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Alex Chinneck’s Milan Design Week 2019 installation made a building appear to split open along an enormous zipper. It was an architectural artwork, not a building shown undergoing an ordinary construction alteration: the familiar facade became the surface of an illusion about transformation.
What was Alex Chinneck’s unzipped building?
Chinneck created the work for the entrance to Opificio 31 in Milan’s Tortona district. Event coverage calls it Revealed, while other coverage uses IQOS World; these are source-specific names for the Milan project, rather than evidence of two separate installations. Philip Morris International (PMI), which covered the project, described the zipper as a metaphor for transformation.
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The visual idea is direct: an oversized zipper seems to open the building’s facade, as if a solid architectural surface could be drawn apart. The effect depends on making an ordinary building feel unexpectedly changeable. Chinneck described his interest in that kind of transformation in a PMI interview published 23 April 2019: “I like to daydream, imagining different ways of making familiar materials and structures do extraordinary things.”
He also explained why public artworks should respond to their settings: “One opportunity that making public artwork offers is that each new partnership, location or even, in this case, country, deserves a unique response.” The Milan work can therefore be read both as a striking visual intervention and as a location-specific project, rather than simply a large zipper placed on a building.
How large was the Milan installation, and how was it made?
New Atlas reported that the piece spanned 17 metres and covered the fronts of two buildings, Oficina 31 and Spazio Quattrocento. The publication described steel, stone and timber among its materials, and reported a process involving computer modelling, painting and casting. It said fabrication took place across three factories in Germany, delivery involved 15 trucks, and onsite installation lasted three weeks. These dimensions and production details are New Atlas’s reporting.
PMI reported roughly 50,000 visitors — Philip Morris International, 2019 — during Milan Design Week. That is an attendance figure reported by the company, not an independently established count.
How does the Milan work differ from Open to the Public?
Chinneck had already made an unzipped-building artwork in 2018, but that project was a distinct installation: Open to the Public at Brundrett House in Ashford, Kent. The shared zipper image can make the two projects easy to confuse. Their settings, configurations and contexts differ.
| Comparison | Milan: Revealed / IQOS World | Ashford: Open to the Public |
|---|---|---|
| Date and location | Milan Design Week 2019, at the entrance to Opificio 31 in Milan’s Tortona district (PMI, 2019). | 2018, Brundrett House, Tannery Lane, Ashford, Kent (Architecture Today, 10 September 2018). |
| Building context | The installation covered the fronts of Oficina 31 and Spazio Quattrocento, according to New Atlas (2019). | A 1960s office building at a former tannery site, described as soon to be demolished (Architecture Today, 10 September 2018). |
| Zipper arrangement | An oversized zipper made the facade appear to open (PMI, 2019; New Atlas, 2019). | Two giant zipper forms ran along the building’s side and rear (Architecture Today, 10 September 2018). |
| Local reference or concept | PMI described the zip as a metaphor for transformation and quoted Chinneck on making public art respond to its location (PMI, 2019). | Chinneck connected the idea to the textile and leather industries associated with Ashford (Ashford Borough Council, Winter 2018). |
| Reported project timing | New Atlas reported three weeks of onsite installation; it did not state the total project duration (New Atlas, 2019). | Architecture Today reported a two-month project and a one-night onsite installation (Architecture Today, 10 September 2018). |
| Audience evidence | PMI reported roughly 50,000 visitors during Milan Design Week 2019 (PMI, 2019). | Attendance: not stated in Architecture Today (10 September 2018) or Ashford Borough Council’s Winter 2018 account. |
Ashford Borough Council’s Winter 2018 magazine says developer U+I commissioned Open to the Public. It describes the work as creating the illusion that the building’s walls had been unzipped to reveal the interior. The local textile and leather reference gave that earlier piece a place-specific connection, distinct from the transformation metaphor PMI attributed to the Milan project.
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How does the facade illusion relate to Chinneck’s wider practice?
The unzipped buildings sit within a practice that makes familiar structures appear physically altered. As a brief point of comparison, RJ Facades’ account of Chinneck’s Margate work, From the Knees of my Nose to the Belly of my Toes, describes a derelict four-storey house whose facade was replaced with a new frontage curving outward until it lay flat in front of the building. RJ Facades says the facade covered 100 square metres, used prefabricated panels and came together in six weeks; it also reports that ten companies donated materials or support.
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →That project achieves its effect through a transformed frontage, while the Milan and Ashford works use the image of a zip. The contrast helps explain why a facade in Chinneck’s work is more than a finished exterior: it can become the central device through which viewers reconsider a building’s shape and apparent stability.
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