Guests "enter into an Archigram world" at Design Trust gala in Hong Kong

In this Dezeen movie, architects Peter Cook and Dennis Crompton explain how they drew from the Archigram archive to create the concept for the 2019 Design Trust gala in Hong Kong.

The former Archigram members were appointed as creative directors of the fundraising event for the Design Trust, a charity that supports creative projects in Hong Kong and the surrounding region.

Former Archigram members Dennis Crompton and Peter Cook were creative directors for the 2019 Design Trust gala

"Dennis Crompton and I have been commissioned by the Hong Kong Design Trust to make a manifestation of Archigram ideas at their gala event," explained Cook in the movie.

"The Design Trust supports young designers and they have the gala event every year to raise money for that purpose."

Founded in the 1960s by Cook, Crompton, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, Michael Webb and David Greene, Archigram was an avant-garde architecture collective that became famous for ambitious architecture concepts, which often utilised emerging technologies of the time.

Influential projects include Plug-In City, where pre-fabricated home capsules are plugged into a larger megastructure; and Instant City, a transportable kit of parts that can be quickly assembled to provide the inhabitants of small towns with access to the resources and cultural attractions of a large metropolis.

Archigram-branded balloons were attached to each table at the gala

For the gala, Cook and Crompton suspended banners from the ceiling featuring prints of Archigram drawings and introduced a number of what Crompton describes as "Archigrammic items" into the ballroom itself.

Rather than being circular like most gala dinner tables, the event featured irregular-shaped tables in bright shades of red, yellow or green.

Archigram-branded balloons, which recall one of the proposed delivery methods for the group's Instant City project, were attached to each table.

Design Trust gala guests were photographed against a green screen

Guests were also photographed against a green screen and superimposed onto an Archigram drawing via a live video feed. Crompton then created a collage of photographs of all the guests, which was unveiled at the end of the night.

"I've arranged for there to be a green-screen stage, so they will be captured with television cameras, but then that will be projected onto an Archigram drawing," Crompton explained.

"Then I'm going to take the images that we captured and collage them all into another Archigram drawing. And that will be on a long digital screen at one end of the room. And they'll suddenly see themselves appearing amongst all the other dinner guests."

He continued: "I want to give them the experience of entering into an Archigram world."

Live footage of guests was superimposed onto an Archigram drawing

As well as working on the event itself, Cook and Crompton also mentored Design Trust grantees including architecture firms Sky Yutaka and New Office Works, research group Hong Kong Design History Network and design market DTBY_.

They also provided an original Archigram drawing for the auction.

As well as the auction and the dinner, guests were entertained by musician Rosey Chan, who created a multimedia performance combining video and a live piano set.

Crompton created a collage of all the Design Trust gala guests

The appointment of Cook and Crompton as creative directors of the Design Trust gala follows the acquisition of the entire Archigram archive by M+ Museum in Hong Kong in March 2019.

Cook believes that there is a relationship between a high-density city like Hong Kong and some of the ideas contained in the work of Archigram.

An original Archigram drawing was one of the lots gala guests could bid on in the auction

"To some extent, the work of Archigram, which was experimental, innovatory and very mechanistic in its time, has been taken up by the spirit of some of the things that we see happening in Hong Kong," he said.

Archigram's work often presented an optimistic vision for the future of urban life, which Design Trust co-founder and executive director Marisa Yiu said was much-needed at a time when violent clashes between police and protestors are ongoing in the city.

"[Archigram's] experimental approach has always focused on human needs and creating a hopeful, better way of living, which feels timely and necessary for us here and right now," she said.

"Despite all that is going on right now, this is a symbol of optimism," said Cook.

Musician Rosey Chan performed at the Design Trust gala

This movie was filmed by Dezeen in London and Hong Kong.

Dezeen was a media partner for the Design Trust gala. We will be publishing a series of video interviews with Cook and Crompton about Archigram's work next month.

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Rei Kawakubo designs costumes for Vienna State Opera

Comme des Garcons designer Rei Kawakubo has created the costumes for a Vienna State Opera production of Virginia Woolf's Orlando.

The costumes for the production, which premiered on 8 December, follow a presentation of ideas at Paris Fashion Week in June, and a Comme des Garcons clothing collection in September.

All three were inspired by the early-20th century modernist novel Orlando by British writer Virginia Woolf.

Costumes designed for the opera include an outsize three-piece tartan suit and a pin-striped short suit with exaggerated shoulders, worn with a ruffled white shirt and necktie.

Other cast members wore richly coloured thick-striped suits with dangling fabric panels or velvet robes complete with tassels.

One white dress was covered entirely with bows, whilst elsewhere a red damask 18th-century-style dress featured a skirt with red polka dots on a black silk background adorned with black appliqué flowers.

A black damask morning suit featured the folded origami-like surface decoration seen in some of Kawakubo's previous designs for the Japanese fashion label.

Kawakubo told Dezeen in an interview earlier this year that Comme des Garcons is "nothing about the clothes".

"I have always started from zero, trying to make something that didn't exist before," she told Dezeen at the time. "The process of creation is done mostly by words and imagination."

Extravagant wigs were created for the show by hair artist Julien d'Ys. Some were pink and glittery, with others piled up on top of the wearer's head to form a stack of buns, or covering the wearer's ears.

The opera version of Orlando was commissioned by the Vienna State Opera from Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth, with a libretto by Franco-American author and playwright Catherine Filloux.

"I was intrigued to find out that the very conservative, traditional and primarily repertory opera house had commissioned an avant-garde de woman composer to write an opera to celebrate their 150 year anniversary," explained Kawakubo.

"I thought that there was a good chance that something new and exciting could happen. I have for fifty years been trying to make new things, and so I accepted the great challenge," she continued.

"Of course the fact that the subject was the ground breaking and timeless novel Orlando only attracted me more."

Like the book, the opera is an exploration of time, gender and artistic creativity. Neuwirth has updated the original story, which ends in 1928, to continue right up to the present day as an "opera in 19 scenes".

Direction was by Polly Graham, with the stage created by Roy Spahn and lighting design by Ulrich Schneider.

Back in 2016, fashion designer Gareth Pugh based his Spring Summer collection on costumes he had created for a sun-themed opera with monochrome headpieces and outfits adorned with golden triangles.

Images by Michael Pöhn for Wiener Staatsoper

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Shanghai's Single Person gallery is designed to resemble a cave

Architecture studio Offhand Practice created textured walls and faux skylights within this Shanghai design gallery to evoke the feeling of being inside a cave.

Situated along a main road in Shanghai's Xuhui district, the Single Person gallery is made up of a sequence of cave-like rooms.

When Offhand Practice first visited the site in November 2018, it was presented with a long and narrow interior that was divided into four rooms, each set at a different level. Formerly used as a diner, the only sources of natural light were from an entrance at the front and a courtyard space at the rear.

The studio was tasked with transforming the 60-square-metre space into a gallery to showcase vintage design objects.

"The word cave broke into our mind when we first sought to define the space as a whole," said the studio.

"And because the space shares similar physicality with a cave, while we were verifying this concept, we realised that cave is not an imposed concept but manifested by the nature of the site itself," it continued.

"Once the overall concept of the cave was established, other elements for this space that share the same design language naturally fell into place."

From the street, a deep-set archway that appears as if it were carved into the building's facade leads visitors into the space.

"It's very close to the cave entrance we have imagined," explained the studio, "the texture of the facade looks similar to stucco but is actually a result of pebble wash."

Inside, as visitors progress through the exhibition spaces, they step down into a central gallery before stepping up again to access spaces at the rear of the building.

The architects said that these levels help to reinforce the idea of descending into and emerging from a cave.

To emphasise the different levels, the surfaces of each space have been completed in subtly alternating earthy hues and textures.

The entrance area and side gallery are finished in white enamel, while the corridor is painted in an ochre shade. The room at the back of the gallery has then been painted an even darker sienna colour.

To combat the lack of natural light, the architects created a clear sightline from the front of the gallery to the back. The room that sits to the side of the entrance benefits from an irregularly shaped opening that allows daylight to filter through.

A line of skylights was punctuated at the back of the gallery to simulate the way light penetrates through thick cave walls, while a row of uneven, artificially lit niches in the wall of the central gallery provide a warm glow that recalls candlelight.

Curved plinths, shelves and platforms have additionally been built into the walls of the exhibition spaces to present design pieces.

Adding to the cave theme, pebble-shaped ceramic door handles that the studio sourced from an antique flea market in Berlin have been used throughout the space.

Other recent cave-like interiors include design brand Moustache's Paris store, which En Bande Organisée and Julien Dufresne finished with pale, polished-concrete walls and curved alcoves that double-up as display niches.

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