CMAG #5

CORPORATE CULTURE MAGAZINE #5 poltrona frau Notte bedroom solutions morgans chair cult homewares melbourne’s new showroom it must be love...

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contents

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Corporate Culture's Managing Director Richard Munao discusses the developing strength of the company’s new sister brand, Cult.

CORPORATE CULTURE Executive Editor: Richard Munao Coordinating Editor: Gemma Youlley corporateculture.com.au info@corporateculture.com.au Print production by: Corporate Culture

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Poltrona Frau’s Jack and Jackie beds are the final statement in a perfect pair of beds.

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Creating the ideal sleeping quarters has just as much to do with how you accessorise as to the furniture you choose.

INDESIGN PUBLISHING Managing Editor: Nicky Lobo Editor: Guy Allenby Operations Manager: Adele Troeger Production Manager: Sarah Djemal Designer: Morgan Coyle e-book published by: Indesign Publishing Publisher: Raj Nandan Level 1, 50 Marshall Street Surry Hills NSW 2010 © Corporate Culture

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There are two immutable principles to creating the perfect children’s space – and that’s adding colour and fun.

CORPORATE CULTURE showrooms: Sydney 21 – 23 Levey Street Chippendale NSW 2008 T. +61 2 9690 0077 F. +61 2 9690 0099 info@corporateculture.com.au

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Andrée Putman has designed a chair to accompany her second revamp of New York’s iconic Morgans Hotel that has been calculated to never go out of style.

Melbourne 31 Flinders Lane Melbourne Vic 3000 (New showroom opening soon: 680 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne) T. +61 3 9654 8522 F. +61 3 9654 5722 melb@corporateculture.com.au Brisbane 925 – 927 Ann Street Fortitude Valley QLD 4006 T. +61 7 3852 4220 F. +61 7 3852 3592 bris@corporateculture.com.au

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Introducing a fresh selection of beautiful and elegant objects that will add interesting forms and texture to any space.

New Zealand 73 The Strand Parnell Auckland NZ 1010 T. +64 9 379 4466 info@corporateculturenz.co.nz DISTRIBUTORS: Aptos Cruz Galleries 147 Mt Barker Road Stirling SA 5152 T. +61 8 8370 9011 info@aptoscruz.com

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Corporate Culture / Cult’s new Melbourne showroom boasts the popular, historic Queen Victoria Market as its near neighbour.

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Eight design professionals reveal their favourite designs for the bedroom from the Cult and Corporate Culture collections.

Designcraft 8 Tralee Street, Hume ACT 2620 T. +61 2 6290 4900 info@designcraft.net.au Design Farm 1000 Hay Street Perth WA 6000 T. +61 8 9322 2200 info@designfarm.com.au

Corporate Culture and Indesign Publishing hereby disclaim, to the full extent permitted by law, all liability, damages, costs and expenses whatsoever arising from or in connection with copy information or other material appearing in this publication, or any negligence of the publisher, or any person’s actions in reliance thereon. Inclusion of any copy information or other material must not be taken as an endorsement by Corporate Culture. Views expressed by contributors are personal views and are not necessarily endorsed by Corporate Culture or the publisher. Retail prices in this magazine are subject to change without notice.

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newsensation The recent blossoming of Corporate Culture’s sister brand Cult is now developing a strength and momentum that’s simply impossible to ignore. Guy Allenby reports.

Sometimes significant change not only shows up in the numbers but it’s also there for all to see. At Corporate Culture / Cult you only have to step into any one of the showrooms – in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland – to taste what has been shaping up as a quiet and confident revolution.

A couple of years ago furniture sales at Corporate Culture were running at around 90 per cent commercial to 10 per cent residential, explains Managing Director Richard Munao.

And that’s hardly surprising the figures cut this way given the maturity and reputation of its hardearned ‘corporate’ moniker. But fast forward to today; now that the launch of company’s parallel brand – Cult, which handles the firm’s burgeoning residential operations – is underway; and total sales are traveling at about 35 per cent for residential to 65 per cent commercial.

The new brand Cult is, in other words, now the solid second pillar in a thriving enterprise. And it’s one that captures and articulates a complementary philosophy without diluting the total business.

In fact, as Munao explains, both sides are growing, but it was with the acquisition of a slew of leading brands in recent times – including Poltrona Frau, Magis and more –

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step through the doors of any of the showrooms to taste a quiet and confident revolutioN that has allowed Cult to become a seriously imposing player in the Australian and New Zealand designer residential furniture trade too.

“We now have an unique package that works in both markets,” says Munao.

Take a pleasurable and leisurely wander through the Sydney head office, in a warehouse in a quiet street in inner-city Chippendale and you embark on a journey across two floors and a network

of unfolding spaces that takes in a cavalcade of most of the biggest and greatest names in 20th and 21st century design... names like Alias, Anglepoise, Bestlite, Carl Hansen, Cappellini, Cassina, Dauphin, Emeco, Erik Jorgensen, Eva Solo, Extremis, Falinc, Frandsen, Fritz Hansen, Gubi, Hay, Holmegaard, ICF, Join, Light Years, Louis Poulsen, Magis, Mater, Mattiazzi, Nils Holger Moormann, Offecct, Piet Hein, Poltrona Frau, Porce Light... the list seems almost endless.

In Melbourne the business is about to move into its freshly renovated premises in Elizabeth Street and the journey is similar, taking in a whole series of dynamic “rooms” set up to simulate a host of living environments.

“It’s not just a journey with our furniture, but a journey with how you can create environments” “It’s not just a journey with our furniture, but a journey with how you can create environments,” says Munao. “It’s a discovery of different layers of ways people could interact with the furniture. And I don’t think that has been done in this country.”

Importantly too, adds Munao, Corporate Culture / Cult doesn’t just offer beautiful, well-designed pieces, but it’s a powerfully deep and diverse collection backed by a team of people with “such a wealth of experience that we can provide real solutions,” says Munao. “We’re in it for the long term.”

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Bedroom politics

Is there such a thing as a perfect bed? Taking their names from perhaps the most elegant and high profile couple in modern American history, the Jack and Jackie beds are obvious candidates for this high and illustrious office. Guy Allenby reports.

Designing a great bed is a subtle art. Or more specifically, as Roberto Archetti explains, it hinges on three crucial factors: “Design, natural materials and ergonomics”.

Archetti is the director of the New Product Innovation Department at Poltrona Frau – a company with 100 years of experience – so he speaks from a position of particular authority in this area.

It’s not an “exact science” he adds, “but we pay particular attention to customer’s needs, supported by a continuous ergonomic study at universities and ongoing research on the evolution of taste.”

In more general terms the perfect bed is made up of a number of things, that include “timeless shape, excellent materials, comfort and pleasantness of use,” says Archetti.

“The perfect bed is built with high quality materials and components, bedstead bases and mattresses.

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Natural materials [should be used] as much as possible, to ensure the absence of magnetic fields and to provide high, continuous comfort.”

“natural materials should be used as much as possible... for continuous comforT” So it was with these basic tenets in mind, together with a simple brief to designer Jean-Marie Massaud to conjure designs of “elegance and sobriety” that Poltrona Frau and Massaud began the exacting process to create Jack and Jackie.

Indeed from prototype, to tooling and then actual production, the time

Far left: Jean-Marie Massaud, designer of the Jack bed (below) for Poltrona Frau’s NotteŽ Collection from $10,803.

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The beds capture the essence of this iconic american couple

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Below: The Jack bed from $10,803 (right) and the Jackie bed (below) from $9,465 are available in a wide range of colours and with a wide range of mattresses. Headboards are soft padded and upholstered with hand-stitched Pelle Frau® leather.

to market was an extraordinary six or seven months.

Taking their names from Ex-US President John F Kennedy (aka Jack) and his consort Jackie Kennedy, the beds are an extention of the philosophy of the Kennedee sofas designed by Jean-Marie Massaud in 2006. “The collection invokes the lifestyle of the American President’s family,” says Poltrona Frau’s new product innovation guru.

commitment to craftsmanship and aesthetic values that we develop with major interior designers and architects,” he says.

The Jack bed features a headboard hand-stitched in Pelle Frau® leather with an ‘X’ motif. The headboard’s structure is seasoned timber and the base is made from Poplar plywood upholstered in leather. The bed also comes with the option of convenient bedside resting surfaces upholstered in leather.

“timeless shapE, excellent Materials ANd Comfort”

Jack’s partner, Jackie, has a plywood base padded with polyurethane foam, a seasoned Beech headboard that is soft padded and upholstered in Pelle Frau® leather with x-stitching finished by hand.

You could say that in essence the beds capture something of the timeless elegance of this iconic American couple evoke but also perhaps something of the powerful and sexy frisson the pair managed to generate at the time.

Both the Jack and Jack beds are available in wide range of colours, with a wide range of mattresses and complemented by the Poltrona Frau Notte® collection.

In practical terms the beds have been designed to “work on proper ergonomics and body posture,” says Archetti, both for sleeping and for reading a book, watching TV or “working with your laptop” in comfort. “We have an ongoing

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Chocolate suede and leather Swan chair from Fritz Hansen $17,690 Dark Bamboo coat hanger from Mater $88 Two Way black marble candle holders from Mater $56 AJ Table lamp from Louis Poulsen $1,775 Fronzoni chair from Cappellini $1,315 Fronzoni queen size bed from Cappellini $5,293, white linen sheet set from Poltrona Frau $1,521 Black Harlequin blanket from Hay $557 Progetti Computi chest of drawers from Cappellini $56,948 Solid Maple Clothes Tree from PP Møbler $5,240 PK71 Nest of tables from Fritz Hansen $3,205 for set of three White ceramic bowl from Cappellini $1,051 Dresses kindly supplied by Konstantina Mittas Bag, shoes and accessories, stylists own. Styling by Carly Tyrrell and Lauren Black.

Photography by Rowan Turner.

Dream space A place to sleep, play and dream... Cult and Corporate Culture can help create the perfect bedroom, not to mention a comforting and personal place of refuge.

department of youth

Indoor/outdoor Puppy chair from Magis $240 Folding Stitch stool from Cappellini $2,106 Elephant Party mobile from Flensted $28 Cross Medicine Cabinet from Cappellini $1,235 1:6 Miniature Egg chair $594 Full Court Gymnasium cabinet from Mater $2,309 Multicoloured Coat Tree from Fritz Hansen $1,998 Teak monkey from Rosendahl $300 Oak bear from Rosendahl $395 Indoor/outdoor Julian chair from Magis $250 Puzzle Carpet in Grass colour from Magis $50 for set of 7 pieces Pure wool Pinocchio rug from Hay $2,768 Stackable Alma chair from Magis $112 Children’s Series 7 chair from Fritz Hansen $1,060 Ceramic Mini Bottle table from Cappellini $2,302 Other toys, clothing and artwork provided by JD Ninness, age 3.

Styling by Carly Tyrrell and Lauren Black. Photography by Rowan Turner.

Colour and fun are the basic tenets for a child’s own room

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Chair design’s ‘little black dress’

Dreamed up for her own Morgans Hotel re-design in New York, Andree Putman’s ambition was to create the simplest of chairs, writes Guy Allenby, that would “never go out of style”.

Gregg Buchbinder remembers the first project meeting he ever had with celebrated designer Andrée Putman well. She arrived in “six inch stilettos,” says aluminium chair manufacturer Emeco’s chairman.

“She is the most stylish woman I have ever known.”

Left: Legendary designer Andree Putman has a career that spans four decades. For Emeco she re-imagined the 1006 Navy® chair for New York’s Morgans Hotel. Its refreshed interiors are also her design.

Andree Putman’s career extends over forty years and she is perhaps best known for her invention of the “boutique hotel” with New York’s Morgans, Wasserturm in Cologne and Pershing Hall in Paris. More recently she has designed everything from a 31-storey apartment building in Hong Kong, The Putman, to silverware and jewellery with Chistofle, a champagne cooler for Veuve Clicquot and the Steamer Bag for Louis Vuitton.

The task at hand however was to design an exclusive chair to go into Morgans Hotel – Putman’s celebrated and oft-photographed

minimalist hotel design on Manhattan’s lower Madison Avenue – an address that had introduced New York to Putman’s European aesthetic in 1984.

“She told me she wanted to do with the Emeco chair what her friend Coco Chanel did with the ‘little black dress” 24 years later, in 2008, Putman had been asked to re-imagine the hotel once more. Morgans Hotel had also introduced New Yorkers to a simple chair designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1928 and now Emeco, creators of the iconic 1006 Navy® chair (one million have been

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Below: Andree Putman’s reinvention of the 1006® Navy Chair – Morgans – was specific in gloss white for Morgans Hotel guest rooms (far right). It’s also available in polished aluminium (below) and black from $1,054.

“The Morgans project gave us another opportunity to regenerate our 1006® Navy chair” made since 1944), collaborated with Putman to create a new chair especially for the hotel.

“She told me she wanted to do with the Emeco chair what her friend Coco Chanel did with the ‘little black dress’,” says Buchbinder. “Create a simple, smart, sexy chair that never goes out of style.”

Putman’s chair design, Morgans, is an inspired re-mix of Mallet-Stevens chair combined with Emeco’s 1006® Navy to become something new entirely: an aluminium chair that is at once sexy, light, elegant but enormously strong.

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Morgans, like all Emeco chairs, is made in its Pennsylvanian factory to a 77-step process out of 80 per cent recycled aluminium. The chair is available in brushed/anodised and hand-polished finishes as well as a gloss white or a matte black powder coat. Putnam specified 300 of the gloss white chairs for Morgans Hotel guest rooms.

Emeco was founded in 1944 to make all-aluminium chairs for the US Navy. Gregg Buchbinder bought the company in 1998 and has collaborated since to produce chairs with design and architecture luminaries such as Philippe Starck, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Ettore Sottsass and, more recently, Andrée Putman.

“The Morgans project gave us another opportunity to regenerate our 1006® Navy chair,” says Buchbinder, “this time with the Doyenne of Design.”

An aluminium chair that is at once sexY, light, elegant but enormously strong

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perfect accent There’s nothing like a few well-designed accessories to reinvigorate a bedroom. Introducing a fresh selection of beautiful and elegant objects sure to add spice to any space.

Harlequin blanket from Hay $332 Candelabra from Eva Solo $215 Smiley bowl from Eva Solo $178 Florentine vase from Eva Solo Solitaire vase from Eva Solo $95 Your Choice candle lamp from Stelton $95 Fireball tealights from Holmegaard $46 Minima decanter from Holmegaard available in various sizes from $195 Spectra vases from Holmegaard $320 for set of five Simplicity dish from Holmegaard $200 Bulb glass from Holmegaard available in various sizes from $35 Bong side table from Cappellini $1,610 PK 71 Nest of tables from Fritz Hansen $3,205 Panthella floor lamp from Louis Polsen $1,912 Fronzoni table $3,327 and Fronzoni chair $1,296 from Cappellini.

Semi pendant light from Gubi $428, Ceramic Vase For One Flower from Mater $56, Kaiser idell table lamp from Fritz Hansen $1,238, Pebble bowls from Mater $27 each, Square Folded Tray in unpolished brass from Mater $741, Steelwood coat stand in Beech from Magis $1,200, Cocoon tea light from Holmegaard in Smoke $60, Limited edition Paul Smith Dot bowls from Stelton from $50.

There’s a real buzz there...

Corporate Culture’s new neighbours are the Queen Victoria Market and the wonderful Seven Seeds cafe.

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Home truths Corporate Culture / Cult’s Melbourne showroom will be a valuable addition to a much-loved corner of town – already home to the Queen Victoria Market – and now destined to become the city’s design precinct. Guy Allenby reports.

Finding a new home for a business, when you’ve outgrown the old one, is never easy – particularly if the fundamental nature of the business has matured, explains Richard Munao, Corporate Culture/ Cult’s Managing Director.

appeal to me,” he says. “There’s a real buzz there, but it’s in its infancy.

I think it’s what you are starting to see with Chippendale [home to Corporate Culture/ Cult’s Sydney headquarters], but I don’t think it will take as long as this has taken.”

Already established in its Flinders Lane location as a thriving contract furniture enterprise, it was with the advent of Cult – the sister residential arm of Corporate Culture’s business – that Munao and his team realised that they needed to upgrade their Melbourne premises.

All they needed was to locate the right building near Melbourne’s bustling and historic markets.

“The street presence wasn’t as prominent as we wanted it to be and street frontage in Flinders Lane is quite difficult to get,” says Munao.

Richmond, home to some of Cult’s competitors, was considered and ultimately rejected “and then the Elizabeth street area near the Victoria Markets really started to

Fortuitously a down-at-heel old factory built in the early years of last century, came up for sale. “It was Evans and Evans, the first producers of flags in Australia. I loved it when I first walked into it,” say Munao.

There was clearly a lot of work to do, but Richard Munao could see that the bones of the existing structure would be ideal for what he had in mind. It had big old windows fronting Elizabeth Street and it had just the sort of gracious and spacious industrial character

to show off the diverse collection of products the company has to offer.

The challenge though has been to renovate it to suit Cult and Corporate Culture’s twin commercial needs, while at the same time not blunt any of the building’s original appeal.

The first job was to restore the windows and sand back the beautiful old Jarrah floorboards to show them off to best effect (waxed instead of having a polyurethane coating applied).

The plan is that that every three months a new team of designers will be invited to furnish the apartment with a selection of furniture and objects from the Cult collection.

The designers will then live in it for a weekend – just to make sure they’ve really put their own authentic stamp on the place. It’s a fun idea and something, says Munao, “that’s never been done before.”

As for the walls: where the factory’s walls were painted they’ve given them a fresh coat, but if they were bare they have simply been water blasted – thereby highlighting the structure’s textural and highly industrial personality.

The biggest intervention into the building has been a set of magnificent steel and concrete stairs designed by London’s Universal Design Studio. Inspired by the staircase the outfit had designed for Poltrona Frau’s London outlet, the result in Melbourne is a sculptural element of great architectural impact that links the three floors.

On the first floor is the residential furniture, on the second is contract furniture and above that is a “New York style loft apartment”, explains Munao. “The idea with the apartment is that we have more than just a couple of products that we can sell in the residential field,” he says, “so why not work with residential designers on a quarterly basis?”

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It must be love

How do you choose a new piece for your bedroom from a selection of some of the very best and most beautiful objects ever conceived? It’s as easy as falling in love, reveal eight industry experts.

alaana fitzpatrick, editor, renovate magazine poltrona frau esedra pouf, 2007, $3,628 “A simple, yet striking, piece of furniture in luxurious leather, it would be the perfect perch for popping on shoes or enjoying a cuppa with the Sunday paper... admittedly it might become a clothes horse occasionally too!”

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CHRIS CORRELL, VICTORIAN STATE MANAGER, CORPORATE CULTURE LAMPADAIRE DROIT FLOOR LAMP BY SERGE MOUILLE, 1953, $5,232 “I love this lamp for its simplicity and originality, but the real appeal lies in the precise craftsmanship and detail applied to each piece”.

PAUL HECKER, INTERIOR DESIGNER, HECKER PHELAN GUTHRIE LOOP STAND WARDROBE BY LEIF JORGENSEN, 2005, $327 “Simple, elegant, sculptural and best of all... good value.”

RICHARD WALLER, EDITOR INSIDEOUT MAGAZINE STUDIOILSE DESK LAMP

BY ILSE CRAWFORD, 2008, $914 “Ilse Crawford’s lamp for Wastberg has a simplicity of materials and form that’s calming rather than cold. The porcelain shade imparts a suffused light source which can also usefully dimmed when a gentle glow is all that’s required...”

Leanne amodeo, editor, monument magazine stitch chair by adam goodrum, 2008, $1,188 “I think the chair is a practical and necessary piece of furniture within the bedroom and I can’t resist the colours of Goodrum’s design.”

scott walker, principal, hassell aj lamp by arne jacobsen, 1957, $1775 “The AJ table lamp will look great forever. Simple, clean with exquisite lines. A benchmark in lamp design.”

lauren black, showroom manager, corporate culture circle chair by hans j wegner 1986, from $10,140

megan morton, freelance stylist bestlite bl5 wall lamp by robert dudley best, 1930, $946

“The Circle chair’s mix of solid Ash and plaited flag-line make this this sculptural work of art my absolute favourite. In black oiled ash against a white wall – perfect.”

“Look at this light and tell me that they don’t have personalities. Wall mounted on either side of the bed they are delightful company and more than adequate reading lights.

Contrasting cords give them their purpose as well as their edge... Two please. In matte ivory shades.”

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