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Ten highlights from Design Doha exhibition Arab Design Now

A disaster-proof chandelier from Lebanon and a towering sand dune-style stone installation feature in Arab Design Now, the main exhibition at the inaugural Design Doha biennial.

Arab Design Now was curated by Rana Beiruti to capture the spirit of contemporary design across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the curator told Dezeen ahead of the opening of the first Design Doha.

Set within the Qatari capital’s M7 building, the design biennial draws together a range of collectible design and installations.

Selected works from 74 participants paid homage to the MENA region’s “extremely harsh and unique geography” and investigated the “use of materials as a guiding principle,” explained Beiruti.

Here are 10 of Dezeen’s highlights from Arab Design Now, which is on display in Doha until early August.

Sites – New Sites by Studio Anne Holtrop

Bahrain- and Amsterdam-based architect Anne Holtrop has designed a cluster of large-scale mobiles made from vast slabs of lumpy resin.

Holtrop took casts of a series of manmade and natural sites that he found across Qatar to create the textured pieces, which hang from bearing mechanisms and can be manually rotated by visitors to produce continuously moving formations.

Constellations 2.0: Object. Light. Consciousness by Abeer Seikaly

Over 5,000 pieces of Murano glass were woven together by Jordanian-Palestinian designer Abeer Seikaly to create this chandelier, which combines Bedouin weaving practices from Jordan with traditional Venetian glassmaking techniques.

Brass and stainless steel were also integrated into the lighting, made flexible by the glass mesh.

Once illuminated, the sculptural piece creates dramatic light patterns that nod to a starry night sky seen from the Badia desert, according to Seikaly.

House Between a Jujube Tree and a Palm Tree by Civil Architecture

Kuwait and Bahrain-based office Civil Architecture has designed a looming fibreglass roof proposal for a majlis – the traditional term for an Arabic gathering space.

“It’s a 1:1 model of a roof of an actual house that we designed in Bahrain,” studio co-founder Hamed Bukhamseen told Deezen.

Supported by steel and suspended from tension cables, the majlis features openings designed to accommodate tall trees and was created to explore the “symbiotic but blurred” relationship between indoor and outdoor settings.

Nubia, Hathor and Gros Guillaume Stool by Omar Chakil

French-Egyptian-Lebanese designer Omar Chakil was informed by his father’s homeland of Egypt when he chose alabaster onyx to create this monolithic shelving, a bulbous coffee table and a stool that glides across the floor on wheels.

Taking cues from ancient practices, Chakil carved the rounded furniture from raw blocks of the material, which was sanded down over time using water rather than covered in varnish – something that the designer said had became common in Egypt, especially when making “cheap” souvenirs.

“The whole idea of the collection was to use Egyptian alabaster, which was a healing stone,” Chakil told Dezeen.

“The pharaohs used [the material], then it transformed it over time. It lost its soul. So I tried to put it in the contemporary context by using the shapes that healing emotions would take – so they are round and soft, even though they are very heavy,” he added.

“I see that people are afraid to, but I want them to touch the furniture.”

Tiamat by AAU Anastas

Palestinian architecture office AAU Anastas is presenting Tiamat, a dune-shaped installation that forms part of the studio’s ongoing project, Stone Matters, which explores the potential of combining historical stone building techniques with modern technologies to encourage the use of structural stone.

Positioned for visitors to walk through, the installation is a towering structure made of stone sourced from Bethlehem and informed by the Gothic-style architecture found across Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.

According to AAU Anastas, the light, sound reverberations and climate control within Tiamat’s internal space is unique to stone construction.

Clay in Context by Sama El Saket

Jordan-born architect and ceramicist Sama El Saket took cues from her native landscape when creating this “taxonomy of Jordanian clays”.

The result is a set of spindle bottle-style vessels, each made of a different natural clay found across Jordan. This gives the pieces their distinctive colours, textures and character.

“These are all natural clays with no pigments added,” El Saket told Dezeen. “The colours are attributed to the different minerals that are found within the region. Some are sandier, some are rockier.”

The designer noted that while Jordan features an abundance of clay deposits and a rich history of ceramic production, today most Jordanian clay is imported.

Light Impact by Fabraca Studios

Lebanese industrial design brand Fabraca Studios has created Light Impact, a solid aluminium lighting fixture that was designed as an alternative chandelier, resembling durable ropes.

The piece was made to replace a glass chandelier that shattered in the aftermath of the 2020 Beiruit explosion, which destroyed a large part of Lebanon’s capital city.

Light Impact is defined by “flexible characteristics designed to withstand another disaster,” studio founder Samer Saadeh told Dezeen. He added that the piece, which includes internal brass components, was designed as an ode to Beirut’s adaptability and resilience.

Eleven by Sahel Alhiyari

Eleven is a cluster of tall fluted terracotta columns by Jordanian architect Sahel Alhiyari that were made through moulding and forming rather than traditional cutting and carving.

The architect handcrafted the segments, which are vertically stacked, using a similar technique to pottery-making,

“As you twist and turn the material, it creates all of this stuff,” Alhiyari told Dezeen. The designer explained that the columns were deliberately created to celebrate imperfections, despite referencing classical architecture.

Sediments by Talin Hazbar

UAE-based Syrian designer Talin Hazbar is featuring her Sediments project, which previously gained recognition at Dubai Design Week.

The work consists of blocky seating made from fishing ropes and fishing cage ropes extracted from the Persian Gulf with the assistance of the Dubai Voluntary Diving Team.

Also made up of recycled rubber grains, the heavily textured seating was created to serve as a reminder of how we might attempt to clean up damaged coastlines, according to Hazbar.

Whispers from the Deep by T Sakhi

Lebanese-Polish sisters Tessa and Tara El Sakhi of the studio T Sakhi combined discarded metal salvaged from factories in Veneto, Italy, with Murano glass to create amorphous glassware that takes cues from underwater sea creatures.

These pieces were arranged atop dramatic shelving inside the elevator connecting the first and second floors of the Arab Design Now exhibition.

The result is a playful installation that draws together the Venetian lagoon and Lebanese glassblowing traditions.

The photography is by Edmund Sumner unless stated otherwise.

Arab Design Now takes place at Design Doha from 24 February to 5 August 2024 at M7 in Doha, Qatar. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

Reference

Interior Design

Neri&Hu highlights simplicity and functionality at Shanghai art gallery

By Zarkon Group,06/12/2023

Chinese studio Neri&Hu has designed a contemporary art gallery for Ota Fine Arts in Shanghai with a focus on the “sublime beauty of the banal”.

The gallery sits on the ground floor of a mixed-use tower at Rockbund, a development amidst the historical Bund in Shanghai along the Huangpu River, where a series of restored colonial art deco buildings are located.

Neri&Hu Ota Fine Arts gallery — The entrance of the gallery features an oversized sliding door

“The primary design challenge was to utilise the areas along the facade for both storage and display, blurring the distinction between functional and experiential space,” explained Neri&Hu.

“This deepened threshold condition found on both facades defines the visitor’s arrival sequence and journey within.”

The facade of the gallery was framed in aged steel, with portions of solid metal and large glass panels arranged to form a window display for the artworks.

Handmade ivory tiles line the inner side of the window in a subtle woven pattern, serving as a neutral backdrop for the art pieces.

An oversized sliding door marks the entry to the gallery on the eastern facade. When opened, the entrance of the gallery is revealed, with the outer sliding door framing the window display next to it.

When closed, the door slides back to its original position and allows the full-height glazed window to be exposed.

The western facade features a warehouse-sized door that can be fully opened using a custom-designed handle. This allows large artworks to be delivered directly from a designated parking area into the gallery.

Neri&Hu also added fluted glass to the exterior, which glows in the evening to illuminate the adjacent Rockbund courtyard and add elegance to the functional facade.

Inside the gallery, the 350 square-metre space is divided into two zones – a 150-square-metre main public viewing gallery and a private zone that houses VIP rooms and office space.

The pared-back, white VIP rooms feature contemporary furniture pieces with custom-made white tiles and a stained oak floor and were designed to create a relaxing environment, in which the attention can be focused on the art itself.

“The project’s understated material palette and overall conceptual underpinning lies in the juxtaposition of old and new, raw and refined, ordinary and spectacular,” said Neri&Hu.

“We hope one can appreciate the sublime beauty of the banal, as much as the brilliance of contemporary art,” it added.

Neri&Hu was founded by architects Lyndon Neri and Rosanna Hu in 2004 in Shanghai.

Other recent projects completed by the studio include the Sanya Wellness Retreat hotel on the Chinese island of Hainan and a fashion boutique with fabrics and marble screens.

The photography is by Zhu Runzi.

Project credits:

Partners-in-charge: Lyndon Neri, Rossana Hu
Associate-in-charge: Jacqueline Min
Senior interior designer-in-charge: Phil Wang
Design team: Rovi Qu
FF&E procurement: Design Republic
Contractors: ETQ Project (Shanghai) Limited

Reference

Interior Design

Five highlights from Zaha’s Moonsoon: An Interior in Japan

By Zarkon Group,15/05/2023

The Zaha Hadid Foundation has opened an exhibition about Zaha Hadid’s Moonsoon restaurant in Sapporo, Japan. Here, exhibitions officer and curator Johan Deurell selects five highlights from the show.

Zaha’s Moonsoon: An Interior in Japan is a case study of architect Hadid’s first built project outside of the UK – the Moonsoon Bar and Restaurant in Sapporo, Japan, which was constructed in 1989.

The exhibition offers a journey from the conception of the venue – conveyed through a series of archival models, presentation documents and sketches – through to its built form, presented through images and one-to-one recommissioned furniture from the bar’s interior.

“Our latest exhibition showcases the creative processes behind one of Zaha Hadid’s earliest and less well-known projects,” said Zaha Hadid Foundation director Paul Greenhalgh. “Moonsoon was created at the time of the incredible explosion of the Japanese economy, and the design boom that accompanied it.”

“Japan provided opportunities for emerging architects to work on experimental projects. For the foundation, it is a chance for us to dive deep into the archives and highlight works rarely seen before.”

Monsoon’s design referenced some of the early 20th-century avant-grade movements that emerged out of Russia, such as the works of Russian abstract artist Kazimir Malevich.

Angular, twisting and geometric shapes were translated into functional architectural volumes and layers. Additional design references include the works of sculptor Alexander Calder, French liquor commercials from the 1950s and imagery of orange peel and pasta.

Zaha’s Moonsoon: An Interior in Japan takes place at the Zaha Hadid Foundation headquarters in Clerkenwell, London, which functioned as Hadid’s headquarters from 1985 until her death in 2016.

Read on for Deurell‘s five highlights:

Photo of a presentation briefcase at Zaha's Moonsoon: An Interior in Japan

Presentation case, acrylic and aluminium by Zaha Hadid Architects, 1989-90

“The idea of our exhibition came about with the discovery of a Perspex briefcase in the archive. This briefcase was made by Daniel Chadwick as a container for the Moonsoon design concept.

“It carried elements of model as well as 14 paintings, six perspective drawings and 13 collages shown in this exhibition. The case would be taken to the clients as a form of presentation strategy, where the works on paper would be laid out and the model assembled.”

Photo of a model at Zaha's Moonsoon: An Interior in Japan

Presentation model, acrylic by Zaha Hadid Architects, 1989-90

“This model, made by Daniel Chadwick, was created to illustrate a concept, rather than as a replica of the restaurant’s final form. Here an ‘orange peel’ shape swirls through the two floors, and the colourful shards represent the furniture and interior elements. At the time it was made, the interior and furniture designs had yet to be finalised.

“Zaha Hadid Architects embraced the transparency of acrylic to make the relationship between interior and spatial elements in the model easier to view. In the future, digital models would provide the transparent layering effects that Hadid sought to achieve through the early use of acrylic.”

Painting on show at Zaha's Moonsoon: An Interior in Japan

Interior concepts, acrylic paint on black cartridge paper by Zaha Hadid Architects, 1989-90

“This painting belongs to a suite of 14 paintings originally stored in the Perspex briefcase. Moonsoon’s concept was partially inspired by fire (for the first-floor bar) and ice (for the ground-floor restaurant), which is illustrated through the reds and blues in this painting. A swirling ‘orange peel’ shape represents the central furnace penetrating through the two floors, whereas splintered ‘ice shards’ symbolise tables.

“Zaha Hadid Architects used paintings to explore concepts that could not be shown through conventional perspective drawings. Various team members contributed to the paintings. The works were derived from sketches, which had been transferred to tracing paper and then onto cartridge paper, and subsequently coloured in, often by Hadid herself. Their warped shapes and layering anticipated the possibilities later offered by CAD software.”

Zaha’s Moonsoon, by Marwan Kaabour, 2023

“Not everything in the show came from that briefcase. There were boxes upon boxes of archival material too. During the research phase, colleagues at Zaha Hadid Architects told me: ‘go find the little doodle’. That turned out to be a sheet of Arabic letterforms spelling out Zaha and Moonsoon, and the recurring swirly shape, which you see in the model and paintings.

“With some help from Marwan Kaabour, who designed the graphic identity for the exhibition, I learnt that the swirl is a stylised version of the letter H in Zaha. Marwan has done some amazing work for Phaidon and V&A before and runs the Instagram account Takweer on queer narratives in the SWANA region. I asked him to make a video based upon the archival material we had found.

“This snippet is taken from that video. It charts the development of Moonsoon’s ‘orange peel’ structure, from the brief to its final built form. Beginning with sketches of the words مونسون [Moonsoon] and زها [Zaha] based on Arabic letterforms, through references to orange peel, pasta, and the works of Alexander Calder, it concludes with their eventual translation into the technical drawings informing the construction, as well as images of the construction and built.”

Interior photo of the restaurant — Photo by Paul Warchol

Sofa and tray table by Zaha Hadid Architects, 1989-90 (remade in 2014)

“Finally, the exhibition includes a boomerang-shaped sofa from the bar. The furniture for Moonsoon employed intersecting curves and diagonal planes to create an interior landscape. Designed by Michael Wolfson, the differently sized sofas have interchangeable plug-in backrests and tray tables, which came in different colours and finishes.

“Waiters could set the tables on their stands when delivering the drinks to guests. I am not sure how well this waiting method worked in practice, but it is interesting to think about this furniture as part of a design historical tradition of flexible seating landscapes. We know that Zaha was a fan of Verner Panton’s work, for example.”

Zaha’s Moonsoon: An Interior in Japan is on show at the Zaha Hadid Foundation in London from 20 April until 22 July 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

Reference

Interior Design

Ma Yansong picks six highlights from Blueprint Beijing exhibition

By Zarkon Group,01/03/2023

Architect Ma Yansong, the curator of Blueprint Beijing, a feature exhibition exploring the future of the Chinese capital at the 2022 Beijing Biennial, shares six of his highlight installations from the show.

Ma, the founding partner of Chinese architecture studio MAD, invited 20 architects and artists of different generations from around the world to present their visions for the future of the city of Beijing in a variety of mediums including architectural models, installations, photography and videos.

Blueprint Beijing curated by Ma Yansong — Blueprint Beijing is the feature exhibition at the inaugural 2022 Beijing Biennial curated by MAD’s founding partner Ma Yansong

“Blueprint Beijing is a comparative study of history and the future of Beijing and the world,” Ma told Dezeen.

“We compiled a compendium of seminal events, people and ideologies from around the world that have vividly explored the theme of ‘the future’, such as Archigram, Oscar Niemeyer and many more, that have had a significant impact on current architects, and have influenced changes in Beijing’s urban planning in relation to major events.”

“The works of several creators selected here traverse the dimensions of time, space and geography, and their personal creative imagination has brought distinct significance to the exhibition,” he added.

The exhibition also presents material taken from historic archives about eight architects and collectives that have showcased visionary ideas, as well as four Chinese science fiction films with historic significance.

Here, Ma has selected six of his highlights from Blueprint Beijing for Dezeen:

Restaurant Inside the Wall, by Drawing Architecture Studio, 2023

“The Restaurant Inside the Wall installation is presented as a graphic novel, with a restaurant hidden inside the wall as the protagonist. Drawing Architecture Studio (DAS) transformed the graphic novel into a spatial experience in order to strengthen the absurd and suspenseful atmosphere of the story, by collaging and connecting the real elements of various street stalls.

“Drawing from the observation of urban spaces in China, DAS has discovered a lot of unexpected pockets of wisdom embedded in everyday urban scenes, and roadside ‘holes in the wall’ are an example of this. This installation adds a microscopic daily footnote to the grand avant-garde urban blueprint for the future.”

Filter City & City as a Room, by Peter Cook from Cook Haffner Architecture Platform, 2020-2022

“In this installation, Peter Cook dissects two of his drawings – Filter City (2020) and City as a Room (2022) – into elements that concentrate on sequences.

“Cook utilizes his signature strategy of creating concept drawings that remain connected to the built environment, while also moving towards a new future-looking ‘hybrid’, particularly interiors, that can be created from fragments of drawing and images.

“As a result, viewers can transcend from distant observers into participants.”

Liminal Beijing, by He Zhe, James Shen and Zang Feng from People’s Architecture Office, 2022

“The installation of Liminal Beijing, created by People’s Architecture Office, connects the city of Beijing in different time and space. It features a knot of radiant, winding, and rotating tubes that can be interpreted as pneumatic tubes transporting documents in the 19th century or the hyperloops developed today, representing the link between the future and the past.

“Modern life would not be possible without the hidden system of ducts that deliver heating, cooling, and clean air. Air ducts in Liminal Beijing are made visible so they can be explored and occupied, and are presented as missing fragments of space and time.”

Astro Balloon 1969 Revisited x Feedback Space, 2008, by Wolf D Prix from Coop Himmelb(l)au, 2022 edition

“This installation was realized by combining two of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s previous works: Heart Space – Astro Balloon in 1969 and Feedback Vibration City in 1971, which were first shown in this form at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2008.

“The resulting installation is a cloud-like, semi-transparent and reflective floating space that translates visitors’ heartbeats into a lighting installation.

“Throughout its practice, Coop Himmelb(l)au has presented numerous futuristic ‘architectural’ prototypes of dwellings which are responsive to the sensibilities and activities of their inhabitants.”

Beijing In Imagination, by Wang Zigeng, 2023

“Chinese architect Wang Zigeng illustrates two city models that were informed by visual imagery of mandalas on the floor and ceiling of the exhibition space, expressing the tension between the ideal city and the chaos of the real world — a parallel reality of both the present and the future.

“He believes Beijing is the embodiment of ancient cosmologies and an ideal city prototype through the ritualization of urban space – the establishment of political and moral order as a highly metaphorical correspondence between human behavior and nature.”

Pao: A Dwelling for Tokyo Nomad Women II, by Toyo Ito, 2022 Beijing edition

“This installation explores what living means for city dwellers in a consumerist society. Even today, half of the population living in Tokyo are living alone, and having a place to sleep is all one needs. Pao is a light and temporary structure that can be dissolved in the buzz of the metropolis.

“This is a new edition of Toyo Ito’s previous work Pao: A Dwelling for Tokyo Nomad Women. By recreating the installation in Beijing while coming out of a global pandemic, Ito hopes to provide a space for visitors to reflect on the excessive consumerism that has continued to dominate the present.”

The Photography is by Zhu Yumeng unless otherwise stated.

Blueprint Beijing is on show at the 2022 Beijing Biennial Architecture Section at M WOODS Hutong in Beijing until 12 March 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

Reference

Architecture

Travelling exhibition highlights unsung Black architects

By Zarkon Group,27/02/2023

The racial paradigm in the United States means that Black architects must continue to operate against the grain in order to get projects built, says From the Ground Up exhibition curator Hasaan Kirkland.

Kirkland believes that barriers to entry and recognition continue to disadvantage people of colour in architecture, making it important to highlight the background of architects.

“Extra work is being done to be a Black anything,” said Kirkland, curatorial consultant for the Seattle edition of a travelling exhibition called From the Ground Up: Black Architects and Designers.

“Why can we not just be architects?”

“Why can we not just be architects, why do we have to be Black architects?” he asked.

“Well, it’s because of the paradigm in this country that deals with separation and racism that is originated by a select individual cultural mentality. We will still have to contend with tropes that do no good.”

“There are many unsung heroes, if you will, in the industry of architecture, primarily because they’re African Americans and have to contend with the world and all of the concerns that would prevent African Americans from being able to have a central voice and an opportunity to be recognized.”

From the Ground up — Top: Moody Nolan’s MLK Library Branch in Columbus. Photo by Feinknopf Photography. Above: From the Ground Up held its first regional show in Seattle

Kirkland believes that additional work must be done to shed light on Black architects and their contribution to city skylines as an important part of urban identity, both historically and in the present.

Impressive buildings can often be attributed to white architectural companies by default, which has led to Black architects and studios led by Black architects having less “scope to be recognized”, he argued.

A “feat of courage” for Black architects

“With the history of the country, to be an architectural firm became a feat of courage and of undoing some things that were racially motivated to prevent that from happening,” said Kirkland.

He contends that this context means it is important to have educational programming that informs people about the contributions of Black architects to the built environment.

“Architecture is what creates our skylines for every city, and every state, but it is often unknown how many African Americans are actually contributors to those skylines, to the buildings that we see and drive around every day,” said Kirkland.

“We just assume that they are created by another white architectural company, but there are Black firms.”

Recognising this contribution is part of the work the exhibition is carrying out. Originally conceived via the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the traveling exhibition zeroes in on the architects of specific regions alongside the core programming.

People should “see themselves” in architecture

However, Kirkland pointed out that just because an architect is Black, it doesn’t mean the spaces are necessarily designed for the community – although Black architects often work in areas like social housing that are traditionally ignored in legacy architecture.

“Just because they’re a Black firm doesn’t mean they make the building specifically for Black people,” he said. “If a Black person was never to set foot in those buildings, that’s not the primary concern. The primary concern is to create the building.”

But when people are shown the origin of the building, he says, that provides an added benefit.

“When you begin to have that context into your understanding, then people of color become inspired and empowered by the industry of architecture because they can begin to see themselves not just on the wall but the wall itself,” Kirkland said.

Read on for a look at five buildings worked on by Black architects highlighted in the exhibition.

Tuskegee Chapel — Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

Butler Chapel Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, by Robert R Taylor

Robert R Taylor was the first Black American to receive a formal architecture degree, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Upon graduating, he was offered a position as the director of the Department of Mechanical Industries at the Tuskegee Institute by founder and activist Dr Booker T Washington.

The first building in the county to have interior lights, the chapel was one among many Gothic-style brick buildings designed by Taylor for the institute.

Completed in 1898, the chapel was eventually destroyed in a fire in 1957. The institute’s new chapel was designed almost 70 years later by Paul Rudolph and the studio of John A Welch and Louis Fry, both graduates of the institute.

Arts complex sarah lawrence — Photo courtesy of Ben Schnall

Arts Complex at Sarah Lawrence College, New York, by Edward Durell Stone and Beverly L Greene

In 1952, Beverly L Greene worked with Edward Durell Stone to complete the brick-and-stone modernist art complex at Sarah Lawrence College.

Greene was the first Black woman to receive a degree in architectural engineering in the United States. Born in Chicago, she went on to work on numerous important modernist projects, including the UNESCO Heritage Headquarters by Marcel Breuer in Paris.

Greene also worked on a number of housing developments in New York City and Chicago, including Stuy Town on Manhattan’s east side. After also earning a masters degree in architecture at Columbia, Greene went on to design a number of buildings for NYU.

Theme building LAX — Photo by Eric Salard

Theme Building at LAX, Los Angeles, by Paul Revere Williams

Completed in 1961, the Theme Building at LAX was hailed as a prime example of late modern architecture. It was designed by Paul Revere Williams, a locally-born architect known for his work on homes for celebrities such as Frank Sinatra.

The Theme Building is a domed restaurant suspended by concrete arches. It was part of a major expansion of the airport during that time period and recently underwent structural stabilisation to maintain it.

US embassy Tokyo — Photo courtesy of Rs1421

US Embassy in Tokyo, Tokyo, by Cesar Pelli and Norma Merrick Sklarek

Completed in 1976, the US Embassy Building in Tokyo displayed the modernist sensibilities of American architecture in an international context. Norma Merrick Sklarek also worked with Argentine architect Cesar Pelli on other projects, including the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles.

Born in Harlem, Sklarek was the first Black woman to be listed as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Moving her license from New York to California, Sklarek was also the first Black woman to lead a division of a white-owned architecture studio.

MLK branch library Columbus — Photo by Feinknopf Photography

Martin Luther King Branch, Columbus, by Moody Nolan

A branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Ohio, the Martin Luther King Branch is an example of architecture explicitly dedicated to the African American community.

The first library branch to be named after King, it was completed in 2018 by Moody Nolan, a local, Black-owned studio run by Curtis Moody and Howard E Nolan. The project won the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) Phil Freelon Professional Design Award in 2020.

Founded in 1982, Moody Nolan is now the largest Black-owned architecture studio in the country and has worked on a number of large-scale projects.

From the Ground Up is on show at MOHAI in Seattle from February 4 to April 30. Visit Dezeen’s Event Guide for more events, exhibits and talks about architecture and design.

Reference

highlights

Ten highlights from Design Doha exhibition Arab Design Now

Neri&Hu highlights simplicity and functionality at Shanghai art gallery

Five highlights from Zaha’s Moonsoon: An Interior in Japan

Ma Yansong picks six highlights from Blueprint Beijing exhibition

Travelling exhibition highlights unsung Black architects

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