As part of our Surface Summer School lecture series, the Brooklyn–based architect Ferda Kolatan spoke to students of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania amid their competition to design a mobile testing unit for Covid-19. “I’m interested in an architecture that finds its anchoring and value by breaking categories that are foundational to architectural teachings,” Kolatan told students during his lecture.

Kolatan, who is also an Associate Professor of Practice at the school, opened with slides showing a traditional medical mask followed by the artistic interpretations of fashion designers and artists since the Covid-19 crisis began: Freyja Sewell’s sci-fi creations, an assortment at Paris Fashion Week, and Max Siedentopf’s ironic makeshift masks that he later apologized for after being accused of insensitivity. Kolatan encouraged students to remember the masks during the competition. “They are somewhere between design, utilitarian, and art objects,” he said. “They project different kinds of ideologies—your project must cope with these conditions too.”

Kolatan presented some of his past work to demonstrate how he used hybrid forms to manifest ideas, including a necklace display for Mikimoto that reimagined the neck bust as a water lily, a surrealist shelving system stocked with books on an apartment’s staircase wall, and modular prefab housing units that introduced customization to house hunting. He challenged the students to ponder conventional distinctions between useful and meaningful, as well as inherent functionality and cultural agency. Watch the full lecture and see the upcoming schedule for the entire series, which includes a talk by V. Mitch McEwen, assistant professor at Princeton University, tomorrow at 6:30 PM EST.

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In the early 1980s, Nathalie du Pasquier became a founding member of Memphis Milano, the irreverent postmodern architecture and design collective started by Ettore Sottsass. The artist, who hails from Bordeaux, mostly designed “decorated surfaces”—textiles, carpets, and plastic laminates noted for a visual language of playful patterns and bold strokes.

Despite her indelible mark on Memphis, du Pasquier departed the group in 1987 to focus on painting. She began with figuration—crisp still-lifes based on careful arrangements of everyday objects. Eventually, she turned to abstraction, imbuing her works with visual cues inspired by travels to Africa and Novecento painting by Giorgio de Chirico and Giorio Morandi. She soon began modeling her still-lifes on 3-D wood assemblages that she built herself. These gradual stylistic shifts are the subject of a new exhibition, “Space Between Things,” on view virtually at Pace Gallery through June 16, as well as three concurrent virtual shows that prove her vibrant visual language has lost none of its power since her Memphis years.

A long-awaited renovation of LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B will reopen on Saturday. “LaGuardia is going to be the first new airport in America in 25 years,” New York governor Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference. “Just think about that—25 years!” The revamped arrivals and departures hall, designed and built by Skanska USA, will total 850,000 square feet across four levels—roughly 50 percent bigger than the space that it’s replacing. It’ll also be disinfected regularly up to CDC standards and feature signage that reminds travelers to wear face masks, keep six feet apart, and wash their hands.

Part of the $8 billion renovation includes four site-specific artworks by the likes of Jeppe Hein, Sabine Hornig, Laura Owens, and Sarah Sze that were commissioned through the Public Art Fund. They run the gamut from sinuous steel benches that resemble balloons to a dreamy mural of New York City lore. According to Nicholas Baume, the Public Art Fund’s director and chief curator, these new artworks will transform LaGuardia into “a powerful civic landmark where art is an essential part of the building itself”—a far cry from the “third-world” facility once decried by Joe Biden.

Porcelanosa features an all-encompassing selection of kitchen, bath, tile, and hardwood collections. The brand’s showrooms display full vignette installations and feature a range of products that can adapt to a variety of styles.

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