The current vogue for “ruin porn” – the sensationalized and aestheticized images of dereliction and decay – was on our minds when Salome Oggenfuss and I visited the Uranian Phalanstery on a hot and humid day last September. Salome had heard from a colleague about two decrepit old interconnected brownstones on East 4th St, between Avenue C and Avenue D occupied by hoarders who gave their disposophobia artistic and spiritual pretensions. They were set to move at the end of the month and we decided to plan a visit before they vacated the premises. We knew a bit about the Uranian Phalanstery from an online search and would soon find out more from our guide, Medhi Matin, who was living in a room on the top floor. In 1959, artist couple Richard Oviet Tyler and Dorothea Baer founded the Phalanstery in New York City while living in a still-active synagogue serving Ukrainian immigrants. When the synagogue closed in 1974 the building became the headquarters of the Uranian Phalanstery. Designed as an “anarchist utopia commune for practitioners of art and cosmology,” the name comes from the philosophy of the visionary Charles Fourier, who in the beginning of the 19th century designed the Phalanstère: a sprawling structure that would hold his own imagined utopian community. Soon the couple would buy the building next door and create the First Gnostic Lyceum of New York.

Just around the corner from the Nuyorican Poets Café, the Phalanstery and Lyceum were very active until Richard succumbed to face-cancer in 1983. During this period they hosted a Tibetan Burial Society and spiritual tattoo studio (at a time when tattooing was illegal in New York), celebrations of various solstices and equinoxes with music and dance, and a printing press for artist publications and Gnostic pamphlets – all the while envisioning the space itself as a constantly evolving artwork. From the outside there was nothing extraordinary about the Phalanstery, which looked like a normal, if shabby, building in Alphabet City. After answering the door Matin, 32, introduced us to the place and their dedication to individual and communal expression and creativity. At the time of our visit, only he and Dorothea were living there. It was only three weeks before they had to move out, after selling the buildings for over $3 million to partially pay a tax lien and relocating uptown to Hamilton Heights.

After our quick chat Matin handed us a pair of flashlights and graciously offered to let us wander around for a bit. There were no overhead lights and the electricity came from extensions chords anchored in the building next door. The piles of folk art, musical instruments, stuffed animals, tchotchkes, etc., make it tempting to think of the Tylers as so-called outsider artists, but the fact that Richard and Dorothea had studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and that the former had sold works to the Museum of Modern Art, the Rockefeller collection and the Smithsonian bellies that somewhat condescending label.

We followed Matin down a dark creaking staircase into Richard’s basement studio. Entering the room, the first thing he pointed out was the bed in the corner where Tyler died. Matin said he’d show us Richard’s series of self-portraits detailing his facial deterioration but he never mentioned it again and it felt too macabre to remind him. The studio perfectly provided the context for Richard’s work, both temporally and thematically. My flashlight first fell upon newspaper clippings of mug shots from the Chinatown gang the Ghost Shadows, prominent in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The roof of the studio was completely covered with A4 posters, Tibetian prayer flags and prints reminiscent of William Blake. Chapbooks from the Uranian Press sat on a pushcart, seemingly ready to be hauled to the market. Bookshelves lined the walls crammed with artist books, books on cosmology and assorted esoterica. FBI most wanted posters for the likes of Mark Rudd of the Weather Underground and Puerto Rican separatist William Guillermo Morales, and other members of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberaction Nacional, sat besides a hand-written quote about beautiful destruction from Dostoevsky’s The Possessed. Medhi left us alone to explore and I nearly stepped in cat vomit as I looked up at a print of Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Son. On one table there is a series of photos of Richard in the Pacific Front in World War II. Despite the mélange of objects and images the aesthetic felt oddly coherent.

The rest of the house, starting in the Lyceum on the ground floor of the next building that held their collection of rare musical instruments from around the world and an assortment of folk art, did not feel as unified in its aesthetic as Richard’s studio. Nothing really felt out of place in the rest of the house: not the flat-screen in the temple room, not Matin’s laptop sitting on a desk in his living quarters, not an icon of Jesus with four arms holding a hammer and sickle, nor the working kitchen.

Matin lived in a room on the third floor of the Lyceum. On the second floor landing, the walls covered by a mural, we passed the door to Dorothea’s room. It was locked and off limits during our tour. We continued up the stairs to Matin’s room. At first, walking in felt like walking into a normal East Village apartment. There was a mattress on the floor, a shelf with clothes and books, and the afternoon sun and the cross breeze made the room feel light and airy. Adjacent to his room, however, was the space that felt the most remarkable in the entire house. There was nothing in the room but an old mattress, covered with dust and rubble, sitting on a rusty iron frame. The roof is half caved in, the light fixture hanging on by a bit of wiring. Two dead monarch butterflies sat on the windowsill, the remnants of a performance. I immediately thought of one of Dorothea’s works we saw in the basement studio: the skeletons of small animals – a bird and some kind of rodent – that had simply been left to decompose. Perhaps counter-intuitively, despite being devoid of the clutter of accumulated objects, the room somehow felt like the most personal and private space in the house. It was where, via the display of the decay of the architecture and the decay of bodies, the weight of the passage of time itself bore down upon us.

Decay is intertwined with the experience of time and the philosopher Dylan Trigg claims that the philosophical value of decay is its resistance to representation and stasis. Community groups failed in getting the city to grant landmark status to this pair of brownstones to prevent their redevelopment, claiming that the buildings were built around 1840 and have been virtually unchanged since – they hadn’t even been rewired since the beginning of the 20th century. While it’s difficult not to feel as though the neighborhood lost something when the Phalanstery moved uptown, there is a sense that it is perhaps not a bad thing that it moved before becoming monumentalized as a sort of time capsule from a time where artists could actually afford two buildings in the East Village to pursue their esoteric creative goals individually and communally, as a subsequent stop for tourists visiting the nearby Tenement Museum.

Conceiving of this piece as another obituary resulting from of the wave of gentrification that has now subsumed all of Alphabet City also seems both obvious and beside the point when considering the Phalanstery. It was a time capsule, but not one that has been hermetically sealed. Richard’s studio had not been preserved so much as it was left alone. Decay also powerfully evokes the death and nothingness that awaits us all. Unlike visions of death that focus on continuity and the life that emerges in and from death – pullulating, swarming, breeding – there was a musty stillness to the Uranian Phalanstery. I asked Matin how they plan to recreate this milieu in their new building uptown. “Recreate isn’t really the right word,” he answers. “More like reassemble.” What one imagines would be impossible to transpose is the palpable sense of rot that one felt walking into the Uranian Phalanstery.

We left Matin and went out into the ridiculously humid afternoon, our clothing smelling of a combination of mildew and cat piss. Unlike the ruins in places laid waste to by deindustrialization like Detroit, which bears witness to a society squandering its resources, there is nothing tragic about the fate of the Phalanstery. Not coupled to dereliction, the structure had been allowed to decay while it was inhabited and culturally active. The Phalanstery was never intended to remain cemented in the riverbed against the flow of history or to serve as a bulwark against complete and total gentrification. For better or for worse, Alphabet City has changed drastically since Richard and Dorothea founded the Phalanstery. The Phalanstery changed as well, although at a considerably slower pace. Walking through the different levels of the house, one was exposed to not only the history of the neighborhood, but a more geological, natural history – to living ruins.

All photos by Salome Oggenfuss

Stop by Grand Central Terminal this afternoon to catch the final day of the Lacoste La Machine L.12.12 installation. Constructed by world-renowned high-tech collective Tronic, the innovative hexagonal sculpture melds animation and architecture with experiential and interactive design, with the purpose of introducing Lacoste’s Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 fragrance collection. It also allows up the company’s global social media fans to enjoy a few seconds of fame via personalized video sequences, and every 20 seconds La Machine mechanically and virtually transforms a Lacoste L.12.12 shirt into an Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 bottle. In short, it’s a mesmerizing study of the ways in which art, fashion and commerce intersect in a simultaneously virtual and tangible world, while the historical setting underscores the dramatic nature of this continuous and rapid transition.

Photographer Joel Sternfeld gave a lecture on Wednesday night titled What the High Line Meant and Means to Me. Currently there is still a half-mile section of the structure that has not been turned into a public park, because ownership of the property is still in limbo. The organization Friends of the High Line have been running a series of programs to draw public awareness to their cause, ultimately attempting to gain control of the section so it is not lost to developers. To further support this cause, Sternfeld showed a slide presentation spanning from his childhood in Belle Harbor, Queens to his most recent work, detailing his poetic love affair with the urban environment and the motivation behind his work. Most significantly, his 2001 book Walking the High Line, shot over a year (2000-2001) on the then undeveloped, overgrown rail structure that snakes above the west side of Manhattan. The book also includes a brief history of the High Line itself written by Adam Gopnik, which details the sites progression from a freight train track to its abandonment and its current resurrection as a public park.

Known as an early adopter of color photography, in his lecture Sternfeld showed how critical seasonality and light is to his photos, none of which could be documented without color. Instead of the over saturated images the contemporary eye is used to seeing, he relies on his own studied knowledge of color theory to compose each image. His palette is rooted in the Bauhaus concept of balancing color density, which is one of the most identifying elements of his landscapes and portraits.

Standing next to a large screen at the 14th Street entrance to the park Sternfeld went through his High Line images, explaining the process of the project he so lovingly undertook. Relying on neutral skies to showcase the beauty of time passing through the seasons, capturing everything from a blooming patch of grape hyacinth amid tall grass to a tiny Christmas tree that sat in a patch of cleared snow. The composition of all the images in Walking the High Line centers on a ‘path’ he followed along the abandoned railway, evidence of a forgotten journey that had been overshadowed by grasses and trees, but could still be traced by less dense patches of flora, or even different types of grass running parallel to the barely visible rails. Sternfeld mused about his childhood in Queens at a time when undeveloped lots were common, where children had the freedom to explore spaces that were unaffected by development, and even pointed out a woman in the crowd that had been his prom date in high school, nodding in agreement. To Sternfeld, the High Line is an extraordinary example of how the urban environment co-exists with both nature and time, moving and shifting along together.

Up-coming programs include gardening workshops, stargazing with the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York and screenings of movies (Some Like it Hot and Strangers on a Train are on the calendar for next two Fridays- both train themed movies). Most of the programs are free and open to the public. A full schedule can be found here.

Have you ever wondered would what would happen to the urban environment if big box stores weren’t behemoth rectangular structures? How would their shapes alter the visual landscape? These are questions answered by The Peeling Project, produced by SITE design in the 1970s and 80s. Named for a building in which the facade appeared to be peeling away from the building, the project was comprised of nine commercial spaces built for BEST Products Company, a Richmond-based, hard-goods chain of stores. As the firm explains, “Each of these architectural concepts treated the standard “big box” prototype as the subject matter for an art statement. By means of inversion, fragmentation, displacement, distortions of scale, and invasions of nature – these merchandising structures have been used as a means of commentary on the shopping center strip. By engaging people’s reflex identification with commonplace buildings, the BEST showrooms also explore the social, psychological and aesthetic aspects of architecture. This approach is a way of asking questions and changing public response to the significance of commercial buildings in the suburban environment.” The only question left is where is this project today? For more images check out SITE’s website.

The Peeling Project. Richmond, Virginia. 1971

Inside/Outside Building. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 1984

Notch Showroom. Sacramento, California. 1977

Top Image: Indeterminate Facade Building. Houston, Texas, 1974.

Giardini della Biennale. All images by Silvia Bergomi.

This year the theme of La Biennale di Venezia is “Illuminazioni,” which lends an even-more-magical-than-usual atmosphere to a seminal exhibition and city already saturated with charm and decaying elegance. Surpass the masses and get to the heart of the matter: the creativity with these notes from a native Italian.

Key Vocabulary:
vaporetto = water bus
calle = street
campo = plaza
cicchetto = drink

Tips:
Avoid restaurants with photographic menus.
Sample baccalà alla veneziana.
Bring sunscreen and band-aids for blisters.
(Everybody is looking for them, so the pharmacy will likely be out.)

Top Pavillion Picks:
UK, Sweden, Japan, Korea and France
Feel free to skip the Italian Pavillion; there are many other, more inspiring things to see.
But don’t miss the Padiglione Centrale inside Giardini della Biennale or Corderie/Artiglierie.

Must-See Artists:
Maurizio Cattelan & Monica Bonvicini for (La Rappresentanza Italiana)
Martin Creed (of course)
Urs Fischer (of course, too)
Nathaniel Mellors (UK)
Hajnal Németh (Hungary)
Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla (USA)
Gerard Byrne (Ireland)
Lee Yong Baek (Korea)
Klara Lidén (Sweden)
Fia Backstrom (Sweden)
Markus Schinwald (Austria)
Rashid Johnson (USA)
Reynier Leyva (Cuba)

Facade of the German Pavillion

Click “Read More” for additional images.

View from a vaporetto

Casa Medici, Cannaregio

Installation by Francisco Bassim, Clemencia Labin, Yoshi at the Venezuelan Pavillon

American Airlines by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla at the American Pavillon

The Brazilian Pavillion

Crash by Hajnal Németh at the Hungarian Pavillion

The Love is Gone but the Scar will Heal by Lee Yongbeak at the Korean Pavillion

Portrait by Markus Schinwald at the Austrian Pavillion

Installation by Rashid Johnson at the Artiglierie

Light and Darkness of Symbols by Todosijevic Dragoljub Raša at the Serbian Pavillion

Sculpture by Urs Fischer at the Artiglierie

Canal Grande

Gaston Nogues and Benjamin Ball joined forces in 2004 and formed Ball-Nogues. In 2007 they won The Museum of Modern Arts PS1 Young Architects Program Competition and recently their work became part of the permanent collection of MoMA. Ball-Nogues work embodies monumental deterioration – personal humor, contemporary scenarios and nostalgic ideals. It is simultaneously rough, urban, sophisticated and highly cerebral.

Since the beginning of this year, Ball-Nogues have been awarded the The Talus Dome Project by the City of Edmonton. Ball-Nogues refers to The Talus Dome Project as “a sculpture in the landscape and a mirror to the landscape.” They consider Talus Dome to be an earth work fashioned from a non-earth work material. While The Talus Dome is in the works, Ben and Gaston are simultaneously creating Air Garden which will be installed in LAX Airport’s new Bradley West Terminal in 2012-Their plates are full and they are rising at lightening speed.

Natascha Snellman: How did Ball-Nogues come about?

Benjamin Ball: Gaston and I met at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI Arc). After graduating, Gaston worked with Frank Gehry for ten years. I had several different jobs – I was an art director/set designer for films, an architect, and I assisted an artist. In my spare time in 2004, I began working on a project that we called Maximilian’s Schell. To design and construct it was going to be a big undertaking, so I asked Gaston to collaborate. It was very satisfying and it generated a lot of buzz in the press. We figured we were on to something, so we decided to keep working together. A few months later, we quit our day jobs and more commissions rolled in. We have been insanely busy ever since. Maximilian’s Schell started it all; it set the pace and codified the methodology that we use today.

Natascha: Given the nature of studying architecture was there anything that needed to be unlearned after graduating from SCI Arc, in terms of traditional architectural practices?

Benjamin: SCI Arc defies the nature of traditional architecture education and practice. At the time we were there, you could do a performance for your thesis project; you could make paintings, as long as you could tie the work to discourse about architecture. My education didn’t prepare me for the day-in, day out of architecture as a profession. SCI Arc isn’t focused on making mainstream practitioners. It was about critically expanding our sense of what architecture can be. It fostered the development of our own process.

Natascha: How does Ball-Nogues seek out materials to work with, are there boundaries you give yourselves when choosing materials?

Benjamin: There are no boundaries of which I am cognizant. One of our main interests is in creating space and structure. These interests are often integrated in our work. Our installations are different than shelters in the architectural sense of the word. Shelter demands particular kinds of performance from spaces and structures related to keeping the rain out, the heat in, thieves out, etc. In many of our installations, we don’t deal with these issues – we are dealing with the “useless” aspects of architecture, the unquantifiable aspects. The installations are a means of exploring new kinds of structure and assembly and the feeling of the space rather than architectural performance in the sense described above.

We typically start with a hypothesis about how a particular material could be used to make structure, space, and atmosphere. We then do a lot of research and testing of the material to determine its potential and economic feasibility. Once we believe we can successfully work with the material, we try to get a sense of how a space constructed from it might feel and what it might signify in a particular form.

Natascha: Many of your pieces reconsider material, how do these material transgressions come about?

Benjamin: There is not a formula for these, but I’d say one reason is that we use particular materials to make spaces at scales that have not been seen before. We employ non-architectural materials to make spaces that are suggestive of architecture; the viewer often associates our installations with the size and structural systems of architecture. For example, the use of string provokes the question “can we use string to make a space that envelopes that body like a building or a room?” So, we are using non-architectural materials to make spaces that address some of the concerns of architecture because of their size relative to our bodies. We use string to make “archi-things.”

Natascha: Feathered Edge poetically transformed the mood and the space of MOCA’s gallery at the Pacific Design Center, how did you go about interpreting that space?

Benjamin: We tend to work in series; we explore a process again and again, evolving it with each successive project. We decided shortly after being invited by Brooke Hodge of MOCA to do an installation that would be a Suspension. Suspensions are a series of hanging installations; the physical aspect of which can be understood as something between object and vacuum, presence and absence. They have a penetrable quality to them yet have shape and form. They are atmospheres which envelope the body rather than objects. Relative to the two previous venues where we have done Suspensions, the PDC gallery doesn’t have visual noise. It has a double height space that is like a big cube extending above the main ceiling of the gallery. We thought that the atmospheric quality of a Suspension would create a dialog with the solidity and Euclidean geometry of the architecture. We used the double height space as vessel from which this atmosphere would pour into the gallery like it was falling from the sky.  The atmosphere would modulate the space of the gallery; it would change the way one perceives the gallery and their movement through it.

Another consideration was the view from the entry of the gallery. The ceiling of the double height space is not visible from the entry; this set up a condition where the piece seemed to extend infinitely upward. The sense of the work being a gas or vapor was complexified by our approach to color. This was the first time we employed the digitally controlled machine we designed an fabricated (Installator 1, with the Variable Information Atomizing Module) to color individual areas of each string. This gave the colors the form of three-dimensional ghostly shapes hovering within the array of strings.

The lighting conditions of the PDC space played a roll. Track fixtures lit the piece from above. Shafts of light filtered through the array of strings. It was suggestive of the way light penetrates the canopy of a forest. As we developed our computer models we recognized that the hovering colored shapes resembled light itself, so we tried to intensify this similarity to play up the effect. The colors and patterns of light invited the viewer to question whether they were looking light phenomena or something that mimicked light.

Natascha: Is each Ball-Nogues work meant to be appealing to the eye of the beholder, or do you and Gaston find your selves often questioning the idea of beauty and elegance?

Benjamin: What is beautiful? We don’t know what is beautiful or elegant. We don’t start, a priori, with a notion of beauty and try to make it. If there is beauty or awe in our work, we arrive at it by way of exploring a process.

Natascha: How did your commission for Agnes B in Paris come about, did you also meet her while visiting?

Benjamin: It was actually for Agnès b. Soho. Agnès b. was one of the sponsors of the Summer Warm Up music series at PS1 in Queens. We did an installation in the PS1 courtyard in 2007. The Agnès b. company asked us to do something in their store window that related to the PS1 installation. I think most of the people who have been commissioned to do summer PS1 courtyard installations have done this as well. I only met the Agnès b. very briefly.

Natascha: What are your thoughts on the alliance between art and fashion – the Rodarte exhibition at MOCA’s Pacific Design Center is a current example?

Benjamin: There has been an alliance for a long time. More recently, fashion and architecture have started snuggling up with one another. We have built a career straddling boundaries, so we don’t take some purest stance against these affiliations. The over-protectiveness of creative fields from practitioners sometimes seems a little ridiculous. I think these alliances can be interesting. In spite of use (the primary factor that distinguishes design from art), clothing can do some of the same things as art. It is the commoditization of the two fields by one another that is problematic. When I consider money, the alliance between them is unappealing. It becomes about marketing and obscures a lot of interesting parallels between the fields as creative practices.

Natascha: While researching your work I read that Table Cloth referenced Paco Rabanne, and Built to Wear was a collaborative work with American Apparel…tell me more

Benjamin: Built to Wear and Table Cloth developed from the same interest –designing the disappearance of installations. We wanted to make installations that had no ending. In each case, the components of the installation served double duty as consumer products. We gave the products away after the installation came down so they could have a second life in people’s homes, offices, etc. The components of the installation served double duty as one of a kind home wares. They can have more value than discarded parts of an installation. Perhaps, the sum of the parts is worth more than the installation itself. This leads to a sustainability discussion. We call the process of fabricating something with these characteristics “cross manufacturing.” Built to Wear was designed for a Biennale in Shenzhen, China. We live in LA. The logistics of fabricating a big installation in China in the time that was availabe would have created a lot of headaches. We needed to use a component that was pre-manufactured in the United States. We had worked with American Apparel on a project for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, so when the idea of using clothing as building components came up, we thought of American Apparel. Working with AA enriched the work conceptually by contributing to an economic narrative. The Pearl River region is a huge producer of garments and consumer goods, so here are these American guys making this big dragon like thing from 12,000 articles of overstock American Apparel clothing that were shipped from a sweatshop free factory in LA. The work reversed the typical flow of garments coming out of the Pearl River region while hinting at issues about working conditions in factories and the amount of energy necessary to ship products overseas.

The reference to Paco Rabanne came about after we built Table Cloth. Two hundred and sixty eight components (purpose built tables) comprised that work. They attached to one another to form a tapestry that draped across a courtyard. This idea grew out of thoughts about fabric a model for structure. The Rabanne dress comparison came later as a means of explaining the project. The dress is a good reference for someone who did not see the work in person. Ninety percent of the people who see our work see it through images in the media – a characteristic our work shares with a lot of cultural products today. By looking at an image, it is difficult to get a clear sense of how the tables attach to make the tapestry. Seeing the work juxtaposed with the Rabanne dress gives a sense of the flexibility of the structure. Describing the installation as a tablecloth or a dress also helps one understand it as a kind of adornment for the architecture of the courtyard.

Natascha: Your mother was in theatre, and I know you’re Robert Wilson fan, as well as having done set-design for films- have you ever considered collaborating with a theatre production or ballet co. and designing sets? Miro and Dali not only did sets, but costumes as well…

Benjamin: Gaston and I think about working in theater, dance, and opera quite often. We’ve been approached to work on productions, but like many creative endeavors, they stalled or disappeared. We are hoping for more opportunities!

Natascha: Are there any films that have been influential to your practice?

Benjamin: I used to watch a lot of films, so there are probably a lot of them roaming around my sub conscious. I’m interested in the way that Antonioni used space and architecture in his films.

Natascha:What are the next three films on your Netflix queue?

Benjamin: A documentary about architects Herzog and De Meuron, a documentary called Engineering the Impossible: Disc 1, and a documentary called Aboriginal Architecture. I’m into architecture documentaries lately.

Natascha: Tell us about Air Garden for the Los Angeles Airport.

Benjamin: It is a large permanent Suspension piece for the new international terminal. It will be a moment of pause within the cacophony of signage and control protocols of international travel. The airport awarded commissions to three artists – Mark Bradford, Pae White, and Ball Nogues.

Natascha: In the middle of everything you’re doing, has Ball-Nogues been approached about being published in a book format?

Benjamin: Yes, we are talking to a couple of publishers.

Natascha: Would a Ball-Nogues book be in the form of a traditional coffee table book or an artist’s book that becomes more of an object?

Benjamin: We would explore the production method of the book itself – this would affect its design. We would also explore its tactility. A book can be more than a medium for the presentation of images, drawings and text. A book can be a record of our projects but also a unique object that develops out of our approach to design.

Natascha: Does the music you listen to influence the work you are creating at that time?

Benjamin: On some level, I’m sure the music we listen to is influential. Perhaps it just propels us forward when we are in production mode. Our tastes drift toward the atmospheric, dreamy. We also listen to a lot of minimalist rock. Gaston and I are both attracted to hypnotic, droney things like Can and stripped down rock like Michael Yonkers or Captain Beefheart.

Natascha: What are you currently listening to?

Benjamin: Harmonia, Hawkwind, and Four Tet.

Natascha: Are there any other influences you want to mention?

Benjamin: We glean a lot of ideas from craft and manufacturing demonstration videos on YouTube. It is inspiring to see do-it yourself videos about how to make things.

Above image: Feathered Edge, photograph by Benny Chan

Its happy space out time. Take a 15 minute trip into unknown landscapes and structures with our friend and Dossier collaborator Josh Slater. So sit back, relax, and strap on your seatbelt. You’ve never been on a ride like this before, with a producer who can rap and control the maestro. Original score by Sahra Motalebi.

This weekend, Noho Design District – organized by the lovely ladies of the design website SightUnseen- are launching their second annual three-day design festival in the American Design Building at Great Jones Lumber. Starting today, they’ll be bringing together international design brands and local businesses featuring exhibitions, parties, and performances in collaboration with ICFF. There is also a pop-up shop, with contributions from furniture makers, jewelry designers and more- many of which are selling limited edition one-of-a kind pieces. Check out the schedule for events that include favorites such as Iacoli & McAllister, Nightwood, Roman & Williams, Uhuru, Areaware and The Future Perfect.

The design festival is taking place , Friday, May 13 through Monday, May 16, from 12 -7 pm at the American Design Building at Great Jones Lumber, 45 Great Jones Street, NY, NY.

top image: bottle opener by Iacoli & McAllister; bottom image: pencil sharpener by Free Time Industries

Artist Jeremy Wagner doesn’t need hip hop mogul Damon Dash or producer Swizz Beatz to validate his work. But it never hurts. After showing at the January grand opening of Dash’s gallery DD172 (a space supporters claim is the last defense against the “wack world”), the buzz over Wagner’s signature steel panel paintings spread beyond the inner sanctum of hip hop’s art-loving elite.

Rooted in the strong iconography of New York City, the Brooklyn artist’s unique metal canvases layer charcoal, rust and enamel, creating unexpected moments of abstraction. The goal, Wagner says, is to “highlight the beauty in the special poetics of the mundane.”

For his next show, the RISD alum plans to keep pushing the envelope—turning iconic imagery on its head through the distortion of space and perspective.

Here, in his Greenpoint studio, Wagner creates his latest series of paintings on steel, inspired by landmark architectural structures including Coney Island’s renowned Wonder Wheel. Watch the above audio slideshow for a behind-the-scenes look at his process.

Built by the first congregation of Russian Jews in America, The Eldridge Street Synagogue opened its doors in 1887. Its Moorish architecture, 70 foot ceilings and massive circular stained glass windows are a stark contrast to the tenement buildings of the Lower East Side. Over the years, the congregation declined and the main chapel was boarded up in the 1960′s and pigeons began to roost in the space. In 1986, almost exactly one hundred years after being built, a new congregation set out to save and restore the structure. The foundations of the building were so warped that the building itself was in danger of collapsing and the windows all in need of repair. At some point, the original stained glass window that dominated the space was replaced by inexpensive glass blocks leaving no documentation of what came before.

After an arduous 24 year, $18.5 million dollar renovation, the circular stained glass panel -the main focal point of the synagogue- was the last piece to be restored. Eldridge Street Synagogue asked artist Kiki Smith and architect Deborah Gans to re-design the new window. One of the most important visual artists working today, Smith is well-known for her feminist themes rooted in nature and the female form. One of my personal favorite artists, I think it was a really brave and unique choice for the synagogue to ask Smith, a choice that definitely looks ahead at the younger generation and modernizes this landmarked building, combining the historic architecture with contemporary art creating a new chapter for the place of worship. The result is breathtaking. Continuing the original star motif on the walls and the ceiling, the two women created a void of stars with a steel Star of David in the center. Combining both traditional and new techniques, the window itself weighs more than 6,000 pounds and has over 1,000 glass pieces in it. To celebrate the completion of the restoration the Synagogue is hosting all types of events, including an open house all day today with different creative events and Jewish folk music. Other highlights and a video of the two women discussing the project here. Click “Read More” for additional photos.

Putting together all of the 1,000 pieces of stained glass.

The steel frame being made.

The final result.