In 1994, the Australian designer Marc Newson was commissioned to create a sculpture for the Olympics, to be held in Atlanta in 1996. “There was a whole group of us: me, Ron Arad, Alessandro Mendini,” Newson says, “all briefed to make something with a small footprint and high visibility.” Newson designed a 6m-tall column, with two lobes at the top. “It’s like a giant tuning fork,” he says of the piece called Electra. “It was beautifully produced by the aluminium foundry in Newport Pagnell in England, who I’ve worked with from the beginning, from the 1980s.”
The works were never installed in Atlanta, nor in Sydney, where they were optimistically transported for the following games. But now, over 30 years later, Electra has been taken out of its crates and will greet visitors to Château La Coste, near to Aix-en-Provence, from now until 21 June. “It’s been all over the world,” Newson says. “I eventually tracked it down and had it completely restored.”
Electra heralds an exhibition of Newson’s work that is taking place in the glazed pavilion designed by Oscar Niemeyer in Château La Coste’s grounds, and was the Brazilian architect’s final building. Newson had been discussing a show for several years with Paddy McKillen, Château La Coste’s Irish owner, who is a keen design collector, as well as a major art collector, and owns a number of Newson’s works. “I chose pieces that border on design and sculpture for the exhibition, which are relevant both culturally and physically in the context of Château La Coste, with its landscape full of contemporary sculpture,” Newson says. “So, it amounts toa highly curated survey of 40 years of my work.”
The Lockheed Lounge, shown here, dates from 1988 and is the earliest design on show. “There are 15 in total,” Newson says, “and most are in museum collections. This one came from a private collector who was happy to lend it.” A green-and-translucent glass armchair, created in 2017 with a specialist in the Czech Republic, was the most complex to achieve.
Meanwhile, Electra has been acquired by the Los Angeles-based collector Philip Serafim, who has a particular passion for concept cars and owns the one that Newson designed for Ford in 1999. “Electra was made by guys who had worked at Aston Martin,” Newson says. “With Philip, it’s definitely ended up with the right owner.”
- Marc Newson, Château La Coste, Provence, 15 March-21 June