Damascus Revisited Again
Playful yet slightly nostalgic about a recent past, Lebanese designer Fadi Sarieddine embarked in a research journey on iconic design from Damascus.
Fadi Sarieddine Design Studio unveils a furniture line developed as part of a yearlong research study, questioning the progression of Arabic design, architecture and the massive gap caused by a century of political disruptions in the region.
Known for the functionality of his work but also for the playfulness of his creation, Fadi and his studio conducted a research to identify key moments in the Arabic art history. The goal is to determine the root of its forms and geometries and explore the possible progression of Arabic design without falling into the usual arabesque and other trendy patterns.
‘Damascus Revisited Again’ is a series of geometries that come together to create pieces of different functions. It dismantles the leg base of a traditional Damascene table into individual pure forms that can be stacked as beads on a stick, thus transforming the table into a system generating multiple items - such as a fruit bowl, candle stick and a side table. The logic for the combinations are borrowed from the chemical notion of bonding, allowing the end-user to construct a design that grows with its function.
The exhibition invites the users to design their own pieces by guiding them through a Live Design Station, an integral space displaying elements in different forms and materials, joints and assembly points. By hand-picking every piece, a special relationship is created between the product and the user, who becomes the main protagonist of the process. By breaking the boundary between the designer and the user, Sarieddine gives life to a new mindset that reinstills the human factor in everyday life. ‘Damascus Revisited Again’ debuted at the Beirut Design Fair and won “The Object Award” 2018.
Fadi Sarriedine was born in Beirut where he studied Architecture at the American University before getting a Master’s Degree in Architectural Design at the Bartlett School, UCL, London. His studio is located at Dubai Design District (d3).
