Instagram story viewer> @ben_dreith> Posts

Ben Dreith

@ben_dreith

6.1K

followers

7422

following

Design, architecture and arts journalist.
US editor @dezeen.
1/2 @ext.rude.d
Adjunct professor
Occasional fictions and essays ⬇️

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

Gio Ponti’s outrageous fortress-like North Building at the Denver Art Museum, his only US building. It has 1 million bricks and is technically 28 sided. Between the multi-facets, the up close beauty and the fortified effect, making it seem overwhelming and intimidating, it almost personifies modern art. A few other zany buildings on the campus including a just-okay recent glass pavilion addition. They really let Ponti cook. by @ben_dreith

203

13

2 months ago

Chicago Design Week ‘26 by @ben_dreith

205

4

4 months ago

Spent a vivid few days at @johnstonmarklee pavilion in the woods upstate, the @vipp guesthouse. The space has massive windows facing a small lake on a secluded site off the Delaware River. Massive windows bring in the light and being inside is like being inside some sort of capsule, dropped off in the wilderness of another world. It was almost too much at times, this constant viewing, and the architects placed beige curtains on rods that go around the whole central living area. The massive bar element serves as the kitchen counter, storage, cook top, with fluted aluminium edges and a strong stance. Future minimalism comes to mind. But it couldn’t be cold, as every angle opens up into something, and the designers thought a lot about texture, evidently.

A sculpture by Christian Lemmerz (@christianlemmerz) is made from aluminium, moulded to look, at its base almost like cake, spread over the face of a realistic bust, busted by the glopping metal, chaos, spread all over its face, barely supported by thin columns. Classical humanism being consumed by the machine-made, the chaotic interplay of the industrial. Cyborg materialism. by @ben_dreith

129

3

4 months ago

Testimonial — @ben_dreith from @dezeen

For this inaugural edition of Montréal Design Week, we had the pleasure of welcoming — among other international journalists invited for the occasion — Ben Dreith, U.S. Editor at @dezeen

What stood out most to him was the collaborative spirit of Montréal’s creative scene, where designers, architects, makers, institutions, and cultural organizations come together to build a vibrant and connected design community.

— — — — —
Témoignage — @ben_dreith de @dezeen

Pour cette toute première édition de la Semaine Design de Montréal, nous avons eu le plaisir d’accueillir — parmi d’autres journalistes internationaux invités pour l’occasion — Ben Dreith, rédacteur en chef de l’édition américaine de Dezeen.

Ce qui l’a le plus marqué est l’esprit collaboratif de la scène créative montréalaise, où designers, architectes, artisans, institutions et organisations culturelles se rassemblent pour former une communauté du design dynamique et étroitement connectée.

Production par Baous Productions
@conticedric

#semainedesigndemontréal #dezeen taken in Montreal, Canada by @ben_dreith

396

24

4 months ago

@toast took some amazing photography of our @nycxdesign talk last week.
Myself, @linnan_ye_nekoconeko @meg_skidmore @deborahneedleman had a very real conversation about craft, its place in modernity, and the paths all the panelists take to help others and themselves make stuff.

Photo by @_younjungkim_ by @ben_dreith

465

34

5 months ago

A nice detailing on a historic building by @menarddworkind (had no idea it was them when I took the picture, but wasn’t surprised when I found out.
And some city scenes, simple metal refreshes to keep historic buildings fresh. All in Montreal by @ben_dreith

84

2

5 months ago

5/3-5/9
1-3: @peterson_rich_office new gallery design for The Met with the Costume Art exhibition. I appreciate how incredibly difficult it must be to work within the institutional and physical constraints of a building like The Met. Though I’m not sure how it will age, the spaces were grand without being tacky, and the office called attention to design and detail without shouting for it, peeling back walls to show the historic brick and pilasters, and treating the Met like it is, metonymic for the city in general. The costume show was expansive, and I was actually charmed by the mirrors on the manakins faces, EMPATHETIC EMPLACEMENT.

4-5: architect @sanafrini and artist @vuslatds installed a yurt in Power House arts, the power station converted into arts center by @herzogdemeuron, for new comer @conductorartfair . I liked the scale of the piece and Conductor using the grand space to put something architectural into the space, and Conductor itself has a really reasonable footprint conducive to the neighborhood and space. The yurt itself provided a sense of enclosure without the off-putting insulation of some festival “reprieves” — I think if you need a hypobaric chamber during an art fair something else is going on…The interior mural and hole at the top did feel almost ancient, with dust motes dancing in the beam of light, but I am always wary of this implantation of ritual elements, but here the attempt to create windows pre-capitalist social space as window into a time before art was Art seems somewhat successful, even while outside the windows of Power House, the condoification of Gowanus becomes framed obscenity.

6-8: @headhi_ny lamp show returned to the pre-pre-design week line up with a selection to conceptual works at Boom. The setting was glamorous but a bit strange, the avant-garde design work competing a bit with the overwhelming fabric of Manhattan from above. The organizers pointed out the alignment of some of the lamp forms with architectural ones, which makes sense to me; and I think Head HI’s concern with “elevating”, quite literally, the design scene is unimpeachable. Far from the Navy Yards, close to our hearts.

9: city spew

10: your boy by @ben_dreith

179

7

5 months ago

A very successful inaugural @semainedesignmontreal. Congratulations to @sandraheintz and @arnaudgranata ++

1-2:touring the @canadiancentreforarchitecture and viewing their phenomenal, human-centric archive. 1st photo by @oli_la, our fearless guide.
3: students at @concordiauniversity design repurposed the tarpaulin from the Olympic stadium into furniture led by designer Jeremy Petrus
4-5: scenography by @humadesignarchitecture for the @indexdesign_qc trade show. Met the phenomenal designers of @principal.studio who did the design week’s graphics
6: the design collections at @mbamtl — one of the best in the world
7-8: @procedures.industry curated a wonderful show highlighting the unbelievable concentration of design in the Mile-Ex neighborhood. Ceramics by @rosemariefaillef
9: @nouveaumilieu tasked designers with using benches from a church to make new pieces, showcased at a convent that was rescued by organization Entre Mis, which runs a material library that in turn funds arts initiatives. More to come on this one.
10. @delacourtemanche__ created a social hinge point of the festival with @menu_extra using the test kitchen for their design-forward dinner series to create Bar Extra, with @zebulonperron and @lambertetfils
11. @sarahyaorishea curated another amazing show, this time tasking designers with softness as a brief. One of the best emerging curators (and designers) in Canada

Not pictured was an architectural jogging tour as well as a phenomenal talk at the design week’s salon by @bethanlaurawood by @ben_dreith

589

30

5 months ago

4/16-24/2026

Some things I saw and liked this week
1. @ushaseejarim sculpture at @southernguildgallery New York gallery opening show
2. @jack_simonds_studio delicate work at @amelieduchalard
3. @tomsachsfurniture at @salon94design
4. 42 Crosby Street by @selldorfarchitects
5. Lyndal Roper’s phenomenal look at the misunderstood revolutionary spirit of the German Peasants War
6. @prattinstitute Resarch Open House
7. @jacques_herzog at @columbiagsapp
8. Ma new @clarksshoes on my daily walk in the lower east side by @ben_dreith

154

1

6 months ago

Custom @wakawakainc chair colorway and an interview in Japanese for @vowels.official. Seen at release party for the new issue of the @zeitungmagazine at Vowel’s place on the Bowery designed by @michaelabeldeng and @nilegreenberg by @ben_dreith

55

1

7 months ago

Still really impressed by the @thebechtler museum in Charlotte North Carolina clad by @mariobottaarchitetti_official with thousand of terracotta tiles. I guess the postmodernism of this one is that it would make much more sense in, say, Mexico City when compared with the buildings around it. A bit plopped! And the galleries felt pushed to the side to make room for an underused atrium. In general, charming! Shout out to my mom for driving taken in Charlotte, North Carolina by @ben_dreith

115

7

10 months ago

Miami art week was actually kinda chill? And there were books? And good readings a performances courtesy of @thewhitneyreview and @heavy_traffic_mag ? Maybe it was just me #miamiartweek taken in Miami Beach, Florida by @ben_dreith

331

17

10 months ago