Wunderkammer

Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, London, 2013, English

Nonfiction, Architecture

8.25 x 6 inches, hardcover, 240 pages, 300 color illustrations

ISBN: 9780300197983

Suggested Retail Price: $29.00

From the Publisher. Inspired by the idea of the wunderkammer—“wonder-room” or “cabinet of curiosities”—that originated during the Renaissance, world-renowned architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien invited 42 celebrated architects and designers from around the world to create their own wunderkammers, filling boxes with objects that inspire them. This delightful book gathers together the varied, evocative wunderkammers along with accompanying statements by their architect-creators, including such luminaries as Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Peter Eisenman, Steven Holl, Richard Meier, Murray Moss, Diébédo Francis Keré, Juhani Pallasmaa, Elias Torres, and Peter Zumthor.

An introduction by Williams and Tsien explains their fascination with the wunderkammer and looks at their own history of collecting. The boxes, each spotlighted in its own section, are explored through each architect’s essay; working drawings and sketchbook pages; construction and installation photos; a list of the items contained; and a photograph of the final box. Wunderkammer offers a new way to think about art and inventiveness, collection and meaning in everyday objects.

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien are the founding members of the New York-based architecture firm in their name. Their built works include the recently relocated Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.

A Designers & Books Notable Design Book of 2013

On 1 book list

John Hill

On John Hill’s Notable Books of 2013 list

One of the most lasting impressions from last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale was the Wunderkammer installation, curated by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Specifically it was the smell of incense pulling me into the ivy-covered Casa Scaffali, the “House of Shelves” that housed seeds and gardening equipment at the far corner of the Arsenale. Inside I discovered the source of the incense: one of the thirty-four boxes arrayed on the shelves and in the middle of the small space, each one a personal collection of artifacts that exhibited their maker’s personalities and priorities.

A book of the same name documents the Wunderkammer installation, which started with Williams and Tsien soliciting friends, family, former employees, former employers, and others (architects mainly, but also artists and critics) to fill a sturdy gray box made by cabinetmaker Stephen Iino with “objects that inspire them.” Importantly, the objects were not to be architecture. Like Valerio Olgiati’s The Images of Architects, the boxes responded to Biennale curator David Chipperfield’s theme of “Common Ground.” Yet in the case of Wunderkammer the things that inspired and connected were tangible and real rather than images of real things or places.

While visitors to the Biennale saw only the boxes staged in a particular manner in the Casa Scaffali, readers of the small book (the same size and format as Yale University Press’s Unpacking My Library books) can read statements from the contributors and see sketches and additional photos about what went into each box. The extra documentation becomes a replacement for the act of seeing the artifacts in person, but it also extends the life of the project, important since each box was returned to its maker.

To give a sense of what was inside the boxes, a few of my favorites include: the three layers of Sheila O’Donnell’s and John Tuomey’s Joseph Cornell-esque memory box; the box Francis Kéré filled with dirt and a tool from Burkina Faso; Chen Chen & Kai Williams’s deconstructed box fitted with a magic eight ball filled with the brackish water of Venice’s lagoon; and Claudy Jongstra’s 600 balls made from 10,000 meters of wool and silk dyed with 30 kilos of onion. And let’s not forget Marwan Al-Sayed, who turned the gray box into a gold “Shrine to the Shimmering Inversions of Form and Space,” where incense wafted from a black iron vase to pull visitors into Casa Scaffali’s wonderful cabinet of curiosities.

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.