Author: Marianna Wahlsten

LaM – original beauty of museum restored

Marianna Wahlsten – photos: Danica O. Kus –

In the north of France, in the urban interconnection between Paris, London and Brusselles, the LaM art museum reopened in February after an 18-month restoration period. The metropolitan area of Lille is a fusion of architectural influences, in which the museum stands out as a masterpiece in modesty next to a large park in Villeneuve d’Ascq.

LaM art museum, Lille, Architect Roland Simounet, photo: Danica O. Kus — Main entrance with later extension visible behind the glass-walled hall, photo: Danica O. Kus

Designed in the late 1970s by French architect Roland Simounet, the LaM museum building has recovered its simple beauty with careful attention to Simounet’s original intentions. Built entirely of red brick with architraves above the large openings in exposed raw concrete, highlighting the vertical flow of the building with the topography. The plain material presence communicates a sense of modesty and restraint. At the same time, this material approach comes across as a paired down version of Flemish architectural styles, where brick has been used for centuries, combined with various forms of decorative elements.

LaM art museum, Lille, Architect Roland Simounet, sculpture ©Richard Deacon, photo: Danica O. Kus — Large sculpture *Between Fiction and Fact*, 1992, by Richard Deacon, facing the cafe area, photo: Danica O. Kus

While Simounet clearly sought to link the museum to local architectural traditions, he also sought a visual and formal connection to the surrounding landscape. The play with light inside the gallery spaces and the openings towards the surrounding park has been reinstalled. This has been enabled by new glass technology, which allows light to enter while protecting the artworks from harmful radiation. In total 98 glass panels were installed for better insulation, but visually identical to Simounet’s original concept. The ambiance inside is relaxed and welcoming, almost home-like due to the proportional system, which feels intimate compared to many grand museum spaces, where exhibitions of similar high standards are most often showcased. The spatial experience has been organised with the presentation of artworks combined with exterior views and accents of streaming daylight. Generous seating areas were designed by Clémence Seillès, in which her design studio experimented with a craft-like approach to recycled materials. Produced in varied volumes, these add a layer of casual comfort for the visitors.

During my press visit to the museum on a weekday morning, the space was busy with visitors. The delightful aspect of the museum is the contrast of the simplicity of the architecture with the prestigious art collection, which was initially a donation to the urban community of Lille from the renowned local art collector Jean Masurel, who came from a family of wealthy textile industrialists. This collection consisted of both local avant-garde artists works, as well as remarkable cubist paintings inherited from his uncle Roger Dutilleul, which are all part of the museum’s permanent collection, including an entire gallery dedicated to Amedeo Modigliani’s works. The famous art dealer Kahweiler had appreciated Dutilleul’s instinctive connaisseurship towards early twentieth-century avant-garde painting, which now forms the core of the collection, alongside later additions, such as a remarkable collection of art brut from the 1970s. Contemporary acquisitions include a large installation by Daniel Buren.

LaM art museum, Lille, Architect Roland Simounet, photo: Marianna Wahlsten — A large collection of cubist works belongs to the museum,
photo: Marianna Wahlsten

Simounet was selected to design the museum through an architectural contest in 1978, and the building opened in 1983. The formal concept recalls the structuralist architectural approach of the 1960s, in which the interconnections of the different parts of the building were explored and emphasised. It was a tendency that marked Dutch architecture in particular, and which sought organic formal solutions that were flexible and open. In the LaM formal concept, this approach comes across through a varied composition of spaces brought together within the ensemble of the gallery spaces, a café, a restaurant, and public spaces, including a library and an auditorium. While the building is designed to sit on the terrain, the interior spaces have been conceived with natural variation in level and height, providing pleasant routes inside the museum. Now daylight pours in from small window openings, since all the original features from Simounet’s design have been preserved during the restoration.

LaM art museum, Lille, Architects: Manuella Gatrand, Roland Simounet, photo: Danica O. Kus — Moucharabieh-style façade of the exhibition wing designed by Manuelle Gautrand, photo: Danica O. Kus

LaM art museum, Lille, ArchitectS: Manuella Gautrand, Roland Simounet, photo: Danica O. Kus — Abstract motifs on Manuelle Gautrand’s exhibition wing in light grey concrete photo: Danica O. Kus

A new wing was added to the museum in 2010 for housing the large collection of art brut, donated by the artistic association L’Aracine, which consists of over 3500 pieces. This part is designed by French architect Manuelle Gautrand. For the opening of the expanded exhibition spaces, the new name LaM (abbreviation of Lille Métropole Musée d’art moderne, d’art contemporaine et d’art brut) was adopted. Gautrand’s formal concept is in contrast with the logic of Simounet’s cubic language by introducing a free-flowing sculptural addition to the museum architecture. This part has also been undergoing renovation works to relink the two buildings. The facades of Gautrand’s extension, marked with abstract motifs, can be appreciated through a more organic intention towards the surrounding landscape.

To celebrate the reopening of Simounet’s building, a curatorial collaboration with the Centre Pompidou launched the renovated museum spaces, now redesigned to house the most prestigious artworks. Exploring the inspirations behind Vassily Kandinsky’s artistic production, the new exhibition face aux images is based on rare materials from Centre Pompidou’s extensive archive on Kandinsky’s heritage. As a curatorial collaboration between LaM and Centre Pompidou, the exhibition brings forth the Russian-born artist’s fascination with scientific discoveries in nature and astronomy, as well as psychic phenomena and spiritual experiences. It is the first time such rare materials from the Kandinsky library have been exhibited on this scale, opening a perspective into ideas and inspirations that underpin the artistic creative process.

A vast park area surrounds the museum, where the permanent collection is extended outdoors. Dotted around the lawns facing the museum building, there are large-scale sculptures by Alexander Calder, Picasso, and more recent ones by Dan Graham and Richard Deacon. During the summer special events with music and performance art are organised in the park. With the new restaurant on the first floor of the museum overlooking the park, LaM offers a dynamic cultural program. The restaurant is part of the new organisation, taken over by local chef Florent Ladeyn, offering a menu based on seasonal ingredients and a contemporary take on Flemish culinary traditions.

Just a 15-minute ride from the centre of Lille in the neighbouring new town of Villeneuve d’Ascq, the museum represents the rich cultural heritage and the fusion of influences in the north of France. Since the opening of the Eurotunnel in the late 1990s, Lille has recovered a dynamic identity through its geographic position at the junction connecting Europe through the TGV railway network. The historic architecture reflects its past as a booming town of textile and mining industries with famous art nouveau style buildings by architects such as Hector Guimard and the recently restored Villa Cavrois, an early modernist residential mansion, also in brick, designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens.

As a counterforce to the historical forms of brick architecture from previous eras, the Euralille zone erected around the TGV station in the late 1990s is based on an audacious masterplan by architect Rem Koolhaas. This vast project transformed the city’s urban heart, while linking the TGV station to the historic centre. With a shopping mall by Jean Nouvel, an office tower by Christian de Portzamparc and the Congrexpo conference and exhibition centre by Koolhaas and OMA, the project was also an interesting example in the handling of frugal materials, even though on a massive scale.

LaM museum, architect: Roland Simounet, photo: Danica O. Kus — Café with terrace facing the park, photo: Danica O. Kus

In the pursuit of economic use of materials, the modest beauty of Simounet’s architecture has been linked to vernacular Mediterranean traditions. And certainly, several housing projects in Algeria, where he was born and had an office, must have had an impact on his specific feel for materials and the careful consideration of resources, which is so important today. In 1977 Simounet was awarded the Grand Prix National de l’Architecture in France, and in 1985 he received the Équerre d’Argent prize for the transformation of the Musée Picasso in Paris. His best-known public buildings in France are the Musée de Préhistoire d’Île de France, and his masterwork the LaM museum building, which so brilliantly encapsulates the aesthetic ideal of finding luxury in simplicity.

LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d’art moderne d’art contemporain d’art brut

Kandinsky face aux images, 20 February – 14 June 2026

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Monumental scale: new museum in Cairo

Designed by Heneghan Peng Architects and opened in November, the Grand Egyptian Museum is the largest building on the planet dedicated to one specific field in cultural history.

– photos: Danica O Kus –

Grand Museum of Egypt, photo Danica O Kus — View through full height glass walls towards the pyramids 2 kilometers away, photo Danica O Kus

With a visual connection over the desert landscape towards the Giza pyramids, the museum is erected on the Nile plateau on the western edge of Cairo, the capital of Egypt. This specific location was the source of inspiration for the architects, who have used the triangular shape as a motif and a formal link to the ancient monuments, which thus are brought in as part of the spectacular historic narrative of the museum. Besides the visual organising principle, the triangle evokes a sense of uplift, seen as a symbol of spiritual transcendence.

The Dublin-based architects won the design competition in 2003 out of 1500 entries. It was a massive commission for the studio, founded by Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng just a couple years earlier. Involving complex engineering, the museum took two decades to be completed, with technical design by Arup and Büro Happold. It is now the grand global centre for Egyptology, housing a collection of rare large scale artefacts as well as conservation and research laboratories.

As a cultural space the museum was envisioned as a contemporary layer extending from the historically charged archeological landscape. The great central stairway of the building is an architectural promenade that takes visitors through six stories, rising gradually towards the top floor and the view towards the pyramids of the Giza plateau. Evoking an ascent in time and space, visitors encounter colossal ancient statues placed along the stairs, culminating on the panoramic view.

Based on a triangular master grid, derived from the alignment between the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the existing urban fabric, a geometric system organises all the museum’s circulation routes with the landscape, façades, and structural modules. The monumental scale is balanced by a refined optical control, precise proportions and with lots of day light pouring in. For the hot climatic conditions a state-of-art thermal system has been a big part of the technical design for safeguarding the preservation of the historic artefacts, while offering views towards the exterior. A play with light continues on the facade clad in semi-translucent alabaster-like panels that glow softly in the desert light.

“Despite its enormity, the design avoids ornament or historicist gestures. Its monumentality emerges from rigorous geometry,” architectural photographer Danica Kus says. “It’s an architectural response that understands the weight of history and adds to it with clarity, while expressing respect.”

For more photos from GEM:

Danica O Kus website

Grand Egyptian Museum

Heneghan Peng Architects

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Venice Biennale part 2, exhibition laboratories

Inside the 26 national pavilions of the Giardini, some of the most interesting exhibitions evolve as temporal research during the six months of the Architecture Biennale. The pavilions of Russia and Israel remain closed, as blank reminders of the real geopolitical crisis and destruction. The beautiful Venezuela pavilion also remains closed, due to the country’s difficult political situation.

Carlo Ratti’s overarching curatorial theme is an invitation for exploring the potential of human intelligence and action against the climate crisis. As he points out, architecture has always been the ultimate expression of human invention and engineering, the architecture of Venice being an enduring example of audacious urban design. Although projects expand over various thematics, there is an emphasis on ideas and approaches for a better use of materials and technological inventions for improved and alternative construction systems. These exhibition laboratories are great examples of imaginative approaches, in which the symbiosis of nature and technology forms new kinds of milieus, connections and environments.

Belgian Pavillion, Venice Biennale 2025 — ‘Building Biospheres’, Belgium Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2025 , photo @Marianna Wahlsten

At the Belgian Pavilion landscape architect Bas Smets, in collaboration with neuroscientist Stefano Mancuso, has created an indoor exhibition garden with over 200 subtropical plants. Although exotic plants have been in conservatories and winter gardens for centuries, this garden uses contemporary technology for monitoring the plants responses to their environment, for optimising the artificial conditions of this man-made microclimate. Bas Smets is known for prestigious landscaping projects, such as the urban transformation around the restored Notre Dame in Paris. At the Biennale he has introduced a laboratory for better understanding how plants will respond and behave in this monitored space, designed for amplifying the atmospheric effects they produce for improved climatic conditions. It is a calming oasis, offering also a glimpse into the history of indoor gardens and greenhouses. In practice Bas Smet’s project extends the modernist premiss of control and progress underpinned by human intelligence.

Nordic Countries Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2025 — Nordic Countries Pavilion, Giardini, photo @Marianna Wahlsten

The technological dimension of architecture is also a subject of critique at the Biennale. At the pavilion of Nordic Countries, the exhibition titled Industry Muscle, curated by Finnish architect Kaisa Karvinen looks at the oppressive and authoritative effects in architectural design through a series of performances and installations showcased inside the large open-plan pavilion, deconstructing the modernist myth of progress, which is at heart of the design of the pavilion itself, designed by Sverre Fehn. It is an argument against the categorical production of space in modernist architecture, which the exhibition explores as a gendered bodily experience. The rationalism of the modernist organisation of space is presented as harsh and constraining, calling perhaps for an idea of a more diverse, sensorial and fluid public space, although the proposed alternatives remain enigmatic…

‘Build of Site’ at Danish Pavilion, Giardini, photo @Marianna Wahlsten

One of the most real and direct material presentations of the Biennale must be the project at the Danish Pavilion, curated by Søren Pihlmann, an architect specialising in restoration. The building is undergoing full renovation on a massive scale, and the curatorial project explores the potential of recycling and reusing all the existing materials, which are carefully laid out for the exhibition inside the pavilion. For anyone interested in building materials it is a real delight, even just for witnessing the range of textures and substances extracted from the building site. But more importantly, Pihlmann’s project exemplifies an imaginative approach for the reuse of materials, which will hopefully become an ongoing inspiration for architectural practices everywhere. I saw Danish architect Bjarke Ingels exploring with enthusiasm the techniques Pihlmann has introduced to the project, so hoping future projects by BIG will also be focusing on new ways for recycling existing materials. Pihlmann says the exhibition has forced him to think differently, taking the restoration as a laboratory, open to constant public observation: “For creative people it’s always great when you have narrow boundaries to work with,” he says. As an ongoing testing ground, it opens a window to future approaches and simultaneously an archaeological viewpoint into the context of the Giardini, which is very inspiring.

Spain Pavillion, Giardini, photo @Marianna Wahlsten

At the Spanish Pavilion, a similar theme around the use of materials is presented in a more traditional exhibition format with a wider scope, curated by Spanish architects Roe Salgueiro Barrio and Manuel Bouzas, titled Internalities. While the Danish exhibition played with the rough reality of material presence, the Spanish curatorial team brings forth the potential of beauty of naturally produced local resources and recycled materials in compelling displays. The central hall presents sixteen current architectural projects from different regions of Spain, selected from an open call. Designed around a curatorial idea to emphasise the balancing act in the use and production of materials, the exhibition evokes the sensorial quality combined with the ecological ambition to stick with locally sourced materials. The qualities of various types of stones as well as earth used in the production of traditional construction materials is brought out and juxtaposed with new approaches, such as ‘urban mining’. Showcasing these characteristics and methods to be understood and appreciated instead of extracting new materials, the curators call for legal incentives to support and advocate more creative approaches and a renaissance in material culture.

'Picoplanktonics' at Canada Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2025, photo @Marianna Wahlsten — Canada Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2025, photo @Marianna Wahlsten

As a showcase for ecological material production, the project at the Canadian Pavilion feels much more abstract, like a futuristic science fiction laboratory. The exhibition titled Picoplanktonics looks at a biological process, which is shown to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, based on the special feature discovered in marine cyanobacteria Picoplankton. It is an organic substance, now growing on robotically manufactured structures during the exhibition. In this environmental experiment for improved atmospheric oxygen levels, living organisms are simultaneously strengthening the structures on which they grow. The atmosphere inside the pavilion does indeed feel unusual, as if dense with oxygen. This fascinating biological process, in which digital technologies are part of the organic fabrication, is the invention of a research team at ETH Zurich, led by designer and architect Andrea Shin Ling.

Another kind of immersive material experience can be found at the Serbian Pavilion, curated by architect Slobodan Jovic. Recalling late 1960s conceptual artworks, which sought to replace harsh industrial materials with more fluid and organic forms, this project titled Unraveling: New Spaces is designed as a kinetic artwork with digital programming. As the cloud-like hanging structure knitted of wool is being unravelled, it will continue altering and diminishing its form during the six-month period of the Biennale. Relying on an algorithmic design, this process will bring the yarn back to its original state. Happening in time and space, this project evokes Ratti’s theme in multiple ways, bringing together craft and technology, ultimately as a digital process that will undo the physical part of the exhibition, leaving the pavilion empty.

Marianna Wahlsten

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Venice Biennale part 1, full-on at Corderie dell’Arsenale

By Marianna Wahlsten

While the Biennale has received critical comments for being chaotic and providing too much content, it is simultaneously a great reflection on current global concerns and tendencies. Lead by Italian architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, the 2025 Biennale, titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, aims to break some boundaries, exploring the potential for technological solutions for saving the planet. Professor at the MIT in United States, as well as running his own global design firm, Ratti is passionate about the latest discoveries in tech for architecture. To the point, where some believe, his enthusiasm seems to overrule any aesthetic and social sensibilities. However, without preaching, Ratti’s curatorial work brings up some controversies.

Venice Biennale 2025, Arsenale, @Marianna Wahlsten — Entrance at the Corderie dell’Arsenale, start of the exhibition, @ Marianna Wahlsten

The main exhibition takes place at the gigantic Corderie dell’Arsenale shipyard. It is one of the greatest exhibition spaces in the world and the entry sets the underlying tone for this incredibly varied showcase for ideas and approaches in contemporary architectural culture. This year there are over 300 projects exhibited, chosen from an open call.

The first project launches the narrative, as you are immersed in the dystopian malfunction of the ‘machine-to-live-in’. This room represents a strange sense of realism – the uncanny – while deconstructing the technological premises of Modernism. Like a cinematic set, it shows the paradox of the modern air-con systems, which keep pushing out and generating more heat outside. The scene recalls the iconic artwork by British artist Richard Wilson, in which the viewer is perplexed by reflective surfaces and the smell of gasoline. While in here, it’s the heat, an instant reminder of the contemporary condition of crisis.

Walking through the 700 meters long shipyard, it is difficult to study each participating project. As an extreme alternative Ratti suggests the possibility of running through it in 15 minutes, to get a speedy overview in the style of the scene in the Godard movie shot at the Louvre. Or if you really want to get familiar with each exhibited project, it could take a whole week Ratti admits. The space is filled with installations showcasing experimental projects with materials and digital tools, for example the installation by Kengo Kuma Architects, made of tree trunks, collected on the landscape in Italy after a storm, held together with 3D printed supports. Apart from the AI-based design method on which the components were assembled, it doesn’t seem to have any direct significance for architectural design. It is rather like a poetic evocation of natural forces, technological culture, raw materiality, and hope for healing.

Kengo Kuma Architects, Venice Biennale 2025 — Close-up detail of installation by Kengo Kuma Architects @ Marianna Wahlsten

There are several exhibited projects that borrow the language of conceptual art, which is perhaps the way ideas are fused today and how influences circulate across art, architecture and design as part of a wider cross-cultural discourse. There are also lots of beeping robots and other sounds recalling the universal technological condition that underpins our daily moves and orchestrates what we can do. Although there were some complaints about the chaotic nature that these machines induced, robots are part of the digital workflow in construction industry, which couldn’t be overlooked at the Biennale. And the fact that short introductory texts for each exhibited project were created with AI was a great help and a showcase for the use of AI in organising information. It would be interesting to know if any of the curators had objected to this… In any case it was a way for providing a unified and neutral summary for each project, always helpful.

Towards the latter half of the Arsenale exhibition, after crossing through the mix of projects on all scales, ‘Material Palimpsest’ at the Moroccan Pavilion delights through its simplicity. The sensorial aspect of the material presence stands out against the overload of tech. Curated by Atelier BE, the exhibition is a showcase for Moroccan traditions of using earth as material for construction, combined for more precision with the use of digital software. Curators Khalil Morad El Ghilali & El-Mehdi Belyasmine explain that digital tools are used in their practice for mapping, modelling and simulating traditional techniques for adopting them for contemporary situations. Parametric modelling supports prototyping of more complex elements while using local materials. They strongly believe in the hybridisation of design processes, combining low tech approaches with the precision offered by new technologies, “It’s not an opposition, but a fertile dialogue”, they say.

Venice Architecture Biennale 2025, Moroccan Pavilion, Material Palimpsest — Detail from the exhibition ‘Materiae Palimpsest’, Moroccan Pavilion @ Marianna Wahlsten

Awarded the Golden Lion for the best pavilion, one of the last exhibited projects at the Arsenale is titled ‘Heatwave’ at the Bahrain Pavilion, which makes for the perfect ending in Ratti’s curatorial narrative. The space is furnished with giant sand-filled cushions for seating – much appreciated after coming through the exhaustive amount of mind-blowing information. Calming by its minimalist presentation, which initially doesn’t give much away. In total contrast to the estrangement of the effects of failed technology showcased at the very first space at the start of the Arsenale show, this gallery has been equipped by a system for air-conditioning, based on a natural mechanism drawing cooling air from the ground, designed for outside cooling to ease working conditions under extreme heat. The system seems mysterious, but the experience brings pleasure and hope as a positive outcome through its elegant simplicity.

Venice Architecture Biennale 2025, Arsenale — A new form for transport on the lagoon: pier and gateway designed by Norman Foster in collaboration with Porche @ Marianna Wahlsten

Outside after the far exit of the shipyard, ending on a high note celebrating technological design, the project created by Norman Foster with Porche brings a sense of shimmering fun after the intensely animated stroll through the Corderie dell’Arsenale galleries. On the quay side a gateway leads onto a jetty where rides can be taken over the water with bikes gliding smoothly over the lagoon, exemplifying the high-tech aesthetics of Fosters practice. The pier is covered with lightweight pieces of aluminium moving in the wind, providing shade, while sustaining cooling airflow through the gateway. Foster’s engineering supports this new transport mode, which, who knows, could provide a new perspective for exploring Venice in the future.

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Serpentine Pavilion by Minsuk Cho

In recent years the emphasis of the Serpentine Summer Pavilion design has been increasingly focused on ecological thinking, sustainable materials and flexible forms. The 2024 pavilion by South Korean architect Minsuk Cho, designed mostly in locally sourced timber, exemplifies this trend. The open-plan form allows for a creative approach in how space is used and divided. It’s a delightful formal exploration, which echoes in poetic ways the previous pavilions.

If you missed visiting the pavilion, here you can explore the space through this virtual tour, provided by archi.tours

360 tour made by Nikilesh Haval

Text by Marianna Wahlsten

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Bijoy Jain, the power of materials

‘The breath of an architect’, Fondation Cartier, Paris, 9.12.2023-21.4.2024.

As founder of Studio Mumbai, Indian architect Bijoy Jain works with his team at the intersection of art, craft, architecture and design. His artisan-like method is well-known to be a slow working process, challenging the demands of technological production, where robotics and AI have been adopted for increased efficiency. Bijoy Jain collaborates with local craftsmen, exploring the potential and true spirit embedded in different materials. The exhibition at Fondation Cartier in Paris aims to show the interconnections between art and philosophy underpinning the Studio Mubai practice.

Chris Dercon, the new director of Fondation Cartier, links Bijoy Jain’s production to a trajectory of Indian design and architecture that was inspired by Charles and Ray Eames’ The India Report. The Eameses were invited by the Indian government in 1958 to find out how to strengthen the country’s craft-based traditions and small-scale industries. The report led to the establishment of the National Institute of Design (NID), which Dercon sees as a turning point.

Studio Mumbai, Bijoy Jain, Fondation Cartier, photo ©Marianna Wahlsten — Seats carved from stone inside the large structure made of bamboo strips tied together with string at Fondation Cartier, photo ©Marianna Wahlsten

Bijoy Jain has received many awards, for example the Alvar Aalto Medal in 2020. His interest towards traditional craftsmanship is expressed through a simplicity and fragility in the handling of materials showcased in the exhibition space designed by Jean Nouvel. Completed in 1991 the Fondation Cartier is one of Paris’ best-known contemporary art exhibition spaces. It is filled with objects in total contrats to the High-Tech style of the building. Sculptures carved in stone are shaped into benches and chairs, while bamboo woven structures are knotted together with twine to form a whole. The lightweight seats, made of silk thread wound around the wood, contain a structural poetry, as does the large abstract geometric pattern inscribed with red pigment on limestone, representing the flow of water.

The idea of ‘breath’ in this exhibition’s theme could be understood as in Monism, as the metaphysical dimension that unites mind and matter as one essence. For Bijoy Jain this idea conveys a sense of hope, despite the current state of the world. Although Jain’s architectural studies and early career took place in the United States, his work is strongly informed by Asian spiritual experience and a mystical connection with nature, where water, air and light are seen as the elements of architecture.

As a building, Jean Nouvel’s gallery concept has links with Mies van der Rohe’s Neues Nationagalerie in Berlin. In both, the walls are all glass and offer no hanging space. On the other hand, the connection to the surrounding garden is an essential element and a fine example of the modernist ideal of the outdoor-indoor connection. Nouvel’s architecture is dominant and perhaps Bijoy Jain’s material sensibility cannot be fully appreciated against Nouvel’s heavy steel structures. This, of course, results from different choices in the presentation, curation and design of the exhibition. And while Studio Mumbai’s artworks are in a fascinating way, the antithesis of Nouvel’s architectural language, on some level the tension between the two does not result in a synthesis. As a spatial experience, the massive steel columns somehow obstruckt the link to Studio Mumbai’s subtle production, which remains a bit flat.

At the initiative of chief curator Hervé Chandès, the exhibition also includes works by artists Hu Liu and Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye, who share Bijoy Jain’s interest in the spiritual dimension of materials. However, as the display contains very little explanation of the origins or purposes of Jain’s production, these other works seem to diminish the strength of the exhibition. Perhaps Studio Mumbai’s works should have been given more room to ‘breathe’, in order to show their conceptual links?

Studio Mumbai’s architecture has also attracted some criticism, because their artisanal approach resulting in sought-after and expensive design objects could be seen as elitist in the context of India’s housing crisis. Indeed, a sense of ‘conscious luxury’ characterises Studio Mumbai’s work, but on the other hand, their design approach should be understood as an example that elevates the value of craftsmanship. Rather than direct action, Bijoy Jain’s work conveys spiritual convictions such as honesty in the use of materials, which is inspiring in itself, and an interest in the existential forms of one’s own country. This is well illustrated in the documentary ‘The Sense of Tuning’ filmed for the exhibition by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine.

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