Travel: The Pure Design Hotel Frankfurt

Erected from a 19th century loft and completely renovated, The Pure expresses ease as well as clearness and transparency despite being situated right in the heart of Frankfurt. Described as a wonderful place to spoil the soul, the interiors are made of bright and clear material (white lacquer, Thassos Glass Stone, white leather and light grey floor), the hotel itself is no more than a background attraction in the guests’ eyes, while the happenings around will be focused. Furthermore, the atmosphere is adjusted to the course of the clients’ day: In the morning, pleasing light and smooth music welcome the guests in quietness as well as vitality – in the evening, The Pure turns into an oasis full of energy and underlined by visual orange effects.

The Pure Frankfurt, Germany

Designer Water Pipe by Nedda El-Asmar for Airdiem

The traditional water pipe works, but we would be much happier puffing from a well designed hubble-bubble.
The Belgian designer Nedda El-Asmar has designed a sexy, streamlined version of one of the most traditional instruments of relaxation and indulgence in the Middle East. It even comes with its own travel case for the voyage.

Water Pipe, by Nedda El-Asmar, for Airdiem

Gardiner Museum by KPMB Architects

The Gardiner Museum is one of the world’s pre-eminent institutions devoted to ceramic art, and the only museum of its kind in Canada. It is also one of the major projects in Toronto’s cultural renaissance. The Gardiner renewal, together with the Royal Ontario Museum across the street and the Royal Conservatory of Music around the corner on Bloor Street West, will form a new cultural precinct for the city.
Framed between the neoclassical Lillian Massey building to the north and the Queen Anne-style Margaret Addison Hall to the south, the renewal creates a bolder, more welcoming urban presence for the Gardiner. Inside, the interior is completely transformed to prioritize the display of the museum’s collections and to create a memorable, inviting visitor experience.

Gardiner Museumner, Toronto, Canada, by KPMB Architects
via: Arch Daily

Exhibition: Big Game Overview

An Exhibition called Overview will include a look back at the work created since the Brussels and Lausanne-based design studio, Big Game was founded in 2004.

Exhibition of work by designers Big Game, at museum Grand-Hornu Images, Brussels, Belgium, until February 22, 2009.
via: dezeen

Cuban Design Comes Out of the Cold

Lam’ foldable chaise-longue by Luis Ramirez Jiménez

Exhibition: Contemporary Cuban Design Exhibition, part of the Dalón de Arte Contemporáneo de la Habana Galería Villena en la Plaza de Armas, Habana Vieja, Cuba, 21 November – 20 December, 2008
via: designboom

Wallpaper* City Guides add New Destinations

Wallpaper* City Guides have added 10 new destinations: Delhi, Hamburg, Kuala Lumpur, Kyoto, Marseille, Montreal, Moscow, Reykjavik, Seoul, and Venice. The guides present a tightly edited, discreetly packaged list of the best a location has to offer the design conscious traveller.

Whether you are staying for 48 hours or five days, visiting for business or a vacation, the editors have done the hard work for you, from finding the best restaurants, bars and hotels (including which rooms to request) to the most extraordinary stores and sites, and the most enticing architecture and design. Wallpaper* City Guides enable you to come away from your trip, however brief, with a real taste of the city’s landscape and the satisfaction you’ve seen all that you should.

Wallpaper* City Guide, Published by Phaidon. Buy them here: Amazon

Alila Villas Uluwatu and Hotel in Bali

While Designing Alila Villas Uluwatu, the architects wanted to create more than the usual stereotypical ideas of Bali, creating a design that worked with the dry Balinese Savannah vegetation and gently sloping site, not against it. The 14.4 hectare development offers three-bedroom contemporary Balinese villas for sale, as well as a hotel for those on holiday in Bali.

Alila Villas Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia, by WOHA
via: Contemporist

Field of Light at Eden Project by Bruce Munro

Bruce Munro’s iconic Field of Light sculpture is now installed at the Eden Project in Cornwall. The piece can now be seen on the sloping grass roof of the visitors centre, called the Link building, between the famous Rainforest and Mediterranean Biomes, and will remain there until Spring 2009. The sculpture first came to widespread public attention when a scaled-down version was exhibited in the Pirelli Garden at the V&A in 2004.
Bruce Munro and five assistants worked over three days to install Field of Light at the Eden Project. It is made of 6,000 acrylic stems, through which fibre optic cables run, each crowned with a clear glass sphere.

Field of Light, by Bruce Munro, through Spring 2009, at the Eden Project, Cornwall, UK
via: dezeen

Travel: Night at the Overlook Hotel in Kubrick’s The Shining

In 1980, Stanley Kubrick came to the Timberline Lodge to film one of the all-time great horror classics, The Shining. In the film, Jack Torrance (Nicholson) gets a job as the custodian of the Overlook Hotel, in the mountains of Colorado. The place is closed down during winter, Torrance and his family will be the only occupants of the hotel for a long while. When the snow storms block the Torrance family in the hotel, Jack’s son Danny, who has some clairvoyance and telepathy powers, discovers that the hotel is haunted and that the spirits are slowly driving Jack crazy. When Jack meets the ghost of Mr. Grady, the former custodian of the hotel who murdered his wife and his two daughters, things begin to get really nasty.
The hotel in the film is actually called the Timberline Lodge and is located near Mt. Hood in Oregon, USA. For one night only, the hotel is hosting a 1920s era ball, in honour of the scene in the movie.

A Celebration of The Shining at the Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon, USA, October 31, 2008, at Come Play With Us

Spaces and Storytelling in Kubrick’s The Shining

A Night at the Guggenheim Revolving Hotel Room

Spend the night at the Guggenheim. Guests can reserve an overnight stay in a Revolving Hotel Room, a work of art created by artist Carsten Höller. Revolving Hotel Room is an art installation comprising three outfitted, superimposed turning glass discs mounted onto a fourth disc that all turn harmoniously at a very slow speed. At night guests can roam the museum alone all night, during the day the hotel room will be on view as part of the Guggenheim’s theanyspacewhatever exhibition.

Exhibition: theanyspacewhatever, October 24, 2008–January 7, 2009, Guggenheim, New York, USA
more: New York Post