Fast Company: Inside a ‘cave of weird treasures,’ with handcrafted objects from architects around the world
Following Gubns’ official launch with a 1-week pop-up during the London Festival of Architecture, Fast Company’s architecture and urban design writer Nate Berg published an exclusive interview with Gubns founder. The article dives into Gubns’ inception, progress and future ambitions.
Read excerpts below and the full interview here.
“In late 2020, Jesslyn Guntur started seeing crafts everywhere. People around the world were stuck inside and had discovered or rediscovered the childhood joy of handiwork—from sewing and needlepoint to painting and bread baking. It was an explosion of amateur crafting, shared widely on social media.”
“Amid that wave of crafts, Guntur noticed a subset that stood out. Architects were sharing designs for objects and artwork that were far more intricate than a simple lanyard. “They were making these things and posting them on Instagram, but a lot of them were not for sale,” she says. “Either they didn’t think they could be sold or that people would be interested in them. But I thought it was incredible work, and there was a lot of opportunity there.”
From left: Jesslyn Guntur, Mario Serrano Puche, Natcha Kucita, Rory Noble-Turner, Yuqiao Guo
“Guntur, who studied architecture and previously did public relations for architecture firms, contacted a few of the craft-making architects in her network in London and put up a website called Gubns, featuring some of their works for sale. (“Gubns” is British slang for random paraphernalia; “the American equivalent is hodgepodge,” explains Guntur.) “I hit publish without knowing where it would go,” she says. Within a few months, she was getting unsolicited submissions from other architects wanting to have their own crafted objects added to the site.”
Left: Eroded Vessels by John Wray IV, Lime Moondust Bottle by Alejandra Design; Right: Bird Tables by Sebastian Fathi
“Now, Gubns has grown into a highly curated network of about 50 objects made by what Guntur calls architect-makers from around the world. Gubns recently had its first physical pop-up shop as part of the London Festival of Architecture.”