Lion Fabrics
Two trade-fair pavilions for Lion Fabrics in Frankfurt, one year apart: the same client, presented in two different architectural readings.
2022 The first frames the textiles within a monochrome architectural shell, the black-and-white surfaces pushing the coloured fabric panels to centre stage. The fabrics are built into walls, ceiling baffles, and furniture, and the stand becomes a showroom and meeting lounge within a compact footprint.
2023 The second reverses the question: the textiles themselves become the architecture. An entrance of open fabric rolls, a wall of rolled fabrics arranged as a gradient that walks the visitor through the collection, and a circular centrepiece in which radiating strings are woven into a suspended halo that cascades to the floor as sculptural seating. The shell stays neutral so that the textiles carry every surface.
Two years, one client, two answers to the same question: how to present a material as both product and experience.
DIUM / Lion FabricsIN 2022 THE SHELL FRAMED THE FABRIC. IN 2023 THE FABRIC BECAME THE SHELL.
The Constant
Both pavilions were built to the same premise: for a textile house the material is the message, and the architecture’s job is to decide how close the visitor gets to it. A compact footprint, a meeting lounge within it, and a shell that defers to the fabric held from one year to the next.
The Reversal
What changed was the relationship between shell and fabric. In the first year the shell framed the textiles; in the second the textiles became the shell. The first answer is curated — the fabric is shown. The second is immersive — the fabric is entered. Together they show a client the full range of what a trade stand can be asked to do.
Working together