The incredibly cool world of Snarkitecture - Secret Souvenir
Here's one illuminating Snarkitecture project that started life as a celebration of New York
Snarkitecture's design work for New York's retail and public spaces - the sneaker store Kith and the 70,000 blue balls suspended in the Oculus Hub spring to mind - always bring a sense of celebration to the city regardless of whether the original intention was to help lighten the step or enlighten the mind (the Oculus Hub project was in aid of World Water Day).
However, one of their much smaller scale design projects, Secret Souvenir, actually started off as a celebration of New York in its own right.
Secret Souvenir appears at first as a plain, white cylindrical candle. But as it burns through, a metal souvenir embedded within the wax is slowly revealed. Each candle in the New York City edition of the Secret Souvenir series contains either an Empire State Building, Chrysler Building or Statue of Liberty souvenir.
The candle’s packaging provides no indication as to which building is hidden within the candle - the souvenir is only unearthed as the wax melts. And that takes around 60 hours. The candle is perfumed with a light floral fragrance comprising scents found in the city's parks.
As usual it's an example of how Snarkitecture do things differently. As Maria Cristina Didero writes in the introduction to our book, "Snarkitecture reformulate any given code, or rule, totally, constantly and strikingly consistently." No more so it seems than when they're playing with expectations and dissimulation via a tiny candle that has the ability to conceal the monumentality of the Empire State.
For this and many other incredibly cool Snarkitecture projects take a look at their new book Snarkitecture in the store.