Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic has furnished an apartment in Le Corbusier's iconic Cité Radieuse housing block with his own products and blown-up pages from a punk fanzine (+ slideshow).
Appartement N°50 is a privately owned home in the Modernist apartment block in Marseille, France, which retains the original layout and features designed by Le Corbusier in 1952.
Konstantin Grcic chose to furnish the apartment with pieces including his 360° stools for Magis, Pro chair for Flötotto, chair_ONE for Magis, and Mayday lamps for Flos.
He also scanned pages of a punk fanzine, expanded them and hung them on the walls of the apartment, creating a deliberately enigmatic contrast with the sparsely decorated interior.
"The punk motifs are tempting a slightly devious link between two completely unrelated worlds: Le Corbusier's architecture and punk rock," says Grcic.
"Without forcing the idea of common grounds, I find that both have a rawness and uncompromising spirit which I have always found compellingly beautiful. Bringing both cultures together in this project felt most inspiring and, in the end, surprisingly fitting."
Appartement N°50 has previously hosted temporary installations by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec in 2010 and Jasper Morrison in 2008. Grcic's edition will be open to the public from 15 July to 15 August 2013.
The Cité Radieuse was damaged last August when a fire broke out in a first floor apartment, while French designer Ora-Ïto has overseen the creation of a contemporary art space on the building's roof that opened this month.
Marseille is the European Capital of Culture 2013 and has seen significant architectural projects completed this year, including a reflective steel canopy by Foster + Partners, an archive and research centre featuring a cantilevered exhibition floor and an underwater conference suite and a museum clad in lacy concrete.
An exhibition of Le Corbusier's work is currently on show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
In Milan earlier this year, Grcic launched a collection of furniture designed for Herzog & de Meuron's Parrish Art Museum in Long Island with American brand Emeco, and a flat LED light inspired by Achille Castiglioni's Parentesi lamp.
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Photography is © Philippe Savoir & Fondation Le Corbusier/ADAGP
Here's a short text about the installation:
APPT.N50 installation by Konstantin Grcic 2013
There is an apartment in Le Corbusier's famous Cité Radieuse (radiant city) in Marseille, which is almost completely preserved in its original 1952 condition.
Appt.N°50 is privately owned and it is thanks to the generosity and passion of its owner/occupant that the place is made accessible to a wider public during the summer months of each year.
As proof that Le Corbusier's visionary Unité d'Habitation has the same vibrancy today as when it was originally conceived the apartment is turned into a temporary stage for the ideas and works of contemporary designers.
A short series of scenographic installations has been realized over the years; my project is the third in line following Jasper Morrison (2008) and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (2010).
Apart from placing a selection of my favorite furniture and objects I decided to tag the walls of the apartment with four blown up scans from an original punk fanzine. The punk motifs are tempting a slightly devious link between two completely unrelated worlds: Le Corbusier's architecture and punk rock. Without forcing the idea of common grounds, I find that both have a rawness and uncompromising spirit which I have always found compellingly beautiful. Bringing both cultures together in this project felt most inspiring and, in the end, surprisingly fitting.
The objects in use are: 360° chairs (by Magis), Topkapi marble table (by Marsotto), Miura bar stool (by Plank), 2-Hands laundry basket (by Authentics), Pro chair (by Flötotto), Jerry stools (by Magis), Mayday lamps (by Flos), Medici chairs, side table and foot stool (all by Mattiazzi), 360° container (by Magis), Venice armchair (by Magis), Pallas table and Diana side tables (by ClassiCon), Myto chair (by Plank), Tip bin and H2O buckets (by Authentics), chair_ONE (by Magis).
In contrast to Le Corbusier ́s enigmatic color scheme of the interior, the intervention is kept in iconic red, black and white.