I came back from dublin on sunday. I’ve felt a bit sick but I needed a little walk and went to the hyde park in london. next to the serpentine gallery, in the park, frank o. gehry has build his first ‘object’ in uk. I call it an object on purpose because I think this is the poorest thing from gehry I’ve ever seen. think about the walt disney hall in los angeles, guggenheim museum in bilbao, the dancing house in prague and his beloved chairs and compare this.

so here are 6 pictures and the reasons why I don’t like the pavilion at all. but before I wanna quote this: ‘the architect has likened the complex glazed roof structure to a network of stylized wings’.

serpentine gallery pavilion – let’s play mikado

oh, I see – nice wings. innovative.

oh, they realized that it’s not leak proof

it’s always good to have a snack stall next-door.
luckily some wood was left

hey, when I am planning to a unique piece of design I always use do-it-yourself store balustrades

and because I am at the do-it-yourself store I can buy some other nice widgets to make my work perfect

just see what olafur eliasson did last year and you will get what I am taking about.

I was browsing through the pictures I took during the london design festival and found some more designs. this was exhibited at designersblock on covent garden. chooi-leng is a industrial design MA student at central saint martins, london.

pouring light by chooi-leng tan

limited edition design dolls’ is the graduating project of olivia lee a recent graduate from central saint martins college of art and design. you can have your very own zaha hadid, jaime hayon or karim rashid.

karim rashid ‘I want to change the world’

opened at london design festival this exhibition is still on at the biscuit building (where is the chocolate one? haha) from now to eternity presents designs (most people would tend to call it art) which celebrate plastic. you can discover ways to re-think our growing mountains of discarded plastic or just how versatile plastic is – transparent or opaque, hard or pliant, able to take on a myriad of colours and forms.

millenium light by stuart haywarth
1000 used party poppers

plastic nostalgia by raw edges
fisher price toys from the 70ies transformed to furniture

musical chair by committee
I guess it’s just an object. and it makes music

british designer debbie smyth created ‘pins and threads’ a drawing of electrical pylons. to create the piece she stretched threads between pins. each point was plotted and measured to ensure that the pylons were illustrated accurately. her ‘pins and threads’ drawing was on display as part of tent london. debbie, it’s a shame that you don’t have a website!

debbie smyth

I have been in manchester on saturday (uk has more cities to explore than just london) to be honest, I havent been very impressed by the city. just the fact that the city was destroyed by an IRA bomb in 1996 and has been already rebuild is amazing. when I heard the story I thought it is just a joke, but it’s true. and you can’t find any traces. so, I was there, the sun was shining and I visited the urbis, an exhibition centre about city life and also one of manchester’s most recognised buildings. there was the best of manchester awards 2008, annual awards which are now in their second year celebrate innovation in three categories: art, music and fashion. I present you the work of jai redman. it’s a project which intended ‘to give commuters a few precious moments of peace and beauty in a city otherwise plagued by the incessant noise of advertising.’ jaj hasn’t won the award but I give him my credits.

‘trees breath – adverts suck’

last week I’ve been in a little gallery, called 1.1, close to bethnal green (the place where I live right now and the best area of london). I saw this work of vincenzo di maria. In the first moment I haven’t recognized that he just used 2 chairs. It’s still the simple things that are best.

vincenzo di maria

london design festival is over today. there is still a lot I want to show, even when I am missing a real highlight of the week. one of the things I’ve also visited is the tom dixon showroom in south kensington. unfortunatly I couldn’t make it to the book signing of ‘the interior world‘. I really wanted him to draw for me. besides there is a 70% friends sale at 5 cromwell palace upcoming friday and saturday for everybody who wants to spend his money on a tom dixon piece.

the interior world, the new book by tom dixon (in the back)

blow light on floor by tom dixon – the new collection

mirror ball on stand by tom dixon – the new collection

spin by tom dixon

cuts of the wingback chair by tom dixon

wingback chairs – process

the back of a unfinished wingback chair