Baldaquin de Pury, by Hani Rashid
Like small-scale models of buildings he might one day realize, “Atmospherics”—on view until June 28 at New York’s Phillips de Pury gallery—presents examples of so-called “object architecture” by Asymptote co-founder Hani Rashid. Small, formal experiments—which compliment the studio’s current large-scale and real-world constructions in Abu Dhabi, Budapest, Busan, and on their home turf in New York—the pieces explore flux, technology, and organicism, longtime Asymptote signatures. Although created for different manufacturers, the designs underscore Rashid’s fascination with bodies in motion. (The bone-like fiberglass Baldaquin de Pury is even finished in high-gloss white auto paint.) The show includes Asymptote’s painstakingly crafted designs for Meta by Mallett—a slumped steel coffee table and gold boxes with liquid-looking lids and invisible hinges—as well as LQ Chandelier de Pury, produced by Zumtobel in molded plastic lacquered with a reflective, aluminum-based finish, and the rapid-prototyped Fugu, a black basket-like vase that assumes a jaunty tilt. The gallery has suggested that the show’s title refers to the pieces’ capacity to emotionally charge the space around them, but this is true of all art and, one hopes, of the best architecture. For his part, Rashid has said that architecture is the provocative art of our time. Though this might not yet be true, the aspiration does him credit. www.phillipsdepury.com
Fugu, by Hani Rashid
LQ Chandeliers, produced by Zumtobel