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Time And Again: Ikepod Ikedome

Craig Kellogg -- Interior Design, 1/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Ikepod Ikedome Design Miami Art Basel

Marc Newson used to show his wristwatches for Ikepod—the company he co-owns with media entrepreneur turned author-collector Adam Lindemann—alongside the vintage and limited-edition furniture at the annual Design Miami fair. This time, the two flirted harder with art-world high rollers by moving to an independent location in front of the Raleigh hotel, in walking distance from the concurrent Art Basel Miami Beach.

His flat-pack Ikedome was engineered to resist not only rain but also hurricane-force winds. A Swiss company prefabricated the hexagonal and pentagonal panels in a hardy particleboard often used to crate fragile artwork for transport. When the 15-ton shipment arrived in South Beach, workers plugged the components into a geodesic structure that grew to nearly 20 feet tall on the frond-fringed asphalt in front of the Raleigh. The designer was also responsible for the dome's contents, including his Nimrod polyethylene chairs for Magis. These versions were covered in leather, and four were retrofitted to offer storage.

For five days, the dome became a sort of shrine to the Cult of Newson. Suspended from the ceiling was a leather-covered polyhedron shaped like a giant buckyball, or molecule of buckminsterfullerene. LED-lit cutouts displayed the new Solaris collection of boxy unisex watches, which top out at $25,000 in white or yellow gold.

Photography by Ken Hayden.