Interior Design May 2022

MAY 2022

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CONTENTS MAY 2022

VOLUME 93 NUMBER 5

ON THE COVER At the third outpost for the Italian chain Bun Burgers, located in Milan’s artsy Brera district, Masquespacio applied an iridescent mirror-effect finish on the walls and ceiling so diners feel as if they’re in a swimming pool. Photography: Gregory Abbate.

features 68 REFLECTING HISTORY

by Dan Howarth

At the cosmetics emporium Haydon Shanghai, Various Associates looked to the city’s past to deliver a store of the future.

76 L.A. STORY

by Edie Cohen

96 TREETOP SERENADE

by Joseph Giovannini

For the House of Music, Hungary, Sou Fujimoto Architects found inspiration in the surrounding Budapest park woodlands.

104 SHARED VISION

by Chiara Dal Canto

SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli works hand in hand with With the Proper downtown Valerio Berruti on the hotel, a hospitality landmark artist’s joint studio and has emerged, thanks to family home in Alba, Italy. a cast of local artists and artisans led by Angeleno firms Kelly Wearstler and 112 CHROMATIC EFFECTS Omgivning.

by Peter Webster

84 THE SHOW GOES ON

by Wilson Barlow

From New York to Milan, the fall-winter 2022 fashion collections display no shortage of cutting-edge couture—and creativity.

From pretty pastels to moody blues, an inter­ national quintet of new eateries shows the virtuoso use of color—and form— to orchestrate space.

THE INGALLS

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CONTENTS MAY 2022

VOLUME 93 NUMBER 5

19

walkthrough 35 SILVER LININGS

by Nicholas Tamarin

The pandemic presented an unprecedented opportunity for workplaces to pursue aesthetic perfection.

departments 15 HEADLINERS 19 DESIGNWIRE

by Annie Block and Athena Waligore 24 PINUPS

by Wilson Barlow 28 BLIPS

by Annie Block 31 CREATIVE VOICES Storyteller

by Giovanna Dunmall

British Zimbabwean writer and curator Tapiwa Matsinde uses narrative to promote contemporary design and craft from Africa and beyond.

47 MARKET

by Georgina McWhirter and Rebecca Thienes 63 CENTERFOLD Building Blocks

by Athena Waligore

An outdoor installation in Guangzhou, China, by ROOI Design and Research addresses conservation, culture, and coming together safely during the pandemic.

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125 CONTACTS 127 INTERVENTION

by Wilson Barlow

ARJEN SCHMITZ

05.22

124 BOOKS

by Stanley Abercrombie

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For those with a finer appreciation of the classics.

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Elena Kornbluth

Classic Metals from Chemetal are an impressive collection of beautiful, bestselling classic metal designs in HPL and anodized aluminum. Here: #901 Polished Aluminum “Fountain” at the National Building Museum.

SENIOR PREPRESS AND IMAGING SPECIALIST

AJ Paron EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL + STRATEGIC GROWTH SANDOW was founded by visionary entrepreneur Adam I. Sandow in 2003, with the goal of reinventing the traditional publishing model. Today, SANDOW powers the design, materials, and luxury industries through innovative content, tools, and integrated solutions. Its diverse portfolio of assets includes The SANDOW Design Group, a unique ecosystem of design media and services brands, including Luxe Interiors + Design, Interior Design, Metropolis, and DesignTV by SANDOW; ThinkLab, a research and strategy firm; and content services brands, including The Agency by SANDOW, a full-scale digital marketing agency; The Studio

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e d i t o r ’s welcome

creative currency Hectic as things may seem for us right now—there’s the 90th anniversary, plus Homes, Spring Market Tabloid, and awesome stories to work on galore—the season still has some way to go before reaching full thrust for everyone. And even though we have chosen this snazzy issue to include some fashion visits, I am not referring to the latest in spring frocks and hats, but rather the design season, and what our BIG markets, with some on schedule and others judiciously “re-timed,” will bring to the table. First up, there’s all the celebrating New York so desperately needs and deserves with NYCxDESIGN, and especially our same-name awards program (hope you entered!). Our huge Italian extravaganza, Salone del Mobile, will raise the curtain on all its secrets in June. Immediately following Milan comes our domestic appointment with the entire contract industry—oh yes—NeoCon, which once again takes over our friends’ Merchandise Mart in Chicago. We’ll be hard at work at all of the above, bringing back good goodies to you ASAP! Personally, I am really curious to see what our resilient craft will put on offer this year, in the middle of all this craziness, COVID, and now Ukraine (what’s next?…sigh).

One thing you can surely bank on is there will be a ton of creativity on display, which also happens to be the working title of this very issue…funny that. Look no further than the Budapest woodlands for inspiration for the House of Music, Hungary (oh, and check out the 30,000 abstract metallic leaves used as its ceiling canopy!). Kelly Wearstler’s creative solution in L.A. was to collaborate with local artists and artisans on Proper, a landmark hotel, and the result was anything but proper!

Ha! And our fashion roundup extravaganza proves once again how importantly space informs and inspires our sister in design: fashion. So, stop reading and get inside to start your own creative juices flowing! xoxo

Follow me on Instagram thecindygram

MAY.22

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The

Made in America | Versteel.com

Maker Project

headliners “We focus on evolution to lead in the ever-changing landscape of design with an output that encompasses—but isn’t limited to—interiors, product, graphics, experiences, and the virtual world”

Kelly Wearstler “L.A. Story,” page 76 ceo: Kelly Wearstler. firm site: Los Angeles. firm size: 40 designers and architects. current projects: Ulla Johnson boutique in L.A.; Farrow & Ball exterior paint collection. athlete: Wearstler plays tennis nearly every morning before going into work. protector: She and her family have adopted two dogs, Javier and Instagram sensation @williewearstler. kellywearstler.com

JOYCE PARK

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Omgivning “L.A. Story,” page 76 director of hospitality projects: Morgan Sykes Jaybush. firm site: Los Angeles. firm size: 20 architects and designers. current projects: The MacArthur hotel in L.A.; Harbor View House

senior housing in San Pedro and Murrieta Hot Springs Resort & Spa, both in California. honors: AIA Los Angeles NEXTLA Award; AIA Los Angeles Emerging Practice Award; Low-Rise: Housing Ideas for Los Angeles International Design Competition.

Various Associates “Reflecting History,” page 68

abroad: Before his career in architecture, Jaybush worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. local: He is a fourth-generation Angeleno. omgivning.com

cofounder: Qianyi Lin. cofounder: Dongzi Yang. firm site: Shenzhen, China. firm size: 30 architects and designers. current projects: Dji Asian flagship in Shenzhen;

Noize in Chengdu, China. honors: Interior Design Best of Year Awards; IF Design Award;

WA Awards. school: Lin and Yang met at the Chelsea College of Arts in London, with Lin majoring in interior and spatial design and Yang in architecture. extracurricular: Today, they are partners in both work and life. various-associates.com

h e a d l i n e rs

SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli

Sou Fujimoto Architects “Treetop Serenade,” page 96 architect, ceo: Sou Fujimoto. firm sites: Tokyo and Paris. firm size: 50 architects and designers. current projects: The master plan for the 2025 Japan International

Exposition in Osaka; Hida Furukawa Station Eastern Development, a community-based center in Hida City, Japan. honors: MIPIM Special Jury Award. work: Fujimoto claims architecture is his only hobby. play: He does admit to relaxing by building Legos and drawing with his 6-year-old son. sou-fujimoto.net

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beginner: After earning his architecture degree from the Politecnico di Torino in 2001, Blengini worked at Studio Fuksas and Studio Libeskind. expert: He cofounded SBGA with Agostino Ghirardelli in 2016 and has amassed such extensive knowledge of winery design that he consults internationally in the sector. sbga.it

BOTTOM LEFT: DAVID VINTINER

“Shared Vision,” page 104 founder: Giuseppe Blengini. firm site: Milan. firm size: 30 architects and designers. current projects: AEC Illuminazione Innovation Technological Center in Arezzo, Italy; European Space Agency site plan in Noordwijk, Netherlands; a residential complex in Shanghai.

sahco.com

design wire edited by Annie Block

In Weert, Netherlands, the Jacob van Horne Municipal has been renovated and enlarged by Maurice Mentjens and renamed Museum W, part of it newly sheathed in Tecu®Gold panels, its “shutters” fixed in place to display Lost Spring. Lost Year, a video animation of photographs by Emily Bates. Inside, opening exhibition “Forever Endeavour” showcases a collection of works by Weert native Job Smeets of Studio Job; go to interiordesign.net for images.

w is for wow ARJEN SCHMITZ

The Jacob van Horne Municipal Museum in Weert, Netherlands, was already architecturally significant. The institution was contained inside a national heritage–listed structure dating to 1545 that operated as city hall from 1550 to 1979. In 1982, the building reopened as the museum, its collection comprising more than 17,000 works of works of religious art and regional history, ranging from paintings, textiles, silver, and sculpture to ceramics, glass, archaeological artifacts, and video art. In 2019, it closed again for an overhaul, not just in name but also appearance, inside and out, a commission masterminded by Dutch designer Maurice Mentjens. On May 3, the building bows to the public as Museum W with, among other standouts, part of it wrapped in a golden skin that incorporates Advent calendar-like apertures displaying contemporary art and vividly juxtaposes with the 16th-century brick facade. “In each of my designs, I try to introduce an element that’s site-specific,” Mentjens says. In the case of this project, the luminous cladding is made of a recycled aluminum and copper alloy, the same material used for Euro coins.

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From left: At Krion, a Villarreal, Spain, show­ room designed by EstudiHac, walls boast the company’s textured Fitwall panels, the Magnum chair is by EstudiHac for Sancal, and the Spokes pendant fixture is by Garcia Cumini for Foscarini. A custom stool and pedestal and Bimba y Lola apparel join Porcelanosa’s Treviso Blanco porcelain tile flooring.

d e s i g n wire

all the feels

Spain, showroom for Krion, a Porcelanosa Group brand, Ferrero delivered one of his signature “bespoke” solutions: a concept store that looks like a hip clothing boutique. The envelope of the 500-squarefoot space is essentially a study in white, the monochromatic approach drawing eyes to the textural walls. It’s there that Ferrero installed Krion’s new Fitwall decorative panels, reshaping passageways with arches to reveal the product’s versatility. To amp up the energy and buzz, he inserted moments of bumblebee yellow, which include custom pedestals and hang bars displaying sunny rainboots and tops

by Spanish label Bimba y Lola.

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ADRIÁN MORA MAROTO

One wouldn’t normally pair solidsurfacing and forward fashion, but EstudiHac founder Jose Manuel Ferrero has. When asked to redesign the Villarreal,

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fantastical fashion Chinese couturier Guo Pei began sewing at the age of 2.

Three decades years later, in 1997, she launched her first label, Rose Studio, garnering attention for her exquisitely crafted daywear, gowns, and costumes, including ceremonial garments for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In 2015, she became a viral sensation when, for the Met Gala, pop singer Rihanna wore Pei’s canary-colored creation with a 16-foot-long train. Highprofile exhibitions and collaborations and landing on Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People list soon followed. Today, the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco is presenting “Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy,” a survey of 82 ensembles the designer completed over the past two decades, highlighting her most important collections from the Beijing and Paris runways. Ac­ companying sketches and a video, the breathtaking garments, some of which take two years to complete, showcase the range of Pei’s influences—from religion, fairy tales, and the natural world to architecture. —Athena Waligore Clockwise from top left: “Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy,” at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor museum through September 5, includes a silk-embroidered dress and a copper crown from the spring/summer 2020 collection.

From spring/summer 2017, a silk dress and metal cuff bracelets embellished with Swarovski crystals and rhinestones. A gold foil dress from spring-summer 2018. Fall-winter 2018’s dress structured with steel wire.

LIAN XU/COURTESY OF GUO PEI AND THE FINE ARTS MUSEUMS OF SAN FRANCISCO

d e s i g n wire

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The mirror as art A MunnWorks mirror is a work of art. It plays the same role in a room as a major painting, creating high impact at a lower cost.

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p i n ups text by Wilson Barlow

rods and cones All eyes are on the limited-edition lighting Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby created for “Signals,” their first solo exhibition with Galerie kreo

galeriekreo.com barberosgerby.com

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FROM LEFT: EVA HERZOG; ALEXANDRA DE COSSETTE

Signal F2 Monochromatic in Giallo Ambra and Signal R Polychromatic in Corallo, both floor lamps in lacquered aluminum and Murano glass on a cast-bronze base

by Barber Osgerby, through Galerie kreo.

p i n ups

humble yet bold GRT pairs modest materials with fine craftsmanship and unexpected color and proportions in a table suite named after late architect Thomas Henry Poole, one of whose early 1900’s buildings the firm is restoring Side Poole in Dark Red, Dining Poole in Dark Green, and Coffee Poole in Yellow, all tables in plywood and highpressure laminate with white-oak legs and under­carriage by GRT Architects, through Matter.

COURTESY OF GRT ARCHITECTS

mattermatters.com grtarchitects.com

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Photo T. Pagani

italian design story

Marenco sofa design Mario Marenco Chicago 213 W Institute Place - Chicago, IL 60610 Cincinnati 1401 Elm Street - Cincinnati, OH 45202 New York 55 Great Jones Street - New York, NY 10011 Los Angles 8770 Beverly Blvd. - West Hollywood - Los Angeles, CA 90048 San Francisco 3085 Sacramento Street - San Francisco, CA 94115 Miami Design District 3621 NE 1st Ct - Miami, FL 33137 Dallas 1019 Dragon Street - Dallas, TX 75207 Atlanta 349 Peachtree Hills Ave Suite B2, Atlanta, GA 30305 Vancouver 1672 1st Ave, Vancouver, BC V6J 1G1 Toronto 24 Mercer Street, Suite 100, Toronto, ON M5V 0C4 Montreal 4396 Laurent Blvd, Montreal, Quebec H2W 1Z5

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Salone Internazionale del Mobile June 7th-12th Hall 05 Stand C05

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Color theory meets memory…

Steve Locke has earned such accolades as the Guggenheim Fellowship for his art— painting, photography, sculpture—which centers on the sins of our shared history. Portraiture has been his main expression but, after working on the Auction Block Memorial, a Massachusetts site dedicated to slavery, and continued exploration into Josef Albers’s impact as an artist and educator (Locke is also a Pratt Institute fine arts professor), he has created a new abstract body of work that nods in name and structure to Albers’s Homage to the Square series but is about unpicking the intertwined histories of race and modernism. “Steve Locke: Homage to the Auction Block,” from June 10–July 17 at Alexander Gray Associates in Germantown, New York, is the artist’s first show with the gallery, which is committed to anti-racist and feminist principles. A dozen works made between 2019 and today are on view, including the four acrylics here, which are 12 inches square, except for his Homage to the Auction Block #105a-verdant, which is 24.

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FROM LEFT: COURTESY ALEXANDER GRAY ASSOCIATES, NEW YORK; LAMONTAGNE GALLERY, BOSTON © 2022 STEVE LOCKE/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK (4); ROSS COLLAB

bl ips

we want to make a

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DIFFArence

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c r e at i v e voices From top: Rattan wall panels

by India Mahdavi backdropping “The Artisan: A crafted tea room,” an exhibition curated by Tapiwa Matsinde for Homo Faber, an international craft event in Venice, Italy, this April.

The British Zimbabwean Matsinde at the site of her show, Padiglione delle Capriate.

storyteller British Zimbabwean writer and curator Tapiwa Matsinde uses narrative to promote contemporary design and craft from Africa and beyond

FROM TOP: SIMONE PADOVANI/© MICHELANGELO FOUNDATION; LALIA POZZO/© MICHELANGELO FOUNDATION

Born in the U.K. and raised in Zimbabwe, Tapiwa Matsinde started her career as a graphic designer, first in Harare and later in London, working for blue-chip, hospitality, and luxury brands. Her transition into writing and curation— something she also calls “storytelling”—was preceded by a successful stint as a jewelry designer in the mid-aughts; one of her pieces, a sterling-silver bracelet laden with semiprecious stones and Swarovski crystals, was showcased at a ball for President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Forced to close her business due to the recession, Matsinde returned to the University of the Creative Arts, Epsom, for a master’s in design management and, after graduating, stumbled into blogging.

Matsinde’s debut book, Contemporary Design Africa, was the first publication of its kind to showcase current design and craft from the continent in a non-stereotypical way: “I was tired of always seeing books on African design displaying masks, drums, and mud colors,” she says. “Africa is so much more, and I wanted to show its creative sophistication and diversity.” She recently curated “The Artisan: A crafted tea room,” an exhibition at Homo Faber, an international craft event that took place in Venice during the last three weeks of April. Her installation was a working space filled with handcrafted objects sourced from 16 countries around the globe that visitors could not only see but also interact with. We asked her about it and her other activities.

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Your blog, atelier 55, tells the stories of designers, artisans, and creatives from across Africa and the diaspora. How significant a role did it have in starting your curating career?

Tapiwa Matsinde: The blog began in 2010 as a place to store ideas, images, and inspirations but it fueled the love of writing, research, and putting information into context that had been ignited working on my master’s degree. I soon understood there was something happening across Africa in terms of a contemporary creative reawakening, and I found that exciting. Looking back, when I started my blog, I had begun curating without even realizing it.

Why is storytelling a good way to talk to communities and introduce them to contemporary African craft?

TM: Storytelling is an intrinsic part of human life. It helps create bridges that foster understanding. This has been important to my work as a champion of design and craft from Africa, where storytelling, particularly the oral kind, is an essential part of the various cultures.

How is the approach to craft in the African countries you are familiar with different from that in a European context?

TM: One of the big differences is accessibility to artisans. Across the African continent, at a grassroots 32

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level, one has greater access to artisans and to wit­nessing the craft process. In the U.K. and other European countries I have visited, craft is often done behind closed doors—to see the process one has to be invited in, so access to craft is often through a retail or exhibition display. I think the Internet is increasingly allowing for craft processes to be shared—though we may not always get to see it in person, we can see it in images and videos. In terms of similarities, I would say that much like in Europe, as African craft gets utilized in design it is contributing to the creation of a high-end, luxury Africa aesthetic in which artisanal handwork is upheld as a defining characteristic.

How did you get involved with Homo Faber?

TM: It was Alberto Cavalli, executive director of the Michelangelo Foundation, which puts on the event, who approached me. At the time exhibitions were being postponed or cancelled so it was amazing to me that something of this scale was still being planned. It spoke to me of a commitment to supporting artisans in a way that I was honored to be a part of.

Can you give us a few more details about your project, “The Artisan: A crafted tea room?”

TM: It was a space where all visitors to Homo Faber were welcome to enter and rest a while, filled with handcrafted objects that they were not only able to look at but also interact with. They could sit on plush couches by Arcahorn, recline in Visionnaire’s thronelike Pavone armchairs inspired by the peacock’s plumage, marvel at the application of complex intricate hand-beading accentuating SoShiro’s Pok Butler sideboard, play a game of billiards, chess, or

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SIMONE PADOVANI/© MICHELANGELO FOUNDATION (2); ANTHONY EVANS; © ILÉ ILÀ; COURTESY OF TAPIWA MATSINDE; © BOTTEGANOVE

Clockwise from top left: From the tea room, hand carving on an oak-and-steel sideboard by Sardinia-based ateliers BAM Design and Serra Luigi & Figli. Custom wallpaper, based on a vintage Renzo Mongiardino lattice motif, handmade by San Patrignano Design Lab. British metalsmith Claire Malet’s Marloes Strata Vessel, a tin can transformed by freehand flame cutting. Matsinde’s first book, Contemporary Design Africa (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2015). Woven vessels by Zenzulu, a South African art collaborative, using master weavers’ techniques. The Giorgio Cini Foundation on the Isola San Giorgio in Venice, Homo Faber’s atmospheric location. The 5,000-square-foot installation, a working tea room populated with tables, chairs, and sofas accompanied by handcrafted design objects from around the globe. The Àdùnni Pupa armchair by Nigerian furniture brand Ilé Ilà, upholstered in Adiré, a fabric used in everyday wear, and Asò-oké, one reserved for ceremonial occasions.

A sterling silver, gemstone, and Swarovski crystal bracelet, showcased at a 2009 presidential inaugural ball, from Matsinde’s period as a jeweler. Cristina Celestino’s Plumage 13 ceramic vase, hand decorated with intricate enamelwork by BottegaNove.

c r e at i v e voices

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF THAMES & HUDSON; COURTESY ANGELA BUCKLAND FOR ZENZULU; © MICHELANGELO FOUNDATION; SIMONE PADOVANI/© MICHELANGELO FOUNDATION

backgammon courtesy of exquisitely handcrafted games by Hillsideout, Lazo Studios, and Alexandra Llewellyn, respectively, or simply sit on an armchair by the window and gaze out on the lagoon.

Homo Faber’s inaugural edition in 2018 was Europe-focused. Was it important to you to bring more global craft to the event?

TM: Yes, it was. This edition had Japan as the guest

of honor and the intention for the tea room was for it to be the exhibition that furthered Homo Faber’s mission to embrace exceptional craftsmanship from different parts of the world. —Giovanna Dunmall

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ISA

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INTERNATIONAL 1976 - 2022

B R I S TO L S E R I E S WWW.HAVASEAT.COM | 1.800.881.3928

silver linings The pandemic presented an unprecedented opportunity for workplaces to pursue aesthetic perfection

BANYE LI

wa l k through See page 36 for Clou Architects’s own Beijing office.

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Clou Architects project Firm’s own office.

BANYE LI

site Beijing. standout Reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s seminal use of aluminum foil to cover walls in the Factory, his legendary New York studio, hot-dipped galvanized sheet steel—as found on common household appliances—provides luminescent reflections from a fully glazed facade offering sweeping views of the grand mountains northeast of the Chinese metropolis.

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BANYE LI

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HS2 Architecture project Riggio Foundation.

RAFAEL GAMO

site New York. standout The institutions that philanthropist and Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio’s family foundation supports include Dia:Beacon, so it’s fitting that the charity’s headquarters is a showcase for an enviable art collection that encompasses works by Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Kerry James Marshall, and others, set off by a discreet envelope— travertine, Venetian plaster, industrial columns, walnut millwork and flooring— that allows for maximum visibility.

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RAFAEL GAMO

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S ol Studios project Four One Nine. site San Francisco. standout Unexpected angles and unapologetic biophilia greet at every turn in this two-story community studio and creative agency in the city’s edgy SoMA district, its 3,300 square feet of columnfree space made possible through the installation of an expansive steel truss that’s offset by whiteash paneling, 3-D tile, and Caesarstone counters.

JOE FLETCHER

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Matali Crasset project AWARE.

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PHILIPPE PIRON

site Paris. standout Founded in 2014, this small nonprofit—its clever name the acronym for the Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions—now occupies an historic Montparnasse villa, the home and studio of Russian artist Marie Vassilieff in the early 20th century, the near-psychedelic renovation of the new digs by the French firebrand designer having been funded by the City of Light itself.

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THE FINE BALANCE BETWEEN ART & INTERIORS | ARTERIORSHOME.COM

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MR Architecture + Decor project Confidential investment advisory.

ERIC PIASEKI

site New York. standout The discretely comforting cues of financial stability are signaled with Maharam linen wallcoverings backing art by the likes of Rashid Johnson, while statement pieces like the Haas Brothers’ furry Beast bench show how much fun such privileged security can be. —Nicholas Tamarin

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Motive Outdoor Light as Artistry We believe that for design to be truly great, it must stand the test of time, be sustainably crafted, and proudly American made.

Motive blurs the line between indoor and outdoor lighting to create out-ofthe-ordinary settings.

Designed by Justin Champaign Find us at landscapeforms.com or contact us toll free at 800.430.6205

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Hallmark Floors is proud to introduce the True Collection, a range of wood floors featuring the weathered beauty of bog wood, achieved through a revolutionary process we are first to master. Bog wood is the result of logs lying buried in lakes, rivers and waterways for centuries, with the wood slowly turning from its natural color to deep golden browns, ashen grays... even completely black. We’ve replicated this process using innovative technology. Not only are these floors unique in their richness of color and patina, but unlike all other existing wood floors, the beauty and color of each floor runs throughout the surface layer - with true color and true beauty.

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market

art/fashion

edited by Rebecca Thienes text by Georgina McWhirter

sweet and juicy “I situate my practice at the intersection of architecture and graphic design,” says Mana Sazegara, a young creative who earned her master’s in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania just four years ago. “My pieces are character­ ized by playfulness,” she continues, “all more or less telling the same story: the harmony of geometry, form, and color.”

To wit: Sweet Gathering, her imaginative furnishings col­ lection with a wild neo-Memphis vibe. There’s Henri, a zany laminated MDF chair; Carole, a bold flatweave in finely woven wool; and Alice, a lively mirror in laminated MDF and acrylic. Together, they’re meant to celebrate recovery, revitalization, and the return to normal. manasazegara.com

ALICE

HENRI

CAROLE

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in the pink

O-GEE WHIZZ

An octogenarian with a magenta bob, British fashion designer Dame Zandra Rhodes has conceived garments for Diana, Princess of Wales and Freddie Mercury. Now, the trained textile designer has expanded her purview from fashion to furnishings, her exuberant hand-painted patterns developed especially for English weaving house Gainsborough. The Britannia collection is composed of two fabrics: the cotton-silk O-Gee Whizz, an ogee pattern with daisy chains, and the wavy cotton Fabulous Frills, both woven on heritage looms at Gainsborough’s mill in Suffolk. In each, one might spy nods to William Morris, 1960’s paisley, or other Britishisms. Both come in four colorways, including fuchsia, of course. gainsborough.co.uk

DAME ZANDRA RHODES

FABULOUS FRILLS

ALUN CALLENDER

“It’s an exciting collaboration between two of Britain’s most iconic design names”

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NYOKA

RICH MNISI

m a r k e t collection

VUMBONI.I&II, RIVONINGO VUTLHARI, NWA-MULAMULA

dream interpretation Rich Mnisi is a stalwart of contemporary African fashion. But the prolific multihyphenate has also tackled creative direction, film-making, and furniture. For “Nyoka,” his first solo furniture show, he worked with Cape Town gallery Southern Guild and artisan groups Monkeybiz, Coral & Hive, and Bronze Age Studio on a suite underpinned by Bushongo mythology and the concept of a snake, which originated from a dream his mother had, and from where, in Xitsonga, a Bantu language, the show gets its title. The twisting bronze branches of the Vutlhari chandelier hold resin orbs. Nwa’ntlhohe, a rug in karakul wool and mohair, combines wild tufts and flatweaves. Naturally, a sinuous bronze snake adorns Nyoka, a curved console with beaded fringe. Also on display is Mnisi’s upholstered Nwa-Mulamula (guardian) chaise, a 2018 piece that’s an homage to his great-grandmother. richmnisi.com; southernguild.co.za

m a r k e t collection art/fashion

NWA’NTLHOHE

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CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM: CHRISTOF VAN DER WALT/SOUTHERN GUILD (2); STEPHANIE VELDMAN/SOUTHERN GUILD; CHRISTOF VAN DER WALT/SOUTHERN GUILD; HAYDEN PHIPPS/SOUTHERN GUILD

“My journey started with my mother’s dream and led me to Congo’s Bushongo mythology”

TELL THEM I MADE IT If you met 16-year-old Gulafsa as she appears in this picture – wearing a dress she made herself – you would encounter a bubbly high school student with a dream to be a fashion designer or a doctor. But Gulafsa almost missed her chance to go to school. When she was just 11 years old, GoodWeave found her working in a carpet factory in India. GoodWeave helped transition Gulafsa back to school and is providing support to continue her education.

Gulafsa can now make her dreams come true. You can help other children make it in life too. Look for the GoodWeave® label on carpet and home textile products – your best assurance no child labor was used.

Design: tabakdesign.com Photo: The Studio_M – thestudiom.com

“This collaboration allowed me to look at patterns outside the female figure and instead be guided by the power of interiors to create an extension of one’s aesthetic” MARY KATRANTZOU

N IA OR CT VI

butterfly effect

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V&B FLIESEN

Fashion designer (and one-time architectural student) Mary Katrantzou is known for her wild prints that cohere though studied symmetry. The Greek-born, London-based creative’s first foray into interior design nods to both, with tile that is both digitally printed and traditionally screen-printed with a step and repeat of colorful, varied butterflies set within frames styled as postage stamps. They form the basis of Victorian, a ceramic wall-and-floor tile collection for Villeroy & Boch that draws from the manufacturer’s two centuries of history. It’s also inspired by Katrantzou’s own legacy: namely prior collections centered around collecting and Victorian ornamentation. villeroy-boch.com

10YEARS CELEBRATING

MAY 10–20, 2022

Learn more at festival.nycxdesign.org

2022 Festival Presenting Sponsors

2022 Festival Program Sponsors

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Tiffany Bouelle and Céline Wright for Swadoh

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product Marie Diva. standout A table lamp sheathed in Washi paper by Parisian designer Wright becomes the canvas for Franco-Japanese painter Bouelle’s gestural brushstrokes in her preferred royal-blue pigment. swadoh.com 54

INTERIOR DESIGN MAY.22

Shuya Iida of Hachi Collections

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product Naminami. standout The Japanese designer transforms a simple solid-maple rectangle into a sculptural 96-inchlong dining table via a wavy underside and balloonlike, cylindrical painted legs. hachicollections.com

Alex Proba for Gossamer

Felipe Pantone for Poltrona Frau

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product Archibald Limited Edition. standout To celebrate the brand’s 110th anniversary, the Argentine-born artist has reimagined Jean-Marie Mas­ saud’s 2009 armchair in a pixelated pattern printed directly onto Frau’s Impact Less leather. pf.poltronafrau.com

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product Touch 02. standout The Studio Proba and Proba Home founder’s handwoven wool rug for the 420-friendly periodical draws upon the colors and textures of the covers of its latest volume, called the Touch issue. gossamer.co

1: MARIANNA MASSEY (PRODUCT), JEANNE PORETTE (BOUELLE PORTRAIT); 3: SEAN DAVIDSON (PRODUCT), COMPANION HOME (PORTRAIT)

m a r k e t scape

Erik Schilp, Robin Stam, and Joeri Horstink for Kelly Wearstler

5: THE INGALLS (PRODUCT); 7: SEAN DAVIDSON (PRODUCT)

kellywearstler.com

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Bessie Afnaim and Oliver Corral for Nordic Knots

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product Quelle Fête L.A. Woman. standout The trio behind Dutch art collective Rotganzen have con­ ceived a new version of their famous slumped disco balls for the acclaimed California designer’s online platform.

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product Face. standout A shaggy multi-pile rug in a rich ochre hue by the married Arjé lifestyle-brand founders was influenced by cave drawings, Cubist art, and the evocative allure of making a house a home. nordicknots.com

Stacey Bendet for Tempaper

Jane Atfield for Emma Scully Gallery

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product RCP2. standout The gallery commissioned a new series of the designer’s 1992 chair from original manufacturer Yemm & Hart, which fabricates the speckled material from discarded plastic bottles.

product Tempaper x Alice + Olivia. standout The first removable wallpaper collection by the fashion brand’s founder and CEO includes sartorial florals and paisleys, plus the label’s well-known sunglasses-bedecked Stace Face motif.

emmascullygallery.com

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m a r k e t collection art/fashion

AURÉOLE

DJIVAN SCHAPIRA

NÉNUPHAR

“I began to focus on my own line of functional artwork when the pandemic struck and projects came to a halt”

generational knowledge In 1987, French master craftsman Antoine Schapira invented a technique of embedding crosscuts of wood in resin. Three decades later, his son and Parsons graduate Djivan Schapira evolved his father’s design process to be scalable and patented it. With his firm ABDB Designs, which he cofounded with Andrew James in Union City, New Jersey, Schapira makes custom pieces for hospitality and residential projects. (ABDB is an acronym for au bout du bois, French for the end of the wood.) At the height of the pandemic, he turned to personal projects. The results were recently on show at High Line Nine gallery in New York: cocktail tables, lamps, mirrors, and skateboards that ingeniously combine wood, resin, pinecones, and more, all boasting a space-race aesthetic. djivanschapira.com

FLUX

MÉNAGE À TROIS

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BU I LT TO OU TCOMFORT & OVE R L AST

WO O DAR D-F U R NITU R E .COM

ARC

“It showcased our distinct perspective on how color, material, scale, and utility can collaborate in unexpected ways ”

house party Earlier this year, interior and furniture designer Elena Frampton of Frampton Co curated “Coming Home,” a survey of furnishings that explore the relationship between craft and comfort, at her exhibition penthouse in New York. Among the pieces were chairs by Christina Z. Antonio and Chen Chen & Kai Williams, Nick Missel stools, mixed-media wall hangings by William Storms, and Frampton’s own expanded F Collection. Her redesigned Tux sofa takes inspiration from equestrian farms, with tailored leather piping and fringing. Arc, a shapely poplar desk perfect for WFH, now comes in a new Forest lacquer, its high-gloss automotive finish a nod to Frampton’s love of classic cars. framptonco.com ELENA FRAMPTON

TUX

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building blocks An outdoor installation in Guangzhou, China, by ROOI Design and Research addresses conservation, culture, and coming together safely during the pandemic

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CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM RIGHT: IFANR; ROOI DESIGN AND RESEARCH (5)

1. ROOI Design and Research’s hand sketch of Patch-City, an events pavilion in Guangzhou, China, composed of quick-assembly, reusable PVC modules, shows how the firm’s “toy blocks” would be stacked on each other to create a public plaza. 2. The subsequent computer rendering displays the formation of a 20-by-24-foot podium that would host concerts, talks, and other arts programming. 3. In a Shanghai factory, a fab­ ricator installs a supporting steel structure to test 5 the modules’ stability. 4. ROOI chief designer Zuoqian Wang met with the manufacturing team and an engineer from Yanloo Interior Shanghai Co. to examine a prototype. 5. The PVC sheets were bolted together into cube forms, then they were painted with a fluorocarbon coating. 6. After linear marks were drawn and the supporting frame was set, the prefabricated modules arrived on-site, arranged on the lines, and then hoisted layer by layer, with construction workers adjusting the top to not disrupt tree branches.

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“Having the modules surround you is like being encircled by arms”

3,072 SIX 98 TWENTY SETS OF NUTS AND BOLTS

FABRICATORS LED

BY ZUOQIAN WANG

MODULES

GALLONS OF PAINT

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1. On the site of a former elementary school, Patch-City, which has been up since January, utilizes isosceles trapezoid building structures to create a space that addresses the disappearing of the traditional marketplace cultures. 2. After they come down, the modules can be repurposed as furniture for interior spaces. 3. The black-andwhite chevron base was reused from the ele­men­ tary school previously located there. 4. Digital trend brand IFANR, which commissioned the project, combined their online and physical platforms to carry out an urban carnival. 5. The pavilion has inspired Patch-Café, a second installation using the same modules currently at a nearby empty mall.

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View the entire collection at www.formica.com/livingimpressions

3705-58 Sugar Glass

ROLAND HALBE

may 22

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reflecting history At the cosmetics emporium Haydon Shanghai, Various Associates looked to the city’s past to deliver a store of the future text: dan howarth photography: sfap

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The Bund has retained an allure ever since the 1920’s, when wealthy merchants and traders began building art deco–style structures beside Shanghai’s bustling Huangpu River waterfront. Thanks to recent revitali­ zation efforts, this celebrated and protected stretch now sits proudly in contrast with the twinkling lights and super-tall skyscrapers of the Pudong district on the opposite riverbank.

The tug of old and new, and influences from East and West, have long been present in this important port city and global financial hub. It’s these dichotomies that Various Associates, a studio led by cofounders Qianyi Lin and Dongzi Yang that has a growing portfolio of hospitality and retail proj­ ects, kept in mind while designing Haydon Shanghai. Just off the Bund, the Chinese beauty retailer’s first outpost in the city is located in a landmarked neoclassical building steeped in history.

Since 2020, Haydon’s approach to physical retail has involved opening one store in one city at a time (there are now 10 throughout China) and imbuing those interiors with nods to the cultural nuances of each location.

For Shanghai, Lin and Yang looked to local architectural heritage and the building’s century-old past for cues, just as they did for the brand’s Hangzhou store. The duo then considered the contemporary city and devised a “circular space station” concept to pair with the traditional motifs and materials. This surprising union creates an aesthetic they describe as “exactly like a Shanghai lady: elegant, modern, with a little bit of futurism and contradiction.”

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Previous spread: At Haydon Shanghai, a cosmetics store designed by Various Associates, a partition of arcing slats in mirrored stainless steel distorts the reflections of the spiral staircase connecting its two levels.

Opposite top: The neoclassical facade of the landmarked structure, formerly known as the Meilun Building, had to remain largely untouched. Opposite bottom: Materials traditionally associated with Shanghai’s past, like green leather and walnut, contrast with a contemporary lightbox ceiling.

Top: The partition is composed of 61 panels. Bottom: The same steel clads display counters, which stand on mosaic ceramic-tile flooring.

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“We extracted distinctive Shanghai-style elements, ones that carry the memory of the city’s exotic old houses, and interpreted them through a contemporary lens,” Lin says.

“Reliefs, patterned tiles, wood in classic tones, pale gold, dark green—we combined them in a creative manner that recalls the city’s past glory.” The result is an eclectic 6,500square-foot, two-story environment that’s part retro, part futuristic.

To reach the store, formerly a sports brand flagship, shoppers pass through the building’s grand public atrium. Without doors separating the two spaces, VA aimed to “harmonize” the area where the lobby ends, and the store begins. “We couldn’t insert a totally different style or design language into this 100-yearold building, especially where it faces onto the building lobby,” Yang explains. “Connecting the old and new, and balancing the design between tradition and futurism, was our challenge.”

The main distinction between the two areas is the store’s scifi ceiling, which is partly informed by the circular shape of the atrium. Concentric rings and linear beams, patterned with gypsum reliefs that appear lifted straight from a French Concession villa, emanate below a seemingly continuous light box that dazzles the entire store with a laboratory-white glare. “The ceiling reveals a sense of technology and generates a mysterious atmosphere, like a black hole in the universe,” Ling notes.

From the innermost ring hang black letters spelling out the Haydon logo, which crops up in other unexpected places around the store, namely the staircase, its tight spiral form, rendered in traditional walnut, also residential in feel. But it too mixes in 21st-century elements. Regarding the logo, keen-eyed customers can spy it CNC-cut into the stair’s handrails. It appears again topping a column surrounded by the spiral that spins and is fronted in panels of gold-tinted stainless steel.

The staircase also incorporates textured glass banisters, and the same gypsum reliefs found on the ceiling beams and rings. Elsewhere, fluted dark-green leather framed in walnut forms wall panels and display counters that sidle up against stark white surfaces. Curved mirrored counters and additional golden columns reflect the white and green mosaic floor tiles. “The Top, from left: During a promotional photo shoot, a model descended the stair’s walnut treads while multiplying infinitely due to the mirrored panels. Its handrails have been CNC-cut with the Haydon logo. Bottom: It also appears embossed in a light box on top of the spinning central column.

Opposite: Rectangles of textured glass inspired by Shanghai’s 20th-century art-deco style form the balustrade.

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Top: Matte aluminum encases other display units, which are on castors. Bottom: Their custom capsule shape is based on old Shanghai trolley cars.

Opposite top: The design details result in a 6,500-square-foot retail environment that feels both retro and futuristic.

Opposite bottom: Beams, fitted with linear fluorescents, are wrapped in gypsum patterned with traditional Chinese reliefs.

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reliefs and patterned tiles were commonly used in 20th-century China, but definitely not now,” Yang says. “They drag the customer into another age.”

VA’s implementation of materials and finishes that evoke either the past or the future, coupled with the firm’s layering of them over one another, yields an overall atmosphere that lands somewhere in the forward-looking present. Speaking of looking, the contrast of yesterday and today is apparent toward the back of the store, where the staircase is partially encircled by a tall, wide partition of mirrored vertical slats. Each slat is angled slightly to form a curving arc, which, like a carnival’s hall of mirrors, stagger and overlap the reflections of the spiral, as well as anyone traveling up or down it.

To get around the city’s strict fire regulations, which limits the amount of fixed furniture, silver capsule-shape cabinets, based loosely on Shanghai’s old trolley cars, are mounted on wheels. The added bonus? The custom displays can be quickly and easily shifted around the upper level when needed.

Through varied visual references and conspicuously juxtaposed elements, Haydon Shanghai conjures memories and sparks imagination. For VA’s “Shanghai lady,” who is ultimately Haydon’s customer, her experience of moving through the store is no doubt like a stroll down the Bund, absorbing both the historic charm and the bold outlook that together characterize modern China.

PROJECT TEAM SUKI LI; KE CHEN; MILLY QIU: VARIOUS ASSOCIATES.

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L.A. Story With the Proper downtown hotel, a hospitality landmark has emerged, thanks to a cast of local artists and artisans led by Angeleno firms Kelly Wearstler and Omgivning

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text: edie cohen photography: the ingalls

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Previous spread: In the lobby at the Downtown L.A. Proper, a hotel inside a 1926 building restored by Omgivning with interiors by Kelly Wearstler, the red gumwood millwork is original and the painting circa 1930’s but Wearstler’s Colina credenza with a cinnabar plaster finish is new.

Top, from left: A stained-glass partition by Judson Studios marks the entry to Caldo Verde, the restaurant off the lobby.

The landmarked limestone and terra-cotta facade incorporates an arched entrance framed with bas-relief, which influenced the design of the hotel’s interiors. Bottom: Elevators have also retained their original arched frameworks.

Opposite: Anchored by existing marble flooring, reception is composed of a desk by Morgan Peck and a mural by Abel Macias, both local artists.

The fourth in the quartet, the Downtown L.A. Proper is Kelly Wearstler’s most complex and layered hotel for the brand yet. “Since the 13-story building is historic, it was important to keep its integrity, its original and odd architectural details,” the acclaimed designer begins. That includes an existing basketball court on the sixth floor and an indoor pool on the seventh. (More on those later.) The interiors of the four-year project, a standout on the city’s gentrifying Broadway cor­ ridor, are a multicultural visual feast, a mashup of everything Wearstler is known for and loves: color and pattern; vintage finds mixed with custom pieces; art, both sourced and commissioned; and tiles galore, some 100 different types. Equally rich is the structure’s backstory leading to its Historic-Cultural Monument designation.

Designed by Curlett & Beelman, the California Renaissance Revival building was completed in 1926 as the Commercial Club, a private Old Hollywood–style entity that counted Cecil B. DeMille among its members. In the ’40’s and ’50’s, it transitioned into a hotel, before becoming a 126-room YWCA in 1965. When Wearstler and collaborating architecture firm Omgivning took it on, it had been vacant for 10 years.

Omgivning is an L.A. firm specializing in adaptive reuse, its founder and principal Karin Liljegren naming the firm after the Swedish word that roughly translates to “the way a space feels,” she says. “Considering its immense scale, the Proper was a creative and space-planning challenge that utilized every square inch of the building,” Omgivning director of hospitality projects Morgan Sykes Jaybush states. “Even with the massiveness of the project,

we took special care with the details, salvaging as many original pieces as possible, from brass door hardware with Commercial Club initials to ornate Babylonian-style plaster corbels.”

For Wearstler, initial inspiration came from another landmark, the Herald Examiner building across the street, built by architect Julia Morgan for William Randolph Hearst in 1913. “I was looking out the window and seeing the iconic structure, with its tile motifs at the top,” she recalls.

“The Proper Hospitality brand is about being fiercely local.”

But she went farther afield, too. The bas-relief on the Curlett & Beelman facade shows Spanish, Mexican, and Native American references. All these influences, interpreted with poetic license, now pervade the 115,000square-foot interior of the Downtown L.A. Proper.

They are visible right at the entry. Wearstler commissioned two area artists to make it a showstopping setting. Painter Abel Macias, whose playful and bold color aesthetic draws upon his Mexican heritage, spent nearly two months on scaffolding covering the walls and the MAY.22

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This page: Behind Wearstler’s Durant sofa and a vintage lamp in the Proper Basketball Court suite, so called because of the room’s previous life when the property was a YWCA, are super-size squares and rectangles coated in textured paint.

Opposite top, from left: Custom stools line the Caldo Verde bar, built of copper, granite, and ribbed oak that’s been ebonized, cerused, and wire-brushed; floor tiles are also custom. A custom woven rug and a vintage painting enliven a corridor. Opposite bottom: The blocks emphasize the 18-foot height of the 1,400-square-foot court suite, which Wearstler furnished with a Victoria Morris side table flanked by vintage Peter Shire chairs.

vaulted ceiling with his fantastical mural of flora and fauna, heavy on ocher and dusty-rose tones that Wearstler would adopt as the hotel’s pervasive signature colors. One section of the installation is anchored by a mysterious ebony form: It’s the reception desk fashioned from textured clay tiles by ceramicist Morgan Peck. Elsewhere in the lobby is original millwork restored by Omgivning, furniture by Wearstler’s studio, and various vintage pieces, including a circa 1930’s artwork with what the designer calls a “Cubist-Frida Kahlo feeling.”

Caldo Verde, the adjacent restaurant, further beckons visitors. It’s accessed through a stained-glass partition by another L.A. artisan, Judson Studios. Once inside, there is the focal bar, which Wearstler and Omgivning conceived “to be like its own little building,” framed in ribbed oak and tile, along with Mexican modernist, Moorish, and Portuguese design notes, to reflect the cuisine by James Beard Award–winning chef Suzanne Goin, who with restaurateur Caroline Styne are stars of the city’s culinary landscape and oversee the project’s F+B program. “While the hotel’s design was inspired by the community, it is also very much for the community, for those familiar with the city and this wonderfully talented pair,” Wearstler says of her first-time collaborators.

Guest rooms now number 147, 10 of which are suites.

That includes the Proper Pool suite, a 2,800-square-foot extravaganza Wearstler and Omgivning built around the aforementioned indoor pool, now smack in the middle of

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Top, from left: Lounging poolside on teak chaise longues is one of several rooftop options. The bathroom in the Proper Pool suite is clad in custom ceramic and marble tiles. Bottom: A study in earthy colors and custom furnishings, a junior suite has stained oak flooring.

Opposite: The pool suite incorporates the YWCA’s indoor pool as well as a 1970’s Alky bench by Giancarlo Piretti and a newly commissioned ceramic mural of abstracted tire treads and cacti by L.A. sculptor Ben Medansky.

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the living room and overlooked by a ceramic mural composed of abstracted tire treads and cacti—“vernaculars of commuting in Los Angeles,” is how local sculptor Ben Medansky describes his installation. “As soon as we discovered that the YWCA’s pool originally shared a floor plate with the guest rooms, we knew it would be a great to transform it into one large suite, allowing for an unforgettable experience,” Wearstler notes.

The same goes for the Proper Basketball Court suite, a 1,400-square-foot space with an 18-foot ceiling that had contained the YWCA’s basketball court.

“I saw the ceiling height as an opportunity to create an impactful moment,” Wearstler explains. Walls finished in a limewash-like textured paint are divided into supersize blocks of charcoal, ecru, moss, and smoky blue that simultaneously emphasize the soaring ceiling and temper its scale. Contrasting patterns in the furniture also contribute to the suite’s intimate feel.

As for the rest, each accommodation is quasi unique, adorned with vintage accessories, paintings, and an organic color palette, “warm tones honoring the building’s rich history,” Wearstler says. In gallery-esque fashion, the art, much of which she sourced from Europe and Mexico as well as such domestic locales as Round Top in Texas, hangs not only on guest-room walls but also in corridors, making them, too, places to pause and delight the eye. Rugs have Turkish and Moroccan roots—either aged or made to appear so. Textiles are specially developed, and many furnishings are Wearstler’s own design.

The Proper rooftop, a split-level urban oasis, is arrayed with vignettes. The firepit is one primal gathering post, the raised pool another, and Cara Cara, for all-day bites

and cocktails, yet another. A virtual forest of succulents and greenery articulates semiprivate areas, almost like rooms. Come for sunlight, stay for sunset, carry-on through evening, all the while taking in the panoramic cityscape.

L.A.—and its creative set—never looked so good.

PROJECT TEAM JONATHAN GIFFIN; DOMINIC SOSINSKI; BRAD MALLETTE; ALEX PRICTOE; CHRIS ASUNCION; YUKIE TAKESHI; PABLO PATIÑO; NIKKI BROWN; JOEL CHAPPO: OMGIVNING. LUKE KIELION; RYDER CHANATRY: KELLY WEARSTLER. HISTORIC CONSULTANTS: PRESERVATION CONSULTANT. THE RUZIKA COMPANY: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. STUDIO-MLA: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT. NABIH YOUSSEF STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. HENDERSON ENGINEERS: MEP. KPFF: CIVIL ENGINEER. WB POWELL: WOODWORK. KUSTANOVICH CONSTRUCTION CONSULTANTS: CONSTRUCTION MANAGER. PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT KELLY WEARSTLER: CREDENZA (LOBBY), SOFA (COURT SUITE). ISA ISA FLORAL: FLOWERS. JUDSON STUDIOS: PARTITION (RESTAURANT). PELLE: PENDANT FIXTURE (LOBBY). PORTOLA PAINTS & GLAZES: TEXTURED PAINT (COURT SUITE).

LAWSON-FENNING: ROUND SIDE TABLE. ETHIMO: CHAISE LONGUES (ROOF). THROUGH­ OUT THROUGH JAMAL’S RUG COLLECTION: VINTAGE RUGS. DUNN-EDWARDS PAINTS; FARROW & BALL: PAINT. INNER GARDENS: PLANTS.

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the show goes on From New York to Milan, the fall-winter 2022 fashion collections display no shortage of cutting-edge couture—and creativity text: wilson barlow

See page 92 for Balenciaga’s Paris Fashion Week presentation, which had homages to Ukraine.

Photography: Stephane Aït Ouarab/La Mode en Images/Balenciaga.

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TORY BURCH High up at Hudson Commons for New York Fashion Week, the ready-to-wear collection’s swirl-patterned geometric jersey dresses were backdropped by the iconic sign of the New Yorker Hotel, its restoration Burch has helped fund.

Photography: courtesy of Tory Burch.

BIG–BJARKE INGELS GROUP A double-helix pattern of 146 steps made from weathering steel ascends to the top of the 82-foot Marsk Tower in Denmark’s Sea National Park. Photography: Rasmus Hjortshøj/courtesy of BIG–Bjarke Ingels.

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MONCLER For his sixth edition of the much-anticipated, annual Moncler Genius campaign, fashion designer Craig Green crafted highly functional outdoor gear recalling insectlike exoskeletons. Photography: courtesy of Moncler.

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PRADA Co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons teamed up with longtime collaborator AMO (OMA’s research and design branch) for a sci-fi set at Milan’s Fondazione Prada, where models emerged from a neon-lit portal to walk a spectral zigzag runway.

Photography: courtesy of Prada.

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ARMANI For Milan Fashion Week, Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani mixed military elements with a Memphis-inspired checkerboard runway. Photography: courtesy of Armani.

LOUIS VUITTON The final collection before his pre­mature death, artistic director Virgil Abloh choreographed the Paris Fashion Week presentation down to its very last detail amid a surreal “dreamhouse” set. Photography: courtesy of Louis Vuitton.

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BALENCIAGA As a child refugee from war-torn Georgia, creative director Demna spent time living in Ukraine, so his Parc des Expositions Paris le Bourget presentation was a love letter to the country, including reading a poem in Ukrainian and placing shirts in its flag’s colors on every seat before models marched through a life-size snow globe. Photography: Thyago Sainte.

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DIOR Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri showed her latest collection in the classical Place de la Concorde in Paris, under the gaze of an installation by Mariella Bettineschi featuring archival portraits of women with double-sets of eyes, a feminist commentary. Photo­graphy: Kristen Pelou.

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treetop serenade For the House of Music, Hungary, Sou Fujimoto Architects found inspiration in the surrounding Budapest park woodlands text: joseph giovannini photography: roland halbe

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Beethoven would be pleased. The famously outdoorsy composer of the Pastoral Symphony translated nature into sound, so—were he in Budapest today, encountering the House of Music, Hungary—he would understand its translation into architecture. Just completed, the three-story, 97,000-square-foot cultural facility stands amid woodlands in the capital’s 200-hundred-year-old, 300-acre City Park. Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto has designed the building like a forest canopy, with more than 30,000 abstract metallic leaves decorating the ceiling of a shallow, organically shaped dome hovering above a 320-seat glass-enclosed concert hall, a smaller auditorium, and an open-air stage. The striking design bested 170 entries in a competition.

The roof, its underside an airy filigree of gold foliage on a black background, matches the height of the arboreal canopy of the surrounding park, establishing a continuum from real nature outside to built nature inside. “My interest in architecture is how to integrate natural things and architecture,” Fujimoto notes, “not to mix them, but to translate architecture into nature and nature into architecture.” For centuries, composers have responded to the acoustic properties of concert halls, cathedrals, and other performance spaces. Fujimoto adds nature to the equation: The architecture of music and the music of architecture triangulate off his interpretation of trees in a wood.

What makes this metaphor of built nature possible is glass, which distinguishes the House of Music from the type of building that has long hosted Beethoven symphonies. Fujimoto eliminated the opaque walls that have always introverted symphony halls, dematerializing the entire perimeter of the structure with floor-to-ceiling glazing—94 custom panels in all, some almost 39 feet tall. Flat glass provides an acoustically unfriendly surface, but Japanese firm Nagata Acoustics, veterans of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, have ensured warm, blended sound by zigzagging the panels. Performers and audiences make and hear music while seeing the enveloping park, the architecture establishing a synesthetic continuum between notes and nature.

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Previous spread: The House of Music, Hungary, a combination performance, exhibition, and educational facility by Sou Fujimoto Architects, sits in Budapest’s historic City Park.

Opposite: More than 30,000 abstract me­ tallic leaves evoking a woodland canopy decorate the ceiling of the lobby and other ground-floor spaces.

Top, right: The spiral staircase connecting the building’s three levels is rendered in steel above ground. Bottom, from left: A roof aperture, one of nearly 100, allows light to dapple the interior as if it were a forest floor. Although the floating roof has an undulating form, it nowhere rises above the height of the surrounding treetops.

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“Understanding the fundamental relationship between people and people, and people and nature is the core of architecture”

“We were enchanted by the multitude of trees in the City Park and inspired by the space created by them,” says Fujimoto, who is best known in the West for 2013’s miragelike Serpentine pavilion in London and a 2019 apartment building in Montpellier, France, a treelike structure bristling with white, cantilevered terraces and awnings. “I envisaged the open floor plan, where boundaries between inside and outside blur, as a continuation of the park.”

Given the transparency of the ground floor, park visitors can see through the building to the other side. Even inside, they experience the effect of light filtering through a forest canopy and dappling the ground, thanks to nearly 100 apertures that puncture the roof to serve as light wells. Sound waves inspired the undulating roof, which changes in depth, though always remaining lower than the tree line.

The simplicity of a canopy floating over an open interior landscape, however, is only apparent. Comprising three levels, the structure is both an iceberg and a tree house: A permanent exhibition on the history of music, galleries for temporary shows, and a hemispherical dome for audio projections occupy the basement; the ground floor houses the performance venues; and, above the leafy ceiling, attic space in the roof accommodates a library, classrooms, archives of Hungarian pop music, and offices.

An irresistible, dramatically sculpted spiral staircase connects all floors. In fine weather, performers on the open-air stage play to an audience on bleachers embedded in the adjoining landscape.

Top: Where the spiral stair descends to the basement-level exhibition spaces, it becomes concrete. Bottom: Its sub­ terranean corkscrew form acquires the heft of a monumental sculpture.

Opposite: On the top floor, glass panels turn descending light shafts into radiant vitrines.

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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s famous glass-and-black-steel National Gallery in Berlin established the precedent for a roof hovering over a vast open space with a basement for public functions. Here Mies’s square canopy has been replaced by an organically shaped, decorated form shot through with light. The paradigm has shifted: Nature has replaced the machine, and decoration, the idea of structure. There’s a social shift, too: Transparency allows the public visual access to the inner sanctum, erasing the elitist overtones of a building intended for ticketholders only. Glass helps actualize the goal of a facility invitingly named a “house,” which is to appeal to a wide spectrum of musical tastes, from pop and folk to jazz and classical. The permanent exhibition downstairs uses interactive technology to tell the story of two millennia of European music. The program is educational and embracing rather than exclusionary, its architecture a teaching instrument. Invoking nature through design ingratiates the institution to a broad audience.

The building is the first of several planned for Liget Budapest, a controversial project by the government of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s far-right prime minister, to transform the historic park into a museum district. For all the House of Music’s formal originality, the architect and his team’s design process was conventional: They researched the site, the project’s cultural background, and the whole brief, and then sketched and chatted, eventually arriving at the key concept. “Understanding the fundamental relationship between people and people, and people and nature is the core of architecture,” Fujimoto says, concluding on a musical metaphor: “Sticking to the budget, sticking to the surroundings, reacting to the requirements— everything is harmonized.”

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Opposite: The glazed walls of the 320-seat concert hall give performers and audiences uninterrupted views of the park.

Top left: Wooden bleachers offer a quiet spot to sit in a corner of the lobby. Top right: The organic nature of the building’s per­ forated roof becomes even more apparent when viewed from above. Bottom: The structure’s deep eaves provide shelter for outdoor concerts and recitals, which can be enjoyed from bleachers set into the adjacent landscape.

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shared vision

SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli works hand in hand with Valerio Berruti on the artist’s joint studio and family home in Alba, Italy text: chiara dal canto photography: lea anouchinsky/living inside

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Previous spread: Paneling and flooring of cast on-site concrete surround the atelier portion of the home and studio of artist Valerio Berruti, who’s over­ looking his polystyrene sculptures representing his two children, Nina and Zeno, a ground-up project in Alba, Italy,

by SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli.

Opposite top, from left: Cast concrete also forms the stairway treads down to the dining area, where the pendant fixtures have been designed by Berruti and architect Giuseppe Blengini.

Woodwork in the living area and the kitchen is oak. Opposite bottom: Hans J Wegner’s CH33 chairs are among the seating in the study adjoining the atelier, its skylight shaped like the house.

Right: Along the stairway that leads from the atelier to the home’s living quarters is Berruti’s Fragments, composed of 196 reinforced-concrete and fresco tiles.

Valerio Berruti has always wanted to be an artist. Piedmontese by birth, the 45-year-old Italian sculptor-painter is firmly rooted in his profession—when he exhibited at the 53rd Biennale di Venezia in 2009, he was one of the youngest participants—and his homeland. He is also open to experimentation and collaboration, which is revealed in two recent projects. One is at Cracco, the Michelin– star Milanese restaurant owned by famed chef Carlo Cracco. There, in the eatery’s semicircular lunette windows overlooking the city’s thriving Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II arcade, is Credere nella luce, or Believe in the light, three figures of girls, frescoed and backlit, that are not only a message of hope in this pandemic era but also evoke the magical moment of childhood, a constant theme in Berruti’s oeuvre. “This is the first time I used direct light in a work,” he says. “Believe in light and science. This is my invitation.”

Milan happens to be the home base of architect Giuseppe Blengini, cofounder of the firm SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli and an integral collaborator in the second of Berruti’s recent projects: his home in Alba. The Piedmontese town is where Berruti was born and where he first discovered—and fell in love with—Blengini’s architectural vision, in a shop he designed there that no longer exists. Blengini was invited to dinner at Berruti’s house at the time, a small 18th-century deconsecrated church in nearby Verduno that the artist had converted into his residence and studio.

During the evening, Blengini, who’s also passionately Piedmon-

tese, noticed a detail: a window that connected the atelier and the former sacristy. And that—the perfect demarcation, clear but not too much, between intimate space and working space—was the jumping off point for the new home and atelier he would build in Alba for Berruti and his family.

Unique and complex, the resulting 5,000-square-foot structure is the product of four years of close four-handed work, a dialogue made up of flying notes, sketches drawn on restaurant napkins, and phone calls between artist and architect when Blengini traveled around the world to his firm’s other construction sites.

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“Materials throughout—local sandstone, concrete, oak—are pure and honest, in step with the natural mediums Berruti employs in his artwork”

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same time,” Blengini recalls smiling. Indeed, Berruti was on-site every day, following the group of local artisans and construction step by step. The 5-acre site itself was chosen for its peaceful and panoramic qualities—vineyards rising toward the house, fields of meadows all around, the hills of Alba stretching into the distance.

These aspects dictated the basic lines of the residence, the orientation of its spaces, and the openings to the outside. In fact, its stepped, three-story form “recalls the terraced hills ringing the Piedmont region,” Blengini notes. The roof folds its pitches like origami to create an observatory terrace.

Part of the need for a new home was Berruti’s growing family.

“With the birth of our two children, Nina and Zeno, we had to change from the church residence.” (His drawings, paintings, and sculptures, by the way, reproduce images essentially from his everyday life and family affections.) It encompasses three

bedrooms and three bathrooms across its three levels and is better separated yet still connected to Berruti’s studio, thanks to Blengini’s thoughtful plan. “My years of training have taught me to dare, not to fear obstacles, and rather find solutions without preconceptions,” the architect says.

Berruti adds, “Living and working in contiguous spaces offers great advantages. If I happen to wake up at night pushed by a new idea and the desire to make something happen, going down to my atelier is easy. It also applies to the time I dedicate to my children, since proximity allows me to be with them more easily.”

Opposite: The kitchen stools are another custom design by Berruti and Blengini.

Top: Above a work table in the atelier is the fresco on jute What remains of the rainbow, from 2020. Bottom, from left: A detail shot captures a close-up of the Zeno sculpture. Some of the dining area’s Gio Ponti Superleggera chairs face the hills of Alba.

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Opposite top, from left: Hugs, a wall of reinforced-concrete bas-reliefs, appears in the main bathroom, alongside the walk-in closet. The 5,000-square-foot house is clad in Langa, a local sandstone, and set on 5 acres. Opposite bottom: 1-cm-square mosaic tile backs the custom oak vanity. Right: The main bedroom features a custom bed and Berruti’s The daughter of Isaac, which he made for the 2009 Biennale di Venezia.

Materials throughout—local sandstone, concrete, oak—are pure and honest, in step with the natural mediums Berruti employs in his artwork—jute, steel plate, plaster. “With the same cement the mixers produced for the concrete, I created panels to cover the wall that leads from my atelier to our home,” the artist recalls. The large, rectangular panels could be a contemporary art installation themselves. They’re gently illuminated by an asymmetrical skylight, its trapezoidal shape “recalling the geometry of the house,” the architect says, that helps naturally brighten the studio, as it’s partially below-grade.

Berruti’s finished and in-progress works are peppered throughout, like Fragments, his site-specific work of 196 reinforced-concrete and fresco tiles that lines the short stairway leading from the studio to the home’s living quarters.

There, the dominant material changes from cast on-site concrete to oak, all of which came from a single batch. It composes the flooring, paneling, and furnishings—the latter, Blengini says, “99 percent of which was designed by Valerio and me.” These include the stools along the kitchen island, the dining area’s oval table and pendant fixtures, the main bathroom’s built-in vanity, and the beds.

It’s all evidence of Berruti’s humanist approach—in his art and his life—that makes him open to new ideas and alliances, whether with chefs, children, or world-class musicians (last year, he and

pianist Ludovico Einaudi created The Carousel in Venaria Reale together). A similar alchemy must have occurred when he met Blengini, and what materialized is a courageous architectural work. “It combines taste and needs,” the architect says, “in a decisive way.”

PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT CASSINA: CHAIRS (DINING AREA). DOIMO: SOFA (LIVING AREA). ELICA: HOOD (KITCHEN). CARL HANSEN & SØN: CHAIRS (STUDY). FLOS: PENDANT FIXTURES. DURAVIT: SINK FITTINGS, TUB (BATHROOM). GESSI: SINK. BIANCA: BEDSPREAD (BEDROOM). RUBELLI: CUSHIONS.

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chromatic effects

From pretty pastels to moody blues, an international quintet of new eateries shows the virtuoso use of color—and form— to orchestrate space text: peter webster

See page 114 for Masquespacio’s Bun Burgers in Milan.

Photography: Gregory Abbate.

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Masquespacio project Bun Burgers, Milan. standout Located in the artsy Brera district, the Spanish studio’s third location for the Italian chain continues its predecessors’ swimmingpool aesthetic but with a less-splashy four-color palette—pastel yellow, pink, green, and blue—that’s better suited to the sophisticated neighborhood and, in a new twist, the use of an iridescent mirror-effect finish on some ceiling and wall surfaces to evoke the feeling of being surrounded by waves. photography Gregory Abbate.

“The use of dry plants, an innovative touch added to the space, fits perfectly with the more mature aspect relevant to the project”

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THDP project Pigeon Post Eatery & Bar at Hilton Cologne, Germany. standout The London and Milan–based studio looked to the history of the building, which had been a post office from the 1950’s to the ’90’s, when reconceiving the hotel’s lobby bar as a 5,500-square-foot multifunctional space—a coworking area, in-house breakfast spot, public lunch and dinner restaurant, evening watering hole—settling on a carefully balanced industrial-vintage-contemporary look that encompasses obsolete ’70’s office equipment, witty period-attuned art, and plushly upholstered half-moon banquettes. photography Stefan Bunkofer.

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“There are some quirky details, such as typewriters as artworks and mailboxes in which to leave books or magazines for guests”

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SLT project Holiland Market, Wuhan, China. standout Comprising a 1,200-square-foot interior wrapped by a slightly bigger open-air eating area, this branch of the nation’s largest chain of bakeshops uses cheerful colors (blue, green, orange), lively geometric and biomorphic shapes (some derived from the cakes and pastries on display), and distinctive materials like terrazzo flooring, stainless-steel paneling, and layered acrylic shelving to delineate zones and infuse a touch of playfulness. photography Jianquan Wu.

“The familiarity of the market and the surprise of the creative space combine to create a subtle and fresh experience from the fusion”

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Stokes Architecture + Design project Kpod, Philadelphia. standout What began as a quick refresh of a 20-year-old restaurant turned into a full-concept update with a new Korean American chef, menu, and vibe, which includes a reconfigured layout featuring a central banquette flanked by booths, a stool-lined bar, and fewer stand­alone tables; a new plywood ceiling hung with eye-catching felt flags; and a warm wood-tone palette enlivened by bright K-pop colors and a boldly graphic mural by local artist David Guinn. photography Jason Varney.

DECK

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“The old restaurant is still in there, but it’s been updated in such a way that it feels completely new and still familiar at the same time”

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Minus Workshop project Takano Ramen, Hong Kong. standout The city’s second outpost of the celebrated Tokyo momand-pop noodle shop conjures the original’s unpretentious ambience through the use of traditional Japanese materials (timber framing; walls plastered with striations of different-color clays, which helps with way-finding) and time-honored forms (an awning shaped like a samurai’s helmet above the ramen bar; classic shoji screens; bamboo-and-paper lanterns) that contrast effectively with the glossy shopping-mall location. photography Steven Ko.

“All the details and functionality contained in the shop are like the secret ingredients in Mr. Takano’s ramen recipe”

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Studio KO: Yves Saint Laurent Museum Marrakech

by Catherine Sabbah New York: Phaidon, $50 272 pages, 185 illustrations (55 color)

There seems to be nothing at all that is commonplace about Morocco’s new museum honoring Yves Saint Laurent: It’s built on a 6-acre plot in Marrakech that was once a home for the legendary French couturier, who died in 2008, and his business and romantic partner Pierre Bergé; it’s next to the city’s famed Jardin Majorelle, which the couple bought to save from destruction in the 1980’s; and it’s designed by Studio KO, founded by Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty in 2000, which has offices in Paris, London, and Marrakech.

This book, also designed by Studio KO, begins with a chapter titled “1,423 days to go,” a reference to the roughly four-year period between Bergé asking the firm to create a memorial to Saint Laurent (specifying only that it should be “neither a mausoleum nor an archi­ tectural gesticulation”) and its com­ple­ tion in 2017, ironically just one month after the businessman’s death at 86.

The 43,000-square-foot, brick and terrazzo–clad building houses an audit­ orium, bookshop, terrace café, library of Arab-Andalusian books, and spaces for both permanent and temporary exhibitions of Saint Laurent fashion designs.

The book’s foreword is by Madison Cox, described by the publisher as “garden designer and spouse of Bergé,” who is president of the Fondation Pierre Bergé. Catherine Deneuve also contributes some words of appreciation for KO, saying “. . .they’ve understood everything. It’s wonderful.”

Nichetto Studio: Projects, Collaborations, and Conversations in Design

by Max Fraser and Francesca Picchi New York: Phaidon, $80 240 pages, 470 illustrations (400 color)

Having been ignorant of designer Luca Nichetto’s work (this is, after all, the first monograph about it), there was for me a delightful surprise on almost every page. We are told he grew up on the Venetian island of Murano, where his father was among Italy’s finest glassblowers. Nichetto still maintains a studio in Venice and now has another in Stockholm. From these locations he designs glassware for Salviati and Venini (no surprise there) but also conceives handsome porcelain pieces for Ginori 1735 and Svenskt Tenn, furniture of many sorts for Arflex, Cassina, Artifort, De La Espada, and Bernhardt Design, window displays for Hermès, lighting for Foscarini, and pianos for Steinway & Sons. These are all presented in a generous bounty of photography.

Along with the images are transcribed conversations the authors had with Eero Koivisto, Robert Polan, Alessandro Badii, Marie-Louise Rosholm, Yoko Choy, Dario Stellon, Beatrice Leanza, Shu Wei, Oki Sato, Ferdinando Mussi, Loris Tessaro, Francesco Dompieri, and, at greater length, Nichetto himself. But, as you might expect, we learn more about Nichetto the de­ signer from what we see than from what we read. I am grateful indeed to be able to say now I know and admire the work of this multidisciplinary talent. Thank you, Phaidon.

b o o k s edited by Stanley Abercrombie

What They’re Reading...

Eileen Gray: Her Work and Her World

Laetitia Gorra and Sarah Needleman Founders of Roarke Design Studio

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“The Irish designer Eileen Gray is a bit of an under-the-radar figure and her life outside of her creative accomplishments is immensely fascinating. As a firm that spends so much time creating inclusive custom furniture and spaces, we are constantly impressed by Gray’s designs and the narrative behind them. She created furniture that was multidirectional and multifunctional all while engaging the physical, philosophical, psychological, and spiritual needs of the person using her pieces. Gray was precise with her schematic layouts— every single factor was taken into consideration—but she melded the needs of a space in an artistic way. We specialize in office design where spaces need to be multi-hyphenate, and every small detail must make sense in every iteration of its use. In Gray’s work we have been finding little gems of ideas for touches that have inspired a lot in our projects. We actually used her E1027 adjustable table in a Las Vegas TBD Health clinic that needed to allow clinicians of different heights to work comfortably. (The table was originally designed to accommodate eating in bed, a cheeky detail we love.) We’re really excited about the future of commercial office spaces. It feels imperative for them to be dynamic so that they check a lot of boxes and are malleable as we move into an uncertain future. This creates a really fun design challenge that we are excited to take on.”

BOTTOM LEFT: TORY WILLIAMS PHOTOGRAPHY

by Jennifer Goff Dublin: Irish Academic Press, $10 512 pages, 368 illustrations (112 color)

DESIGNERS IN SPECIAL FEATURE Masquespacio (“Chromatic Effects,” page 112), masquespacio.com.

Minus Workshop (“Chromatic Effects,” page 112), minusworkshop.com.

SLT (“Chromatic Effects,” page 112), studiolite.design.

Stokes Architecture + Design (Chromatic Effects,” page 112), stokesarch.com.

THDP (“Chromatic Effects,” page 112), thdpdesign.com.

PHOTOGRAPHERS IN FEATURES Lea Anouchinsky (“Shared Vision,” page 104), Living Inside, livinginside.it.

Roland Halbe (“Treetop Serenade,” page 96), rolandhalbe.eu.

The Ingalls (“L.A. Story,” page 76), ingallsphoto.com.

SFAP (“Reflecting History,” page 68), sfap.com.cn.

c o n ta c t s Interior Design (USPS#520-210, ISSN 0020-5508) is published 16 times a year, monthly except semi­monthly in April, May, August, and October by the SANDOW Design Group. SANDOW Design Group is a division of SANDOW, 3651 NW 8th Avenue, Boca Raton, FL 33431.

Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Subscriptions: U.S., 1 Year: $69.95; Canada and Mexico, 1 year: $99.99; all other countries: $199.99 U.S. funds. Single copies (pre­paid in U.S. funds): $8.95 shipped within U.S. ADDRESS ALL SUBSCRIPTION RE­QUESTS AND COR­-RESPONDENCE TO: Interior Design, P.O. Box 16479, North Hollywood, CA 91615-6479. TELEPHONE TOLL-FREE: 800-900-0804 (continental U.S. only), 818-487-2014 (all others), or email: subscriptions@interiordesign. net. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to INTERIOR DESIGN, P.O. Box 16479, North Hollywood, CA 916156479. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40624074.

DESIGNERS IN WALK-THROUGH Clou Architects (“Silver Linings,” page 35), clouarchitects.com.

HS2 Architecture (“Silver Linings,” page 35), hs2architecture.com.

Matali Crasset (“Silver Linings,” page 35), matalicrasset.com.

MR Architecture + Decor (“Silver Linings,” page 35), mrarch.com.

Síol Studios (“Silver Linings,” page 35), siolstudios.com.

DESIGNER IN CENTERFOLD ROOI Design and Research (“Building Blocks,” page 63), rooidesign.com.

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light show After gaining success as an abstract painter, California artist Robert Irwin famously abandoned studio-based work in 1970.

He has spent the subsequent decades creating installations that make innovative use of light to attune the perception of architectural space. Last winter, Light Art Space, a foundation in Berlin that commissions works involving luminosity, mounted Light and Space (Kraftwerk Berlin), the largest installation the now 93-year-old Irwin has created in Europe. His chosen site was the turbine hall of a decommissioned 1960’s power plant formerly serving East Berlin. Irwin transformed the soaring 88,000-square-foot hall, which is flanked by colonnades of concrete pillars and elevated metal catwalks, by inserting a 52-foot-square plasterboard partition two-thirds of the way down its 315-foot length.

Nearly 60 installers from six different companies worked for a month to erect the partition, each side of which was festooned with 240 fluorescent tubes in a non-repeating geometric pattern—white on the front, blue on the back. (The structure incorporated 1 1/2 miles of electrical cables.) According to Irwin, any part of the space altered by the emitted light became a part of the work. “The installation—monumental, freestanding, bold— matched the gravity and moment of the vast space,” LAS head of programs Amira Gad notes. To engage younger viewers, the foundation collaborated with educational consultant Ephra on children's programming, which included having them lie on the floor in front of Irwin’s installation and color posters printed with the gridded pattern. —Athena Waligore

i n t er vention TIMO OHLER/VG BILD-KUNST

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Crypton Fabrics Crypton Fabric

Moooi Carpets Trichroic Collection

Design Within Reach Contract Bollo Collection FilzFelt Hive

Pedrali Blume

Clarus TherMobile

Tuuci Ocean Master Max

Bernhardt Design Queue

TileBar Bond Indio

Eskayel Portico Wallpaper

DESIGNERS: Bloom – Sebastian Herkner; MIAMI - Isabelle Gilles and Yann Poncelet; Portico - Shanan Campanaro;

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Work from Anywhere Haworth Collection Anatra by JANUS et Cie haworth.com/id/anatra