterdam and in Casa Pasarela, Madrid.

Showtime collection for BD Barcelona

Showtime for BD Barcelona

In addition to his impressive body of work, which also includes his collaborations with international clients such as Camper, Swarovski and Lladró, the book contains new personal projects, sketches, illustrations and productions that premiered during the annual Milan Furniture Fair in April 2008. Documented by super-talented Dutch photographer Nienke Klunder, who also happens to be Hayón’s girlfriend, these previously unpublished works have been exclusively created for Jaime Hayón Works.

The exhibition opens on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 6pm and runs until Saturday, November 22, 2008, 10pm at Lane Crawford Home Store, Pacific Place, Queensway, Hong Kong. Tel: 852 2844 8900

The underground arts scene in Dubai just got hipper! Last Wednesday, Dubai-based arts and culture magazine Brownbook, hosted an event titled Urban Artists at Tashkeel gallery in Nad Al Sheba, showcasing the works of emerging talent from the region, who explore a new dimension of art, its underlying message and most importantly the identity of the artist themselves. The most remarkable thing about the exhibition is that even though the artworks have a very obvious contemporary character, the soul remains Middle Eastern.

Here’re some snapshots of the event:

One of our favourite artists Mohammed Fahmy aka MOFA

The writing’s on the wall, entrance to the gallery

Patricia Millns and Nadia Al Saqri

Zaina Adhami, Brownbook’s art director with a colleague

Charmaine DSouza with Laura Trelford from Art Dubai

Manabu Ozawa, Raad, Nadia Al Saqri

Zahra Pedram, Tashkeel’s resident graphic designer

Raghad B. Al Musallam and Hamdah S. Al Yousef from Kuwait-based Artistic view Communications

Hayv Kahraman’s artworks

Jordan-based design collective Blouzaat

Tashkeel gallery was founded by Lateefa Maktoum to provide a creative space to the city’s designers and artists.

www.tashkeel.org tel: (04) 3363313

Dubai might be a cliché to the outside world, but as we found out on Thursday night, there’s a whole underground guerrilla art movement going on here and there’s nothing banal about the city that hopes to become the culture and arts hub of the region.

Cliché in a Box is an exhibition curated by Cliché; a recently launched art-zine in Dubai by Vinay Kumar and Vivek Premachandran, that showcases works on an innovative medium by artists who dabble in various forms of nouveau-art. Kumar and Premachandran are the co-founders of Whitespace– a multi-faceted studio that promotes and markets brands through art and design.

The evening saw a huge number of art and design enthusiasts turn up and unleash their inner artists on the white wall that acted as a blank canvas. Here’re a few snapshots.

Pascale and Huda Simthshuijzen from the Khatt Foundation

Jack Persekian, chief curator of Sharjah Biennial; Colin and Joy Seah from Singapore-based Ministry of Design Studio; Guest

Budding artists at the event

Sachin D’Souza, Ashish Kumar and Charmaine D’Souza

Leisha Petrys, newly appointed editor of tabloid!; Natalie Long, deputy editor of tabloid!; Hynam Kendall from The Handbook magazine

Sergio Padula from iGuzzini Dubai wins in style stakes

Sergio Padula and Sergio Boccia, Dubai-based lighting designer reflecting on life and funky sneakers

The 30 odd limited-edition artistic MDF boxes as well as limited-edition canvas and poster prints will be put up for sale at extremely affordable prices. Think of it as Dubai’s idea of the Affordable Art fair currently running in New York. Upon purchase of one of the MDF box pieces, you’ll also get a year’s subscription of Cliché (+ back copies) and a signed letter of authenticity by the respective artist.

The exhibition continues at the très cool design gallery traffic (04) 341 8494 until June 19, 2008 in case you weren’t privy to the launch affair.

DESIGN MIAMI/ BASEL TO PRESENT THREE EXHIBITIONS THAT FOCUS ON THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST IN CONTEMPORARY DESIGN

EXHIBITIONS CURATED BY ECAL, IKEPOD AND CASA BRUTUS

Enhancing an already remarkable and wide-reaching program of events, Design Miami/ Basel will host three additional on-site exhibitions, each of which taking as its theme the presence of the past in contemporary design.

FIREWORKS
Under the guidance of Max Lamb, one of the 2008 Design Miami/ Basel Designers of the Future, industrial design students from The Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne’s (ECAL), one of Europe’s most respected art colleges, will present their third Design Miami/ exhibition. Working in collaboration with leading glass designer Matteo Gonet, the students explore the traditional art of glassblowing, creating a collection of lighting fixtures called Fireworks. The title, which plays on the technical requirements of the glassblowing process, likewise describes the explosive creativity that ECAL students’ design training brings to this ancient method. Each piece redefines the craft and reveals new possibilities for the future of the technique.

IKEPOD
Also applying a 21st-century mindset to a historic model is Marc Newson, whose exhibition will be a recreation of the final room from Stanley Kubrick’s influential sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. On view will be examples of Newson’s contemporary interpretations of 1960s “space age” designs including his Embryo Chair, Canteen Table, Super Guppy Lamp, Black Hole Table, TV Chairs, and Bucky Ball. Of particular note, the Bucky Ball will be filled with Newson’s latest IKEPOD wristwatch collection, Solaris, a series that resulted from his fascination with the relationship between time and space. IKEPOD is a luxury brand of timepieces that combines economy of gesture, cutting-edge technology and sensuality of materials.

Hiroshi Nakamura (photo credit: Kosuke Mae)

WHAT IS NEXT?
Traditionally, museum architecture has been modeled after Greek and Roman temples, however, in recent years, Japanese architects have begun to generate a new aesthetic standard through commissions by many of the world’s most significant cultural institutions. What is Next? is a compelling installation of conceptual designs created for Japanese Architects Award: Projects for a Private Museum in the XXIst Century, a competition to design a new contemporary art museum to be built in Mexico City. Yoshikuni Shirai, Editor-in-Chief of Casa Brutus, The Jumex Collection, one of the most important private collections of contemporary art in Latin America, and New York’s Yoshii Gallery curated the exhibition. Intended to highlight the growing prominence of young Japanese architects, participants include Sou Fujimoto, Akihisa Hirata, Hiroshi Nakamura, Mt. Fuji Architects Studio (Masahiro Harada & Mao Harada), and TNA (Makoto Takei & Chie Nabeshima) and will be housed in a space designed by Fujimoto. All of the architects will be on hand during Design Miami/ Basel to discuss their work.

These exhibitions will take place at the Markthalle, Viaduktstrasse 10, Basel, Switzerland. Regular show hours will be from 11:00am – 7:00pm, Tuesday, June 3 through Thursday, June 5.

The much-anticipated 2008 ICFF Editors Awards were bestowed on best-of-show products in a total of 16 categories. The ICFF Editors Awards Ceremony took place during the 20th annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. This year’s ICFF Editors Awards Committee included Anniina Koivu of Abitare, Catherine Osborne of Azure, Stefano Casciani of Domus, Sam Grawe of Dwell, Julie Lasky of I.D., Karen D. Singh of Interior Design, Gilda Bojardi of Interni, Chantal Hamaide of Intramuros, Susan S. Szenasy of Metropolis, Arlene Hirst of Metropolitan Home, Benjamin Kempton of Wallpaper*.

The winners:

New Designer
Todd Bracher, Booth 877

Craftsmanship
Mabeo Furniture, Booth 1025

Furniture
Yves Behar for HBF, Booth 2218

Seating
Magis spa, Booth 1412

Carpet and Flooring
Amy Helfand, Booth 2543

Lighting
PABLO, Booth 2010

Materials
Greg Lynn for Panelite, Booth 1948

Kitchen and Bath
Valcucine, Booth 1904

Multiple Production
Plank’s Myto chair by Konstantin Grcic, Booth 2026

Body of Work
Herman Miller Inc.’s The Lifework Portfolio, Booth 1604

Design School
Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Booth 1682

Booth
School of Visual Arts (SVA), Booth 1777

Wall Coverings
Trove, Booth 1953

Accessories
Czech Center of New York’s Krehky, Booth 605

Textiles
Carnegie’s Xorel Collection, Booth 2039

Outdoor Furniture
Samoa, Booth 850

Industrial designer Dario Antonioni along with Surface magazine celebrate the work of eight design icons, titled Botanist Blank Canvas: Creativity Empowered for Positive Change, produced in association with Antonioni’s avant-garde Orange22 Design Lab. The project explores how design can bring about a positive change in our living environments.

Albero by Joe Ricchio with Kara Larsen

Flight by Margo Chase

Epigram by Milton Glaser (It reads: Rest your Molotovs and Martinis)

Lines by Massimo and Lella Vignelli

Orikami by Karim Rashid

No Ornamentation by Claude Zellweger (It reads: Just a low table)

Pixel Burst by Yves Behar

Proceeds from Blank Canvas will be matched by Orange 22 and contributed to a social cause of the designer’s choice.

Bond., a new multi-disciplinary design studio will debut during ICFF at the Pomegranate Gallery in New York on May 17. The studio’s launch event, Bond., will feature an exhibition of provocative and conceptual work from director of design/founder Joe Doucet and projects from his team of international designers including Philip Attar (Philippines), Cressida Payavis (United States), Matthis Kaeding (Germany), David Yoon (Korea) and Maria Horn (Columbia).

“Bond. is meant to be an ‘executional’ think tank,” says founder Joe Doucet. “We are a group of specialists with divergent backgrounds and diverse strengths who are united by the goal to utilise design as a transformative process. Design is more than a step towards creating an object; it is also a catalyst for change.”

In the exhibit, this philosophy is realised through the creation of a broad selection of products, ranging from furniture design to urban planning and from digital technology to clothing. Although each design is completely independent from the next, they are all united by the intention to shift focus away from the idea of consumption as a sole end purpose for a product and toward a transformative process initiated by the interaction of individual and object, client and consumer, participant and society.

Scape . Modular Seating Enviornment
Designer: Joe Doucet
Scape is modeled after the urban landscape. Individual seating pads in five different heights can slide into and out of the gridded base, allowing the user the flexibility to customise seating arrangements at will. The dynamic design creates instant environments, bringing the energy of the city into staid interior spaces. Scape is upholstered with fabric by Moroso.

Airate . Wind Park
Designer: Joe Doucet
Airate is an urban development initiative that transforms unused urban spaces into parks anchored by a renewable energy source. Beauty and practicality come together as Airate not only creates a gathering place that serves a community’s recreational and functional needs, it makes green space commercially viable.

Braun . Redefining a Brand
Designer: Joe Doucet
The Braun 2009 collection is comprised of a toaster, music player and mobile phone. Created to be intuitive in function, intelligent in structure and beautiful in form, each product is the result of careful consideration of the Braun brand’s history and its role in the future.

iii . Subscription Packaging, Product-Service Concept
Designer: Joe Doucet
III is a membership service which enables subscribers to receive mailed refills of personal products on a regular basis, allowing consumers to save time, minimise waste and reduce their carbon footprint. This subscription service uses an elevated aesthetic to give otherwise disposable objects a sense of permanence, while providing people the reassurance of knowing that they will never run out of a favourite item.

Mantle . Ballistic Couture
Designer: Philip Attar
Mantle is a concept line of luxury ballistic protective apparel. The mating plumage of the male Bird of Paradise inspired the design of the protected chest area, where a colourful pattern is constructed with proprietary impact-resistant fibers. Mantle protects a wearer from attacks, while also allowing him or her to make a fashion-forward statement.

Adieu . Journal of Arts and Events
Designer: Cressida Payavis
Adieu is a magazine highlighting fashion, design, technology and global affairs for a sustainable existence. Printed on recyclable paper with dissipating ink, as the publication’s content becomes outdated, the printed matter fades, leaving behind a blank canvas. By first inspiring, then allowing for an individual to create, Adieu invites the observer to become a participant, the reader to become a creator.

Dot . Driven Companion
Designer: Matthias Kaeding
Dot is a low-emission vehicle designed to be friendly to both drivers and the environment. It’s minimal construction blurs the line between man and machine, better connecting drivers to the terrain they pass through.

Pulse . Mass Transit Positioning System
Designer: Matthias Kaeding
Pulse is a functional light installation that maps and marks the subterranean circulation of the city. High-visibility vertical LED fixtures positioned adjacent to subway stations give pedestrians at street level an instant “read” on the location of their train. Activated by proximity, an increasing number of lights turn on as a train approaches the station. It literally and figuratively takes the city’s “pulse” to provide an easily decodable update on underground traffic. Its aesthetically pleasing play of light also adds a dynamic visual rhythm to the streetscape.

Reflection . Interactive Installation
Designer: David Yoon
Inspired by the butterfly effect, Reflection reflects upon our seemingly benign and ephemeral actions which can ultimately create and destroy things beyond our consciousness or realisation. It initially invites the audience to play interactively, but the resulting light generated by the user’s movement begins to affect the photo-sensitive surface it is projected on. Depending on the actions performed, the user can purposefully create art, or destroy it through excess.

Partisan . Socio-Political Plaything
Designer: Maria Horn
Partisan is a trio of three-dimensional puzzles comprised of interlocking positive and negative pieces, representing, respectively, power, energy and religion. A player can explore and materialise various global issues through different assemblies and combinations of the puzzle elements. For example, the sum of all the positive pieces creates a dove of peace; the sum of all the negative pieces creates a weapon of war. This form of constructive play encourages users to engage and involve themselves in world issues in a non-confrontational manner.

Time magazine has churned out this year’s most eagerly awaited list of 100 most influential people from various fields including politics, cinema, art, design and science to name a few.

Most important of all, Dubai’s very own international icon Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and ruler of Dubai, makes it to the list for his charisma and unparalleled vision of turning a desert city into a world-class metropolis.

Here is De51gn’s selection of top five, no top six from the world of art, design and social and cultural phenomena, in no particular order.

French Vogue Editor-in-Chief Carine Roitfeld, the ever sophisticated Parisian who takes Anna Wintour head-on in style supremacy. Hedi Slimane, the former chief designer for Christian Dior says of her, “She is influential without even knowing it. By choosing influence over power, she has effortless credibility.” Is the devil…ooops… Anna Wintour listening?

The intellectually-inclined agent provocateur of fashion and an avid photographer– Karl Lagerfeld is a natural choice for this list. He is one of the few fashion designers who are able to integrate art, design and architecture so effortlessly. Says his good friend Zaha Hadid, who Lagerfeld invited to design the Chanel Mobile Art installation, “Before Karl, we all looked to couture for inspiration and direction. Now, through his work, fashion originates from the street, the media–anywhere.” We totally agree.

Pritzker Prize-winning controversial architect Rem Koolhaas, founder of Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) based in Rotterdam, has projects spanning the globe from the US to China, including several in UAE. Koolhaas, who is as prolific a writer as he is an architect, evokes sentiments similar to that of Le Corbousier– incidentally one of Koolhaas’s heroes. When he isn’t investigating traffic patterns of Lagos, he can be found in the enviable company of Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, who have asked the architect to design the Prada Art Foundation in Milan. And by the way, this is not the first time he has made it to the list.

Takashi Murakami is the Japanese artist who put the Manga on couture catwalks. His collaboration with Louis Vuitton has inspired other fashion labels to follow suit. Good friend Marc Jacobs, creative director of Louis Vuitton aptly describes the latter as “a cool skater kid, an eternal teenager.”

If not for Mark Zuckerberg, the baby-faced founder of social networking site Facebook, we would have no social life and no means to connect with random friends across the globe; let alone kiss them, hug them, kick them and poke them. Facebook is a web phenomenon like no other; it is a sub-culture. It also happens to make Zuckerberg a billionaire at the tender age of just 23.

How can Steve Jobs, the face of cult brand Apple, who made nerds look cool with Macbooks and gave us the best music accessory of all times– the iPod, not be on the most influential list?

Last night we were at Pecha Kucha Dubai, the second episode of the hugely successful event that made its debut in the emirate in December last year. Once again the creative community of Dubai gathered in full force at The Third Line Gallery to watch 10 presenters from various disciplines talk about their trade.

The recent surge in the local arts scene should not be seen as an overnight phenomenon, but rather a manifestation of the region’s rich culture and heritage in forms and places that are accessible to a lot more people. Of course there are always trend setters involved in any such endeavours and in this case it’s traffic design gallery, S*uce, Architecture Association UAE(aaUAE), 9714 creative communications agency and The Third Line gallery.

Few of the presenters from last night are already a familiar face on Dubai art and culture scene such as Hind Mezaina, Dubai’s Lomography Ambassador; Haig Aivazian, artitst and curator; Katrin Greiling, architect and designer. Pecha Kucha is about sharing a new perspective on old, routine subjects that we see around us all the time. For example, Aivazian’s concept of disenfranchised sportsmen, some of who might be refugees, beautifully portrays how such a spirited activity can become a political and social agenda. The graphic illustrations and photographs, enveloped with satire and brutal honesty convey the socio-political message with a punch.

Swedish designer Greiling presented her in interpretations of nature as seen in her products. “It’s about creating an artificial nature around us with the help of functional products,” says Greiling. Hind Mezaina talked about the roll swapping technique in Lomography that produces some very interesting results.

But the event wasn’t just all serious esoteric topics for the intelligentsia, there were musical and dance performances by Dubai-based hip-hop group Diligent Thought and Nadine Thouin’s dance troupe. Other participants included Maja Ciric, a Serbian art curator now based in Dubai; James Clar, a light artist from New York; Mandi Kingsbury, fashion stylist and designer and Vinay Kumar and Vivek Premachandran, two brothers who run an art/design studio called Whitespace Designs.

Here’re a few snapshots of the event.