db hides its details within
 
From the outside, Db’s Ramverk Alu is an aluminum suitcase that appears restrained and minimalistic. Broad panels of silver metal run almost uninterrupted across the shell with clean lines and smooth surfaces. Much of its complexity is revealed once the case is opened. Inside, beneath its mesh lining, a network of screws run along the inner frame, custom housings occupy the corners, and the hardware that would usually puncture the exterior has been pulled inward. Across the suitcase, Db developed 369 custom components to make the construction work this way.
 
‘If you go off the shelf, you have something that is great for someone else’s purpose,‘ co-founder Truls Brataas...

Located in an urban area in western Denpasar, Bali, B Nesta is a residential complex comprising 20 apartment units and five private-pool townhouses. The program is complemented by shared facilities, including a communal kitchen, meeting room, a multifunctional rooftop, and a 25-meter public swimming pool. More than simply providing a place to live, B Nesta is conceived as a residential environment that encourages relaxation, interaction, and a sense of community.

The project is located in Shangxia Village, Jiashan, Zhejiang Province, with a total site area of approximately 15,600 square metres. It stretches 367 metres from east to west, with a maximum width of approximately 54 metres from north to south and a minimum of 21 metres. The site originally housed a village. When we first visited the site, the village had already been largely demolished, leaving only two houses. The long and narrow site is generally flat, with little undulation. One side borders an irrigation canal, and the whole site is enveloped by agricultural land.

‘Handmade Future’ spotlights the economic and market challenges experienced by craftspeople in six countries

Agency for Better Living at the Venice Biennial of Architecture
 
At the Agency for Better Living, the installation in Austria’s pavilion at the 2025 Biennial of Architecture, one sentiment came up repeatedly among its visitors, who had come from across the globe: we can’t afford the cities we live in. Having seen this sentiment grow in urgency in recent decades, architects and curators Lorenzo Romito, Sabine Pollak, and Michael Obrist came together to compare and contrast Rome and Vienna: two European cities that have managed to provide affordable housing solutions through very different means. In doing so, they transformed the space into an ‘agency,’ where folks could come together to learn,...

The Audiovisual Experimentation Center (CEA) is located in the city of Avellaneda, within an urban fragment shaped by redevelopment and infrastructure. Rather than a passive restoration, the project repurposes the facilities of a former oil mill as a critical reactivation, transforming it into the municipal archives for the preservation, restoration, and dissemination of audiovisual heritage.

From the late 18th century through the end of the Civil War, the Underground Railroad was a network of safe houses where freedom-seekers from the South could find safety and shelter as they traveled north, sometimes all the way to Canada to escape capture and prosecution. It’s possible that there may have even been a secret code in the shapes of quilt blocks, which when arranged or displayed in a certain way could have helped direct people to stops along the route. This has never been confirmed with solid evidence, but even if it’s a thing of legend, the folk narrative is a powerful instrument for meaning in the oft-erased history of African American experience. From 18th-century hand-appliqué cotton...

Taking advantage of the slope toward the forest at the back of the property, the ground was redesigned into split levels made of solid brick to accommodate the social areas. Above this, supported by a slender engineered wood structure that gives rhythm to the overall design, the horizontal plane of the roof rests lightly and continuously at street level.

A 1960S WORKERS’ DORMITORY GETS A SECOND LIFE
 
Slovak studio Atrium Architekti has completed the transformation of KOSMALT, a thirteen-storey workers’ dormitory built in the 1960s for employees of the VSŽ steelworks in Košice, Slovakia. Originally designed by architects Ladislav Greč and Róbert Kandrík, the building takes its name from a type of enameled steel once produced by the local steelworks. Set within the Terasa housing estate, its distinctive silhouette and repetitive concrete façade have long made it a recognizable presence in the surrounding urban structure.
 
Rather than disguising this history, the renovation takes the building’s existing architectural qualities as its starting...

a future built from what is already nearby
 
For Pollença’s 2025 Futur Habitable program, Aulets Arquitectes gives the idea of the future an unexpectedly heavy body. Huge blocks of natural stone are stacked into thick supports, their rough orange and cream faces left exposed beneath a broad timber canopy made from recycled pallets. The pavilion is elemental enough to read in seconds, yet the contrast stays strange with a quarry-scaled mass below and a familiar piece of logistics infrastructure lifted overhead.
 
Aulets designed the pavilion in Pollença, Mallorca, as part of Futur Habitable, the final installment in a three-year cycle around design and production developed for the town’s annual fair....

Mérida knows how to consume itself, especially if we look away for a moment.

Selma’s long-abandoned Edistone Hotel, witness to 170 years of African American history, was recently saved by a non-profit devoted to protecting Black historical sites

We all have one, or at least some version of it: the junk drawer. Mine is a jumble of charging cables, old nails, a lanyard, matchbooks, a few key rings, scissors, an expired bottle of vitamins, every Allen wrench from every IKEA shelf I ever assembled, a few rubber bands, and frankly, who knows what else at this point. For artist Grace Baldwin, the junk drawer is a repository of memories and nostalgia, where common items end up in a place that’s simultaneously accessible and out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Lately, she’s been constructing a lifelike one at a monumental scale, drawer and all. “I typically create giant nostalgic but functional pieces, mostly through woodworking,” Baldwin tells Colossal....

The Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Bronx Museum will acquire works next month from the fair’s Focus and Presents sections, respectively

Though, really, the young artists of the Merola Opera Program were more than alright in their annual showcase.

For those with Odyssey fever, this week's Grand Tier Grab Bag item features a performance of another ancient epic: Les Troyens with Russell Thomas.

The fellowship, supported by the founders of the Klesch Collection, is looking for an early-career researcher ‘redefining how art history is studied in the age of artificial intelligence and digital technologies’

Plans for the institution’s five inaugural shows have been revealed

the digital nomad destination is becoming a spatial model
 
Across Lisbon, Mexico City, Athens, and Bali, the rise of location-independent work is changing what buildings are for, how apartments are renovated, which businesses occupy ground floors, and where housing sits within the wider economy. The arrival of high-earning, globally mobile workers can bring new investment into cities, but it can also push property values away from local wages, accelerate short-term rental conversions, and reshape architecture around residents who may plan to only stay there for months.
 
The transformation is particularly visible in places where foreign purchasing power meets comparatively lower local incomes. A long-term...

Love it or hate it, you can’t deny it’s iconic!

Il corpo è stato uno dei grandi dispositivi attraverso cui la modernità ha costruito immagini, identità e gerarchie dello sguardo. Per secoli il corpo femminile è stato soprattutto una superficie sottoposta alla rappresentazione: osservata, idealizzata, frammentata secondo codici estetici definiti dall’esterno. Intimate Anatomies, la mostra presentata da Hauser & Wirth a St. Moritz, propone una prospettiva diversa: indagare l’instabilità della presenza fisica e la sua resistenza a ogni definizione definitiva.
Cathy Josefowitz, Maria Lassnig, Carol Rama, “Intimate Anatomies”, installation view at Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz © Estate of Cathy Josefowitz / © Maria Lassnig Foundation / © Archivio...

For many artists, designers, and writers, the daily project is a fruitful, if not invigorating, exercise. Whether it emerges in the form of a morning sketch or collection of objects gathered during walks, disciplined creativity has a certain allure, and many of us long for a regimen that pushes through blocks, demanding that we make even in the most uninspiring conditions. This is true for Damien Hoar de Galvan, who embarked on a daily sculpture project at the beginning of 2024 from his home studio in Milton, just outside of Boston. He decided that, for the next 12 months, he would fashion a small wood assemblage each day. “I thought it would be a good way to change up how I was making things, new...

From nearly 4,000 entries submitted by 1,338 photographers around the world, a striking selection has been shortlisted for the Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize 2026. The handpicked images represent some of the finest photographic portrait work being made today, from intimate settings in which figures meet the viewer’s eye to candid scenes on city streets and rural expanses alike. Open to professionals and amateurs alike, the competition will select one winner to receives a £15,000 award plus a commission to be added to the collection of London’s National Portrait Gallery. An exhibition of the best entries will also be shown at the museum from November 5 to January 17, and the winner will be announced...

In Brussels’ iconic Grand-Place, a summer tradition literally blossoms in monumental style. The city’s Flower Carpet event, which this year celebrated its 24th edition, celebrates art, community, and diplomacy in the heart of Belgium’s capital, which is also the hub of the European Union. From August 13 to 16, the event marked 160 years of friendship between the nation and Japan, inviting artist Hiro Sugiyama to design a city square-sized composition, which he conceived as a tribute to ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai. Titled “Neo Hokusai,” the monumental arrangement comprised more than 750,000 fresh dahlias, covering nearly 14,000 square feet. Framed with ornate patterns, the reimagining of the...

Lou Benesch  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Lou Benesch’s Website
Lou Benesch on Instagram

In Bayreuth, a confident Magnus Vigilius and luminous Jennifer Holloway attempt to elevate Wagner’s populist Rienzi.

I've only heard one performance that could be described as 'filth.'

Raccontare un artista significa, prima ancora che ricostruirne la biografia, confrontarsi con ciò che la eccede, ovvero con quella zona liminale in cui la materia si fa esperienza, memoria e pensiero. È in questo spazio, compreso tra la concretezza dell’opera e ciò che essa continua a generare nello sguardo, che si colloca la ricerca di Pietro Lista. A questa stessa dimensione appartiene Omaggio a Picasso, l’opera grafica realizzata da Lista per sostenere la produzione del docufilm dedicato alla sua ricerca. Trenta esemplari numerati e firmati che assumono un significato ulteriore rispetto alla semplice raccolta di fondi: l’opera entra nel processo di trasmissione della memoria, trasformando il...

Masanori Ushiki  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Masanori Ushiki’s Website
Masanori Ushiki on Instagram

Caleb Stein  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Caleb Stein’s Website
Caleb Stein on Instagram

Le sculture di Anna Maria Maiolino (Scalea, 1942) si accumulano. Si ammucchiano per ripetizione e sono costruite da gesti infiniti e dal tatto. Ma questi piccoli gesti quotidiani non sono solamente pratica artistica: visualizzano come la vulnerabilità e la sensibilità, il tatto e la cura, possono essere un atto di resistenza. La Galleria Ovale del Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) di Lisbona, Portogallo, racchiude queste sculture create con modalità ripetitiva. La mostra si intitola Poetic Earth. Alcune delle opere sono state realizzate decenni fa, altre sono state create in situ, proprio in questo spazio a forma di foglia.
View of the exhibition “Anna Maria Maiolino. Poetic Earth”,...

Ci sono artisti la cui carriera coincide con una lunga ricerca e altri che, raggiunta una determinata soglia, sembrano aver trovato una lingua tanto riconoscibile da poter attraversare qualsiasi soggetto senza modificarne realmente la struttura. È una condizione rara, che appartiene a quei pochi autori il cui immaginario ha ormai assunto la forma di un universo autonomo, capace di assorbire temi, epoche e narrazioni mantenendo pressoché intatta la propria grammatica. Osservando Le Alchimiste, il mastodontico progetto concepito da Anselm Kiefer per la Sala delle Cariatidi di Palazzo Reale, a Milano, a cura di Gabriella Belli, la sensazione è proprio questa: non quella di assistere a una svolta, quanto...

Leonie Bo  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Leonie Bos’s Website
Leonie Bos on Instagram

La pittura contemporanea ha spesso trasformato il ritorno in una narrazione di recupero: un’interruzione superata, una perdita convertita in nuova possibilità. When the Sun Shines Again, la prima grande personale newyorkese di Guimi You presso Lehmann Maupin, usa questa struttura per metterla in crisi. La mostra osserva ciò che accade quando il gesto artistico emerge da periodi di sospensione, quando il fare pittura si intreccia con la cura, l’attesa e forme di vita che tradizionalmente rimangono fuori dalla storia della produzione.
Guimi You, “When the Sun Shines Again”, installation view at Lehmann Maupin New York. Photography by Studio Kukla, courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul...