Through tomorrow at Sotheby’s London, single malt whisky brand The Dalmore presents an exceptionally rare 49-year-old single malt whisky at auction. For the sale, The Dalmore revealed a coveted bottle as special as its contents—a unique glass sculpture created in collaboration with Melodie Leung of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and The Dalmore’s award-winning whisky makers Gregg Glass and Richard Paterson OBE.
Melodie Leung x The Dalmore, courtesy of The Dalmore.
The Dalmore Taps Melodie Leung
The occasion marks the second iteration of “The Luminary” series by The Dalmore— unveiled two months ago to bridge the worlds of whisky, art, design, and luxury—and sparks a partnership with the V&A Dundee in Scotland, with all proceeds from the Sotheby’s sale being donated to the design museum. For “The Luminary” series with Leung, two whiskies were created—The Rare, offered at auction, encased in a glass sculpture evocative of the layered history of the project; and The Collectible, a 16-year-old single malt whisky limited to 20,000 bottles worldwide.
Melodie Leung x The Dalmore, courtesy of The Dalmore.
For Leung, the opportunity to design a sculptural artwork for the occasion matched her expertise at ZHA, spanning both creative direction and communication. “The portfolio of experience and projects I’ve contributed to includes a wide range of projects from master planning to architecture, interiors and product design, as well as multi-disciplinary collaborations with artists,” she recently shared with Whitewall.
Melodie Leung x The Dalmore, courtesy of The Dalmore.
Sculpture and Spirits
When approached by The Dalmore two years ago for this partnership, she was surprised to learn it would entail both designing the sculpture and the whisky inside. “At that time, I thought our team was being brought on board to design a sculptural piece, but what I didn’t anticipate was the collaboration I entered into with master whisky maker Gregg Glass and master distiller Richard Paterson OBE. This project encompassed both the design of the sculpture and the design of the whisky,” she said.
Gregg Glass and Melodie Leung, courtesy of The Dalmore.
“From early on in the conversations, what excited me was that it was a very special project where there was the space created for a truly open-ended collaboration. It was a project that revolved around the creative process and a continual exchange of ideas and perspectives. It was focused on the ideation and realization of the highest standards and where that may lead, not only the end result,” said Leung. “I was immediately struck by the shared vision between The Dalmore and our team at Zaha Hadid Architects and the determination to create a space for something new and innovative that could be generated and shared across the worlds of whisky and architecture.”
Upon the occasion, Whitewall spoke with Leung about this exceptional collaboration with The Dalmore and how she infused her architectural spirit into the wonders of whisky.
Architecture and Whisky-Making
Gregg Glass and Melodie Leung, courtesy of The Dalmore.
WHITEWALL: What similarities do you see in architectural design and crafting whisky?
MELODIE LEUNG: The project centers around the parallels between whisky making and architecture in its concept of flavor and form. What I discovered through the creative process was an understanding of how form can translate into flavor, and vice versa, through an innate understanding of structure and proportion, beauty and tension, and rhythm and harmony.
Both architectural design and crafting whisky touch on a very human experience of space and across time. Architecture encompasses the vessels that shape the lives of people and collective memories, and whisky layers in and generates those collective memories and is the product of the material and spaces it was produced within. Both involve a high level of craft and care taken over many years.
As an architect, one brings a lifetime of experiences, intuition and understanding of materiality, form, and proportion to design a harmonious building or space. With whisky, the makers bring decades of experience and sensitivity to achieve a simultaneously complex and beautifully composed product. Both worlds speak to how the material world influences in an additive layered way throughout a process of creation.
Melodie Leung x The Dalmore, courtesy of The Dalmore.
Innovation to Push the Limits
WW: How does this partnership exemplify what your practice does well, regardless of medium?
ML: At ZHA we have always strived to set the highest standards in our work and to deliver projects which address complex briefs with clarity and in a seamless and elegant manner. The only way to achieve this in a consistent way is to work collaboratively, to continually expand what we know alongside innovative thinking and technology.
This partnership with The Dalmore embodies those values in a way that may be smaller in scale but similarly ambitious in craft and time scale. With The Rare for “The Luminary” 2, we were able to create a piece which is truly collaborative in the making of both the whisky and the sculpture and in the sculpture to materalize a piece which pushes the limit of is possible to form from glass.
Melodie Leung x The Dalmore, courtesy of The Dalmore.
WW: You worked closely with your firm’s founder, Zaha Hadid, for a decade. Was there a sense of her embedded into the design? Your own ethos or view?
ML: I worked very closely with Zaha for ten years before she passed and everything that I do as a designer and leader within the practice is informed/deeply influenced by what she taught me through her mentorship. At the same time, from the very first day that I started at the office as a young architect, I was expected to bring my own perspective and thinking into the work. In all of our work in the firm, we are only able to create/facilitate the potential to design and bring forward innovative ideas by folding in fresh perspectives from young designers and pairing that with the experience of the architects on our team. I rely on my team as Zaha relied on me to help shape a project, all the while with the awareness/privilege that we are building upon an extensive repertoire of projects which precede us and continue to inform how we work.
The capacity to be open, curious and extraordinarily observant, is not so dissimilar to how Richard Paterson and Gregg Glass of The Dalmore, work with whisky. Mentorship is for me the ability to understand where each individual is coming from and the generosity to nurture that starting point alongside their skill sets. Mentorship requires mutual respect and an openness to learn from others which sets the foundation for passing on not only knowledge but also an ethos with the capacity to respond in a continually evolving world.
What’s Next for Zaha Hadid Architects
Richard Paterson OBE, Melodie Leung, Gregg Glass, courtesy of The Dalmore.
WW: What are you at ZHA working on next?
ML: We have a lot of exciting projects in the pipeline across the world. As architecture takes time to design and realize, we continually have projects that are at all stages of design and development. Throughout all of our work, we are looking at how to lower the carbon impact of our projects and design in a more sustainable way. Buildings we are opening soon include The Henderson in Hong Kong, a luxury hotel in Rome, and the Western Sydney Airport. Projects on the drawing board include a residential building in Miami, metro stations in Norway, and a number of high-rise towers in the Middle East and China.
Courtesy of The Dalmore.
