‘Matilda’ – this is the name that the architect and designer duo Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas (Studio Fuksas) have given the house they have developed for Wallpaper as part of the “Revolution” project. Like all the dwellings in the series, the Matilda Home is based on pre-fabricated elements and is thus quick and easy to erect.
As the designers state, “The idea to bring design also in common life attracted us. This is a new concept of habitat of house. It’s a mobile home it can be everywhere around the world; everybody can be a client. It’s a modular unit so many of them can be added together like a cloud. It can even be a city .This is not an object, it is a concept; it can be a city, a landscape or simply a home. Easy to build, it can be done in different materials more or less expensive. ‘Matilda’ is a completely different space since nowadays we don’t need so much storage space, you just need to have a screen. The only important thing is to have a nice place to eat, to seat and to sleep.” And naturally a piece of property on which to locate your own personal part of the cloud. Further houses in the limited edition can be seen here.
Jean Nouvel is one of the designers who develops modular mobile homes for Revolution Precrafted-Nouvel has unveiled his modular shelter, produced as part of a limited edition series for Revolution Precrafted. Named Simple, this house is designed and packaged off-site, delivered in a standard shipping container and easily assembled on-site for the fair.
The architects first presented his design in front of the Louvre in Paris on October 18 – 28. The, Nouvel’s collectible home was showcased during the Foire internationale d’art contemporain (FIAC) in Paris.
https://vimeo.com/187759976
video by Revolution Precrafted
The structure is comprised of lightweight aluminum exterior panels, a layer of thermally-efficient insulating foam and wooden interior lining. The design is customizable in size and layout, allowing for end-users to define the space to their liking with sliding interior windows and partitions. Collectors can also choose from a variety of interior finishes.
”Housing is the purpose of architecture. What we propose here is the most immediate way to inhabit a space, within a short timeframe, in places that are not designed for residential use today and that become so, spontaneously. All of the essential notions relating to housing must be condensed into a single object that can be built very quickly and inhabited by one, two, three or four people within the same volume,” said Jean Nouvel.
Revolution presents art and design enthusiasts with a new way of collecting and experiencing art. These designer pavilions, envisioned by leading architects, artists and design luminaries, are collectible structures that aim to democratize high-design by making them accessible to a broader audience.
An exclusive curation of pre-crafted pavilions is made available thru a sophisticated e-commerce platform, making it possible for anyone to own editioned pieces in a click of a button.
Revolution Precrafted Pavilions are collectible structures with a wide array of functions that will complement a home or an existing space. They are unique space additions that can be anything from a living room, pool, reading area, or a multitude of other functions that are meant to inspire, excite, motivate, and contribute to one’s health and wellbeing.
The project unites over 30 of the world’s preeminent architects, artists and designers to create an exclusive series of prefab, liveable spaces including Zaha Hadid&Patrik Schumacher, Kengo Kuma, Massimiliano&Doriana Fuksas, Ben Van Berkel, Sou Fujimoto, Fernando Romero and many more.
The Matilda Home, a special mobile living unit that can be placed in everywhere designed by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, founder and principals of Studio Fuksas, for Revolution Precrafted house series. Fuksas’ design can be conceived as a smallest living unit in the world, consisting of three-storey with a maximum comfort.
The Matilda Home is a polygonal structure that can also be reproducible by adding new modules, to be adaptable for every region. The design is comprised of two typical units -one of them consists of 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, closet and roof deck, occupying 201 square meters area in total. The materials used for the house are teak wood, marble and steel.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/169660874
”The idea to bring design also in common life attracted us,” says Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas. ”This is a new concept of habitat of house. It’s a mobile home it can be everywhere around the world; everybody can be a client. It’s a modular unit so many of them can be added together like a cloud. It can even be a city.”
”This is not an object, it is a concept, it can be a city, a landscape or simply an home. Easy to build, it can be done in different materials more or less expensive. Matilda is a completely different space since nowadays we don’t need so much storage space, you just need to have a screen. The only thing is important is to have a nice place to eat, to seat and to sleep but also this can be done with something you close when you don’t need.”
”We tried to develop a new formula of the house because also we don’t know who is dedicated and the people who will be living in the house. First of all, it is a house but also a piece of art, sculpture and it is easy to build and can be done with different materials,” says Doriana Fuksas.
The 1-Bedroom and 2-Bedroom units’ dimensions are comprised of 18.72 meters L x 10.80 meters W x 11.70 meters H, while their total areas changing with 155 square meters and 201 square meters.
Revolution is a collection of limited edition, pre-crafted properties, including homes and pavilions, introduced by design & real estate developer Robbie Antonio. The project unites over 30 of the world’s preeminent architects, artists and designers to create an exclusive series of prefabricated, livable spaces.
With a network of cutting-edge technologies and cost-efficient production systems, Revolution is democratizing high-design and architecture by introducing designed spaces in exclusive collaboration with industry leading creatives.
“Art is what helps draw us out of inertia.” On the street in front of the Grand Palais, where the dynamic 43rd edition of the FIAC or Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain, Paris’s international art fair, is being held from October 20 to 23, one can read the words of philosopher Henri Michaux. Spelled out in Michaux’s personal alphabet of symbolic letters, the phrase is the work of Jacques Villeglé, the 90-year-old French affichiste and multimedia artist best known for his lacerated posters.
The words are apt for this year’s fair, which, offering up a bold response to a lukewarm art market and a fragile European economy in a city wounded by the recent terrorist attacks, boldly spills out beyond its usual four walls, into the streets and beyond.
In the most important change this year, the fair’s director, Jennifer Flay, told ARTnews she was especially proud of “reclaiming this public space for art”—she obtained permission from Paris’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, to close the street in front of the Grand Palais, the majestic Avenue Winston Churchill, to traffic, transforming the street into both a pedestrian zone as well as a showcase for new pieces, including Villeglé’s philosophical phrase and commissioned works by Lawrence Weiner and Ernesto Neto.
The street also leads to a completely new sector, On Site, for sculpture and installations, both contemporary and modern, hosted opposite FIAC’s main venue in the smaller, graceful Petit Palais (which, like its neighbor, was erected for the Exposition Universelle in 1900). Flay considers the sector, agreed upon after four years of discussion with the museum, “the fair’s most significant initiative.” She added, “FIAC is, I believe, the only fair that provides our participants with real museum conditions. We have already used outdoor venues for large-scale sculptures, but this is the first time we have been able to do it indoors.”
Organized in collaboration with Christophe Leribault, director of the Petit Palais, and curator Lorenzo Benedetti, On Site presents nearly 40 sculptures and installations by 35 artists in a more classic “museum” context, creating surprising juxtapositions in the palace’s elegant galleries and gardens or on the esplanade in front of it. Funny, jarring, subtle, and outlandish, the show brings together such works as Atlantis, by Mandla Reuter, a large-format, inflatable balloon; Alain Bublex’s eclectic, boxy installation dealing with different architectural viewpoints; new, white plaster horse “skins” by Guillaume Leblon; and works by Jan Fabre and Barry Flanagan. Others works on display include Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise—“because we don’t just deal with the super-contemporary,” said Flay; Damien Hirst’s Anatomy of an Angel (inspired by Alfred Boucher’s 1920 sculpture L’Hirondelle, but revealing anatomically human cross-sections of the angel’s body), Abraham Cruzvillegas’s Empty Lot light sculptures; Lee Ufan’s minimalist Relatum; and Not Vital’s stainless-steel Head No.4.
As part of another initiative, “Parades for FIAC,” which introduces a program of performative, cross-disciplinary practices, the fair had already begun showcasing unusual works in new spots three days before its opening. The program, which began with Corbeaux, a performance at the Louvre by Moroccan dancer and choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen, also includes bird chants by Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet and a poetry reading by Alex Cecchetti on the theme of heaven and hell, as well as versions of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” performed by drummer Nicolas Fenouillat, dressed in a full suit of medieval armor. The performances are being held in the Grand Palais and in empty spaces of the Palais de la Découverte, an old Paris science museum behind the Grand Palais (which has opened up the doors connecting the two spaces); the Gare du Nord train station; and the courtyards of the Louvre.
This year’s FIAC is also continuing to sponsor numerous “Hors les Murs” exhibits around town, although for the moment, it has postponed its sister fair, Officielle, a satellite event that had been showing younger galleries along the River Seine, further from the Grand Palais, at Paris at the Docks / Cité de la Mode et du Design.
At the Tuileries Gardens, this year’s visitors can see Thomas Kilpper’s working lighthouse for Lampedusa, intended to welcome refugee; a hair flag by Claude Closky; Ron Arad’s entitled crazy shell structure, Armadillo Tea Pavilion, which looks like an enormous caterpillar; Mircea Cantor’s intersecting metal flags; and a pair of resin trees by French duo Christophe Berdaguer and Marie Péjus. The Place Vendôme (where Paul McCarthy’s scandalous butt-plug controversial tree was shown two years back) has now become a monumental forest by Ugo Rondinone—according to Flay, “the largest artwork he has ever made… five sculptures of olive trees, a monumental symbol of peace and nature, along with five anthropomorphic figures in stone”; and the Musée Eugène Delacroix has been invested by Stéphane Thidet with a living sound sculpture reminiscent of Thoreau’s Walden.
Ron Arad’s The Armadillo Tea Pavilion, installation view, at the Jardin des Tuileries, Paris. MARC DOMAGE/PRESENTED BY REVOLUTION PRECRAFTED
And inside the Grand Palais, the fair itself is also spilling over into the Salon Jean Perrin, a roughly 3,200-square-feet space with a cathedral-like ceiling 33 feet high, where nine galleries are presenting solo shows of late 20th-century artists whose work is “currently undergoing critical reassessment and therefore participating in the movement to reevaluate under-appreciated artists,” said Flay. Those galleries include Endre Tót, Darío Villalba, Irma Blank, Henri Chopin, Tetsumi Kudo, György Jovánovics, and writer William S. Burroughs (whose painting Out of the Closet, for instance, is on display).
In all, the fair’s lineup brings together 186 galleries from 27 countries—up from last year’s 173 galleries from 23 countries—including 43 new exhibitors, including first-timers from Hong Kong, Hungary, Japan, and Poland. Heavy hitters include Perrotin’s mostly black-and-white installation of work, curated by Elmgreen & Dragset; Sadie Coles HQ’s display of Urs Fischer’s vibrant snakelike sculpture and foam chairs; and Gagosian’s hyperrealist couple on a bench by Duane Hanson. Ten emerging galleries, in the fair’s Lafayette Sector, who receive financial support to appear, include Paris’s Galerie Allen and TORRI, London’s Arcade and Hollybush Gardens, Experimenter from Kolkata, Freedman Fitzpatrick of Los Angeles, Dubai’s Grey Noise, joségarcía, mx from Mexico City, and Berlin’s Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler (with monumental works by Guan Xiao) and Micky Schubert.
“There may be a slowdown in the art market, but we are not in crisis,” said Flay. Her statement is so far holding true for several galleries, including Sprüth Magers, who reported strong sales on opening day, including George Condo’s Untitled (Head #2) for $550,000 and a Karen Kilimnik painting for $110,000. Skarstedt Gallery also reported selling a George Condo, Untitled (Head #1), for $500,000, and Mike Kelley’s Three Part Yam Stack, from 1990, made of found stuffed animals, for $275,000.
Several other galleries also reported sales of work, including a Jean Dubuffet by Waddington Custot from London; pieces from Tornobuoni, Lehmann Maupin, and White Cube; Lisson, including works by Cory Archangel and Lee Ufan. And around the city, from the streets in front of the fair and radiating outwards, the city is buzzing everywhere with activity, from the YIA (Young International Artists) fair at the Carreau du Temple to Asia Now, the Outside Art Fair (now in its fourth edition), the Paris Internationale fair, Private Choice, and Rooms Part, along with “La colonie,” the new space by Kader Attia, winner of this year’s Marcel Duchamp prize, a sort of bar/restaurant/think tank in northeastern Paris, at a pleasant remove from the freneticism of FIAC.
The modular, prefab ‘Simple’ house took only two days to build, and is now installed in Paris’ Tuileries Garden, part of the FIAC art fair. Nouvel affectionately referred to Simple as “a mobile home that stays still,” describing the moveable windows and partitions within the structure.
Produced with Revolution Precrafted, a prefab company producing “limited-edition” properties, the structure is made of lightweight aluminum exterior panels, with wood and foam interior lining. “All of the essential notions relating to housing must be condensed into a single object that can be built very quickly and inhabited by one, two, three or four people within the same volume,” said Jean Nouvel of the home.
Ranging in designs from 40-160-square-meters, versions of the Simple house are available to purchase from Revolution, but for now the home will exist simply as a pavilion on the Tuileries grounds until October 28.
Paris’ International Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC) usually revolves around the gigantic Grand Palais museum with satellite events across the city. This year, however, things are a little different. FIAC’s 43rd edition (running until 23 October) is the largest to date, with a line-up of 186 galleries from 27 countries, as well as an ever-diverse offering including a contemporary dance section and new On Site venues like the Petit Palais and Palais de la Découverte museums.
‘Offering the Petit Palais, such a prestigious venue, built at the same time as the Grand Palais for the 1900 World Expo, was a desire many exhibitors expressed,’ explains fair director Jennifer Flay. ‘And to see contemporary sculptures like Damien Hirst’s white marble Anatomy of an Angel exhibited among the paintings of Gustave Courbet for instance, helps to see things in a new and different way.’
Installation view of Elmgreen & Dragset’s one-day takeover of Galerie Perrotin’s booth at the Grand Palais, one month before FIAC officially opened. Pictured, from left, works by Jean-Michel Othoniel, Takashi Murakami and Elmgreen & Dragset. (Image credit: Claire Dorn)
Flay is also eager to see the Avenue Winston Churchill that runs between the two museums – where several artworks will be shown – restored to a pedestrian esplanade as it was in the 1900s. In addition, the event will also see the reopening (after a decade) of the forgotten corridor between the Grand Palais and the Palais de la Découverte science museum, emphasising the building of links between space and time, as opposed to putting up walls.
In fact, many of the installations outside the Grand Palais will explore the unofficial theme of utopia. ‘Although it’s not a deliberate response to what’s going on at the moment, there is a link,’ says Flay.
Another must-see on Flay’s list is Ugo Rondinone’s installation of ten 5m-high sculptures of gnarly olive trees and anthropomorphic stone figures on Place Vendôme. ‘It’s not an easy space to occupy, and this is by far the largest footprint we’ve had on the square,’ says Flay.
‘6×6 flexible, deliverable house’, by Jean Nouvel, 2016 (Image credit: Jean Nouvel)
In the Tuileries Gardens, Pezo Von Ellrichshausen further explores the unofficial theme with a mock-up of the lighthouse he plans on building in Lampedusa to help guide immigrant boats, built from bits of washed up wood from shipwrecks. Nearby, architects Jean Prouvé and Jean Nouvel contribute with their all-terrain emergency housing, a response to homelessness caused by natural and political disasters. For Flay, this FIAC is more meaningful than ever. ‘We are so thrilled to present these pieces in this context because it makes us think about the terrible situation immigrants are in. But also about possible solutions.’
Adding to their collection of pre-fabricated houses by top designers and architects, Robbie Antonio’s “Revolution Pre-Crafted” has released 3 new designs by Paulo Mendes Da Rocha + Metro, Massimiliano & Doriana Fuksas, and Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie Architects.
The idea to bring design also in common life attracted us. This is a new concept of habitat of house. It’s a mobile home it can be everywhere around the world; everybody can be a client. It’s a modular unit so many of them can be added together like a cloud. It can even be a city.
This is not an object, it is a concept, it can be a city, a landscape or simply a home. Easy to build, it can be done in different materials more or less expensive. Matilda is a completely different space since nowadays we don’t need so much storage space, you just need to have a screen. The only thing is important is to have a nice place to eat, to seat and to sleep but also this can be done with something you close when you don’t need.
The original Glass House, designed seventy years ago by Philip Johnson as his home in Connecticut, has become a classic representation of modern architecture. The Glass House was not only Philip Johnson’s private residence; it was also his viewing platform for the world. The primary function of a house is to provide for the basic need of shelter. The beauty of a glass house is that it becomes a framework for the viewing of one’s surroundings.
The modular glass house was inspired by the original but has been re‐imagined as a series of modular components that can be pre‐fabricated and shipped to any site. The design follows the principals of the original by introducing a typical window bay and structure that become the outer skin of the building. Alan Ritchie sees residing in a glass house as an enhancement of the living experience by being immersed in your natural surroundings.
MODULAR LIVING UNIT by PMR + METRO for Revolution Precrafted is a proposal for a prefabricated dwelling system. The project provides a multi-functional solution through the principles of reduced design grammar and refined construction technique. This flexible system can be employed in a variety of contexts and environments: urban and rural, tropical and temperate, individual and collective.
The basic living unit is 65m2 and is composed of a living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and two verandas. This module can be distributed over a given lot in a variety of situations, creating diverse spatial combinations through multiple units. It may also be extended to two stories.
A simple structural frame permits a great range of arrangements. Its composing elements are dimensioned to allow ease of transportation and to minimize the need for the use of supporting equipment during installation.
An innovative facade system is constructed of durable, fibre-reinforced Ductal® concrete panels with different levels of insulation for different climates. The tone of the concrete may also vary: white, gray and black. The interior is made of a combination of concrete, glass and wooden panels.
For more information on the designs and to see the full collection, visit Revolution Precrafted’s website, here.
Houses built by famous architects are beautiful, but they cost a fortune — Revolution Precrafted is aiming to give homebuyers the opportunity to live in famously designed houses without having to spend like they are. The Manila-based real estate firm sells prefab houses designed by some of the world’s most well-known architects.
According to the Revolution Precrafted website, the prefab houses offered average in the range of $300,000, not including the cost of land and site preparation. However, even with those costs added, that price tag is significantly lower than having a famous architect build a residence from scratch.
Some of the big names on Revolution Precrafted’s roster include Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Daniel Libeskind, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Tom Dixon and Lenny Kravitz. The homes are available for inquiry from both developers and homebuyers themselves.
The new design firm Revolution is selling pre-fabricated, modular homes designed and inspired by some of the world’s best architects — including Johnson and his Glass House.
