Snarkitecture is a Brooklyn-based, collaborative practice founded in 2008 by architect Alex Mustonen (born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1981) and artist Daniel Arsham (born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1980). The studio’s work focuses on the territory between art and architecture; Snarkitecture works with existing spaces or in collaboration with other designers and artists to “make architecture perform the unexpected.” Notable projects to date include Drift, the entrance pavilion for Design Miami/ 2012, which utilized a series of suspended, floating tubes to create a topographical landscape; A Memorial Bowing (2012), a public art project for which the original signage letters from the Orange Bowl stadium (demolished in 2008) were reconstructed and set in the east plaza of the new Marlins Ballpark, thereby creating an ambiguous moment between ruin and rebuilding; and Float, Split, and Broken Ornament (all 2012), furniture and objects that appear at different points to be either continuous and solid or excavated or decayed.
The duo has exhibited at Wallpaper Handmade in Milan (2013), with Volume Gallery and Grey Area at the Collective Design Fair in New York (2013), in Furniture at Design Miami/ in Miami and Volume Gallery in Chicago (both 2012), and as part of the BOFFO Show House in New York (2012), among others.
The partners met as students at the Cooper Union. Mustonen earned his Bachelor’s degree in 2005 from the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. Prior to Snarkitecture, in 2007, he founded Intramural, a design consultancy that provided conceptual and development services to artists, architects, and designers. Arsham earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003. In addition to his work with Snarkitecture, since 2003, Arsham has worked as an independent designer and artist, creating commissioned performance and architectural projects for public and private clients, such as Dior Homme, Jonah Bokaer, and Merce Cunningham.
