BANGKOK: Since opening in August 2024, Curvistan Bangkok has redefined leisure and entertainment for the Porsche community and beyond as a bar, a café, an art gallery and a hangout that celebrates car culture, art and design.
The multihyphenate development, supported by Porsche Asia Pacific and Porsche Thailand, is a collaborative effort between Stefan Bogner, creator of the internationally-acclaimed Curves magazine, and Chanond Ruangkritya, a visionary entrepreneur and the man behind the highly-anticipated Porsche Design Tower Bangkok to be constructed a stone’s throw away from Curvistan.
Now, as the year-end holiday season approaches, the two passionate Porsche fans unveil a brand-new, limited-time exhibition at the Curvistan Bangkok: “Porsche Unseen Design Studies”.
For 20 years, Michael Mauer has led Porsche's design vision as Vice President Style Porsche at the Porsche Design Studio in Weissach.
In doing so, he granted many a glimpse of the courageous, fascinating and surprising concept cars that have been created under his direction over almost two decades.
Now, for the first time in Thailand, a collection of these “Unseen” projects are housed under one roof, making for a perfect design-themed excursion for any Porsche or automotive enthusiast.
The highlight attraction of this event is the “Vision Spyder” – a 1:1 scale interpretation of how Mauer and his team imagined a modern, small and sporty roadster might look like.
Drawing inspiration from the modest sizing and lightweight ingenuity of cars designed by Porsche engineers in the 1950s, in particular the 550 Spyder that Hans Hermann drove to a win in the 1954 Carrera Panamericana, the “Vision Spyder” features a spartan cockpit, flat radiator grille over the midengine, red racing stripes and modest fins at the rear.
Visitors at Curvistan can also look forward to a sneak preview of the one-off Taycan Turbo S Celestial Jade, ahead of its official Thailand premiere later in December.
Created through Porsche’s Sonderwunsch programme, the Taycan Turbo S Celestial Jade pays tribute to the Southeast Asian region with bespoke touches and mythical symbols.
A special Chromaflair pigmented paint gives the fully-electric sports car an incredible look, its colour shifting with the light from different angles.
Besides the two highlight cars, the exhibition features other 1:3 scale model concepts such as the Macan “Vision Safari”, an SUV-turned-overland design experiment; hypercar concepts like the “Vision 918 RS” and “Vision 920”, and even the “Vision E” – a design experiment imagining what a Formula E car might look like, if homologated for customer racing.
“The Porsche Unseen collection was one of the most fulfilling projects I’ve ever done, and to be able to bring this to Curvistan Bangkok is a dream come true,” said Mr. Stefan Bogner, Founder and creative visionary behind Curves Magazine and the publisher of the “Porsche Unseen” book uncovering the many hidden treasures in the Porsche Design secret archives. “We hope design fans, Porsche fans and car enthusiasts in Thailand and beyond make Curvistan a bookmark on their next trip to Bangkok – because this is definitely one exhibition they wouldn’t want to miss!”
The “Porsche Unseen Design Studies” exhibition will run from Nov 22, 2024 until Feb 28, 2025 at Curvistan Bangkok.
Entry is free, and the venue is open Monday to Sunday from 8am to 6pm.
