Tom Dixon + Audi A8

11 December 2009

The main reason for my trip to Miami last week was the launch of the new version of Audi’s flagship sedan, the A8. In a move that is becoming more common amongst automobile manufacturers (it was about time..), this car wasn’t launched and revealed at a nondescript and generic auto show in Frankfurt or Detroit, but in the rather more glamorous confines of Miami Beach.

Audi being one the main sponsors of Design Miami and of Art Basel Miami Beach, it only made sense to do this during the week when this city transforms itself from slightly cheesy seaside resort for retired folk to international creative hub.

Not wanting to do things in halves, Audi built a huge pavilion to launch and display the car, booked a large chunk of the Fontainebleau hotel to host the hundreds of journalists they’d flown in from all over the world, and had 200 chauffeured Q7’s criss-crossing the city. The pavilion displayed a selection of art from the Rubell family Collection, and revealed a specially commissioned installation by my friend Tom Dixon. The laconic British designer only had a very short window of time to create something inspired by the A8, and came up with a simple yet intricate solution. Light Light took inspiration in the (relative) lightness of the car, and is made of hundreds of chemically etched geodesic domes, cut from aluminum (like the car) and finished manually (like the car), each containing some LED lights (like… you guessed it).

Close-up:

Non-assembled panels:

Assembled:

The installation:

Oh and yes there was a car there too:

As usual with Audis, the design is pretty much irreprochable, clearly in line with rest of their range (some could say that all Audi sedans start to look a tad too similar to each other…), and the technology is mind-boggling (a touchpad on which you can write with your finger, night vision with pedestrian recognition, headlights that follow the road according to the sat-nav system, etc…). But what I prefer about the new models in the Audi range is their use of LED’s and “signature” patterns in their head and tail lights. I loved the Q5 ones, I love the R8 headlights, and the new A8 follows that path nicely:

More on this car when I get to drive it…