Wallpaper 5

MILAN

PREVIEW

2018
The liquidators

New York studio Snarkitecture gets amphitheatrical

and turns on the waterworks for Caesarstone

Subversion is to be expected from Snarkitecture.

The New York design studio has consistently based

its multi-disciplinary works – which range from

furniture and product designs to art installations,

experiential environments and architectural

interventions – around notions of the unexpected

and the uncanny. Surfaces and objects are often

ruptured and excavated to create a visual language

based on natural topography, while a palette of white

and grey coolly emphasises form, materiality and

manmade artiice. A Snarkitecture piece is an easy spot.

‘We often look to existing materials, objects

and architecture, inding ways to reimagine it or

create new and unexpected uses from it,’ says designer

Alex Mustonen, who co-founded Snarkitecture

in 2008 with artist Daniel Arsham (they met while

students at the Cooper Union in New York). Architect

Benjamin Porto joined as a third partner in 2014.

It’s a distinctive approach that has made the

Snarkitecture team a regular ixture at Salone del

Mobile in recent years, producing collaborations with

brands such as COS, Valextra, Gufram and Calico

Wallpaper. This year it will present an immersive

pop-up installation for quartz surface company

Caesarstone, whose annual commission has brought

serious cultural cachet and creative calibre to a rather

static product line most readily associated with kitchen

countertops. Previous collaborations – with the likes

of Nendo, Raw-Edges, Philippe Malouin, Tom Dixon

and Jaime Hayon – have resulted in a series of wildly »

ABOVE, BENJAMIN PORTO,

ALEX MUSTONEN AND DANIEL

ARSHAM OF SNARKITECTURE

IN THEIR STUDIO IN

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

PHOTOGRAPHY: TIM SCHUTSKY WRITER: AILEEN KWUN

Salone del Mobile

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