awards + competitions

Following up on a story we told you about back in early January, the clothing company Benetton has either picked the worst time or the best time to unveil the shortlist of their Designing in Teheran architecture competition, which will result in two new towers being built in Iran's central city. Three finalists were selected for each of the two buildings (so six in total) and each of the shortlisted design are certainly stunning (Bustler has a huge collection of them all on one page), but given the recent activity in Iran, no matter how much additional press they can syphon of for themselves because of that recent focus on the country, does Benetton really want to a) step into an extremely unstable area where foreigners from the west aren't looked upon very highly at the moment (in at least half the country) or b) be seen as "the company who opened up a shop so Iranians could get right down to what they're desperately wanting right now: expensive shirts"? The whole thing seems a little wonky in the logic department. But hey, we're writing about the company for the second time this year, so good or bad, we guess the PR is working.

While we can't be sure that our Diet Coke purchasing experience would be significantly improved by a 46-inch LCD touch screen, Flash technology, motion graphics, high-definition video, and Bluetooth capabilities, the thusly enhanced Coca-Cola vending machine (at right) won a Gold Lion in the design/point of sale category at the 2009 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. The souped-up machine, which debuted last year at the Beijing Olympics, was designed by Miami-based Sapient Interactive. Here's hoping that as the machines are rolled out, they'll be manufactured in a hue other than the bland, industrial gray we associate with shady ATM machines and old-school Casio graphing calculators. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola also picked up a Gold Lion in the viral advertising category, for the YouTube hit Signs, a short film for Schweppes directed by Patrick Hughes for Publicis Mojo of New Zealand. We've posted the charming video, which makes us crave a fresh Sharpie Magnum 44, after the jump.

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There was one big question on the mind of most everyone who swanned into Lincoln Center's newly renovated Alice Tully Hall last night for the annual and ever higher profile Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fashion Awards, and it had nothing to do with the astounding transformation wrought by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. No, the sartorially astute crowd was too busy wondering whether self-taught designing sisters Laura and Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte would best decorated veterans Marc Jacobs and Narciso Rodriguez to win the award for womenswear designer of the year—just one year after they won the Swarovski award for the label they founded in 2005. In a word, yes.

The Mulleavys took home the CFDA's top honor for their otherworldly womenswear, which Kate described to us last fall as the product of everything from "a lot of trial and error" to—in the case of the spring 2009 collection—an inspired "mixture between science fiction and site-specific art." Meanwhile, Scott Sternberg for Band of Outsiders and Italo Zucchelli for Calvin Klein Collection tied for menswear designer of the year honors, while enduring CFDA favorites Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler took home the accessory designer of the year award. The Swarovski awards were presented to Alexander Wang (womenswear), Tim Hamilton (menswear), and Justin Giunta for Subversive Jewelry (accessory design). Taking home the first ever popular vote award for favorite fashion designer, chosen online by the public, was Ralph Lauren.

Previously on UnBeige:

Some good news for Philadelphia by way of Venice. Over the weekend, the city learned that the Philadelphia Museum of Art had snapped up a Venice Biennale Golden Lion in the best national pavilion category for their "Bruce Nauman: Topological Garden" (and by extension, Bruce Nauman also must have been fairly pleased, this being his second Lion win in just a decade). According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the win is the first for the U.S. in the pavilion department in almost twenty years, which has to make everyone at the museum plenty pleased. Here's a bit:

In a ceremony at the Pavilion attended by Italian president Giorgio Napolitano, the museum accepted honors for "Bruce Nauman: Topological Garden," echoing the capture of a similar top award two decades ago for its Jasper Johns show.

"We're all so happy," said Art Museum chairman H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest. "What it represents to me is what a great loss it was when Anne d'Harnoncourt died a year ago, and the museum has not lost a step despite that. This to me is a great achievement...and nobody would have been more excited than Anne d'Harnoncourt."

Artists John Baldessari and Yoko Ono will receive Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement tomorrow at the opening ceremony of the Venice Biennale. The awards are presented by the President and the Board of the Venice Biennale Foundation based upon the suggestion of Daniel Birnbaum, the director of the 53rd International Art Exhibition. The award winners will also be featured in events over the weekend: tomorrow afternoon, Baldessari will sit down for a chat with Birnbaum and Steven Henry Madoff at the Arsenale and Ono will perform there on Sunday, followed by a conversation with David Ross. Meanwhile, the other Golden Lion Awards—for Best National Participation and Best Artist of the "Making Worlds" exhibition—and the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Artist of the exhibition will be selected by an international jury comprised of Angela Vettese (jury chair), Jack Bankowsky, Homi K. Bhabha, Sarat Maharaj, and Julia Voss.

Some fun news now from the great, mysterious void. We're talking about outer space here -- or rather, outer space by way of Houston. That's where designer Michael Okuda is being honored by NASA with an Exceptional Public Service Medal for both his work on numerous Star Trek film and television projects since the mid-1980s, as well as helping out within the space agency itself, both outlets having been informed by one another over the decades, with Okuda as something of the middle ground in between. The designer, a long time space fanatic, has worked with NASA over the years designing patches for missions and memorials, as well as general design work throughout a number of programs. And for his work, he'll be receiving an honor (along with 50 pages worth of other people and teams [pdf]) come July 9th at the Johnson Space Center (which we're guessing maybe they're not making him design).

Are there less clients? Less clients willing to try out new ideas in these troubling financial times? Or less agency petty cash needed to apply? These are the questions we ask upon learning that the entries to the Cannes Lion advertising awards have dropped this year by nearly 35%, as well as all across the board at Cannes, feature films and all. No idea what this means, but one must speculate that it's probably a little from all three columns. But hey, rest easy designers -- it's still not getting any easier to win in your category:

The only awards to see an increase in entrants was the Promo Lions with a 1.4 per cent growth to 1,118 entries and the Design Lions with a 1.2 per cent growth to 1,139.

Following up from our story back in mid-April about Swiss architect Peter Zumthor taking home the biggest of the big prizes for architects, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, this past weekend marked the actual awarding of the award (along with a cool $100,000 and a snazzy bronze medal). Art Daily has a great shot of Zumthor looking very happy with his new prestige, as well as some of the quotes from the event in Buenos Aires from both the big winner himself and Peter Palumbo, the prize's jury chairman (who also goes by the name Baron Palumbo and Lord Palumbo, both of which are awesome and we are highly jealous of). If you're hungry for more after that, Zumthor also sat down with the AP to talk a little about the prize winning and to take a few more beaming photos.

(All photos: UnBeige)

Designer Ralph Rucci, UnBeige's all-time favorite fashion icon, is the 2009 recipient of the Pratt Institute Fashion Icon Award. Pratt President Thomas F. Schutte will present Rucci with the award this evening at the 2009 Pratt fashion show, which will feature the best work of the school's graduating seniors. "We are thrilled to honor Ralph Rucci with the 2009 Fashion Icon Award," said Rosie DePasquale, chair of Pratt's Fashion Design Department, in a press release. "The students graduating this year have been following Ralph's work since they first visited his atelier as sophomores and learned a few of his couture methods." Past Pratt Fashion Icons include Narciso Rodriguez and Diane von Furstenberg. Rucci's win comes on the heels of a triumphant 2008, in which he took home the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for fashion design, was the subject of a David Boatman-directed documentary, and, after being chosen as the Mercedes-Benz Presents Designer, ended the spring collections at New York Fashion Week with a black silk tulle bang.

Medals, pencils, cubes, elephantine statuettes designed by Alexander Calder—spring always finds us buried in design awards, and we're still in catch-up in mode. Last things first: On Friday, the Society of Publication Designers (SPD) held its annual awards gala at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom to recognize outstanding design, photography, illustration, and online work. WIRED creative director (and outgoing SPD president) Scott Dadich was the Michael Phelps of the evening, taking home a whopping eight gold medals for the Condé Nast publication, including the coveted magazine of the year award and the top honor for overall design of the November 2008 "Future of Food" issue. WIRED also won five silver medals, in categories including feature design and info-graphic (also for the food issue).

Meanwhile, New York continued its domination of best magazine cover accolades with its unstoppable Barbara Kruger-ized depiction of Eliot Spitzer's brain, while The New York Times Magazine took home silver for its March 2008 "End of Republican America?" cover, which featured Andrew Bettles' photo of a deflated red elephant. The night's other big winners included GQ (with 11 medals, including a silver for magazine of the year) and W, which cleaned up in the feature design categories (you go, Edward Leida!) and won gold for its May 2008 "Cairo" photo portfolio by Philip-Lorca DiCorcia. Click here for a full list of this year's SPD winners, and if you missed the gala, check out the SPDtweets Twitter, which posted minute-by-minute updates from Friday's festivities. "AARP art staff is in the house," read an early tweet. "The only art staff that never gets carded for drinks."