January 2025 · Press

Monocle, Pure and simple

Monocle covers Studio Goons in Pure and simple, published the day before Evolving Forms opens in Antwerp, reading the work against Donald Judd.

Brace Chair AC by Studio Goons with cushions, beside a table on a blue carpet, Evolving Forms at St Vincents, Antwerp.
Pure and simple, in Monocle on 22 January 2025, on Evolving Forms by Studio Goons at ST VINCENTS, Antwerp. Photograph by Eline Willaert.

Monocle publishes Pure and simple in the Monocle Minute, in its On Design section, the day before Evolving Forms opens at St Vincents in Antwerp.

The piece sets out the collection as eight pieces in birch plywood: two types of table, three kinds of chair, a bench, a stool and a console. It reads the simplicity of the designs against the minimalism of Donald Judd, then draws the distinction that matters. Where Judd is fixed, the combinations here answer to how people actually live, so a stool serves as a nightstand as readily as an extra seat at a dinner.

Brace Chair A and Brace Chair AC by Studio Goons
Brace Chair A and Brace Chair AC by Studio Goons. Photograph by Eline Willaert.

Paul Trussler is quoted on the studio's position, that the work is rooted in a desire for simple solutions, and that a solution judged lightly might look dumb while carrying a considered philosophy behind it. Monocle records Mia Kim's years at Hermes and Chanel and Paul's as a maquette maker for Frank Gehry before he founded his own architectural practice.

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