Alain Elkann Interviews
Alain Elkann Interviews podcasts are an unprecedented window into the minds of some of the most well-known and -respected figures of the last twenty-five years. Alain Elkann has mastered the art of the interview, approaching the task as somewhere between snapping a photograph and writing a short story. With a background in novels and journalism, and having published over twenty books translated across ten languages, Alain infuses his interviews with innovation, allowing them to flow freely and organically. A small selection, to which we will gradually add, are presented here as podcasts for the first time.
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Judy Chicago - 200 - Alain Elkann Interviews
07/21/2024
Judy Chicago - 200 - Alain Elkann Interviews
A FIGHTER FOR EGALITARIANISM AND JUSTICE. Judy Chicago is an artist, author, feminist, cultural historian, and educator who lives and works in New Mexico, USA. In 2018 she was named one of Time Magazine’s most influential people, and she has garnered an enduring stature. Born Judy Cohen in 1939, and known briefly after her first marriage as Judy Gerowitz, Chicago attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1970, she adopted the surname ‘Chicago’ and initiated the United States’ first Feminist Art Programme at California State University, Fresno. Chicago became particularly well known for her 1970s installation The Dinner Party. In 2024 her show Revelations is at London’s Serpentine and Herstory is at LUMA Arles. “Feminist art promotes diversity. I believe that every voice counts.” “I look at the history of art as the history of men’s art, and so feminist art opens the way for a history of women’s art.” “I don’t think people quite understand how much work it is for an artist to have three shows within one year.”
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Charles Zana - 199 - Alain Elkann Interviews
07/14/2024
Charles Zana - 199 - Alain Elkann Interviews
CLASSIC WITH A MODERN TWIST. Charles Zana is a highly sensitive architect who imagines each project through the lens of a French lifestyle. He is also a passionate collector like his father, and has done in-depth research on the great Italian design masters of the 20th century such as Ettore Sottsass and Carlo Scarpa. In 2019 Charles Zana was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by David Caméo, director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. “I like to always start from a classic design, and then to treat it in a modern way.” “People don’t accept the simple beautiful project; they want to understand what is behind it.” “I became a good architect and then I became fashionable.”
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Yinka Shonibare - 198 - Alain Elkann Interviews
07/07/2024
Yinka Shonibare - 198 - Alain Elkann Interviews
THE ARTIST IS UTOPIC. Yinka Shonibare CBE RA is a celebrated British artist whose work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. His show Suspended States is at Serpentine from 12th April until September 1st 2024 and is his first London solo exhibition in over 20 years. “Artists are always utopian in their thinking, but then somehow we always fail this utopia, because it’s never actually realised.” “I was asking myself if can I make a work of art that’s really about nothing. Literally about wind.” “I don’t want to make literal abstractions, but I can get to the sublime through reality.”
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Jennifer Clement - 197 - Alain Elkann Interviews
06/30/2024
Jennifer Clement - 197 - Alain Elkann Interviews
THE PROMISED PARTY. Jennifer Clement is the President Emerita of PEN International and the author of multiple books, including Widow Basquiat and Gun Love. The recipient of many awards, her books have twice been a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Under her leadership at PEN International, and being the only woman elected since the organization was founded in 1921, the groundbreaking PEN International Women’s Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created. As President of PEN Mexico (2009-2012), Clement was instrumental in changing the law to make killing a journalist a federal crime. “The book is fragmentary in the sense that it is written in very short chapters. It is also the story of how I became a writer and a tale of two cities.“ “I felt it was very important that PEN International, the largest and oldest writers’ organisation, defend the right for writers to use their imaginations and be who you are not.“ “The gun shot low.”
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Minsuk Cho - 196 - Alain Elkann Interviews
06/23/2024
Minsuk Cho - 196 - Alain Elkann Interviews
ENJOYING A NEW CHALLENGE. Minsuk Cho is the South Korean architect who has envisioned the Serpentine Pavilion 2024, the 23rd pavilion in the series, in London’s Kensington Gardens. It is titled Archipelagic Void as a unique void surrounded by a constellation of smaller adaptable structures, each of which has a specific purpose: the Gallery, the Auditorium, the Library, the Play Tower and the Tea House. Minsuk Cho trained in Seoul and New York, and worked in America and the Netherlands before returning to Korea to open his own practice, which he calls Mass Studies. “Architecture’s unique language allows people to interact, engage and understand in a very positive way.“ “This Serpentine project is exciting because the whole thing only takes six months from conception to completion.“ “The world is changing, and I don’t want to become a jaded professional. I take everything as a new challenge.“
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Paul Theroux - 195 - Alain Elkann Interviews
06/16/2024
Paul Theroux - 195 - Alain Elkann Interviews
WRITERS ARE UNBALANCED PEOPLE. Paul Theroux is an American novelist and travel writer known for his highly personal award-winning observations on many locales. Over 50 works of fiction and travel writing include modern classics The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, My Secret History and The Mosquito Coast. Theroux’s recent book, Burma Sahib, explores Eric Blair’s years as a British Raj police officer in colonial Burma that transformed him into the anticolonial writer, George Orwell. "A novelist speculates, and that's my role in life: to invent, to imagine, and to create the person" "The writer is defining himself or herself with each book" "Most of my books are about a person, usually a man somewhat like myself, that needs to solve a problem"
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Robert Verkaik - 194 - Alain Elkann Interviews
06/09/2024
Robert Verkaik - 194 - Alain Elkann Interviews
AGENT JOSEPHINE: A BETRAYAL TOO FAR. Robert Verkaik is a British author and award-winning journalist. He was the Home Affairs Editor of the Independent and the Security Editor of the Mail on Sunday. He is the author of Defiant: The Untold Story of the Battle of Britain, Posh Boys and Jihadi John: Making of a Terrorist, as well as the Sunday Times bestseller The Traitor of Colditz. He is a non-practising barrister and lives in Surrey. His most recent book is The Traitor of Arnhem: WWII’s Greatest Betrayal and the Moment That Changed History Forever. "Blunt himself was responsible for editing the MI5 monthly briefings which were handed to Churchill, so was in a very good position to bury everything that Churchill may or may not have wanted to know about Agent Josephine and Arnhem." "The arguments that Blunt was making about his own treachery are the same ones that some of the British jihadis were using to justify their own actions." "Things haven't changed as far as the Russian leaders view the world."
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Vera Michalski-Hoffmann - 193 - Alain Elkann Interviews
05/26/2024
Vera Michalski-Hoffmann - 193 - Alain Elkann Interviews
FOR THE SAKE OF THE WRITTEN WORD. Vera Michalski-Hoffmann spent her childhood in the Camargue, France, then studied at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. Together with her husband Jan Michalski, a Polish native, she founded the publishing company Éditions Noir sur Blanc. Together they developed the Libella group, which now comprises a dozen publishing houses in Switzerland, France and Poland. Jan passed away in 2002, and Vera created the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature to perpetuate their shared commitment to the written word, to support literary creation and encourage reading. Vera Michalski-Hoffmann has received Polish and French prizes and distinctions, an honorary doctorate from the University of Lausanne, and is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. “We try to host as many events as possible that bring people back to the written word.” “Unless properly controlled, the use of AI in the creative process could mean a great impoverishment of the world.” “For the Gulag evening most of the people in attendance were older, and I would bet that more than half of young people simply don’t know what Gulag is.”
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Sergio Roger - 192 - Alain Elkann Interviews
05/19/2024
Sergio Roger - 192 - Alain Elkann Interviews
SCULPTING WITH FABRIC. Sergio Roger graduated from Berlin’s Art Academy (UdK) where he studied Sculpture and New Media Art. He has received several important awards and his work has been exhibited in international galleries such as Galleria Rossana Orlandi and Robilant + Voena in New York. Sergio’s work is rooted in his life-long fascination with visual representations of beauty in ancient civilizations, especially the Graeco-Roman era and its modern counterparts. “I’m passionate and obsessed with these kinds of fabrics” “Art is the laboratory where things are taken out of the world and seen and put under the light” “In my daily life, I don’t want distraction.”
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Andrea Califano - 191 - Alain Elkann Interviews
05/12/2024
Andrea Califano - 191 - Alain Elkann Interviews
EDUCATING THE IMMUNE RESPONSE. Andrea Califano is President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York. He is the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and also holds appointments in the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Biomedical Informatics, and Medicine. The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network of scientific institutes is supported by and partners with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to help researchers cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the century. “We are trying to take over where natural evolution has stopped.” “We need to learn more about mechanisms that we can harness to generate universal therapies.” “For Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, we are certainly hoping to accomplish being able to detect them at a stage where they are still treatable.”
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Victoria Siddall - 190 - Alain Elkann Interviews
05/04/2024
Victoria Siddall - 190 - Alain Elkann Interviews
ART, SUSTAINABILITY & FUNDRAISING. Victoria Siddall is a non-executive Director of Frieze, a co-founder and trustee of Gallery Climate Coalition, and the Founding Director of Murmur, a new initiative that enables the worlds of visual arts and music to play their part in combatting the climate crisis. A strategic advisor to museums and businesses on art, sustainability and fundraising, Siddall is Chair of the board of trustees of Studio Voltaire, Cultural Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and a trustee of the Ampersand Foundation UK. “Frieze Masters was the first fair that I launched and ran as Director.” “The aim is to unite the art and music industries and channel funds into the most impactful climate initiatives.” “Artists are really at the heart of the whole art ecosystem, so the investment there is critical.”
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Gilles Kepel - 189 - Alain Elkann Interviews
04/27/2024
Gilles Kepel - 189 - Alain Elkann Interviews
BUILDING A GLOBAL NARRATIVE. Gilles Kepel is a university professor, political scientist and Arabist. His books include Terror in France: The Rise of Jihad in the West, Away from Chaos: The Middle East and the challenge to the West, and lately Prophète en son pays (Editions de l’Observatoire: 2023) and Holocaustes (Plon: 2024). He has published 25 books, which have been translated into some 20 languages. “The Global South is a construct. I believe it won’t stand together.” “The very notion of Holocaust as meaning the Jewish Holocaust by the Nazis is being put into question by those new leaders of the Global South.” “I believe that academic knowledge has a global outreach and people are not prisoners of opinion leaders.”
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Graham Steele - 188 - Alain Elkann Interviews
04/21/2024
Graham Steele - 188 - Alain Elkann Interviews
GOING THROUGH STAGES. Graham Steele is a private art dealer, adviser and collector who lives between Los Angeles and Brazil with his husband, Ulysses de Santi, and their young daughter, Asher. Born in rural Vermont, Steele attended Georgetown University, Washington D.C., followed by UCL in London, from which he graduated with his MA in 2004. He started his career at Sotheby’s, joined White Cube in 2006, and is a former partner at the eminent contemporary and modern art gallery Hauser & Wirth, a role which he left in 2020 to start his own business. “Everything starts with education” “Collecting is incredibly personality driven” “I am in the business of helping people find things that are relevant to their lives“
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Joel Mesler - 187 - Alain Elkann Interviews
04/14/2024
Joel Mesler - 187 - Alain Elkann Interviews
HERE TO SERVE. Joel Mesler is an artist whose career in the art world started as an art dealer and gallerist. A Master of Fine Arts graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Mesler worked for almost two decades as an art dealer in Los Angeles and New York City, painting on and off while promoting artists Henry Taylor and Rashid Johnson early in their careers. In 2017, Mesler moved to Sag Harbor, where he owns Rental Gallery. He continues to paint, influenced by pop culture and nature as well as his own history of addiction and his Jewish heritage. "Survival is our badge of honour" "I'll never stop painting rabbis" "There's nothing to hide"
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Steve McQueen - 186 - Alain Elkann Interviews
04/07/2024
Steve McQueen - 186 - Alain Elkann Interviews
WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE ARE. Sir Steve McQueen CBE is a British film director, film producer, screenwriter, and video artist. Over the last 30 years he has created some of the most innovative works of moving image designed for gallery spaces. He has also directed critically acclaimed feature films, including the Academy Award-winning , as well as , , , , and . “It’s always good to have some kind of understanding of where you are now and why you’re here now.” “I’m not a slave to the medium.” “The only reason I do what I do is because I can somehow reflect on who we are or who we want to be.”
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Pauline Bebe - 185 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/31/2024
Pauline Bebe - 185 - Alain Elkann Interviews
THE DIFFICULT HAPPINESS OF BEING JEWISH. Pauline Bebe is the rabbi of Communauté Juive Libérale (CJL), a Progressive Jewish congregation in Paris, where she was the first female rabbi to lead a synagogue. “The philosophy of Judaism is to maintain hope in times of difficulties, and we have to fight for our ideals of democracy, of humanity, of respect for every living person.” “A lot of Jews feel that they are not understood; that whatever they say or do will not be understood, but they also think that more than ever they have to reclaim their Judaism.” “I hope for peace. I hope for dialogue with everyone.”
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Ambrogio Beccaria - 184 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/24/2024
Ambrogio Beccaria - 184 - Alain Elkann Interviews
POWER IS NOTHING WITHOUT CONTROL. Ambrogio Beccaria was born in Milan in 1991 and gained a degree in nautical engineering. In 2019 he became the first Italian in the history of sailing to win the Mini-Transat – the historic solo competition that crosses the Atlantic Ocean on board 6.5 metre boats. Since 2022 Beccaria has been reaching important goals on his boat “Alla Grande – Pirelli” and in 2023 won the Transat Jacques Vabre, the most important race of the year. “I love everything about sailing.” “You need to be a sailor. You need to understand your boat, to feel what is going on, to be connected with the sea.” “Once you won one race then you have to win the next.”
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Hans Ulrich Obrist - 183 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/17/2024
Hans Ulrich Obrist - 183 - Alain Elkann Interviews
I WANT TO CREATE JUNCTIONS. Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic, and art historian who lives and works in London where he is Artistic Director at Serpentine. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews, and is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review.
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Inigo Lambertini - 182 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/10/2024
Inigo Lambertini - 182 - Alain Elkann Interviews
TRADITION AND INNOVATION. Inigo Lambertini was appointed Ambassador of Italy to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by the Italian Government in February 2022 and arrived in London in October, a few weeks after the death of Queen Elizabeth. Neapolitan by birth, he entered the Italian diplomatic service in 1987, and his career includes recent duties as Chief of Diplomatic Protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome, after New York.
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Tim Marlow - 181 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/03/2024
Tim Marlow - 181 - Alain Elkann Interviews
DESIGN OF THE PRESENT INTO THE FUTURE. Tim Marlow OBE is the Chief Executive and Director of The Design Museum which since 2016 is housed in the former premises of the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, London. Marlow is a curator, writer and broadcaster who has worked with some of the most influential contemporary artists to deliver wide-ranging and popular programmes. He sits on the Board of Trustees for the Imperial War Museum, Sadler’s Wells, Art on the Underground Advisory Board and Cultureshock Media.
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Jasper Conran - 180 - Alain Elkann Interviews
02/18/2024
Jasper Conran - 180 - Alain Elkann Interviews
TASTEMAKER AND HOTELIER. Jasper Conran is a British designer who studied at Parsons School of Art and Design in New York. He has worked on collections of womenswear and for the home, as well as productions for the stage in ballet, opera and theatre. He opened his first hotel in Morocco, L'Hôtel Marrakech, recently followed by Villa Mabrouka in Tangier. "I have a store of ideas in my head, and this ability to switch from one thing to another." "Theatre and ballet let me go crazy." "I went to see the Saint Laurent house and bought it immediately. I could see what it could be as a hotel."
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Fanny Minesi - 179 - Alain Elkann Interviews
02/04/2024
Fanny Minesi - 179 - Alain Elkann Interviews
A MISSION TO STOP EXTINCTION. Fanny Minesi is General Director of Friends of Bonobos - Les Amis des Bonobos du Congo (ABC). Her organisation operates the world’s only sanctuary – Lola ya Bonobo - and only rewilding site for bonobos – Ekolo ya Bonobo. Raised in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), she has been immersed in wildlife conservation since childhood. In November 2023 she was presented with the Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa by William, Prince of Wales. Fanny Minesi works to secure the future of endangered bonobos through rescue and rehabilitation, rewilding, conservation law enforcement, education, and economic development. "The only way to survive for bonobos is making a transfer of affection with someone or another bonobo. Love is really important for their survival." "What is different about our organisation is that when small bonobos arrive, we give them a surrogate mother who will give them love and affection." "If we want Congo to value the protection of its natural resources, we will have to show the country that choosing protection of forest and biodiversity leads to development for the people."
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Edward St Aubyn - 178 - Alain Elkann Interviews
01/28/2024
Edward St Aubyn - 178 - Alain Elkann Interviews
DESIRE FOR FREEDOM. Edward St Aubyn is a British novelist. Five of his books - Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk and At Last - form the semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose Novels. In 2018 Benedict Cumberbatch starred in the title role of the five-part drama Patrick Melrose. Edward’s more recent work includes Dunbar - which retells King Lear - and Double Blind, which has been described as 'a book of big ideas, in which the characters experiment with medicine, psychology, narcotics, religion and meditation to understand themselves and find peace. But as cerebral as the book is, it is also deeply felt, because St Aubyn has been thinking about these issues for decades.' “I spoke in every voice except my own.” “I had the double relief of having turned myself into Patrick Melrose, and then Benedict Cumberbatch taking over the burden of being Patrick” “The common driving force of all my work is a desire for freedom”
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Rob Ashford - 177 - Alain Elkann Interviews
01/21/2024
Rob Ashford - 177 - Alain Elkann Interviews
AT HOME IN TANGIER. Rob Ashford is an American stage director and choreographer. He is a Tony Award, Olivier Award, Emmy Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award winner. “The actors come, and they all fall in love with Tangier I promise you that.” “There was blood and mud everywhere, and the audience just really loved it.” “I was very lucky in my career. I am so happy. I could not be happier.”
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Edward Carey - 176 - Alain Elkann Interviews
01/14/2024
Edward Carey - 176 - Alain Elkann Interviews
STRIKINGLY INVENTIVE STORYTELLER. Edward Carey is an English playwright and illustrator who settled in Austin in 2006 and teaches at the University of Texas. His Italian publisher recently made a short film based on his story “Gatto e la casa dei fantasmi” (“The Cat and the House of Ghosts”) which she showed at the 41st Torino Film Festival.
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Costis Maglaras - 173 - Alain Elkann Interviews
12/25/2023
Costis Maglaras - 173 - Alain Elkann Interviews
POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION AT A TIME OF TECHNOLOGY AND TENSION. Costis Maglaras is the Dean of Columbia Business School, and the David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business at Columbia University. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College, London, in 1990, and his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1991 and 1998, respectively. He joined Columbia Business School in 1998, and prior to becoming dean served as chair of the Decision, Risk & Operations division at the Business School, Director of the School's doctoral program, and was a member of the executive committee of the University's Data Science Institute. He is a Fellow of INFORMS, an Honorary Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, and a Member of the Economic Club of New York. Quick LinksGet Embed PlayerShare on SocialDownload Audio File
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Santiago Calatrava - 169 - Alain Elkann Interviews
11/19/2023
Santiago Calatrava - 169 - Alain Elkann Interviews
ART PRECEDES SCIENCE. Santiago Calatrava is a visionary architect, a structural engineer, a sculptor, and a painter based in Switzerland. In his architecture he has merged advanced engineering solutions with dramatic visual statements.
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Francine Lacqua - 167 - Alain Elkann Interviews
10/22/2023
Francine Lacqua - 167 - Alain Elkann Interviews
CHRONICLING CAPITALISM. Francine Lacqua is the London-based award-winning anchor of the Bloomberg Television daily weekday programme The Pulse with Francine Lacqua. She also presents Leaders with Lacqua and is a Bloomberg editor-at-large, fluent in English, Italian and French.
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Dambisa Moyo - 160 - Alain Elkann Interviews
08/27/2023
Dambisa Moyo - 160 - Alain Elkann Interviews
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND HUMAN PROGRESS. Dambisa Moyo is a Zambian-born economist and writer whose books, articles, and public lectures centre on the creation of wealth in a global economy.
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Lina Ghotmeh - 157 - Alain Elkann Interviews
08/06/2023
Lina Ghotmeh - 157 - Alain Elkann Interviews
BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER. Architect Lina Ghotmeh was born and raised in Beirut, where she studied at the American University. In 2005, while working in London and collaborating with Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Foster & Partners, she won an international competition to design the Estonian National Museum. Following this victory, she co-founded her first studio, DGT Architects, in Paris. Upon delivery of this project in 2016, she had established Lina Ghotmeh—Architecture. Ghotmeh has won several prestigious awards, has delivered multiple commended projects and designed the Serpentine Pavilion 2023, À Table.
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