The Clothed Home: Tuning in to the Seasonal Imagination

London Design Biennale, 1–27.06.2021; National Museum in Kraków, 19.05–28.08.2022; Lisbon Architecture Triennale, 5.11–5.12.2022, Galerija Arka in Vilnius / Vilnius Gallery Weekend, 06.09–08.10.2023, Gdynia Design Days, 22–30.06.2024, Seoul Museum of Craft Art, 26.08–19.10.2025.

The project was featured in Super Vernaculars – Design for a Regenerative Future, curated by Jane Withers, BIO27–Biennale of Design in Ljubljana (26.05–29.09.2022); +/– 1 °C. In Search of Well-Tempered Architecture, curated by Jure Grohar, Eva Gusel, Maša Mertelj, Anja Vidic, and Matic Vrabič, Slovenian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (20.05–26.11.2023); Zimno już było [The Cold Days Are Over], curated by Wanda Kaczor, Konrad Schiller, Marta Żakowska, Warsaw Under Construction Festival, Muzeum Woli (22.09.2023–24.03.2024), Z czego zbudujemy przyszłość [What We Will Build the Future From], curated by Rafał Kosewski, Przemiany Festival, Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw (11–13.10.2024).

An essay on The Clothed Home was published in the e-flux architecture series After Comfort: A User’s Guide, ed. by Daniel A. Barber, Jeannette Kuo, Ola Uduku, Thomas Auer, Nick Axel, Nikolaus Hirsch (2023) and was included in the Places Journal’s reading list on degrowth, energy sobriety and low-tech.

The exhibition explores the ways in which textiles are used to reflect the rhythm of seasonal changes in domestic interiors. It recalls bygone rituals through an artistic installation, searching for inspiration for contemporary climate-responsive design.

Living between centrally heated apartments and air-conditioned offices, we have become indifferent to the nuances of the cyclical changes in nature. Contemporary design can help us tune into nature’s seasonality again. Drawing inspiration from Polish textile designs from pre-electric times, Poland’s installation recalls domestic rituals that will allow us to cultivate our relationship with the natural world; and in consequence, to react more attentively to its continued changes.

In manor houses, aristocratic mansions and peasant cottages of pre-modern Poland, textiles were widely used as a seasonal clothing for architecture. Their cyclical appearance in domestic interiors allowed for conscious and participative experience of the cycles of nature: for celebrating the passage of time and enhancing the feeling of belonging to the rhythm of the day and the sequence of light and darkness.

As a result, the ‘clothed home’ functioned as a resonator, helping the residents experience the pulse of the natural world. By clothing a room of Somerset House, the intention of the installation is to offer visitors a similar, multi-sensory experience.