DESIGNERS LAY IT ALL ON THE LINE— FROM A VITAMIN D SUPPLY SYSTEM TO BESPOKE DINNERWARE, EARTHY FALL FASHION TO A SULTRY SEATTLE BISTRO— INTRODUCING THE 2019 GRAY AWARD WINNERS.
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HELLO MASTHEAD CONTRIBUTORS CHECKING IN
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GLASS MENAGERIE Glass artist Amber Cowan transforms found tchotchkes into gallery-worthy sculptures.
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3 2. F I R S T L O O K Overall Creative, a production company helmed by Kathleen Warren and Lina Cholewinski, is taking the Northwest’s public-art scene by storm.
F I E L DWO R K
4 4 . G L A S S H A L F F U L L Artists John Hogan and Lydia Boss are emboldened and inspired by the glass community. 5 0 .
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INTEL Sae Jung Oh’s upcycled seats, fashion’s most morbid trend, Gertrud Goldschmidt’s 40-year retrospective at Museu de Arte de São Paulo, and other goingson in the world of design.
MIDWESTERN VALUES For gallerist Mariane Ibrahim, Seattle was an effective launchpad—but Chicago provides the arts community she craves.
on the cover
The 2019 GRAY Awards trophy, designed by artist John Hogan. Photographed by Amanda Ringstad SEE PAGE 64
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52 . C R I T I C I S M , M I G H T Y C R I T I C I S M An artist, critic, and curator considers how critical coverage trickles down to impact creative practices and trickles upward to affect the body politic.
54 . S E T T O S T U N From resin tableware to a laminated glass stand, our choice tables and tabletop objects of the moment are united by sculptural shapes and vivid hues.
TOUR DE FORCE
6 4 . B E S T I N S H O W A remote Oregon getaway, limited-edition dishware from Eleven Madison Park, and a tech-savvy alternative to the EpiPen are among the 2019 GRAY Awards winners.
6 6 .
THE JUDGES A look into the careers of the 2019 GRAY Awards judges, including Zaha Hadid Architects principal Patrik Schumacher, designer Yves Béhar, and Poketo’s Angie Myung and Ted Vadakan.
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EDITORS’ PICKS A stool that stands up against “fast furniture,” Studio Roslyn’s pared-down Victoria, BC, restaurant, Hotel Belmont’s maximalist décor, and more of our staff’s selects for the 2019 GRAY Awards.
APPENDIX
1 3 0 . T H E H O T S E A T Inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona lounger, Rob Brinkley has spent more than 30 years collecting chairs.
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Architecture: Olson Kundig Builder: Dovetail Photo: Aaron Leitz
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TOUR DE FORCE The 2019 GRAY Awards trophies, designed by Seattle artist John Hogan.
IN MEMORIAM
INGO MAURER 1932–2019
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specialists in facilitating vibrant urbanart projects, give us a look at their latest Northwest venture. This issue coincides with GRAY’s own celebration of creative genius: the third annual GRAY Awards, delivered during a larger-than-life party on November 20 at Seattle’s National Nordic Museum. We are thrilled to profile the winning projects in these pages, all selected by a panel of elite judges that included Yves Béhar, Mette and Rolf Hay, and Zaha Hadid Architects’ Patrik Schumacher, among others. Together, these standouts speak to the caliber of work coming out of the Pacific Northwest. It’s an exciting time to be a designer in this region—or anywhere else, for that matter. Enjoy!
Shawn
SHAWN WILLIAMS Publisher
AMANDA RINGSTAD. ROBERT FISCHER
EXPERIENCING A TOUR DE FORCE—A MAGNIFICENT FEAT EXECUTED WITH GREAT TALENT OR INGENUITY—IS ONE OF LIFE’S MOST EXHILARATING MOMENTS. In fact, we’ve created an entire issue dedicated to this topic, showcasing not only the creatives who are producing today’s most exciting work, but also those who promote it and ensure it reaches a wide public audience. In the following pages, we profile dealer Mariane Ibrahim, who’s working to upend clichés about African art and introducing artists of color to the creative community via her new West Town gallery in Chicago. Seattle artists John Hogan (who created the geometric GRAY Awards trophies featured on this page) and Lydia Boss open the doors to their light-filled studio and discuss the seminal glass community in Washington and beyond. Brooklyn critic Paul D’Agostino explores the effects of criticism as a driving force in the art and design world—particularly in smaller locales. And Kathleen Warren and Lina Cholewinski,
Nicknamed the “Poet of Light,” German industrial designer Ingo Maurer reimagined lighting design. His prolific work has been celebrated in solo exhibitions at New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, among other venues. He was also a GRAY Awards alum, lending both his eyes and his expertise to our inaugural judges’ panel. We—and countless others—will always be grateful for his contributions to and influence on the design world.
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CONTRIBUTORS
PAUL D’AGOSTINO (“Criticism, Mighty Criticism,” page 52) is an artist, editor, translator, and curator. Formerly the art editor at Brooklyn Magazine and the L Magazine, he now produces art exhibitions and critical discussions at New York’s Centotto gallery and writes about art, film, and books for various publications. He is based in Brooklyn.
LAUREN GALLOW (“Painting the Town,” page 32) is a writer, editor, and former Olson Kundig marketing consultant. She holds a master’s degree in history of arts and architecture from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her work has appeared in Seattle Met, ARCADE, and other publications. She lives in Seattle.
BEHIND THE LENS AMANDA RINGSTAD (cover, “Glass Half Full”) is a Seattle-based photographer whose work has been featured in GQ, Refinery29, the Wall Street Journal, and Vogue Australia, among other publications. She shot the 2019 GRAY Awards trophies, designed by artist John Hogan, for our cover feature on page 64. She also captured Hogan and his girlfriend, artist Lydia Boss, at their studio (page 44). Below, Ringstad recalls what it was like to shoot both projects for this issue. “AT FIRST GLANCE, THE GRAY AWARDS TROPHIES LOOK SIMPLE BUT ALSO COMPLEX, DEPENDING ON YOUR VIEWPOINT. They are clear and elegant from one angle, but from another, a unique pattern appears. As with much of John’s work, it takes a little time for me to see what works best for each piece and how it responds to light and color. Glass is a wonderfully challenging thing to photograph. “Anytime I get the opportunity to visit and shoot the workspaces of other artists, it’s like being a kid in a candy shop. In John and Lydia’s space, there is so much to wonder about. Everything is unique to them. Their pieces, along with the little things they’ve collected along the way, give you a glimpse into their inner worlds and creative processes. Being able to capture that is something I really enjoy. Plus, John and Lydia are good friends of mine. It’s always great to work with and support your peers.”
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ALEXXA GOTTHARDT (“Midwestern Values,” page 50) is a Los Angeles–based writer and editor covering contemporary art, art history, design, and visual culture. She currently serves as a contributing writer for Artsy.
LAUREN SEGAL (“Painting the Town,” page 32) is a Seattle-based photographer whose work has appeared in Kinfolk, the Atlantic, the Seattle Times, and Condé Nast Traveler, among other publications.
JESSE TREECE (“Criticism, Mighty Criticism,” page 52) is a self-taught collage artist who reconstructs illustrations found in vintage magazines and books. He lives in the greater Seattle area.
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STILL LIFE
Glass artist Amber Cowan transforms found tchotchkes into gallery-worthy sculptures. By CLAIRE BUTWINICK
IT’S EASY TO GET LOST IN AMBER COWAN’S WORK. Reconfigured from found glass, her intricate pieces are a riot of pastel glasswork vegetation that delicately frames figures of animals and women, who could be interpreted as stand-ins for the artist herself. All are crafted from midcentury glassworks that she sources from flea markets and defunct factories, then melts and hot-sculpts into complex feminist, autobiographical, and mythological vignettes. Cowan sees her work as new fairytales made by her hands and mind, and not without a good dose of wit: “I joke that the bridesmaid got sick of the wedding and wandered into her own fantasy world,” she says of a green figurine dreaming alongside a deer in her Bridesmaids Forest (2017). Cowan—a finalist for the Museum of Arts and Design’s 2019 Burke Prize—has
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been a glass artist for nearly two decades, working in a fashion meant to highlight the history of the American glass industry. She pursued the craft as an undergraduate at Salisbury University and later the graduate program at Temple University, where she began working with pressed glass, a popular technique in which molten glass is compressed into a patterned mold. “I was making work that looked similar [to my current output], but I was running out of money,” says Cowan, now a faculty member at her alma mater’s glass department. “I found a barrel of old pink glass that was collecting dust at the school. I tested it out and thought, ‘This is 150 pounds of free color that no one wants.’” After graduating in 2011, she continued to work with glass, fusing it with her interest in history.
Strangers who have seen Cowan’s work regularly send her castoff glassware as potential material. Last year, a woman sent her a broken candy dish from the late 1800s. Drawing from Venetian glasssculpting and flame-working techniques, Cowan remelted the dish alongside sections of an epergne centerpiece using a 5,000-degree tabletop torch. After shaping the molten glass with bonsai shears and annealing the result in a kiln, The Engagement of Orzo and Cara Wilson (2018) was complete. Today the sculpture, more than 8 feet square, hangs in Florida’s Imagine Museum. The heyday of pressed glass might be behind us, but Cowan’s transformations of the thrift-store staple suggests it could see a 21st-century resurgence. h
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BULLETIN
ANTHONY ZINONOS
Goings-on in the world of design.
Anthony Zinonos, redSUMMIT (2018)
Anthony Zinonos, a 38-year-old British artist based in Orange, California, used to make messy, elaborate collages. Then, as a student at the UK’s Norwich School of Art and Design, he saw an exhibition of British conceptual artist John Stezaker’s work that blew his mind. “It was so simple, using just two elements, yet so complex,” he says. “I loved the restriction of using as few elements as possible to create an image and tell a story.” Today, Zinonos—whose clients include Miu Miu, Chanel, Clinique, and Ace Hotel—follows a similar practice, first thumbing through 1960s and ’70s magazines to find images that seize his attention and then collaging them with bright pieces of torn colored paper to fashion narratives that evoke strong, often joyful emotion. His smart, spare creations, shown on the first page of each section of this issue, encourage viewers to look at life differently. “I love taking something old out of its original context and giving it a new life and meaning,” Zinonos says.
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Overall Creative, a production company helmed by Kathleen Warren and Lina Cholewinski, is taking the Northwest’s public-art scene by storm. By LAUREN GALLOW Portrait by LAUREN SEGAL
“I’D LIKE TO SEE CITIES LOOSEN THE REINS ON PUBLIC ART AND REALIZE THAT AT THE END OF THE DAY, IT’S JUST PAINT ON A WALL,” says Kathleen Warren. Coming from most people, that statement might seem flip, but from Warren, an art enthusiast and the cofounder of Seattle-based production company Overall Creative, it’s a keen observation by someone who’s spent more than a decade working through bureaucratic red tape to help complete hundreds of public (and private) art projects. We’re sitting at an outdoor picnic table in Seattle’s industrial SODO neighborhood on a clear autumn
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afternoon, and looming above us is a massive mural of a chameleon rendered in gold spray paint, its intricately patterned body spanning the 100-foot-long wall of a neighboring agro-production facility. “At the same time,” adds Lina Cholewinski, Warren’s business partner, “it’s about understanding the value of public art and all the people who contribute to making it happen.” Warren and Cholewinski are two key people doing exactly that—they launched their firm in May 2019 to specialize in coordinating the planning and execution of murals and other public-art initiatives across Seattle and beyond. The two work
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FIRST LOOK
Painting the Town
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Mural in progress for the Allgire Project in Oak Harbor, Washington; a memorial mural in Seattle; a close-up view of the Allgire Project. OPPOSITE: Cholewinski and Warren in front of a mural by Shogo Ota they commissioned in Seattle.
closely with established and emerging artists to produce, curate, and manage creative projects at all scales, from oneoff events and site-specific installations to outdoor murals such as the chameleon above us, which was designed and painted by local artist Shogo Ota with Overall Creative and a volunteer. “We do all of it—as the name says, we offer overall creative services,” Cholewinski says as she piles her blonde hair into her trademark messy bun. Like an artist-to-client matchmaker, Overall Creative helps connect studio artists, graphic designers, and muralists with companies looking for specialized art. The roster of clients and projects the firm is building for 2020 is a testament to the talent behind it: murals are in the works for Shake Shack and Trent Development, installations are blooming in conjunction with Facebook’s Artist in Residence program, and a handful of community-based public art projects are being planned in Seattle and Oak Harbor, Washington. Warren and Cholewinski met at Urban ArtWorks, a Seattle nonprofit that pairs contemporary artists with local underserved youth to create murals across the city. Warren directed the organization for more than a decade, and Cholewinski
served as project coordinator for seven years. All told, the two women worked on upwards of 400 public-art projects across the Pacific Northwest before launching Overall Creative. They soon found themselves atop scissor lifts, cans of spray paint in hand, as they and a volunteer painter assisted Ota with the SODO mural. It took four months of planning (a large chunk of that was spent waiting for good weather) but just three days of painting to complete. “We started Overall Creative because we saw the opportunity to support larger ideas: consulting with artists and communities to get mural programs off the ground and giving them the tools to continue it on their own,” Warren says. “With so much development and change in Seattle, we’re glad to see the city mandating art on new developments. But far too often, the art is an afterthought. Our goal is to get artists a seat at the table from day one.” So far, Overall Creative has worked with 20 artists and 27 clients on 30 murals to establish its roots as a leader in the public-art sector. But Warren and Cholewinski remain hands-on, performing all the tasks necessary to keep things on track: one hour they’re in a corporate boardroom pitching their artists to
developers, and the next they’re at Home Depot buying gallons of paint, or filing city permits, and ironing out contracts between artists and building owners. “We don’t hold our learned knowledge close,” Warren says. “Our end goal is more art and more collaboration between communities and artists, whatever that looks like.” “Kathleen and Lina continuously strive to facilitate and create higher-quality murals in Seattle,” writes multidisciplinary artist Jesse Brown in an email. Brown, a Seattle native who has worked with the pair on seven years’ worth of art projects, including the 2-mile-long mural corridor at SODO Track, has seen the city’s public art scene evolve over the years. “The whole mural landscape in this city has progressed a lot, and I believe that seeing projects Kathleen and Lina have been involved with has opened the public’s mind about what murals can be.” Through it all, Overall Creative has seen its role as a translator. “Everyone we work with has a different language,” Warren says. “Our goal is to help artists win by being sensitive to their creative needs, and help our clients win by producing art they’ll want to live with every day.” h
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F A SHIO N
Hair Affair Shrines and mausoleums are lavish ways to remember passed loved ones, but the New-York Historical Society’s exhibition Life Cut Short: Hamilton’s Hair and the Art of Mourning Jewelry will showcase an unusual tribute that one-ups them all: human hair jewelry. Opening December 20, the exhibition looks at mourning jewelry, a sartorial craze that dominated Victorian-era fashion. Epitomized by Queen Victoria’s public appearances
as a widow, in which she often sported jewelry incorporating the dark locks of the late Prince Albert, the use of hair to embellish jewelry and commemorate the deceased became abidingly popular. Throughout the 19th century, explains Debra Schmidt Bach, curator of decorative arts at the Society, “wearing a lock of hair became more acceptable and fashionable.” Although modern audiences might find the tradition of wearing another person’s hair strange, the pieces on display show a high level of craftsmanship, attention to detail, and pure creativity. From an intricate, bronze-colored bracelet
accented with braided brown hair and crowned with small diamonds to delicate gold rings topped with glass-encased strands of hair, Life Cut Short overturns expectations by showcasing the artistry and care put into each piece. “I hope audiences will be captivated by something that might sound off-putting,” Schmidt Bach says. “Life Cut Short dives into the history behind the pieces. The jewelry tells small stories that contribute to something greater than themselves and paint a picture of New York’s genealogy.” —Annette Maxon with Claire Butwinick
This December, Oh debuts five one-ofa-kind additions to the series, including a lounge chair, two stools, and two table lamps covered in raw or multicolored leather, at Design Miami. They’ll be presented at Salon 94 Design’s booth alongside drawings by designer Gaetano Pesce, for whom Oh once worked. The
new pieces, like her previous ones, compellingly juxtapose natural and mass-produced materials to evoke emotion in a way that most furniture does not. “My work reminds people of old memories,” she says. “If I can change the way they look at wasting culture, that’s good enough for me.” » —CB
D E SIGN
At first glance, South Korea–born, Seattle-based designer Jay Sae Jung Oh’s Savage series looks like piles of junk covered in leather. And that’s exactly what it is—but it’s also so much more. Made from discarded plastic dollhouses, rocking horse heads, and broken bicycle parts wrapped in individual leather cords, Oh’s work is trash transformed into design objects with a message: reduce and reuse. For the past eight years, Oh has designed upcycled chairs, benches, and side tables composed of plastic artifacts that she sources from recycling centers, friends, and her own household. Each piece is formed gradually, over a monthslong process, as Oh glues trash and trinkets together around a wooden chair or table using four kinds of adhesive. Then she meticulously wraps the whole thing in black cowhide threads or natural jute. One of her first pieces, the Savage chair (2011), is in the Cranbrook Art Museum’s permanent collection, and her Savage sofa (2015) has a fixed place at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art.
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TE C H
A Rare Balance
B OOK
By the Book In 1995, when Germany’s Vitra Design Museum mounted the exhibition 100 Masterpieces, it was, in a sense, a physical rough draft for Atlas of Furniture Design, the museum’s über-comprehensive tome dedicated to the history of modern furnishings. “The first idea for the book came with that exhibition,” says Mateo Kries, the museum’s director, “but it took us until 2011 to really get the project started.” The 1,000-plus-page book—the most extensive ever published on the topic—is available through Vitra’s website December 1. “There are many coffee-table books about this topic, but only a few are based on thorough first-hand research,” Kries says. “We wanted to convey what an incredible multitude of forms, constructions, and innovations furniture design has seen in the past 230 years, and how it connected to society, art, and archi-
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Opposites don’t always attract, but the French electronics brand Lexon’s latest line of mobile device accessories displays an unlikely harmony between technology and its usual antithesis, nature. Conceived in collaboration with Paris design studio Quaglio Simonelli, the Bali collection, which launches in December, is composed of a wireless charger and three power banks, all with a fan-like motif that symbolizes the flow of energy through the products to a phone, much as sap flows through the veins of leaves. “This design makes the Bali products look both natural and decorative,” says Andrea Quaglio, who cofounded Quaglio Simonelli with Manuela Simonelli, and also designed
tecture.” Compiled by more than 70 authors and a team of six researchers, the book spotlights 1,740 objects by more than 540 designers and includes over 2,800 illustrations, ranging from object photographs and design sketches to brochures, patents,and portraits of the designers. “Among all design objects, few items are so frequently used and so close to our body and our daily life as furniture,” Kries says. “Some of the greatest achievements in furniture design, such as the Eames chair and Barcelona lounger, can be seen as artistic achievements that are equal to some of the greatest works of art or architecture of the past decades. The difference is that you can have them at home.” » —Rachel Gallaher
Lexon’s miniature Mino Bluetooth speaker and abstract Hope piggybank. “We gave this collection the name Bali because it is a place where nature is luxuriant.” Composed of black or white polycarbonate/ABS (a thermoplastic polymer known for impact resistance and electric insulation properties), the devices are both technologically advanced and aesthetically beautiful without looking showy, and the charger is among the slimmest on the market. As the designers say, “It is essential for [our collections] to make their presence pleasant and their functions intelligent so that they can animate our environment instead of polluting it.” —CB
COURTESY LEXON. GERRIT THOMAS RIETVELD, UNTITLED / RED BLUE CHAIR (UNPAINTED VERSION), 1918/19 © VITRA DESIGN MUSEUM. JÜRGEN HANS. © VG BILD-KUNST BONN 2019
INTEL
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Simply Made
ART
Shape of Success In 1939, a year after graduating from Stuttgart’s Technische Hochschule with degrees in engineering and architecture, intensifying Nazi oppression forced Jewish artist Gertrud Goldschmidt to leave Germany. She and her family fled to Venezuela, where Goldschmidt, known as Gego, went on to become one of the most important postwar artists in Latin America. Gego: The Emancipated Line, a retrospective showcasing nearly 40 years of her art, opens December 13 at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and includes 150 examples of her work. Organized in conjunction with Mexico’s Museo Jumex, The Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, and Tate Modern, the exhibition aims to position Goldschmidt,
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True simplicity often feels unattainable, but French designer Jean-Marie Massaud came pretty close when he created the Saul coffee table for the Italian furniture brand Arper. Marking the sixth collaboration between the two, Saul, launched in November, adds to Arper’s growing catalog of pared-down pieces, which include the refined Steeve sofa and sculptural Aston chairs. “We have always been aligned when it comes to design,” says Massaud of his 14-year partnership with Arper. “For us, it has to
who died in 1994, as one of the foremost female artists of the second half of the 20th century. During the 1950s and ’60s, she explored geometric abstraction and kinetic art. Her background in architecture and engineering is evident throughout her oeuvre, which includes geometric sketches, intricate wire sculptures that evoke cellular structures or strands of DNA, and painted iron sculptures that symbolize her intense study of lines. “Given that her knowledge of civil construction was combined with her artistic practice, Gego’s interdisciplinary work deconstructs not only the division between the imaginary and the rational,” says Pablo Léon de la Barra, adjunct curator of Latin American art at MASP, “but also her own social role as a woman in contexts that are still mostly male: engineering, architecture, and art.” —RG
be elegant, smart, simple, and timeless, with flavor.” Saul perfectly reflects this sentiment: with tops made of black silkscreened smoked glass or white marble supported by slender aluminum legs, it transcends flash-in-the-pan trends. The piece is available in multiple sizes and shapes—from a small square side table to a large circular centerpiece—making it a chameleonic addition to any room or style. “Saul speaks a simple, gentle language,” Massaud says. —AM/CB
THIS PAGE: MARCO COVI. JUAN SANTANA, © FUNDACIÓN GEGO. OPPOSITE: © GEORGE TSUTAKAWA ESTATE. GRACE GAVIN RHODES
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BULLETIN
When mingei—the Japanese folk art movement that emphasizes the beauty of handmade everyday objects—emerged in the 1920s and ’30s, all of its most popular practitioners were anonymous. Founded by collector and philosopher Yanagi Sōetsu after a trip to Korea in 1916, mingei, which translates as “arts of the people,” centered around the production of inexpensive, utilitarian items such as ceramic bowls, textiles, teapots, and furniture. That anonymity, as shown in the exhibition Exceptionally Ordinary: Mingei 1920–2020, opening at the Seattle Art Museum on December 14, put the focus squarely on craftsmanship. “Think of it like taking a ceramic pot you use in the kitchen and moving it to the living room to display,” says Xiaojin Wu, SAM’s curator of Japanese and Korean art, who organized the exhibition. “Yanagi really helped promote craft to the level of fine art.” Aside from their practicality and low cost, mingei objects were meant to be
used by everybody. Yanagi traveled to the United States in the 1950s, teamed up with a group of American artists, and traveled the country to promote the movement. Yanagi’s ideas caught on, especially among ceramists, and, according to Wu, “had a big impact on [American] collecting. Before the middle of the 20th century, museums would collect paintings and sculptures that were considered fine art. It’s only fairly recently that they started taking on functional pieces as part of their collections.” Many pieces in the show come from the Seattle area, including a wood table and chair and a bamboo lamp made by late sculptor George Tsutakawa, primarily known for his oversized bronze sculptures and fountains. “The [furniture] has a simple, smart design; it’s made from mundane materials and functional for daily use,” Wu says. Additional objects range from an 18th-century ceramic pot once owned by Yanagi to a paper light designed by contemporary artist Yuri Kinoshita specifically for the show. “The notion of art keeps expanding,” Wu says. “The mingei movement has had a big impact on the idea of living with art and incorporating it into daily life.” —RG
louvers that together suggest, as the architect puts it, “an abstracted version of the leafy canopy you get at the top of bamboo. We always try to use simple and immediately recognizable symbols in our work.” The canopy and columns also serve a practical purpose: they provide shade over the façade to passively lower the cooling load on the structure. At night, when the building envelope is lit from below, it becomes an illuminated beacon meant to draw patrons to its glow.
The 2,000-seat venue will be home to Belgian theater director Franco Dragone’s latest water-based show (his work runs in the same vein as Cirque du Soleil’s O), and, according to Chilton, the architecture is meant to highlight the drama of the performance. “The shadows are all perpendicular and point toward the entry,” he says. “It feels like you’re crossing the threshold into an otherworldly experience.” » —RG
ART
Everyday Art
ARCH
Staged to Impress Standing more than 104 feet tall and surrounded by hundreds of thin white steel columns, the imposing Wuxi Taihu Show Theatre—set to open in December in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province—is just as breathtaking as the acrobatic spectacle it was built to house. Designed by London’s Steven Chilton Architects, the circular theater’s screen of angled columns evokes the Sea of Bamboo national park in nearby Yixing. “I wanted to design something that would resonate well locally,” Chilton says. To underscore the bamboo motif, Chilton designed a roof-level canopy composed of triangular bays that contain rows of gold-toned anodized aluminum
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HOT NEW NEXT
INTEL
Each year, GRAY invites designers to pitch their game-changing ideas for HOT NEW NEXT, a dynamic competition celebrating the concepts moving Pacific Northwest design forward. Semifinalists present their ideas before a panel of judges in a live Shark Tank–style program in Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver; afterward, the winner in each city advances to the championship round, held on the GRAY Stage during September’s IDS Vancouver. Here we introduce 2019’s finalists and the winner, who received both a cash prize and mentorship from our judges. We’ll announce details about our 2020 competition soon.
WIN NER
The Marg
Lauren Brazg is the Seattle-based director of design for the New York–based brand LULAH. Its first product, a leather tote called the Marg, won our 2019 HOT NEW NEXT competition. “We spent time thinking about what type of organization [system] would help women spend less time searching [for things in their bags] and more time living,” says Brazg, 35. The prototype of the tote includes a separate takeaway crossbody bag, garment compartment, laptop sleeve, key clip, and stow pockets, all secured inside with a wrap-around zipper. There’s also compartments for workout clothes, a water bottle, and sunglasses, as well as a removable cardholder. Despite all these features, its elegant exterior looks effortless, not cumbersome—a feat that took our judges’ breath away. Brazg’s work at LULAH began when she and Ibada Wadud met as fellow staffers at Kate Spade’s New York headquarters, where they worked together on the fashion house’s On Purpose line of bags, made by women artisans in Rwanda. As Brazg designed the products and Wadud worked on business strategy and production, the two grew close, and, in 2018, Wadud told Brazg about LULAH, a socially minded independent handbag company she founded.
LULAH has a twofold mission: it seeks to make bags that reflect the lived experiences of women and to provide paid training to women impacted by the criminal legal system who are pursuing careers in the fashion industry. (Wadud, herself briefly incarcerated in Spain in 2014, started LULAH while serving on the junior board of the Women’s Prison Association.) “When women have sustainable and fulfilling careers, they are less likely to go back to prison,” says Brazg. “Our goal is to create these types of opportunities for women.” Earlier this year, LULAH inaugurated its Artisan-in-Residence program at New York’s Brooklyn Shoe Space, working in tandem with the Women’s Prison Association, the Office of the First Lady of New York, and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice to give women a paid 12-week residency in leatherwork and bagsmithing. Next year, LULAH plans to expand this program to Los Angeles; graduates have the opportunity to help produce LULAH’s bags. Currently, LULAH is fundraising toward its next big step: purchasing bulk raw materials for production. The Marg, and the brand’s e-commerce site, will officially launch in 2020. We can’t wait.
A S P ECI A L TH A NK YO U TO TH E 2 019 H O T NEW NEXT P RES ENTI NG P A RTNERS
FIN A L IST
FINA LIS T
Self-taught woodworker Justin Nelson founded Fernweh Woodworking in 2015 and has since presented a strong selection of elegant small-batch furniture produced from start to finish in its Bend, Oregon, workshop. The Sling chair—the first chair Fernweh ever produced— epitomizes Nelson’s penchant for classic Danish design with a contemporary twist. Made from walnut or hand-shaped ash, the chair’s sculptural frame holds a hand-stitched leather seat that’s perfect for lounging.
British Columbia–based illustrator Anja Jane can usually be found exploring the great outdoors and channeling scenes from her adventures into her drawings: intricate, rich interpretations of flora and fauna. Jane, a former textile designer, compiled her hikes around British Columbia in A Deck of Wander, a set of playing cards that feature her take, via drawings and text, on a specific trail, along with its distance, difficulty, and highlights. h
Sling Chair
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A Deck of Wander
TRENDS CHANGE. QUALITY DOESN’T. SERVICING HOMES IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST SINCE 1879
FIELDWORK
The people, places, and objects in our orbit.
ANTHONY ZINONOS
Anthony Zinonos, intoTHE woods (2017)
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STUDIO VISIT
F I E L DWO R K
GLASS HALF FULL Artists John Hogan and Lydia Boss are emboldened and inspired by the glass community. Interview by TIFFANY JOW Photographs by AMANDA RINGSTAD
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STUDIO VISIT
THIS PAGE: Boss’s workspace. OPPOSITE: Hogan’s workspace.
John Hogan, 34, and Lydia Boss, 29, moved into their studio in Seattle’s International District two summers ago. Both studied traditional glassmaking, but they maintain individual practices that incorporate the medium in starkly different ways. Their roots in the glass community locally and abroad equip them with distinct perspectives on the past, present, and future of their industry. When I was here a few months ago, you two were talking about spending a Friday night firing glass. Tell me about how this space facilitates your work. John Hogan: It’s less about the space itself and more about the space’s proximity to places where I can blow glass. The Pratt Fine Arts Center, for example, is a mile and a half from here. [Our studio] is more of a creative space where I can conceptualize work, take meetings, and view finished work before it leaves Seattle. Lydia Boss: A lot of my work begins and ends in this room. It doesn’t always look this tidy; a lot of times, when John is shipping work out of here, there’s no place to put your coffee mug. But this space functions really well for us: we can get messy and then transition into clean mode. We don’t do any hot glasswork here, though. Because it’s all done at Pratt? JH: There are a lot of other places, too. The reason we’re in Seattle is because of the community of specialists here. If you’re a glassmaker or designer, you
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don’t need to have a studio where you can do everything, because this city can do everything. Help me understand what you’re trying to accomplish with your work. John, you grew up in Toledo, Ohio, a leading center for fine glass production, and studied glassblowing at the Toledo Museum of Art. JH: Some of my work is more fine art– driven, and, within that, it’s craft-driven. I also work as a designer and collaborate with other designers, so depending on the work you’re talking about, I might have more specific goals. In all my work, I try to make things that make people feel good and impact their mental space in a way we all need: maybe it calms you down or focuses you. I’m trying to make objects that make people feel physically present. I read an interview in which you said a common response to your work is that people want to eat it. That speaks to their visceral reaction to it. JH: Exactly. With glass, it’s easy to work derivatively and make things that come
out of the craft-making tradition. I’m pushing against that, trying to distill how a relationship between this bizarre material and humans might go if an object isn’t function-based. What does that relationship look like, creatively and sculpturally, without that baggage? That’s where we are right now in the movement of making art with glass, which really has been happening for only around 60 years. We have an opportunity to reassess our creative relationship with the material. So I’m exploring that, but I am also interested in functional opportunities with glass because of its tradition and history. It’s nice when something can be both a functional object and a work of art. JH: That’s a big part of why I started collaborating with the design community to make things that have an obvious function and role. Those experiences taught me things about the function of my solo work. I started to be more confident about how objects can function [in a different way], in terms of giving people an opportunity to rest their minds. »
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STUDIO VISIT
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Boss’s workspace; shelving in Hogan’s workspace; a wall behind Boss’s desk.
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Lydia, you studied at the International Glass School in Nový Bor, Czech Republic, and at Washington’s Pilchuck Glass School, but glass isn’t your primary medium. How does glass play a role in what you’re making now? LB: I started making glass at the Toledo Museum of Art, too. The material definitely inspired a lot of the work that I’m making, but it also helped me find my creative voice outside the material. A lot of times, I use glass as a means for image-making or for telling a story. The end result isn’t always a piece of glass, but glass might fit into a larger narrative of how a work was made. For instance, I had a residency at Pilchuck Glass School in 2017, but I barely worked with glass at all. Sure, I made some, but I became much more focused on the idea of glass as a tool and a substrate. Honoring the traditions of the material but not being bound to it has helped me get more in touch with how I see glass and how it fits into my work. That idea, in itself, is pretty risky and ultimately has a very feminist sentiment. I’m glad you brought that up. I was intrigued by the artist’s statement on your website, which says you investigate “themes of identity, time, and nature through a feminist, millennial lens.” What does that mean? LB: I’m a feminist, and I’m also a millennial, and I’m making work that comes from my heart. My work is about how I see the world we live in. Nature, people, relationships—they’re all woven into my work in different ways. I want my work to reflect the strength I see in female-identifying folks, whether directly or indirectly. Not every piece is an in-your-face feminist statement, but the tones and energy behind the work absolutely are. Womxn—with an x—are risk-takers and the bravest people on the planet. I think about the women I know a lot while I’m in the studio. How did you two meet? JH: Through mutual friends in Ohio, where we both went to college. But I started to really get to know Lydia at the Glass Art Society conference in Seattle in 2011. LB: We spent a lot of time together during that conference. After I went home to Ohio, John reached out and sort of said, “I’m thinking about you and want to see you.” I thought you were going to say he said, “I love you.” LB: That came later.
So you relocated here. LB: Yes. Not just for John—I had work opportunities here, and it felt like the right time. I think moving to Seattle can be really hard, especially if you want to work in glass. Really? That seems counterintuitive, given that Seattle is a major hub for making art with glass. LB: There’s a lot of support and opportunities here, but it’s also a really competitive atmosphere. Depending on your goals, the opportunities can mean a lot of different things. But the glass community is interesting. The process is so fun—it’s intoxicating. Folks who make art with glass put a lot of pressure on supporting themselves by working in glass. And I don’t mean by focusing on and selling their own work; I mean that glass is a trade; it’s a craft. I don’t see folks in other mediums putting that kind of pressure on themselves. [Turns to Hogan.] Don’t you agree? JH: Yeah. When you move to Seattle to make a living in glass, you’ll inevitably do whatever work you can get. LB: And you’re competing with people who are the very best in the world. That’s not an exaggeration. So to be hired as a contractor for an elite artist’s team, I would be competing with the best out there. What kind of projects are we talking about? JH: There’s a number of different types of projects. You could work for an independent artist to help him make his work. Or you could work for a studio that works for artists outside the glass community who want to make art with glass. A lot of blue-chip artists from inside and outside the area commission glass artists in the Seattle area to realize bodies of work in glass. There’s a couple of studios in Seattle that have been the main anchors for the highest-difficulty projects in handmade glass in the country. One of them is Benjamin Moore Incorporated, which is like— LB: Legend.
Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, in 1971. Then people started staying in Seattle every summer, and some of those people made their own studios here, including Ben Moore, Dante Marioni, and Martin Blank. Their studios were built in the 1990s and became incubation spaces for a lot of other artists’ careers. Today lots of artists are still making work here, and more designers are realizing there are opportunities to realize glass here in unconventional ways. I’m curious about how the Seattle glass community views Chihuly today. I grew up here and remember watching shows about him in his hot shop on public television. Walking around the city, you see his work everywhere. How do people feel about this? LB: We both feel inspired by and indebted to him for what he’s built. Through the Pilchuck Glass School, he’s been able to connect with people from all over the world and bring them to this region to share information and celebrate the community that’s been built through the love of the process. That’s invaluable. JH: He’s a personality who might be one of a kind. I don’t know any other artist who has combined [the roles of] artist and choreographer in all the different modes that Dale uses to bring his creativity to the world. If it wasn’t glass, it could have been any other medium his personality could have gravitated toward. But since he set the glass community and marketplace in motion, it’s gone in a lot of different directions. None of them is quite as loud or large as Dale’s presence, but a lot of people are working to push this very young medium in new ways. Why do you think glass is having a resurgence now? JH: Like ceramics, it’s starting to gain traction outside a traditionally closed loop of designers and collectors, which is exciting. It makes sense, given the trajectory of the studio glass movement. We are at a point where there’s an opportunity to define the next generation of glassmakers and how they’ll make their livings and interact with the larger art and design world. h
JH: It’s a very important studio in Seattle glass culture. It’s helped to progress the most important development in Seattle throughout the [overall] studio glass movement. Basically, [artist Dale] Chihuly, with help from members of the glass community, built the Pilchuck
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Florine Démosthène, Possibility (2019)
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COURTESY MARIANE IBRAHIM
SEAL OF APPROVAL
F I E L DWO R K
Midwestern Values For gallerist Mariane Ibrahim, Seattle was an effective launchpad—but Chicago provides the arts community she craves. By ALEXXA GOTTHARDT WHEN I CALLED GALLERIST MARIANE IBRAHIM IN OCTOBER, SHE WAS SITTING IN HER NEW 5,000-SQUARE-FOOT GALLERY IN CHICAGO’S WEST TOWN. Although she’d opened its doors only a month earlier—Ibrahim previously ran a gallery in Seattle—she already felt at home. “We’ve received so much warmth and hospitality from our peers,” she says. “For me, being in Chicago makes more sense than being in Seattle. There is not only a stronger proximity to collectors here, but the topics the artists I represent address—like identity, gender, and climate change—really resonate in a diverse city like this one.” Ibrahim characterizes Seattle, where she opened her gallery in 2012, as “a little bit more reserved and closed” than Chicago. In particular, she felt that her program, which features primarily artists of color and of African descent, didn’t click in the Pacific Northwest. “I think if we had started in Chicago and, after seven years, moved to Seattle, then we’d probably say, ‘Oh, my god, it’s so much easier here,’” says the gallerist, who grew up in France and Somalia. “But Seattle is far removed [from major art hubs]—so far that I experienced a little disappointment and frustration. It made me constantly think about my next move.” Looking back, she continues, “it wasn’t that I was misunderstood. It was simply that Seattle wasn’t ready for this.” It’s a controversial statement, particularly at a time where recently opened creative projects in Seattle—including Judith Rinehart’s J. Rinehart Gallery, which represents local practitioners and promotes inclusivity with its welcoming, living room–like space, and ARTS at King Street Station, which celebrates the creativity of communities of color—are supporting underrepresented artists. Those galleries’ ambitious goals are similar
to Ibrahim’s: she launched her Seattle space after a move to the Northwest when her husband took a job at Boeing, aiming to “fill a gap” she saw in global representation of contemporary African artists. “There was [Ghanaian sculptor] El Anatsui, and then there was nothing,” she recalls. She’d first noticed this dearth while working in marketing and advertising in Paris at the beginning of her career (earlier she had studied in the United Kingdom and Canada). During this time, she began collecting art and fell hard for the work of Malick Sidibé, the late Malian photographer who captured the exuberant youth culture of 1960s Bamako. In contemporary artists such as Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze, Zohra Opoku, and Ayana V. Jackson, she saw a similar energy: like Sidibé’s, their practices convey the multiplicity, diversity, and reality of modern Africa and its diaspora. Other galleries, such as the Goodman Gallery in South Africa and London, were organizing their programs around African artists, and Ibrahim believed more platforms were needed. In Seattle, Ibrahim ran a growing program of global artists, all of whom explore buried histories and diverse identities, from her 2,500-square-foot gallery in Pioneer Square. But cultivating collectors in the Pacific Northwest and drumming up foot traffic to her space were never easy. “The landscape and the weather in Seattle, where people are surrounded by beauty, [lead them to] stay home unless they’re heading into nature,” she says. In Ibrahim’s view, this mentality extended to a lack of engagement with Seattle’s built environment, including its galleries. But she also believes that the city’s support of contemporary art, and of diverse programs like hers, are improving. “Without a doubt, Seattle will be ready [soon], like many other cities will be,” she says. “Our program is inscribed on a global trend. It
will reach back to Seattle in the future, I am sure.” To promote her roster, she began to participate in international art fairs, where her booths garnered resoundingly positive buzz, crystallizing in the 2017 Armory Show’s inaugural “Presents” Booth Prize for her solo presentation of Opoku’s work. As the reputation of Ibrahim’s artists grew, so did her desire for a larger gallery— one where she could more effectively present and broadcast their evolving work. In Chicago, she found that space, as well as an artistic community to bolster it. Her new gallery is situated next door to that of her friend and fellow gallerist Monique Meloche, who “has also been championing artists of color, female artists, artists dealing with gender identity,” says Ibrahim. Down the street are other contemporary galleries, such as Rhona Hoffman and Aspect/Ratio. For Ibrahim, a strong sense of community—both inside and outside the gallery—is essential to her initiative’s success. She inaugurated the new space by inviting all of the gallery’s artists to Chicago. Opening day served two purposes, she says: to introduce the Chicago community to the gallery’s program and to allow its artists “to see and claim the space.” It marked the beginning of a big season for Ibrahim, who in October mounted booths at FIAC and Paris Photo and in December unveils the gallery’s first-ever booth at Art Basel Miami to introduce a new artist, Ghanaian figurative painter Amoako Boafo, to the gallery’s roster. Like all the artists she champions, his work investigates identity, history, and otherness. “As humans, we are in the process of looking at our history and saying, ‘What have we missed, what is left behind, and how is everyday life affected by this history?’” Ibrahim says. “That’s what ties the artists I work with together.” h
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OPINION
F I E L DWO R K
CRITICISM, MIGHTY CRITICISM An artist, critic, and curator considers how critical coverage trickles down to impact creative practices and trickles upward to affect the body politic. By PAUL D’AGOSTINO Illustration by JESSE TREECE
CRITICISM IS TO THE ARTS AS JOURNALISM IS TO POLITICS, AND CRITICS ARE TO CULTURE AS INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS ARE TO SOCIETY. Sincere critique drives aesthetic evolution just as truthful reporting drives sociocultural progress. Criticism is also at the crux of what we do as culture producers, and it tells us who we are in—and what we mean to—society. It’s crucial to how the public at large perceives us as creative people doing creative things. But questions remain: how are we seen? Where are we seen? In some places, does the broader public notice creatives at all? Even in some arts epicenters, after all, we’re often seen only by one another. Where we’re less visible or less meaningfully acknowledged, others’ regard for the labels we carry—artists, writers, curators, and so on—might be diminished as a result, and our careers maligned and parodied more often than respected. Criticism can change such limited insight and misperceptions. It can change the notion, for example, that all artists are gentrifiers into something more nuanced and truthful. Nuance leaves room
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for dialogue or debate, perhaps encouraging artists and creatives to acknowledge when they might indeed be part of such problems. Criticism exists to create nuance as much as it exists to provide analysis and meaning. It also exists for a more basic reason: to create awareness. Sometimes its most useful aspect is simply to inform others that cultural goods are out there to be enjoyed. What about places where even coverage-type criticism hardly exists? How do local communities perceive the arts? How are institutions funded? How are nonprofit, DIY, artist-run, and kindred venues affected? Such questions need to be answered because the numbers of such independent venues are increasing, even in smaller urban and suburban areas, due to factors such as unaffordable rents in big arts centers, student debt, and an ongoing dearth of parity in the art market. What if we all endeavored to know more about arts activities in such places? Perhaps more critics and creatives would follow the initiatives of projects like the curatorially nomadic Black Cube, with new headquarters in Englewood, Colorado. We might know more about the Yard, in suburban Colorado Springs, where artists Jessica Langley and Ben Kinsley do brilliant curatorial work by exploiting what’s right in front of them. Of similar ethos is artist Julia Leidner’s Sheherezade in Louisville, Kentucky, a garage-window installation showcase
on view 24/7, and Lump, a nonprofit in Raleigh, North Carolina. See also: Camayuhs in Atlanta, Georgia; Tops Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee; and Specialist, Studio E, SOIL Gallery, and Cefalonia, all in Seattle, Washington. Many of these projects engage directly with political issues, local civic activities, and the concerns of their communities. Exclusively devoted to such matters, artist Henry Sanchez’s L.O.C.C.A. in Houston, Texas, is a perfect example. I’ve lived in many places, but I’ve been based in New York, where the arts abound in all five boroughs, for nearly 13 years. I sometimes miss that abundance when visiting family in Richmond, Virginia, and Virginia Beach, my beloved hometown. But these days, more arts initiatives are emerging in Richmond, and lately I’ve observed creative energies there catalyzing similar energies throughout the Hampton Roads area. There are new galleries, museums, art nights, and open-studio events in Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampton, and Virginia Beach. In some of these areas, although arts education receives significant support by the public school system, opportunities for professional artists have been limited. That is changing. Social media platforms have helped artists and art spaces garner attention and build audiences, which has led to more local and, in some places, national and international critical press. There’s another pattern to observe here: while
proper arts criticism shouldn’t be conflated with mere coverage, the reality in some places is that for critical presences to develop at all, they must start simply. In these settings, artists and writers are formalizing info-sharing practices into reviews, blogs, zines, and magazines. Exemplary of this is the Rib, a publication covering independent arts projects all over the US—except for NYC and LA. Criticism, like art spaces, can mature quickly by incubating in simplicity. Such patterns also pertain to effective communication, dialogue, and debate: ideas and arguments are expressed simply at first and then more deeply as exchanges accrue. If exchanges create mutual understanding, then they’ve been effective—and perhaps enduringly meaningful. And that’s crucial. Also crucial is that such exchanges are political. Wherever politics needs changing, the manner or mode of change has emerged somewhere, in simpler form. Criticism, even when it’s rooted in cultural production, has an opportunity to suggest such modes. Elections loom. Sincere dialogue on many fronts is imperative, in both cultural and political life. Meanwhile, consider casting votes—in both the critical and the general sense—for art. Make it, write about it, share it, and later, run for office. h
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F I E L DWO R K
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
SET TO STUN From resin tableware to a laminated glass stand, our choice tables and tabletop objects of the moment are united by sculptural shapes and vivid hues. By TIFFANY JOW
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Made of Carrara marble and varnish, the Ondamarmo table series was created by Federica Elmo for Bloc Studios as a special edition for Monologue, a forward-thinking concept shop in London. The table’s psychedelic surface is created via a 3D inkjet printing process that Elmo and industry specialists developed using liquid paint, which elevates the marble slab into a precious and distinctive work of art. monologuelondon.com
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Vibrant, mouth-blown borosilicate glass with tinted rims makes HAY’s Flare candleholders sparkle. Their two curved, upturned edges make transporting them from table to table a cinch. hay.com
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Designed by Patricia Urquiola exclusively for the MoMA Design Store, the Bisel glass side table is a radiant feast for the eyes. Its beveled edges reveal layers of brightly hued laminated glass and showcase the intersection of color and material. store.moma.org »
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OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Hand-blown in North Carolina by a second-generation glassblower, Room & Board’s Ina carafe and drinking glass set is just the thing for a cozy bedside table or dining room spread. When not in use, the 9-ounce glass can rest atop the carafe, doubling as a lid. roomandboard.com
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Two limited-edition glazes, Penny Green and Zinc, are featured in Heath Ceramics’ Counter Set, part of its Winter Seasonal collection, which was made in collaboration with California studio Jacob May Design. Two pieces from the series—chubby, adaptable lidded containers you can use every day— showcase its cool hues. heathceramics.com
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French designer Marie-Christine Dorner spent two years developing the T vase for Ligne Roset. Available in rose, teal, and blue, its straightforward shape belies its complex manufacturing process: glass is blown into a platform while the mold is rotated, a procedure that requires swiftness and skill. Once cooled, the glass is scuffed by hand to achieve its distinctive translucent appearance. ligne-roset.com
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Normann Copenhagen’s head of design, Simon Legald, is behind the Junto dishes and bowls that the Danish brand released in May (they’ll be in stock for purchase by the end of 2019). Made from fired terracotta, each piece incorporates surfaces that are at once grooved and smooth, matte and glazed, creating a tactile duality. The Junto and Obi dishes are shown here alongside other pieces from the brand. normann-copenhagen.com
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Marked by bases composed of multiple cylinders of varying size, the Silo cocktail table from Roche Bobois knows how to command a room. Maurizio Manzoni, cofounder of Italy’s StudioMemo, designed the statement piece using travertine marble, smoked glass, and chrome-plated steel. roche-bobois.com »
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OBJECTS OF DESIRE
French designer Ferréol Babin translated his hand-carved timber utensils into ceramic spoons for the L3CDF series. Unveiled by German design brand Pulpo during September’s Maison & Objet trade show in Paris, the limitededition implements come in glossy white, black, or rose, shown here. pulpoproducts.com
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After noticing a market niche for a simple yet intriguing occasional table, the modern furniture company Blu Dot designed the Li’l Something side table, made of engineered wood with a powder-coated steel base. Its intimate scale and enclosed interior storage space pop in a variety of colors. bludot.com
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Rossana Hu and Lydon Neri, the founders of Shanghai-based architecture and research studio Neri & Hu, created the Flame tea set for Paola C, which first presented it during April’s Salone del Mobile furniture and design fair in Milan. The quartet of mouth-blown borosilicate glass cups and teapot (fitted with a satin brass filter) complements a walnut tray, accentuated with a movable brass element that holds a tea light to keep your drink warm. paolac.com
Brooklyn-based design firm Standard Issue created this easy-to-assemble shelving system for Stille, a furniture brand that’s all about versatility. The frame, made from steel tubes linked by patented cast-zinc connectors, neatly grips metal sheets that offer a pared-down place to store your stuff. stille-life.com »
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Tina Frey, who founded her eponymous San Francisco–based design company in 2007, rolled out the Amoeba collection earlier this year. Informed by the blobby, free-form shape of the cell, each bowl is sculpted in clay and then cast in food-safe, lead- and BPA-free resin. tinafreydesigns.com
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Unveiled by American découpage artist John Derian and family-owned textile brand Chilewich last month, the British Ferns line includes four placemats and a table runner on which vivid, strikingly detailed plants of a variety of species are brought to life. The images are based on 19th-century British botanical drawings. chilewich.com
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First created in 1963 by American designer Ward Bennett—whose work resides in the permanent collections of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and MoMA—the I Beam coffee table was released by Design Within Reach in September. Bennett made his prototype from a cut section of a steel I-beam; this version features a powder-coated castaluminum base and glass top. dwr.com h
TOUR DE FORCE
ANTHONY ZINONOS
The show-stopping winners, celebrated judges, and superlative editors’ picks from the 2019 GRAY Awards.
Anthony Zinonos, bigSWELL (2017)
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BEST IN SHOW FROM A LIGHT-FILLED DESERT HOME TO A PROTOTYPE OF A LIFE-SAVING MEDICAL DEVICE, THE 2019 GRAY AWARDS WINNERS COULDN’T BE MORE THRILLING.
GREAT DESIGN INVOLVES MORE THAN MERE MASTERY OF FORM AND FUNCTION. The best work—whether it’s an object, a building, a garment, or an environment—transcends its own original purpose and enhances life itself. That’s the kind of design the GRAY Awards is all about. Now in its third year, our cross-disciplinary awards program invites the best and brightest in the fields of architecture, interiors, industrial design, and fashion to enter their work for consideration. This year’s edition—the party of the year for the creative set— happened November 20 at Seattle’s National Nordic
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Museum and celebrated the most exciting ideas in Pacific Northwest design today. Eleven leading architects and designers curated from around the globe combed through the entries and selected the winners whose work appears in the following pages. The winning projects vary in form, ranging from a line of custom tableware to a concept for administering vitamin D to sun-deprived Seattleites, but are united by inventiveness and indisputable skill. Read on to discover the most compelling work in the region, and take note: the creative minds behind them will continue to shape the area, one project at a time.
AMANDA RINGSTAD
AMANDA RINGSTAD
ANGIE MYUNG & TED VADAKAN
C A S S A N DR A HO B B INS
J O HA NNE S C A R L ST RÖM
CO F O UN DE RS , POKETO L O S AN G E L ES
VP OF PROD UCT DEV EL OPMENT, NSTO NEW Y OR K
FOU ND ER , NOTE D ESI G N STU D I O STOC K H OL M
With its upbeat colorways, pared-down patterns, and thoughtful designs, Poketo transforms ordinary objects into parcels of joy. From stationery and wallets to bike helmets and yoga pants, the red-hot brand, founded in 2003 by Angie Myung and her husband, Ted Vadakan, brings intentionality to everything it creates. “Nothing we do is about slapping a logo on,” Myung says. “Our designs are very artful and considered. They have to check all the boxes of accessibility, beauty, consideration, and functionality.”
In her role at NSTO, the retail conglomerate formed in 2018 between Need Supply Co. and Totokaelo, Cassandra Hobbins immerses herself in the company’s production process. An Alberta native and 15-year veteran of the fashion industry, she also serves as creative director for the Hong Kong–based knitwear line INEXCLUSIV and runs a private consultancy firm, working with up-and-coming brands such as LDH.
In 2008, Johannes Carlström saw an opportunity to do things differently. The Swedish designer teamed up with design strategist Cristiano Pigazzini and launched the interior design and architecture firm Note Design Studio, which had an unusual twist: the duo opted to build an idea-led, nonhierarchical environment in which anyone, from a senior staffer to an intern, is free to generate ideas. This freedom has led to Note’s expansion not only in size—the firm now employs more than a dozen designers—but also into other disciplines, including product design, graphic design, and brand identity.
N ICOLE HOL L I S
PA T RI K S C HU M A C HE R
P A U L A HA YE S
F O UN DE R, N ICO L EHOLLI S S AN F RAN CISCO
PRI NCI PAL, ZAHA H A D I D A R C H I TEC TS LON D ON
A R TI ST NEW Y OR K
Creating a sense of home has always been of utmost importance for Nicole Hollis. The designer, who began her career working on interiors at architecture firms focused on residential, hospitality, and retail projects, launched her California-based firm in 2002 with the aim of blurring the line between architecture and interiors. She has grown her company into an award-winning studio that employs 80 designers, and her clients span the residential and hospitality arenas—creating everything from a dreamy waterfront getaway in Hawaii’s Kona Village to Seattle’s dark and moody Palladian Hotel.
Patrik Schumacher, architect and principal at London-based Zaha Hadid Architects, stepped in to lead the firm in the wake of its namesake founder’s passing in 2016. “It was daunting,” he says. “But we pulled through with high spirits.” He had initially joined the firm in 1988 as an architectural assistant, and over time helped evolve the firm into the commanding global architecture presence it is today, with its team of some 440 people and more than 1,000 completed projects around the world.
Artist Paula Hayes has spent nearly 30 years designing outdoor sculptures, botanical installations, and private gardens with Mother Earth as her muse. Known for her living terrariums, which enclose small ecosystems in hand-blown glass orbs, Hayes turns the art community’s attention away from the gallery and toward the garden. Her work has appeared in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Aspen Art Museum’s Crown Commons, and Taipei’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Each piece is made to withstand the outdoors: using natural materials such as bronze and clay, she creates durable objects that evolve with their surroundings.
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CO F O UND ERS, HAY CO P E NHAGEN
The husband-and-wife cofounders of Danish-inspired design company HAY met in 2000 while working at a company that represented the Italian brand Cappellini. Early in their relationship, the pair decided to create affordable contemporary furniture and accessories. Their firm has flourished: since its founding in 2002, HAY has collaborated with designers including Ronan Bouroullec, Clara von Zweigbergk, Stefan Diez, and Inga Sempé and is available around the world.
RAFAEL DE C Á R DE NA S F O UN DE R, RAF AEL D E CÁRD ENAS/ ARCH ITE CTU RE AT LARGE N E W YORK
Rafael de Cárdenas, a native New Yorker who studied fashion at the Rhode Island School of Design before his stint as menswear designer at Calvin Klein, founded his firm, Rafael de Cárdenas/Architecture at Large, in 2006. He has since completed more than 100 projects that range from museum installations to house extensions to Glossier’s SoHo headquarters. If there’s a de Cárdenas signature, it’s not an aesthetic but a style: one that manages to deliver exactly what a client wants while referencing an out-there cult classic.
TH THE JUDGE JUDGES
METTE & ROL F H A Y
Y VE S B É H AR
FOUND ER , FU SEPR OJEC T S A N FR A NC I SC O
Yves Béhar is all about solving problems. The industrial designer, entrepreneur, and founder of multidisciplinary firm Fuseproject believes that design has the power to improve people’s everyday lives. Fuseproject, which Béhar founded two decades ago after recognizing a need for a truly integrated design firm that fuses everything from strategy to industrial design to user experience under one roof, takes that solution-driven approach seriously. Among its clients are UNESCO, Herman Miller, Google, Intel, Uber, and the Nike Foundation.
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Furioso Vineyards Waechter Architecture
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LOCATED IN DUNDEE, THE HEART OF OREGON’S WINE COUNTRY, Furioso Vineyards spent its first years as a series of disconnected utilitarian structures scattered across a 10-acre site dominated by Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapevines. The assemblage included a steel shed that held the winery, several storage facilities, an outdoor crush pad, and a residence, each built in different styles of disparate materials. When its owners called on Portland’s Waechter Architecture to help them reimagine the property, their goal was to create a unified identity that would celebrate the surrounding countryside. “Our approach was to reimagine the elements of the estate, giving each a distinct and focused identity while expanding their relationships, to heighten the viewer’s experience of the landscape and the wine-making process,” reads the firm’s GRAY Awards submission. “In the new design, these elements elegantly work together to create distinct complementary atmospheres of their own.” Waechter Architecture first expanded the existing winery and cladded it with a vertical 2-by-2-inch blackened cedar screen. During the day, the building
appears dense and solid, but at night, an interior illumination system backlights the slats, imbuing the building with an ethereal glow. Just feet from the winery, a new glass-encased tasting room is positioned at the edge of the grape rows, giving guests the feeling of hovering above and within the vines. A loggia between the tasting room and winery doubles as a crush pad during harvest season, which puts the winemaking processes on full display. Uniting the two sections is a bold roof made of 6-inch-thick corrugated metal that cantilevers over the building and shades the glass tasting room in the hot summer months. As the firm writes, “Like each new piece of the winery, the floating roof seamlessly integrates functional challenges into a simple yet iconic design.” h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS COLLABORATORS CD Redding Richmond So Engineers Standridge Design LOCATION Dundee, Oregon DATE OF COMPLETION June 2018
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High Desert Residence Hacker
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HIGH DESERT RESIDENCE
THE HACKER–DESIGNED HIGH DESERT RESIDENCE IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. Located outside Bend, Oregon, where jagged mountains and cinder cones tower over the desolate landscape and the sky sometimes rains golf ball–sized hail or drops enough snow to collapse roofs, the four-bedroom home is an adventurous weekend getaway for one Oregon couple and their extended family. “There is a freshness to the landscape and an aroma in the air that cannot be found anywhere else in the world,” the Portland-based firm writes in its submission. High Desert Residence’s angular cedar, steel, and glass exterior is a dramatic contrast to its chaparralcovered site. Large floor-to-ceiling windows interspersed with cedar planks compose the home’s façade and grant residents wide views of land and sky from each room, a design that “brings focus to the immediacy of the desert flora and fauna in the entry courtyard and the garden,” the firm explains. “It captures the sprawling texture of distant hills and offers anchoring views upward to the seemingly endless desert sky.”
Inside, the home’s airy private and communal areas provide unobstructed views of the property. The décor revolves around monochromatic pieces that respond to the muted tones of the outdoor landscape and spotlights the couple’s collection of midcentury furniture. The cedar of the exterior is also used indoors to reinforce the indoor-outdoor connection. “The form of the house is a simple one, designed to edit the relationship between landscape and sky,” writes Hacker, “and to cultivate a unique experience of both from each room.” h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS COLLABORATORS Kirby Nagelhout Construction Madden & Baughman LOCATION Central Oregon DATE OF COMPLETION December 2018
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Mutuus Studio 76
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Samara
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atmosphere cozy rather than oppressive. An eight-seat soapstone chef’s counter permits diners a front-row view of the action in the kitchen, the pots hanging overhead coupled with the crackle and pop of the oven’s burning wood giving guests the sense of being in someone’s home on a winter evening. Dotting the space are elegant industrial Mallet lights designed by Mutuus specifically for the space. “The amber glow of the fire inspired the design of the lights, [which feature] a torched copper exterior patina with a polished copper interior,” the firm writes. “Rich earth tones dominate [the space], bringing to mind a tranquil wooded understory.” Dishware sourced from both Paris and local potter Akiko Graham adds a textural element to the space, bringing it still closer to a Vermeer mood. h
P ROJECT D ETA ILS LOCATION Seattle, Washington DATE OF COMPLETION January 2019
KEVIN SCOTT
BUCKING THE TREND OF BLOND WOOD AND CANDY-HUED PASTELS, THE RESTAURANT SAMARA EMBRACES THE DARK TONES AND MELANCHOLY AIR OF A DUTCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING. Located in the Sunset Hill area of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, the 38-seat eatery opened in January 2019 with a sustainabilityfocused menu and a multilevel wood-fueled grill and oven that serves as a focal point for both the cuisine and the décor. The space was designed by Mutuus Studio, an interdisciplinary firm consisting of architect Jim Friesz, designer Kristen Becker, and artist Saul Becker, as its first foray into restaurant design. “Samara is rich and moody, with an elemental simplicity,” Mutuus writes in its submission. “The simple copper pot was an inspiration to us: something utilitarian that only gets better with age.” Copper is seen in details throughout the restaurant, including lighting, cookware, and the wood-fueled oven and hearth. Dark-stained oak paneling and wainscoting wrap part of the bar front and dining room, which is open to the brick oven and allows guests to watch their meals’ preparation. Soft dove-gray paint balances the abundance of wood, keeping the
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Pearl Loft
Jessica Helgerson Interior Design
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AARON LEITZ
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PEARL LOFT
SOME NEIGHBORHOODS ARE JUST TOO GOOD TO GIVE UP. Such was the case for this client, who had lived in a spacious industrial loft in Portland’s Pearl District for years, becoming very attached to the area in the process. But while she loved living downtown, she was no longer in love with her apartment. Contemplating a move, the client saw another unit in her building that had been remodeled by local firm Jessica Helgerson Interior Design. Inspired by the transformation, she called the designer in hopes of achieving similar results in her own apartment. “At the beginning of the design process, we received a short list of adjectives from our client describing the kind of home she’d like to live in,” notes the firm in its project entry. “In the end, we designed an environment that aims to be both serene and energizing.” No major structural changes were needed because “the plan, as it was originally laid out, was simple [and] logical and worked well for our client,” the firm continues. “It really came down to a few strategic shifts: moving the kitchen sink from an interior wall to a window, lowering a lofted area, and adding a maximum amount of storage for a minimum amount of clutter.”
Opting for a restrained material palette (the space’s rough sawn-wood ceiling, existing brick walls, and concrete flooring were all kept intact), Helgerson swathed the walls in white to bring in warmth. Subtle hints of feminine glamour include a pearly porcelain tile backsplash in the kitchen and upholstered felt wall panels in the bedroom (bonus: the panels hide storage space). The furnishings, a combination of vintage, custom, and new pieces, balance the scale, material, and tone of the industrial shell. And a special find, a three-paneled mobile aptly titled Balance, designed by Danish architect Stine Gam and Italian architect Enrico Fratesi of the firm GamFratesi, toes the “delicate line between serene and energizing.” h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS COLLABORATOR Paul Hegarty Construction LOCATION Portland, Oregon DATE OF COMPLETION November 2018
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Dune Peninsula at Point Defiance Park Site Workshop Landscape Architecture
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Tacoma and the local community to transform the slag peninsula into a park. “The project highlights the tension between the site’s productive industrial past and its rich natural surroundings,” writes Site in its awards submission, reflecting, “the complex identity of Tacoma and its aspirations for the future.” Sprawling across 11 of the park’s 46 acres, the project includes three sail mounds (or artificial hills) composed of contaminated landfill capped with clean soil and stone terraces. On the north end of the peninsula, one mound’s slope
forms an amphitheater, and a concrete stage was added to host outdoor events. The top layer of the site is covered with naturally sourced native-prairie flora of the type once seen throughout Pierce County but now found in only 3 percent of the Puget Sound area. Site commissioned Portland-based artist Adam Kuby to commemorate Dune Peninsula’s checkered past with interactive art installations. He installed a series of increasingly smaller steel pipes to represent the dismantling of the notorious smokestack—once the world’s tallest—that once dominated
ALAN VILLAVICENCIO
LANDSCAPE DESIGN: CIVIC, RESIDENTIAL IN 1993, THE 571-FOOT-TALL ASARCO SMELTER SMOKESTACK ON TACOMA’S POINT DEFIANCE WAS DEMOLISHED, MARKING A TURNING POINT IN THE AREA’S ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRESS. During ASARCO’s more than 70-yearlong tenure, the smelter had formed a manmade peninsula by dumping lead and arsenic slag into Puget Sound, polluting 1,000 square miles of soil across the sound’s main basin. This past August, Seattle’s Site Workshop Landscape Architecture completed a decades-long project with Metro Parks
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the plot. Site also designed a slender 550-foot-long pedestrian bridge to connect the park to the redeveloped waterfront and a trail to downtown Tacoma, providing urbanites with immediate access to nature. From the bridge, park-goers can take in unobstructed views of Commencement Bay and the Puget Sound mountain ranges. “The park connects visitors to this story with engaging forms, details, and art,” Site writes, “while creating a diverse array of recreational spaces for discovery, play, and enjoying the natural beauty of the region.” h
P R OJ ECT DET AILS COLLABORATORS Adam Kuby BOEarchitects Center for Natural Lands Management COWI Cross Engineers GeoEngineers Jacobs Engineering Group Michael Courtney Design Parametrix Project Delivery Analysts Resource ISWP Rozewood Environmental Services
LOCATION Tacoma, Washington DATE OF COMPLETION August 2019
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Plano Cabinet New Format Studio
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LAUREN ZBARSKY
PRODUCT DESIGN: LIGHTING, FURNITURE
PL ANO CABINET
THE EXPERIENCES THAT LEAD CREATIVES TO CHOOSE THEIR CAREER PATHS ARE VARIED, but for self-taught designer Henry Norris, the road to the future ran through an especially curious source: the trash. The Vancouver, BC–based practitioner got his start in design by welding dumpsters, but then began metalworking and went on to found the design and manufacturing firm New Format Studio in 2016. Just two years later, he won the British Columbia Achievement Foundation’s distinguished Carter Wosk Award in Applied Art + Design, which honors the best makers and designers in the province, and New Format Studio’s deft, quietly brilliant work—ranging from furniture to full interiors—was being shown throughout the United States and Canada. At New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair in May, New Format presented its Plano cabinet as the centerpiece of its burnt orange– backdropped vignette. It was an instant hit: the stately vitrine’s spare, handshaped bronze frame holds curved frosted-glass panels, abstracting its contents into an interplay of shadow and light. Inside, steel-and-leather bottle slings, glass racks, shelving, storage, and custom hardware showcase New Format
Studio’s skillful craftsmanship. “It represents a movement to the next level of our studio practice, [an] alignment with the artists we admire, and [the] creation of the truest expression of the work we want to make,” the studio writes in its entry. Monumental and imposing at 7½ feet high, yet simultaneously graceful and light, it is the distillation of how far Norris’s work has traveled from his modest start. h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS LOCATION Vancouver, British Columbia DATE OF COMPLETION March 2019
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JOHNNY FOGG
PRODUCT DESIGN: OTHER
Eleven Madison Park Dinnerware Allied Works
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UPON WALKING INTO ELEVEN MADISON PARK, THE NEW YORK RESTAURANT ONCE HELMED BY RESTAURATEUR WILL GUIDARA AND CHEF DANIEL HUMM (THE DUO SPLIT IN JULY), IT’S HARD TO CONTROL ONE’S WANDERING EYE. The space received a top-to-bottom redesign from New York– and Portlandbased Allied Works two years ago, and one’s gaze goes straight to the chalkboard painting by Hungarian-American artist Rita Ackermann that commands the dining room—and then to the wood-topped tables, upholstered chairs, fabric-covered banquettes, gold-leaf ceiling, and other details informed by the space’s Art Deco heritage (E.M.P. resides in the former lobby of the landmarked Metropolitan Life North Building). It feels harmonious and complete, as a Gesamtkunstwerk should. One bright star of the space is the dinnerware, an 18-piece suite made from raw porcelain and white glaze. Produced by Portland-based ceramics cooperative Mudshark Studios, the pieces have unglazed outer surfaces whose textured, muted feel echoes Humm’s cuisine. “The various pieces relate dimensionally, sharing a similar formal composition and progressive sequence of profiles and radii,” Allied Works wrote in its submission. “In order to create a subtle tension and definition within the surface
of the table, the pieces appear to hover by means of a small, concealed ‘foot,’ a feature common in traditional ceramics.” After E.M.P. reopened in 2017 with its new design, Allied Works distributed a limited edition of 300 sets of the dinnerware collection—a smart move that allows die-hard E.M.P. fans to relive the experience, at least in part, any time they like. h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS COLLABORATOR Mudshark Studios LOCATION New York, New York DATE OF COMPLETION October 2017
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Finite, Autumn/Winter ’19
JESSA CARTER
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FINITE, AUTUMN/WINTER ’19
P R O JEC T D ET AI L S LOCATION Seattle, Washington DATE OF COMPLETION February 2019
TIME PERPLEXES PHYSICISTS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND EXISTENTIALISTS ALIKE. Yet Deborah Roberts, the designer behind Seattle-based fashion brand SILVAE, sees time as a muse, especially in her creation of Finite, the label’s autumn/winter ’19 collection, which was inspired by the life of her 101-year-old grandfather. Through contemporary details merged with traditional silhouettes—think sheer blouses paired with prairie-style dresses—the line honors both fashion’s history and its present. Finite “is a reflection of the past century, the changes my grandfather has witnessed, and our relationship with time and this planet,” writes Roberts in her submission. It’s also “a reminder to be wise with our limited resources and hold our loved ones close.” The collection’s ruched organza blouses, wine-washed corduroy trousers, and midlength plaid dresses balance tradition with modernity, while textured chunky knits and woolens sourced from Italy and Japan serve as weighty contrasts to a silver laminated-cotton jacket. Triangular collarbone cutouts and circular peek-a-boos along the sides of a sheer plaid frock contemporize modest pieces, while maintaining the sophistication that’s marked SILVAE’s collections since its launch in 2014.
Designed and constructed in Seattle, Finite is also an ode to sustainability. Roberts repurposed scrap fabric from her collection in collaboration with the Seattle rug company What Because to make one-of-a-kind mats. Recently, she started hosting sewing and alteration classes to teach others how to make and preserve their own garments, saying, “I hope to expand these initiatives in the coming years to reconnect people with their clothing and equip them with skills to extend its lifetime.” h
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WHILE SEATTLE’S REPUTATION TENDS TO TAKE A HIT FOR THE RAIN, real Northwesterners know that the long months of winter entail not only downpours, but also days of overcast skies and thick, gray clouds. Now that the city is swinging out of autumn into the darker season, Fraser + Fogle Architects, a Seattle-based firm of interdisciplinary designers, is offering a conceptual project that could address the effect this notoriously glum weather has on the city’s inhabitants. “The gloom’s impact on a population, characterized by a constellation of seasonal affective disorder symptoms, affects the mood of the [Pacific Northwest] region,” the firm writes in its submission, which imagines a scenario in which light boxes are installed in public areas, such as transit stations and pedestrian corridors, throughout the city to allow vitamin D– deprived individuals to “fuel up” as they wait for the bus or walk through a park. “At each of these [areas], interventions replace existing architectural elements to counter the effects of seasonal affective disorder. These illuminations, interconnected by a network of sensors, activate upon movement, proximity, and
touch to [allow the body to produce vitamin D] and provide moments of joy in an otherwise gloomy city,” the firm explains. Fraser + Fogle Architects suggests a variety of delivery mechanisms for the light, from rectangular installations embedded in brick walls to large, boxlike structures that can double as benches in downtown plazas. Such architectural interventions are meant to fit seamlessly into existing or planned infrastructure, making it easy for pedestrians to get a quick dose of imperative fat-soluble secosteroids as they walk their dogs, jog to yoga, and go about their busy, cloudy Northwest days. h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS LOCATION Seattle, Washington DATE OF COMPLETION Concept
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Jack Johnston and Lulu McRoberts
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EVERYONE ALLERGIC TO NUTS OR BEE STINGS KNOWS THE EPIPEN ROUTINE. To counteract severe, potentially fatal reactions, you’re supposed to carry an EpiPen—a portable injection device that delivers epinephrine, a chemical that narrows blood vessels and opens airways—with you wherever you go. In fact, doctors tell you to carry two, which means you’re always toting around some kind of bag because they’re too big for a pocket. What’s more, the device’s traditionally garish label uses formal language that’s hard to follow in the midst of an emergency and sometimes leads users to jab a thumb rather than a thigh. And while it’s necessary to see a doctor after using the EpiPen, dialing 911, locating the nearest hospital, and contacting family aren’t tasks the device can perform for you. These inefficiencies are what University of Washington industrial design students Lulu McRoberts and Jack Johnston have tried to solve with PREPI, a prototype for an easier-to-use injection device. Modeled after a smartphone case, the PREPI device lives inside a
cartridge that’s the size and thickness of a cardholder and has a connected app. When its carrier experiences an allergic reaction, she can remove the device from the cartridge, which automatically alerts her smartphone’s PREPI app while she performs the injection (guided by clear, simple instructions printed on the case that indicate the injection end). The app then gives her three options—“Notify paramedics,” “Notify loved ones,” or time and directions to the nearest hospital—at a single tap. McRoberts and Johnston imagine making PREPI from injection-molded plastic and standard springs and syringes to reduce cost. “Upon pressing the inner housing against the thigh, springs in tension connected to a hollow pin snap upward and break open a CO2 cartridge,” the pair explain in their entry. “The needle is forced into the leg and injects medication. After the pressure equalizes, a secondary spring overcomes the syringe and permanently hides the needle back into the housing.” McRoberts and Johnston presented PREPI at the University of Washington Industrial Design
Junior Showcase in June. “A woman came up to us and pulled out her EpiPens to compare the two,” the designers write. “[She said,] ‘Thank you for making this. I was just telling my family how important this is to me.’ We think this is a significant product, and we hope you do, too.” h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS LOCATION Seattle, Washington DATE OF COMPLETION Prototype, June 2019
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Oregon Conservation Center
JEREMY BITTERMANN
LEVER Architecture
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O R E G O N C O N S E R VA T I O N C E N T E R
MOTHER NATURE GOES URBANE IN PORTLAND’S NEWLY RENOVATED AND EXPANDED OREGON CONSERVATION CENTER. Designed by LEVER Architecture for The Nature Conservancy, an international environmental nonprofit, the headquarters, originally built in the 1970s, was converted from a boxy, nondescript space into an airy, organic environment that celebrates Pacific Northwest flora and fauna. The project has “transformed a dated office building into a collaborative hub that reflects the mission of this environmental nonprofit,” writes the firm in its submission. Informed by TNC’s protected Pacific Northwest habitats, LEVER integrated materials and plantings from Oregon’s Rowena Plateau and Cascade-Siskiyou, as well as regional western hemlock and cedar forests, into the project. Juniper siding and cedar decking, sustainably harvested from TNC’s conservation sites, were used for the exterior and visually balanced by steel cladding that will weather naturally as the building ages. To meet LEED Gold Certification requirements, engineers installed rooftop photovoltaic cells that produce 25 percent of the building’s electrical supply and
efficient systems and fixtures that reduce electric consumption. LEVER also opened up the originally dark, claustrophobic interior workspaces, transforming them into meeting rooms, a staff café and lounge, and a flexible gallery space. For the center’s 2,000-square-foot expansion, which includes a community room and roof-garden terrace, LEVER used cross-laminated timber panels certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The firm previously designed the first building in the United States made of domestically fabricated CLT, and the Oregon Conservation Center is one of the country’s earliest users of the sustainable material. LEVER notes that the use of local materials such as wood in the structure “enhances comfort and connects occupants to the neighborhood and the greater region.” h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS COLLABORATORS Acoustic Design Studio KPFF Consulting Engineers Lando and Associates Lease Crutcher Lewis O Lighting Open Studio Collective PAE Consulting Engineers Project^ Richard Graves RWDI LOCATION Portland, Oregon DATE OF COMPLETION April 2019
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EDITORS PICK
MICHELLE DIRKS E INT ERIOR DESIG N
Lake Washington Modern Eclectic
“Our client asked us if they could buy two alien head sculptures from our favorite local antique store,” reads a submission entry by Michelle Dirkse, founder of Michelle Dirkse Interior Design, for a project she completed earlier this year at a home on Seattle’s Lake Washington. (Dirkse said yes.) Thanks to her client’s adventurous taste, Dirkse pushed the envelope in all areas of the house: first, she revamped the kitchen, fireplace, flooring, and master and guest bathrooms, where she applied details such as a backlit mirror with blue antiquing for mood lighting and custom wallpaper. Then she enhanced
the interior with conspicuous details like a 300-pound lime-green rubberband ball and a vintage upholstered torso-turned-planter. The alien heads take center stage in the living room, resulting in a space that represents its resident’s singular style—the key to any great project. »
AARON LEITZ
P ROJECT D E T AILS COLLABORATORS Driscoll Robbins Inform Interiors Seattle Kassie Keith Vintage Kirk Albert Vintage
Layne McIntosh Susan Wheeler Home
PROJECT LOCATION Seattle, Washington DATE OF COMPLETION July 2018
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Parsonage Cafe of familiarity so as to not alienate their existing customer base.” To achieve this, the duo kept the building’s existing layout and, using “references to Japanese minimalism and midcentury Austrian office interiors, selected a palette composed of five varieties of woods to create a warm and inviting space.” The result is an eatery that boasts a design as drool-worthy as its menu. »
P R O JEC T D ET AI L S COLLABORATOR Glasfurd & Walker
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PROJECT LOCATION Victoria, British Columbia
DATE OF COMPLETION July 2018
LAUREN ZBARSKY
Over the past two years, Canada’s Studio Roslyn—a full-service interior design and creative consulting studio cofounded by Jessica MacDonald and Kate Snyder—has gained a buzzy reputation for its bold, color-saturated commercial projects, including Victoria’s Superbaba restaurant and Vancouver’s Wildtale. So when the minimal, monotoned Parsonage Cafe opened in Victoria last year, it was a new look from the team, and one that works on many levels. “Our approach was to strike a balance between design and minimalism, with a sense of real warmth and community,” the firm writes in its submission. “It was of utmost importance to the client to ensure we retained a sense
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EDITORS’ PICKS B OR A ARCHIT ECT S
Meier & Frank Building
An architectural staple in Portland’s downtown core, the Meier & Frank Building opened 110 years ago as the first major project by architect A. E. Doyle. Its 15 glazed-terracotta stories have since housed a range of enterprises, from department stores and hotels to office spaces and, as of 2018, the Japanese retailer Muji. The building underwent a redevelopment led by Bora Architects last year. “Acknowledging the cultural importance of and nostalgia felt for [the building] was at the forefront of our design approach in transitioning the first five floors into amenity-rich creative office and active retail spaces that reflect Portland’s distinctive historic context,” the firm writes in its submission. At the primary entry, the original canopy and
brass window detailing was retained, and terrazzo, stone, plaster, brass, and walnut were used throughout the interiors to honor the era of the building’s inception. A lush 45-foot-long deep-blue sofa anchors the lobby, and a coffee shop’s contemporary design differentiates it from the surrounding interiors. Details such as brass inlays in the terrazzo floors, brass-toned railings, and exposed ceilings pay homage to both the history and the future of the structure. »
COLLABORATORS Absolute Procurement Arktura KPFF Made Studio
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O-Lighting Design PAE Peter Meijer Architect Turner Construction
PROJECT LOCATION Portland, Oregon DATE OF COMPLETION April 2018
BRIAN WALKER LEE
P ROJECT D ETA IL S
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EDITORS’ PICKS
Hotel Belmont Hotel Belmont is situated in the middle of Vancouver’s vibrant entertainment district. Despite its rambunctious surroundings, it has no trouble standing out. From its hot-pink façade to its retroinspired interiors by local designers Joanna Kado and Daniel Meloché, the hotel is an eye-popping nod to the house of maximalism. The designers converted the Belmont’s worn-down lower-level nightclub into the Basement, an adult playroom equipped with candy dispensers, an ice cream bar, a bowling lane, and bright accents that include cheeky LED signage, flamingo-spangled wallpaper, and bubble gum–pink banquettes. Upstairs in the hotel’s bar, the Living
Room, magenta stools line a terrazzo-clad bar, while an intimate lounge area boasts yellow and black polka-dotted chairs and a cache of hanging light fixtures with vintage lampshades. The hotel’s private gathering space, the Kitchen, holds a baby-blue Smeg fridge and a classic kitchen island for guests to socialize around. Balancing the hotel’s saturated hues, the Den is a relatively pared-down lounge with a stone fireplace wedged between two midcentury bookcases. “The home is where you experience a variety of activities and moods,” write the designers in their submission. “This is a setting created for versatility.” »
P R O J EC T D ETA I L S COLLABORATORS Balsam Electric Diamond Group Architecture Ndevor Custom Contracting
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PROJECT LOCATION Vancouver, British Columbia
DATE OF COMPLETION May 2019
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EDITORS’ PICKS
Loom Stool Théa Ringelstein grew up in London and became hooked on industrial design at age 15. After relocating to Seattle to study the discipline at the University of Washington, she discovered that her interest in design goes beyond its visual and aesthetic properties; she’s most interested in how authentic emotional connections form between functional objects and their users. Today, she creates furnishings that forge such bonds—and live on for generations. Ringelstein’s Loom stool toes the line between utility and sentimentality and is intended as an act against “fast furniture.” Users are invited to weave their own seat atop its classic wood frame, whose low-slung shelf enables the stool to also serve as a side table. Using prelooped materials
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and wood dowels, the Loom’s owner fashions the seat and thereby completes it. “The act of weaving [allows users] to [be] involved in the process of creating furniture, [evoking] sentimentality and encouraging them to prolong the lifespan of their furniture,” Ringelstein writes in her submission. “Therefore, Loom forges a meaningful experience that accommodates change, gains character with age, and develops a story over time.” You couldn’t really ask more from a piece of furniture than that. h
PR OJ ECT DET AILS PROJECT LOCATION Seattle, Washington DATE OF COMPLETION June 2019
THÉA RINGELSTEIN
TH É A RINGEL ST EIN
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APPENDIX
ANTHONY ZINONOS
An invigorating coda.
Anthony Zinonos, cuttingCORNERS (2018)
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Raffles Hotel
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The 132-year-old Raffles Singapore hotel— famed for its luxurious 19th-century décor, private butlers, celebrity guests, and Long Bar (originator of the fruity Singapore Sling)—reopened in August after a modern refresh. It had been nearly three decades since its prior renovation, and the revamp spanned more than two years and drew from the property’s storied history. “Raffles Singapore is important not only to the world of hospitality, but also to the people of Singapore,” says Jon Kastl, principal and partner at New York–based interior design firm Champalimaud, which led the redesign effort. “They’re so profoundly proud of Raffles. It’s a great honor and a bit humbling to be given the responsibility to get this right.” In 1987, Raffles was declared a national monument by the Singaporean government, so to comply
with restoration policies, Champalimaud worked with local officials and the hotel’s own historian as it replaced white marble and restored existing wood floors, walls, and molding in the main building with expert accuracy. Informed by the hotel’s British colonial architecture, Kastl chose blue-and-white porcelain lamp bases and dark wood bed frames for the guest rooms (they match the wood trim on the orange leather chairs in the newly added Residence Suites). Alongside modern amenities, including air conditioning and new plumbing, the firm added a ballroom, a high-end shopping arcade, and three suites to the property. At a fresh lobby watering hole, the Writers Bar, guests can order the famous ginbased cocktail that helped put the hotel on the map. » —Claire Butwinick
COURTESY RAFFLES HOTEL SINGAPORE
CHECKING IN
Noteworthy hoteliers, shops, and restaurateurs pushing the proverbial design envelope.
inspired by seattle.
CHECKING IN
APPENDIX
PH ILADEL P HIA
Fitler Club When the design team behind Fitler Club was scoping out inspiration for interior spaces, they decided to look no further than French furniture brand Roche Bobois. Opened in Philadelphia this past June, the private lifestyle club packs a hotel, coworking spaces, wellness facilities, and a restaurant helmed by local chef Marc Vetri under one roof. Together, the FC team and Roche Bobois’s Philadelphia showroom director and senior interior
designer, Natalie Suresch, collaborated on a design that acknowledges the building’s former life as the Hudson Motor Company’s manufacturing plant. In the second-floor Bar + Lounge, Suresch celebrated the structure’s exposed steel beams with complementary metal hanging shelves and wrapped the room’s wide concrete columns with wood and brass sills. One of the hotel’s two master suites received a special Roche Bobois treat: Suresch accented the industrial architecture with greentoned furniture, including the brand’s teal Profile sofa, teardrop-shaped Aqua
dining table, and forest-green Backstage headboard. To create a stylish and comfortable spot for club members to enjoy movies, Suresch outfitted the 50-seat screening room with Hans Hopfer– designed Mah Jong modular lounge sofas. “[Hopfer] introduced his creation at a time when television was at the forefront for our culture,” says Suresch of the piece, which debuted in 1971. “Naturally, it was chosen to bring a free-spirited and nonconformist edge to the space, while offering a nod to the designer’s original intent for his creation.” —CB
Brought to life by Vancouver-based interior designer Kelly Deck, the space looks more like a Mediterranean vacation home than a retail shop. The terrazzo entryway—a nod to traditional Italian finishes—is spliced with oak flooring, and the angular results draw the eye toward the back of the boutique, where a pair of coral-colored Kelly Wearstler chairs sit. “We played with flooring changes to divide the narrow floor plan and have the entry feel like its own
entity,” Deck says. Instead of a formal checkout desk, Deck created the Jewel Bar, made from dark-green Esmeralda Quartzite, which anchors the boutique and doubles as an ear-piercing station. Built-in arched shelves and wood shadowboxes line the walls, displaying Auld’s demi-fine jewelry, one-of-a-kind Puglia ceramics, and Murano glass pieces, the latter two sourced by Auld on a family trip to Italy. » —CB
VA N CO UV ER
The next time you’re in Vancouver, enjoy a little slice of Italy at Melanie Auld Jewelry’s flagship boutique. Opened in June, the showroom uses residential furnishings and imported Italian objets as a reflection of founder Melanie Auld’s European travels as well as her ancestral homeland. “I wanted the boutique to feel more like an oasis in the city than a place to buy [things],” says Auld, who launched her jewelry line in 2013.
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ANNIE SCHLECHTE. JANIS NICOLAY
Melanie Auld
est. 2010
s e a t t l e c a p i t o l h i l l | g e o r g e t o w n | o o l a d i s t i l l e r y. c o m
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photo by nicole kandi
CHECKING IN
APPENDIX
N E W YO RK
Wolf Restaurant
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pared-down aesthetic works well in the Big Apple, where the firm opted for “wood, stone, plaster, and steel materials to reflect the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest,” says Mike Mora, a principal at Heliotrope Architects who worked with designer Tony Salas on the project. Oak tables, ash chairs, and herringbone floors lend industrial edge, while the dining room’s low ceilings are balanced by full-height windows that overlook Broadway and 57th Street and flood the space with natural light. In an email, Mora and Salas describe the feelings they want the space to inspire: “comfortable and easy, with a place for everything and everything in its place.” Wolf’s focal point is a long flamed-granite bar between the kitchen and dining room, which provides diners with a glimpse of the open kitchen prepping dishes including fried oysters,
burrata bruschetta, and king salmon. “Our collaborations with Ethan Stowell Restaurants tend to favor long bars, natural materials, clean lines, and an intimate connection between cook and customer,” the designers note, enabling guests to transcend Manhattan’s bustle and “soak in the food and company.” h —Annette Maxon with Claire Butwinick
CONNIE ZHOU
Nordstrom’s recently opened New York flagship makes a strong case for the ultimate trifecta: fashion, design, and food. Aside from the latest threads, the seven-story department store, which greeted its first guests in October, offers dining options inspired by the company’s Pacific Northwest roots, running the gamut from high-end culinary experiences to the casual Shoe Bar. Four of the store’s seven eateries are helmed by a pair of Northwest chefs, Tom Douglas and Ethan Stowell. A star among them is Wolf—manned by Chef Stowell and designed by Seattle’s Heliotrope Architects—which invites diners to escape from the city’s rush not only through its PNW-influenced Italian fare but also its calming color palette and natural finishes. Heliotrope, which designed Stowell’s acclaimed Seattle restaurant Cortina, decided that its
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APPENDIX
The Hot Seat Inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona lounger, Rob Brinkley has spent more than 30 years collecting chairs.
OBSESSION
As told to RACHEL GALLAHER Photograph by ROB BRINKLEY
Rob Brinkley, editorial director at Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty in Dallas, Texas, is an author and writer who has contributed to publications including Architectural Digest, Veranda, Elle Décor, and House Beautiful. He collects chairs—an interest sparked when he was a child—and his ever-fluctuating assemblage (which peaked at around 100) includes pieces from Charles and Ray Eames, Ettore Sottsass, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Harry Bertoia. In the early 2000s, the collection was featured on HGTV’s erstwhile series Hey Remember.
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WHEN I WAS A KID, I WAS VERY INTERESTED IN CARS. My parents had a set of encyclopedias, and one day I went to look up “Mercedes-Benz.” As I was flipping through the pages to get there, I hit Van der Rohe and saw a picture of his Barcelona chair for the first time. I remember thinking, “Wow, I didn’t know chairs could look like that.” That was the [beginning]. Fast-forward to 1989, when I was working at a boutique department store in Cincinnati in preparation for its opening. During the move-in, I watched a pair of Mackintosh’s Hill House chairs being unpacked for the women’s couture department. I looked at the little information packet tacked to the bottom to find out who the designer was, then went to the library—this was pre-Internet—to find out more about him. One year later, I saw a Hill House chair in a design store in Indianapolis. I
bought it and drove it home, all wrapped up in a blanket and sticking out of my little convertible. It looked like a dead body! I started out [collecting] mostly midcentury stuff—Eames, Bertoia. Mies and Mackintosh are two of my favorites. I keep the chairs in my house, in friends’ houses, in friends’ boutiques, in a 5-by10-foot storage unit . . . they rotate quite a bit. I dabbled with a Windsor chair once, but that lasted only about a week, and then it had to move on. I love architecture, and I love the way architects resolve problems, so seeing a chair designed by an architect is like seeing a snapshot of their entire creative thought process right there in one object. Any object designed by an architect fascinates me— vases, furniture, flatware, bookshelves. We know they can design buildings, so I like to see how they handle something more utilitarian. h
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