Kristin Bedford on Car Culture and Identity in LA’s Lowrider Community

kristin bedford sixtysix magazine

Photo courtesy of kristinbedford.com

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March 18, 2021

Every Thursday the Sixtysix newsletter delivers the latest creative news, designs, and insights straight to your inbox. Here are this week’s highlights. Not on the email list? Subscribe now.

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kristin bedford sixtysix magazine

Photo courtesy of kristinbedford.com

Kristin Bedford’s photographs demystify Mexican-American lowrider culture in LA.

+ “Underlying all of my projects is an interest in social justice and how communities express their civil rights in a society that often marginalizes them,” Kristin told It’s Nice That.

+ It’s that drive that led her to LA’s lowrider community, which she explores in her new book, Cruise Night. “For over 70 years, this community has been expressing their identity through this distinct car culture,” Kristin says. “I wanted to photograph and understand how transforming a car was integral to being seen and heard.”

lacaton and vassal kristin bedford sixtysix magazine

Latapie House by Lacaton & Vassal. Photo by Philippe Ruault, courtesy of the Pritzker Architecture Prize

In other creative news, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal won the 2021 Pritzker Prize.

+ The French architects behind Lacaton & Vassal are known for their more than 30 social housing projects across Europe and West Africa and their ability to increase living space both exponentially and inexpensively.

+ “The modernist hopes and dreams to improve the lives of many are reinvigorated through their work that responds to the climatic and ecological emergencies of our time, as well as social urgencies, particularly in the realm of urban housing,” the jury said of the laureates.

 

 

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Eames Office announces new collaboration with Reebok.

+ The interior design house was founded by Charles and Ray Eames, whose molded plywood Eames chair became known as “the chair of the century.”

+ The company is now run by the Eames’ family, and to this day they only work with two manufacturers—Herman Miller and Vitra International—making the new collaboration, though scarce on details, an exciting new chapter to the Eames’ design legacy.

faye toogood dough kristin bedford sixtysix magazine

Photo courtesy of t-o-o-g-o-o-d.com

Faye Toogood brings chunky design to dishware with the Dough collection.

+ Called Dough to highlight the act of kneading in both baking and pottery, the ceramic dishware’s smooth, plump forms are hand-shaped in Studio Toogood before being cast in stoneware.

+ The shapely collection is Faye’s first foray into homeware and is inspired by her personal collection of stones and pebbles, as well as some of her earlier chunky furniture designs, such as the Puffy Lounge Chair.

ds and durga kristin bedford sixtysix magazine

Photo courtesy of k-and.co

D.S. & Durga’s new concrete-clad perfume house is a play on brutalist architecture.

+ Designed by cofounder Kavi Moltz, interior design firm K&Co, and Pliskin Architecture, the Brooklyn store’s glossy, rich material expression both contrasts and plays with the brand’s brutalist-inspired flagship store.

+ In the middle of the store, a cast-in-place concrete brutalist plinth takes center stage, while a squid-like custom ceramic light fixture by ENTLER Studio hangs above.

Photo courtesy of davidrothenberg.com

David Rothenberg captures portraits of pre-pandemic travel in nostalgic photo series.

+ The series, photographed between February 2019 and March 2020, will be published in a new photo book called Roosevelt Station. The photographs show passersby at New York City’s Roosevelt Avenue/74th St. train station, who are illuminated in a magenta, orange, and green glow from Tom Patti’s public art installation, “Night Passage.”

+ “They feel like a time capsule,” David told Hyperallergic. “I think many people … will view the photographs with nostalgia and recognize the loss of this shared experience that we might have taken for granted. When I think of the countless strangers I photographed over that span of a year, I increasingly wonder where they are now.”

Photo courtesy of jaguar.com

Jaguar restores its iconic E-Type in celebration of the car’s 60th birthday.

+ First released at the Geneva Motor Show in 1961, the E-Type was once described by Enzo Ferrari as “the most beautiful car ever made.”

+ The E-Type 60 Collection aims to recapture the glamour and elegance of the 1960s with modern upgrades, such as GPS navigation and Bluetooth connectivity, a stainless steel exhaust system, electronic ignition, and cooling upgrades via an alloy radiator.

Courtesy of superrare.com

Krista Kim designs the first digital house available for purchase as an NFT file.

+ Called Mars House, the home is composed entirely of light, of which the visual effects are meant to omit a Zen, healing atmosphere. Krista also worked with Jeff Schroeder of The Smashing Pumpkins to add a soothing musical accompaniment.

+ Mars House and all of its furniture can be built by glass-furniture makers in Italy, though Krista hopes the home will be projected as well. “Everyone should install an LED wall in their house for NFT art,” she told Architectural Digest. “This is the future, and Mars House demonstrates the beauty of that possibility.”

Courtesy of landartgenerator.org

The top 10 design contenders for Fly Ranch, a permanent outpost of Burning Man, reveal the future of the festival.

+ A collaboration between Burning Man and Land Art Generator Initiative, the Fly Ranch project called for design submissions for sustainable structures to outfit a 3,800-acre ranch in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. The designs were meant to offer shelter, produce energy, manage waste and water, and provide food for the site.

+ Among the top designs were Lodgers, which features composting toilets and an education space made from reclaimed timber and thatch, designed by MIT-based duo Zhicheng Xu and Mengqi Moon; and The Source, a spiraling structure that could shelter an orchard designed by Mateusz Góra and Agata Gryszkiewicz.

Photo courtesy of buly1803.com

Bad breath? These mask stickers were designed to keep your mask smelling fresh.

+ Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Officine Universelle Buly’s scented mask stickers are here to freshen up stale air and—err, mask, bad breath.

+ Think of it like a mask air freshener: Place the sticker on the outside of your mask, and it will infuse the air under it with scents of eucalyptus, peppermint, and lemon. Goodbye, coffee breath.

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