ARK JOURNAL VOLUME XIII contemplates the quiet force of obsession, a power that fuels creation and transformation, that drives to protect, preserve and perfect.
Obsession can be a love that nourishes, that pushes boundaries and brings ideas to fruition. In those who embrace it, obsession becomes a bridge to understanding, elevating the creator and the creation to something timeless, profound and beautifully enduring.
In this issue, Ark Journal celebrates the journeys of individuals across music, art, design, interiors and architecture whose passion and authenticity are united by the force of obsession.
Among the homes included are a country home in southern Jutland rewilded to instil a sense of history, a Philip Johnson house restored with patience, determination and humility, a joyous experimental loft in New York and obsessive nuance in a 1930s Danish beach house. A high point of French late modernism, Villa Weil is a pure expression of architecture, an abstract object that lies elemental in its rural landscape, preserved and shared as a cultural project.
In a poetic and transient tribute to the Manitoga estate of American pioneer designer Russel Wright, an artist and a photographer capture the soul of the location with a fleeting gesture. Bent, folded and curved, the metal sculptural forms of Umberto Bellardi Ricci staged in a landmark New York penthouse, echo the angular matrix of the interior and the cityscape that inspired their shapes.
Also includes an interview with Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza who, across seven decades of practise, has framed a language of his own, elemental and deeply moving, drawing on memories, the subconscious and a close reading of context and place.
Ark Journal explores the spaces around us, the objects we put in them and the people who make them. Bridging architecture, design and art, the Journal show them as interplay rather than in silos, and with a sense of enduring Scandinavian values and aesthetics. It celebrates good ideas, honest and inventive design and materials and encourage critical debate. Each issue the magazine visits extraordinary homes around the world that are more than the sum of their parts and that express the personal narratives of the people who live in them, their philosophies and influences. Architecture is placed at the core of Ark Journal, in the broader context of our lives, reflecting its more humanistic side and celebrating tactility and individual dimensions.
Copenhagen-based, Ark Journal is a biannual magazine founded by Editor-in-Chief Mette Barfod and made by an experienced team of designers, stylists, photographers and editors. The 240-page magazine is sold in 25 countries around the world.
