Stories on Design // Textile Installation Art.

This little fellow has been brewing in my drafts for a while. You see, I am forever intrigued with the idea of using materials in unexpected and interesting ways, and my inspiration almost always flows when looking at installation art, or those things which are outside of my core area of practice – i.e. interior architecture.

Fabrics and textiles are often associated with upholstery, clothing, or linings, and very rarely do we think of textiles as an “architectural material”. Sure, we make shades and other types of stretched structures from them such as tents, etc. – but their use in interiors and architecture is fairly predictable. I also realise that most of the examples I’m sharing with you today aren’t of real buildings, but I find all of these incredibly evocative and I feel that each one could be used as a guiding principle, or possibly even be translated into a physical space. I also hope this post will stimulate your thinking and highlight the diversity of fabrics that could be employed in architecture and interiors.

So without further ado, I give you twenty two textile installations – big and small – that will knock your socks off.

Related Post: String & Thread Installations.

See More ‘Stories on Design’ Curated by Yellowtrace.

Big Air Package Installation by Christo.

A Breath of Mobility by Yasuaki Onishi for Mercedes-Benz.

Curtain Call by Ron Arad at Roundhouse, London.

Poetic Cosmos of the Breath by Tomas Saraceno.

Leviathan Installation by Anish Kapoor.

Wrapped Interior Installations by Penique Productions.

Basic House by Martín Azúa.

As the winner of the Young Architects Program (YAP) in Rome, Turin-based studio Bam! Bottega di Architettura metropolitan transformed the concrete facade of the Zaha Hadid-designed MAXXI museum into a visual spectacular with the installation of a yellow, translucent and aerostatics prism. See the video of the installation here.

Woven Textile Wall Installations by Wies Preijide.

Rudolf Stingel at the Palazzo Grassi Venice Biennale 2013.

Kvadrat Showroom in Copenhagen by Ronan + Erwan Bouroullec.

Floating sculptures by Peter Gentenaar.

Polyester Sculptures by Do Ho Suh.

SKINNED by KNOL Ontwerp.

Pont de Singe by Olivier Grossetete.

The Exchange Hotel in Amsterdam.

Shirt Installations by Kaarina Kaikkonen.

Semi-transparent Textile Bricks by Akane Moriyama.

Laser-cut Textile Installations by Manuel Ameztoy.

Textile Field Installation for Kvadrat by The Bouroullec Brothers at V&A London.

Raw Edges installation for Kvadrat.

Hairchitecture Installation by FAHR 021.3 & GIJO.

[Images courtesy of the artists. Photography credits as noted.]