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For this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach, artist Carsten Höller collaborated with Fondazione Prada to create a 3-night-only pop-up club called, The Prada Double Club Miami.
By time you read this post, the pop-up is likely to be over. But it is an interesting space nonetheless.
The installation made use of an old 1920s film studio and was comprised of two distinct spaces – hence the double club reference.
The interior bar and dance floor were entirely monochromatic.
Höller wanted all color to instead come from participants within the space.
The exterior bar, on the other hand, was “hyper-polychromatic.”
Perhaps some of you might find inspiration here for your next condo sales office. That would be fun.
Photography: Casey Kelbaugh, courtesy of Fondazione Prada and via The Spaces
I am back in Toronto and ready to resume my normal routines. I am definitely a creature of habit.
But boy is Miami an incredible city.
The interesting thing that I noticed about Miami though is that – despite its reputation as a global capital of glam – it still shares the same kinds of insecurities that many other cities experience.
I was reading the December 2015 / January 2016 issue of Surface this past weekend and there was an interview with billionaire real estate developer Jorge Pérez. He’s the CEO of The Related Companies and worth somewhere over $3 billion. In the interview he said that his biggest focus these days is on “Miami becoming a world-class city.”
I love that. Cities need strong proponents. And he is doing a lot. To give one example, he donated $40 million (half in cash and half in art) to create the new Pérez Art Museum Miami.
But for the Torontonians reading this post, how many times have you also heard the words world-class? At this point it makes me cringe when I hear someone say it. Usually it accompanies a sentence such as: “If we do (insert thing here), we will then be world-class.”
I also attended a talk at Design Miami, where some of the panelists were going on about how Miami’s restaurant scene was pretty pitiful about 10 years ago, but how that’s not the case today. Now, it is finally becoming remarkable.
That struck home for me because I’ve said similar things about Toronto: “10 years ago Toronto was like that, but now we are like this.” Makes me think that I’ll be saying the same thing about Toronto 10 years from today.
So it seems like many, or perhaps most, cities have an insecure side to them. And that can be a powerful motivator for driving growth and change. Cities, like people, need that fire in the belly.
But at the same time, there’s something nice about being grateful for what you have. And Miami certainly has a lot going for it. See you soon, Miami.
It’s raining here in Miami Beach this morning. But the city is still buzzing with Art Basel and everything else that is going on right now.
It’s been interesting to learn about some of the measures that Miami Beach is taking to deal with flood risk. The city is highly vulnerable to rising sea levels.
A post on that topic is in the works, but I don’t have time for it this morning. So instead, I’d like to share some of my photos. Many of them are already on my Instagram.
For this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach, artist Carsten Höller collaborated with Fondazione Prada to create a 3-night-only pop-up club called, The Prada Double Club Miami.
By time you read this post, the pop-up is likely to be over. But it is an interesting space nonetheless.
The installation made use of an old 1920s film studio and was comprised of two distinct spaces – hence the double club reference.
The interior bar and dance floor were entirely monochromatic.
Höller wanted all color to instead come from participants within the space.
The exterior bar, on the other hand, was “hyper-polychromatic.”
Perhaps some of you might find inspiration here for your next condo sales office. That would be fun.
Photography: Casey Kelbaugh, courtesy of Fondazione Prada and via The Spaces
I am back in Toronto and ready to resume my normal routines. I am definitely a creature of habit.
But boy is Miami an incredible city.
The interesting thing that I noticed about Miami though is that – despite its reputation as a global capital of glam – it still shares the same kinds of insecurities that many other cities experience.
I was reading the December 2015 / January 2016 issue of Surface this past weekend and there was an interview with billionaire real estate developer Jorge Pérez. He’s the CEO of The Related Companies and worth somewhere over $3 billion. In the interview he said that his biggest focus these days is on “Miami becoming a world-class city.”
I love that. Cities need strong proponents. And he is doing a lot. To give one example, he donated $40 million (half in cash and half in art) to create the new Pérez Art Museum Miami.
But for the Torontonians reading this post, how many times have you also heard the words world-class? At this point it makes me cringe when I hear someone say it. Usually it accompanies a sentence such as: “If we do (insert thing here), we will then be world-class.”
I also attended a talk at Design Miami, where some of the panelists were going on about how Miami’s restaurant scene was pretty pitiful about 10 years ago, but how that’s not the case today. Now, it is finally becoming remarkable.
That struck home for me because I’ve said similar things about Toronto: “10 years ago Toronto was like that, but now we are like this.” Makes me think that I’ll be saying the same thing about Toronto 10 years from today.
So it seems like many, or perhaps most, cities have an insecure side to them. And that can be a powerful motivator for driving growth and change. Cities, like people, need that fire in the belly.
But at the same time, there’s something nice about being grateful for what you have. And Miami certainly has a lot going for it. See you soon, Miami.
It’s raining here in Miami Beach this morning. But the city is still buzzing with Art Basel and everything else that is going on right now.
It’s been interesting to learn about some of the measures that Miami Beach is taking to deal with flood risk. The city is highly vulnerable to rising sea levels.
A post on that topic is in the works, but I don’t have time for it this morning. So instead, I’d like to share some of my photos. Many of them are already on my Instagram.
I particularly liked the work of South Korean artist Chul Hyun Ahn. He works primarily with light and the perception of depth.
I particularly liked the work of South Korean artist Chul Hyun Ahn. He works primarily with light and the perception of depth.
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