Snarkitecture put a brick in Hudson Yards’ window
The NY practice provides a surprising, see-through intervention in Forty Five Ten’s new Manhattan store
What does Snarkitecture do? Well, perhaps it’s easier to say what it doesn’t do. “The New York practice’s work starts from the rigorous notion that they do not make art, nor do they make architecture,” writes the Italian curator and design commentator Maria Cristina Didero in our Snarkitecture book.
“Snarkitecture inhabit the creative field at-large, acting and performing on that stage through a defined formula of three simple steps: firstly, they look at the world through the particular lens for each commission they undertake; secondly, they reformulate it through a peculiar set of filters; and thirdly, they deliver original devices to surprise people.”
In the fashion retailer Forty Five Ten, Snarkitecture has certainly found a kindred spirit. Forty Five Ten blurs the boundaries between art and apparel, stocking Prada, Celine, Dries Van Noten, Balenciaga and Loewe garments alongside works by contemporary artists such as Tracey Emin, Catherine Opie, Doug Aitken and Juergen Teller.
The company opened its first New York store a few months ago within the cavernous new Manhattan development, Hudson Yards, and they commissioned Snarkitecture to work on the windows.
The practice came up with this jagged glass-brick façade, that gives the shop a half-demolished look, while maintaining the pristine mannequins inside. Now that's what we call blurring boundaries!
For more on Snarkitecture’s work and outlook, get our book; for more on the architectural possibilites of bricks, get Brick.
