Petra Blaisse

Petra Blaisse (born 1955 in London, UK) is a British designer.[1][2] She studied at Art School in London and in Groningen. Her work is an intersection of the professions of Architecture, Interior Architecture, Textile Design and Urban Architecture.

Career

Stedelijk Museum

In 1978, Blaisse started working at the museum of modern art in Amsterdam, the Stedelijk Museum. Until 1987, she worked as assistant conservator and as curator at the museum.

Freelance

After that, she started a career as freelancer. In that period she worked on a landscape project at Museumpark Rotterdam, together with Yves Brunier.[1] Also, she worked on the interior for the Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague and designed exhibitions for OMA at Basel and Rotterdam.[3]

Inside Outside

In 1991, Blaisse founded the Amsterdam based studio Inside Outside.[4] With a team of about ten members, the office constitutes part of large-scale projects as, for example, Kunsthal Rotterdam (1994), Prada Epicenter New York (2001), H-Project Seoul (2004), Casa da musica Porto (2005), Mercedes Benz Museum Stuttgart (2006), Prison Gardens Belgium (2010) and the Dutch Pavilion of the Architecture Biennale Venice (2012). For a number of projects Blaisse collaborated with architects and designers, including Rem Koolhaas, Irma Boom and SANAA.[5][6]

Field of work

The work of Petra Blaisse covers a very broad range of activities within the fields of architecture, interior design, textile design, exhibition design and landscape architecture. In her studio Inside Outside the team includes professionals such as a fashion designer, a landscape architect, a cultural anthropolog, an architect and a theatre historian.[7] Giving an idea of her wide ranged projects, a recent design is for example a scenography for a performance of Calliope Tsoupaki.[6]

Inside and Outside

Related to the name of Blaisses’ studio ‘Inside Outside’, her projects are covering the interior and the exterior space. Starting her career with working in a museum she got interested in designing exhibitions. In the years of working freelance she got more involved in the exhibition space and his relationship with the surrounding space and the exterior.[8] It is characteristic for Blaisses’ work that the interior and the exterior space join each other within a fluent transition.[9] This explaines her wide ranged projects between private interior space and urban exterior space. Blaisse considers each project as a part of a more complex entirety and she aimed to include every part into the designing process.

Textiles and curtains

Blaisse works lots of times with a broad range of textiles; designing curtains, carpets, wallcovering and other flexible objects. This objects appropriate to the fluent line between interior and exterior, creating an surface with an open fassade. For some projects she used transparent textiles like in ‘Invisible Presence’, a dividing material for the Glass Pavilion at Toledo Museum of Art.[10] At the one hand, the material creates secureness; at the other hand, it let a few light and sound cross the line between the inside and the outside. Also most of Blaisses’ installations are mobile in that way they could be opened and closed if wanted.[6]

Garden and landscape

In her early freelancing period Blaisse already designed landscape project as Museumpark Rotterdam. For the urban landscape complex Giardini di Porta Nuova, Milan, Italy, she was awarded in 2004. In this large-scaled project, the use of paths is an essential tool for structuring the urban landscape.[11] In 1999, Blaisse designed the exterior space for a prison. Within the strict regulations, she makes use of path with organic forms and reflections in the windows to create the idea of more space and of endlessness.[12]

Technology and history

Blaisses’ projects are custom made solutions on a technical high level that Blaisse developed in collaboration with technical constructors and engineers.[13] As well, her work often refers to the history of the culture, the material and the place. A recent project is the wall covering for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam as a result of intensive historical research.[8] Based on a 17century Gobelin this carpet is manufactured in a highly technologically manner of weaving, developed in colloberation with extern experts. The pattern itself refers to plants, which had grown at the same place 300 years ago. By developing weaving, stitching and sewing, Blaisse also brings new life to historic techniques and materials and makes them very useful as part of contemporary architecture.[14]

Projects

Petra Blaisse designed a wide number of projects. The projects below she highlights by herself.[6] Some highlights of interiors and exhibition projects are:

Finishes and curtains for the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal (1999-2005)

Carpets and interior finishes for the Seattle Central Library, U.S.A. (2000-2004)

Restoration project for the Hackney Empire Theatre in London, UK (2000-2005)

Curtains for the Haus der kunst in Munich, Germany (2004-2007)

Auditorium and AAP Forum curtains, Cornell University Ithaca, New York (2007-2011)

Two curtains for the Chazen Museum of Art in Wisconsin, U.S.A. (2008-2011)

15 curtains for Dutch army officers’ apartments of the Kromhout Kazerne in Utrecht,NL (2009-2011)

Acoustic and view filtering curtain for the lobby of Rothschild Bank in London, UK (2009-2011)

Exhibition “Snapshot”, designed for the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam,NL(2010-2011)

Revisit of 8 curtains and 2 carpets in Villa Floirac in Bordeaux, France (2011-2012)

Tapestry Damast 200m2, developed in collaboration with carpet manufacturer Desso Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (2011-2012)

Biennale in Venice (2012) with our installation “RE-SET, new wings for architecture “. (2011-2012)

Some highlights of Landscape projects are:

Gardens for the Seattle Central Library (2000-2004)

Landscape for Villa Floirac in Bordeaux, France (2000-2005) ‘GiardinidiPortaNuova’landscapecompetitionforwhichInsideOutsideanda multidisciplinary team won the first prize with their entry ‘Biblioteca degli Alberi’ in 2004. The new urban park for the center of Milan, will begin construction in 2013. (2004-ongoing)

Landscape master plan for the transformation of a former waterfront in Riga, Lativia (2006)

Landscape design for the Taipei Performing Arts Center (Taiwan) is expected to start this year (2010-ongoing)

Landscape master plan competition (together with OMA) for the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong for which we were runners up (2011)

Landscape for the Roeterseiland Campus of the University of Amsterdam,NL

Design of gardens for office headquarters in Beijing, China (2011-ongoing)

Landscape master Plan for Lexington city in Kentucky (2011-2013)

Landscape design for the Walker Art Center in collaboration with AiWeiWei, Minneapolis, USA (2011-ongoing)

References

  1. 1 2 Database search: Petra Blaise, Rijksbureau van de kunsten.
  2. ↑ Marcus, J. S. (4 May 2007). "The Inside-Out World Of Landscape Designer Petra Blaisse". Wall Street Journal. (subscription required (help)).
  3. ↑ Blaisse 2006, p.495.
  4. ↑ Blaisse 2006, p.498.
  5. ↑ Blaisse 2006, p.491-95.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Blaisse 2014.
  7. ↑ Vanderstraeten 2014, p.48.
  8. 1 2 Stedelijk Museum 2012.
  9. ↑ Van der Straten 2014, p.49.
  10. ↑ Blaisse 2014, pp. 406-15.
  11. ↑ Blaisse 2006, p. 132 and 250-51.
  12. ↑ Blaisse 2006, pp. 250-79.
  13. ↑ Blaisse 2006, p.492-91..
  14. ↑ Van den Heuvel 1997, p.3 and 15.

Literature

Blaisse, Petra, Shifting Position, 2011, Lecture at Harvard University <http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/#/media/petra-blaisse-shifting-position.html> [October 12, 2014].

Blaisse, Petra, Inside Outside, Rotterdam (NAI) 2006.

Van den Heuvel, Dirk, Inside-outside, in: OASE (1997) 47, pp. 2–19.

Vanderstraeten, Margot, Ruimte wonder, in: De Morgen (Belgium) April 2014, pp. 48–56.

External links

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