Re-Imagining the City: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec at Vitra Design Museum
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Brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, two of France’s most prestigious designers today, have become known mostly for their sophisticated furniture designs and collaborations with brands such as Vitra and Axor. Following their recent retrospective in Rennes,
Re-Imagining the City: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec at Vitra Design Museum
Brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, two of France’s most prestigious designers today, have become known mostly for their sophisticated furniture designs and collaborations with brands such as Vitra and Axor. Following their recent retrospective in Rennes, the two are presenting an excursion into an entirely different realm next month in Germany: a new take on urban life with “Rêveries Urbaines”—“Urban Dreams”—, which will be on view at the Zaha Hadid Firestation on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein through January 2017.As the title suggests, the second Bouroullec show at the institution, after “Album” in 2012, is about atmosphere and perception, rather than plans and logistics. The show re-imagines what the city can and could be in different settings. In its preview, the Vitra Design Museum announces an exhibition designed like “a large open sketchbook […] presented as a gentle walk through models and animations,” which forms an “urban fiction” with different immersive urban scenarios. Visitors can expect films and research models around 20 proposals that intend to “re-invent certain motifs for urban spaces: vines, torches, parasols, a fountain, a kiosk etc.,” aiming to “give a new sense of magic to the places where we walk, meet, and talk, by the use of lines, harmony and transparency.” “Some people may find the exhibition perturbing or surprising because, up until now, urban development has never been our subject,” Ronan Bouroullec notes in a text issued for the show. “I like being in that position. Over the past 20 years, I think our best propositions were linked to subjects for which we were not particularly prepared.”“The project was built from a certain distance, which is our normal way of working,“ Erwan adds. “In our work, no project is dedicated to a particular person or place. The exhibition brings together propositions for developing public spaces that could equally apply to Weil, Basel or Copenhagen. In fact, all of these principles have the advantage of containing an element of abstraction. They reply to a question that is not completely clear. It is in this vacuum that our propositions could be potentially re-imagined ‘on site’.”“Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Rêveries Urbaines” runs from October 8, 2016 through January 22, 2017 at the Fire Station, Vitra Campus, Vitra Design Museum Weil am Rhein, Germany.See a sneak preview in our slide show. Read more
