yohji yamamoto gansevoort : junya ishigami

We bid farewell to the Yohji Yamamoto Gansevoortstore as the company, plagued with financial troubles, begin to wind down its North American operations, ceasing all distribution on the continent.

The short lived Gansevoort store which opened with great fanfare in 2008 is designed by Junya Ishigami, a protege of Kazuyo Sejima. It is a remodeled wedge shape single storey building at the corner of a street junction. The exisitng brickwork was exposed giving the facade of the building a raw tactile quality. The brickwork is also rendered with a certain lightness, looking as if it is a thin skin folded with precision, forming razor sharp corners and soft subtle curves. The brickwork, punctuated with generous openings of clear frameless glass, provides a clear vista into and through the interior space.

The building volume is spliced into two portions with an oblique cut in the centre. The triangular volume housed the retail space while the other volume contained the stockroom and private areas. The urbanistic quality of this move is undeniable, it also gives the store it's quirk. which is the need for sales staff to go out of the building and go into the other wing to have access to stock and sizes not displayed on the sales floor.

According to ny.racked.com, the store closed last Tuesday with a flash 90% sale before the shutters went down for good. And apparently, Yohji's fanancial troubles are in great part caused by the recent spurt of lavish store openings, which besides the Gansevoort store, includes the Rue Cambon store in Paris and Antwerp store in the MOMU building. And as the mens fashion weeks begin for the fall winter 2010 season with Yohji Yamamoto Pour Homme missing on the schedule for the second season, we hear murmurs that the company is planning to close down the Antwerp and Rue Cambon stores. The company is now going through a great structural change, that will have a lasting impact on its future as a viable label. We can only hope that Yohji's creative integrity will not be further compromised.

paisajes emergentes : scenography

Stumbled upon these wonderfully seductive sectional perspectives rendered in grayscale presented as part of the proposal for the Museum of Polish History in Warsaw by the studio Paisajes Emergentes. Like little pieces of scenography, each is a vignette of a different period of polish history, framed within the gallery box. The actors on stage are miniscule beside the overscaled set, made to illustrate events bigger than life. The visitors are the unsolicited actors, walking unwittingly into history by chance, or by fate, becoming part of the cast performing to an audience unseen beyond the virtual proscenium.



pictures from here.

Paisajes Emergentes is a studio collective based in Medellin and Bogota, Colombia.

papa palheta

On an island overrun by starbucks and numerous other coffee chains, bombarding us with a staggering array of fancy (and often highly adulterated) coffees, it is sometimes hard to find a place who just wants to serve you a nice cup of cappuccino.

Recently, I've been recommended by a friend to check out Papa Palheta, a coffee tasting bar with a nice environement,located at the lower stretch of Bukit Timah Road, one of those sleepy areas of prime real estate at the edge of the city centre where you have no business there unless you work or live in the area. Having walked around the area quite a few times for a work project in the area, i was surprised, and somewhat embarassed, to have missed a nice coffee joint just a few numbers down from where my project is.

Occupying the back portion of a not-so-old shophouse, Papa Palheta is hidden from the main road, accessible only through the service lane turning in from Hooper Road off Bukit Timah Road. Entrance is only through the back door of the shophouse, unless you work in the interior design office occupying the space in the front of the building, which not so coincidentally is run by the same owner. And through the door, one enters into the backyard of the shophouse. The concrete paved floor and the bare white plaster walls are softened with some plants. Part of the yard is sheltered by clear polycarbinate sheets, almost greenhouse-like. Mismatched chairs, benches and tables are scattered around the yard, forming an informal sitting area. And at the end of the yard, one can see, through the window, the indoor sitting area which is furnished with an eclectic mix of furniture (Chinese style 3 seaters and wicker chairs and glass cabinets stuffed full with bolts of fabric). The overall ambience of the place is akin to the backyard or living room of somebody's home, a stranger's home, but a friendly stranger's home.

Papa Palheta specializes in estate, micro lot and single origin coffee beans which are roasted in-house and packaged for retail. The space is techinically not a cafe but more of a retail space (as we were reminded numerous times by the wait staff) but patrons are able to sample the coffee within the premises, as many cups as they like, after which the patron may pay as muc or as little as they want by dropping money into an unguarded jar within the living room. Or one may choose to buy some of the coffee beans are available for sale on the spot.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, whichever way you see it, the Singaporean buffet mentality didn't quite come over me during my visit and I left having enjoyed only one glass of cafe latte and good conversation with some friends. I'm not sure how well kept a secret Papa Palheta is, but I now know a place for a good cuppa the next time I'm in the area for work, crossing my fingers that a nice bakery will open next door soon.

papa palheta

140 bukit timah road

eprfect verything

Came across this carpet sweater from Bless Nr. 34 while surfing yahoo.jp . It is one of the many wacky things that I have always been fiending for, ever since I saw the presentation. The garment is an irreverent and random intersection of two completely unrelated classic objects, one part goofy knit sweater (made by John Smedley no less), the other part a small persian carpet fused to the back of the sweater forming a thick cape, as if the creator had read superman comics and aladdin simultaneously, an eprfect combination.

pictures by samuel de geode

Bless n°34 Eprfect Verything