Chapter Coseincorso translates local histories into furniture, objects and accessories. How do you decide which stories are worth carrying forward through design?

Coseincorso We think a story earns its place when it carries something unresolved—something that hasn’t fully found its form yet. We’re drawn to places where history left a fracture, or that hold something hidden: a way of life interrupted, a knowledge almost lost, a landscape that changed so radically that the people living in it had to reinvent themselves entirely.

»The Memory Stool«, »The Axis Table« and »The Flare Lamp« (2026)
from the new Anàphora collection, handcrafted in Italy.

Our last collection, Anàphora, for example, was about Lake Fucino in Abruzzo: in the 19th century, an entire lake was drained by a prince’s ambition. The fishermen who had lived by its rhythms overnight became farmers. That loss—of water, of memory, of identity—is the kind of tension we look for.

Chapter Is there a particular moment or circumstance that usually sets a new project in motion for you?

Coseincorso It often starts with a small trip, and then the urgency to discover a story and translate it into something tangible arrives on its own. We began our studio during the pandemic, in a period of forced stillness that gave us time to look more carefully at the places we were already inhabiting. We discovered the béguinages of northern Europe—communities of women who invented a way of living that was both spiritual and economic at once. That isolation and that independent way of living felt deeply connected to us at that moment.

»The Axis Table«, 2026

With the Fucino, instead, we drove through what is now one of the most industrialized agricultural plains in central Italy. From the plain, you understand that a vast lake must have been there once. That disconnection between what you’re seeing and what you know must have existed—that’s what led us to translate the feeling into a narrative form.

Chapter You work closely with artisans and remain attentive to the origins of materials. What metaphysical role does this physical, hands-on process play in shaping an object?

Coseincorso The hand is where intention becomes real. We always start with drawings and prototypes, then we work through the process together with the artisan. Castelli—a small mountain village in our region—was the pharmaceutical pottery capital of Renaissance Italy. They produced jars for apothecaries and kings, and their craftspeople are still faithfully reproducing those same gestures five centuries later. Working with those ceramists for our Apothecary collection was exactly what we’re after: the moment when making and meaning become the same thing, and the story lives inside the material rather than being attached to it from outside.

Chapter What do you believe is the most important mindset a designer needs in order to create work that feels authentic beyond mere aesthetic refinement?

Coseincorso For us, the starting point is never »what should this look like?« but »what is this place, this material, this practice actually asking of us?« Aesthetics emerge from that listening—and often translate into a genuine connection between us and our artisans.

»The Ember Tray«, 2026; metal bowl and candle holder— »two elements / one ritual.«

We also think authenticity requires a kind of resistance to speed. We both have an introverted side that leads us to step back from time to time in order to work and reflect. In a world saturated with images and trends, clarity comes from withdrawing enough to hear what actually matters to you—not what the moment demands.

Chapter If design has the ability to preserve memories, places and gestures, what do you hope people encounter through your work in their own space?

Coseincorso We think of our work as existing at the intersection of museum and home, function and ritual. What we hope people feel is both the texture of the hand and a sense of poetry behind it—the sense that an object holds a past they can’t quite name. Not because we’ve explained it to them, but because the form itself carries it.

»The Mirror of Simple Souls« was our first object, and mirrors are at the heart of our practice—not only as a recurring form across our collections, but as a symbol of what we’re trying to do. Every piece asks you to look at yourself in relation to something larger, something older.
If someone lives alongside one of our pieces and occasionally wonders about it, that’s enough. Memory doesn’t have to be explicit to be felt. [Ed.]

INNENKREIS

At the gallery Innenkreis, founded in 2026 by Zeynep Rekkali Jensen, two exhibitions were shown in parallel: the textile presentation »You can’t see it from there« by Trine Tronhjem and Liv Marie Rømer, and the group exhibition »Vanitas in Use I«. While Tronhjem and Rømer work at the intersection of surface, atmosphere, and space—understanding textiles not as a mere covering, but as a spatial medium—»Vanitas in Use I« expanded the art-historical concept of vanitas to include the perspective of functional objects and lived-in spaces. Featuring works by Indio Möglich, Lasse Sylvest Lilleoer, Et Arrangement, Maral Taşkırıcı, Clara Schweers, and Thomas Woltmann, complemented by historical designs, the exhibition asked how ideas of time, memory, transience, and use live on in things that are made, touched, and used.

Ukurant

Ukurant—an exhibition platform and creative community for young, experimental design positions founded by Kamma Rosa Schytte, Kasper Kyster, Josefine Krabbe, and Lærke Ryom—grew out of the question of how to position yourself in the industry after studying design. In this spirit, during 3daysofdesign, Ukurant’s contribution »Ukurant Makes Room« showcased fresh perspectives from 26 emerging talents from the design and creative scene. The exhibition presented experimental approaches to craft, material, and tradition, and put processes, test setups, and the craftsmanship behind the works at the center—very much in line with a material-matters mindset that pays as much attention to how an object comes into being as to its finished form.

FRAMA

FRAMA—founded in Copenhagen in 2011 by Niels Strøyer Christophersen—is known for a pared-back aesthetic, natural materials, and uncompromising quality. The newly presented Sectional Sofa translates this design language into a softer, more generous form of seating comfort, showing how the brand brings material, form, and everyday living together.

Royal Copenhagen x Griegst

With »Triton: A Masterpiece Resurfaces«, Royal Copenhagen celebrated the return of the legendary Triton collection by artist and goldsmith Arje Griegst—50 years after its first presentation at the flagship store at Amagertorv 6, where it was now on view again. Together with the Griegst family and based on the Griegst archives, the shell-like porcelain collection was reissued in three new glazes—Sand, Ocean, and Celadon. Curated by Noam Griegst and Dan Thawley, the exhibition made the creation process visible: from shells, tools, models, and historical molds to finished porcelain and unglazed bisque from the Royal Copenhagen workshop, complemented by a soundscape and scent composition.

STELLAR WORKS

Founded by Yuichiro Hori, the design brand Stellar Works is known for furniture and interiors shaped by Asian sensibility, international design, and hospitality culture, as well as collaborations with studios such as Neri&Hu, Yabu Pushelberg, David Rockwell, and Space Copenhagen. Together with the latter, Stellar Works developed the THOUGHT / FUL installation for 3daysofdesign at Odd Fellow Palace, an 18th-century Rococo palace in the heart of Copenhagen. As part of FRAMING, a curated group exhibition of international design brands, the presentation understood hospitality as a spatial rhythm of calm, encounter, and interaction.

»Objects of Desire«

Curated by Birgitte Due Madsen, Objects of Desire at Thorvaldsen’s Museum brought together international designers and makers working outside of mass production. Featuring contributions from, among others, August Wille, Birgitte Due Madsen, Boris Berlin, Bureau Parso, Corkinho, Corpus Studio, Edoardo Lietti, Eric Landon, Francesca Torzo, Germans Ermičs, Kevin Hviid, Kim Richardt, Maison Arpelli, Rahee Yoon, Rasmus Fenhann, Sausset Leou, Seamus Kowarzik, Sofie Østerby, Uncommon Ancestor, VAVA OBJECTS, and Vibeke Fonnesberg Schmidt, the exhibition put material awareness, longevity, and craftsmanship precision center stage.

TYPE-XIII Atelier Oï project

A–POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE, the experimental line of the Japanese fashion house that takes Issey Miyake’s concept of »A Piece of Cloth« further in an interdisciplinary way, presented new lights from the »O« Series from the TYPE-XIII Atelier Oï project together with the Swiss design studio atelier oï. The project combines »a piece of cloth« and »a piece of wire« into flexible light objects with interchangeable pleated fabric shades, translating textile research into a poetic form of light, structure, and atmosphere.

Project Materia x Mater

Initiated by TABLEAU and Edition Solenne, Project Materia x Mater sees material as the starting point for artistic and design processes. For the 2026 edition, the format partnered with the Danish design brand Mater and put Matek in the spotlight — a circular composite material developed by Mater from discarded resources such as coffee husks, sawdust, and recycled plastic. Nine international artists and designers translated the material into sculptures, furniture, and collectible design, showing how differently a shared material framework can be interpreted.

DEORON

DEORON, founded in 2021, is an independent curatorial platform at the intersection of design, research, and lifestyle culture. Originally conceived as a digital project and webshop to make design feel slower, more conscious, and more accessible, DEORON has since expanded into physical space as well. At 3daysofdesign, the platform brought together more than 30 designers, brands, and independent studios on Paper Island, presenting collectible and industrial design, furniture, lighting, homeware, technology, and objects in dialogue with sound — including a sculptural sound system, listening sessions, and live performances. The result was less a classic product showcase than a space for exchange, encounters, and new connections between design, music, and people.

This approach is especially easy to see in Vienna. With Palais Rudolf  on Rudolfsplatz and SpittelBerg on Kirchberggasse, Miiro operates two properties that look at the same city from different perspectives.

Miiro Palais Rudolf

Miiro’s Palais Rudolf  in the 1st district is a contemporary take on a Viennese townhouse. 64 rooms, herringbone parquet, vintage furnishings, and a calm color palette define the property. The interior concept is by James Thurstan Waterworth, with architectural design by Gabriel Kacerovsky and his Vienna studio Archisphere. The design works with a restrained material palette, warm natural tones, and furniture that gives the house a classic feel without seeming historicist. Kacerovsky describes the approach like this: »Palais Rudolf was conceived as a living place, not a monument.« Art by Maria Lassnig, Peter Sengl, Jürgen Messensee, Max Weiler, Rudolf Hradil, and Christian Ludwig Attersee reinforces this idea. The property is also set to be expanded with its own standalone dining destination: the Baroness  restaurant, planned for 2026.

Baronesse Restaurant, Miiro Palais Rudolf Vienna

The Miiro SpittelBerg in Vienna’s 7th district strikes a different tone. With 132 rooms, it sits in the heart of historic Spittelberg  and sees itself as part of a neighborhood shaped by small venues, galleries, and cultural institutions. Stone, oiled oak, lime plaster, and textile surfaces define the interiors. Custom-made lighting pieces add carefully placed accents. The property feels less townhouse-like than Palais Rudolf—it’s more open, more urban, and more strongly geared toward transitions between the hotel and its creative surroundings. Here, too, art plays a central role: works by Christian Ludwig Attersee, Josef Mikl, Heimo Zobernig, and Cornelius Kolig meet a site-specific intervention by Florian Metzler, aka @flowsofly, in the entrance area. Gabriel Kacerovsky sums up the idea behind the property like this: »The house was conceived as part of Spittelberg—with a clear structure, open transitions, and an understanding of hospitality that brings architecture, neighborhood, and culture together.«

poco bar, Miiro Spittelberg

On the ground floor, the poco  restaurant extends this idea into the public realm. It’s aimed equally at hotel guests and local residents, echoing the neighborhood’s openness. In design terms, poco also avoids a classic hotel layout. The space is meant to feel approachable, with a food and drink concept that fits into Spittelberg’s daily rhythm.

Miiro Le Grand Hôtel Cayré

A look at the hotel group’s other properties shows that Miiro consistently pursues this place-based approach in other regions as well. In Paris, Le Grand Hôtel Cayré draws on the history of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In Barcelona, Borneta combines the atmosphere of the El Born  neighborhood with a local art program and a lively public area. The Mansard  in Gstaad picks up on Alpine building traditions, while Templeton Garden in London develops its character from an expansive garden in the heart of Earl’s Court.

Miiro Templeton Garden, London

»Our goal is to create properties that are connected to their surroundings and offer guests a stay that makes the character of each place tangible«, explains Neena Gupta, CEO of Miiro. The fact that this deliberately local-minded hotel brand is backed by InterGlobe Enterprises, one of India’s largest tourism and aviation groups, makes the approach all the more interesting.

Garden Suite, Miiro Templeton Garden

One of the constants of the Miiro concept is the deliberate use of details: these include, for example, Le Labo toiletries, which create a subtle, recognizable scent across all properties. This is complemented by local products in the minibar, coffee and tea stations, and so-called Refresh Rooms for the time before check-in or after check-out. Music is also part of the overall concept: together with Spectre, Miiro develops bespoke soundscapes for each property that shift throughout the day and make the character of each house audible. [TVR]

Interior styling, in Colin King’s case, may be understood as a matter of intuition, quiet and a certain degree of friction—the point at which a room begins to feel as though everything is in its right place. That does not mean things have to remain there forever. For the New York-based interior stylist and product designer, what matters are the relationships between objects: an arrangement that retains its coherence even as it changes. His approach might be seen as a flexible network of connections and fine lines, within which life is allowed to unfold. And has to. A portrait of a designer whose creative process is guided by intuition.

»Everything I do is instinctual. When I try to describe my process to people, I’m like, it’s not a process, it’s a feeling«, King, who describes himself as a »rearranger« and »quiet adjuster«, tells us at the beginning of our meeting. Although his orderly, harmonious and at times minimalist interiors might suggest otherwise, King emphasizes his affinity for the unpredictable—and his fondness for moments of surprise: »I love being surprised. But I feel like when you get to see as much as I do, it’s hard to be surprised.« Indeed, Colin King, one of the most sought-after creatives in his field, has seen a great deal—including numerous homes of prominent figures that he has designed and furnished. In parallel, he has made a name for himself in recent years not only as a set stylist for photo productions, but also through collaborations with global interior brands. For the former professional dancer, nature and art remain his most important sources of inspiration. »Art fed my soul. Bratwurst handled the rest,« he typed into his phone as an Instagram caption at the end of his trip through Europe.

For the cover shoot, we meet Colin King inside the Wotruba Church, a brutalist structure built in the mid-1970s on the outskirts of Vienna. His slender fingers trace the building’s rough concrete surfaces as he tells us that he served as an altar boy during his childhood in Ohio. What stayed with him from that time, he says, was above all an appreciation for ritual. A sensitivity to processes and arrangements now shapes his work as well. As one of the world’s most renowned interior stylists, he understands that everything has its place — and that it is worth trusting one’s intuition and remaining present in the moment. The same applies to saying »yes« at the right time, as he explains in our conversation. For a period, however, he pursued this approach in a rather extreme way. »I kind of live my life in extremes. I’m either saying yes to everything or no to everything. I’m extremely visible or extremely hidden. I think my whole life is just going to be about moderation and finding that middle ground.« After a brief pause, he continues: »At the same time it happens quite often that the things that I almost said no to end up being really special. They surprise me. And then the things I said yes to because I thought that they are going to be amazing tend to be the ones that never work out or don’t meet my expectations.«

King’s frequently portrayed Tribeca apartment became a creative exploratory space for the interior stylist over the years, shaping his identity and sharpening his aesthetic eye.

Expectations, King suggests, are a subject in themselves. Ideally, he says, one should have none at all and simply surrender to uncertainty. In a city like New York, he adds with a laugh, there is hardly any other way. Colin King, however, grew up on a farm in Ohio before deciding, as a young adult, to move to New York to study classical dance. He worked as a personal trainer, including with Gwyneth Paltrow and Victoria Beckham, and found his way into styling almost by accident—long before he even realized that stylist was a profession. The fact that he had no experience in the field may have been his greatest »superpower«, he explains. Even today, he continues to work against allowing the many experiences he has since accumulated—and the expectations that often come with them—to get in the way of his intuition. »Experience can definitely hinder intuition. But if I relied on what had worked in another home or on another set, I wouldn’t be able to listen to what the particular home wants from me. But that’s what it’s all about. A big part of my job is listening. I think that in the end it’s about balance because it’s also helpful to know the things that don’t work. Which flowers don’t photograph well, for instance. Of course, people often come up to me who have seen something I’ve done and want exactly the same thing for their house. I can only ever reply that I’m happy to help them achieve that particular feeling, but it won’t look exactly the same.«

In 2023, West Elm, in collaboration with Colin King, launched a 41-piece capsule collection of furniture, textiles, and accessories — photographed at the Schindler House on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the architectural icon built by Rudolph Schindler.

What he means by this becomes clear when leafing through »Arranging Things«, the book he published in 2023. Not only does it offer numerous insights into the breadth of his aesthetic approach, it also outlines the parameters and influences that shape his work. He reflects on the importance of light and shadow, on nature as a source of inspiration, and on the value of resisting the urge to fill every apparent void. The book reveals the full range of his creative practice—including a selection of sets he designed for editorial shoots in international magazines as well as projects created for renowned design brands. Alongside editorials, brand collaborations and the design of private homes, Colin King—who now also runs his own studio in New York—serves as Artistic Director-at-Large at Beni Rugs, designs objects for the Danish design house Audo, creates textiles for the Australian brand Cultiver, and develops capsule collections for companies such as West Elm and Zara Home.

EVERYTHING FALLS INTO PLACE

Colin King works without a fixed formula. Despite the precision his profession requires, he is not concerned with predictability—what matters more are liveliness and a degree of unpredictability that he consciously allows. For the New Yorker by choice, this trust that everything has its place replaces the idea of perfection: he trusts the moment in which moving a vase or an object transforms a room from quiet unease into comfort—»everything falls into place«, as the English phrase aptly puts it. »I think that there is something beautiful about not chasing things and letting them come to you. And trusting that they will come to you. It’s rarely the end result that makes me feel the most reward, it’s usually the process leading up to that. There is a similarity to dancing when that happens. When I am not thinking of anything, my phone on Do-Not-Disturb and I am dancing around the room, letting the objects draw me to where they want to be and who they want to be with«, Colin King notes in a calm voice.

For the cover shoot, we meet Colin King in the Wotruba Church, built in the mid-seventies on the outskirts of Vienna — photographed by Robert Rieger.

In his own life, however, King also consciously seeks out moments of productive unease and discomfort. This was also the case when he moved out of his much-photographed loft in Tribeca. »I don’t think it’s about constantly reinventing yourself, but I do think it’s important to keep developing and to step out of your comfort zone again and again«, he says. In Colin King’s case, and in the context of his move, the latter is to be understood not only metaphorically, but quite literally. He sold almost all of the objects that had been in his former apartment. Tabula rasa was the stated aim, yet the emptier the loft became, the more paralyzing the undertaking felt. »I put my identity into this apartment and I really built something there. I built my career there, I built this point of view. And when I left that space, I not only started questioning who I am, but also what I like. I felt like that point of view was faltering a bit, and I didn’t really actually know what I liked anymore.«

At first, it sounds rather paradoxical, yet for him the desire for unease and a certain degree of »weirdness« went hand in hand with a search for quiet. The wish to press pause for a brief moment and truly breathe became increasingly present. »It wasn’t exactly intentional at first. But over time, the stillness became its own kind of studio. A place where ideas could stretch out. Where I wasn’t styling to fit someone else’s frame. I was learning how to sit within my own«, Colin King writes in his second Substack entry.

PERCEIVING INSTEAD OF HOLDING ON

Colin King published the first text on September 9 of this year. »The Last Layer« is the title of the collection of personal essays, which King himself describes as an »interior monologue «. »Less polished. More personal. Slightly less concerned with whether you think I’m a genius. Slightly more concerned with whether the candle is off-center in a meaningful way.« So far, he has published a new text every Tuesday. The title of the blog refers to the part of the styling process that King enjoys most, because it is the layer where most of the emotion resides. Or, put another way, the layer that ultimately carries the story. He puts it like this: »This Substack is named after the part of design I care about most: the final 10 percent. The instinct. The pause. The slightly off-center object that changes the mood of the room. And maybe your day«.

Minimalistically staged earth tones — and a deliberately off-center, delicate plant, showcasing Colin King’s preference for »off-centered objects«; styling for the Seventh House gallery in Los Angeles.

In conversation with Chapter, he emphasizes that composition plays a central role in this—allowing objects and things to enter into a dialogue with one another. »When things are not in relationship to each other, I don’t find them quite interesting. When they’re not living harmoniously, or even with tension, it doesn’t move me. I have no emotion. I almost feel like there’s something wrong. Sometimes I feel like I don’t like an object, but when I see it in connection with another object, I change my mind.« For this reason, he also enjoys working with existing pieces owned by his clients. »I learn from the things I didn’t choose myself.«

Examples of the importance of dialogue between several objects can also be found in »Arranging Things«. One image of the kitchen in his former New York apartment, for instance, shows the possibilities that emerge around the extractor hood and stove. Or that bookshelves do not always—and certainly not exclusively—have to be used for books. If the connection is not immediately apparent, it can be worth stepping away for a moment and then looking again »with fresh eyes«.

And while Colin King’s work is, of course, concerned with finding answers to design questions, he refuses to subordinate beauty to mere functionality. As he emphasizes several times in conversation, this by no means excludes the imperfect or the unpredictable—quite the opposite. In the past, he says, he has heard criticism far more often for his supposed aversion to color than for his play with irregularities. »50 Shades of Beige« are simply preferable to him to making things loud in terms of color. Anyone who meets Colin King, however, will quickly notice that the key to a certain lightness may also lie in not taking oneself entirely seriously at all times. His writing, too, offers numerous examples of this. Among them is his wry self-description as a »spokesperson for furniture moving pads«. What is certain is that behind the many layers of the »recovering people pleaser«, which include absolute professionalism, lies a core of self-irony. His mischievous laugh, which escapes him again and again, also suggests that there may be more impishness—and more color—to him than one might assume at first glance.

EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?

At the end of our conversation, one term keeps resurfacing: »stylist«—a professional title that, at times, does not quite do justice to his work. »I find it interesting that many people feel that the term has something diminutive or dismissive about it«, Colin King says. »I almost took pride in being a stylist, because for me, styling was so much more than shopping or placing objects, it was art direction and thought, creative direction and collaboration with all of these amazing creatives and photographers. And it really felt like I was composing, almost painting and just creating art. I really wanted to reclaim it and redefine that term. Now I feel like I’ve gotten a little looser, because I think that we’re all just creative people finding our own voices. I think I’ll always be multidisciplinary and always be doing a little bit of everything. It feels like being a hummingbird going to different orchards and flowerbeds. I am just jumping around and listening to what calls me. I don’t sit around waiting for someone to tell me who or what I am.«

Isamu Noguchi, Charlotte Perriand, and Jean Prouvé; styling in the apartment of
Jeffrey Graetsch, founder of the Raisonné gallery in New York.

That had not always been the case, he adds. As in dance, his work as a stylist is also about letting go. Colin King pauses for a moment before beginning to explain: »I find so many parallels with where I’m at now and my life as a dancer because ultimately dancing is about trusting your body and trusting that you know the steps you practiced in rehearsal. And then there is this moment where you do have to let go because if you’re too controlled, people will notice and it’s actually not that interesting to watch. There were only a few moments of joy I experienced when I was dancing, because it was so hard for me to let go and just be in the steps without thinking about the steps. I think as creatives, it’s like the longest journey from the head to the heart, but that’s where we have to be operating from, because otherwise there’s a dishonesty in the work because it feels too controlled, too contrived.«

One question remains: which of the two terms might better describe his career so far—evolution or revolution? Those who follow Colin King’s work would probably first choose the former. But is there not also a quiet revolt in the love of tablecloths that seem, at first glance, too short? One that is not loud or heavy-handed, but corresponds instead to the softness that his interiors also radiate? And that can also be found in his movements and in the way he speaks? The answer is probably »yes«. Perhaps, however, this kind of categorization does not matter all that much. What matters more is the feeling that everything, somewhere, has its place.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

CHAPTER TALKS – DESIGN | EPISODE 37 | HOST TIMO SCHMITT | PRODUCTION MIRI MARIJANOVIC, NINA SCHAEFER, CLEMENS STEINMÜLLER | MUSIC XTMPLX – »MIND CONTROL«

Follow »Chapter Talks — Design« wherever you listen to podcasts, and visit chapter.digital for more conversations on design, architecture and contemporary culture.

Identity is a productive force. In crowded markets, every product has its competitors, and the battle for the attention of potential customers is fundamental. The first goal is always perception; the second is a positive perception of the brand and its products. The tools for this are well known, and the most prominent among them is design. A proven method — yet rarely the most popular one. For senior managers, the relationship with design is often deeply ambivalent, because the results of this cauldron, operating according to its own rules, can neither be reliably evaluated nor calculated in advance. For a CEO with an engineering background — shaped by a world of precisely measurable values — it can certainly trigger traumatic states to be so fatefully dependent on the work of more or less eccentric designers when making billion-dollar decisions.

Lucky are those who can rely on other, ideally exclusive, instruments to achieve distinctiveness and visibility for their products. Tesla, the world’s most valuable car manufacturer by market capitalization, is one of these exceptions. The identity of products with the stylized »T« on the hood rests on at least several pillars. Design is one of them, but probably not the most important. The design of Teslas does not polarize; it is fine — good craftsmanship, nothing more, nothing less. The exception, of course, is the Cybertruck. It seems to exist to defend the honor of Tesla’s design department, proving that it can design disruptively, right up to the pain threshold if necessary — a matter of honor for designers. However, Tesla’s identity is based more on the narrative of the American Dream, the saga of the intrepid adventurer and resourceful entrepreneur. In the recent pioneering period of electric mobility, the products carried the aura of innovation and forward thinking. The spirit of Silicon Valley  to take home. Because once you are in it, you are part of it. Future technology, innovation, entrepreneurial success, non-conformity, and the guarantee of being on the right side when it comes to climate protection — a booster for one’s own identity and well worth the money. And as a bonus, owning a Tesla relieved its users of the suspicion of having fallen victim to a clever marketing campaign, because design is often perceived as an accomplice to manipulative marketing. Admittedly — not entirely unjustified.

Introduced as a concept car in 1971, the Lamborghini Countach went into production in 1974, writing a new chapter in automotive history: the pioneering supercar broke with all visual habits and deliberately polarized.

The Tesla phenomenon is interesting because recent events have produced an effect that reveals the motivations of its users with the clarity of a laboratory experiment. Through clumsy interference in US and global politics, CEO Elon Musk has created unpredictable dynamics in the perception of the brand, and some formerly convinced Tesla disciples now find themselves, through no fault of their own, on the wrong side, or at least in an unfavorable light — without having moved at all. The boundaries simply shifted beneath them. And so one now sees the apologetic confession on the rear of some Teslas: »I bought this before Elon went crazy.« At least for these customers, it can be considered proven which part of the brand’s original identity was an important, or even decisive, impulse for the purchase decision. This kind of revealing statement from users of an automotive product is rare — but to rise above it would be cheap. Let he who is without vanity cast the first stone!

The design of the Tesla Cybertruck was inspired by the DeLorean DMC-12 — known from the film trilogy »Back to the Future.« The 5.68-meter long and 3.1-ton pickup seems to show that the Tesla design department can also design radically disruptively if necessary.

Identity through cult status: The Yugo’s high level of recognition to this day is remarkable. Produced from 1981 to 2008 by the former Yugoslavian, and later Serbian, car manufacturer Zastava, the model gained its ultimate breakthrough in America after being voted the »worst car in the USA« — Americans, after all, love underdog stories.

It is in the nature of things that, in a costly purchase decision such as that of an automobile, not only the product itself — in its technical design and properties — represents a compromise; the reasons that ultimately lead to the purchase are also the result of a weighing process. It is difficult to say which argument prevails in each case, because the attributes to be considered form a long list, from A for everyday usability to Z for reliability. D for design is always present, but its effect is usually difficult to quantify. Only in the exotic world of so-called supercars is comparison sometimes easier, since they are freed from many constraints — above all, that of having to be practical in the conventional sense. Even the criterion of value for money, which ranks high for family vehicles, is secondary or even irrelevant in this elite sphere. These adult toys therefore offer a useful example of the effect and creation of identities.

Traditional protagonists of this market segment are Ferrari and Lamborghini — two brands that seem fatefully linked. If the stories are to be believed, the successful tractor manufacturer Ferruccio Lamborghini once felt taken advantage of, and even disrespected, by the manufacturer of his own Ferrari 250 GTO. So, in 1963, he decided to produce his own sports cars from then on — and to do it better. The history of the young company was thus marked from the beginning by a very particular challenge: the permanent comparison with the industry leader based in Maranello, only 35 kilometers away. This is especially interesting because, for this type of automobile, there are essentially two identity-forming disciplines: design and performance. Lamborghini was already doing quite well in both, but creating an identity of its own for the young brand — beyond the claim of being an anti-Ferrari — proved existential.

The Miura was Lamborghini’s first major emancipatory step in its constant comparison with market leader Ferrari. With its innovative technology and aesthetics, it would profoundly shape not only Lamborghini’s own history, but also the supercar segment as a whole.

The Countach is considered the most influential model in Lamborghini’s history. Like the Miura, the vehicle was designed by legendary Italian designer Marcello Gandini, then chief designer at Studio Bertone.

But today — in times of rapidly developing electric drives — completely different rules apply: the power of an electric drivetrain is, de facto, almost arbitrarily scalable. For example, the battery and car manufacturer BYD has already exceeded the 3,000 hp mark with its Yangwang U9 Xtreme model and shows no signs of stopping there. Even four-door sedans can now boast electrically generated outputs of more than 1,500 hp and accelerate to 100 km/h in less than two seconds. These new horsepower acrobats now reliably deliver the racetrack records and lap times necessary for image building. Those who continue to run their engines on gasoline can no longer win in this discipline due to technical limitations.

To what extent the cyberpunks in their innovative electric rockets are poaching customers from traditional manufacturers in Italy and England cannot be analyzed in detail. However, there should be no reason for pessimism: the number of people who qualify as potential buyers solely by virtue of their wealth is constantly growing — currently, around five new billionaires are emerging worldwide each week. So the pie is getting bigger, and the fight for shares is more worthwhile than ever.

The Lamborghini Design Study Manifesto was presented on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Lamborghini Centro Stile and has the makings of a »Countach effect«: independent, simple, timeless. Transformed into an actual product, this design has the potential to become the new benchmark for Lamborghini’s future identity.

While the market continues to grow, the classic strengths of traditional brands are losing traction. The toolbox of established competitors is visibly emptying, and the focus is increasingly shifting to aesthetics — and not only formal ones. For many customers, the electric motor cannot yet replace the emotional and sensory quality of an internal combustion engine. If mechanical complexity becomes technical sophistication and noise emissions become sound, then the eight- to twelve-cylinder engine relates to the electric motor like a mechanical luxury chronograph to a digital watch. Aesthetics decide success and failure — at Lamborghini, this responsibility has rested with chief designer Mitja Borkert since 2016.

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the design studio in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Borkert presented a design intended to define Lamborghini’s design language for the future. The study, named Manifesto, is not a concept car, not even a visual model of a car, referred to in the industry as a mock-up. Manifesto is a form study, high-gloss painted and predominantly made of hard foam. One could dismiss it as a hastily created treat for the festive celebration of the aforementioned anniversary. However, one could also view the design as a decision about the fate of the brand at a time when the profits of traditional sports car manufacturers can collapse almost overnight and the cards are being completely reshuffled in this elite part of the industry as well. Borkert is always faced with the task of reaching the level of his mostly red-painted competition and all other old and new competitors, without getting too close to them thematically — not easy when all must enclose a technical package that is almost identical in its dimensions and proportions. Often, the designs from Sant’Agata Bolognese have stood out through distinctiveness, excessive angularity, even deconstruction. Manifesto, however, has the makings of a »Countach effect«: independent, simple, timeless. Transformed into an actual product, this design has the potential to become the new benchmark for Lamborghini’s future identity.

In these currently turbulent times, Stephan Winkelmann — Lamborghini’s eloquent president — will also have to jump into the deep end. Borkert has at least shown him a spot where it is deep enough.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

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Chapter Sixpenny has a highly refined visual language, yet it never comes across as a showroom brand—it feels made for real homes. What does it mean to you to design luxurious furniture for spaces that are genuinely lived in?

Robert Natale That’s very kind, and it may have to do with the fact that we see ourselves first and foremost as a direct-to-consumer digital-first brand. Our intention, regardless of whether our pieces are bought directly from us or from designers we work with, is for them to be beautiful, comfortable and life-ready.

Chapter When you think about good design, how do you know a piece of furniture is not only beautiful, but truly works in everyday life—and what allows a room to grow more compelling over time, rather than lose its impact?

Robert Natale I don’t think you can truly know until you spend time with it. Beauty can often exist in a vacuum (although obviously context impacts beauty as well), but function in my experience is usually revealed over time. Living with something impactful like furniture is like learning to dance with a new partner—it requires you to slightly reimagine your own patterns. The result or satisfaction is just as much up to you as it is the thing itself.

That said there are some elements that certainly come to mind as being more obviously life-friendly. Our designs are almost all slipcovered, which sounds like an adorable perk at first, and then your dog pees on the cushion and a lightbulb goes on. Being able to change the fabric or color is also a gorgeous option that I think really suits today’s emphasis on constant change and modularity at home.

Layered textures, carefully chosen materials, and thoughtful details define an approach to
modern luxury that creates calm, warm, and grounded interiors.

Chapter What personal experiences and memories of home, living, or certain spaces have shaped your work as a designer?

Robert Natale I was raised by a single mother who … let’s say … »strongly encouraged« a meticulously tidy space. She also had a distinctive style of her own, so the awareness that a home could be more than a roof over your head was instilled in me at a very young age. That later developed into a desire to bring my own creativity to my own spaces—as a teenager I was always rearranging furniture, painting rooms or moldings or doors, collecting shoddy antiques, etc. Ultimately that »what if we try it this way?« curiosity has proven to be an invaluable asset for my work life.

Chapter What have you learned can only be understood through actually living with a piece of furniture—something that is difficult to anticipate or represent during the design process—and how do you respond to those discoveries?

Robert Natale That a significant furniture purchase—such as a sofa—can hold a lot of weight in one’s life. That puts the responsibility as a designer on creating the best marriage of timeless beauty, exceptional comfort, and practical convenience when a product is taken to market.

Chapter When you look at your own home, what is it that makes it feel distinctly yours? And in your view, what is it that makes a home feel truly authentic?

Robert Natale My wife and our dogs. I could live anywhere as long as they’re around. We spend most of our time between China and New York and have collected pieces from our travels that add personality, but really it’s an energy thing. We try to maintain a state of restorative chaos whenever we settle in for the foreseeable months.

When it comes to authenticity, I think it depends on how you mean it. If we care to live as our most unencumbered »true« selves, then anything goes. But I think the holy grail in designing a space or a piece is whether it holds the space for that so-called authentic self—how we’d like to lounge or move about, how we’d like to achieve the balance of our aspired selves via color, texture and shapes that inform the other facets of our identity.

Sixpenny’s first-ever printed sofa from the The Wild Air Collection.

Chapter As both CEO and the creative force behind Sixpenny’s design vision, you inhabit two roles that do not always naturally align. When business logic and design intuition pull in different directions, which voice do you trust first — and how do you bring them back into dialogue?

Robert Natale I feel very fortunate 1. that most of what I want to design aligns with the brand’s business priorities, and 2. that half the fun of design is solving lots of mini »problems« for the business, so we haven’t had a lot of »Sophie’s Choice« moments when it comes to design versus business.

I would say that in a way we don’t feel a sense of complete ownership over our own brand. We are of the mindset that the vision of the brand is shared between us and our customers, and interactions with our customers have provided stewardship for both our design and business instincts. [Ed.]

Alfa Romeo Spider

The Alfa Romeo Spider  was built from 1966 to 1994 across four generations and embodies Italian »Dolce Vita« like few other cars. While there were also fifth and sixth generations, these are better viewed as independent new developments. The first Alfa Romeo Spider  was also the last vehicle co-designed by Battista »Pinin« Farina, founder of the legendary Italian design house. The open two-seater became famous primarily for its aerodynamically shaped rear, which earned it the nickname »Osso di Seppia«—referring to the cuttlebone of a cuttlefish. Legend has it that workers in the Grugliasco factory halls gave the sleek roadster this name. The front is kept flat, the grille features the typical heart shape, and is framed on both sides by the split bumpers in the form of the characteristic »baffi«—little mustaches.

The rounded rear is shaped almost identically to the front and polarized opinion: while some appreciated the symmetry, others found the rear too playful. In 1967, the vehicle became famous worldwide when Dustin Hoffman drove it in the film »The Graduate.« »Graduate,« derived from the English original title of the iconic film, also became the name of a trim version. Incidentally, the last model, which came to market in 1990 and was more closely oriented to the original form, was also designed by Pininfarina.

Honda S2000

In 1999, Honda brought the S2000  to market to celebrate the brand’s 50th anniversary. But the roadster’s story begins several years earlier: at the 1995 Tokyo Motor Show, Honda presented a radical concept vehicle called the Sports Study Model. It was designed in collaboration with Pininfarina and served as the design basis for the two-seater later refined by Honda designer Daisuke Sawai. The purist design is partly due to high aerodynamic demands, but also emphasizes the roadster’s sportiness and driver focus.

While other sports cars from the same era featured six-cylinder engines, Honda engineers opted for a compact yet powerful four-cylinder engine in their agile two-seater. The heart of the S2000  was a 2-liter four-cylinder VTEC engine that could reach up to 9,000 revolutions per minute. The engine was awarded »International Engine of the Year« five times. After ten years of driving pleasure, the last S2000  rolled off the line in 2009.

Audi TT

With the vision »A car for enthusiasts,« Audi presented the sports car concept of the Audi TT  Coupé at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt in fall 1995. Shortly thereafter, the decision was made to put the Audi TT  Coupé into series production. In 1998, the first generation of the series was brought to market and won numerous design awards. The body appeared as if crafted from a single piece. The front without classic bumper overhangs emphasized its clean form. Inspired by Bauhaus design, every line on the Audi TT  had a purpose, every form a function. With its rounded, sculpted design language and the symmetry between front and rear, the two-seater also featured some design references to the historic Auto Union racing cars. The third generation was sold from 2014 to 2023.

For Massimo Frascella, Chief Creative Officer at Audi, the TT  is a very special vehicle: »When the first Audi TT  arrived at the dealer in Turin in 1998, I took a day off just to look at it in peace. I stayed there for hours, viewing the vehicle from every angle and feeling every surface. The staff most likely thought I was crazy. But for me, the TT  was already more than a car back then. It was a message: You don’t have to be loud to be heard. You don’t need exaggeration to make an impression. You need clarity—and, more importantly, the courage to follow it.« The first-generation TT, according to Frascella, is a car that is as rational as few others, yet its impact unfolds on an incredibly emotional level. »That’s also an important part of what defines Audi: A form of rationality that strikes directly at the heart.«

Porsche Boxster

The sports car manufacturer responded to the deep sales crisis Porsche faced in the early 1990s with a clever move. Not only was something new needed, but given the roadster trend emerging at the time, it absolutely had to be a sporty two-seater. Thus the Boxster  was born, built from 1996 to 2004. The name is a portmanteau combining the words Boxer and Roadster. With this, the Zuffenhausen manufacturer not only provided a clear indication of the vehicle category but also of the engine. True to tradition, the new addition to the portfolio was also equipped with a six-cylinder boxer engine that delivered up to 266 hp. Additionally, the Boxster  could hide its top in just twelve seconds, which some buyers ceremoniously demonstrated at traffic lights.

The concept for the production vehicle, which drew on the 550 Spyder and 718 RS 60 from the 1950s, was designed by Grant Larson. »Originally, we had planned to present our concept in Geneva in spring 1993. But we decided on Detroit in January because we didn’t want to waste time. Moreover, with the roadster, our focus was on the US market, where Porsche was weak at the time and Mazda with the MX-5 (Miata) and BMW with the Z1 were already present in the roadster segment,« says Larson.

Grant Larson also recounts that shortly after the Detroit presentation, they were instructed to immediately stop the production design development for the Boxster. »›Please build the concept exactly as is,‹ was the directive instead.«

The message of the evening was clear: For AMG, the new high-performance electric motor technology does not represent a break with its own performance history; rather, it is its next evolution. And the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé  aims to prove exactly this: with extreme power, highly precise driving dynamics, an AMG-typical, intense driving experience, and an exceptional design approach.

Dynamics in form

While the proportions fundamentally adhere to the Gran Turismo concept, they appear flatter and more focused on aerodynamic efficiency. The long, deeply drawn front hood, the steeply raked windshield, and the dynamic fastback define the silhouette. The AMG-specific radiator grille with vertical struts appears for the first time optionally illuminated and in a concave shape. Additionally, there’s an illuminated Mercedes star, headlights with star-design daytime running lights, and six striking, circular turbine-design taillights.

In the interior, the demand for performance meets the attributes of a four-door Gran Turismo. The low seating position, the driver-oriented cockpit, and three haptic driving dynamics rotary controls in the center console align the space for control and immediate operability. At the same time, the claim to long-distance suitability remains visible: in the rear, in the large panoramic glass roof, and in an AMG-specific light staging that understands the vehicle as a customizable experience space.

Performance Driven Design

From a design perspective, this premiere was also interesting because the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé  originates from the design approach that Bastian Baudy shaped at AMG before he took overall responsibility for Mercedes-Benz design on February 1, 2026. The model can therefore certainly be read as an indication of how Baudy integrates performance, proportion, and brand identity, and how he will shape the brand’s design in his new role as Chief Designer. In his work for AMG, he certainly learned a great deal about what »performance driven design« can look like, Bastian Baudy explains in an interview with Chapter. It has always been important to him to extract the essence of a car’s character and give it a clear form of expression—and he now wants to carry this into his responsibility as Chief Designer of Mercedes-Benz.

The design of the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé, in turn, is intended to catapult AMG’s DNA into a new dimension. For Baudy, it is a vehicle »that stands for high-tech and innovation, makes performance tangible, and will set new standards with its radical design approach,« he explains at the world premiere in L.A.

High-Performance Machine

The technical performance spectrum of the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé  is also a new dimension: The drive concept is based on three axial-flux motors, two on the rear axle, one at the front. Together, these enable a system output of up to 860 kW (1,169 hp) and acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.1 seconds and from 0 to 200 km/h in just 6.4 seconds. This is complemented by a high-performance battery concept—with directly cooled round cells and up to 600 kW DC charging power. In ten minutes, over 460 kilometers of WLTP range can be recharged.

»The new Mercedes‑AMG GT 4-Door Coupé ushers in a completely new era. It is an absolute high-performance machine, packed with pioneering innovations that enable previously unimaginable driving performance in this segment. It creates a driving experience that is unparalleled: thrilling, intense, irresistible—typical AMG,« describes Michael Schiebe, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG and Chairman of the Management Board of Mercedes-AMG GmbH, the significance of the vehicle.

The event on the 6th Street Bridge  was certainly unparalleled, where Brad Pitt and Formula 1 driver George Russell later emerged from the newly presented vehicle. A world premiere as a deliberately confident statement on how AMG wants electric performance to be understood: as a spectacle, but with substance. Between a giant blue LED wall, a temporary autobahn, and the Downtown skyline, it became clear that this car is not meant to quietly drive into the future in any sense. [CPS]

That this world premiere is taking place in Seoul of all places feels only fitting. Hardly anywhere else blends technological modernity and a pronounced design sensibility as naturally as the South Korean capital. For Mercedes-Benz, which describes Korea as an important premium market with a strong affinity for sedans and design quality, the launch of the electric C-Class  also takes on a symbolic dimension. During the world premiere, we spoke with Mathias Geisen, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Sales & Customer Experience, about the role of the C-Class  in the brand’s transformation, the design latitude of a global core model, and the question of how a Mercedes-typical design language can endure across very different markets.

Chapter  Mr. Geisen, today we’re experiencing the world premiere of the new electric C-Class—a global volume model in the premium segment. What strategic significance does this vehicle have for Mercedes-Benz?

Mathias Geisen  The C-Class  is among the top three of our best-selling models and therefore has a very high importance for Mercedes. It also fills a “white spot” in our portfolio: until now, we’ve been missing an electric GLC and an electric C-Class. We can already see this very clearly in the strong order intake, for example for the electric GLC in Europe, but also in general in the high demand for our new electric models. Whether it’s the CLA, which was named Car of the Year 2026, the GLC  or the GLB—they’re all off to a very strong start. A key reason is that with ranges of 700 to 800 kilometers, the vehicles are now truly suitable for everyday use, and “range anxiety” is therefore largely losing relevance.

The new iconic grille with Mercedes-Benz light signature and 1,050 illuminated dots defines the presence of the new electric C-Class.

Chapter Seoul was likely not chosen by chance as the setting for this world premiere, as an important premium market. What global message is this location meant to convey for the product and the Mercedes-Benz brand?

Mathias Geisen When you introduce a vehicle like the new electric C-Class, you deliberately choose a place that reflects the product’s key characteristics. What sets Korea—and Seoul in particular—apart is its very pronounced approach to tradition and innovation. That fits well with our Mercedes-Benz brand, which looks back on 140 years of automotive history but doesn’t rest on it, instead consistently driving technological and design developments forward. At the same time, Korea is a very important market for us—the fifth-largest worldwide—with a loyal customer base and a very high affinity for sedans. It’s also a market with very tech-savvy customers and high expectations for design, quality, and execution. Last year, we also opened the world’s first Maybach Brand Center here. Against this backdrop, Seoul was a very fitting place for this world premiere.

With its coupé-like, aerodynamically optimized silhouette and short overhangs, the new electric C-Class looks more stretched and elegant than ever—while offering ranges of up to 762 kilometers.

Chapter  What role does design innovation play in such a central volume model as the C-Class ? Are the design parameters more tightly defined here than with niche models?

Mathias Geisen All-electric models like the new C-Class  open up entirely new possibilities for us. Proportions and space change. That’s an opportunity. Design, together with the brand, is the number-one reason to buy in most countries. That’s why it’s highly relevant to us what our vehicles look like. That applies to a C-Class  just as much as to an SL. A volume model in particular has to shape the Mercedes-typical, iconic design, because it carries the core of the brand to the outside world. At the same time, more emotional models like the SL can be more expressive. You can see this clearly in the connecting element of our iconic radiator grille. It’s how our vehicles have differentiated themselves for 140 years. The C-Class  picks up this element just like the GLC  and future vehicles. The grille is derived from the so-called honeycomb radiator, which Mercedes first used in 1901 in the Mercedes 35 PS. Back then, it was a purely technical solution that Wilhelm Maybach implemented to cool the engine. And we’re picking up that motif again today and reinterpreting it—for example with LEDs. It’s a style-defining, very authentic element. As part of the transformation, a lot becomes digital, including the exterior. Our goal is to define design approaches that preserve our iconic, brand-defining elements while also taking our models into the future. I think the C-Class  shows that very well.

Four round star-design taillights and the expressive GT rear end create a distinctive identity—even in nighttime appearance.

Chapter  A model like the electric C-Class  has to work worldwide while also responding to very different customer needs. How does Mercedes-Benz develop a global design language that works across markets—and where is local adaptation necessary?

Mathias Geisen A global brand needs products that work globally. A brand with the reach and recognition of Mercedes-Benz—we’re among the ten most valuable brands in the world—shouldn’t become fragmented. We have a clear brand identity and a consistent global brand presence. At the same time, we respond to local requirements with local adaptations. Specifically, that means we don’t design only out of Sindelfingen. We have design centers in Carlsbad, in Nice, and in Shanghai. This allows our designers to anticipate different cultural trends early and incorporate them into our concepts. That’s how we ensure we remain a leading brand—not only technologically, but also in design. Localization then mainly happens in the execution. For the Chinese market, for certain models like the GLC  and also the C-Class, for example, we offer versions with an extended wheelbase. In the interior, we shape adaptation through trim elements, color concepts, or materials. On top of that comes the digital design of the interior. The large display isn’t just a surface—it opens up entire design worlds and literally connects with the customer. If you change the wallpaper, for example, the ambient and headliner lighting changes as well. With elements like these, we can respond very individually to personal and local preferences without changing the vehicle’s basic design.

Taut surfaces, muscular wheel arches, and the flowing rear end give the electric C-Class a new presence.

Chapter And conversely: How strongly do key markets—such as Asia—influence Mercedes-Benz’s global design language, especially with regard to technological developments and digital expectations?

Mathias Geisen Asia influences our global design language just as much as any other region. What we fundamentally do—and that also applies to design—is test different concepts worldwide in so-called »product clinics.« That’s how we check how our vehicles are perceived in different markets. We show early concepts of new vehicles to Chinese, American, or European customers, for example, and receive important feedback that then flows into the development process. So our customers’ tastes play a major role in developing a new model.

The 101-liter frunk adds an additional,
fully functional storage compartment to the electric C-Class.

Chapter You bring a lot of experience in this area from your career at Mercedes-Benz—across product management, strategy, and portfolio management. How has that background shaped your view of design and the overarching brand strategy?

Mathias Geisen In my career, I’ve actually been fortunate to get to know very different areas. I worked in passenger-car product management for a long time, then led sales and product management for the G-Class—a great job! After that, I was responsible for the Vans business unit, where design plays a very different role again. Before my role at Mercedes-Benz Vans, I also led corporate strategy, and now I’m back in the product and brand context. That gives me a broad perspective and an understanding of the importance of design. Design is one of the key reasons to buy. Accordingly, we attach great importance to design—throughout the entire product creation process. At the same time, Mercedes-Benz has a fundamental aspiration: we want to build the most desirable vehicles in the world. Even a Sprinter has the ambition to be the most attractive commercial vehicle in its segment—just as an S-Class  has the ambition to be the most attractive vehicle in the luxury class. I think the Sprinter is just as design-defining in the commercial space as our vehicles are in the private-customer space.

Inside, the MBUX Hyperscreen spanning the full width of the vehicle, ambient lighting, and new material worlds merge into a significantly more digital comfort zone.

Chapter  Back to the new electric C-Class: You recently described status, personalization, comfort, safety, and intelligence as defining factors in today’s premium understanding at Mercedes-Benz. Where would you place the new electric C-Class within that coordinate system?

Mathias Geisen The C-Class  appeals to a broad customer group and embodies Mercedes’ core values: comfort, safety, quality, and design. In my view, design plays a major role for this vehicle, especially because of the proportions—it has simply become a fantastic vehicle. At the same time, the new C-Class  also makes a very big leap in comfort, safety, and especially in innovation and intelligence—for example in automated driving.

Mathias Geisen, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, at the world premiere of the new electric C-Class in Seoul.

Chapter Finally, looking to the future of Mercedes-Benz: What is your personal long-term vision for the brand—beyond individual models and technologies? And what role do new brand fields such as branded real estate or other areas in which Mercedes-Benz is increasingly active play in that?

Mathias Geisen No matter what we do, Mercedes-Benz always has the ambition to set benchmarks. That’s deeply anchored in our DNA. It applies to technology in the vehicle just as much as to the entire brand presence. The strength of our brand isn’t defined solely by our great products, but by the interplay of product, brand, and customer experience. Our goal is to deliver the best in every area so that customers feel completely at home with the brand. In short: whatever the customer is looking for—there should be no way around Mercedes-Benz. That has to be our aspiration, and it is our aspiration. [CPS]

The history of Alpina began in 1965 in Buchloe, a small town in Bavaria at the foot of the Alps. Burkard Bovensiepen, a young automotive enthusiast, initially began refining BMW vehicles for road and racing use. In 1983, Alpina Burkard Bovensiepen GmbH & Co. KG was officially recognized as an automobile manufacturer. For decades, Alpina remained closely connected to BMW while developing its own vision of sporty exclusivity. Since January 1, 2026, BMW ALPINA has been managed as an independent exclusive brand under the BMW Group umbrella. One fundamental principle has remained throughout this evolution: performance and comfort were never considered separately at Alpina. Even at high speeds, the vehicles stood for confident stability and high travel comfort.

»Alpina has always stood for a very special philosophy of performance and refinement—a concept in which dynamics and comfort are not opposites, but complementary aspirations. As the new owners of this special brand, it is our responsibility to preserve its unmistakable character while developing it in a contemporary way,« said Adrian van Hooydonk, Head of BMW Group Design, on the occasion of the world premiere of the Vision BMW ALPINA. The groundbreaking design concept was presented to the public for the first time at the annual Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este.

With this concept, the Bavarian manufacturer aims to pay respect to the brand’s history while simultaneously developing it further. The vehicle is 5.2 meters long and radiates an almost sculptural presence through its wide, flat appearance. The long, flowing coupé roofline that extends forward signals dynamism while offering generous travel comfort for four people. This line is one of those elements that illustrates the essential interplay of comfort and speed. »Only a relaxed driver is a faster driver« was also one of Burkard Bovensiepen’s credos.

Automotive designer Maximilian Missoni, who moved from Polestar to BMW in 2024, played a leading role in designing the concept. »With the Vision BMW ALPINA, we distill the essence of the brand and reinterpret it in a highly modern yet sophisticated way,« says Missoni, who holds a leadership position responsible for the design of the upper mid-range, upper class, and BMW ALPINA. »Every detail embodies substance—in engineering, in materials, and in the story it tells. The statements are deliberately subtle and often reveal themselves only upon closer inspection. It is the interplay of clarity and depth that will define the design language of BMW ALPINA.«

A central element of this design language is the so-called »Shark Nose,« which reinterprets the BMW kidney grille as a sculptural, three-dimensional element. Starting from the front, the exterior develops along a clear axis, the so-called speed feature line. With its six-degree incline, it rises from the lower corners of the front and guides the side line all the way to the rear. The fact that some details only reveal themselves upon closer inspection is also part of ALPINA’s subtly exclusive brand identity. Remaining recognizable without being obtrusive—that could be the credo behind elements like the well-known decorative lines, which have been modernized and reduced to the essentials for the Vision BMW ALPINA.

The previously mentioned speed feature line  continues into the interior, separating the darker upper area from the lighter lower section. The stitching also incorporates the characteristic decorative lines. Overall, the interior appears spacious, calm, and deliberately restrained—the materials are exclusive and high-quality without pushing themselves to the forefront. The Alpina idea remains recognizable: the interior is designed for travel comfort but never loses its connection to driving. A concept that certainly creates anticipation for the future of ALPINA under the BMW Group umbrella. Especially because it keeps the brand core that has grown over decades recognizable while transforming it into a contemporary form. [Ed.]

At Watches and Wonders 2026, Nomos Glashütte introduced the Club Sport neomatik Worldtimer, a sporty-slim world time watch in stainless steel with a 40.5-millimeter diameter, 100-meter water resistance, and intuitive city ring operation. The ultra-flat manufacture caliber DUW 3202 displays both local and home time simultaneously.

Parmigiani Fleurier presented the Tonda PF Chronographe Mystérieux, a globally unique chronograph that appears as a purist three-hand watch at rest. Only via the monopusher are the central chronograph hands activated, driven by the newly developed manufacture caliber PF053.

The Saxon watch manufacture A. Lange & Söhne presented the Saxonia Jahreskalender, an elegantly understated annual calendar with the new automatic caliber L207.1. The 36-millimeter case in white or rose gold combines classic Saxonia aesthetics with mechanical finesse.

An extraordinary watch: the Tortue Panthère Métiers d’Art by Cartier. Here the Maison presents a three-dimensional Panthère depiction in Champlevé enamel, gemstones on an engraved gold dial that seamlessly transitions into the case. The case takes the shape of the iconic Tortue.

Luminous presence: IWC Schaffhausen introduces the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Ceralume, a striking pilot’s watch with a fully luminous ceramic case. The innovative Ceralume technology combines spectacular nighttime visibility with the classic perpetual calendar and seven-day power reserve.

Rolex turned its attention to the Daytona and presented a version of the coveted chronograph in Rolesium, an exceptional combination of Oystersteel and platinum. A white enamel dial meets a novel anthracite-colored Cerachrom bezel, giving the icon technical elegance.

Patek Philippe introduced the Nautilus 5610/1P001, an elegant anniversary edition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the design icon. The ultra-flat 38-millimeter platinum case with a diamond at 9 o’clock frames a blue, horizontally embossed sunburst dial, powered by caliber 240.

A new, in-house openworked automatic movement with perpetual calendar ticks inside this 41-millimeter model of the Royal Oak by Audemars Piguet. The manufacture celebrated a spectacular comeback in Geneva after a years-long hiatus.

Another anniversary: in 2026, Ulysse Nardin celebrates its Freak, the icon that redefined modern watchmaking, with the Super Freak: the result of 180 years of tradition and 25 years of research and development.

Also in attendance was Zenith, which displayed the G.F.J. in tantalum. An extremely limited watch (20 pieces) with a heavy, blue-gray tantalum case that meets a black onyx dial with baguette diamond indices, powered by the legendary, newly reissued caliber 135. [MM]

Located at the foot of Mount Iwate, in a historic farmland landscape and embedded in a vast environment shaped by nature and agriculture, Azuma Farm Koiwai  symbolizes a focus on the essential. The project was developed in collaboration between Azumi Japan and the East Japan Railway Company and is the first destination of the new Azuma Farm  brand. The site itself looks back on more than 130 years of agricultural history: Koiwai Farm  is one of Japan’s most significant historic farmlands; 21 of its buildings are designated as important national cultural properties. In this context, Azuma Farm Koiwai  sees itself as a hotel in the Western sense—and at the same time as a place of stay in a broader understanding.

At its core is a concept oriented around farm life: an understanding of origin, working with materials, and time as an experiential dimension. Guests move through an environment where nature, craftsmanship, and daily life intertwine in a vibrant connection. Cuisine, activities, and spatial experience act as parts of a larger whole. This includes guided bike tours, horseback riding on the farm, regional excursions to lacquer art and sake production, as well as programs connecting with the craftsmanship and traditions of Northern Japan.

While architecture and landscape often visually intertwine, here they enter into a deliberately restrained relationship. The project was designed by Kyoto-based architect Shiro Miura, founder of Rokukaku-ya. The architecture references the historic cow sheds of Koiwai Farm, translating their agricultural typologies into a contemporary form. Deepened rooflines recall the structures of the original buildings, creating a quiet connection between past and present. The 24 villas are built from local materials, including approximately 100-year-old cypress and red pine from the surrounding area; in the Forest Villas, a central chestnut wood pillar from Iwate further anchors the space to the location.

The cuisine also follows this connection to landscape and origin. Under the direction of Chef Yoshitaka Oyama, a culinary language emerges that is shaped by French training but focuses on the products and seasons of Tohoku. Instead of a strictly traditional Japanese form, it is about precise, ingredient-focused cuisine that remains connected to local farmers and producers. For longer stays, Okibi, a small pavilion with a charcoal grill and U-shaped counter, complements this experience with a communal, fire-centric form of dining. Wellness offerings such as private bathing pavilions and, in the future, a natural hot spring, extend the stay with another dimension of tranquility and regeneration.

It is precisely here that the continuity with Zecha’s earlier work becomes apparent. What began as radical reduction at Aman  is revisited here—but with an even stronger return to the origin of things and existence itself. Quality also arises from precision, and one could argue that what is later perceived as luxurious always stems from an inner clarity. Design and effect swap their hierarchy: abundance is replaced by a form of coherence that is hard to grasp but immediately palpable.
Azuma Farm Koiwai shows that the driving force behind what we later consume is often still the vision of an individual—a vision that serves the mandate of many. [Ed.]

Chapter  Samsung comes from a strong technology culture. What changes in a company like this when design is embedded at board level?

Mauro Porcini  When design sits at the board level, it evolves from being a powerful capability into a strategic driver that shapes decisions from the very beginning. It influences not only what we create, but why we create it. Technology has always been a fundamental strength for Samsung, driving performance, scale, and innovation. Design complements that strength by bringing meaning, context, and human relevance into the equation. At that level, design helps align innovation with people’s real lives—emotionally, culturally, and functionally. It also creates greater coherence. Across a company as large and diverse as Samsung, design becomes the connective tissue that links strategy, product, and experience into one consistent vision.

Chapter  Technology is currently developing at enormous speed. Why does the tech world so much more rarely succeed in giving that development a distinct design expression?

Mauro Porcini  Speed often favors efficiency over intention. When technology evolves quickly, there is a natural tendency to focus on capability—what it can do—rather than on meaning, what it should do for people. This often leads to convergence: products start to look and feel the same. Distinct design expression requires time, reflection, and a strong point of view. It requires the courage to interpret technology, not just apply it. Without that, innovation risks becoming invisible: powerful, but indistinguishable.

Chapter  In this context, you have also repeatedly suggested that technology needs to become more expressive again. How would such a shift become visible in the design strategy of a company like Samsung?

Mauro Porcini  For us, this shift takes shape through what we call »Expressive Design«. It is a move away from neutrality and uniformity, towards diversity, identity, and emotional connection. Not as decoration, but as meaning, embedded into a dynamic balance between form and function. We often say that »form and function follow meaning.« In other words, every design decision begins with what matters to people, their needs, their aspirations, their individuality. At Samsung, this is not an abstract idea. It has been unfolding over the past few years through a series of distinctive projects—TVs like The Frame  and The Serif, or foldable smartphones such as the Galaxy Fold, which reimagined both the role and the form of technology. Today, we are taking this to the next level, evolving from individual expressions into a coherent, scalable design strategy. You can see it in more recent work showcased at Milan Design Week, like the 130-inch Micro RGB  presented in two very distinct design expressions, or the S95H, which explores a unique approach, potentially customizable over time. What emerges is a different idea of consistency: not uniformity, but coherence across diversity and emotions. Technology, in this sense, becomes something you don’t just use, but something you relate to. Something that can reflect who you are, and adapt to the way you live.

Chapter  How is Samsung’s design team structured today, and what capabilities does a company of this scale need in order to think design consistently across such different product categories?

Mauro Porcini  Samsung has a design organizations of about 1,500 designers, with teams across multiple continents and product categories—from mobile and wearables to TVs and audio devices to digital appliances. But scale alone is not enough. We have an organization with a central corporate team and a series of other teams aligned to the business units, where industrial design, user experience, experience design, design innovation and design strategy work together under a shared philosophy and vision. At the same time, each category retains the flexibility to respond to its specific context. To make this work, you need not only great designers, but also strong capabilities in design research, storytelling, and culture building. Design becomes a language that everyone in the organization can understand and contribute to.

Chapter  What is the first thing that tells you a design is good: its form, its use and effect in everyday life, or the meaning a product acquires for people … or something else?

Mauro Porcini  For me, it always starts with meaning. A product can be beautiful and functional, but if it doesn’t resonate with people—if it doesn’t improve their lives or connect with their emotions—it remains incomplete. Good design is when form, function, and meaning come together seamlessly. You don’t notice them as separate elements anymore—you just feel that it »makes sense.« And often, the strongest signal is emotional. When people feel something—delight, comfort, pride, connection—you know the design is working.

Chapter  Looking back at your work across different global companies, what is, for you, the actual task of design?

Mauro Porcini  Design is an act of love. At its core, the task of design is to take care of people—understanding their needs, respecting their differences, and creating solutions that improve their lives. It sits at the intersection of business and technology, but its true role is to humanize both. To transform innovation into something meaningful, accessible, and emotionally relevant. If we do our job well, design doesn’t just solve problems, it creates possibilities. It helps people become a better version of themselves.

Chapter  At Milan Design Week 2026, Samsung is presenting an exhibition titled »Design is an Act of Love.« Why is that precisely the right title for the brand at this moment?

Mauro Porcini  Because we are at a moment where technology is becoming incredibly powerful, and at the same time, risks becoming increasingly distant from people. Artificial intelligence, automation, and connected ecosystems are transforming our lives. But to transform them for the better they need intention and purpose. »Design is an Act of Love« is our way of making something very clear: technology is not the end, but the means. It must remain at the service of humanity, at the service of people. It is also how we frame the impact we want to create: helping people live longer, live better, live loud, and live on. Four simple ideas that reflect health and safety, time and quality of life, self-expression, and the preservation of memories and connections. It is a call to bring empathy, care, and responsibility back to the center of innovation. And ultimately, it reflects who we are becoming as a design organization, and the kind of future we want to help shape.

Chapter  Samsung’s exhibition brings together concept pieces and products already on the market. Why was it important for you to show both side by side?

Mauro Porcini Because innovation is a continuum. Concepts represent exploration, the questions we are asking, the directions we are investigating. Products represent commitment, ideas that have matured and are already impacting people’s lives. By showing them together, we invite people into the process, not just the outcome. You can see how ideas evolve, how thinking translates into reality. It makes innovation more transparent, more human, and, hopefully, more inspiring.

Chapter  Samsung presents very different product categories in Milan, from foldables and wearables to screens, audio and kitchen environments. What holds all of this together from a design point of view?

Mauro Porcini What holds everything together is a shared philosophy. Across all categories, we are guided by the same belief: technology should elevate people’s lives and amplify human potential. This translates into a common design approach, human-centered, expressive, and meaning-driven. And into a consistent framework of outcomes: helping people live longer, live better, live loud, and live on. Each product may look different, behave differently, and serve different needs. And in that they reflect human diversity. But they all express the same intent and share the same story: to create a more meaningful relationship between people and technology. That is what creates coherence, not uniformity, but a shared sense of purpose. [CPS]

The recent work of Los Angeles–based photographer Eloise Hess revolves around memory, perception, and the fragility of holding on. Personal and intimate, it asks what an image can reveal when memory begins to falter—and how photography, between intention and chance, forms its own kind of truth.

Chapter In your series Second Hand (2024) and Early Morning Tomorrow (2025), you worked together with your father Charles Hess. What motivated you to explore that collaboration?

Eloise Hess My father has Early-Onset Alzheimer’s. We’re seven years since his diagnosis and longer since the onset of his symptoms. Early in the disease he carried this insistent yearning to photograph everything. This centered the question of photography—why? As the disease progressed, he struggled to use the camera. He pointed the camera in the wrong direction, against his intention. When the photograph misses the photographer’s intention, why then? The act superseded the outcome. We found ways to take photographs together, adapting the process as his abilities changed. In what became Second Hand, I wound the film and helped him find the button on the camera, he pointed the camera and pressed the button. Sometimes he framed the picture with his hands, as if holding the camera, and I shot the picture he held. Then he could no longer find or press the button, nor hold the imagined camera in his hands. In what became Early Morning Tomorrow, he held and pointed the camera in the direction he wanted to photograph, or in a direction unintended, and I shot the picture through his viewfinder. These are not necessarily the photographs he would have taken on his own, nor the photographs he intended to take. They’re as determined by my aim as by the discomfort I felt in our two-person act. Our collaboration began when it felt called for, and ended when it was clear it should. In a wider sense it continues.

»2.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

»4.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

»19.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

Chapter In this context, how has the experience of creating this work shaped the way you think about memory and impermanence—themes often associated with age and reflection?

Eloise Hess The experience of this disease, alongside making this work, has taught me an enormous amount about the function of memory and the actuality of impermanence. As I’ve seen, when memory fails, the sense of self begins to unravel. This can be wildly painful, and also profound. Memory helps us organize our experience as our experience exceeds our capacity to contain it. It helps us to stabilize the through-line that constitutes our sense of self. Photography can be used as a tool in this construction; it often is. We often take photographs to remember our experiences—and we often remember best the ones that have been photographed. But a photograph is a cut, a limited kind of intake, a limited kind of output, cut from the whole. It can be used to close down memory, to align it with expectation—or to open up memory, to imbue it with speculation. It is a cut of the actual—made more permanent than the moment it records and the moments that surround it, yet just as partial as the moment it records and as permeable to the impressions upon it. I’m interested in a photography that reckons with this position between persistence and instability, index and impressionability.

»21.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

»23.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

Chapter More generally, what place does vulnerability hold in your artistic practice?

Eloise Hess I’m hesitant to use the word vulnerability, which comes from the word wound. I’m concerned with receptivity. Receptivity includes vulnerability, at times. To maintain receptivity means to churn through and make form of whatever comes through, however it comes. There is what compels me to make and what compels me while making, a passive and active attunement. When I feel compelled to make, it’s difficult not to try to resurrect just what compelled me to make initially, but while making, to be compelled again, differently than initially, to maintain responsiveness throughout.

»Sky Clad«, 2025 | Picture a Train

»Ledges«, 2025 | Picture a Train

Chapter You describe your work as being about the act rather than the outcome, emerging from gestures rather than observations. From your perspective, what does the process of making reveal that you can’t access through the finished image?

Eloise Hess I may have been speaking, as I said earlier, of the act of photographing superseding the outcome of the photograph. That was a lesson in that collaboration. But I don’t mean to pose the act against the outcome, or the making against the finished work. The finished work holds the entire process of making it; the act is inseparable from the outcome. The process of making reveals lots of »not it« that you can’t access through the finished work because they’re not in it. The »not its« include the photographs I don’t print, the prints I don’t choose. I make dozens more prints per painting than are included in the finished painting, and sometimes scrape off and re-make the same painting on the same panel many times over. All the »not its« help me find what it is. I spend much more time with the work in process than with the finished work. But a lot happens with the finished work beyond my making it. There is the process of the viewer, maybe many, whose experience I cannot know but which meets mine somewhere with the object.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

The tapestry, conceived as a practical object to warm floors, structure rooms, or insulate walls, has for centuries transcended its seemingly everyday purpose, assuming a second existence as a work of art. Within it, craftsmanship, visual language, and cultural memory condense into a compositional unity that extends far beyond its utilitarian function.
In the work of Jean Lurçat, the most influential textile artist of the 20th century, the tapestry likewise exceeds its original role: at once material and metaphor, surface and narrative space—a textile image poised between utility and aesthetic significance. In this dual role—as both handcrafted object and medium of symbolic imagination—lies the foundation upon which Lurçat built his radical renewal of tapestry.

Born in Bruyères in 1892 and deceased in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1966, Jean Lurçat was active during his lifetime as a painter, ceramist, and tapestry weaver, among other things. Before dedicating himself entirely to art, he actually studied medicine at the Université de Nancy. However, after barely three years, he transferred to Victor Prouvé’s studio, also in Nancy, and subsequently continued his artistic education at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. From 1919 onwards, Lurçat increasingly emerged as an independent artist and began to establish himself as a painter and graphic artist in the French art scene.
Influenced by the decorative practices of the École de Nancy and his teacher Victor Prouvé, father of Jean Prouvé and a leading figure of this collective art movement, Lurçat came into early contact with the central principle of Art Nouveau, that art and craft are inextricably linked. However, his inclination towards the textile medium did not arise solely from this environment but was also—as many biographies emphasize—shaped by a personal experience: in 1917, his mother embroidered a small Gobelin tapestry based on one of his designs.

While works such as »Filles Vertes« (»Green Girls«, 1917) and »Soirée dans Grenade« (»Evening in Granada«, 1917), and later »Le Cirque« (»The Circus«, approx. 1922) and »Les Arbres« (»The Trees«, approx. 1924), demonstrate that he designed small-format, sometimes decorative tapestries early on and continuously created experimental textile works in parallel with his painting, which were executed in weaving and embroidery workshops, it was not until the 1930s that he primarily dedicated himself to tapestry weaving.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, Lurçat initially worked primarily as a painter, maintained a lively social life, and moved in circles of important personalities of his time, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse, and Ferruccio Busoni. In the early 1920s, he met the French gallerist, collector, and art patron Marie Cuttoli, through whose initiative and support several small-format tapestries were already created based on his designs. Driven by the idea of dissolving the boundaries between fine and applied arts, Cuttoli presented innovative textile works alongside fine art in her gallery Myrbor in Paris. In line with her ambition to transfer modern art into textiles, she commissioned contemporary artists, including Picasso, Braque, Le Corbusier, and Léger, with designs that were subsequently realized as tapestries. As part of this project, in 1933, a tapestry based on a Lurçat design was produced for the first time in Aubusson, the traditional center of French tapestry weaving—the tapestry titled »L’Orage« (»The Storm«, 1933).
The execution of the work was still based on classical, painterly cartoons and without the new structure he later developed, but it marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with the traditional workshops in Aubusson—a collaboration that became the decisive prerequisite for the precise implementation of his conceptual and technical innovations in the following years.

IMMANENT SPARK

A first milestone on his now unstoppable path to becoming a central representative of modern tapestry art was his first major commission, »Illusions d’Icare« (»The Illusions of Icarus«, 1936), in 1936. The large-format work was commissioned by the French state and subsequently woven at the Manufacture des Gobelins, which has served as a state manufactory for the execution of tapestries for public buildings, museums, and state collections since the 17th century.
However, the decisive change of course in his work, which ultimately led to the revival and redefinition of tapestry as an independent, contemporary art form, was his encounter with the »Apocalypse of Angers« at the Château d’Angers in 1937, a 14th-century tapestry described on the official museum website of the Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine as »déterminante« for his later textile work.
While tapestry had, for centuries since the Renaissance and Baroque, become a woven painting—characterized by designs in the form of illusionistic, painterly executed cartoons and nuanced color transitions—the textile clarity of the Middle Ages had largely been forgotten. With its clear contours, reduced colors, and great symbolic directness, Lurçat recognized in the medieval »Apocalypse of Angers« that tapestry does not have to be a painterly imitation, but can be an independent medium with a visual language developed from weaving techniques.

From this realization, that tapestry possesses its true strength in a visual language developed from weaving techniques, Lurçat derived his conceptual and technical reorientation: the radical reduction of the color palette, a numbered color code, and the abandonment of painterly designs in favor of strictly structured black-and-white cartoons, which gave clear instructions to the executing weavers and at the same time allowed him more control over the result. Thus, for the first time, tapestries were created that were no longer designed from the logic of painting, but again from their textile logic. Lurçat’s newly understood, profound view of textile material is described by Martine Mathias in the catalog for the exhibition Jean Lurçat — Master of French Modernism (Kunsthalle Talstraße, Halle/Saale, 2016) with the statement that it is above all the »intelligence of matter« that makes it possible to understand the quality of Lurçat’s tapestry weaving.

His artistic attitude, shaped by this idea of intelligent matter—a kind of energetic signature expressed in structures, rhythms, and forms—is based on the recognition and respect for the inherent life of the material, which he does not bypass but consciously reveals. This perspective, as Mathias notes, is rooted in his comprehensive humanistic education and his familiarity with ancient writings such as those of the Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius, whose De rerum natura (»On the Nature of Things«, 1st century BC) describes matter as a living reality permeated by inner forces. Mathias underscores this assumption with a quote that aptly summarizes Lurçat’s attitude: »Anyone who tries to subjugate the spirit of matter in wall tapestries behaves like a child.«
Following the inner logic of textiles, the tapestry thus becomes not merely a carrier of an image, but an organic medium in which this hidden energy becomes visible. For Lurçat, the threads form a poetic fabric in which the »spiritual« dimension of the world materializes. Already in the 1940s, works such as »La Grande Menace« (»The Great Threat«, 1940) and the eight-part, most symbolically dense group of works from the war years, »Constellations« (»Constellations«, approx. 1940-1945), make matter visually tangible as an energetic field, combining natural forms, signs, and rhythms into a metaphysical pictorial world.

DISSOLUTION OF THE WORLD

With the outbreak of the Second World War, global reality entered a phase of devastating political, social, and cultural upheavals, accompanied by the decomposition of all morality. Jean Lurçat, who had experienced the First World War as a soldier and survived it severely wounded, developed a lifelong sensitivity to the destructive forces of war. In the Second World War, in the Lot department—a region in southwestern France strongly influenced by the Resistance, where many intellectuals found refuge—he joined the circle of Resistance-affiliated artists such as Louis Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Jean Cassou, and Pierre Seghers, who opposed the Vichy regime and the occupation.
His tapestries from these years—such as »Les Vapeurs« (»The Vapors«, 1943), »Les Eaux« (»The Waters«, 1943), or »De natura solari rerum« (»On the Solar Nature of Things«, 1943), and later also »Liberté« (»Freedom«, 1945), »Avec la France dans les Bras« (»With France in its Arms«, 1945) and »La Naissance du Lansquenet« (»The Birth of the Landsknecht«, 1944)—process these experiences as moral-cosmic statements: powerful, often subversive depictions that accuse war, oppression, and collaboration, while also formulating a vision of human dignity, spiritual freedom, and renewal. In these works, man usually appears as a vulnerable but conscious being, embedded in a web of natural forces, cosmic signs, and political threat—a fragile figure exposed to the violence of war and yet remaining a bearer of human dignity and inner freedom.

As Martine Mathias emphasizes in the exhibition catalog Jean Lurçat — Master of French Modernism (Kunsthalle Talstraße, Halle/Saale, 2016), this depiction fundamentally shifts during this period, which shaped him both personally and artistically: the human figure gradually recedes until it completely disappears in many of his later works. Its place is taken by cosmic rhythms, plants, animals, stars, fire, and light—symbols of a broader world structure that increasingly interested Lurçat. This slow disappearance of the explicit human form from his works does not indicate indifference, but a shift in perspective. Man becomes a small part of a larger, energetic context, in which nature and cosmos themselves become the actual visual language.

A POETIC UNIVERSE

In Lurçat’s work, a development now becomes increasingly clear, culminating in an ethereal dimension. His modern interpretation of the aether—that fifth element quinta essentia postulated by Aristotle, whose physical reality has long been disproven, but whose poetic power endures—understands it as an immanent spark connecting nature, man, and cosmos.
A symbolic language used in this sense, Mathias writes, appears from the mid-1950s onwards, for example, in the use of zodiac signs, which he integrated into his visual world as a metaphorical principle. Stars and constellations appear not as astronomical facts, but as signs of a deeper connection, as luminous nodes of a living structure useful for practical guidance and emotional orientation for humanity. As an example, she describes the ninth scene, »Poésie« (»Poetry«, 1961), from his monumental cycle »Chant du Monde« (»Song of the World«, 1957—1966), in which Lurçat depicts an archer, accompanied by the retinue of zodiac signs and a sun symbol with a human face—an ancient but still fruitful poetic method of shaping space and time through celestial signs.
In the first eight tapestries of the cycle, the cycle unfolds a narrative movement ranging from the primordial forces of the world to its threats: »Le Feu« (»The Fire«, 1957), »L’Eau« (»The Water«, 1958), »Les Arbres« (»The Trees«, 1958), and »Les Grands Champs« (»The Great Fields«, 1959) form the prelude to an elemental natural order, while »La Grande Menace« (»The Great Threat«, design 1940 / revised version 1959), »Les Illusions d’Icare« (»The Illusions of Icarus«, 1960), »La Conquête l’Espace« (»The Conquest of Space«, 1961), and »La Fin de Tout« (»The End of Everything«, 1962) illustrate the tensions, dangers, and upheavals of this world.

Lurçat calls the cycle, as Mathias notes, »table des matières d’une existence« (table of contents of an existence), and this, according to her, connects to his explicit will to »intellectually grasp the world and human destiny.« Created over a tireless creative period spanning almost a decade and woven in the traditional workshops of Aubusson, »Chant du Monde« is considered his magnum opus and comprises ten monumental tapestries with a total area of approximately 500 square meters, which are now preserved in the Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine in Angers. His monumental masterpiece tells a modern, cosmic creation story in which the cosmos appears as a living organism permeated by inner forces—a universe of stars, plants, animals, radiations, and energy fields that, despite being threatened by war and destruction, still understands humanity as part of a larger, luminous order.
The tenth scene, »Ornamentos Sagrados« (»Sacred Ornaments«, 1966), was completed after his death, and what remains is the epochal (life’s) work of an exceptional artist, in which Jean Lurçat’s inner worldview, his tireless creative spirit, and his identity as an artist and human being of his time are not merely laid over the fabric, but inscribed into the intelligence of the fiber of his matter.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

Jungjin Lee‘s photographs seem to exist in a space between matter and spirit, where landscape becomes a mirror of inner perception. The South Korean artist transforms personal moments in nature into universally resonant meditations on time and silence. In conversation with Chapter, she reflects on the balance between control and surrender—and how harmony emerges between the self and the natural world.

Chapter  Your images seem to blur presence and absence—what does the idea of identity mean to you in the context of your work?

Jungjin Lee  When inspiration arises in the landscape, it is a moment when my spiritual presence aligns with the subject. This experience goes beyond thought and is difficult to explain in words. I see the act of visualizing the energy inherent in nature as a way to express not only my identity, but the universal truths of human emotion. The Taoist idea of selflessness—letting go of the ego and becoming one with nature—is a fundamental concept I pursue throughout my process. While my images may appear ambiguous, the emotions they convey are clear. During photographing and printing, I focus entirely on my own feelings, yet I do not consider the work as a direct reflection of my personal identity. Instead, my photographs carry the »breath« of human existence, which I see as the power of art. I have observed that viewers often encounter their own inner emotions through the work rather than mine.

Everglades #11, 2014-15

Chapter  Many of your images seem to hold time still, yet they are deeply infused with change—weather, erosion, light. How do you think about time not only as a subject, but as a collaborator in your process?

Jungjin Lee  Weather and light are always essential elements in landscape photography. In my work, light itself often becomes the source of inspiration, almost as if the image is drawn by it. The sense of time in my photographs leans more toward duration than fleeting moments. Although the images may appear frozen, they are not static; they suggest a timeless state—a presence that unfolds as the viewer engages with the work. I see this as an energy beyond time and space, subtle yet palpable. When I photograph, it is crucial for me to empty my thoughts and surrender to the subject and to nature. Rather than imposing myself, I attempt to read what is already present. It is not a collaboration with nature in the conventional sense, but an acknowledgment that I can express only as deeply as I am able to receive what nature reveals.

Opening #13, 2015-16

Chapter  Your compositions are oftentimes pared down to essentials—silence, texture, tone—yet they feel emotionally vast. What emotional space do you hope the viewer inhabits when encountering your work?

Jungjin Lee  The printing process in my studio is as important to me as the act of photographing itself. Through printing on hanji, I work to amplify simplicity and abstraction, attending carefully to the texture of the paper and the depth of tonal expression. The philosophy of yeobaek—the presence of space—emerges naturally both in photographing and in printing. »Emptiness« is not »nothing«, but an infinite expanse of another dimension. I hope my work is experienced not merely with the eyes, but with the mind. It is my intention to convey the quiet awareness I feel before the subject. In this way, viewers often encounter their own inner state rather than the narrative of the artist. I describe this as the condition of human existence, a quality revealed only in works that have reached their fullest realization.

Opening #01, 2015-16

Chapter What personal source of inspiration has remained almost inexhaustible for you as an artist over the years?

Jungjin Lee It is solitude and nature. Solitude has allowed me to live as an artist, while nature embraces that absolute solitude. In nature, I realize that the solitude I have known is not merely a personal feeling, but the essence of human inner being. In the moments when I am absorbed in photographing, that solitude transforms into a sense of fullness through the presence of the subject. I feel as though I become part of nature—those are my happiest moments. In this sense, the camera becomes a profound instrument that mirrors my inner being in the objects and scenes I encounter.

Everglades #01, 2014-15

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

The special attention Francis Kéré dedicates to a place is not a theoretical approach, but is rooted in his own history. Born in 1965, the architect, who was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2022, grew up in Gando, a village in Burkina Faso in West Africa, and describes this origin as an influence that still shapes his perspective today. For him, landscape, climate, community, and rituals form the real prerequisites for building. When he writes that a place consists »mainly of people«, it is not a casual remark, but a key to his work. From this, it becomes understandable why his architecture always considers the relationships that a place already holds within itself.

On Tuesday, June 9, at 6 p.m., the book will be presented and signed exclusively by Francis Kéré at
the TASCHEN Store in Berlin, Schlüterstraße 39, 10629 Berlin.
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When Kéré developed his first school building for Gando in the late 1990s, this biographical origin became a central element of his thinking. The project evokes memories of his own childhood, of lessons in cramped, overheated rooms, and connects them with his return to his village, where the existing school already showed cracks and structural failure. This experience sparked the desire to create a space that offers light, air, and protection, and at the same time arises from what is available locally. Kéré precisely describes how, through engagement with rainy seasons, material availability, artisanal knowledge, and social processes, a design emerges that cannot be reduced to a formal gesture. The building in Gando is thus far more than an early project. It already very concretely shows what his work will revolve around for the next 25 years.

It is therefore very fitting that Kéré does not present himself as a detached author of his buildings, but as someone who experiments, corrects, and continues to work. »My only concern is that my work must have a positive impact on the communities in which it is embedded«, he writes in the foreword. Shortly thereafter, he condenses this claim into a sentence as simple as it is concise: »For whom do we do all this? For human beings. It is all about people.« This very thought gives weight to the personal passages of his life. Kéré writes about uncertainties, about resistance in the village, about the arduous path of financing, and about the patience needed for trust to grow, thus making it clear how closely his work is actually linked to personal commitment.

Francis Kéré. Building Stories thus reads as the testimony of an architect who understands building as a service to a community. This becomes particularly clear in the chapter on the Naaba Belem Goumma Secondary School. Kéré describes the years from 2011, during which his work between Berlin, teaching, international projects, and responsibility for Gando became increasingly demanding. At the same time, he recounts the death of his father, who had been the first to send him to school. After his father’s death, Kéré was expected to take on the role of village chief. He decided against it and held on to architecture as his way of taking responsibility.

This standard is maintained even when Kéré writes about international projects. For the Serpentine Pavilion in London, to name just one example, he designed an open space that welcomes people, offers protection from the weather, and at the same time reminds us of fundamental needs. Kéré explicitly describes the pavilion, which collects rainwater, creates shade, and shapes space, as a place of encounter that is only completed by the people who gather beneath it. Spaces should provide shelter, accommodate movement, and enable communal life.

As personal and intimate as Kéré’s own words carry the 444-page volume, a philosophical classification from outside naturally complements this very direct perspective. In the essay »the existential task of architecture«, Juhani Pallasmaa reads Kéré’s buildings as an architecture that remains tied to lived experience, perception, and human reality, and in this context also cites Wittgenstein’s sentence that architecture »immortalizes and glorifies something«. Kéré himself summarizes his story much more directly and accessibly, without elaborate theory: »My story begins in a village in sub-Saharan Africa and reaches a thousand places.«

With Francis Kéré. Building Stories , published by TASCHEN, Kéré himself formulates a way of thinking that orders everyday life, creates dignity, preserves knowledge, opens up encounters, and gives spatial form to the communal – thereby showing that good architecture, like good reading, begins where people find themselves within it. [Ed.]

Francis Kéré
Softcover, 19 x 25.5 cm, 1.09 kg, 444 pages
taschen.com

Mazda MX-5

By the late 1980s, small, affordable roadsters were scarce—especially in Europe. That changed overnight when the first Mazda MX-5  was unveiled on February 10, 1989 at the Chicago Auto Show, breathing new life into a long-neglected segment. The idea for the iconic roadster emerged during an interview the American automotive journalist Bob Hall conducted in 1979 with Mazda’s then head of development, Kenichi Yamamoto. Just before the end of the interview, Yamamoto asked Hall whether there was a vehicle he felt was missing from Mazda’s lineup. The journalist replied that he wanted an affordable roadster in the tradition of British sports cars. No one could have foreseen at the time that it would become the most successful roadster of all time.

Mazda MX-5 — first generation

Ever since, the MX-5—now in its fourth generation—has stood above all for driving fun. In fact, the roadster doesn’t just follow Mazda’s established ideal of »Jinba Ittai«—the harmonious unity between horse and rider—it takes it to the extreme. Driving a Mazda MX-5  feels like putting the car on. Nothing disrupts the connection between driver and car, and the signature soundtrack is the »click, click, click« of the more-than-direct gearshift that’s typical of the lightweight roadster. As for the question of convertible or coupé—heaven forbid.

Mazda MX-5, current model generation, 2025

Mercedes-Benz SLK

In April 1996, the Mercedes-Benz SLK was presented to the public for the first time at the Turin Motor Show. Two years earlier, designers Bruno Sacco and Peter Pfeiffer had already caused a stir with their SLK concept. Like the Mazda MX-5, the two-seater from Stuttgart stands for freedom and driving fun. What’s more, the compact vehicle was also a technical pioneer: with its folding steel roof as an alternative to the classic fabric top, Mercedes-Benz managed to combine coupé and convertible in one car.

Mercedes-Benz SLK 200, R 170 series, in »yellowstone«

With this new technology and the surprisingly spacious cabin, the manufacturer also found a way to cleverly combine sportiness and comfort. The roadster got its name during the development phase, when engineers—referencing the much larger Mercedes-Benz SL—called it »SL kurz« (short SL). In January 2004, the second generation of the SLK  was introduced. Like its predecessor, it embodied the blend of compactness and sporty driving fun, but featured a new front design reminiscent of the super sports car SLR McLaren. In 2016, the compact roadster was renamed SLC and integrated into the C-Class  family. In 2019, the era of the zippy roadster finally came to an end.

Design detail: Mercedes-Benz SLC 300 »Final Edition«

BMW Z3

With the Z3, BMW entered the race for the best roadster of all time in fall 1995—and had prominent support: in the James Bond classic »GoldenEye«, the two-seater served as 007’s company car. The design of the Z3  was based on three different proposals, with the concept featuring an especially long hood and a strikingly short rear end ultimately prevailing. With its side gills, the sporty roadster also referenced the legendary, highly limited BMW 507. In addition, the Z3—the last one rolled off the line in 2002—featured a flowing, low beltline with strongly emphasized wheel arches. With its sport-tuned suspension, low center of gravity, and direct steering, the roadster also proved a guarantee of limitless driving fun. In 1998, the coupé was introduced, recalling the BMW 328 Sportcoupé  from the 1930s. In 1999, the Z3  received a facelift, with slight changes to the rear and front.

BMW Z3, production period 1995–2002

The Z3  wasn’t the only model in the series to appear in a James Bond film, by the way. The equally iconic Z8, built from 1999 to 2003, also had an approximately 15-minute appearance as the vehicle of the famous British secret agent. The Z8  was designed by Henrik Fisker, who likewise took inspiration from the roadster legend 507.

BMW Z8 Roadster, 2000

Toyota MR2

The first Toyota MR2  from 1984 was the result of a design project from 1976 and an attempt to build a car that was fuel-efficient and, at the same time, a real bundle of fun. Among other inspirations, it drew on the Toyota Sports 800, first introduced in 1962. With its compact, practical body, nimble and athletic handling, strong engine, and optional T-bar roof, the MR2 also presented itself as a car where the joy of driving took center stage.

Toyota MR 2, W10 series

The MR2  was also the first mass-produced Japanese car with a mid-engine layout. Five years later, the second generation rolled off the line, with the Japanese manufacturer moving away from the angular, somewhat more expressive shape of its predecessor. Toyota did, however, decide to keep the original’s mid-engine configuration, continued to focus on driving fun overall, but brought a bit more comfort into the mix. The third generation was introduced in 1999 and built until 2007. For around two years now, there have been rumors about reintroducing the mid-engine car. With the concept vehicle FT-Se presented at the Japan Mobility Show  2023, speculation about a possible return became more concrete. In addition, at the end of 2025 Toyota had the MR  label protected under trademark law in several countries. [SW]

Spanning approximately 3,600 square meters, the new manufacture brings together all development, assembly, as well as exhibition and event areas. The building combines historical substance with modern architecture and technology: clear lines, bright spaces, and functional structures are intended to ensure a modern production environment and express the design principles of Porsche Design. The so-called »Brand Experience Space« will also trace the development of Porsche Design Timepieces. Historical exhibits and curated contemporary documents make the connection between automotive design and watchmaking tangible, celebrating the models through which the company developed its unique horological language.

Porsche Design first entered watchmaking in 1972 as a design brand. The first watch, the Chronograph I  designed by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, was manufactured by Orfina and is considered not only the world’s first entirely black wristwatch but also the origin of the entire line. The design clearly followed the logic of the Porsche 911  cockpit: low reflection, high legibility, and a form developed from function. This model created a unique horological language that also transferred the strong automotive emotion associated with Porsche to the wrist. The Chronograph I  therefore remains the definitive reference of the house to this day and an early expression of the consistent design language that still characterizes Porsche Design.

In 1978, a twenty-year collaboration with IWC Schaffhausen began. For Porsche Design, this was far more than a licensing phase, as it produced some of the brand’s most technically and formally distinctive models. Particularly noteworthy is the Compass Watch, whose hinged double-shell case was designed so that the compass and movement would not magnetically interfere with each other. IWC itself retrospectively describes the model as a risky but pioneering design. The Titan Chronograph, introduced by IWC in 1980, also falls into this period, which the company classifies as the world’s first wristwatch with a titanium case and titanium bracelet. With this, Porsche Design introduced a material into watchmaking that came from the automotive and motorsport context and today seems self-evident in the industry.

The Ocean 2000, introduced in 1982, is also one of the defining models of these years. Designed by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, it is still considered an exceptional diver’s watch, whose water resistance of 2,000 meters underscored its technical ambition as much as its clear form: an extremely flat, titanium case that translated the functional demands of a diver’s watch into a clear design. These models, in particular, illustrate Porsche Design’s contribution to watchmaking. This refers not to marketing-driven, superficial references to automobiles, but to the transfer of material awareness, ergonomics, and instrument logic into a new product field.

In more recent history, there have also been models that clearly indicate the brand’s future direction. The 1919 Globetimer UTC  represents an attempt to translate technical complexity into the clearest, most everyday-suitable operation possible. The Monobloc Actuator, in turn, translated motorsport motifs more aggressively into an independent case and operating architecture. Both models do not possess the same historical significance as the Chronograph I or Ocean 2000, but they show how Porsche Design has continued its early design language into the present while cautiously expanding it.

Porsche Design MONOBLOC ACTUATOR

After the end of the IWC phase in 1998, production shifted to Eterna, and since 2014, Porsche Design has been manufacturing in its own structure in Solothurn. The new manufacture in Grenchen therefore does not mark a new beginning, but the consistent further development of this path. For the first time, development, design, production, and brand space are brought together in a way that corresponds to the brand’s self-image. This is also reflected in today’s focus on custom-built timepieces, which, similar to a sports car, can be individually configured. [Ed.]

Chapter Your objects often exist somewhere between sculpture and everyday ritual objects. When you begin a new piece, what usually comes first in your thought process?

Natalia Criado Many of my collections begin through experimentation. Being in the workshop allows me to play with forms. I enjoy exploring materials, and this is how the collection combining stones with metal first emerged while I was working in my studio in Bogotá. It came from translating jewelry techniques to the table.

Chapter When it comes specifically to material—working with metal, glass, and natural stones, and bringing together different craft traditions—does the material ever lead the design for you, or is there a more overarching idea guiding the process?

Natalia Criado In truth, the materials I work with have often depended on where I live. I began with ceramics, fibers and leather when I was in Colombia, and later moved into metals. In that sense, the territory often determines the material I choose to work with.

Chapter Your work balances very precise geometry with forms that feel almost organic. Are there particular shapes you find yourself returning to when thinking about form?

Natalia Criado Yes, I work a lot with the round shapes. The circle appears again and again in my work. It is a shape that keeps returning.

Chapter Are there artists or designers whose work you repeatedly return to for inspiration—reference points that quietly guide your practice?

Natalia Criado It comes in stages. I like looking to the past, studying techniques that were once used and no longer exist. I am drawn to detail, to feminine work and pre-Columbian pieces.

Chapter How do you know when a piece has reached that moment of »just-rightness«—that sense of precision where nothing more can be added or taken away?

Natalia Criado Some pieces may have reached a certain point of completion, for example the múcura. But I often have the feeling that the work is never entirely finished. Between 2024 and 2025 I dedicated myself almost exclusively to refining the pieces, and it still feels like the process continues. [Ed.]

New Era, Neue Klasse

»The Neue Klasse is so modern that it almost looks like we’ve skipped an entire generation«, Adrian van Hooydonk, Head of BMW Group Design, has emphasized repeatedly in recent months. And with the newly unveiled i3  in particular, the design closeness to the progressive Vision Neue Klasse  concept—presented in 2023 as the first preview of the brand’s new chapter—is indeed remarkable. The production model adopts many key design principles such as reduced surfaces, clear proportions, and a newly organized front end that brings light and geometry together. As the second model of the Neue Klasse—after the iX3—unveiled in September 2025, the i3 thus embodies a clear technological and design leap, while still remaining firmly rooted in the 3 Series  logic.

The 3 Series, reimagined

On the exterior, the basic architecture of the 3 Series remains clearly recognizable at first glance. The new BMW i3  continues to follow the familiar proportions with a long wheelbase, short overhangs, and a cabin set further back. What’s new above all is the weighting of the surfaces. The body looks more closed, and transitions between individual elements fade into the background.

The front end picks up key brand elements, but rearranges them. The kidney grille and twin headlights are no longer designed as separate units, but form a cohesive structure. The four-eye-motif remains, but is defined by a continuous light signature that stretches across almost the entire width of the vehicle.

At the rear, this approach continues. The lights are laid out horizontally and integrated far into the body, which further emphasizes the vehicle’s width. Pronounced wheel arches and a clearly structured rear surface stabilize the stance. Inside, the design language (already familiar from the new BMW iX3 ) shifts toward digital layers: displays are projected, physical instruments reduced. The new Panoramic iDrive  organizes information and controls along the driver’s line of sight, fundamentally changing the interaction.

In addition, BMW highlights the technical key figures of the new i3, especially the impressive range of up to 900 kilometers as well as significantly shorter charging times, which are intended to clearly position the model as a long-distance vehicle.

Five decades of the 3 Series—looking back

Back in 1975, the first 3 Series rolled off the production line and proved that driving pleasure doesn’t have to be a privilege of the upper class. The successor to the legendary 02 Series immediately impressed with a blend of compactness, driver focus, agility, dynamism, and smart technology—a formula for success that remains valid to this day.

The first 3 Series took on the sporty DNA of the legendary 02  and served it with a slightly larger portion of comfort. Chief designer Paul Bracq opted for clean lines: twin kidney grille, round twin headlights on the more powerful versions or as an option, a coupé-like window line with the Hofmeister kink, and a subtle muscle on the hood. In 1981, the first generation broke the one-million mark, and by 1983 nearly 400,000 more vehicles had been sold.

With the second generation, which followed in 1982, the 3 Series  model line continued to gain momentum. The cars featured tightened lines, a matte-black B-pillar, standard twin headlights, and a track widened by 35 mm. Both the front and rear axles were revised, ensuring the brand-typical mix of driving pleasure and composure. In 1986, a convertible with an elegant silhouette and a low shoulder line was added. With the Touring, BMW brought even more sportiness to the wagon segment in 1987.

The third generation, available from 1990, scored among other things with more interior space. At the same time, short overhangs and a strikingly low silhouette emphasized the vehicle’s dynamic lines. With the fourth generation introduced in 1998, interior space grew further. On the outside, the model looked sporty and modern, thanks in part to the flowing side line and gently arched roofline.

The fifth generation made its debut in 2005 at the Geneva Motor Show:  initially as a four-door sedan—the touring followed shortly after, and in 2006 the coupé as well. Otherwise, the focus remained on the proven blend of sportiness and comfort. In the new convertible, the retractable hardtop provided more calm at high speeds. From 2007, the M3  variants of the coupé, convertible, and sedan were also added—for the first time with a V8 engine.

The sixth generation (2012) was longer and wider than the generation before it, while also shedding around 40 kilograms. There was also a new addition to the family: the 3 Series Gran Turismo  combined elegant proportions with a higher seating position, a coupé-like roofline, and frameless doors. In October 2018, the curtain finally rose on the seventh-generation BMW 3 Series. From 2019, the slightly longer and wider sedan could then be seen on the road. A long hood, short overhangs, and a flowing roofline continued to convey dynamism and driving fun.

The future meets heritage

The story of the 3 Series  is one of continuous evolution. Over the decades, proportions, driving behavior, and design have been repeatedly refined—without ever leaving the model series’ fundamental logic. With the transition into the Neue Klasse, the framework within which this model series evolves is now shifting for the first time. This was preceded by a design process spanning several years, in which BMW used a series of design studies—from Vision Circular  and Vision Dee  to Vision Neue Klasse—to formulate a consistent picture of its future direction. With the new BMW i3, this new design and technology chapter is now also taking effect within the 3 Series. As the second production model of the Neue Klasse, the new architecture thus reaches the model series that has formed the core of the BMW brand for decades. [SW]

Chapter Looking back, what first set you on the path to becoming a designer—and what part of that early impulse still fuels you today?

Louise Roe Andersen Finding it very important how my surroundings look—how much beauty and how many interesting, great moments you can create in order to feel happy within our lives. From a very young age I felt the importance of how the things around us affect how we feel. When I saw something that was not good looking, I wanted to change it—and how and with what. I always had ideas about how to transform and create happiness out of sadness.

Chapter Outside of design itself, is there something that quietly shapes your thinking and influences how you approach space and form?

Louise Roe Andersen Outside the design approach to how things look, I also find it important how things sound and smell. All senses are relative to how a balanced feeling within a space is created. I love spaces with high ceilings, which in a metaphorical way allow greater feelings and welcome new thinking.
A space with low ceilings makes me feel under pressure and limited in my thinking. Your nervous system and all senses within a human being are important to notice and embrace. Round forms awaken your feminine side and make you feel relaxed and softer, while sharper lines give a feeling of comfort and control. A combination of both brings balance.

Chapter Following on from that thought, in your creative process, is there something that is meant to be felt rather than seen—something you deliberately choose not to make visible?

Louise Roe Andersen I like to see the craftsmanship behind a creation, so I rarely want to hide something unless it makes noise or disturbs the eye too much. I am, however, not very fond of visible screws in woodwork.

Chapter In a time when design is constantly consumed through images, how do you protect the integrity of your work from becoming just another aesthetic moment?

Louise Roe Andersen Everything can almost look »perfect« in an image setup, and for me it is important that in real life my designs look even better—and that the feeling of the tactility of the material and the quality comes across, which can sometimes be difficult to explain in an image. Therefore my gallery space, where people can experience the objects physically, is just as important as creating interesting still-life photos. The weight and the feeling when touching a product are very important aspects of a design.

Chapter Where in your process do disciplined structure and intuitive exploration meet—and how do they shape one another?

Louise Roe Andersen I am disciplined in terms of deadlines and timelines, and it can of course be a challenge when I also give space for my impulsiveness. I am quite disciplined in making decisions and taking action to move forward towards the goal or idea. At the same time, I am aware that the people working with me need to feel comfortable turning »left« when we first thought »right« was the way.

Chapter On a personal level, when a project feels uncertain or demanding, what sustains your momentum?

Louise Roe Andersen I am a problem solver—I somehow always find the bright side of something difficult. I do not feel good waiting too long for someone to take action. My challenge is my impatience. If I work with someone who is too demanding or does not treat people nicely, I sometimes »quit the game« and do not feel it is worth using my energy on. [Ed.]

The first analytical entry point is provided by Uli Sigg’s essay »An Outsized Appetite for Risk«. The Swiss collector and long-time observer of the Chinese art scene describes Ai Weiwei as an artist who consciously takes risks—both aesthetically and politically. Sigg traces how, from his early years in New York’s East Village to his internationally renowned installations, Ai Weiwei developed a practice in which art is understood as a social situation. Projects such as »Fairytale« at Documenta 12, for which 1,001 people from China were invited to Kassel, demonstrate how Ai Weiwei turns encounters between people, cultures, and political realities into the very material of his art.

The book is supported by insightful essayistic approaches and a chronological chapter structure that traces Ai Weiwei’s development over several decades: from the years 1983–1993 in New York to his return to Beijing (1993–1999) and the political and artistic projects of the 2000s. These stages mark biographical phases as well as the increasing intertwining of art, public debate, and political reality in Ai Weiwei’s work.

This historical contextualization is followed by Roger M. Buergel’s essay »The Mediator’s Ways«, which interprets Ai Weiwei’s practice from an art-historical perspective. Buergel describes the artist as a mediator between cultural systems, historical materials, and political contexts. One example is the installation »Template«, shown at Documenta 12 in Kassel in 2007. The structure, built from historical door and window frames, partially collapsed during a storm—an event Ai Weiwei did not view as a failure, but accepted as part of the work. For Buergel, this reveals a central principle of Ai Weiwei’s practice: art remains an open process that includes chance, time, and social dynamics.

The later chapters of the volume follow Ai Weiwei’s work through the politically charged years after 2008—from his investigation into the victims of the Sichuan earthquake to his detention in 2011 and the international exhibitions and film projects that followed. At this point, Alfred Weidinger’s essay »Against the Walls—Ai Weiwei and the Right to Visibility« comes into focus, concentrating primarily on works from the 2010s onward. Weidinger shows how, after his imprisonment, Ai Weiwei developed a new phase in his practice in which questions of visibility, control, and the public sphere became central. Projects such as »@Large« on Alcatraz, installations like »Law of the Journey«, or the large-scale intervention »Good Fences Make Good Neighbors« in New York demonstrate how Ai Weiwei translates global issues such as migration, surveillance, and political freedom into spatial and visual structures.

Weidinger particularly emphasizes how Ai Weiwei integrates new media and digital platforms into his artistic practice. Photography, film, and social media become instruments through which political reality is documented and simultaneously reflected upon artistically. Works such as the film »Human Flow« or image series from refugee camps show how closely personal observation, documentary practice, and political intervention are intertwined.

What emerges is a publication from the house of TASCHEN, oversized not only in its physical form but also in its scope and intellectual depth. Moving beyond the framework of a conventionally closed monograph, it presents itself as a complex portrait of an artist while leaving space for a future in which his work continues to evolve—biographically, art-historically, and politically. A book that, with foresight, makes Ai Weiwei’s positions visible: art as a medium through which individual experience, historical memory, and global conflicts come into view. [Ed.]

Ai Weiwei. Updated Edition
25 x 33.4 cm, 4.03 kg, 736 pages
taschen.com

]]> https://chapter.digital/en/mobility-rolls-royce-black-badge-anniversary/ Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:42:26 +0000 https://chapter.digital/the-subversive-alter-ego/ The Black Badge line expresses the bold, unconventional side of the British luxury automobile marque Rolls-Royce with uncompromising clarity. The first deep-black models of the Black Badge family were presented at the Geneva Motor Show in 2016, although the origins of the series reach much further back.

In December 1964, John Lennon—who had just released the album »A Hard Day’s Night« with the Beatles—ordered a new Rolls-Royce Phantom V  from R. S. Mead in Maidenhead. However, it was to be completely black—inside and out, including all trim. He also wanted the car to have tinted glass in the rear doors, the quarter windows, the rear window, and the partition. »It’s for late drives home. If it’s light when you get home, it’s still dark in the car. You just close all the windows and you’re still in the club«, Lennon explained in an interview with Rolling Stone. Rolls-Royce naturally fulfilled the exceptional musical talent’s wishes and delivered an entirely black car. Only the two iconic brand signatures—the Pantheon grille and the Spirit of Ecstasy—remained chrome. Today, John Lennon’s black Phantom V  is considered the most important predecessor of the Black Badge  line introduced in 2016, with which the British brand aimed from the outset to appeal primarily to younger customers. Strictly speaking, however, the Rolls-Royce 20 H.P. Brewster Brougham  delivered in 1928 must also be counted among the forebears of Black Badge, as it was handed over to its owner with an unusual special specification: both the Spirit of Ecstasy and the Pantheon grille were painted black.

Rolls-Royce 20 H.P. Brewster Brougham

In an interview with Chapter, Domagoj Dukec, Director of Design at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, describes Black Badge as the brand’s subversive alter ego. »It was an unexpected, yet compelling statement, and this creative tension was exactly what made it so powerful. Today, Black Badge stands as a bold expression of our design philosophy. A contemporary reinterpretation that has not only become part of our identity, but has also introduced a new and younger audience to the marque«, says Dukec.

Rolls-Royce Black Badge Wraith Black Arrow

From John Lennon’s legendary vehicle to the introduction of the Black Badge  line in 2016, however, several decades passed. The starting point for developing this subversive alter ego was above all the desire to offer young, up-and-coming entrepreneurs a vehicle that is instantly recognizable as a Rolls-Royce, yet at the same time has a more unconventional, almost rebellious character. »We see ourselves not as creators imposing a vision, but as interpreters of our clients’ aspirations, philosophies and values. When they choose to push the boundaries, our role is to guide that exploration with understanding and precision«, says Domagoj Dukec—referring not only to Black Badge, but also to Rolls-Royce’s long, brand-defining Bespoke tradition. »Since joining the marque, I’ve been struck by just how singular each of our clients truly are. No two share the same vision, and that uniqueness continually inspires us to think beyond convention. From a design perspective, it compels us to consider not only what feels relevant now, but what will remain meaningful in decades to come.«

Rolls-Royce Black Badge Spectre

Black Badge  doesn’t just stand for deep black tones in the exterior and interior, but also for more engine power and a sportier chassis. This makes the series especially appealing to those who don’t want to be chauffeured, but want to experience for themselves what the more direct throttle response and increased performance are all about. Pressing the »Infinity« button on the steering wheel can even unlock additional power reserves. In addition, the chassis is lowered and slightly stiffened.

Rolls-Royce Black Badge Cullinan Blue Shadow

While John Lennon was still denied this option, today the Spirit of Ecstasy, the Pantheon grille, and the double-R emblem can also be produced in black. Instead of simply painting these icons, a special chrome electrolyte is added to the traditional chrome-plating process, which deposits on the stainless-steel substrate and darkens the surface. The layer thickness is just one micrometer—about one hundredth the width of a human hair. Each of these components is precision-polished before being fitted to the vehicle to achieve a mirror-smooth black chrome surface. The current Black Badge  portfolio includes Ghost, Cullinan, and Spectre. The latter was unveiled in February 2025 and, at 659 hp, is the most powerful version of the all-electric coupé to date.

Rolls-Royce Black Badge Landspeed Collection

Crucial to understanding the story of Black Badge  is also the fact that the boldness mentioned above has been part of Rolls-Royce’s brand identity long before 2016. Through their own biographies, the two founders anchored the courageous breaking of conventions firmly in the brand’s DNA. Henry Royce overcame poverty, illness, and a lack of formal education to become one of the world’s greatest engineers. Charles Rolls, born an aristocrat and educated at Cambridge University, could have lived a life of luxury, but instead chose to expose himself to the dangers of early motorsport and aviation. The spirit of self-fulfillment that defines both stories continues to shape Rolls-Royce to this day and finds its most intense expression in Black Badge, the subversive alter ego of the Goodwood-based marque. [SW]

Modern Barragán by Lake Verea presents itself as a personal homage to Luis Barragán (1902–1988), a Pritzker Prize laureate and one of the most significant architects of the twentieth century. The Mexican architect became known for his reduced yet poetic architecture, in which light, color, water and landscape play central roles. His buildings combine modernist clarity with traditional Mexican elements, with his private residence and studio, Casa Barragán in Mexico City, standing as an exemplary example of his style. Today the house is open to the public as Museo Casa Luis Barragán and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004.

The photographs show the architecture of the building, which has been largely preserved in its original state and still retains numerous pieces of furniture, objects and materials from Barragán’s own time, along with its often unnoticed intimate details and traces of a lived life. During their stays at Casa Barragán, the artists’ duo engaged with the place deliberately on both a physical and emotional level: they »sat on his chairs, opened his closets, listened to the silence and kissed in the enchanted garden«, as the book states. In this way, an unusual perspective on Barragán’s work emerges—less analytical than experiential, almost performative.

Following an introductory reflection on the project itself, the book unfolds into several chapters and photographic series that illuminate different aspects of the house and its cultural context, opening up various approaches to Barragán’s architecture. The opening—The Staircase That Made Us Fall in Love with Him—already demonstrates how strongly individual architectural elements can become the starting point of a narrative. The iconic staircase—essentially a functional element within the house – is described as a sculptural experience that connects movement, body and space.

Another chapter pursues an almost biographical perspective: Portrait of the Architect Through His Cadillac. Here Barragán’s Cadillac from 1957 is read as a kind of time capsule, whose forms and materials offer clues to the architect’s personality, era and myth. The car appears as an extension of his character—elegant, monumental and full of symbolic meanings.

Further chapters focus on the concrete material and spatial details of the house. In His House with the Original Materials and Colors, attention is directed to surfaces, furniture and objects that still date back to Barragán’s own time. Through careful observation and photographic studies, an impression emerges of how strongly color, texture and materiality contribute to the overall experience of his architecture.

Particularly striking is the series Wild Nights, which explores the house in complete darkness. Here the artists photograph with flash or under moonlight and streetlight, transforming familiar rooms into unexpected, abstract-appearing image spaces. This method connects to their long-standing interest in light and perception. Atmospherically reinterpreted, the architecture appears beyond a purely documentary perspective. The photographs show the house during the day, at night, in moonlight or during a thunderstorm; in some cases the walls and floors are even rubbed with aluminum to reveal their textures.

It is a combination of personally shaped documentary research, artistic intervention and immediate experience that defines the project. What emerges is a multilayered approach to memory, perception and intimacy. The publication presents Barragán’s architecture as a historical masterpiece, but also as a living place that can be reread again and again—through the perspective of contemporary artists as well as through the experiences of visitors who allow themselves to truly enter this house. [Ed.]

Lake Verea: Modern Barragán
Edited by Lake Verea
240 pages, 210 mm x 250 mm
240 illustrations
hatjecantz.com

]]> https://chapter.digital/en/mobility-enzo-ferrari-museum-greatest-hits/ Sun, 08 Mar 2026 09:37:57 +0000 https://chapter.digital/beep-beep-yeah/ Musicians such as Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger have long sought ways to express their identity beyond the stage. It may be for this reason that many artists developed a particular affinity for the sports car brand Ferrari. The exhibition »Greatest Hits—Music Legends and Their Ferraris« at the Enzo Ferrari Museum in Modena explores this special connection.

On the day of his driving test in 1965, the already world-famous John Lennon bought his first car—an azure blue Ferrari 330 GT 2+2, which delivered about 300 hp to the road. Not exactly the typical vehicle for a novice driver, but a design gem styled by Pininfarina. His fellow musician Miles Davis also had a penchant for sports cars from Maranello—he owned a red 275 GTB4, which he acquired in 1967. »I drive a Ferrari, not for the sake of beauty, but because I like it,« the famous composer and trumpeter is said to have once remarked.

However, the list of famous musicians who maintained particularly intense relationships with their Ferraris is far from over. Mick Jagger drove, among others, a 288 GTO, which at its presentation in 1984 was the most powerful road car Ferrari had built to date. Opera singer Maria Callas owned a 250 GT, and the legendary Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan had a 250 GT Lusso.

Eric Clapton had several Ferraris in his garage. In his autobiography published in 2007, he describes the moment his love for the Italian sports car brand was ignited as follows: »One day in the late 1960s he (note: George Harrison) arrived at my house in a dark-blue Ferrari 365 GTC. I’d never seen one in the flesh before and my heart melted. At that point, it was like seeing the most beautiful woman on earth and I decided there and then that even though I couldn’t drive, I was going to have one too. I had no licence and had only ever driven an automatic, so I set about teaching myself to drive using a clutch, in that Ferrari. I loved that car.«

In 2012, Clapton commissioned Ferrari to design and develop a sports car that would be reminiscent of the Ferrari icon 512 BB. No sooner said than done—his Ferrari SP12 EC  was realized as part of the official prototype program and was created at the Centro Stile Ferrari, in close cooperation with Pininfarina and the engineers in Maranello. The price for the one-off sports car is not known.

Some of these vehicles can now be seen at the Enzo Ferrari Museum   in Modena. The exhibition »Greatest Hits—Music Legends and Their Ferraris« is a tribute to the close connection between musical expression and the car as an object that defines identity. After all, identity, performance, passion, and high-level engineering are not only central to music, but also to those moments when you steer a Pininfarina-designed Ferrari from the driveway onto the road. Podcasts created for the exhibition and carefully curated photo and text material provide additional background information and allow the respective zeitgeist to flicker even more vividly before the mind’s eye. Primarily, however, it is about experiencing the vehicles that musicians once drove and which may have inspired world-famous songs live. »Greatest Hits« can be seen in Modena until February 16, 2027. [SW]

Chapter  What led you to the curatorial idea of placing contemporary functional works in dialogue specifically with pre-1940 decorative arts?

Zeynep Rekkali Jensen  For me, integrating historical works felt more honest. In real life, our homes are never purely contemporary or purely historical. So curating a strictly contemporary environment felt slightly artificial to me, almost like pretending objects exist outside the flow of time.
The choice of pre-1940 decorative arts was deliberate. These objects reflect a moment before industrial standardization dominated design and before ornament was vilified by modernism. Decorative elements, especially figurative ones, were still natural and coveted. I love that. I want to see Goddess Artemis with her crescent crown on objects around me. For me, objects that allow us to feel something, not only to use them efficiently, are vital.

Additionally, the world already has exceptional mid-century and late 20th-century design specialists, so I did not feel drawn to that canon. Instead, my aim was to contribute more poetry.
When I choose the historical pieces, I prioritize those that clarify and reinforce the exhibition’s conceptual theme, connect the narrative, or introduce a timeless, visionary design perspective.
For example, the armchair by Anton Pospischil was exhibited at the MAK in Vienna in 1902. I like to remember that our work now is not entirely new. Designers in the past also worked at the edge of their time, with skill, vision, and patience. It is humbling and inspiring.

Chapter  Would you say the placement of contemporary works alongside historical pieces such as Josef Hoffmann’s nesting tables or a Gio Ponti lamp shapes the way viewers engage with the objects—and encourages the slower looking that craft-based work requires? And more broadly, how do you approach cultural mediation in a time of shrinking attention spans and a culture increasingly experienced through screens?

Zeynep Rekkali Jensen  I don’t think of it as fighting against shrinking attention spans, but rather creating the conditions for attention to return. The gallery space is intentionally calm, and I’m very invested in the meeting point between craft and conceptual thinking.
Craft-based objects retain a quality that cannot be digitized: their weight, texture, and presence. The conceptual narrative of the exhibition, the craft processes, and the dialogue with historical pieces all mediate the work for the viewer.
The historical objects serve as anchors in the room, establishing continuity amid a culture that moves rapidly from one image or trend to the next. Their presence, shaped by time, shifts the atmosphere and slows the experience, emphasizing a connection between past and present.

Chapter  Why did you choose Lærke Ryom’s exhibition Raiments as the opening show for Innenkreis? What made her practice the right starting point for the gallery?

Zeynep Rekkali Jensen  Textiles can appear gentle at first glance, but the decisions behind them are extremely technical. That tension, softness that is actually structural, feels very much like the spirit of Innenkreis.
What I admire about Lærke is that she is both an impeccable designer and a deeply committed craftsperson. When you sit in her pieces, you immediately feel how carefully they are designed. They are incredibly comfortable, which places them within that Scandinavian tradition of thoughtful, human-centered design.
She pushes that tradition further. In this exhibition, every piece is hand-stitched. This creates a completely different rhythm of making.

Chapter  Ryom speaks of »dressing« furniture rather than upholstering it, allowing materials to drape naturally rather than forcing them into rigid forms. Would you say this approach reflects a more co-creative relationship between material, craft, and function in contemporary design culture?

Zeynep Rekkali Jensen  Yes, absolutely. Lærke references philosopher Michel Serres’s notion of hospitality as mutual transformation. To host is to accept change. In her work, the furniture frame becomes a host. It offers structure and support while letting go of control. What emerges through that negotiation is an object formed through care rather than command, where softness is an ethical refusal of control. This refusal challenges the hierarchies inherited from functionalist modernism, in which structure was privileged as truth and softness was pushed aside as decoration. [Ed.]

Few automobiles feel as intuitively attuned to their drivers as McLaren’s hypercars. Within McLaren Automotive’s bespoke division, this guiding principle is not merely sustained but brought to its most exacting expression. A visit to MSO—McLaren Special Operations—where customization is not a promise, but standard practice.

Anyone who has ever sat in a McLaren knows that these vehicles are far more than mere machines. They react precisely and directly, every movement finds its echo—cars that sometimes feel like an extension of one’s own body, a unity of human and technology. This feeling is not accidental: it is the result of the uncompromising tuning that McLaren has elevated to its own discipline—from the exact feedback of the steering and the precise response of the brakes to the balance of the chassis.

During the customization process, customers can draw on the concentrated craftsmanship and expertise of the McLaren MSO team. The possibilities for giving the interior (pictured in the W1) a personal touch are also diverse.

The department at McLaren responsible for customization and restoration takes things several steps further when it comes to the car as a reflection of one’s own personality. From subtle adjustments to complete one-offs, almost anything is possible at MSO, McLaren’s Special Operations Unit, to design a McLaren that not only matches one’s taste but also becomes a moving expression of one’s identity. Moreover, all those who embark on this path of personalization also write themselves into the brand’s history. Jonathan Simms, who previously headed the Bespoke department at Rolls-Royce, among other roles, serves as »Director of MSO McLaren Special Operations«. In Goodwood, he learned what it means when bespoke is part of the brand’s core, meaning customers know exactly the wide range of possible customization options. And, of course, they are happy to make use of them. That’s exactly what he now wants to achieve at McLaren, Simms explains.

Jonathan Simms heads McLaren Special Operations—with the goal of making the three letters
MSO synonymous with desirability.

We are in the premises above the legendary Silverstone Circuit. Here, customization options are explored and paint finishes inspected in a specially designed area. Fingers glide over fabric samples, leather, and Alcantara. Below us, McLarens whiz through Copse, Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel — from the new Artura  to the Senna GTR and the Solus GT, almost the entire model range is on display as part of the »Pure McLaren Trackdays« at Silverstone. The latter vehicle, in particular, is impossible to overlook or ignore. However, the most photographed hypercar that day is certainly the brand new W1. The car, equipped with 1,275 hp and incorporating numerous technical achievements and experiences from Formula 1, was limited to 399 units and is a hypercar  par excellence. Its name alone reveals that the W1 was developed to join the lineage consisting of the two legends F1 and P1. Unlike other McLaren models, each individual W1  undergoes a tuning and customization process whose extent varies from vehicle to vehicle.
Jonathan Simms explains that the largely untapped potential played a significant role in his move to McLaren. »The level of expertise and craftsmanship at McLaren, for example when it comes to paintwork or airbrushing, is immensely high. I am confident that with this large pool of possibilities, we will succeed in further increasing MSO’s appeal. For the future, I hope that these three letters immediately evoke desire.«

ONE PLUS ONE EQUALS ONE

When it comes to the customization process, the first step is usually the most difficult, Simms adds. »I constantly meet people who have long considered designing a McLaren to their specifications but don’t know how or where to start. Therefore, it’s also important for me to educate much more about the possibilities we have at McLaren for customization. Once this first step is taken, the probability is high that a second car will follow. But of course, only if we have done our job well.«

»The level of expertise and craftsmanship, for example when it comes to paintwork or airbrushing, is immensely high at
McLaren,« confirms Jonathan Simms, Head of McLaren MSO.

Jonathan Simms laughs. And he has good reason to, as he knows about the concentrated craftsmanship and expertise he can draw upon as Head of MSO. As the most important agent of his special unit, Simms also knows that »personal« and »private« are not synonymous, but he is also aware that private experiences often play a decisive role in designing a vehicle tailored to one’s own personality. »I find it exciting to observe that at the beginning of the collaboration, the vehicles usually exhibit all the brand’s typical characteristics. They are distinctly sporty, and hardly any vehicle comes without Papaya. The longer the journey together lasts, the more elements are added that reflect the customer’s personality.«
Ultimately, the main goal is always to reconcile two identities, Jonathan Simms summarizes. However, it is by no means his job to dictate a certain taste, he adds. »Of course, in the end, there are cars I like, as well as those that don’t quite match my taste. I really like it when personal details are incorporated. Just recently, we airbrushed a cartoon from a customer’s childhood onto a door—very small at the bottom. We also always encourage our customers to bring a memento or inspiration to the first session.«
The first session is usually followed by two more. Although Jonathan Simms is the person at the well-oiled lever between vision and implementation, there are still some technical limitations. »We certainly don’t want to stand in the way of our customers’ imagination. They should view the vehicle as a blank canvas. However, for example, with the W1, there’s a part in the rear area that we cannot modify because it gets extremely hot and therefore must be made of a specific material,« he notes.

Named after Ayrton Senna, the McLaren Senna GTR is a tribute to McLaren’s close connection with motorsport.

The tuning process often goes more smoothly and fluidly when things that the future owners don’t like are also discussed, Simms remarks, adding: »If you don’t like something, it usually brings out a pretty strong emotion—you can articulate the reasons for it better and pinpoint them in detail than with things you do like. This process helps us a lot in figuring out what the car should look like in the end.«
Before Jonathan Simms has to return to the lever between vision and implementation, one last question arises: Which part of the entire tuning and customization process does he enjoy the most? Simms laughs and immediately has an answer ready: »I love the moment when extremely successful business people suddenly develop a childlike curiosity and fascination again. It’s always a very special moment when they dare to share their designs with us and are truly proud of what they have created.«

»WE WANT THE CARS TO BE DRIVEN«

MSO originally emerged as an exclusive customer service for the legendary McLaren F1, produced between 1993 and 1997. Today, the scope of work for Jonathan Simms and his team is much broader. In addition to customization, they also handle the restoration and preservation of value for all historical models from the British manufacturer. The fact that the McLaren Special Operations department team includes people who were involved in the development of the F1  is invaluable. The iconic vehicles are restored with original parts and based on design drawings, shining in new splendor. If desired, they are also reinterpreted with modern accents. In this way, the British sports car manufacturer ensures that McLaren’s legacy remains tangible and experienceable for future generations.

McLaren W1 & McLaren 750S Le Mans – a special edition of the 750S Coupé for the 30th anniversary of
McLaren’s victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995.

One could take a cue from the fashion industry in this regard, as Jonathan Simms notes during our conversation. »I hope that we, too, will have these moments at regular intervals that all McLaren fans eagerly await because they finally want to know which historical model we have restored. Or which special custom build we will release next.«
Crucially, driving pleasure must not be neglected. Or rather: it can and should, of course, take place on racetracks, but it also unfolds on road trips or daily commutes. Because you don’t own a McLaren just to look at it. Even the W1, which has everything it takes to push a little further to the limit during a track day, is suitable as a vehicle for a weekend getaway. Even a coffee cup can be comfortably placed in the center console. »We want the cars to be driven,« says Heather Fitch, W1 Product Manager, summing up one of the British manufacturer’s most important principles. A good cue to check one last time how well the Silverstone Circuit  actually lends itself to getting a little closer to the aforementioned unity of man and machine. Because one thing is certain: the core of the McLaren experience lies in driving.

In Collaboration with McLaren Automotive | FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY«—WINTER 2025/26

Formally, the new Galaxy S26 Series—the Galaxy S26 Ultra, the Galaxy S26+, and the Galaxy S26—appears largely unchanged at first; the key innovations primarily concern internal system logic, performance, and above all, innovative display features. And here Samsung places privacy at the center, particularly the question of how sensitive content can be displayed in a controlled manner even in public situations.

The answer to this is the so-called »Privacy Display«, integrated for the first time in the Galaxy S26 Ultra and the industry’s first of its kind. According to Samsung, a »breakthrough in display technology« where design, hardware, and software work together to protect user privacy. Intelligent control of pixel light diffusion ensures that display content is not visible from side angles beyond 45 degrees. Unlike stick-on films already available, this function is deeply embedded in the display architecture and can be activated situationally—for example, during PIN entry or when opening sensitive applications. Samsung addresses an enormously relevant question: How do you design digital privacy in a public world—especially in light of the rapidly increasing integration of highly personal information into digital systems.

Beyond the »Privacy Display«, the evolution of Samsung’s third-generation Galaxy S  smartphones also concerns the internal structure of the devices. Samsung uses a newly tuned processor with significantly increased system performance, revised heat dissipation, and 60-watt fast charging on the Galaxy S26 Ultra. The camera unit has also been equipped with larger apertures and an updated image signal processor that now includes the front camera. The goal is higher computing power with stable energy efficiency.

On the software level, Samsung introduces context-based assistance functions with »Now Brief« and »Now Nudge« that prioritize content before it is actively searched for, such as appointments or travel information. These systems access context-related usage data and are designed to simplify workflows without requiring additional interaction. This shifts the focus of the Galaxy S26 Series  from pure performance enhancement to a structural question: designing the relationship between technology and users.

In this context, a personnel decision also takes on special significance. Last year, Samsung Electronics created the position of »President and Chief Design Officer« for the first time in its corporate history and filled it with renowned designer Mauro Porcini (pictured below). Porcini comes from 3M and PepsiCo, where in similar positions he established design as a strong and diverse business discipline.

Very much in the spirit of the subtle innovations of the Galaxy S26 Series, design for Porcini does not begin with the external form of a product, but with the question of what role technology should play in people’s lives: »As designers, our mission goes beyond creating innovative products. We aim to elevate people’s lives—to design tools and experiences that help them live better, longer and more meaningfully, by taming technology in service of humanity,« he explains.

Whether Mauro Porcini’s appointment will lead to striking shifts in product design in the future remains to be seen. While the new Galaxy S26 Series  appears to be a consolidation in this regard for now, the institutional elevation of design suggests that Samsung will likely define its technological leadership more strongly through formal design going forward. [TS]

THE BEGINNING

A pivotal moment in Vitra’s early history was Willi Fehlbaum’s encounter with the designs of Charles and Ray Eames in the 1950s. During a trip to New York, he discovered the innovative fiberglass chairs in the Herman Miller showroom and was particularly struck by the technical ingenuity of the “shock mount” connection. Herman Miller, one of the leading American furniture manufacturers of postwar modernism, held the international production rights to these designs. Fehlbaum therefore approached the company to establish a licensing agreement for Europe. Vitra subsequently began manufacturing and distributing selected designs by Charles and Ray Eames, as well as George Nelson, across the European market.

In continuous production: The complete range of designs by Charles and Ray Eames.

Nelson, a key figure in American Mid-Century Modern, had served as Design Director at Herman Miller since 1945, shaping the company’s design direction for decades. In this role, he helped define its program and worked closely with designers such as Charles and Ray Eames and Isamu Noguchi. For Vitra, the partnership with Herman Miller marked a decisive transition from a regional enterprise to an internationally operating design manufacturer.

After the partnership with Herman Miller was amicably concluded in 1984, Vitra secured the rights to manufacture and distribute the designs of Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, and Alexander Girard in Europe and the Middle East. Girard—an architect and designer known for his distinctive use of color, textiles, and graphic expression—shaped the emotional and visual dimension of American modernism as head of Herman Miller’s textile division from the 1950s onward.
With the acquisition of these rights, Vitra entered a new phase, increasingly positioning itself as an independent brand and refining its identity beyond that of a licensed producer.

THE NEW BEGINNING

A devastating fire in 1981, which destroyed large parts of the factory in Weil am Rhein, paradoxically marked a new beginning for the company. In its aftermath, the Vitra Campus began to take shape—an ensemble of buildings by internationally renowned architects that reached an early milestone in 1989 with the opening of Frank Gehry’s Vitra Design Museum. From the outset, the museum was conceived not as a conventional corporate showcase, but as an independent institution, deliberately distancing itself from purely brand-driven exhibition formats. Collection-building, research, and public education became integral to the company’s identity.

In the days when Vitra still had its own volunteer fire brigade, Zaha Hadid was commissioned to design a building that would house the fire engines and also provide social facilities for the firefighters.

In parallel, Vitra developed new content-driven formats. With the Vitra Edition—featuring contributions by designers such as Frank Gehry, Shiro Kuramata, and Ron Arad—the company positioned design explicitly as a cultural practice. The collaboration with Jean Prouvé not only led to the reintroduction of historic pieces such as the 1930 Cité chair—now the oldest design still in production in the collection—but also prompted a renewed engagement with the constructive principles of the 20th century. Later projects, including the Joyn system (2002) by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, inspired by the communal farmhouse table, reflected Vitra’s responsiveness to evolving workplace dynamics and broader societal shifts.

THE TRANSFORMATION

With the founders’ children joining the company’s leadership, Vitra entered another phase of transformation. Rolf Fehlbaum, son of Willi and Erika Fehlbaum and a defining figure at the company’s helm since the 1970s, further shaped Vitra’s strategic and cultural direction and initiated the Vitra Design Museum in 1989. His daughter, Nora Fehlbaum, later assumed the role of CEO, representing a new generation of leadership. The acquisition of Artek is described in the book as a strategically significant step; at the same time, it signals a new priority: »our generation’s fingerprint is the environmental strategy.« Sustainability thus became an explicit part of the company’s mission, alongside a broader outreach and the development of new digital formats.

The complete Vitra product range, presented outside Frank Gehry’s museum building in 2007.

Particularly striking is the book’s reflection on collection-building and cultural responsibility. Rolf Fehlbaum emphasizes that museums often preserve innovative and even radical designs—even when some of these pieces were initially dismissed as »flops« in the marketplace. The collection is conceived as a living organism, sustained by significant archives such as those of Charles and Ray Eames, Jean Prouvé, and Verner Panton.

THE VITRA WORLD

Last but not least, the book explores the company’s visual identity in depth. A brand, it argues, is not the result of artificial image-making but evolves organically from its inherent values and actions. In keeping with this view, Vitra has long combined product development with content-driven formats such as the »Workspirit«publication series, which brings together interviews, architecture, and design. The »Atlas of Furniture Design,« published in 2019 and spanning more than 1,000 pages, further exemplifies this connection between research, design, and narrative—significantly privileging images over text.

Vitra – Anatomy of a Design Company is therefore far more than a corporate history. Numerous historically significant archival images, newly edited documents, and personal testimonies trace Vitra’s evolution from a regional enterprise to an internationally connected design brand. Spanning 410 pages and featuring 300 color and 100 black-and-white illustrations, the publication interweaves industrial, architectural, and cultural history into a multifaceted panorama of modern design as seen through the lens of Vitra. [Ed.]

Vitra – The Anatomy of a Design Company
Published by Phaidon
Hardcover, 270mm x 215mm, 401 pages
vitra.com

In his first monograph, »I Thought That I Would Be in Heaven But I Am Only Up a Tree«, photographer Ryan James Caruthers explores the landscape as a queer space of experience—one in which personal identity dissolves and unfolds within the boundless possibilities of nature. Through his work, Caruthers creates a poetically melancholic visual world that coalesces into an emotionally resonant body of work.

Chapter You’ve described nature as a place of refuge during your childhood—a space where queerness could exist without constraint. How did you approach translating that felt sense of freedom into the language of photography, where identity in your images seems to dissolve into landscape?

Ryan James Caruthers When I first started making these images, I wasn’t sure of the exact path or the reasoning, it was more a sense of exploration, going out into the landscape to create without the idea of what exactly I was looking to find—if anything. It probably wasn’t until halfway into my project that it started to click. I realized that the work was resonating at a level that felt almost intrinsic, as if the images were part of me. I think a lot of the reasoning comes after, but the deep hues and painterly quality of the images likely come from my memory of how I encountered these places as a child, or how I felt this grand sense of awe—these encapsulated scenes of verdancy.

Chapter In his essay for the book, writer and poet Ocean Vuong suggests that your work transforms the landscape into a space of boyish mysticism and queer possibility. His words seem to move through your images as much as your images move through his language. What did you recognize in his writing that felt deeply connected to your own way of seeing?

Ryan James Caruthers Ocean is, without doubt, one of the greats. The theme of otherness is woven through much of his work, and it’s something that deeply resonated with me—and, of course, is connected to the nature of the project. I think being queer, being an outsider—this is how most of us felt growing up, that we were looking for a sense of serenity or safety in a world that maybe didn’t yet understand us. I am grateful that he was able to articulate my images into words; his understanding is so deep and profound.

Chapter You’ve spoken of Caspar David Friedrich’s »The Monk by the Sea« as an influence—a figure surrendering to something vast and unknowable. What does surrender mean to you—personally and/or as an artist?

Ryan James Caruthers »The Monk by the Sea« wasn’t an immediate reference from the beginning, but it crept up on me sometime throughout the project. I had seen the painting in a book years before, and it must have been living somewhere in my consciousness. There is surrender in allowing yourself to be completely vulnerable and to create at a level that is deeply connected to your roots and consciousness. I’m not too sure if there is separation between the art and the person—to me, they’re quite interlinked. The surrender is what makes us human.

Chapter What do you find yourself returning to when you need to feel inspired?

Ryan James Caruthers There are a few: I’m an avid collector of books—photography, art, interiors—which provide constant inspiration. Listening to others talk about their own paths and the way they move through the world. I always go back to Nina Simone’s rendition of »Wild Is the Wind«—her words, her pauses, the sweeping sound of the piano. It all feels so resonant—the mourning, the longing, the act of crying out to someone or something that is no longer there but still holds so much space in you. Nothing can beat it.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

Since its opening in 2001, the Leopold Museum has played a pivotal role in bringing the forward-looking, experimental spirit of Vienna’s turn of the century to life—not as a singular, archived moment consigned to the past, but as an enduring cultural point of reference. Founded by the Austrian art collector, ophthalmologist, and patron Rudolf Leopold (1925–2010), the museum remains consistently devoted to the art and culture of around 1900. With its extensive collection—including major works by Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Oskar Kokoschka—it has established itself as one of the leading institutions dedicated to the presentation of Viennese Modernism.

By continually reimagining its permanent exhibition, »Vienna 1900—Birth of Modernism,« the museum repeatedly succeeds in framing the aesthetic, social, and design impulses of the era within a contemporary context, offering ever-new perspectives. On display are masterpieces from the Leopold Museum’s collection alongside significant national and international long-term loans, through which the radical energy of the past resonates and the emergence of modernity around 1900 appears remarkably relevant today.

Armchair for the Purkersdorf Sanatorium by Koloman Moser;
Executed by: Prag-Rudniker, workshop: Jakob Soulek (carpenter), 1903

How this formative turning point found expression is explored in the exhibition catalogue, which characterizes the heterogeneous milieu of the Danube metropolis as a »central engine of a turbulent movement of renewal«—one that created fertile ground for an extraordinary concentration of cultural achievement. Names such as Klimt, Freud, and Loos have long stood, requiring little explanation, as synonymous with groundbreaking innovations across a wide spectrum of modern disciplines. Vienna’s multilayered identity, shaped by movements such as the Secession and the Wiener Werkstätte, continues to inform contemporary debates on craftsmanship, materiality, and the role of art in society.

The world-famous group portrait of the artists participating in the 14th Exhibition of the Vienna Secession, including Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Carl Moll, photographed by Moriz Nähr, 1902

»Ver Sacrum. Theseus and Minotaur.« — poster by Gustav Klimt for the 1st Art Exhibition of the Association of Austrian Artists, Secession. Condition before censorship, 1898

The applied arts played a central role in realizing the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk—a term denoting the aspiration to infuse all areas of life with art, which in the age of social media might most closely correspond to the overused word »curate«. The distinction, however, lies in the ambition to create an aesthetically and conceptually self-contained whole, one that transcends dull replicability and fleeting immediacy—the logic of the »copy-and-paste-taste«.

In this context, the attentive and discerning eye will have noticed that the »Hoffmann Chair«—a label commonly applied regardless of the specific model—has, in many a carefully curated feed, been reduced to a conspicuously deployed prop, intended to signal stylistic confidence, mask mediocrity, and assert distinction »from the rest«. Yet it is worth noting, positively, that furniture from the turn of the century continues to strike a chord today, capable of evoking the atmosphere of that vibrant era—which is precisely where the exhibition’s true strength resides.

»Vienna 1900—Birth of Modernism« lays bare the foundations from which many of today’s trends and debates first emerged. Rather than concentrating on singular iconic figures, the presentation opens up a perspective on the complexity of an era in transition, whose energy continues to resonate to this day.

In keeping with this understanding of modernity as an enduring impulse that extends beyond Vienna, the Leopold Museum is also presenting a comprehensive retrospective, »GUSTAVE COURBET—Realist and Rebel« (19.02.2026—21.06.2026). With Courbet, the focus shifts to an artist who—much like the protagonists of Vienna’s turn of the century—challenged conventions and insisted upon artistic autonomy. The exhibition thus consistently aligns with the museum’s programmatic aim of revealing moments of upheaval in art history as living, ongoing impulses. [Ed.]

Vienna 1900. Birth of Modernism
560 pages 23.5 x 28 cm
1000 illustrations
leopoldmuseum.org

The timing is deliberate. In light of climate change, finite resources, and growing urbanization, sustainable living is no longer a niche topic but a central architectural concern. »Sustainable Living« brings together 63 residential projects from diverse regions around the world, showing how architects respond to climatic, social, and ecological conditions—replacing universal solutions with site-specific strategies.

What unites these projects is a shared ambition: to conceive architecture across its entire life cycle. »Homes for Our Time. Sustainable Living« places particular emphasis on energy-efficient building envelopes, resource-conscious construction, and the use of recycled and biodegradable materials. Equally central are designs that respond to natural elements such as sun, wind, and rain, integrating them deliberately into architectural concepts.

What connects these projects is a common goal: to think about architecture over its entire life cycle. The volume pays particular attention to energy-efficient building envelopes, resource-saving constructions, and the use of recycled and biodegradable materials. Equally central are designs that react to natural elements such as sun, wind, and rain and integrate them specifically into the architectural concept.

Among the featured architects are internationally renowned names such as Norman Foster and Snøhetta, alongside lesser-known studios working with local materials and craft-based techniques. This mix is what makes the volume compelling: sustainability emerges as a versatile practice adaptable to different budgets, cultures, and climatic conditions.

Visually, »Sustainable Living« remains true to the »Homes for Our Time« series. High-quality photography presents the houses embedded in their respective environments, complemented by informed commentary and short biographical profiles of the architects involved. The tone remains documentary and analytical, free of moralizing, underscoring that sustainable architecture is not a matter of style. »Homes for Our Time. Sustainable Living« does not frame sustainability as a trend or an aesthetic category, but as a mindset—one that questions privilege and convention and opens up new possibilities. The volume invites readers to rethink how we live: more lightly, more consciously, and with a sharpened awareness of the responsibility architecture bears toward society and the environment. [Ed.]

Homes for Our Time. Sustainable Living
Hardcover, 24.6 x 37.2 cm, 3.90 kg, 496 pages
taschen.com

Architecture by Herzog & de Meuron

The architecture of »Calder Gardens« was designed by the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, known for its context-sensitive cultural buildings. The renowned architectural practice keeps the design restrained, framing the art in a calm, carefully structured setting. Partially embedded in the ground, the structure develops along the property in horizontal sequences.

The architecture remains deliberately low and opens up to the landscape, rather than separating itself from it. In response to the kinetic and static quality of Calder’s sculptures, a sequence of spatial situations emerges, characterized by differently proportioned rooms, varying ceiling heights, and strategically placed daylight openings. Materials and surfaces are subtly chosen, directing focus to the form, movement, and scale of the sometimes larger-than-life sculptures.

Landscape Design by Piet Oudolf

Piet Oudolf, one of the most influential landscape designers of our time, was entrusted with the design of the landscape for »Calder Gardens«. His concept is based on a multi-layered planting of perennials, grasses, and woody plants, used as compositional elements that change with the rhythm of the seasons. Movement—one of the central principles of Alexander Calder’s mobiles—is created here by wind, light, growth, and change.

Oudolf’s overall overview of the planting concept for the «Calder Gardens» site, with color coding for plant selection as a reference; the drawing shows various planting concepts for the different areas of the landscape and their connection to each other.

Like Calder’s sculptures, which remain in a constant, never identical state due to air movement, gravity, and balance, the landscape is also designed as a dynamic system. More than 250 plant species form a living structure in which processes of becoming, passing, and renewal become visible. Calder’s statement »The universe is real, but you can’t see it. You have to imagine it.« can be read in this context as a unifying idea: perception is active and only unfolds in the interplay of space, time, and imagination.

Calder in his Roxbury studio, 1941.

In the garden spaces, designed as open structures, the sculptures do not appear as isolated objects, but as integral components of a changing environment. Wind, light, and vegetation continuously influence their perception and echo Calder’s interest in movement and change; Oudolf expands the environment with his intervention—as in a successful collaboration—to an additional dimension.

A Quiet System

»Calder Gardens« largely foregoes explanatory texts or traditional mediation formats, focusing instead on direct experience. The project positions itself neither as a sculpture park nor as an exhibition house, but as a coherent ensemble of space, design, landscape, and art, where Calder’s work is rethought both spatially and conceptually. In doing so, »Calder Gardens« sets a new standard for dealing with modern sculpture in public and semi-public spaces. Architecture and landscape do not compete with the art, but form an environment specifically tailored to the work—a place where design has a structural impact and allows art to speak in its own way. [Ed.]

Already in the lobby of the POST Family Resort  in Salzburg, Austria, you notice that design here doesn’t end at the surface. The reception desk is built so that children can climb up a small set of stairs and »check in« at eye level. It’s a detail, almost incidental. And yet, it already encapsulates the entire design philosophy of this establishment: architecture that creates connection instead of distance.

Arriving as a Shared Experience

If design aims to be more than aesthetic self-affirmation, then it must prove itself where complexity reigns. And there is hardly a more demanding form of use than the daily life of people with small children. Different rhythms, different needs, minimal patience. Anyone speaking of design here inevitably speaks of function, anticipation, and serenity.

The POST Family Resort  thinks precisely from this reality. The lobby is not a representative empty space, but a finely balanced system. Bar, play area, passages, and lounge zones are combined so that every generation can pursue their »leisure activity« simultaneously. The bar next to the playground is not a provocation, but a realization. Parents will know what that means.

Eating Can Be a State of Being Here

This attitude continues in the restaurant. Here, it has been accepted that children under five do not stay in their chairs. Period. So, the gastronomic concept is not linear, but flexible. Food can be taken away, interrupted, resumed, or simply left. In addition to a classic four-course menu for adults, there is a permanently available children’s buffet that doesn’t feel like a compromise, but like a logical extension. This is complemented by well-thought-out pop-up formats, for example, with the Viennese culinary love brand Mochi. A subtle message resonates: Parenthood is not an (aesthetic) decline.

Particularly impressive is the attention to those details that are either overlooked or outsourced in classic hotels. In the hallways, you’ll find bottle warmers, sterilizers, and all those devices that otherwise have to be laboriously carried along. In the bathrooms of the rooms, there are—almost unbelievably—ample storage surfaces. Many of them. Anyone who has ever traveled with a baby, a toiletry bag, and all the accessories of half a household knows how rarely one feels seen here.

Of course, the rooms are spacious, quiet, and designed to a high standard. That almost goes without saying. More interesting is that they don’t try to block out everyday life, but to defuse it. Design not as an escape, but as support.

Fewer Journeys, More Vacation

The resort is by no means lacking in experiential offerings. Indoor and outdoor play areas, pools, water slides, childcare, cinema, toboggan run, petting zoo, pony riding, ice skating rink—everything is available, everything is close. Proximity here is not a coincidence, but a strategy. It reduces friction, planning, stress. And that is precisely where the luxury lies.

In the end, the question remains that one always gets after stays in upscale family hotels: Was it worth it? The honest answer is yes. Not only because of the comfort, but because of the experience of what everyday life could feel like if spaces thought along with you. If design doesn’t have to be explained, but works. If someone tries to take a little burden off tired shoulders. And perhaps that is the real point of this establishment. That it makes us realize how rarely we experience places in everyday life that allow for this simultaneity. And how much we miss it.

If design’s task is to make the lives of its users better, then the POST Family Resort  is not just a design hotel. It is one of the most convincing proofs of what this category could achieve today. [KS]

Designed by Austrian glass designer and Josephinenhütte co-founder Kurt Josef Zalto, the Josephine No 3  is considered one of the most technically challenging designs in the Josephine series. The distinctive kink in the bowl is not a decorative detail but a functional intervention: it combines the generosity of a Burgundy glass with a more focused aroma guidance known from Bordeaux glasses. In the Black Line, the shape remains unchanged, as does the production process: each glass is still mouth-blown.

»My passion for the interplay of light and shadow led me to the idea of designing a limited series of black glasses. The Black Line is an emotional statement that celebrates the aesthetics of the moment—a glass that deliberately focuses on design and sensuality,« Kurt Josef Zalto tells Chapter. The method of production is also crucial: »The glass is made in a dedicated melting shop in the harbor furnace—as a small, controlled batch rather than in a large-volume tank system. The smoke black tone is created directly in the glass, not through a subsequent coating: a special additive develops the color during the melting process. Each glass receives its color gradient through the craftsmanship of the master glassblowers—and is therefore always unique.«

Form follows function. The wide lower bowl initially gives the wine a large surface area, allowing the aromas to open up quickly when swirling. At the same time, the kink directs the wine in a controlled way along the glass wall, enabling the aromas to unfold evenly without dissipating abruptly.

In the upper section, the bowl tapers slightly. This geometry concentrates the aromas and guides them precisely to the nose, making it easier to distinguish fine nuances. When drinking, the shape of the glass guides the wine at a specific angle onto the tongue, allowing fruit, acidity, and structure to be perceived in a more balanced way. Both powerful and complex wines are thus rendered with precision in their depth and balance, without tying the wine to a classic glass typology.

The current Black Line edition was limited to just 2,800 glasses worldwide and sold out within a short time. With the Josephine No 3  in smoke black, the edition logic has been consistently continued. The result is less a completely new glass than an intriguing new interpretation of a well-known glass design. [TVR]

Although the name S-Class  was not officially introduced until the W116  series presented in 1972, the lineage of the large luxury sedan from Mercedes-Benz goes back much further—to 1903, when the Mercedes-Simplex 60 hp  ushered in a new era of mobility. Another early milestone on the road to today’s luxury sedan was the Type 220 (series W 187) first introduced in 1951. The upper-class model, equipped with a state-of-the-art six-cylinder engine, was attested to have the »temperament of a sports car.« The subsequent series (W 180) was built from 1954 to 1959 and scored points with a self-supporting body and increased comfort in the interior.

Mercedes-Benz 220 »Ponton« Sedan (W 180)

With the W 111/ W 112  series introduced from 1959, Mercedes-Benz launched the first production vehicles with a safety body on the market. Mercedes-Benz also seemed to have struck a chord visually, as the series plays a crucial role in the James Bond classic »On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,« released in 1969: The opponents of the famous British secret agent are traveling in a 220 S.

In 1965, the W 108/W 109  series debuted at the IAA in Frankfurt. Although the name did not yet exist, the models produced until 1972 are considered direct predecessors of today’s S-Class. Visually, the signs pointed to elegant functionality: The design of the luxury vehicles is a clear departure from the tailfin, but at the same time, the design language shaped by Paul Bracq is not a break, but a consistent further development of an already established and popular approach. The clear lines and simple functionality demonstrate a clear commitment to a purist design language. The series was also very popular with connoisseurs and celebrities. For example, the Formula 1 racing driver Emerson Fittipaldi drove a vehicle of this generation.

Mercedes-Benz 108 series, cutaway drawing from 1965.

From 1972, the 116  series takes over the succession of the Mercedes-Benz W 108/W 109  and officially bears the name S-Class for the first time. The most important technical innovations included the double wishbone front suspension tested on the C 111  research vehicle. A major leap in innovation also took place in terms of safety. Although the Hundertsechzehner  designed by Friedrich Geiger looks more modern than its predecessor, they were not yet ready to forgo the lavish use of chrome. After all, the rather conservative clientele should not be disappointed.

Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 of the 116 series

The S-Class  of the 126  series, which was produced for over 12 years, is still the most successful Mercedes-Benz sedan in the luxury segment with 818,036 cars produced. In the exterior, there was, among other things, the following innovation: Unlike its predecessors, the 126  series did not have chrome bumpers anymore, but deformable plastic bumpers. In the series presented in 1979, a pyrotechnic airbag was also offered in a production model for the first time from 1981.

Mercedes-Benz S-Class Sedan of the 126 series (1979 to 1992)

The following series also scored points with innovative development leaps in terms of safety. For example, Mercedes-Benz was the first manufacturer to install the electronic stability program ESP in the 140  series from 1995. Comfort and luxury on long journeys were also clearly in the foreground with this generation. At the market launch, however, there was also criticism—the car was too big and bulky, for example, it did not fit on the car train to Sylt.

The manufacturer reacted immediately: The 220  series, built from 1998 to 2005, was significantly lighter than the one before. »Overall, the new S-Class draws its desirability from the classic virtues of a Mercedes-Benz—from the combination of reason and emotion. It guarantees serenity through the familiar strength in comfort and safety, and it embodies enjoyment with its elegant design and balanced driving characteristics,« said Dieter Zetsche, then the Board Member of Daimler-Benz AG responsible for sales, at the presentation of the new generation. In 2002, the top model S 600  broke the magical power limit of 368 kW (500 hp) for the first time. In addition, the S 55 AMG was the first AMG model to be officially on the price list of the S-Class.

Mercedes-Benz S-Class of the 220 series (1998)

Innovation leaps in the areas of safety and technology, clarity in design and modern luxury in the interior also characterized the following generations. The following can also be observed across all series: Both within the Group and beyond, the S-Class  has always had a pioneering status. Each new generation of production vehicles brought with it innovative technologies and groundbreaking safety systems, which were then also installed in other model series. The aim of developing a car that stands for innovation, comfort, modern luxury, safety and elegance also remained constant—a timeless flagship.

The new 2026 Mercedes-Benz S-Class

With the presentation of the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class  on January 29, 2026, the current series (223) was officially replaced. To celebrate the 140th anniversary of the invention of the automobile by Carl Benz in 1886, the S-Class  underwent a comprehensive model update. In the exterior, the redesigned front with a newly designed light signature is particularly striking. The illuminated radiator grille has been enlarged by 20 percent and is intended to underline the status and presence of the large sedan.

For the first time in a production model, the Mercedes hood star of the S-Class  optionally lights up itself and thus becomes part of the light signature. The double star headlight design contributes to an iconic appearance on the one hand, but at the same time improves the visibility and thus the safety of the driver. At the rear, newly designed taillights with three chrome signature stars emphasize the identity of the S-Class. In addition, there are new rim designs and additional paint finishes.

There have also been some changes in the interior: In the future, the Superscreen will be installed as standard, the infotainment system will henceforth work on a new platform and combine several AI models with each other. The brain of the vehicle is the supercomputer — the specially developed Mercedes-Benz Operating System (MB.OS). The rear scores with generous space and larger screens. Innovations such as the heated seat belt provide additional comfort at the front. Thin heating fibers allow the belt to reach more than 40 degrees—enough to make you feel warm about the new S-Class. [SW]

Chapter Starting a new project, what excites you most about the work ahead?

Atelier LK  Taking a client’s brief and translating it into a vision that is entirely unique to them is what excites us most. The process is deeply human—about understanding who they are, how they live, and what they value, and designing from that place. When the client is truly at the heart of the work, the finished space allows them to see themselves reflected in it. That sense of recognition is what drives the work and makes it so rewarding.

Renovation in East London: Architecture and interior design concept for a two-story house
with two bedrooms for actress Olivia Cooke

Chapter What kind of questions do you ask yourselves at the beginning of a project that are not necessarily visible in the final result?

Atelier LK From the outset, we ask how to be truly sensitive to the site, historically, geographically, and culturally. That sensitivity often is visible in the final work, through a sense of integrity and restraint. Alongside that are quieter questions that sit beneath the surface—how a space can resist trends, how it can feel relevant now, and still be something that holds up over time. These questions shape decisions long before anything tangible appears.

Chapter How do you determine when a space truly needs intervention, and when it benefits more from restraint or subtraction?

Atelier LK This balance is one of the most important aspects of any project, and we find it can only be determined through time. Time to understand the space, to sit with it, and to allow initial ideas to evolve rather than arrive all at once. Through that process, it becomes clearer what should remain, what needs to be modified, what can be removed, or what must be added. Often a space holds details or historical qualities that deserve preservation and at other times, those same qualities are better reinterpreted. We are currently working on two significant historic homes, one carrying the legacy and integrity of an artist who lived there, and another that is a mid-century gem with characteristics inherent to its original construction. Both projects have required patience and restraint, learning what to hold on to, what to let go of, and how to introduce something new without disrupting the integrity of what was already there.

Chapter What sources outside of architecture or design currently influence your thinking, and how do they quietly enter your work?

Atelier LK Art, music, travel are constant reference points. They influence mood, and we can be inspired by these external factors that might help inform how we want the light to fall in a room, how we want materials to age…the references are rarely literal, but they help shape spaces that feel considered and carry a certain atmosphere.

Chapter What role does art play within your practice, both conceptually and in the spaces you create?

Atelier LK Art plays an integral role in our work. We approach spaces as highly site-specific, often designing or commissioning furniture and artwork in direct response to the architecture. We want clients to live with pieces that carry narrative, works created by artists or designers whose sensibilities resonate with them and with the space itself. Sometimes art leads a project, setting the tone for everything that follows—the direction, palette, and mood of a space. At other times, it arrives at the end, completing the space or introducing just enough disruption to give it soul. Equally, the absence of art can be intentional. Conceptually, the space itself can function as art, and restraint can be just as powerful as a room full of artworks. [DM]

»Great people. Great design. Great fun.« Chuck Pelly declared in 1972, when he turned his garage into a design studio and laid the foundation for »DesignworksUSA«. 54 years later—and as part of the BMW Group since 1995—this motto still feels remarkably current. During Chapter‘s visit to the Designworks Studio in Santa Monica, it becomes evident that the spirit of this early self-conception remains deeply embedded in the studio’s working culture. Progressiveness, creativity, openness, and a genuine enjoyment of the work shape the atmosphere. Between models, sketches, prototypes, and screens, a working environment is lived that is less characterized by hierarchies than by dialogue and, despite all the diversity, always revolves around the same question: How can design be rethought, how can boundaries be shifted, and how can fresh impulses be set beyond short-term trends?

However, all of that sometimes disruptive spirit should not contradict the responsibility within a global corporation. At Designworks L.A., it is not just about completing design tasks, but about testing even unusual ideas, consciously questioning assumptions, and having the courage to allow unconventional things. Especially in this early phase, in which not everything is defined, calculated, or secured, lies the actual value of the studio for the overall system of the BMW Group.

The scope of Designworks L.A.’s work extends far beyond classical automotive projects. Alongside early vehicle concepts, urban mobility scenarios, digital systems, interfaces, spatial applications, and experience formats are created here, often in close collaboration with start-ups, public institutions, or local communities—an aspect that is repeatedly emphasized in our on-site discussions. Topics such as urban development, wayfinding, new mobility services, or AI-supported tools play just as important a role as questions about innovative materials, their manufacturing, and use. The individual result is less decisive than the moment before. Designworks usually works where questions and possibilities are still open and framework conditions have not yet been defined in detail.

Julia de Bono also describes this role very clearly. After several positions within the BMW design team, she took over the management of Designworks L.A. in 2023. In her function, she moves at the interface between management, strategic orientation, and creative freedom, with the aim of not smoothing out friction, but using it productively. She sees the studio in Santa Monica not as an extended arm of the Munich design center, but as a consciously positioned, sometimes disruptive, source of inspiration within the global design organization of the BMW Group. In conversation with Chapter, Julia de Bono speaks about the special role and ambition of the studio, the influence of American management and corporate culture, and how local radicalism can be translated into a global design language without being softened.

Julia de Bono, CEO/Studio Director Designworks L.A.

Chapter Looking back at your time in Germany and now here in Los Angeles: are there differences in management culture—for example in leadership style or in how teams work together in the U.S.?

Julia de Bono  Leadership in the U.S. is definitely different from leadership in Europe. Here it is much more collaborative, very open-house, open-doors. We don’t want to close the doors, but keep them open for people who want to work with us or contribute something. For me personally, there is also the fact that I have a different job here as CEO. This means that I not only deal with design or experiences, but also very specifically with numbers, with structure, with responsibility for the whole—that is a different challenge. And of course, there are those cultural differences in leadership style that I mentioned: there is a lot of communication, a lot of open discussion. In addition, the hierarchies are much flatter, dialogue is central. But perhaps a lot of it is also specific to Designworks. We don’t work in silos, but very comprehensively, very fluidly. That can certainly also be an American background. The approach in the USA is less transactional, but strongly collaborative. Without wanting to judge other leadership styles—it simply works better here. I already see this with the children in school, a lot of emphasis is placed on what you have done well and less on what may have been bad. The view of what has been achieved is simply very different here.

Chapter  This constructive, more proactive culture of dealing with mistakes in the U.S. is something Europe is often said to be able to learn from.

Julia de Bono  Absolutely. Failure is viewed very positively here. »Failing is great«—it’s almost a badge of honor. The more you have failed, the more experience you bring with you. This is particularly evident in the collaboration with start-ups. From a German perspective, it takes some getting used to seeing that as something positive. And it’s precisely this openness that shapes our work as well. The more we question things, the further we can ultimately leap. This attitude is closely linked to Designworks L.A.’s role—to be, to some extent, disruptive.

BMW »Dimensions of Real«, immersive Installation, CES 2022 Las Vegas

Chapter  In today’s conversations with designers here in the studio, the term »anarchy« even came up at one point. It sounds as though the designers at Designworks L.A. are something like the »punks« within the global Designworks network. Is the work here really the most progressive?

Julia de Bono Yes—because we have to break rules. That’s exactly what’s expected of us. And that’s not a bad position to be in, but you first have to learn how to handle it. The goal is often stated very clearly: I want you to challenge me, to make me uncomfortable. When I take our work to Munich and present it, you can sometimes see how these impulses initially land—and then start to work on the other side.

Material study from an ongoing development process at Designworks L.A.

Chapter  The individual Designworks studios are also in competition with each other, there are even actual pitch processes—both among themselves and with the in-house design team at BMW. How exactly can you imagine that in practice and where exactly is the boundary between Designworks Studios and the In-House Design Team?

Julia de Bono  In the end, there is a design presentation for a vehicle. All the designs from the most diverse studios are on the table, all the sketches are examined—and then the best solution wins. There is often talk about internal competition, and of course we are a design agency, we have to win competitions—but above all against other agencies—and these are also financially important competitions. At the same time, Designworks, as a Creative Lab, specializes in developing new perspectives, rethinking design and pursuing innovative approaches. Our mission is to push boundaries and set fresh impulses that go beyond the ordinary.

BMW M Hybrid V8 design sketch

Chapter  The Designworks L.A. Studio in Santa Monica is surrounded by a wide range of other creative studios. How does this environment influence your work?

Julia de Bono It starts with the fact that everyone who walks in wants to make your ideas better. A kind of cumulative process emerges, in which ideas build on each other. This creates an enormous speed. Aesthetically, the entertainment, wellness and lifestyle industries have a major influence. This has always been the case in California, but it is becoming even stronger. In the USA, a very pronounced masculinity can currently be felt in the expression. Products should show presence, profile, strength. This influences materials, shapes, surfaces. In addition, there is the proximity to the aerospace industry, such as SpaceX, and a large start-up ecosystem. New materials, new manufacturing methods, 3D printing—all of this is incorporated. And of course, digitization and AI. The high speed here strongly influences our product development.

Chapter How can such different local influences—both from Designworks L.A. and from the other Designworks studios worldwide—be translated into a global design language that works in all markets? Especially against the background of sometimes strongly diverging aesthetic preferences.

Julia de Bono In theory, that is a challenge, yes. In practice, we mainly develop world cars. There are only a few local models, with the exception of China. In Munich, there is an early phase in which we contribute our inputs. Large teams bundle these perspectives and prepare them for strategic decisions. Then we look at: Where are there overlaps between the markets? Where not? This results in a formal, final statement. This is an iterative process with market research, so-called clinics and feedback loops. At some point, of course, a decision has to be made—and apparently good ones are being made, otherwise we wouldn’t be as successful as we are.

Sidewalk Transit Amenities Program (STAP) for the City of Los Angeles

Chapter Do you share the impression that design is becoming an increasingly important factor in brand identity—and how does that change your work?

Julia de Bono Absolutely. Design experiences are actually becoming more and more important. It’s no longer just about the exterior or dashboard. It’s about how the systems interact: UX, light, sound, haptics. How does something feel? How do you understand the user? Connecting these systems in such a way that they do the right thing at the right moment is challenging. It’s almost an art. If you look at what’s happening in the entertainment sector—for example in the Sphere or in IMAX theaters—then you can see how much people are getting used to immersive experiences. A lot has already been implemented in the vehicle sector in China. An intense, but healthy competition is emerging, which we live very strongly here in the USA.

Chapter  Looking at the diverse portfolio of Designworks, are there any projects that you personally find particularly formative?

Julia de Bono  For me, the BMW GINA Light Visionary Model was extremely formative. It was radically different, with a strong story. That’s one of my all-time favorites—and one of the reasons why I studied automotive design. And when I look ahead, our AI developments are certainly particularly relevant. We started very early and are providing important input to Munich. It’s less about individual vehicles than about systems and tools that ensure the integrity and recognizability of the brand—today and in the future.

BMW GINA Light Visionary Model

Chapter Is there also a highlight project for an external customer that you would like to highlight?

Julia de Bono  We work a lot in the field of urban development. Los Angeles is undergoing a massive transformation, especially in terms of mobility. For example, we are developing wayfinding systems, apps and are working on the ramp-up to the Olympic Games. One example is bus shelters, which we developed together with the communities—with people who depend on public mobility. Such projects open up the view, they lead back to clear, robust solutions. But to be honest, it’s hard to pick out a single project. The variety is what’s interesting about Designworks.

Chapter  Are there any disciplines in which you would like to get more involved with Designworks L.A. in the future?

Julia de Bono  At the moment, I’m particularly interested in everything around robotics. I find AI-based devices for older people or young people particularly exciting. We have a generation that suffers from permanent sensory overload. I think technologies that help to stay calm or provide orientation—for example in the case of dementia—are very important to me. We also work a lot with students from disadvantaged communities. As a large company, we have a responsibility to give something back. That’s taken for granted here—and it’s particularly important to me personally.  [CPS]

Staging and Substance

From the outset, the project’s official launch event left little doubt about the ambition Mercedes-Benz and Binghatti attach to their second joint venture. On the evening of January 14, 2026, the area in front of the renowned Meydan Hotel in Dubai was transformed into an expansive stage of light and choreographed drone formations. that even turned the city sky into a projection surface. It was that form of staging that is almost a matter of course in Dubai, but even here it set new standards.

With all the visual bombast, it should not be overlooked that the evening was less to be interpreted as an end in itself, but as a visible expression of a partnership based on substantive content. Because Mercedes-Benz and Binghatti are connected by more than a lucrative business relationship and strategic co-branding. Design excellence, the pursuit of constant innovation and a clear commitment to the highest quality form the common ground.

 A Market in a Permanent State of Exception

Hardly any real estate market is developing as dynamically as Dubai’s. In recent years alone, billions have been invested there in high-quality residential, hospitality and mixed-use projects, and numerous new luxury quarters are under construction or in planning. International developers, luxury brands and investors are competing for attention, location and relevance. In such an environment, financial clout and size alone are no longer enough. Visibility only arises where architectural clarity, design vision and brand authority come together. And this is precisely where the collaboration between Mercedes-Benz and Binghatti comes in. Both partners have a high level of recognition, but also the necessary credibility to transfer this to a project of this magnitude. The fact that Mercedes-Benz recently demonstrated its design expertise once more with projects such as the Vision Iconic (whose influence is now also reflected in the concept of Mercedes-Benz Places | Binghatti City) further reinforces this ambition.

Binghatti: Developer with its own signature

While Mercedes-Benz’s design and technological expertise has been established internationally for over a century, Binghatti has also consistently earned its status in the Real Estate market in recent years. Regardless of who you talk to in Dubai, one point comes up again and again: Binghatti stands for architecturally clear and immediately recognizable projects. In a city where formal exaggeration is omnipresent, the company has established its own design-driven visual signature, with a clearly recognizable commitment to architecture as an art form. This development is largely driven by Muhammad BinGhatti, whose charismatic presence and entrepreneurial talent sharpen the brand’s profile.

Muhammad BinGhatti (CEO of Binghatti) and Mathias Geisen (Member of the Board of Management Mercedes-Benz)

As CEO and Chairman, he embodies a form of developer role that brings together architecture, brand management and media impact. Binghatti is not a typical developer, but a trained architect: he graduated from the American University of Sharjah  with a degree in architecture and took over the management of the family business, which his father founded in 2008, at an early stage. At the presentation in Dubai, Muhammad BinGhatti says that he has always wondered why, for example, the design of cars effortlessly fascinates even children, while buildings hardly receive any attention in perception. His conclusion: buildings must be able to have an earlier, more immediate and emotional effect.

He wanted to achieve exactly this potential for buildings that evoke reactions beyond pure function and remain anchored in the collective consciousness. At the same time, he transferred the principles of strategic brand management into his work at an early stage by combining architectural identity with brand identities that are otherwise more familiar from the world of luxury goods. This is also demonstrated by previous collaborations with brands such as Bugatti or Jacob & Co. Against this background, Mercedes-Benz Places | Binghatti City  can be seen not only as a logical continuation but also as the most far-reaching formulation to date of a strategy in which a globally established brand identity and clear design language become the design basis for an entire district.

Gorden Wagener, Chief Design Officer of Mercedes-Benz, at the presentation in Dubai. One of his last public appearances in this function — he is leaving the company on January 31, 2026.

A city within a city

Mercedes-Benz Places | Binghatti City is designed as a »City within the City«. Not in the sense of a closed enclave, but as a structurally independent urban structure. The project covers approximately 836,000 square meters in the Meydan  area and comprises more than 13,000 residential units, spread over twelve towers. At the center is the so-called Vision Iconic, which functions as a spatial and visual reference point and connects the surrounding structures.

The entire building composition follows a clear, recurring design language derived from the Mercedes-Benz design philosophy of Sensual Purity. The successively rising volumes create a dynamic skyline that suggests movement and progress, while metallic accents in silver and chrome tones are intended to subtly reference the brand’s industrial heritage. An additional level of meaning is created by the naming of the individual towers: each bears the name of a Mercedes-Benz concept car—from the Mercedes-Benz Vision One-Eleven, the historical Vision Mercedes Simplex  to the Vision AVTR.

Design, Landscape, Community

This approach remains consistent inside as well. According to the developers, the residences should follow a reduced, timeless design that avoids contrasts and instead works with a few, controlled materials. Black and silver tones form the basis, complemented by leather and wood. Technological integration is an integral part, but does not take center stage, but supports comfort and everyday usability. The residential offer is complemented by a finely tuned system of communal, sporting and landscape spaces. The Grand Promenade  is intended to form the green backbone of the project and offer, among other things, wellness and sports facilities as well as event areas and family-oriented areas. It goes without saying that mobility and EV infrastructure are also integrated as an important part of the overall concept.

Mercedes-Benz Places | Binghatti City  is therefore less a collection of individual building blocks than a thoroughly composed luxury quarter in which architecture, use and brand identity are coordinated. And this is precisely where the actual claim and the special feature of the project lie: In a market like Dubai, which is characterized by ever more extreme luxury stagings and a competition to outdo each other in terms of size and effect, the project deliberately focuses on design stringency, coherence and long-term relevance—regardless of the spectacularly designed staging of the launch event. [CPS]

Chapter Wood is central to your work, not only as a material but also as a spatial tool. What does wood allow you to express that other materials do not?

Sunfish Producing space and furniture with wood is appealing in its versatility and its connection to craft and architectural/design history. We love the variety of finishes and tonality you can get out of wood and the narratives those can create. For our home, we paneled a wall with oak and used a shellac image to reference the type of tones you see in 1950s, 1960s modernist French architecture. Even though our space is set in a loft in Chinatown, we love the idea that a wood paneled wall could feel transportive like that.

Board Chair, Skyscraper Coffee Table, and Hand-Painted Mirror (Sun), 2025

Chapter Your pieces often sit somewhere between furniture and architecture. At what point does a work stop being an object and start becoming a space?

Sunfish That’s a question we’ve been trying to answer for quite some time. Before Sunfish, we were working together mostly on sculptural installations. Our work was pretty fixated on domestic space, architecture and design. It feels quite comfortable to us to run full circle and work on furniture pieces, fine artworks, spatial projects, etc.
In some instances, our work is inherently integrated with a space. We recently had the opportunity to paint a custom ceiling mural for a client in a bedroom alcove with wooden beams. The architectural style of the Tudor house informed our painted depictions, but also, our painting invited a new focal point, with which to notice that space and its architectural language.
While our work is often commissioned as individual objects, our intention behind the objects is to create a collection and interior-based narrative. Even when a work is placed in isolation, we hope that it connects to a larger visual story we’ve built.

Chapter How much of your designs is derived from the inherent logic of woodworking, and how much is the result of conscious design decisions?

Sunfish In the beginning of Sunfish, a lot of the original designs really took from that ‘inherent woodworking logic’. We were trying to articulate form through simple joinery and forms that were clear and concise. We’ve always been opposed to trying to work against the material.

Presentation as Guest Designers during the Convey showcase organized by Simple Flair in Milan. The selection features our Skyscraper Coffee Table, Patchwork Side Table, Leather Sling Stool and a selection of hand-painted and ceramic mirrors on hand-dyed turmeric curtains.

For us, we were always trying to find a way to bring the project back to our roots in fine art in addition to our interests in material exploration, and that’s where a lot of the painting, ceramics, and different finishing techniques are coming from. It was quite liberating for us to evolve the project from mostly carpentry and create a historically researched, but idiosyncratic visual language.

Chapter Room dividers appear repeatedly in your practice. Can you talk about what draws you to forms of separation that remain open and adjustable rather than fixed?

Sunfish The adjustability of the room dividers is definitely an appealing element for us. We paint the panels flat and always delight in the final step of unifying them with hinges. Transforming the painting into a sculpture always brings about surprising, new dimensional relationships between the flat motifs. We use multidirectional hinges to heighten this variability beyond the traditional accordion style to arced forms as well. Because of the room divider’s ability to change the contours of a space, it is one of those objects, as you mentioned, that we believe becomes a space itself.

Custom six-part room divider, designed for a client in Mumbai, India. The room divider expands on the motifs of the three-part version shown during Design Week in New York in 2024. It is made of lacquer, oil paint and cherry wood.

Four-part room divider made of copper and mahogany frames.
The copper panels are treated with patina and oil paint and show a spring scene with Art Deco elegance.

Chapter When one of your pieces enters a room, what do you hope it changes first for the people entering or moving through the space?

Sunfish We hope that our pieces recall a sense of history, while also inviting new moments of curiosity and playfulness. Whether it’s a hand-crafted detail, pop of color, or balance of proportion, we desire our pieces to come off as considered, with a natural ease. Brushstrokes, hand sculpted ceramics, and wood surface variations, to us, add depth and narrative. We often talk about how in our favorite works, whether it’s furniture, art, or architecture, you can see the artist’s hand. In other words, the work reveals their process. We hope that when people encounter our work in a space they experience that process. [DM]

Chapter You describe yourself as an interior architect, a term that sits between architecture and interior design. What does this distinction enable in the way you work with space?

Astrid Houssin I see interior architecture as a bridge between architecture and interior design. Architects focus on the bones of a project—structure, regulations, permits, and all the technical systems like plumbing and electrics. Interior designers, on the other hand, shape the atmosphere: furniture, fabrics, finishes, all the elements that would drop if you turned a house upside down.

Interior architecture sits in between and brings both worlds together. We work on the creative and aesthetic details, but we’re also trained to design joinery, bathrooms, kitchens, and to produce the technical drawings needed to bring everything to life. That means we can take on a project in its entirety, rather than splitting it between an architect and an interior designer.

I think you can really feel the difference in a home that’s been designed this way. Interior designers tend to imagine very carefully how a client will live in a space, while architects often lean towards something more minimalist and conceptual—which can be exactly right for some projects. Personally, I’m always aiming for a balance: spaces that are beautiful, but also warm, intuitive, and highly functional. A home should feel good to live in, not just good to look at

Chapter At what point did designing bespoke furniture become a natural extension of your interior practice, and what initially triggered that move?

Astrid Houssin Designing bespoke furniture felt like a very natural extension of my interior practice, even though I sometimes wish I’d started sooner. It really came from a moment of transition in my life. I had just moved back to Paris after fifteen years in London, and it forced me to rethink my creative direction from the ground up.

In London, I designed homes primarily for British clients, which often meant working with a lot of colour, pattern, and layered decoration. While I loved the process, it wasn’t fully aligned with how I’d design my own home. The Parisian design language is very different, and I quickly realised that my existing portfolio didn’t quite reflect where I wanted to go—or how I could position myself among more established Parisian architects. I needed a radical shift.

Furniture became that turning point. I began spending time at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and the inspiration came very organically. I started designing pieces I genuinely wanted to live with myself, and from there the collection grew. From the beginning, I didn’t want the furniture to feel like one-off statements. Versatility was important to me.
That’s why the brand is highly bespoke but accessible beyond just designers. Each piece is made to order and can be customised in size, wood finish, and lacquer colour. It allows both designers and private clients to create something that feels truly personal.

Chapter Your furniture pieces often feel precise without being rigid. How do you balance structure and intuition during the making process?

Astrid Houssin I design the pieces very intuitively at first, without overthinking them. That initial phase is instinctive—it’s about proportion, balance, and how the object should feel rather than how it’s made. Once the design is there, I become extremely precise about production.
My architectural background plays a big role at that stage. I produce very detailed technical drawings and pay close attention to the smallest details, which leaves very little room for error. It allows intuition to lead the creative process, while structure and control come in to support it. In that sense, the freedom happens early, and the discipline comes later.

I was actually very lucky with the first prototypes—they came out exactly as I had hoped, so we didn’t need to go through multiple iterations. I wanted the pieces to feel understated and timeless rather than over-designed.
In many ways, the collection reflects both sides of my personality: playful and bold, but also quiet and minimalist; slightly masculine, yet equally feminine. That balance is what makes the pieces feel versatile and why they resonate with both men and women.

Chapter When designing furniture, what does longevity mean to you, both in terms of everyday use and visual presence over time?

Astrid Houssin For me, longevity starts with understatement. Timeless pieces have a quiet presence—they’re there, but they don’t dominate a space or demand attention. They’re the kind of objects you don’t grow tired of living with, even years later. I strongly believe in the idea that less is more.
We live in a world of clutter, fast fashion, and mass production, and that makes quality and craftsmanship more important than ever. As an interior architect, I’ve ordered thousands of pieces of furniture over the years, and you develop an instinct for what’s well made—not just visually, but in how it feels, how it ages, and how it’s assembled.

I pay a lot of attention to the smallest details, because that’s where quality really reveals itself. When nothing is overlooked, a piece naturally feels considered and enduring. Our homes reflect who we are, and so do the objects we choose to live with. I think it’s important to invest in pieces you’ll genuinely love long-term.
The pieces in our debut collection are minimalist, but with a touch of playfulness. That balance gives them visual longevity—they remain calm and refined, but still a pleasure to look at over time.

Chapter Looking ahead, what kinds of spaces or objects are you interested in exploring next?

Astrid Houssin I’m very excited about what’s coming next for the furniture brand. We’re about to launch a new range of hand-painted finishes created in collaboration with a very talented Parisian decorative artist. These finishes will be available on selected pieces from our debut collection, and the idea is to continue expanding the range over time.

Rather than constantly introducing entirely new designs, I’m interested in allowing existing pieces to evolve. By adding new finishes and materials, the collection can keep living and changing, offering fresh possibilities without leaving earlier designs behind. Alongside that, I’d like to introduce a small new collection each year to complement what already exists.
Lighting is another area I’m very drawn to. After the second furniture collection launches, I’d love to explore lighting design as a natural next step.

Beyond objects, I’m also dreaming of a physical space in Paris—a showroom for our furniture that would feel welcoming and curated. I’d love it to be a place where I can also showcase and support other creatives whose work I admire. There is so much talent out there, and I strongly believe in supporting one another and giving visibility to people doing beautiful work. [Ed.]

Avatr Vision Xpectra

»The Rise of Emotive Luxury« was the slogan with which the young Chinese brand Avatr presented its current concept car. »With the Avatr Vision Xpectra, we are making the invisible visible—the emotional connection between people and vehicles. Emotive Luxury becomes reality: not status, but resonance. Not possession, but feeling«, explained Nader Faghihzadeh, Chief Design Officer and Executive Vice President of Avatr, during the presentation of the almost six-meter-long vehicle at the IAA Mobility 2025. Faghihzadeh is no newcomer to the automotive scene—he has worked as an exterior designer at BMW, among others, and has around twenty years of experience in automotive design.

The sculptural exterior of the all-electric Avatr Vision Xpectra  radiates presence and clarity, while in the interior, every surface and every detail is designed to create an emotional bond between the vehicle and the driver. At the heart of the interior is an AI-powered Vortex: a perceptive, learning, and interactive companion made of light and movement. It is also striking that both the exterior and the interior are characterized by transparent elements: The upper part of the body consists of a prismatic glass cabin, and the center console and headrests are also made of transparent materials.

Opel Corsa GSE Vision Gran Turismo

The German manufacturer’s current study not only provides an insightful outlook on future GSE models, but also illustrates the great innovation potential that lies in small car platforms. As far as the layout is concerned, the futuristic-looking concept car has similarities to the series Corsa, but the design study has been equipped with much sharper and more precise contours and is also somewhat lower and wider than the series vehicle. In addition, it looks more muscular and sculptural.

The color scheme clearly shows that the Opel Corsa GSE Vision Gran Turismo  is a vehicle that was primarily developed for the racetrack: The body is finished in pearl white, aero elements such as the hood, spoiler and diffuser shine in a strong yellow and thus stand out clearly from the black roof and the black fender flares at the front. With the Opel Corsa GSE Vision Gran Turismo, Opel also wants to draw attention to the GSE  sub-brand, which since 2022 has stood for Grand Sport Electric   and thus for particularly dynamic and emotional models. In addition, the concept vehicle is linked to the company’s origins in motorsport: Since autumn 2025, the all-electric small car has been part of the popular racing simulator »Gran Turismo 7«, blurring the lines between the virtual and real worlds.

Škoda Vision O

With the Škoda Vision O  design study, the brand, known above all for its station wagon models, is preparing for the electrified future. The study builds on the continued success of the Octavia Combi  and the Superb Combi, but at the same time shows the direction in which Škoda could be heading in the future. In terms of design, this means that typical design features of the popular Škoda station wagon models—such as the strongly inclined windshield and the gently sloping roofline—have been retained, but the design language has been further developed and refined, especially in terms of aerodynamics.

In addition, the station wagon scores with a striking lighting concept, in which the T-shaped taillights immediately catch the eye. In the interior, sustainability and simplicity meet intuitive functionality, as Škoda design chief Oliver Stefani explains. »The interior concept of the Vision O underlines our commitment to combining simplicity and sustainability with increased comfort. The combination of clear lines and intuitive functionality reflects our aspiration to create a harmonious and functional interior. It is characterized by materials and design elements that not only represent an aesthetic development of our ›Modern Solid‹ design language, but also emphasize our responsibility towards the environment«, says Stefani.

Mercedes Concept AMG GT XX

The Concept AMG GT XX is based on the vehicles of the legendary C 111  series from the sixties and seventies, which were built for testing then-novel Wankel and turbodiesel engines as well as as test vehicles for plastic bodies. Today, the much-discussed vehicles and prototypes of the time are considered true design icons. The Mercedes-Benz Vision One-Eleven  design study presented in 2023 is also likely to have played a key role in the development of the Concept AMG GT XX. For Gorden Wagener, Chief Design Officer of Mercedes-Benz until January 31, 2026, the concept vehicle embodies the »Hot« aspect of the design philosophy of »Sensual Purity« he developed.

The low-slung front hood, the steeply raked windshield and the dynamic fastback make the Concept AMG GT XX  a sports car as it is written in the book. However, the concept car not only offers an exciting outlook on the future series sports cars from Mercedes-AMG in terms of design, but also in terms of technology. The heart of the vehicle is its revolutionary drive concept, which consists of three axial flux motors and a completely newly developed high-performance battery. An obviously record-breaking system, because in August 2025, the Concept AMG GT XX  covered a distance of 40,075 kilometers in just under eight days on the legendary high-speed test track in Nardò, southern Italy. With this performance, the concept vehicle broke a total of 25 long-distance records. The sports car is actually scheduled to come onto the market in the near future.

Lexus LFA Concept

With the Lexus LFA Concept, the Toyota subsidiary is directly linked to the Lexus LFA—the super sports car with which the brand set new technological standards in the sports car segment in 2010. After more than ten years of development, a strictly limited series of only 500 vehicles was created, which are now traded at high prices. In keeping with this legendary sports car, Lexus has now developed a 4.7-meter-long, all-electric coupé study.

However, this is not entirely new, as the exterior and interior have already been shown as the Lexus Sport Concept  at Monterey Car Week and the Japan Mobility Show  2025. With the new name, however, new information came to light. Such as that the brand with the Lexus LFA Concept wants to achieve three core goals: the lowest possible center of gravity, low weight with high rigidity and maximum aerodynamic efficiency.

The result is a body made entirely of aluminum and a flat and flowing silhouette with classic coupé proportions. The Concept Car also embodies the centuries-old Japanese Shikinen Seng Ritual, according to which the techniques and skills of experienced craftsmen are passed on to the younger generation so that they can develop them further. [SW]

Chapter As partners in life, work, and creative vision, how do you each remain true to your individual sensibilities while working toward a shared vision?

STUDIOTWENTYSEVEN Fortunately we are aligned with the direction and curation of the gallery which makes working together seamless. Since opening STUDIOTWENTYSEVEN, we’ve built a practice that values individual creativity while working toward a shared vision for the gallery. Our approach relies on deep conversations, mutual respect, and a commitment to supporting designers whose work resonates with both of us. This allows us to honor our personal sensibilities while making curatorial decisions that align with the gallery’s overall vision—whether it’s selecting works with a strong story, sculptural sensibility, or emotional impact.

Chapter Is there a design period you both feel particularly drawn to, and what continues to resonate with you about that moment in history?

STUDIOTWENTYSEVEN Our work focuses primarily on contemporary collectible design that pushes the boundaries of form, material, and function. While we don’t focus on a specific historical period, we are drawn to moments in design history that emphasize craftsmanship, narrative depth, and emotional resonance. What continues to inspire us is work that creates dialogue between function and expression and engages the viewer on a personal level.

Chapter Looking back at the evolution of STUDIOTWENTYSEVEN, is there a particular curatorial phase or project that you feel especially connected to today, and why?

STUDIOTWENTYSEVEN Without a doubt, the opening of our flagship gallery in New York in 2024 is the project we feel especially connected to. A space where we brought to life who we are, our taste, our sensibility. A space where we combined our interior design with the curation of works from different artists and designers in a poetic environment. Since 2018, the gallery has evolved into a global platform for collectible design. We’re particularly proud of projects that pushed the boundaries of functional art and elevated artists’ work through thoughtful scenography and solo exhibitions. These experiences allowed us to cultivate a community that values collectible design while expanding our curatorial creativity beyond traditional formats. We feel especially connected to moments where exhibitions successfully merge narrative, material, and form—when visitors are fully immersed, and the artist’s vision is amplified through the space.

Chapter Do you see yourselves as mediators of ideas between emerging design talent worldwide, and how do you ensure that your clients remain open-minded and trust your vision?

STUDIOTWENTYSEVEN Supporting emerging talent is central to what we do. We invest in designers who bring a sincere, unique vision and a commitment to excellence, helping them develop a universe rather than just individual objects. We build relationships through storytelling and education, helping them understand the context, materiality, and significance of each piece. Our »by appointment« approach allows us to give clients the time and attention needed to immerse themselves in the works and trust our curatorial guidance. In this way, we act as facilitators of ideas—connecting global designers with collectors who are open to new narratives and perspectives.

Chapter What do you ultimately want people to feel when they encounter a space or collection shaped by STUDIOTWENTYSEVEN?

STUDIOTWENTYSEVEN We want visitors to feel transported—invited into worlds crafted with intention and sensitivity. We hope that guests leave with a renewed appreciation for the poetry of objects and the emotional resonance of design, and an understanding of how thoughtfully considered design can shape the way we live. Each exhibition or collection is designed to create a dialogue between viewer, object, and space, leaving a lasting impression that is both personal and memorable. [Ed.]

Gschwandtner’s practice moves between object, space, and body. He understands furniture as functional everyday objects, as carriers of social, cultural, and symbolic meanings. In this sense, he describes his work as an examination of the social dimension of objects and their proximity to the human body. On the website of Radio Athènes, he formulates this approach as follows:

»Furniture is a necessity of human life but beyond its functionality, furniture design also reflects the social life of objects and has symbolic capacities.«

Trained in traditional leather processing and Spatial Design, Gschwandtner now lives and works in Vienna. His work results from both craftsmanship and art and design historical references. Materials such as canvas, leather, metal, and historical textiles, including fragments of 18th-century tapestries, fringes, and horsehair, form the basis of his formal language. Canvas, in particular, functions in his work as a flexible medium that is folded, cut, or laid out on the floor, while at the same time carrying aesthetic, historical, and narrative levels.

In the recently shown exhibition, Gschwandtner drew on Aristophanes’ speech in Plato’s Symposium. The idea of the once spherical people, who were separated by Zeus and have since been searching for their other half, served as a conceptual frame of reference for questions of duality, complementarity, and relationship. New works such as museum benches, lamps, display cases, his Pillow Chairs, and textile objects, as well as their prototypes, were related to each other in a home-like structure. Gschwandtner describes this approach as an attempt to give his works the opportunity to find a counterpart—between first draft and final object, between personal use and public presentation.

In a statement, he explains how the theme of the exhibition took shape:

»Aristophanes’ idea of the spherical people, who, after being cut apart by Zeus, spend their lives searching for their other half—has followed me for a while. Somehow, it felt natural to apply this theory to many situations; there always seem to be two sides, two components, in my work: sometimes a historical one, sometimes a bodiless observation—and especially between the first attempt at a piece and its final version.

So I began thinking about giving my pieces the chance to find their other half, in Athens. Living in Vienna with the first iterations of each work helped me understand their domestic relevance more. After the final versions had been shown outside my personal space, the originals started to form an emotional dialogue with me, almost a kind of companionship. They became new protagonists in my life and my rooms.

One chair, for example, became my nightstand out of necessity. It held my water glass and books and, most importantly, greeted me every morning.

One light was never meant to be shown elsewhere; I made it for my partner’s birthday. Strangely, various versions of it found their way into exhibitions and collectors’ homes.

The gathered pieces will occupy a Greek apartment; each room will host a couple, two reunited halves—almost as if I were giving them privacy in each room to discuss their time apart. Their own symposium, or even speed dating: I let them converse with their opposite to see if it’s a match. Otherwise, we rotate.

Strange to think that I would be Zeus in this scenario. And what would my Mount Olympus be? Austrian hills? My apartment on the fourth floor?

And at the opening I turn into a speed dating moderator?

Returning to Aristophanes and his companions discussing Eros and love, it’s interesting to consider the actual social and domestic setting of the Symposium. While each guest presents their thesis on love, they are also sharing a space—drinking, eating, listening to one another.

This brings me to imagine Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates, and Alcibiades inhabiting the apartment—the exhibition space—and leaving behind glasses, fragments, and traces of an evening of conversation.

Laid on the floor of Radio Athènes at Tositsa: canvases, originally from my 30th birthday party in my Vienna atelier—my own kind of symposium.«

—Lukas Gschwandtner, Vienna, November 2025

Gschwandtner’s work shows how closely function, social attribution, and emotional attachment are interwoven and interact. In the context of Radio Athènes, an independent platform for contemporary visual culture at the interface of art, design, and theory that has existed since 2014, this examination recently found a concise spatial implementation. [Ed.]

Mercedes-Benz Vision Iconic

Opulent and timeless, the show car presented in October 2025 reinterprets one of the most striking features in automotive history: the iconic Mercedes-Benz chrome grille. The further development of the traditional brand face gives the already anything but restrained vehicle additional presence. »Inspired by the golden age of automotive design of the 1930s, this show car embodies the pure essence of Mercedes-Benz. With its seemingly endless hood, which gives it a majestic presence, sculpturally flowing lines and a touch of Art Deco, it rises to become a true icon of automotive beauty,« says Gorden Wagener, who surprisingly announced his departure as Chief Design Director at Mercedes-Benz in December 2025.

Inside, the Vision Iconic  offers a glimpse into future, luxurious driving experiences: The transformation from the classic driver’s seat to a place of conscious travel and automated driving forms the basis for a new interior concept with a lounge atmosphere. A continuous bench seat made of deep blue velvet replaces the individual seats; the room appears open, calm and—one might say—almost theatrically staged. The center of the interior is the so-called »Zeppelin«—a floating glass construction that combines instruments, displays and handmade details.

BMW Concept Speedtop

There are several influences from the history of the Bavarian automobile manufacturer that come together in this concept vehicle—produced in a strictly limited small series: The striking arrow shape of the sharknose evokes memories of the BMW Z8, which is considered an icon in the roadster segment. The flowing silhouette, in turn, quotes BMW’s traditional touring history. The long hood with two framed air outlets is adorned with a central center bar that extends from the hood over the roof to the rear spoiler and evokes reminiscences of the BMW 503.

All these quotes from the brand’s rich history combine in the case of the BMW Concept Speedtop  to create an elegant shooting brake, which was presented in May at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este 2025. It also follows the striking design language of the BMW Skytop. «A real BMW exudes dynamism and elegance even when stationary,» emphasizes Adrian van Hooydonk, Head of BMW Group Design. In addition, this concept vehicle was designed to create a consistent connection between the interior and exterior — through the two-tone color and material concept as well as through the striking roof bar, which is reflected as a light joint in the two-tone, leather-covered headliner.

Audi Concept C

With the Concept C, Audi is ushering in a new design philosophy in which radical simplicity and clarity are central. The all-electric sports car with two seats is the first sign of the new direction, for which Massimo Frascella, Chief Creative Officer at the Ingolstadt-based manufacturer since June 2024, is largely responsible. At the center of the redesigned front is the vertical frame, whose clear, upright shape is inspired by the Auto Union Type C  and the third generation of the Audi A6.

The new brand face gives the concept vehicle presence and identity. In addition, with the Concept C, Audi is introducing a new light signature consisting of four horizontally arranged elements in each headlight and taillight. The roofline underlines the monolithic shape of the vehicle without losing the open character of the concept. The Audi Concept C  is also a concept vehicle with road approval, which allows an even clearer view of future production models.

Bentley EXP 15

In terms of design, the five-meter-long concept vehicle shows some parallels to the three-seater Speed Six, which was first presented in 1930 and was best known under the nickname «Blue Train». The long hood and the slightly rearward-shifted cabin clearly indicate this. The Bentley EXP 15  is the first all-electric model presented by the traditional British brand and is intended to herald a new chapter in Bentley’s design history. The body appears monolithic and sculptural overall, but the aerodynamically optimized rear forms a harmonious contrast. The illuminated radiator grille is also striking, with which the vertical silhouette typical of Bentley receives a new interpretation.

The iconic brand face is quoted, while at the same time a modern, digital light sculpture is created. The logo has also been refined: The iconic Bentley wings have undergone a gentle revision and now present themselves in a more angular and sharper manner.

Hyundai Concept Three

With the Concept Three, Hyundai is offering a glimpse of a future, compact electric vehicle that is considered a harbinger of the Ioniq 3. At the same time, the study serves as a carrier of a new design language: «Art of Steel». This is understood as a creative examination of the material steel—not as a mere surface, but as a structurally and formally formative material. SangYup Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Hyundai & Genesis Global Design, points out in this context that Hyundai is one of the few automobile manufacturers that produce their own steel. This results in an unusually close connection between design and manufacturing and the design question of how the specific properties of the material can be made visible and tangible instead of merely imitating them.

The approach of designing the vehicle as a hatchback model arose from the desire to stand out from the hatchback models present in Europe. »The silhouette starts low at the front to achieve aerodynamic advantages and then rises to a striking roof profile—with an acceleration point directly behind the rear passengers, giving them maximum headroom. From there, it transitions into a striking ducktail spoiler. And let’s be honest—who doesn’t love ducktail spoilers?« says Loasby. [SW]