Berlin’s Magma Architecture won several awards for its entry in the JETZT | NOW series of temporary installations at the Berlinische Galerie, Museum for Contemporary Art, Photography and Architecture. Magma’s installation, 11th in the series, was called fittingly “head-in | im kopf” and its concept is based on exploring the properties of materials, form, color and light.
 
The main feature of the installation is an alarmingly orange flexible fabric (polyamide-elastan mix) stretched between the walls, ceiling and floor. The fabric is the most visible part of the exhibit, yet it is also the tool with which the viewers can focus on smaller details.



Visitors bend down under the fabric into which openings were cut. Through these holes, visitors pop their heads up into the orange space to view drawings, models and photographs suspended from wires. These items are from Magma’s work and include representations of the revitalization of the former GDR Radio Centre (Berlin, Nalepastrasse, 2007), a bridge over the Landwehrkanal river in Berlin (competition entry in 2006), the new Nexus Productions headquarters in London, and the exhibition Trial & Error in London (2003). Luckily, we have images to show how it all worked as the full effect of the experience is quite impossible to describe in mere words.
 
The project team for head-in | im kopf included Anke Noske, Hendrik Bohle, Dominik Jörg, Lena Kleinheine, Ksenia Kagler, Yohko Mizushima, Lena Kleinheinz, Martin Ostermann and Ben Reynolds.



Magma was established in 2003 by Martin Ostermann and Lena Kleinheinz. The Ohio native Ostermann is a former senior architect at Studio Daniel Libeskind. The Denmark-born Kleinheinz is an exhibition designer. Magma is known for its inventive, experimental and experiential approaches to architectural work. By Tuija Seipell

Publicity stunts don't come on much of a larger scale than this. To celebrate the launch of the new Fiat 500 in London last night, one of the vehicles was placed into a pod on the London Eye where it will live for the next 2 weeks.

The launch of this 'time capsule' was at 8pm, exactly 500 hours into the year and as one would expect for such an event, was a star-studded affair and included a light show that lit up the river Thames, and performances by Mika and The Feeling.

The car itself is a remodel of the original version which was first presented 50 years ago, and is Fiat's go at re-releasing a retro classic, as VW (Beetle) and BMW (Mini) have arguably both done quite successfully in recent years.

The 500 was recently named the 2008 Car of the Year and has been praised in numerous auto publications. By
Brendan McKnight

Villa Eugenie is an "events" company in the most impressive sense of the word. These are not people who organize bridal showers and baby parties for minor movie stars. For the Brussels-based team of Villa Eugenie, led by Etienne Russo, routine means orchestrating a major runway event for a major fashion house. And stunning everyone.



Best known for its catwalk extravaganzas, Villa Eugenie is now involved in not just creating spectacular fashion shows, but staging major events for luxury business in all of its forms - magazine launches, major celebrations, and jewellery, perfume, art and opera installations, corporate events and fairs around the world. The team also advises major fashion brands on store concepts, stores space searches, lighting and branding. Although based in Brussels, Villa Eugenie operates in all major fashion and luxury centers and has a permanent office also in Miami.



We do not envy their task of having to impress the time-hardened fashion buyer or editor, or the celebrities that line up the runways of the famous fashion emporiums. These events are critiqued like major concerts or art exhibitions, and the shows themselves are as much about drama and ever-bigger surprises as they are about the designers, or the fashions - most of which are unwearable by mere mortals anyway.



Villa Eugenie must be doing it right. Year after year, its client list reads like a Who is Who in the fashion world: Chanel, Dries Van Noten, Miu Miu, Maison Martin Margiela, Lanvin, Hermés, Hugo Bosss, Sonia Rykiel, Olivier Strelli, and the
Adidas-backed Y-3.



These are all major brands with huge production budgets. But even when you know that sky is not the budget's limit, it is still astonishing that the same production company can be creating several shows in one season - all attended by the same posse of cynical seen-it-all viewers - and not start to appear stale or formulaic. Boundless creativity and ruthless attention to detail, both most likely still sparked for each project by Etienne Russo himself, are the cornerstones of such a feat.



Russo started humbly in the 1980s as an artistic and creative barman at Mirano, a fashionable nightclub in Brussels. He was soon creating major events there and drawing serious attention. His first real fashion client was Dries Van Noten for whom he worked as a model, salesman, lighting engineer, cook and extraordinary producer of Van Noten's first fashion show in Paris in 1991.



In 1995, Russo started his own production firm, naming it after the charming villa where it was located. Since 2004, the Villa Eugenie team has worked out of a former factory close to Brussels South station (Bruxelles-Midi, Brussel-Zuid). The space, covered by a vast glass canopy, was redesigned by the Ghent-based architect Glenn Sestig



This is the same man who this year opened his first luxury hotel Sestig Hotel. In the cubic Huis Van Waes building in Ghent that he reconstructed. By Tuija Seipell



Seen any other interesting events we should know about? e-mail [email protected]

Forget about wandering through an art gallery and wondering if you’re the only one who has no idea what anything means. Acess Agency has brilliantly invited the cultural elite to grab a glass at an exhibition in Dresden, Germany, and drink away the art. 



Regardless of what we do or do not understand about art, we can all agree, it stimulates our senses.  Access has aroused our sense of taste (not to mention eliminated the need of elbowing our way to the bar) by hanging flat, glass containers with a variety of cocktails in the exhibition space.  As the night progressed, the levels of the multi-coloured infusions diminished.  By the end of the event, the art, itself, ran dry, and empty drinking glasses were returned to where they were originally placed. - Andrew J Wiener.

 

These days Prada isn’t just a name in fashion. The venerable Italian fashion house has its elegant fingers in several other pies including mobile phones and staging mammoth events.



Last month the label hosted one of the parties of the year in the city of Valencia in Spain to celebrate the America’s Cup. As principal sponsors of one of the participating yachts, Luna Rossa, Prada spared no expense at its lavish VIP do held at the Central Market which is normally home to a buzzing produce market. 



The event attracted a slew of local and international celebrities who lapped up the unique ambience – organizers left a lot of the stalls intact including fruit stalls and delis, and guests were invited to sample the produce on offer. One deli housed the event’s DJ, who mixed tunes amid the Parma ham and anchovy tins, while other stalls where converted into mini showcases of Prada accessories; with belts and bags hanging from hooks as if they were pieces of fruit. In one deli stall Prada even displayed its silk turban range. 

Dinner was served on a series of intimate dining tables that were scattered through out the venue, giving party goers the feeling that they were at an elegant dinner party. By Laura Demasi.