During this year's WAF (World Architecture Festival), its sister event, the Inside World Festival of Interiors, also took place in Amsterdam. The three-day function, which celebrates interior design excellence, culminated with the crowning of the Yumin Art Nouveau Collection as the 2018 World Interior of the Year.
The Yumin Art Nouveau Collection was chosen from a shortlist of 70 interiors revealed earlier this year. Designed by Denmark's Jac Studios, it hosts a permanent exhibition of delicate glass works produced during the Art Nouveau movement on the volcanic Jeju Island, South Korea. It includes art by French artist Émile Gallé, as well as other decorative glass-making luminaries like Auguste and Antonin Daum.
As all good art galleries should, the interior design puts the focus squarely on the works themselves, and subdued hues and moody lighting are the order of the day. It's subtle stuff, especially compared to the more eye-catching interiors in the shortlist, but is certainly well done. The judges were particularly impressed with its sensitivity, to both the artworks and the building it is situated in.
Indeed, though the focus of the award is obviously the interior design, the gallery is located within a building called Genius Loci by Pritzker Prize winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Jac Studio was influenced by its design.
"The architecture by Tadao Ando plays a magnificent setting for the exhibition," says Johan Carlsson, founder of Jac Studios. "The architecture is in itself a piece of art and visitors cannot avoid being touched by its beauty. The new museum is respectful but also challenges the context of the architecture."