The Art of Style (Paris)

Paris, France. The entry line was down the block to get into the Christian Dior exhibition at the "other" Louvre, Musee des Arts Decoratifs. On my last visit to Paris I discovered how interesting fashion exhibitions can be, in a city where it's elevated to the highest art. It turns out that Dior was connected to other arts as well, and I had much to learn. 

The exhibition is organized in 2 parts straddling the main entry, each side entry with a grand architectural theme. The initial effect was like a glamorous shopping mall.

But the smaller, actual entry, at the top of the stairs, was really interesting. After passing through a transparent "house" of Dior...

The connection to art is immediately made, with a black & white photo mural of the art gallery Dior once owned, before he became a fashion designer.

This sculpture becomes iconic with it's prominent placement.

Dior was closely connected to the surrealists who showed in his gallery, and whose work was also on display here in the exhibition. A nourishing dose of art before digging into fashion.

After Dior's life story is a gallery honoring another art, fashion photography. The photos were displayed traditionally on three walls. But on the fourth was a set of three big vitrines with the light fading in and out to reveal the actual dress in the space behind the enlarged photographs. An interesting play between image (woman) and object (dress).

What follows is a dense winding pathway of outfits and accessories, organized by color. I was amazed by the small, foot-high models of outfits, perfectly sewn in every detail! Visitors were moving very slowly and clearly relishing every detail.

Like food, fashion has an intrinsic allure, so personal...

The effect of this collaged path was deeply feminine, precious and cool.

The stairway leading down passes a wall of magazines

Historically inspired designs look out on the gardens

Culturally inspired designs are shown with related paintings

And garden inspired designs displayed under a tree.

Passing over to the other side of the entry, it seemed hard to believe there could be more to see.

An extremely high mirror ceilinged room with five tiers of white designs, a literally towering effect!

At the bottom a refreshing little mediated alcove about the craft of the seamtress.

Dior's fashion sketches

Entering the most modern phase of Dior's work

Only a few designs appeared in photos only.

At this point, the prolific arc of his career starts to really sink in. In this room, lighting shifted along the box edges, like searchlights crossing the sky.

Just as I was expecting to see the exit, we entered the grand finale; a ballroom fantasy in the huge atrium space, mirrored at either end.

Here the entire "ballroom" was covered in multi projections, walls and ceiling, cycling through day and night and from architectural details to Dior's sketches. Videos showed film clips of his designs worn by leading actresses.

This was the final spectacle that just seemed to stun everyone.

As I was leaving I was trying to imagine how much money was spent on this exhibition. Haute couture is an elitist art. I think the visitors, who seemed pleased and tired, got their money's worth. A lavish celebration of beauty, in the form of style.

Advertising Kiosks (Paris)

Paris, France. Maybe it's been this way for a long time, but I only just noticed that Parisian columns are motorized, slowly rolling to change posters. Low tech is perfect for these old fashioned, quaint monuments. I think of them as uniquely french, but apparently they were designed by the Germans, in 1885, to avoid ads and messages pasted all over Berlin.

Vertical rolling posters as a street sign

Horizontal rolling posters on the side of kiosks. These endearing kiosks are being replaced by a new design by Matali Crasset, made of recycled glass & aluminum. Because the new ones look like sardine cans, Parisians are rightfully upset about the change. A case of function over culture.

Makes me wonder if these curved tile metro frames will disappear as well

Anti Litter (Paris)

Paris, France. This environmental campaign "calls out" specific individuals who have thrown trash outside the trash cans. "You can leave a more beautiful trace on the earth" is the warning. It's clever because it puts the focus on each of us as individuals, and our specific actions in real time.

But it's shame based. I wonder if it would be more effective to honor individuals when they put it in the can? With the message that you did something to beautify the world?

If it were honoring, not shaming, would it be more believable that these could be real people, not fictitious people?

Le Grand Musee du Parfum (Paris)

Paris, France. What does it mean to be a connoisseur of olfaction? A good life skill for anyone in pursuit of refined sensibilities. It's no surprise that there several perfume museums in Paris. Certainly it's an arty twist on interactives about perception. "Making the invisible palpable, presenting this intangible heritage of perfume in the rooms of a museum, is the challenge accepted by Le Grand Musee du Parfum".

The title typography is treated with graduated metallic fingerprints. It spreads and rotates when it's animated. As a background, It makes the body text illegible.

The letter spacing of the body text is continually increasing from left to right, like fragrant molecules drifting into the air, and when animated it sometimes reverses, as if it's being gathered, or inhaled.

Some lines of the body text are wafting out like odorants, but some are not. The tenth line, for example, is tightly justified and really stands out here. The reading experience is a slippery road. 

The first gallery, about the role of perfume in famous love affairs, is really fun. Cleopatra is winking here, but from another angle, she is not. 

All of the angled side paintings are lenticular and change depending on angle.

Smell is a challenge, for sure. Or is it the smell dispensers that are tricky? There are many different types of dispensers here. Visitors come to the first smells, in the form of bowls in the ancient history section. The first impulse is to put your face in the bowl (unless you're too short), but that didn't seem to produce any scent.

There is no apparent on button. The hand icon suggests getting the smell from the bowl with your hand in some way. But this didn't seem to help.

The history is fascinating, with wonderful artifacts and stories about the use for scent, during the plague for instance.

Here the speaker-like scent dispensers were easier to use, but I found the scents to be just too subtle to really detect.

Silhouette, puppet-like animations

Perfume and fashion exhibitions are a common assignment for Parisian students.

Fragrant Art History.

The laboratory was not in use when I was there, except by staff.

Upstairs visitors enter a more serious laboratory of basic scents used in the art of perfume, emphasizing "imagination, invention, and reflection in the intellectual process of creating a fragrance".

Here the scent dispensers are orbs, which worked well for getting a good strong sniff.

The orbs work for audio as well as smell. One of about 5 languages can be chosen by rotating the orb in it's holder, before removing it.

This was clearly the core experience of the museum, where diligent visitors were spending serious lengths of time. Quietly sniffing and listening. Even going back to repeat some of the scents.

A tribute to famous contemporary "Noses" takes the form of dressing tables

This looks pretty elegant for the "laboratory" area, where the olefactory perception process is explained. The theme of chemical compound shapes is reflected in the light fixture.

A voting station on perception of scents based on gender. There seemed to be more women visitors here than men.

Another, flower-like scent dispenser was pretty effective.

It occurs to me that this display would be comical, seen out of context.

Then there's a smell garden, with 11 smells to guess

Here the smell dispensers were funnel-shaped flower heads, which didn't seem to work. Some were lit up, and some had subtle images inside to indicate the answers. 

After the gallery of orbs, I think some visitors expected audio as well.

A view of the real garden beyond the artificial one.

This love seat uses the speaker-like dispenser again.

Wall alcoves that dispense smell had stringed curtains, and colored light to give a visual clue to where the scent is.

Finally we come to another test your senses area, this one with paper strip dispensers, like the ones used in perfume stores, which worked great.

A simple comparison of 3 scents, with identifying pictures to line up

It seems like the tally sheets are often on a window sill.

The museum store carries over the design of the galleries, including the drifting typography.

Here there are even more types of dispensers; ribbon, cups...

And free form glass blown shapes at the scented glove display

This is the final perfume dispenser for purchased bottles

Donation Box (Lisboa)

Lisboa, Portugal. A donation box, with finger holes, is shirt shaped from the side.

Gender Icons

Some examples of the men & women I have encountered on this trip. 

Street Art (Lisboa)

Lisboa, Portugal. This portrait series is everywhere around town, "Have you seen this man/woman?"

A detail of the street art "carving" style in Lisboa

A formal street exhibition in the Alfama pays homage to famous locals, in a beautiful way, using sensitive photographs on tile, with side labels

To me, mystery window installations are street art. Envelopes?

Graphic Design (Lisboa)

Lisboa, Portugal. A few examples

The coolest walker ever

Globally Hip, Locally...

Jaded after many months on the road, my eyelids are tattooed with an endless movie of interior design (restaurants, cafes, bars & living spaces). We've arrived, at globally hip. From cheap & dirty to swank, it's just a matter of inspiration and resourcefulness, wherever you are in the world.

And if the muse doesn't provide the creative vision, the internet will, swirling the globe like a second, pinterest atmosphere. We're breathing it in non stop.

Even ways of being undesigned are intentional. Nobody is not a designer anymore.

I love it. But maybe our global hip is terminal? Maybe we're losing the regional uniqueness of design, the specialness of a locality, where strange and wonderful things develop in their own geographic bubble. Travel used to be a discovery of truly odd local aesthetics and fashions, but now its more and more predictable, in an eclectic way. 

You could say that local design still exists in the form of "local themes", even if they're not organically grown. One of my favorites is the Soviet Bar in Cluj Napoca, Romania. 

Then there's a wider approach to "themes" that seems to achieve global and local at the same time. Like "I'm Camper" cafe in Seoul, Korea.

Quinta da Regaleira (Sintra)

Sintra, Portugal. This estate museum is famous for it's symbolic gardens, with underground tunnels and spiral staircase wells based on Tarot rituals. But the house was more intriguing to me, and less crowded. Pedictably opulent, the rooms are delicately decorated in every medium. But it's just impossible not to look at the distracting black stanchions, so the subtlety is lost. The stations probably wouldn't exist if there were guards or docents. What's that little step inside the fireplace?

These display cases compete with the room. They bring the focus down and center, away from the portraits along the ceiling.

The architecture itself is untouched, until this stand out wall and entry appears suddenly, along a narrow stairway corridor. The room is devoted to the Italian set designer and architect Luigi Manini.

The facade is a watercolor design for opera curtains.

The blown up watercolor is beautiful, but it seems ironic that this display about the designer interferes with his own design of the house it's in.

MAAT (Lisboa)

Lisboa, Portugal. Who isn't drawn to old power plants? They make good energy museums, and even better contemporary art museums. Usually one or the other. But the Tejo Power Station is both. Art exhibitions share the space with the Museu de Electricidade, which is now part of the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology.  A fresh drama of old brick and new whiteness along the Tagus river walk.

The water tower makes a circular billboard venue

A handsome outdoor vitrine for art exhibitions

With almost no signage, the building stands on it's own. A subtle ticket office and entry (seen through the window)

As soon as they enter the electricity museum, visitors are enveloped in a composed musical piece, moody (and catchy) with a rhythmic clang of pipes in the mix. Graphically the museum combines huge red monolith signs with oversize diagrams. 

Gobo lighting defines the wayfinding signage.

The only interactive I found here was "accidental", and strange. One control console had a few mysteriously active buttons, one of which activates a dummy figure far above on a catwalk, to call out to his fellow workers.

A contemporary photo exhibition is slipped into one of the corridors, too tight to view at any distance.

Simple white Hanging panels catch the shadows of structure

Interesting use of red photo here makes the alcove feel like a wrinkle in the wall.

The walls in this interactive Electricity space are backlit. The wall mounted interactives have a retro styling.

The plump curved shaping is very approachable.

Did these anthromorphized meters come from another planet?

Power plants are massive, mind boggling, walk-through living diagrams of themselves. Color coding, specific part lighting and placed labels help make it digestible. But the general awe of a building like this is satisfying in it's own right. Sometimes visitors are on a "mindless" stroll, a valid way to experience museums, after all.

This event space, is nicely located, visible from a catwalk, with packing crates as part of the furnishings.

And this activity classroom is located behind the power plant console. A bit of charming old flooring, is left intact.

Beautiful placement of old photographs among the machinery.

Including some gorgeous and delicate small photos.

A dummy figure appears here by surprise, another cause of mixed feelings.

This cathedral like space of the Turbine Hall, is a perfect art venue for Bai Ming's work from China.

They make it look easy, their transition to contemporary art spaces

These are actually very tall green display pedestals, rising from the floor below.

Stairs double as theater seating in a tight space.

The MAAT lounge is also in a great location.

It's a pleasant walk next door to the gradual entry of the new building, designed by Amanda Levete. A gently sloping hill of tile.

MAAT logo, in animation. I like the reverse overlap in the letterforms.

A triangular entry desk leads to a central gallery, shaped like an eye, wrapped by a walkway down to the side gallery entries.

Mirrored doors off the gallery deflect attention and increase the space.

To be honest, due to depressing world news, I didn't feel up to seeing an exhibition on Utopia/Dystopia. It turned out to be unremarkable, in terms of design. But a stroll on the roof is uplifting!

I could be anywhere (Lisboa)

Time Out Market occupies about half of the old Mercado da Rebeira.

It's a crowded, popular food court with a central shared eating area surrounded by food stalls serving food on trays. 

Everything is uniformly branded with Time Out's black & white identity. 

It calls itself the best of Lisboa, because "everything in a time out market is chosen, tasted (and tested) by an independent panel of experts: Time Out's journalists and critics. It's a simple rule: if it's good it goes in the magazine. If it's great it goes on to the Market." The space design feels like a fine line between magazine and market.

To me this raises troubling questions, especially about travelers and designed environments. Do they come here to enjoy good Portuguese food because it's been curated? Or do they come because it's a safe place to get predictable service, without the awkwardness of language barriers or quirky restaurant experiences?

Along the outer corridor: some upscale counter stalls.

Upstairs: Time Out Restaurant, and office space.

Along the inside corridor, between Time Out and the regular market: some stalls feel like hybrids.

The regular market with it's few remaining side stalls was closed when I was there. The two environments seem separate from each other. Or protected from each other?

Am I in a travel magazine or a real world destination? Sometimes the tension between design and "authenticity" is palpable. "Realness" is often associated with aesthetic chaos, and uncomfortable surprises.  Designed environments like this reinforce an expectation for controlled ease. At worst, they can be a soulless buffer from the real world. A time out. From the real world. Wherever you are.

Information (Lisboa)

Almada, Portugal. A mysterious form of information. Is it randomly generated symbols, a message from aliens, or an accidental peek at some coding?

Spiritual Interactives

As well as museums, I've visited many temples. Except for the most sacred chambers, the public is normally invited to visit, as they would any museum. This creates an interesting dynamic between museum and spiritual practice. There are usually opportunities to engage in a ritual, such as bell ringing, candle or incense lighting, wishes, offerings, divinations, and blessing rituals. With all due respect for all religions, I've been wondering... how they might be similar to museum interactives?

At the Jeronimos Monastery, in Lisboa, Portugal, you can buy your candle and light it "virtually." The text says "Light a real candle remotely via the CANDLA APP" which can be downloaded by a QR code in the upper corner. I kept wondering if there really was a wax candle being lit in another room? Where the smoke won't damage the building? The prayer is multi lingual, in 5 languages. 

Many temple activities require instruction or mediation to do it "correctly"  but there are always people winging it. In museum education, making is thinking. We make meaning by interacting. At the temple, you could say that making is setting the intention spiritually. 

Museu Nacional dos Coches (Lisboa)

Lisboa, Portugal. This is a brutal beast of a building, a massive raised cement garage that houses ornate and golden coaches, like Cinderella's but for real. From the outside, you'd never guess what it contains.

Could be the largest restroom icon in the world?

The huge elevators are closed, and after walking up some drab side stairs the visitors enter immediately into a great hall of coaches. Unceremoniously.

Some are more restored than others. The views between carriages and wheels adds a little interest along the wide corridor.

The coaches are bordered by a floor railing with text. Angled side displays.

For many, this is a dream come true. 

Massive side walls allowed for huge projections with sound, which is much needed in the stark space. But the long silent, blank gaps between the video segments were disturbing, as if the whole experience was stopping and starting again.

The effect was like standing on a quiet road, watching a dramatic coach with horses ride by, and then disappear again. But I don't think this was the intention.

People actually rode around in these objects, pulled by animals!

When you leave the building, your own coach awaits.

Or you can cross the street to the original coach museum, which looks like this. An ornate building with the more neglected coaches, and bad lighting.

A temporary exhibition honors the history of fighting fire by horse drawn coaches.

Every large banner image, has a small scale whole image set into it.

MNAA (Lisboa)

Lisboa, Portugal. At the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga store, I was tempted to buy one of these "sweet" little figurines. They're from one of Jheronymus (their spelling) Bosch's triptychs, "Temptations of Santo Antao."

I love the use of typography in 15th century paintings. Could this be the earliest form of comic strip art? The message comes from the hands as a ribbon, rather than from the mouth as a bubble. Here the message is partially hidden as is curls out like smoke. 

It's a wonderful expression of how words, not only written but spoken become a thing...

something we carry with us.

Chair covers! This is truly the "fancy" living room nobody is allowed to use, especially visitors.

Historical placemat at the museum cafe.

Street Art (Porto)

Porto, Portugal. The streets were papered with series of artists' work. Such as Helena Rocio's collage.

Porto is full of portraits, like these bearded ones by Arte Sem Dono.

And Berri Blue:

Figures by Excercito Ana

or disembodied

In a bandshell

Another series, devils.

Seagulls rule Porto!

and my favorite (unique) Porto portrait.

Graphic Design (Porto)

Porto, Portugal

This Carnaval poster series left room for a different spray interpretation, in each one.

Numbers inside numbers.

Interesting logo for Division Zero.

Porto Transit (Porto)

Porto, Portugal. Porto has every imaginable type of transport from funicular to little ferry boats. Here is the logo for the metro system.

The metro uses ColorADD, a color system designed by Portuguese graphic designer Miguel Neiva for colorblind users. Symbols are used for each color, combined in pairs to represent secondary or mixed colors, based on subtractive primaries. This system is used in Portuguese hospitals, schools, traffic lights, packaging, etc.

The transit card matches this design

A modular fan fold poster system in the stations with a split image poster design.

The Centro da Mobilidade, in Sao Bento station, is a ticket agency for all forms of transportation, with a three petaled logo.

Photo cropping using the shape.

Semillas (Porto)

Porto, Portugal. What is charming? We can learn something from this venerable seed store, which is the real deal, not a modern store with an intentionally old fashioned design. The store is low key and unpretentious, in fact it wasn't even open when I found it.

There is something about same sized packages, with simple (beautiful) images that form a grid, that feels honest.

There's something about repeating the same items that feels humble. Less really is more.

There is something about the simplicity of just one kind of thing, a plain functional place without a lot of accessories, or signage, that feels calming. This was the only sign, taped in the window.