Architecture is regarded as both the science and the art intended to heighten people’s senses and social experiences, but what happens when the sensory component is flipped to engulf the built environment? Attempting to do just that is Chamber No. 1, inspired by Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum, in Forth Worth, it takes on the aromatic form of concrete, travertine marble, glass, grass and natural light. Concocted by Argentinian designer and entrepreneur Julian Bedel, who founded the perfume laboratory Fueguia 1833, the intentionally androgynous scent highlights the key design elements that Richard Fargo Brown, founding director of the Kimbell, specified for a beautiful structure that wouldn’t take away from the art it exhibited: 16 parallel vaults grouped into three wings with abundant natural light. The glazed porcelain perfume bottle’s shape, designed by Dutch firm Studio Job co-founders Nynke Tynagel and Job Smeets, hails from a bottle of poison found in an ancient Germany pharmacy. Known for their ornate designs, both regal and cartoonlike, Studio Job’s packaging resembles an artifact unearthed from a trunk buried in the 17th century. Additionally, it is also intended to be a part of “Quack,” a pharmacy cabinet painted with colorful imagery of human anatomy, also by the design firm, placed with other glass, pharmaceutical ornaments.
Completed in 2014, Chamber No. 1 is the first scent for Chamber, a boutique in West Chelsea located in the ground floor of Neil Denari‘s HL23 building, alongside the High Line, founded by Juan Garcia Mosqueda to display unique works of art and design that are rotated every two years by guest curators to provide a different viewpoint.
