Metropolis Magazine - Metropolis Magazine May 2008
Looking for a Restaurant in Downtown Chicago?
Every year Chicago stakes a new claim on America’s dining map. In repurposed architectural spaces, indoors and out, large plates and small, the Windy City just keeps getting tastier. Check out our listings online and be sure to pick up your own copy of Taste of the Town at NeoCon.
Moment of Reckoning
Faced last year with severe droughts and floods, we must now embark on a new understanding of our relationship to water.
2008 Next Generation Winner: The Pleated Bucket
A young architect uses a high-tech material to solve a chronic problem: the transportation of clean water.
Compilation Art
The Wolfsonian–Florida International University’s recent discovery of a lost 1936 oil painting by Lloyd Morgan, chief designer of Schultze & Weaver, was an odd and welcome revelation to scholars of the New York–based architecture firm. Jonathan Mogul, a curatorial research associate at the museum, believes that the 6-by-14-foot canvas, a sort of greatest-hits collection of the firm’s work, was once displayed…
Process Makes Perfect
Konstantin Grcic’s newest project uses a durable state-of-the-art material and nanotechnology to create a twenty-first-century take on that modern classic: the cantilever chair.
The Maestro’s Last Chair
The final project of Ettore Sottsass’s illustrious career–completed after his death by a longtime collaborator–updates one of his old favorites.
Signature Style
Another season, another collaborator—and this year the Rug Company has added interior designer Kelly Wearstler to its fashionable roster. The chic Angeleno’s eight-piece collection (which debuted this spring and will be highlighted at ICFF) was inspired by a range of things—vintage clothing, seashells, op art, wood grain—with palettes as varied as their motifs. Having trouble identifying the origin of Zephyr’s…
A Canadian Offensive
One enterprising designer aims to push his countrymen into the limelight.
Looking Backward
A new lighting manufacturer combines high-end design with prehistoric inspiration.
Up on the Farm
Vancouver, British Columbia, hatches a program that brings food cultivation into town.
A Room on Its Own
Kithaus’s new prefab K3 makes building a backyard studio a snap.
Lighting the Way
A series of stunning art installations, located in first-class and VIP lounges, enlivens the passenger experience at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Dubai, Doha
End of the world? Or the beginning of a new one?
Bent Out of Shape
A Swiss research project proposes a new way to manufacture curved wooden panels.
Charlotte von der Lancken
One-fourth of the Swedish firm Front answers a few questions on industrial design, inspiration, and process—using her thumbs.
Soft as Steel
Kengo Kuma finds a poetic alternative to concrete in the iron alloy.
Poster Children
Metropolis’s art department helps raise money for California wildfire victims.
2008 Next Generation Runners-up: Water Works
This year’s competition looked for solutions to a global
problem that many experts are calling the next big
environmental crisis.
A More Perfect Union
An international cast of talents orchestrates one Finnish couple’s trip down the aisle.
Minimal Makeover
Perhaps best known for his pop forms (think butterfly, tongue, and tulip), Pierre Paulin has a more functionalist past. In 1954 he turned out the Bauhaus-inspired CM 141 desk, which Ligne Roset will rerelease in September as Tanis. The name isn’t the only change—the original melamine surface is now Corian or laminate, and walnut has replaced ash veneer on the…
