BEIRUT: When listening to Tamara Zantout explain what her new website is all about, one would be forgiven for wondering how The Urban Fusion would be able to encompass all these topics: furniture, fashion, real estate, architecture, landscaping.“Everything urban,” she said.
The Urban Fusion launched its beta website last week at an event in Downtown’s Saifi Village. And though the breadth of the website was at first difficult to comprehend, the outdoor party attended by designers, artists and lovers of both art and design was in many ways a physical example of what the website would entail.
Simply put, Theurbanfusion.net is a gathering for all those interested in design with an urban flair.
Designers, from contemporary artists to furniture makers, can promote and sell their products through the website. Pages highlight the work of interior designers, urban planners and architects. Buyers interested in mind-blowing real estate can skim through luxury apartments located in Beirut or anywhere else in the world.
And people with a passion for contemporary design can gawk at avant-garde nargileh pipes, modern stretch-canvas paintings and conceptual lighting fixtures.
A subsection of the website is also dedicated to book authors who’ve written about such topics mentioned above.
So what is the unifying element between a landscape architect and a funky rocking chair? Space. They both affect space: One builds our outdoor space while the other completes our interior space.
That is the whole purpose of the website, to bring all of these somewhat disparate design categories together on one platform in order to incite collaboration and inspiration, Zantout said.
“Form in its integrity has shaped the world, whether through architecture, urban planning or industrial design,” said a statement released at the website’s launch party. “That is why we have chosen to create a space, where these fields can interact, and become one.”
Indeed the idea for The Urban Fusion was born when Zantout took a trip abroad about a year ago. She was looking for a website to sell some of her furniture wares and decided all of them were too narrow, focusing exclusively on either fashion, architecture or furniture.
The launch party offered a taste of the interaction she envisions.
A handful of designers and artists already featured on The Urban Fusion presented their work in a small outdoor gallery, compiling the mixed-media artwork of Nayla Kai Saroufim, the abstract fantasy painting “Book of Life” by Sari al-Khazen and a pair of designer stools by Zantout, among others.
Art dealers could meet artists; fashion designers could find inspiration in Arabesque art; architects and furniture designers could discuss collaborations. “The sky is the limit,” Zantout said.
Just as last week’s opening drew design-minded people from around the city, The Urban Fusion will host events to bring designers together not only online, but in the flesh, to trade ideas.
Only a small team spread out in Beirut, London and Dubai runs the website now. For now the site focuses on those three locations, as well as the rest of the Middle East.
The site has also teamed up with the American University of Beirut and the the American University Sharjah, whose design faculties are also interested in creative collaborations.
“I want to become the hub of everything urban,” Zantout said. “Urban Fusion is everything encompassing the city and the art within it.”
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