Design Anthology UK Issue 04 by designanthologyuk

Selling beautiful and thoughtful homes across the UK themodernhouse.com

FROM THE EDITOR

he fourth edition of Design Anthology UK is an ode to projects with vision and heart. It isn’t easy to see a big idea through; funding, practicality, fear and inertia can stop all manner of grand plans from becoming a reality. Not so for Birgitta de Vos, a Dutch artist who invested in a rusty, gargantuan cargo boat and transformed it into a serene home of her own design, along with the help of a few boat-making friends. This complicated endeavour involved slicing a ten-metre section from the middle of the 50m-long vessel, then stitching it back together. Not for the faint-hearted – but de Vos knew what she wanted and the inspiring result can be seen on p78. Speaking of vision and heart, there is a groundswell of change afoot in fashion, an industry that is often criticised for its toll on the planet. In answer, a crop of ethical fashion businesses – often led by individuals who’ve cut their teeth at one of the big labels – have popped up with a fresh take on production. In this issue we speak to the founders of Ninety Percent (p170) a London-based label that, quite extraordinarily, gives away 90% of its profits to the charities the brand supports and the people who make its clothes. “We believe everyone involved, at every stage, has to be empowered, from the people running the business, all the way to our customers,” says co-founder Shafiq Hassan. Elsewhere in the issue there is evidence of designers, architects and artists bringing their ambitions and ingenuity to the fore. On p136, we learn about a fascinating venture by two friends and business partners who share a passion for the exuberant, subversive posters of post-war Poland. They’ve launched Projekt 26, a sourcing platform for these rare works of art that they hunt down themselves. Perhaps the most visually “wow” story in the issue is the unveiling of architect BIG’s river-spanning gallery for sculpture park Kistefos (p148) – a feat of engineering and design tucked away in the Norwegian forest. Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our own team at Design Anthology UK, who created a conceptual shoot of objects themed on the five human senses. It’s a thing of eerie beauty: see for yourself on p30. Enjoy. Elizabeth Choppin Editor-in-Chief

A blank canvas “Vitsœ’s furniture does not shout; it performs its function in relative anonymity alongside furniture from any designer and in homes from any era… Good design must be able to coexist.” Dieter Rams, 1976

vitsoe.com

MASTHEAD

December 2019

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Choppin elizabeth@designanthologyuk.com Art Director Shazia Chaudhry production@designanthologyuk.com Sub Editor Emily Brooks Commercial Director Rebecca Harkness rebecca@designanthologyuk.com Editorial Concept Design Frankie Yuen, Blackhill Studio Words Charlotte Abrahams, Alia Akkam, Jonathan Bell, Morag Bruce, Alice Bucknell, Nell Card, Cajsa Carlson, Philomena Epps, Amy Frearson, Bertram James, Kate Lawson, Dominic Lutyens, Emma O’Kelly, Harry McKinley, Ruth Sullivan, Becky Sunshine Images Ben Anders, Mirjam Bleeker, Nicole Franzen, Rory Gardiner, Laurian Ghinitoiu, Benjamin McMahon, Felix Mooneeram, Mitch Payne, Frank Visser, Michael Whelan Styling Yvonne Achato

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CONTENTS

Front cover An Ibizan villa designed by Hollie Bowden. Image by Michael Whelan. See p66

Radar

Journey

Products Collections and collaborations of note

Openings New showrooms and retail hotspots

Hotel openings Explore the world and stay in some of the best design-centric destinations

Travelogue, Bogotá The high-altitude metropolis with a flourishing creative economy

Hotel, Somerset Find creature comforts at The Newt, a West Country vision of arcadia

24 Read Delve into a selection of books on design, architecture and interiors 26

Restaurant, Manchester From the founders of Bistrotheque, a multifunctional place for a good time

Points of perception Conjuring up an eerie definition of beauty to chronicle the five senses

Q&A Linde Freya Tangelder of experimental design studio Destroyers/Builders

Home 66

Brighter future An art- and light-filled Ibizan villa that’s a lesson in laid-back living

No empty vessel Amsterdam-based artist Birgitta de Vos’ atmospheric home aboard a ship

A peaceful prospect Design studio Nune composes a calm hideaway in rural Connecticut

102 Urban retreat A quietly crafted development aimed at east London’s creative community 110 Street smarts The end-of-terrace gets a modern twist in this new-build by 31/44 Architects

Points of perception An atmospheric exploration of the five senses, shot for Design Anthology UK. Image by Mitch Payne. See p30

CONTENTS

Art + Collecting

Style

122 Diary Preview the coming months’ most compelling art and design shows

164 Most wanted Clothing, accessories and tech that tell a story and defy the ordinary

132 Museum, San Sebastián Sculptor Eduardo Chillida’s open-air gallery reopens after nine years

170 Profile Ninety Percent, the womenswear brand giving away most of its profits

136 Poland Explore the graphic and subversive world of the Polish School of Posters 142 Profile The art of Vivien Suter, inspired by her Guatemalan home, comes to the UK

Pioneer 176 Max Bill The Swiss former Bauhaus student whose talents crossed boundaries

Architecture 148 Gallery, Norway Bridge and building in one, The Twist is architect BIG’s latest showstopper 158 Profile Guise, the Stockholm practice behind a major new photographic gallery

Respect earned Ben Matthews and Shafiq Hassan of ethical clothing brand Ninety Percent. Image by Benjamin McMahon. See p170

ERCOL.COM

Nortstudio’s Hooked stools. Read the full story on p19

R ADAR Global design news

R ADAR / Products

Studio Furthermore These Tektites vessels are named after an unusual natural phenomenon, the small glassy stones created when a meteorite scorches the earth upon impact. Designers Marina Dragomirova and Iain Howlett of Studio Furthermore are influenced by this and other geological processes; the bowls’ feet may call to mind volcanic lava, but they’re actually made by injecting foam with porcelain. Until now the studio was producing one-off pieces – these are the first to be made available in a small-batch run. studiofurthermore.com

Workstead Inspired by the work of modernist architects such as Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer and Le Corbusier, Workstead has created the Archetype family of lighting: three types of light (floor, wall sconce and pendant) in three designs and three finishes (brass, nickel and bronze). Monumental geometric shapes

feature across the collection: pictured is the Block sconce in brass. The Brooklyn-based studio, formed a decade ago, works across both residential and commercial interiors as well as product design. workstead.com

Genevieve Lutkin

R ADAR / Products

Sella Concept Ascendant design studio Sella Concept has released its first commercially available furniture, a series of three stools called Ladies Pond, named after the Hampstead bathing spot. Each stool design has a proportionally different set of curves and they also vary in height, in tribute to the diversity of bathing bodies. Made from hand-turned tulipwood finished with a stone composite, they are topped off with a cushion made from textured wool and cotton; their jade green colour echoes the pond’s limpid waters. sella-concept.com

R ADAR / Products

HoJung Kim South Korean ceramicist HoJung Kim combines traditional craft and industrial methods to create her work: the Flow collection of vessels (pictured) features confetti-like flecks of colour dancing across their smoothly finished surface. Kim was shortlisted for the 2019 British Ceramics Biennial’s appraisal of new talent, Fresh, and says that her aim is “to make objects that have an awareness of the space which they occupy, through the subtle movement of colours within a variety of forms.” kimhojung.com

R ADAR / Products

Ferm Living The return of figurative motifs has brought a human dimension back to interiors, and Ferm Living’s platters are billed by the Danish brand as “a tribute to womanhood”. Their simple silhouettes are handpainted on to a rustic, slightly textured ceramic, some with bright glazes that sing out from their buff-coloured ground. There are five designs in the series (pictured is Aya), making them eminently collectable, whether they’re hung on the wall or used as a table centrepiece for entertaining. fermliving.com

Pinch Materials with just the right degree of translucency make the perfect shade for a light. Pinch’s Gentle Light uses banana fibre, which has a subtle texture and handmade appearance as well as giving that allimportant glow when it’s switched on. When lit, it takes on a different character, its skeletal copper

frame becoming silhouetted against the base and shade, both of which contain bulbs to ensure even illumination. The light is pictured here alongside Pinch’s Moreau armchair and Clyde side table. pinchdesign.com

R ADAR / Products

Crea-Re At first sight these Sensi pendants might appear to be made from stone, concrete or ceramic, but the effect is illusory: in fact they’re fabricated from durable and lightweight paper mache. The work of Barcelona-based Maria Fiter, who works under the name Crea-Re, the lighting comes with a sound environmental story, too: each pendant is made from recycled newspapers and water-based glue, coloured with natural pigments, so the products are completely compostible at the end of their life. crea-re.com

Omar Sartor

R ADAR / Products

cc-tapis Doodles is a collection of six rugs made by cc-tapis, based on a series of textile collages created by Faye Toogood. Taking a year to develop, the rugs capture the spontaneous nature of Toogood’s art despite being painstaking to manufacture: each is handmade in Nepal. A mixture of thick and fine yarn combined with varying pile lengths and cotton stitching create a distinctive texture, while the warm-toned palette features 40 individual colours. Pictured are two of the designs, Mantle Piece and Seated Nude. cc-tapis.com

R ADAR / Products

Calico

Charlie Schuck

With an exploratory approach rooted in artistic experimentation, New-York-based Calico makes wallcoverings that turn heads. Now available in the UK via retailer SCP, its custom-fit, non-repeating murals include Singing Sand (pictured), which attempts to capture the ripples and waves created by shifting desert dunes. Ongoing collaborations with contemporary artists, including forthcoming work with Daniel Arsham and Fernando Mastrangelo, ensure that Calico maintains its innovative edge. calicowallpaper.com // scp.co.uk

Nortstudio Belgian design firm Nortstudio’s Form stool took pride of place on the cover of the last issue of Design Anthology UK, and it’s just as much of a thrill to present its newest offering. The Hooked stool shows the studio’s ability to make simple geometric shapes something exciting; its shape (pictured here in an

aerial view) allows the stools to tessellate to form pleasing groups. It’s available in two-tone or fourcolour versions – the latter creating a highly intense polychromatic display when arranged in multiples. nortstudio.be

R ADAR / Products

Ladies & Gentlemen Studio With perfect balance, the Iso wall light cantilevers from the wall and swings around to where the light is required, its colour-washed etched-glass globe providing a pearl-like focal point. Practical as well as poised, it plugs into the wall via its fabric cord, meaning no rewiring is required. Iso is the work of the US-based Ladies & Gentlemen Studio: this multi-talented practice also makes jewellery that shares the same preoccupation with interconnected, perfectly proportioned geometric shapes. ladiesandgentlemenstudio.com

Deidre Dyson Looking Glass, a collection of eight rugs by Deidre Dyson, is the result of what Dyson calls “a challenge indeed”: to render in wool and silk the dynamic light and distortion that can result from looking at (or through) glass. Launching at Maison et Objet in early 2020, the rugs harness the designer’s fine-art

background: Looking Through (pictured hanging on the wall) began as a still-life painting of a flask of water and the objects behind it. A further design, Floating Glass, is pictured on the floor. deirdredyson.com

Yuki Sugiura

R ADAR / Products

De La Espada The embodiment of rustic simplicity, the Windsor chair still challenges and fascinates contemporary designers. Kimble is Matthew Hilton’s version of a classic stick-back design, manufactured in Portugal by De La Espada: it is made from ash save for its black walnut seat and employs age-old techniques such as wedge tenon joints. The product is named after a village in the Chilterns – home of the original Windsor chair and the historic heart of the UK’s furniture industry. delaespada.com

60 Sloane Avenue, London - bisazza.london@bisazza.com

RADAR / Openings

Islington Square

Kensington Leverne

Set within a grand Grade II-listed building on Upper Street, the first phase of a long-awaited mixed-use development, Islington Square, is now open. One of two retail arcades within the former postal sorting office is hosting independent popups until February 2020, including House of Harth, an emporium of design and art available to either buy or rent, curated by interiors duo Campbell Rey. Over the course of the year, more businesses will be introduced including French fashion brand A.P.C., Borough Kitchen and plant-based restaurant Omnom. islingtonsquare.com

Poliform Poliform has opened a new flagship store on Wigmore Street, a third UK location for the iconic Italian brand. The two-storey, 500 sqm showroom showcases Poliform’s collection of furniture and storage, with a focus on kitchens, across seven window displays and a lower ground floor. Where possible, the historic features of the Victorian red brick building have been retained, including the facade’s ornate marble columns, and the interiors have been opened up to provide a contemporary backdrop to showcase Poliform’s complete range, including five models of kitchen. poliformuk.com

RADAR / Read

Postmodern Architecture: Less is a Bore

Loló Soldevilla: Constructing Her Universe

This volume takes its subtitle from postmodern icon Robert Venturi’s retort to Mies van der Rohe’s dictum “less is more”. London-based writer and curator Owen Hopkins surveys one of the last century’s most controversial styles, which began in the 1970s, reached its zenith in the 1980s and 1990s, and is currently enjoying both a reappraisal and a revival following a couple of decades languishing in the category of “bad taste”. The book features some gleefully nonconformist postmodern architecture from around the globe by names such as Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Rossi, Philip Johnson, Michael Graves, Robert Stern and James Stirling.

The career of Dolores “Loló” Soldevilla (19011971) first blossomed in the 1950s, when, after a period of teaching, she emerged as a passionate and prolific abstract artist and cultural advocate for her native Cuba. Living in Paris and studying under prominent European artists such as Ossip Zadkine and Léopold Kretz, she became Cuba’s cultural attaché to Europe. After returning to her home country, she continued to be a vital link between the European avant-garde and the new voices of abstraction emerging in Cuba and throughout Latin America. This monograph is the first book devoted solely to her life and work.

by Owen Hopkins (Phaidon)

by Olga Viso and Rafael Diaz Casas (Hatje Cantz)

RADAR / Read

The House of Glam: Lush Interiors & Design Extravaganza

Vantage, Ryan Koopmans

A feast of colour, unusual form, exotic materials, pattern and a rich palette of materials is the backdrop for this ode to maximalism. The House of Glam features a global selection of homes created by a new generation of talent including David Alhadeff (founder of The Future Perfect) Cristina Celestino, Nina Yashar and Jonathan Adler, all known for interiors with a playful, vibrant flair. The book profiles key studios and designers at the forefront of the genre, and its colour-saturated pages are full of adventurous design, from Campbell Rey’s styling work at Milan’s Villa Borsani to a 1960s beach abode in Sydney by Amber Road Design.

This monograph highlights the work of awardwinning Canadian/Dutch photographer Ryan Koopmans. The book explores his images of the urban built environment: megacities, manmade structures and surreal architecture that evoke “the insight and intrigue experienced from a travelling photographer’s perspective,” according to the publisher. Shot on location in the US, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Sweden, Spain, Kazakhstan, and Russia, among other places, the photographs are presented alongside conversations with business leaders, politicians and local residents to give a textured, multilayered impression of time and place.

foreword by Marvin Heiferman (Black Dog Press)

(Gestalten)

RADAR / Restaurant, Manchester

Community centre From the founders of Bistrotheque, Cultureplex threads together Manchester’s industrial past and its booming present

Words Harry McKinley

he city of Manchester’s rapidly evolving, crane-flecked skyline is a sign of the sheer breadth of development that it is currently experiencing. At ground level, glossy new facades are being unfurled at speed, while vast hoardings swaddle streets, teasing the hotels, restaurants and cultural venues still in the pipeline. Once defined by industry, Manchester seems to be industriously remaking itself: a swelling metropolis that now ranks as one of the fastest-growing urban areas in Europe. Against this backdrop of swift change arrives Cultureplex, a project both majestic in scope and meticulous in detail. As the name suggests, it is a modern and multifunctional jigsaw of a concept, which sees a lounge, restaurant, cafe, bar and boutique cinema slot together within a Grade-II listed former warehouse behind Piccadilly station. Founders David Waddington and Pablo Flack may have cut their cloth in London – with Bistrotheque and Hoi Polloi at Ace Hotel – but Cultureplex is not merely a project for Manchester, but of Manchester. The restaurant, also called Bistrotheque, may share a name with its Bethnal Green sibling, but it’s far from a cut and paste job.

Left Designed by Love is Enough, Cultureplex includes a lounge for socialising and working, as well as a bar, cinema and restaurant

“Conceptually they’re similar because both are about reclaiming and celebrating old industrial buildings, but physically they’re very different,” explains Flack. “Really, only the chairs and how the tables are laid are the same. Everything else can follow its own path – as long it follows common sense and good taste.” The rest of the project isn’t subject to comparison; it is its own Manchester-centric beast.

RADAR / Restaurant, Manchester

Left Cultureplex’s design celebrates the building’s industrial heritage Facing page Bistrotheque, the sister restaurant to its namesake in east London

Ace Hotel alumnus Loren Daye and her New York studio Love is Enough collaborated on the design, devising an aesthetic that reflects the city’s heritage as well as its contemporary, progressive thrust. For inspiration, she looked not to hospitality spaces but to railway stations, public squares and libraries: places of transport, cultural exchange and municipality that share a common social thread with Cultureplex’s 19th-century architectural surrounds.

one of the oldest tile-making companies in the country. There are international flourishes, too, such as the Ingo Maurer light fixtures, to convey a sense of intentioned worldliness, apt for the Manchester of today.

“We met fabricators and makers first and then let the design follow,” she says. “It’s best to seek out partners without preconceived notions about where the project is going – with just a loose sense of atmosphere. We felt it should be a public place for all ages; letting it unfold and be informed by context, location and origin was the most intuitive way of working.”

Of course, beyond the superficial, Cultureplex aims to root itself in the city by connecting to its people. Local producer Katie Popperwell has devised an ongoing programme that seeks to inspire and support the city’s creatives – from workshops to cultural events – while Flack, on the other hand, is keen to tap in to Manchester’s burgeoning culinary prominence.

The result is a layered design that feels robust, democratic and allied to the region. Quarrytile flooring comes courtesy of Ketley Brick, while the terrazzo station counters fashioned from salvaged local bricks are the work of Granby Workshop, the Liverpool-based studio set up by Assemble architects. The polished sky-blue tiles at Klatch (Cultureplex’s coffee shop) are by Blackburn’s Darwen Terracotta,

“Like east London before it, Manchester has started to surf the crest of a new food wave, one that will lead to exponential growth in exciting independents and change its gastronomic landscape forever,” he explains. “I’m talking about places like Pollen, Cloudwater, Track, Siop Shop, Mana, Sugo, Erst…if we can become a hangout for the people who work in those places, then we’ll be happy.”

Waddington says that “the story is a response to the building: a warehouse made of brick, iron and northern determination. You can’t get more Mancunian than that.”

“The story is a response to the building: a warehouse made of brick, iron and northern determination. You can’t get more Mancunian than that”

Points of perception

Design Anthology UK conjures a surreal mood to chronicle the five senses Images / Mitch Payne Styling / Yvonne Achato

TOUCH

Argo and Fuse cushions, Raf Simons for Kvadrat (kvadrat.dk)

SMELL

Small Echasse vase, Menu (reallywellmade.co.uk)

SOUND

Medium and small bowls, Kristina Dam (kristinadam.dk)

TA S T E

Small and large Oblique Coupe plates and Oblique tumbler, Custhom (custhom.co.uk); brass cutlery by Koichi Futatsumata for valerie_objects (monologuelondon.com)

SIGHT

Pressed mirror, Floris Wubben (scp.co.uk)

PARTNER CONTENT / Garde Hvalsøe

The craft of cabinetry In its kitchens and other joinery, Garde Hvalsøe carries on an exceptional legacy of Danish design in timber

ince 1990, Garde Hvalsøe has hand-crafted exquisite kitchens and interior solutions that will stand the test of time. Each piece is made in the company’s workshops by a team of artisans, hand-picked for their unparalleled skill and led by the company’s founders: two cabinetmakers who are united in their passion for Danish design and craftsmanship. In the decades since it was founded, Garde Hvalsøe’s design philosophy has stayed the same: to create extraordinary pieces that only get better with each passing year. By using honest, noble materials that slowly acquire a soulful patina, and taking time to understand

the unique needs of each client, every product is truly bespoke, with a singular commitment to quality. By considering every detail and combining the highest possible level of both functionality and aesthetics, the result has an uncompromising artistry. Every custom-made piece stands out on its own, characterised by its diversity and how it has been individually adapted to suit the client’s wishes. Garde Hvalsøe’s kitchens, wardrobes, furniture and carefully considered interior solutions, often undertaken in collaboration with leading architects and designers around the world, show how the company brings a vision to life.

Above A kitchen in Garde Hvalsøe’s Aarhus showroom shows the brand’s mastery of wood

RADAR / Q&A

Linde Freya Tangelder

The founder of experimental studio Destroyers/Builders is Belgian design show Biennale Interieur’s 2020 Designer of the Year. On the eve of a show of her work in Kortrijk, she spoke to Design Anthology UK

Being crowned Designer of the Year comes with its fair share of praise and scrutiny. Are you comfortable in the limelight? To be honest I have to get used to that a bit. For the last five years I have been focusing on letting my collection grow; I have mostly been in the atelier, working on new pieces. So the contrast between working with your hands behind the scenes, and then being in front of cameras and getting more attention from press, is quite extreme. But in a way I like both, since I love talking about what inspires and drives me, as much as working on the pieces. You moved to Belgium after graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven. What drew you to its design scene, and how do you fit in? From the moment I did an internship in Antwerp at design studio Unfold, I knew this would be the place for my own studio. There’s something about the chaotic and charming architecture, the city and the people, that I felt connected to. My interest in architecture has become more activated in recent years, and Belgium is so different to structured Dutch urban planning. About the design scene, in Belgium you can see a large increase in collectible design, which is a very good fit with my work. The aesthetics of Destroyers/Builders are much more connected to Belgium, I think.

Early on you spent time working at Brussels’ Maniera gallery. Did that inform your work in terms of a connection between design and art? At Maniera the connection between sculpture, architecture and design became stronger in my work – more outspoken. It also gave me much more belief in the potential of the field of design-art. To see things from a gallery perspective was important in knowing how I wanted to work in relation to galleries. Do you consider your work to be more rational or emotional? Art or design? Both? I am striving for a balance between design and art; sculptural and architectural elements are the core of my projects. Although my working methods are as intuitive as an artist’s, parts of the process are design based. Since my work is about the senses, I want to create objects that emotionally connect with the user. How do you decide what projects to take on? Where do your ideas sprout from? The projects I take on are also intuitive. I stay very close to my initial idea of design, even for larger-scale productions. The brands should always be a natural fit for my work, like [Antwerp design label] valerie_objects, who give me freedom and will not force me in a commercial direction. My ideas sprout from

As told to Elizabeth Choppin

RADAR / Q&A

building sites, material fragments, architectural fragments old and new, colours, surfaces etc. In your work, you’ve combined industrial design with experimentation. Do you think that there is enough experimentation within industrial design overall? These days, only a few experimental projects made in an industrial way are launched by industrial design companies. There is enormous potential in giving life to these experimental projects on a slightly larger scale. But that may slowly change, I hope. Also, some design companies do not work in mass production, so smaller editions or lower amounts become more common. It’s a good thing. Can you tell us about the collective that you co-founded last year? BRUT is a collective of five emerging Belgian designers: Ben Storms, Nel Verbeke, Charlotte Jonckheer, Bram Vanderbeke and me. The

junction of our work is a natural consequence of our similarities in idiom, concepts and vision. We exemplify a young generation of Belgian designers who value the significance of collaboration and collective involvement within the contemporary and international design landscape. What are your aims for BRUT? BRUT dedicates its attention to the sculptural, architectural and emotional potential that contemporary Belgian design has. On the one hand, this focus is a result of the personal sensibilities of the participating designers – the corresponding characters of their practices. On the other hand, however, it creates a common ground and motive for us; it defines a larger special experience. How much do you discuss your work with other designers, or look to other creative disciplines for inspiration or feedback?

Above Objects from Destroyers/ Builders’ 2019 collection – the Bolder Seat, High Section étagère and Bolder Chair

RADAR / Q&A

I normally do not discuss that much of the design process with other designers. It’s only when the project has been realised that I like to hear about the perception of others – not just designers, but architects, artists, gallerists… I think it is always inspiring to get a wider feedback from different fields. With BRUT I do discuss a lot of other things and some are very practical and logistical – business-wise this helps us all, I believe. But we also talk about materials, techniques. The design itself I think is so personal, and I would never want to influence another design style with my own vision. I think it is good that these different designers’ worlds can stand next to each other. Earlier this year you were selected for FAR, the first exhibition of the contemporary arm of Nilufar gallery. Did that feel like a validation? I think they really had a specific concept in mind – it all had a lot to do with surfaces – and they made a super-contemporary show.

I thought it was so cool they included the Archetype Series for this, since this project has something very traditional and contemporary at the same time. Now, Nilufar is representing my High and Low Section brass étagères as well and I think these pieces fit the gallery well. And by continuing the collaboration, my contact with the gallery became closer. This is important for me; I am definitely keen on long-lasting collaborations. What will be in your exhibition (on from 7-8 December at Biennale Interieur in Kortrijk, Belgium)? Which pieces will you be showing? It will be an overview of recent and older work. I want to focus on the contrast in colours and textures in this exhibition, the rough and the shiny, the light and the dark, a diversity of shapes and materials. Probably the Bolder Seat in other versions, and the limestone Bolder Chair II will be shown. But we are still working on it. It’s to be continued…

Above Windows of Bo Bardi, a side table inspired by, and named after, the Italian-Brazilian brutalist architect and her SESC Pompéia building in São Paulo

Happy D.2 Plus. Shape, colour and comfort. Current trends unified in one new bathroom series: an iconic design of harmonious rounded corners. Anthracite Matt sophisticatedly combined or expressively contrasting. Light or dark wood tones, satin matt finishes, gently sliding handleless pull-out compartments with self-closing and interior lighting. Design by sieger design. Duravit London, open now. For more information visit www.duravit.co.uk

Associative Design ‘The Best of Portugal’ Global Showcases. Featuring an expertly curated mix of contemporary and luxury Portuguese design and innovation.

* CELLULA modular bookcase by Corque Design Living CorAL tapestry by Studio vanessa Barragão Chaise longue by ville Kokkonen for AD Challenge 2017 ed. TESoUroS DE BArro CoLLECTion clay pieces by André Teoman Studio

Six Senses Shaharut, Israel. Read the full story on p47

JOURNEY Distinctive destinations

JOURNEY / Openings

New hotels

Casey Dunn

Unique places to stay, in destinations of note

JOURNEY / Openings

Willow House, Texas This West Texas desert retreat sits at the basin of the Big Bend National Park in Terlingua, a remote former mining town. First-time hotelier Lauren Werner fell in love with the location and developed the architecture and design to take advantage of the mountain views while respecting the landscape. With a nod to the concrete sculptures of Donald Judd (who made his home in Marfa to the north), 12 casitas plus a main house provide sanctuary from the extreme climate, while every window frames a breath-taking vista. The warm colour palette and raw textured walls create a natural synergy with the desert surroundings, enhanced with curated art, vintage finds and cosy alpaca blankets. willowhouse.co

JOURNEY / Openings

Il Palazzo Experimental, Venice Parisian hospitality aficionado Experimental Group is bringing its fresh, elegant style to Venice with the opening of its first Italian hotel in the city’s vibrant Dorsoduro neighbourhood. Sited in a 17th-century renaissance palace, Il Palazzo has 32 rooms and suites, plus an Experimental Cocktail Club bar by local designer Cristina Celestino, a restaurant, garden and canal views. The group looked once

again to Dorothée Meilichzon for the design of the remainder of the hotel. Her plush, curvaceous and comfortable modern interior includes handmade feature headboards, walls plastered in marmorino, marble terrazzo flooring and an autumnal palette of terracotta and burgundy velvet furnishings. palazzoexperimental.com

JOURNEY / Openings

Six Senses Shaharut, Israel Israel’s hotel renaissance continues with a dramatic entry from luxury hotelier Six Senses. Sited on a cliff-side plot in the Negev Desert, the new resort includes 58 suites and villas and a spa built into the ochre-hewn rock. Designed by architect Daniella Plesner to blend into the landscape, the buildings have neutral, muted tones and walls made from local stone that mimic the rocky surroundings.

Inside, round, smoothed edges and soft cream furnishings add a comforting feel. Keen to promote sustainable practices, the hotel’s Earth Lab will help educate guests on an eco-friendly stay, while the open-air amphitheatre and Bedouin tent restaurant provide evening entertainment under starry skies. sixsenses.com

JOURNEY / Openings

Coco Hotel, Copenhagen This boutique bolthole is the first hotel opening from Cofoco, Copenhagen’s collective of culinary entrepreneurs and the sustainable group behind a number of the city’s favourite restaurants. Coco Hotel, housed in a historic building on the popular shopping street Vesterbrogade, runs off a sustainable energy supply provided by Cofoco’s own solar park in Jutland. In addition to its 90 rooms, it also

includes an organic, plastic-free cafe that operates from early morning to midnight and a secluded courtyard garden. Local firm Jaja Architects was responsible for the playful design, which combines a Scandinavian sensibility with an eclectic mix of colours and textures and soft, feminine features. coco-hotel.com

JOURNEY / Openings

The Hoxton Southwark, London The Hoxton hotel group continues its expansion in London with a new opening south of the Thames. Its location is primed for art lovers, being within walking distance of Tate Modern, the Hayward Gallery and White Cube, though there is plenty within the new-build, warehouse-style building – the work of Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands – to keep a design-savvy traveller enthralled. Ennismore has designed the ground floor restaurant, bar and suites with an array of British furniture and craft, alongside artworks produced within the surrounding postcodes. Co-working space complements meeting and events facilities, a rotating art gallery and the piece-de-resistance, a rooftop bar and restaurant.

Stephen Kent Johnson

thehoxton.com

Ace Hotel, Kyoto Details are slim, but Ace Hotel’s first outpost in Asia looks to be an exciting one with the opening of Ace Hotel Kyoto in Spring 2020. Designed in collaboration with long-term partner Commune Design and architect Kengo Kuma – the principal architect for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Stadium – the concept will marry Ace’s cultural hub ethos with “an exchange between east and west through arts and crafts”. The building itself dates back to 1926 but it will be extended, so the hotel will be part historic and part new-build. Inside, Kuma’s design will focus on natural materials and light-filled spaces, with the addition of hand-crafted pieces sourced from local artists and artisans. acehotel.com/kyoto

Great heights

Colombia’s capital Bogotá is the high-altitude metropolis where the creative economy is shaping a bright future

DC_Colombia/iStock

Words / Alia Akkam

JOURNEY / Travelogue, Bogotá

holiday in Colombia typically translates to savouring sunny Medellín, the cool, innovative, café-fuelled second city that’s long been known as the former turf of notorious cocaine king Pablo Escobar. Cartagena, the Caribbean coastal retreat with a walled old town and picturesque cobbled alleys that have earned it Unesco World Heritage Site status, is another much-sought-after destination. Often overlooked, however, is Bogotá, the sprawling, at times overwhelming, capital. But it shouldn’t be missed. This high-altitude metropolis teems with delightful, rewarding surprises. First, there is the arresting verdant landscape to take in. Sited within the Andes mountains, Bogotá’s lush green setting is reminiscent of a jungle. Traffic may be a maddening inevitability but the city’s stunning backdrop brightens the painfully slow crawl. Here, nature is powerful and never taken for granted. Decades of conflict and violence have left deep scars on Bogotá, but its warm and optimistic denizens prefer, in this stable, post-civil-war era, to look forward. At the same time, they have found inspiration in the traditions that provided grounding comfort in those more woeful times, and there is a certain pride that permeates the city’s design scene in particular. President Iván Duque Márquez has helped to propel this new momentum with his Orange Economy initiative. Since arriving in office in 2018, he has envisioned a notably different infrastructure for the country, one that places

Facing page Top to bottom: colourful houses climb the hillside in Bogotá; Juana la Loca, a restaurant designed by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld Bottom image by Monica Barrenche

a premium on Colombia’s creative resources. Márquez is a lover of the arts, but he also sees this shift as a way of alleviating dependence on oil, what with the danger of ELN rebels attacking pipelines. And of course, this is good news for Bogotá’s many talented designers. The downtown neighbourhood La Candelaria, with its street art murals juxtaposed against centuries-old plazas and intact colonial period buildings, is a fine place to delve into Bogotá’s rich heritage of craftsmanship. At the must-see Gold Museum, a stash of tens of thousands of pieces of sculpted metal illuminates bygone social and cultural rituals. Following up a visit with one to nearby restaurant Madre, where blissfully charred pizzas are served amid a jumble of exposed brickwork, amplifies the transitions between old and new. A short walk away from here is Las Artesanías de Colombia, a sophisticated showcase of modern-day Colombian crafts that unites designers with a vast community of artisans across the country to turn out a range of home décor and fashion items. Baskets, vases and bags are made from materials such as werregue palm fibre and the Colombian black clay known as chamba. Las Artesanías de Colombia is a member of the Design Room, a virtual platform supported by the government that promotes contemporary Colombian design. Verdi, another member of the Design Room, has its showroom in the industrial Las Ferias neighbourhood and similarly has a knack for rethinking cherished Colombian techniques. Known for its subtly gleaming hand-woven rugs, bags, art pieces and accessories that fuse copper threads with the likes of fique, plantain and agave fibres, Verdi is in fact built on legacy. Textile designer Carlos Vera Dieppa dreamed up this clever rug-weaving technique with the help of the people from Curití, a town in Santander. When he passed away, his children Tomás and Cristina launched the company as an ode to their father’s love of the loom. All the hand-made bowls, silver earrings, and sculptural chairs for sale at Boho Expo, tucked inside a buzzy retail and restaurant complex in

Previous page La Candelaria, the colonial-era downtown neightbourhood

53 Unsplash/Random Institute

JOURNEY / Travelogue, Bogotá

the Usaquen neighbourhood (skip the food here and fill up a few minutes’ walk away on an arepa brunch at Abasto, purveyors of a joyfully mighty hot sauce) also reveal a flair for the imaginative. But it isn’t just the designers who are having fun expressing their daring ideas. In the bohemian-style Chapinero district, for instance, revel in famed Colombian coffee at an outpost of Café Cultor sited in a recycled shipping container. It’s just a quick stroll away from a proper meal at Café Bar Universal, a light-filled space bedecked with artwork. Helmed by chef Andrius Didziulis, it feels like an animated European brasserie, mixing large swathes of greenery with brick, mirror, tile and a cluster of globe light fixtures. Settle in to a banquette and enjoy the perpetually changing menu of avant-garde dishes like hummus and peppermint lamb shoulder or black pudding with cardamom and pineapple chutney. Juana la Loca may not be relaxed enough for everyday dining, but this restaurant, hidden away in a mixed-use building close to the Parque 93 district, is gorgeous. Designed by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld, its wood and minimal lines make it a mid-century-moderninspired fantasy, serving such food as white fish with tangerine and fennel sauce and tres leches cake crowned with meringue. Reaching the dining room via the kitchen lends an element of excitement to the formal atmosphere, but hanging out at the marble-topped centrepiece bar underneath the louvred ceiling, a gin and tonic in hand, is the real draw. Nearby is the Click Clack Hotel, which boasts an indoor vertical garden and is capped with a rooftop bar that fosters party vibes. B.O.G., the first Design Hotel in the city, in the Zona T area, is more upscale and hushed, but just as inviting with a rooftop pool and lobby-bar margaritas. Throughout the 55 guest rooms, Portuguese designer Nini Andrade Silva used a calming, shimmering palette of bronze, mirror and tinted glass to pay homage to Colombia’s enviable trove of emeralds and precious metals, and of course its gilded past. It is beautifully emblematic of Bogotá: ploughing into the future, never losing sight of what came before.

Above Top to bottom: Design Hotel B.O.G., in the city’s Zona T district; textile showroom Verdi’s centrepiece is a tree of life, symbolising both the natural materials used in its products and the family ties behind the business Bottom image by Monica Barrenche Facing page Objects on display in the Verdi showroom exhibit the company’s distinctive technique – hand-weaving together natural fibre and metal Image by Monica Barrenche

“President Duque has envisioned a notably different infrastructure, one that places a premium on Colombia’s creative resources”

JOURNEY / Travelogue, Bogotá

Address book

Cultural and gastronomic gems from Bogotá

VILLANOS EN BERMUDAS

Monica Barrenche

Run by young chefs Sergio Meza and Nicolás López Villanos, this is the place to try inventive dishes such as carrot with marrow and citrus confit, and chickpea ice cream with white chocolate and blood orange. villanosenbermudas.com

FOLIES

Smitten with both vintage pieces from the 1950s and the modernist lines championed by Adolf Loos, interior designer Jimena Londoño and industrial designer Eugenia Robledo banded together to found furniture and accessories brand Folies. Wander through the showroom and gawk at pieces such as the Cubo sofa, plumped up with cushions, the Scandinavian-style Olivia air chair or the Antonio bar-cart, which calls to mind mid-century dinner parties. folies.co MESA FRANCA

INSTITUTO DE VISIÓN

S T. D O M

Plants, mirrors, and neon and mosaic accents instill Mesa Franca with a desirably chill ambiance. But the food at this Chapinero restaurant, including dishes like caramelised tuna, spaghetti with trout bottarga, and steak tartare with chimichurri, chilli and crispy rice, is modern Colombian cooking at its best.

Open in 2014, this gallery has fast become one of the city’s most renowned for contemporary art, featuring thought-provoking work from artists such as Pia Camil and Carolina Caycedo. Recent shows explored water as a metaphysical entity and the relationship between minerals and Colombia’s history.

This multi-level concept store is enchantingly located within an old colonial house, with touches such as brick arches softening the gallerylike white setting. All of the clothing, shoes, bags, and jewellery are from Colombian designers: look out for names such as Ballen Pellettiere, Claudia Trejos and Adriana Castro.

restaurantemesafranca.com

institutodevision.com

stdom.co

Sofia Toscano Top to bottom: a show at the Instituto de Visión, of the city’s best-known spots for contemporary art; the airy Café Bar Universal with its European brasseriestyle decor and a changing menu

JOURNEY / Somerset

Creature comforts

The Newt is a carefully cultivated country-house hotel, where history, landscape, food and design coexist in a modern vision of arcadia

he Newt in Somerset has been one of the most hotly anticipated hotel launches of the year, and for good reason. Its owners, Koos Bekker and Karen Roos, are the brains behind Babylonstoren, the hotel, vineyard and gardens in South Africa’s Cape Winelands, which has earned cult status thanks to its combination of historic architecture, contemporary design and farm-to-table dining. Repeating this formula at a Georgian country house in south-west England, where the climate is quite markedly different, has been a challenge that the couple have tackled with relish. The project started without any real plan. The pair had an idea that the UK might be a good place to buy agricultural land; an advertisement in Country Life led them to the Grade II*listed Hadspen House, a property that had been owned by the affluent Hobhouse family for more than two centuries. At first it became their home, but it didn’t take them long to realise the greater potential, not just in the house itself, but in its characterful stable blocks and expansive grounds, where garden designer and former resident Penelope Hobhouse had constructed a parabola-shaped walled garden in the 1960s. For Roos in particular, an interior stylist and former editor of Elle Decoration South Africa, the temptation to start tailoring the place to guests proved too great.

“We saw Somerset, loved it and never looked back. It was the same with Babylonstoren, it was never intended to be all that it is now,” says Roos. “But once we had it, we started sharing it with other people, which got us thinking about what they would like.”

Words Amy Frearson Images Courtesy of The Newt

Roos enlisted the help of Simon Morray-Jones – the Bath-based architect who worked with Soho House on the conversion of 18th-century mansion Babington House – to help her with the renovations. But the vision was largely of her own making, combining her South African design sensibility with a love of contemporary European style and an affection for classic English literature. “From reading Jane Austen, and watching beautiful old movies and TV shows, I’ve always loved English country houses, particularly downstairs,” she says. It’s unsurprising, then, that the ground floor of Hadspen House has been cleverly reorganised and extended to create a series of generous and comfortable spaces. Inspired by the film Gosford Park, the state-of-the-art kitchen is the central focus, a kind of theatre where chefs experiment with fresh ingredients grown on the estate. A former courtyard is now a glassroofed breakfast room filled with fruit trees, while the oak-panelled dining room has been reinvigorated with green marble and a lighting

Facing page Top to bottom: a guest room’s colour palette complements the garden beyond; in the bar, contemporary design sits with classical architecture

JOURNEY / Somerset

“It’s very important for me with a hotel that every room is my favourite”

centrepiece made from Tom Dixon’s signature brass pendants. The bar and the croquet room are brought to life with vibrant seating by Sebastian Herkner, and the library is now a reception room boasting an eclectic mix of curiosities from past and present. Moving through all these rooms, the lack of curtains and cushions, normally such a staple of the country-house look, is noticeable. But it doesn’t feel clinical: these spaces instead rely on material textures to offer a feeling of warmth. “I didn’t want to go down the route of a lot of country houses. My style has always been quite masculine; I don’t think it needs all the fabrics,” says Roos. A nod to history instead comes in the form of the portrait paintings that depict

the many generations of the Hobhouse family. Original works of art as well as contemporary reinterpretations feature throughout. The Newt’s 23 bedrooms are split between the first floor and attic spaces of the house, and the converted sheds and lofts of the stable yard. Most offer guests a mix of contemporary and traditional four-poster beds, a working stove or fireplace and a freestanding bathtub. “It’s very important for me with a hotel that every room is my favourite,” says Roos. “The idea is terrible for me that somebody comes and stays only in one room and it might not be the best room.” The same standard of luxury extends to the gym and spa facilities, which are sited in some former agricultural buildings to the south of

Above Unfussy but not uncomfortable, the interiors rely on material textures to create a sense of warmth

Above Top to bottom: a room in the Georgian house with private terrace; produce is sourced from the estate where possible, from garden vegetables to venison

“I didn’t want to go down the route of a lot of country houses; my style has always been quite masculine”

JOURNEY / Somerset

Above Hadspen House is nestled amid gardens, orchards, lakes and woodland, and guests are invited to roam the grounds

the main house. Amenities include a swimming pool, an indoor-outdoor hydro pool, a rasul mud chamber and a hammam. For the garden, Roos turned to French architect Patrice Taravella, who was also behind the landscaping at Babylonstoren. Working within the framework of Penelope Hobhouse’s reestablished parabola, his design celebrates the history of English formal gardens. Highlights include a baroque apple tree maze, a Victorian fragrance garden, a trio of Georgian colour gardens and ponds where you can spot the great crested newts that gave the hotel its name. There are various other delights too, from woven seating ‘nests’ by South African artist Porky Hefer to a terrace dotted with water-squirting toads. “We had to reconstruct everything,” says Roos, pointing to facilities for cider-making and the various plots for growing produce. “We gave the garden bones again.” The gardens, which are open to the public as well as hotel guests, were the first of The Newt’s facilities to be unveiled. The hotel followed on

Facing page A room dedicated to one of the West Country’s best-known products – cheese

a couple of months later, but it doesn’t stop there, as there are several other features still to come, including a museum of garden history and another suite of rooms. Roos insists that, even though she and Bekker live in the hotel grounds, she isn’t too precious about any of the spaces they’ve created. Once the design is right, she’s happy to hand it all over to the staff and guests. “It has to be right, but after that I don’t take it too seriously,” she says. But, just as with Babylonstoren, she can’t promise that new facilities won’t keep popping up in the future. “I have a crazy husband, he’s never going to stop!” she says, laughing. “There will always be new things.”

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The Iron Lady, a converted cargo boat in Amsterdam. Read the full story on p78 Image by Mirjam Bleeker, Frank Visser

HOME Timeless spaces

Brighter future

An Ibizan villa lets in the light – and the art – and becomes a lesson in laid-back living Words / Dominic Lutyens Images / Michael Whelan

HOME / Ibiza

omfortable domesticity and freewheeling hippiedom don’t normally go hand in hand but they happily coexisted in Hollie Bowden’s childhood. “I grew up in rural Gloucestershire,” she recalls when we meet in a very different environment – her Shoreditch studio. “My parents were real homemakers who restored properties,” continues the interior designer, who has undertaken projects in London, Los Angeles and Ibiza. “My mum transformed our homes into beautiful spaces, which were always unique and a bit mad. Her taste was maximalist: ornaments, pattern-onpattern fabrics. My dad sought out interesting objects: he’d repurpose old limestone slabs to make patios or water features.”

mirrors and tables for it from London’s Alfies Antiques Market.” After moving to London aged 23, she worked briefly for glitzy property developer Candy & Candy, “but I didn’t fit in there – I don’t like flashy materials”. More to her taste was a project she worked on with interior designer Harriet Holgate, a converted church in Kensal Green. “We stripped it back but kept the original features, such as the stained-glass windows.” She sums up her style today as follows: “I love juxtaposing natural materials with more modern fabricated ones, such as steel or Lucite.” This ethos shows in one of her projects, the redesign of a seven-bedroom house in the village of Es Cubells on the south-west coast of Ibiza. Bowden’s clients, who own a large art collection, had seen another project by her on the island, liked it and gave her carte blanche with their own villa, which now includes a glamorous triple-height living area, a media room, gym and spa.

As you may have guessed, Bowden is conjuring memories of the 1980s when more-is-more interiors, typically decked out with chintzy fabrics, were in vogue. She and her parents also travelled all over Spain and France in a camper van. “We lived like hippies. But our homes were always cosy and tidy despite the madness of having so much stuff. As a designer, I learnt from my mum to get on with it and be brave.”

The house was built in the 1980s, and when the current homeowners bought it, it felt oppressive inside, partly due to a lack of connection with the outside world – and the incredible ocean views – and partly because of a liberal use of heavy-looking dark wood. To prove it, Bowden shows me a “before” image of the interior with

Bowden studied at the KLC School of Design in London’s Chelsea Harbour and gained some hands-on experience while doing up a house in Hertfordshire with an ex-boyfriend: “I bought

Facing page Installing picture windows and glazed steel-framed doors has vastly improved light levels. The chair with totem-like arms was sourced in London

Previous page A low Living Divani corner sofa epitomises the relaxed mood of the house. In front is an African day bed, repurposed as a coffee table

HOME / Ibiza

“I chose a pale poured concrete floor to create a seamless look and make the house feel less sombre” a staircase in the triple-height space which had a heavily polished floor in a murky brown that looked like an abyss. A grandiose balustrade once led up to its mezzanine level, but almost screened the latter from view.

art as it is functional seating. Both Bowden and her client found that they shared a love of the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi – the finding of beauty in imperfection – and all of this gnarled, carved and patinated wood is the perfect expression of that philosophy.

“What’s more, the space didn’t flow,” she adds. One of Bowden’s main ideas was to use a restricted palette of materials to help tie it all together: “I chose a pale poured concrete floor to create a more seamless look and make the house feel less sombre.” The staircase’s white balustrade has been replaced with a glass one; the mezzanine is used as a home office, and has an uninterrupted view of the space below. The paving outside the front door was replaced with antique limestone, sourced in Italy.

There are other sculptural elements too, such as the 16th-century fireplace from Brussels that had to be carefully reassembled; a herringbone brick hearth in the kitchen; a marble surfboard sculpture by Reena Spaulings leaning against a wall; and a bespoke, rustic-looking bath made of micro-cement in the master bathroom, which also features locally made ironmongery. Above the bath, an enormous new window has been added, which fills the room with daylight. Windows have been enlarged in the main living area as well, and steel doors installed to better frame the view. By contrast, the media room with a home cinema is deliberately dark and cosy, with rough plaster walls and a long, cushion-strewn sofa in charcoal grey.

The house already had wooden beams with a dark stain, which were stripped back to reveal a paler colour. Bowden restored some existing wooden doors and added new ones to fill empty doorways; the latter were made of reclaimed wood, in order to harmonise with the originals. Complementing the architecture, objects made from timber feature throughout, such as an Ethiopian stool found in the spa, or a mid-century “throne” with totem-like arms in the living area that’s just as much as piece of

Overrall Bowden’s redesign has purged the house – in its earlier incarnation – of its misplaced, leaden formality and restored an informality and airiness to it, appropriate to Ibiza and its casual Mediterranean lifestyle.

Previous page Contrasting with the bright spaces elsewhere, the media room is cosier, with a cushion-strewn sofa

Above In the master bathroom, a microcement bath aligns with a newly installed picture window

“I love juxtaposing natural materials with more modern fabricated ones, such as steel or Lucite”

Previous page Dark-stained beams were stripped back to reveal a paler, more natural colour, shown here in a bedroom Facing page The paving outside the front door was replaced with antique stone

Above Left to right: a marble surfboard sculpture by Reena Spaulings; a 19th-century Yoruba robe hangs on the wall in the spa, paired with an antique Ethiopian stool from Paris

No empt y vessel

An atmospheric home and gallery, carved from a former cargo boat Words / Becky Sunshine Images / Mirjam Bleeker, Frank Visser

HOME / Amsterdam

utch artist Birgitta de Vos is somewhat amused by the frenzy for sustainability in today’s world. For her, it was a concern back in the 1990s when she ran her recycled fashion label Beyond out of her Brussels concept store. Finding new life and beauty in what most of us deem ugly and therefore discard has been at the very heart of her work for decades, be it clothes, books or sculpture. Or a home. When de Vos’ husband suggested the couple buy a houseboat in addition to their permanent house in the country (where her studio is based), she agreed on the condition it could become a creative endeavour. It turned out that the two-year resuscitation of a decommissioned cargo boat, which is now both her part-time home and a gallery, was the perfect embodiment of her philosophy of restoration and reuse. Moored just 15 minutes from the centre of Amsterdam, The Iron Lady, as de Vos and her husband named her, was an abandoned 1962 cargo boat, more used to transporting coal than housing people and art. “Before us, the boat had been dumped, but when I first entered it I thought, yes, this is it,” she says. “It felt like a huge, industrial space, something I could do something with. Everything was rusty and brown, which I wanted to keep. For me that was the soul of the boat.”

Keen to control every aspect of the project, de Vos chose to design it herself, working with a team of boat specialists and welders, but no other designers: “I needed to be a part of every detail, so I became the boat’s architect. We already knew people in the boat building business so we went to them to do the work.” The Iron Lady had to become habitable, so certain compromises were made during its rebuild. For example, at 50 metres long, the vessel was too large for domestic use, so a tenmetre section was cut from the boat’s centre. “For us, it seemed like an impossible thing, but for the people working with boats, they said OK, we can do that,” says de Vos. Inside, de Vos has decided to be sparing with superfluous detail, instead preferring to retain the boat’s character and live as simply as possible. “We are living in a world with too much and it’s much too fast. So the most important thing for me is empty space and then it’s about finding the thing in nothing. How do you find something beautiful in something that is not any more? How do we transform our waste into something beautiful? Those are my aims.” De Vos has fulfilled these aims to great success. The boat’s interior feels at once open and vast,

Previous page A custom-made wood-burner dominates the main living space Facing page A ten-metrelong section was removed from the boat’s hull to make it a more habitable scale

Above Left to right: large skylights bring shifting patterns of sunlight to the floor; a custom-made iron staircase

Facing page The mezzanine that overlooks the main living space includes an area for a desk, bathed in sunshine 82

“Everything was rusty and brown, which I wanted to keep. For me that was the soul of the boat”

HOME / Amsterdam

but also warm and welcoming; a place for contemplation, expression and being sociable. The dark, rich patina of rust along the walls, which de Vos was forced to have sealed, receives intense pools of light from the roof, which has been punctuated with large skylights, allowing abstract patterns of sunlight to shift along the walls and floor throughout the day. A few hidden luxuries make this minimalistic place extra special, however. The underfloor heating beneath the poured concrete flooring, a custom-made burner and oversized sofas and chairs remind you that this is a home. On an upper level, directly above the engine room, a master bedroom and bathroom lie close to what was the captain’s cabin. A smaller seating area on the mezzanine overlooks the main expanse, which houses the kitchen and living room gallery space. There are a further two bedrooms on the main floor.

Facing page Rusted, patinated finishes give the interiors soul and character. The table is made from the boat’s old timber floor, now replaced by poured concrete

De Vos calls The Iron Lady a gesamtkunstwek – a total work of art, created with a single creative mind at the helm. That also refers to her attempt to use as much of the existing materials of the boat as possible. The custom dining table and kitchen counters were made from the old timber floors of the boat, same as the flooring in the bedrooms. That ten-metre section of the boat that needed to be sliced out

has not gone to waste either – instead it’s been used to make the kitchen units, stairs and all of the internal sliding doors. The acoustics of such a large cavernous space were also a consideration. “It’s silent,” explains de Vos. “There is no echo; it’s really silent. Nor do you really feel the water unless the weather is very rough. But there’s nothing – you don’t feel anything, you’re in a cocoon.” When guests enter, she continues, they instantly respond to their peaceful surroundings. “It’s a perfect place for reflection and going inside yourself, quietening, with the world running outside, this is a place you can really go in.” Her own work, she explains, has evolved since she completed the boat. “Everything you do contributes to the next step,” she says. “I was working with iron before, but cutting the boat and watching people working with iron has made me more interested. I like to work in situ and I’m creating larger sculptures.” Might this be a forever home for de Vos and her husband? She’s not sure. “I move easily,” she admits. “I let go easily of things and places. I’m always dreaming of somewhere else. For me it’s almost as if I’m The Iron Lady’s servant, I feel guilty if I don’t give her enough attention. It’s like she’s really there.” She just might be.

Above The bedrooms are quiet, cocoon-like spaces, perfect for rest and repose

Next page Designed for maximum contrast, a dark corridor opens up to the bright, cavernous main living area

Facing page Still-life details from The Iron Lady, including artist and owner Birgitta de Vos, pictured bottom right

A peaceful prospect

Design studio Nune composes a calm New England hideaway Words / Charlotte Abrahams Images / Nicole Franzen

HOME / Connecticut

ometimes a design company gets lucky and a client calls with a perfect project. For transatlantic studio Nune, that project came in the shape of a 17th-century timber cottage nestled in seven acres of Connecticut greenery. “From an architectural point of view, we inherited something of a gem,” says Nune’s founder Sheena Murphy of the house, known as Bruey Cottage. “So many of these old houses haven’t been very well preserved, but this one had retained a lot of the original features, such as exposed beams and large granite fireplaces, so we didn’t really have to do a lot of work.” Structurally speaking that is true – there was no demolition and rebuilding, no reconfiguring of rooms – but Nune certainly worked hard on the decor. The clients, a young couple living full time in Brooklyn, bought the house in 2017 as a weekend home and country retreat for themselves, their two large dogs and one very small baby. Their brief was for an interior that would honour the building’s architecture and history, and also provided a calm and functional canvas for contemporary family life.

Previous page A coat of white paint enhances the original wall panelling; the vintage chair and antique painting were both sourced from 1stdibs Facing page In the living room, the side table by Christopher Stuart is made from five pieces of granite, slotted together; it’s topped by a lamp from Apparatus Studio

Which is why they selected Nune. Peaceful, pared-back spaces based on a neutral palette have become the studio’s signature style. “Our design aesthetic was born out of a personal need I had to create a home for myself that provided space to breathe and be quiet; where everything has its place and your eyes, body and mind can all be still – and fortunately, I am not alone in that,” says Murphy. There seems to be an increasing need, especially for urban dwellers, for homes that function not only as physical retreats, but mental ones too.” White is the universally recognised colour for retreats, and every wall and ceiling in this twostorey house has indeed been painted white. Much of what these blanched walls surround is also white – the bespoke kitchen units, the sofa in the den, the long kitchen table, the thick wool rug on the floor of the master bedroom – but the result is no colourless cube. This is a neutral house infused with character and soul. Within these layered and eclectic interiors, antique sits against modern, metal against

wood, flea-market finds against designer-made one-offs. The living room has been furnished with a mid-century tile-topped table from The Netherlands, a contemporary US-made sofa wrapped in sleek black velvet, an ancient wooden bench from Indonesia, an armchair by Brazilian brand Espasso and an industrial metal floor lamp sourced in Brooklyn. In the dining area, a vast 17th-century granite fireplace is juxtaposed with traditional spindleback dining chairs and a contemporary artwork by Benjamin Ewing. The original wooden floor of the den is covered with vintage knotted rugs, piled one on top of another, and on the walls a contemporary brass and wood lamp sits alongside a pair of formal antique portraits. “When you work with neutrals it’s easy to get caught in the trap of going down a restrained path and finding that everything becomes very flat,” says Murphy. “We always try to mix different materials and add different tones to pull the eye around the room and we really amped up that layering in this house, not only mixing materials and textures, but periods and countries of origin too.” This is a house of many rooms – there are three living areas, an eat-in kitchen (added in the 18th century), a more formal dining room, two bathrooms and four bedrooms – but it reads as a single space, each room a pleasing visual echo of the next. “The separate rooms are the charm of the house,” says Murphy, “and they feel quite novel – most people who live in New York, as these clients do, have lateral, open-plan living – but we kept the aesthetic the same throughout because it enables the clients to switch pieces around if they tire of them, rather having a complete refit. We like to design for longevity.” Nune also likes to design for wellbeing, by which Murphy means using design to create what she describes as “approachable spaces that make people feel comfortable and welcome.” Bruey Cottage does exactly that. By embracing the age and character of the house and taking a collected rather than curated approach to the furnishings, Nune has proved not only that less can be more, but also that pared-down houses can be inviting family homes.

Facing page The view to the den, where vintage rugs are layered invitingly. The lounge chair is by LA-based Estudio Persona

Above A pair of formal antique portraits hang next to a contemporary brass and timber wall lamp in the den

Above Left to right: simple, rustic objects silhouetted against white walls; Shaker-style cabinetry complements the age of the kitchen, which was added in the 18th century

Facing page Brick flooring, woven dining chairs and a fluffy armchair create layers of texture and a sense of warmth

“We really amped up the layering in this house, not only mixing materials and textures, but periods and countries of origin too”

Previous page In the dining room, a vast 17thcentury granite fireplace faces a work of art by Benjamin Ewing

Above The master bedroom features a bed in ebonised oak made by Chris Earl and a Mexican-made wool rug

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Above Left to right: the fringed mirror was sourced from Rhode Island locals Ben & Aja Blanc; a corner of one of the guest rooms, with a black walnut bench by Sawkille

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Urban retreat

A quietly crafted new development, set between a city farm and a busy high street in east London Words / Nell Card Images / Courtesy of The Modern House

HOME / London

ide is a residential development in East London – a collection of contemporary apartments set across two blocks at the corner of Haggerston Park. Followers of estate agent The Modern House will have seen the sales particulars appear in their inbox: the images show a quietly crafted, tactile environment that is both warm and raw. The Modern House introduced eight of the apartments in October 2019; the ninth – a top-floor duplex – has already sold, to the developer, Jonathan Ellis, and his partner, Sophie Smith, who is also Hide’s interior architect and designer, and works under the name Scenesmith. Ellis established his company in 2012, but Hide is the first project to launch since the firm rebranded as Artform in April 2019. “Our previous name didn’t stand for anything,” Ellis reflects. “As a company, we had been going further and further towards the design-led side of things and taking more risks as we moved on. ‘Art’ was a word that we kept coming back to. We are art lovers, but we also feel that our buildings are more comparable to art than property. Form is structure, so when you put the two words together – Artform – it made sense of what we do as a design-led company.” Smith, who has a background in architecture, had been working with Artform when it went through its rebranding, and her vision has helped to redefine its approach to property development. “As a couple, we get to push the boundaries,” she explains. “We challenge each other with the design and what we think is right for the space.” Ellis adds that “Hide has become our first opportunity to do something special and we’re happy for it to be different.” At the start of the project, Smith produced a design document – a set of ideas and intentions that would steer the internal aesthetic. That document remained unchanged throughout the build. The two brick blocks on Hackney

Road, designed by architects Manalo & White, sit either side of a listed former church, St Augustine’s: working around views of the city in one direction, and of Hackney City Farm in the other, Smith sought inspiration from what she calls “the juxtaposition of rural urbanity.” This plays out in the material choices, where concrete ceilings meet unpainted plasterwork, and the peach of the cherry veneer on the bespoke joinery is picked up in the coloured flecks on the rubber floor. “There is an appetite for the unusual and the considered, particularly in an area like Hackney, which is home to an incredible community of makers and artisans,” says Smith. Her aim from the start was to weave that community into the fabric of Hide, “to really ground it in its location”. For both Ellis and Smith, the premise of a mundane show home with high-gloss kitchens and grey carpets “doesn’t sit well”. Instead, one completed apartment (whose design will be replicated across the rest of the units) has been furnished with locally made or reimagined items “that have already lived a couple of lifetimes,” says Smith. The terrazzo vanity units, for example, are from Altrock, a company based in Leytonstone that hand-forms each slab using marble off-cuts that would otherwise go to waste. The flooring is made from carbonneutral natural rubber, the legs of the glasstopped coffee table have been fashioned from old clay chimney pots, and even the candles are made from recycled wax. For Smith, all this “adds richness to the scheme”. There is a deliberate honesty to many of the other elements, too. “You can read the way the fittings have been constructed – the way they hold themselves up,” she explains, referencing the load-bearing breezeblocks of the vanity unit and the visible framework of the joinery – the result of “hundreds” of design meetings between Smith and Soroush Pourhashemi,

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Previous page Hide’s apartments are filled with many carefully crafted objects, including a wall hanging by Christabel Balfour and Danish midcentury furniture Facing page The bespoke kitchen was made by local company Lozi, which supplied joinery throughout the development

HOME / London

“There is an appetite for the unusual and the considered, particularly in an area like Hackney, which is home to an incredible community of makers”

founder of Lozi, a design studio based a stone’s throw from Hide that specialises in minimal, modern wooden furniture. “Our studio is so close, we were able to walk our pieces over in around two minutes,” says Pourhashemi. Each of the apartments is fitted with bespoke Lozi kitchens, pantries and wardrobes. In the bedrooms, the wardrobes also function as a room divider and feature a strokably smooth curve that brings softness to what Pourhashemi calls “this semi-finished environment”. The quietly crafted Hide aesthetic is the result of a respectful build process and hours of

research, right down to the details. The couple recall a three-hour session in the Bloomsbury branch of Oxfam, scouring the shelves for the right books to dress the apartment with. “That wasn’t an arduous process for us,” explains Ellis. “There are so many reasons why it made sense: it’s charitable, for starters. And the books have already been printed – we aren’t having to buy new.” Appropriately enough, the second-hand books now sit on a shelving system made from recycled newspaper by Dutch designers Studio Woojai. What if the eventual buyers decide they don’t want either? “We’ll just move them upstairs to our flat.”

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“Hide has become our first opportunity to do something special and we’re happy for it to be different”

Above The curving wardrobe leads the eye around the corner into the bedroom, and also acts as a room divider

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Above Top to bottom: a scalloped headboard brings a gentle three-dimensionality to the bedroom; the bathroom uses Altrock, made from offcuts of marble

Following page Raw, unpainted plaster walls contrast with home comforts such as thick rugs. The chimney-pot coffee table and wool artwork were designed by Scenesmith

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Street smarts

A new home that mixes the familiar features of the Victorian terrace with a contemporary approach Words / Jonathan Bell Images / Ben Anders, Rory Gardiner

HOME / London

ondon has always been a fruitful hunting ground for the speculator. Swathes of the city came into being over the centuries thanks to the canny prospecting of architects, builders and developers (the latter often being a selftaught combination of the first two). It is to the speculator that we owe the majestic sights of the Georgian city, with its neat terraces and squares divided into first, second and third-rate housing as well as the massed ranks of soundly built Victorian and Edwardian villas, which are still delivering flexible space to many hundreds of thousands of Londoners. As its name suggests, the Corner House by 31/44 Architects sits on a prominent site at the junction of two roads in south London. Its surrounding streets are a testament to the development fever that occupied the mid 19th century and include a surprisingly wide variety of architectural approaches. Local lore has it that one of the streets was set out by speculative builders in order to showcase their wares, with several different housing styles and scales. The overall context is eclectic, but with a uniformity of domestic scale and detailing. Into this environment comes the Corner House, an exercise in context that blurs the features of the existing terrace, adapting and emphasising others, and adeptly turns the street corner with a quietly sophisticated facade design. Founded in 2010, 31/44 Architects was set up by Will Burges and Stephen Davies, who are

both former associates at Proctor & Matthews Architects. The studio has had a residential focus from the outset, with an emphasis on self-build – both partners have worked on at least one project for themselves. This has given them a rich understanding of the planning lore and architectural gymnastics needed to work on compact urban sites: “It’s very reassuring to clients that we’ve got our own hands dirty,” says Burges. Their portfolio includes projects like the award-winning Red House, a terraceterminating dwelling in nearby East Dulwich that weaves together space, privacy and texture. 31/44’s approach is epitomised by a conceptual project it completed for the Architecture Foundation called Alternative Histories, which involved a hypothetical collaboration with the Victorian Gothic revivalist Sir William Butterfield, and how his richly textured brickwork might react in an encounter with their contemporary materials and demands.

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Previous page The Corner House was once an endof-terrace garden Facing page Concrete stairs lead up to the adjacent period house, which has been divided in to maisonettes Above Blank windows subtly mirror the architecture of the surrounding streets

Facing page The site was excavated 1.2m to create an open-plan ground-floor living space, running the length of the building

Above A stepped rear facade makes the house appear less bulky from the road, and mimics an extended Victorian house

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HOME / London

The Corner House is a rather more practical demonstration of these skills, showing an innate understanding of the form and scale of the adjoining terrace and the language of the streetscape. The grey stock London brick structure is a discreet piece of punctuation, a semi-colon rather than an exclamation point. “We like the idea that buildings can be part of the background,” Burges says. “Cities are noisy. Buildings don’t always need to shout.” The client, developer Sara Mungeam, worked hard to maximise the site. Originally, the terrace was terminated by a single dwelling, set well back from the street on both sides. Permission was in place for an extension, but Mungeam refined and expanded the scope of what would be possible before venturing out to find like-minded architects. In 31/44, she found a firm with both local experience and a proven ability to maximise awkward plots.

the adjoining maisonette, which in turn mirrors the external staircases of the original terrace. Inside, the attention to detail and finish is deeply satisfying, testament to both architect and client’s involvement. “We always want to work for people who live in their houses and engage with them,” says Burges, and Mungeam effectively worked as a hands-on project manager, supervising every facet of the build and the finishes. Both agree that these spaces must work as places to live in, not just to look at. Full-height doors, a meticulously planned use of space and the ability to create multiaspect rooms come together to make this a cut above a more prosaic development job. “I didn’t want it to feel like a generic development,” says Mungeam. “I wanted a new-build project that made a stamp on the streetscape.” Thanks to the architects, that stamp is a welcome urban enhancement as well as a fine place to live.

The scheme extends the terraced row of houses, transforming the existing period house into two maisonettes, then digging down 1.2m and building over the former garden to create an entirely new three-bedroom house on the corner. As Burges says, “there’s continuity, but we’re also subverting it,” with elements like blank windows, the archway over the door and even the subtle curve on the corner itself all acknowledging and referring to the house’s surrounding context. Even the canopy over the new house’s lower-ground-floor door evokes the angle and rake of the new concrete stair to

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Facing page The kitchen has access to a small courtyard at the front of the house Below A rooflight allows for privacy in the master wet-room

Above The interiors’ uniform restrained palette of black, white and grey is continued into the master suite

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Facing page Frameless windows provide unobstructed views over leafy south-east London

Greg Wood, 06. Experiential Plane, 2019

@OTOMYS W W W.OTOMYS.COM STUDIO@OTOMYS.COM

La Canicula, an installation by artists Vivien Suter and Elisabeth Wild. Read the full story on p142 Image by Toni Hafkenscheid

ART & COLLECTING A cultural review

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Agenda

Sights to behold: a calendar of shows and fairs for the coming months Words / Alice Bucknell

Judy Chicago, Baltic Gateshead Until 19 April 2020

Happy 80th, Judy Chicago! The punchy painter, sculptor and pioneer of feminist art is finally getting her just desserts with her first major UK survey show at Baltic Gateshead. The greatest hits of Chicago’s 50-year practice will be on display alongside lesser-known performance

pieces from her younger years. Further highlights include pyrotechnic art from across the decades, such as 1972’s Smoke Bodies (pictured opposite) and A Purple Poem for Miami (pictured above), a 2019 “smoke performance” for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami.

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Judy Chicago/ARS New York. Images: Donald Woodman/ARS New York. Courtesy of the artist/Salon 94/Jessica Silverman Gallery; Through the Flower Archives. Courtesy of the artist/Salon 94/Jessica Silverman Gallery

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Hans Hartung, MAM, Paris Until 1 March 2020

The Musée d’Art Moderne (MAM) in Paris is celebrating its reopening after a glitzy €10m makeover that strips the art deco building bare and enables universal access for the first time. In addition to the 15,000 modern works that constitute its permanent collection – including murals by

Raoul Dufy and Henri Matisse – MAM will showcase a 300-work retrospective of the German-French painter Hans Hartung as part of the opening festivities. Known as a forerunner of abstraction, Hartung’s last retrospective in a French museum was in 1969.

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Dror Baldinger

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Ruby City, San Antonio

Meryl McMaster: As Immense as the Sky, Ikon, Birmingham

Inaugural exhibitions until 2022

4 December 2019–23 February 2020

When the late hot-sauce heiress and art collector Linda Pace dreamed about a red structure that reminded her of The Wizard of Oz’s Emerald City, she then went on to commission architect David Adjaye to build it, to the tune of $15m. Ruby City is San Antonio’s only contemporary art centre, and it’s free, too. Three inaugural exhibitions will show 50 works from Pace’s collection, including Do Ho Suh, Isaac Julien, Cornelia Parker and Pace herself.

Of Plains Cree and European ancestry, Meryl McMaster’s powerful photographs explore the artist’s indigenous background. For her first UK solo show, she reconciles this dual heritage with ecological concerns both within and beyond her native Canada, through a performative proposition soaked in magic. “My aim was to reconnect with those who came before me as a way of introducing myself to the land on which they lived,” she says.

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Theaster Gates. Image: Chris Strong

Ann Veronica Janssens. Image: Pascual Merce Martinez

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Theaster Gates: Amalgam, Tate Liverpool

Ann Veronica Janssens, The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates made waves at Palais de Tokyo with Amalgam, which addresses urban cleansing, migration and race relations via sculpture, installation, film and dance. It commemorates a poor, mixed-race community from Malga Island, Maine, expelled – and scrubbed out of history – in 1912 by the state governor. Its meaning will amplify when it hits Liverpool, a city that’s no stranger to the forces of urban renewal.

The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, located on the Øresund Sound 25 miles north of Copenhagen with a panoramic view out to Sweden, is a sublime modernist palace and sculpture garden with a fantastic permanent collection and a world-class exhibitions programme to boot. This winter, Ann Veronica Janssens, the Belgian master of light and space art, will debut her trippy, experiential installations for the first time in Denmark.

13 Dec 2019–3 May 2020

23 January–7 May 2020

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Courtesy of the artist & Piper Keys. Image: Mark Blower

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Sung Tieu, Haus der Kunst, Munich 31 January–21 June 2020

Vietnam-born, London-based artist Sung Tieu creates video and sculptural installations that address topics such as global capitalism, transnational movement and diaspora communities, invoking subjects that include architecture, fast food, television and the boredom of the

night shift. This solo show is at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, a building infamous for being the first example of Nazi architecture: for anyone keen on incisive new media art that grapples with today’s biggest concerns, it will be a treat to see what she makes of it.

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Denzil Forrester, Nottingham Contemporary

Diane Simpson, Nottingham Contemporary

The Grenada-born painter Denzil Forrester moved to London in 1967 and immortalised the underground reggae club scene of 1980s London in his vibrant, expressive canvases. But the large-scale paintings speak a darker tale of police brutality and racial violence – it’s this combination of the joyous and tragic that makes his works so jarring and relevant nearly 40 years on. This show at Nottingham Contemporary is entirely new work.

Midwestern sculptor Diane Simpson imagines strange worlds out of wood, metal and fabric. Work such as 1983’s Samurai 10 (pictured) has an orderly nonchalance, but also a mystic aura that’s difficult to place in time. Now 80, Simpson has produced these works for half a century, and while she was always on the periphery of art movements specific to her home city, such as the Chicago Imagists, her work is experiencing a rightful renewed attention.

James Turrell, Pace Gallery, London

Frieze Los Angeles

Pioneer of the Californian light and space art movement – and better recognised as the unknowing harbinger of the art selfie today – James Turrell is bringing his hypnotic installations to Pace’s London outpost (pictured is 2019’s Aquarius, Medium Glass Circle). Whether you’re a perceptual art lover or hankering for some chromatherapy come winter, keep Turrell on your checklist.

Rather than endure the miserable month of February, if you have roots in the art world then there’s always the option of eloping to the sunshine of La La Land. Inaugurated last year, Frieze Los Angeles has garnered a reputation as an intimate, energetic and intelligent fair with its finger on the pulse. UK stalwarts in attendance include Sadie Coles, Thomas Dane and Victoria Miro.

8 February–3 May 2020

10 February–27 March 2020

14–16 February 2020

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Courtesy of the artist & Stephen Friedman; Courtesy of the artist and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago/Herald St, London/JTT, New York. Image: Tom Van Eynde; Mark Blower/Frieze

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Collectible, Brussels 5–8 March 2020

Established in 2017 by art and design market veterans Clélie Debehault and Liv Vaisberg, Collectible dedicates itself exclusively to 21st-century collectible design and the overlap of art, design, and architecture. It values the experimental and unknown (such as this Objects of

Common Interest intallation from 2019, pictured) over the yawn-inducing favourites of mid-century modernism – so if you like placing bets on the new vanguard or have a soft spot for hyperchromatic, oozing, glitzy creations that blur traditional boundaries, consider it unmissable.

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The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS New York

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Andy Warhol, Tate Modern, London 12 March–6 September 2020

Surely we all know the King of Pop Art well enough by now, right? Tate begs to differ. In the era of museum blockbusters, the upcoming Andy Warhol retrospective at Tate Modern promises the newest take possible on the icon’s legacy, offering visitors the opportunity to engage

with some of Warhol’s interactive works, such as Silver Clouds, a room full of floating oversized pillow-shaped balloons. There will also be a rare peep at his paintings of the early 1970s – alongside all those soup cans, CocaCola bottles and Marilyn Monroe heads.

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ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Art Basel Hong Kong 19–21 March 2020

Since its inauguration in 2013, Art Basel Hong Kong has become the premier art fair in Asia – and is arguably the best of all three annual Art Basels for catching fresh and upcoming talent from all over the world. That said, ongoing unrest in the region has prompted

some international galleries to think twice about their attendance. This year, expect major galleries with a Hong Kong pied à terre – such as Gagosian, White Cube and Edouard Malingue – to make an appearance, as well as the likes of local contemporary art powerhouse Para Site.

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ART & COLLECTING / Spain

Return to form

The leafy paradise that 20th-century Basque artist Eduardo Chillida dreamed of for the display of his work has just reopened after a nine-year hiatus

hillida Leku, the open-air museum in San Sebastián founded by the Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002) has reopened its doors after a closure of nine years. To visit the site is to experience art, nature, love – and triumph over adversity. Located in the village of Hernani, the museum is home to 40 vast steel and granite sculptures by Chillida that stand among trees, manicured lawns and rolling hills; the harsh Corten steel forms of monumental works such as Buscando la Luz and Lotura XXXII contrast with lush, verdant greenery. A 16th-century caserío, or Basque farmhouse, displays Chillida’s alabaster, plaster and clay sculptures, collages, engravings and drawings and are a testament to his talents. The 11-hectare site is in every sense the utopia Chillida wanted it to be, a place where his sculptures “could rest and where people could walk through them as though in a forest”. What’s more, it has always been a family affair. Chillida and his wife and right-hand woman Pilar Belzunce opened the park in 2000 – two years before Chillida died. (He and Belzunce are buried together on a secluded plot marked by an iron cross that the artist designed.) Eight years later, their eight offspring were forced to close the park in the face of financial woes. When, in 2017, mega gallery Hauser & Wirth stepped in with the offer to represent the estate and regenerate the site, it was a lifeline. Since then, Dutch landscape maestro Piet Oudolf has redesigned the paths and gardens and Argentine architect Luis Laplace has created a visitor centre, shop and restaurant. A revamped exhibition programme is launching in January

with a retrospective of the late American sculptor David Smith, the first time an outside artist has been shown at the museum.

Words Emma O’Kelly

“When we began representing the estate in 2017, one of our first steps was to safeguard Chillida Leku and in doing so preserve the artist’s legacy,” says Hauser & Wirth’s president Iwan Wirth. “Chillida Leku is more than a museum: it is a gesamtkunstwerk created by one of the most outstanding artists of the 20th century. We are immensely proud to have supported and collaborated with the estate to ensure it reopened successfully, allowing so many people to make an art pilgrimage to San Sebastián to see his work in a new light.” Although Chillida’s sculptures can be found in prestigious locations such as the World Bank offices in Washington DC and Unesco’s Paris headquarters, he never strayed far from his home city, choosing his beloved Basque light above a Mediterranean one, and working with local foundries and materials. Mikel Chillida, the artist’s grandson and the park’s development director, recalls that every Sunday he and 27 members of his family would have lunch at their grandparents’ house. Located above the cliffs at Ondaretta Beach in San Sebastián, it was the artist’s favourite place. Here, he would ponder sea, space and horizon; in 1977, he created one of his most famous works, next to the sea – Peine del Viento, a three-piece steel sculpture embedded into the rocks and reefs. A visit to this windswept site is a must, for the works will eventually be washed away, as will the rocks that support them. Impossible to erode, though will be Chillida’s lasting legacy.

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Facing page Lotura XXXII, a Corten steel work from 1998, created in a Cantabrian forge. Chillida didn’t consider the work complete until the first layer of rust had formed Image by Iñigo Santiago

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“The site is the utopia Chillida wanted it to be, where his sculptures ‘could rest and where people could walk through them as though in a forest’”

Facing page Top to bottom: El Peine del Viento, one of Chillida’s best-known works; Echoes, a retrospective of work at Chillida’s Leku’s farmhouse Images by Català-Roca and Gonzalo Machado

Above Arco de Libertad (1993) sits at the end of a leafy boulevard Image by Mikel Chillida

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ART & COLLECTING / Poland

History projekt

The Polish School of Posters tells a story of creativity during an age of suppression – and one venture is bringing greater visibility to these highly collectible designs

Words Kate Lawson Images Courtesy of Projekt 26

Facing page Clockwise from top left: Cuban film Lucia as imagined by Andrzej Krakewski; Jakub Erol’s poster for a 1970s film comedy; 1972 film poster by Krakewski for Wiem ze jestes Morderca (“I Know You are a Killer“); poster for Russian film Vzroslyy syn (“Grown-Up Son“) by Maria “Mucha” Ihnatowicz

owhere has the graphic art of the poster dominated visual culture more than in Poland. Following the second world war, the country’s Soviet-supported communist regime used them as a propaganda tool, commissioning prominent artists such as Andrzej Krajewski, Henryk Tomaszewski, Jan Lenica, Waldemar Świerzy and Wiktor Górka to promote social causes and state-controlled cultural events – from music, dance and film to exhibitions, theatre and the circus.

and sells original Polish posters online and at vintage markets and art fairs. Their name is partly inspired by the Polish magazine Projekt, which had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s and showcased design from behind the Iron Curtain. “It always included a poster and became a platform for some of the most celebrated artists from the movement,” says Williams, a freelance graphic designer. “The ‘26’ stands for our south London postcode where we met as friends,” she explains.

But what Poland’s government didn’t grasp was the immense potential for subverting a poster’s message. Thus these bold, vibrant works, with their hand-crafted typography, often characterised by surrealist undertones, could be rich in metaphor and multi-layered symbolism imbued with the spirit of anarchy – a subtle rebuke by the artists of the underlying political context of the time. This pioneering art movement became known as the Polish School of Posters, injecting vitality and colour into Poland’s grey urban landscape, while giving hope to passers-by after the devastation of the war and the stinging deprivation of the country’s austere communist system.

The duo realised their joint passion for Polish design over a cup of tea while admiring Newman’s second-edition 1979 cyrk (circus) poster, a work called 9 Lions by Tadeusz Jodlowski (“although it’s actually eight lions and a woman if you look carefully,” says Newman). They’ve now amassed around 700 original works from the 1950s to the 1980s.

By 1989, however, with the fall of communism and the introduction of a free market economy, the role of the poster dramatically changed. Stock advertisements began to replace their signature artistic qualities, marking the end of this highly creative era. Making it their mission to prolong the lifespan of these unique works are business partners Harriet Williams and Sylwia Newman, the founders of Projekt 26, a venture that collects

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“Most people don’t know about Polish posters and we were blown away by the response we got after tentatively starting on Instagram,” explains Newman. “We are so passionate about these incredible designs, and want to help preserve them. People contact us from all over the world to buy the posters, and some of our bestsellers include the Krajewskis, which are super popular, and the cyrk, which are iconic.” The circus posters are a good example of coded meanings: since the bear is a symbol of Russia, a bear on a bicycle, or with a ball, might be read as a comment on Russia’s desire to conquer the world. One Waldemar Świerzy poster shows a pompous-looking bear in a suit, standing next to a tiny bicycle that comically undermines the self-importance of the animal.

ART & COLLECTING / Poland

Above Left to right: 9 Lions by Tadeusz Jodlowski; Hanna Bodnar’s poster for 1974 Yugoslavian film Deps Facing page Dirk Bogarde's 1971 Death In Venice, by Maria “Mucha” Ihnatowicz

The pair cite Krajewski as well as Hanna Bodnar and Maciej Hibner as their favourite artists – although work by the former is becoming increasingly hard to find. “If we do source one, it’s very hard to part with if we don’t have a copy for our own collection,” enthuses Williams. They’re still on the hunt for iconic works, though, such as Swierzy’s posters for Midnight Cowboy and Sunset Boulevard.

whose father-in-law was a distribution driver for a printworks, and had saved some surplus ones,” says Newman. “They were perfect.” A classic Steve McQueen Bullitt poster, which came from a private owner, was in need of attention, however: “It was so rare our buyer was still really happy to have it. We’re always really honest about any marks and flaws so people know what they are buying.”

The pair strive to find original posters in good condition from all over Poland, sourcing them from cinemas, theatres and printing houses. “Each one was printed with the intention of it being used in strict print runs,” explains Williams. “You can see where most were printed by the information at the bottom, and the type of paper is also a very good indication of provenance as it’s beautiful matte paper.”

Despite the posters’ ephemeral nature as markers of time and place, they have had a farreaching impact. The revival of the Polish poster as a small beacon of artistic resistance, counteracting western aesthetic expectations, helps to amplify their importance for future generations. “If you look at an equivalent film poster from the west and a Polish poster from the same time, there is no comparison,” says Williams. “They are bursting with typographic and illustrative creativity. They have a special soulful joy, as well as a dark beauty too. They shine like a beacon among their peers.”

Despite many posters not surviving the years in tact, there have been some unexpected surprises. “We found a batch from somebody

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This page Clockwise from top left: Andrzej Krakewski’s Heroina (“Heroin”) poster advertises an East German film from 1968; Mieczysław Wasilewski’s poster for Legenda o miłosci (“Legend of Love”); a cheeky green monkey by Hubert Hilscher advertises the circus

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Life cycle

Inspired by the natural beauty of Guatemala, Vivien Suter’s abstract art finally gets a showing in the UK Words / Philomena Epps

ART & COLLECTING / Profile

n the early 1980s, the Swiss-Argentine artist Vivian Suter left her life in Basel, and the art world, to begin a long, solitary driving trip through North and Central America. In 1982, she arrived in Panajachel, a small village in the heart of the rainforest on the north shore of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, which became her home. Suter lives on a former coffee plantation with her mother Elisabeth Wild, also an artist. Her studio is comprised of a series of open-air wooden structures, which are exposed to the natural elements, situated within the overgrown tropical flora and fauna, against the vivid backdrop of volcanoes and mountains. Inspired by the powerful intensity of the surrounding landscape – the changing seasons, the colours, the smell of flowers, the sounds of birds – Suter’s paintings are rich evocations of the local, lush vegetation, with the organic

shapes and motifs treading an ambiguous line between figuration and abstraction. Suter’s paintings – which are the subject of two major upcoming shows in the UK – have no hierarchy: the natural world is both her subject and her medium, an active participant in the creation of the work. After Guatemala was struck by two hurricanes in 2005 and 2010, destroying parts of Panajachel and flooding Suter’s studio, damaging her work, she began to use the mud as a way of repurposing the paintings. She now leaves all of her raw, untreated canvases outside, often integrating the earth, as well as volcanic and botanical matter, into her compositions. Humidity or light might change the paint’s colour or texture; leaves or branches become congealed in the drying pigment; and marks from animals and insects, such as dog paw-prints, are left in

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Above Unstretched canvases hang in the open air as part of Suter’s Nisyros installation in Athens Image by Stakis Mamalakis Previous page A collaboration with Suter’s mother Elisabeth Wild, La Canícula was shown in Toronto in 2018 Image by Toni Hafkenscheid

Courtesy of the artist & Gladstone Gallery, New York & Brussels

ART & COLLECTING / Profile

tact. Suter harnesses these processes, collecting and using rainwater to wet glue or mix paints. “Rather than merely concentrating on the representation of nature, rendered realistically or achieved by abstracting and estranging natural shapes and colours, Suter became witness to the gradual destruction, decay and regeneration of nature,” writes the curator and critic Adam Szymczyk in a recent monograph dedicated to her work. “Her paintings are testaments to their own destruction, rather than objects made to be looked at or to last.” In 2014, Szymczyk, at that time the director of Kunsthalle in Basel, had brought Suter back to the city for a solo exhibition, and included her work in his edition of art show Documenta 14, which took place in Athens and Kassel. It led to a surge of interest throughout Europe and the US, with major exhibitions being hosted in Boston, Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles and Toronto. The first solo display of Suter’s work in the UK will be shown at Tate Liverpool from December 2019 until March 2020. The canopy of colourful hanging canvases Nisyros (Vivian’s Bed) from 2016-17 is a room-sized installation that was originally shown in Kassel. Suter’s forthcoming exhibition at London’s Camden Arts Centre, on from January to April 2020, is on a larger scale, and will be a mixture

of new and existing mixed media works. Suter’s practice has an intense physical presence. She is a prolific maker, often intuitively reimagining or repurposing former paintings in order to create dense and overlapping installations. Her canvases, sometimes hung like curtains, will inundate the gallery’s walls, floors and ceilings. In addition to showing inside the gallery, she will also be installing work in its sizeable garden, where the canvases will be vulnerable to the conditions not of Guatemala but of London’s winter weather: the potential of wind, snow, and rain. This contrast between the British outdoors and the verdant tropical heat of her studio, where the paintings were originally made, is a key part of the life cycle of her work, and her unique site-specific practice. Viewing the work becomes an immersive sensory and temporal experience.

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Above Left to right: Vivien Suter in Guatemala; an untitled mixedmedia work that is being shown as part of Camden Arts Centre’s show Right image by David Regen

Gallery | Studio | Props www.betonbrut.co.uk

The Twist at Norwegian sculpture park Kistefos, by BIG. Read the full story on p148 Image by Laurian Ghinitoiu

ARCHITECTURE Surveying the built environment

A bend in the river

BIG’s twisted building for rural sculpture park Kistefos is part bridge, part exhibition space, creating a sense of flow amid lush Nordic scenery Words / Cajsa Carlson Images / Laurian Ghinitoiu

ARCHITECTURE / Norway

BIG’s Bjarke Ingels of the gallery, which has been eight years in the making and is his firm’s inaugural project in Norway.

The Twist is the sculpture park’s new gallery, designed by Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). It acts as both a building and a bridge, stretching across the river and connecting the mountain slope on one side with the flat woodland on the other. “From certain angles it has this kind of perfect, enigmatic form; it feels like a mega artefact that some giant has left across the river,” says

Christen Sveeas, the owner and founder of Kistefos, which is the largest sculpture park in northern Europe, has a familial connection to the site: his grandfather bought the land in 1888 and started producing wood pulp the following year. The picturesque mill is still in use today, as a museum and living factory, and Sveeas, a contemporary art collector, first had the idea of creating a new museum that would complement it some 20 years ago. Another architect made drawings for it in 2001 but due to a recession the structure was never built. “Luckily, I can say today, because that building was a bit more traditional and old-fashioned,”

n the evergreen Norwegian forest, an hour north of Oslo, Kistefos sculpture park adorns the post-industrial site of a 19th-century wood pulp mill. The original mill is still there, its imposing red brick facade mirrored in the clear water of the fast-flowing Randselva river – but as the forest opens up, it’s another building that really catches the eye.

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ARCHITECTURE / Norway

says Sveeas. Instead, The Twist was chosen following an international competition, and opened its doors in autumn 2019. Nobody could call the building traditional. Light years away from the traditional white cube, it is conceived as a beam, warped 90 degrees near the middle: inside, the twisted central section looks like a closing camera shutter. According to Ingels, the way that people experience the sinuous building shifts depending on which side it is entered from: “It connects an introverted, vertical gallery to an extroverted, panoramic room, where you have these spectacular views of the river and the mill; the darkness to the lightness.” As a bridge, the building also closes the loop of the sculpture park, creating a natural walking route

between the sculptures sited on the two banks, a collection that includes works by Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama and Olafur Eliasson. Its ambitious design, dramatic geometric shape and pure white colour contrast sharply with the dark forest, while the panoramic windows make it glint, jewel-like, upon the water. The landscape surrounding the museum played a big part in the design, according to Ingels. The intention was for visitors to enjoy the flow of the winding river and the openness and fresh air, as well as the spectacular views of the historic mill building. Since it is a sculptural piece of architecture, The Twist creates a visual connection between the gallery itself and the artwork outside. The materials that have been used also echo Kistefos’ industrial past – the

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Above Panoramic views of the forest, with the mill beyond Facing page The aluminiumclad building, torqued in the middle to create its twisting form Previous page BIG’s first project in Norway, The Twist was won via an international competition

Left The building is rectangular in profile, so as it twists at the centre, there is a transition from a single to a double-height space

ARCHITECTURE /Norway

Right As a bridge, The Twist turns a visitor’s journey into a loop through the sculpture park, which is set in landscape surrounding a 19th-century wood-pulp mill

vertical entrance, with its rectangular shape and anodised aluminium exterior, evokes the look of an ordinary shipping container. “When you engage with it – when you go close and you go through it – it starts feeling more and more like an industrial shed, a barn or a kunsthall and even the twist doesn’t feel alien because it feels effortless,” says Ingels. Though the finished result is light and graceful, the edifice’s twisted design posed a technical challenge, he continues. “We never questioned the ‘bridgeness’ [of it] but there was a moment when we were like ‘are we seriously going to not twist it?’” He uses the impeccably finished metal sculptures of Anish Kapoor to explain why it wasn’t possible to simply expand upon the techniques used to create a work of art: “I know some of the manufacturers that make them, and it’s a fortune to get a perfect object, so you wouldn’t be able to apply that on the scale of a building.” Instead, BIG came up with the idea of using straight aluminium panels for the exterior and fir slats for the interior. “I love the fact that when you walk through you see curves everywhere, but there is not a single curve in the whole building. It’s all straight lines, just gently adjusted,” says Ingels. And by foregoing the more opulent materials sometimes associated with galleries, such as marble and brass, the building has a sobriety that suits its rural environs. The geometry is inherently dramatic, but in this setting, across the meandering river and among the existing sculptures, The Twist’s warped aluminium shape looks completely at home.

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ARCHITECTURE /Norway

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PARTNER CONTENT / Workplace

An elevated experience

Fora’s newest workspace brings a boutique sensibility and thoughtful design to the East End

oused in a former Victorian warehouse off Brick Lane in London’s East End, premium workspace provider Fora’s ninth opening in the capital cements its reputation for turning existing architectural gems into carefully considered spaces. Architect Piercy & Company has undertaken a total refurbishment – including a two-storey roof extension and a dramatic void cut through the centre of the building – while Fora has brought its ethos of fusing hospitality, members-club style service and innovative technology. Founded by The Big Chill festival co-founder Katrina Larkin and hospitality entrepreneur Enrico Sanna, Fora’s mission has good design at its heart, not just as a means of attracting discerning tenants but to improve productivity and wellbeing. The mid-19th-century former factory now offers 2,150 sqm of co-working and flexible workspace across five floors. Slicing through the building’s light-filled new central

atrium is a sculptural staircase rendered in a dramatic blood red, a focus that visually ties the building together. The communal areas that sit adjacent to this feature, meanwhile, are subtly detailed, with a palette of natural materials and neutral hues. Brick perimeter walls and some original timber and cast iron elements were kept, helping the building to maintain the spirit of its original character, especially its exterior. Inside, the spaces are layered with terraces that offer views of the surrounding area alongside a residents’ lounge, kitchens and a modern events space.

Words Elizabeth Choppin Images Jack Hobhouse

One of Piercy & Company’s partners, Pete Jennings, says that the idea was always to create a “backdrop of beautiful simplicity” for the people who inhabit the building. “Fora wanted to create the experience of a boutique hotel, and each of their locations has its own identity depending on the area, but there is a link where you know they’re part of the same group.”

Left Open seating and kitchen areas in muted tones sit adjacent to the private offices Facing page A blood-red staircase fills the building’s central atrium, linking five floors of space

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PARTNER CONTENT / Workplace

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ARCHITECTURE / Profile

Ready for a close-up Meet the Stockholm architectural practice behind a major new photographic gallery for London

laces where people meet and share ideas have been vital through the ages, from the Greek agora to the Italian piazza, early coffee houses and, in recent times, galleries where people come together and enjoy art. It is certainly the driving force for Fotografiska, the international photography gallery, which is scheduled to open an outpost in east London’s Whitechapel in autumn 2020. Creating a place that draws people in is the core ethos at Stockholm-based architectural practice Guise, which is designing this new photography mecca. “The whole concept of the place is the most important thing – creating a space where people want to come and stay a long time,” explains Jani Kristoffersen, who is Guise’s co-founder along with Andreas Ferm. Guise was set up in 2008, and two years later the award-winning practice was asked to work on the first Fotografiska gallery in Stockholm, creating one of the most-visited places in the capital. It has developed a firm reputation for innovative work and an inclusive design ethos, and this people-driven approach feeds into all of its projects, from galleries to retail spaces through to private villas. At the London version of Fotografiska, which sits on Whitechapel High Street, the gallery exterior is now finished while work on the

interior started in November 2019. Guise’s approach centres on the relationship between people, space and objects: “The relationship between objects and how people come together is an aesthetic,” says Kristoffersen.

Words Ruth Sullivan

Achieving this is challenging in a gallery that covers 9,000 sqm and spans five storeys of a former office block, built in 1984 by Fitzroy Robinson & Partners. The stark, rectangular construction has echoes of brutalism, according to Kristoffersen, and three of the levels are below ground. Undaunted, he believes they can “create underground galleries that contribute to an exciting, pleasant experience”. The practice plans to create an inviting and relaxed atmosphere inside by placing worldrenowned photographic works in sitting areas across all the public spaces, encouraging social interaction. In the main exhibition area, which is two levels below ground, the space is divided into a series of open-plan zones for small and large shows, with particular attention given to how people will move through them. Creating a sense of continuity is another important part of the approach and so Guise has designed its own bespoke lighting and furniture throughout the gallery to sustain this. Jan Broman, one of the two brothers who cofounded Fotografiska, is assured of a successful

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Facing page Top to bottom: the team from Stockholmbased architects Guise, the practice behind the forthcoming Fotografiska gallery in Whitechapel; a concept image of the 9,000 sqm gallery, converted from a 1980s office building

ARCHITECTURE / Profile

outcome in London. “Guise has been with us from the beginning," he says. "They understand the ambition of Fotografiska and they have the ability and skills to turn the architecture into an integrated part of a rich visitor experience.” The presence of Fotografiska – along with the creative tech companies occupying the rest of the building – will help make it a dynamic hub. Another aspect of Guise’s approach to projects is to focus on a specific feature and build on it. By way of example, Villa Björhövda, a home in Norrtälje in the Stockholm archipelago that was completed in 2016, follows bold orthogonal lines that produce sharp angles to capture light, give clean spatial volumes and provide a lake view. At Fotografiska, meanwhile, the use of another distinctive feature encourages people to move vertically between levels: Guise has designed a gestural spiral staircase that flows from the entrance-level cafe-bar-restaurant hub down to an area that houses the reception space as well as the conference and learning facilities, then even further down to the main galleries sited two floors below. “We wanted to

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ARCHITECTURE / Profile

avoid a central spine, making it a free-hanging floating feature,” explains Kristoffersen. Materials also play an important part in Guise’s approach, especially when it comes to bringing more light to projects that mostly come in a monochrome palette. In the gallery scheme, they experimented with the dipping process of galvanising steel sheets and discovered a new take on a traditional material. When used internally, the sheets take on a slightly glossy, crystal effect but produce a duller, matt effect when placed externally, as on the gallery’s exterior cladding. With this in mind they used galvanised steel sheeting on stair balustrades, treads and risers to bring in light and lustre. Guise’s ability to create a strong sense of place feeds into its retail projects too. In retail, it’s also about the experience, or as Kristoffersen puts it, “going to a place because you want to be there, and making it relevant. You can’t do that online.” A strong spatial design concept is at the heart of its project for Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair – not actually a shoe-repair shop but a concept store in Stockholm’s fashion district, with a second in Singapore. The attention is focused on a bold, angled, playful cascade of display shelving in Guise’s signature black against a white background. Everything from the geometric black metal furniture to the fitting rooms, doors and mirrors has been custom made to create a dynamic shopping experience between objects and people. In the recently completed NK Sport store in Stockholm, the main feature in the fit out is the furniture in bush-hammered gypsum, a material that's often linked to brutalist design. Unusually, Guise changes palette, launching into yellow, pink and black in the interior.

Above At Villa Björhövda, a home in the Stockholm archipelago, Guise responded to the defined shape of the rural site with sharp angles and clean open spaces inside Bottom image by Mikael Olsson

Like many architects, the partners at Guise enjoy pushing boundaries and Fotografiska is the latest project to provide this opportunity. “It’s a very different concept from Stockholm; we had to step up a bit in a bigger, global city,” says Kristoffersen. But as with all the practice’s work, from large retail hubs to modestly sized homes, the aim is to make inviting places where people will want to come, and stay.

Facing page Stockholm concept store Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair, where clothing is shown on graphic, geometric black metal displays Image by Lance John

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Enda Geelong crewneck by &Daughter. Read the full story on p169

STYLE Fashionable pursuits

Most wanted

Clothing, accessories and tech that are thoughtful, expressive, beautiful and good

STYLE / Products

OAO Works With his 89 Hangers project, Canadian designer Omer Arbel has turned a humble object into something covetable. It’s the result of manipulating 3D scans of conventional hangers and casting them in solid brass, giving them an intentional element of distortion that makes them look like they were made by hand rather than by machine. Arbel is

best known for his lighting brand, Bocci, and is here exploring similar territory in terms of eschewing uniformity for more unpredictably formed objects; this side venture, OAO Works, also makes sandcast brass vessels and multicoloured glassware. £80 for four; oaoworks.com

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STYLE / Products

Elvis & Kresse A chance encounter with the London Fire Brigade led to the formation of Elvis & Kresse: once its founders discovered that decommissioned firehoses were being sent off to landfill, they looked for ways that it could be reused. The result is a range of robust bags and accessories such as wallets and iPad cases, including this smart and practical overnight

bag, which features a lining made from reclaimed military parachute silk. Not content with rescuing more than 175 tonnes of hose from landfill, Elvis & Kresse also gives back by donating half of its profits to the Fire Fighters Charity. Now that’s heroic. £285; elvisandkresse.com

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Good News If the sneaker industry is generally murky in its ecocredentials, putting its best foot forward is London brand Good News. Its simple, go-with-everything designs (such as the Bagger 2 high-tops pictured) feature organic uppers, made without toxins or pesticides, chemical fertilizer or GMO seeds; a footbed made from an eco-friendly formulation

containing bio-oil and recycled rubber; and an outsole made from recycled rubber pellets from old tyres and shoes. Good News also partners with charities, creating the Good Luck Shoes initiative to provide footwear to migrants arriving in Italy. £120; goodnews.london

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Bang & Olufsen Beosound Stage is Bang & Olufsen’s long-awaited, first-ever soundbar, and, typically for the electronics brand, it has put discerning design on a par with superior sound. Fellow Danes Norm Architects were behind the design side: the product’s slim frame is available in aluminium, bronze or smoked oak (pictured): the timber version manages to pull

off an almost vintage look, with traditionally crafted dovetail joints at its curved corners and a textured fabric for the speaker. Inside, a three-channel sound system and Dolby Atmos make for a powerful and immersive listening experience. £1,250; bang-olufsen.com

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&Daughter Summer has its moments, style-wise, but it can’t beat that November day when you pull on your granny’s old-but-perfect Aran. Father and daughter Columba and Buffy Reid want to recreate that feeling of quality, comfort and timelessness with their knitwear brand, &Daughter. Foregoing the world of fast fashion, they’re harnessing generations

of superior craftsmanship and championing smallbatch making to create beautiful but useful staples, such as this Bansha fair isle sweater. The knitwear is made in the craft epicentres of Donegal and Hawick, from the finest 100% natural local yarns. £285; and-daughter.com

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Respect earned

Inside the sustainable womenswear label that gives away the majority of its profits

“T

hey do what?” That’s the reaction you’ll likely get when you tell friends about Ninety Percent, and how the London-based clothing brand shares 90% of its distributed profits among charitable causes and those who make its collections happen. Another talking point is that customers decide which charity they want to support. All they have to do is vote using the unique code found on the care label of their new garment. Sharing profits, striving to empower everyone involved – it’s fashion, Jim, but not as we know it.

Ninety Percent was launched in 2018, but cofounder Shafiq Hassan says that discussions about its founding go back to 2005. “We were questioning how traditional big businesses were run, how they controlled the public and governments around the globe, how the system was exploitative to the planet, without giving much back,” he says. “We saw a disconnect between big business and customers, where the latter didn’t have a say in what the former did. There had to be another way. We wanted to give the maximum amount and not just pay lip service. We wanted to turn the traditional model on its head. Our concept is about making real change with our profits, where our customers know they’re part of a revolution.” So, rather than shareholders being the main benefactors, the majority of profits are shared between four charities (Children’s Hope, War Child UK, Big Life Foundation and Wild Aid) and those making the clothes. “Everyone involved, at every stage, has to be empowered, from the people running the business, all the way to our customers,” says Hassan. Sustainability is a much-bandied word in the fashion industry and, as a consumer, it can be difficult to unpick its meaning when there’s little consistency in its use. For Hassan, it’s clear: “Sustainability is what you start with and what you leave behind, with the impact you

create. You should aim to make everything you touch better than what you started with.”

Words Morag Bruce

The brand only partners with companies that have sustainable processes embedded into their practice, whether they’re in Italy, Germany, Turkey, China or Bangladesh. Its focus is on organic cotton and Tencel (fibre made from wood-pulp), which it says are the better options currently available. All its textile mills and yarn suppliers are certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard, while Oeko-Tex certification means they are free from harmful chemicals. Ninety Percent’s key production partner in Bangladesh, Echotex, has a factory that’s LEED Platinum certified, and is seen as a pioneer in ethical and sustainable production.

Portrait Benjamin McMahon

“We need to change the culture of fashion and how we consume and use clothes,” says Hassan. “Human rights abuses and environmental degradation are rife. There’s a shocking lack of transparency and accountability across supply chains. We’re up against a tidal wave of unhealthy materials that have become the norm over the last 50 years. We’re all on a learning curve and we’re part of the global movement of brands, retailers, producers and consumers who are slowly turning the tide,” he continues. “In just a year and a half since our launch we’ve managed to make our collection’s raw materials 97% sustainable.” Another aspect of sustainability is being able to create pieces with wardrobe staying power, which is down to the work of creative director Ben Matthews. His background is in buying, first at Arcadia followed by ten years at Net-aPorter where he rose to be buying manager, overseeing ready-to-wear across hundreds of brands. When he first heard Hassan’s concept, coming from this hardened business experience, his reaction was not unexpected. “He said he wanted to give his profits away. I was like, ‘righhhhht’. I actually thought he was joking,”

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Facing page Ben Matthews (left) creative director of Ninety Percent, and co-founder Shafiq Hassan (right)

“Our concept is about making real change with our profits, where our customers know they’re part of a revolution”

Above Left to right: long-sleeve dress, tank dress and gathered hem dress, all made from Tencel; loopback jumper and Tencel dress Facing page Jacquard jumpsuit 172

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STYLE / Profile

he laughs. “But the more I learned about it, the more I thought we could create something meaningful and effect real change.” Hassan had the idea, but Matthews drove the brand’s aesthetic and its game-plan. “He gave me complete creative freedom, which was very trusting because I hadn’t done this before,” he says. “I knew how to market and sell brands, and how to second guess what customers will want in six months, but in my previous career, I had only dealt with the finished product. Here, it’s been about how to get an idea from your head into finished, sold garments. I built a team around me who are experts, and I was very honest with them about my experience.” Lack of experience or not, in just 18 months, Ninety Percent has made impressive inroads. “It’s not just a new brand, it’s a new concept, so the sorts of stores we’re in now – Selfridges, Browns, Nordstrom and Net-a-Porter – is bonkers. We’re so grateful they’ve taken a punt on us,” says Matthews.

From fitted dresses to oversized sweatshirts, the look and feel he landed on has the aims of the brand at its heart. “We’re not a conceptual fashion brand; what we do needs to be widereaching because, after all, the more we sell, the more we give back,” says Matthews. He describes the label’s aesthetic as European, clean, considered and friendly, with a modern femininity. “We’re not trend led, we wanted to be about slow fashion and wardrobe staples, pieces that don’t date,” he says. Hassan adds, “We’re passionate about the end products being of a very high standard, not something fleeting to end up in landfills. We want our products to have a long life.” For Matthews, that the clothes are stylish and desirable is part of a bigger picture. “We aim to help change the relationship people have with buying clothes. I mean, I’m not saying we expect people to sit around and ponder them,” he smiles. “It’s just a good feeling to have a good story about something you’re wearing.” And have a story you’re proud to tell.

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Above Left to right: jumbo hoodie dress; oversized tee worn over V-neck dress

PIONEER

Swiss precision

From art to watch design and typography, Max Bill might be the Bauhaus’ greatest polymath

RDB/Ullstein Bild/Getty Images

Words / Bertram James

1936, Bill distilled his ideas into a manifesto, Principles of Concrete Design, which went on to kickstart the Brazilian Neo-Concrete movement of the 1950s.

As well he might, for despite never graduating – he accidentally knocked his teeth out and the subsequent dental bills meant he couldn’t pay his tuition fees – Bill was a prominent student at the design school, respected by his contemporaries as a free-thinking iconoclast. He left the Bauhaus in 1929, moving back to Zurich in his native Switzerland. Day-to-day he worked as a graphic designer, but it was during this period he developed his exacting geometric style of art, exhibiting his works alongside Piet Mondrian and Georges Vantongerloo as part of the Paris-based Abstraction-Creation group. In

In the post-war period, Bill’s influence grew further. He founded the influential Ulm School of Design in 1953, which he envisioned as the Bauhaus reincarnated. Sadly, not everyone in the faculty agreed, and he stood down in 1956, though not before designing the brilliantly simple Ulm stool, which was produced and used by the students. He continued to move seamlessly between disciplines: the mathematical and emotionally mute nature of his ribbon-like sculptures prompted a spell as a corporate artist for various banks, and he also designed a series of arresting posters for the 1972 Munich Olympics. Bill died in 1994, felled by a heart attack in Berlin airport – an uncharacteristically public demise for a man whose quiet precision continues to define Swiss design.

rtist, architect, designer, typographer: the multiple talents of Max Bill (1908-1994) appeared as endless and inscrutable as one of his abstract sculptures, but outside of design circles he remains an almost unknown figure. And yet, in his peerless functionalist aesthetic, he realised the Bauhaus doctrine of beauty in the everyday.

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© Copyright 2019 Design Anthology UK All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except where noted. Views expressed by authors are not necessarily those of the publisher. FSC™ certification ensures that products come from well-managed forests that provide environmental, social and economic benefits.

Design Anthology UK Issue 04

Articles inside

Profile Ninety Percent, the womenswear brand giving away most of its profits

Most wanted Clothing, accessories and tech that tell a story and defy the ordinary

Max Bill The Swiss former Bauhaus student whose talents crossed boundaries

Street smarts The end-of-terrace gets a modern twist in this new-build by 31/44 Architects

Museum, San Sebastián Sculptor Eduardo Chillida’s open-air gallery reopens after nine years

Gallery, Norway Bridge and building in one, The Twist is architect BIG’s latest showstopper

Poland Explore the graphic and subversive world of the Polish School of Posters

Urban retreat A quietly crafted development aimed at east London’s creative community

Diary Preview the coming months’ most compelling art and design shows

Profile Guise, the Stockholm practice behind a major new photographic gallery

Profile The art of Vivien Suter, inspired by her Guatemalan home, comes to the UK

No empty vessel Amsterdam-based artist Birgitta de Vos’ atmospheric home aboard a ship

A peaceful prospect Design studio Nune composes a calm hideaway in rural Connecticut

Points of perception Conjuring up an eerie definition of beauty to chronicle the five senses

Q&A Linde Freya Tangelder of experimental design studio Destroyers/Builders

Travelogue, Bogotá The high-altitude metropolis with a flourishing creative economy

Hotel openings Explore the world and stay in some of the best design-centric destinations

Read Delve into a selection of books on design, architecture and interiors

Restaurant, Manchester From the founders of Bistrotheque, a multifunctional place for a good time

Hotel, Somerset Find creature comforts at The Newt, a West Country vision of arcadia

Brighter future An art- and light-filled Ibizan villa that’s a lesson in laid-back living