Design Anthology UK Issue 05

carlhansen.com

DESIGNED TO BRING NATURE CLOSER | BM OUTDOOR SERIES |

BØRGE MOGENSEN | 1971

Originally designed for Børge Mogensen’s private balcony, the Outdoor Series is a testament to the beauty of simple, functional design. Now reintroduced by Carl Hansen & Søn, the foldable designs in untreated, FSC®-certified teak bring lasting beauty to outdoor spaces thanks to their considered combination of careful craftsmanship and lasting, high-quality materials.

ABERDEEN: CHAMELEON | BELFAST: LIVING SPACE | BERKSHIRE: BENCHMARK | BIRMINGHAM: EXISTENZMINIMA | BOURNEMOUTH: SO. FURNITURE BRADFORD: THE HOME | CAMBRIDGE: EVE WALDRON, TOMAS KITCHEN PLUS | COTSWOLDS: TREACLE GEORGE | DUBLIN: ARNOTTS, LOST WEEKEND EAST YORKS: INNES | EDINBURGH: MOLETA MUNRO, STUDIO ONE FURNITURE | HARROGATE: CIMMERMAN | LIVERPOOL: UTILITY LONDON: ARAM, CARL HANSEN & SØN FLAGSHIPSTORE, CHAPLINS, HAUS, HEALS, HOLLOWAYS OF LUDLOW, E_PORTA.COM, MONOLOGUE, SCP, SILVERA UK, SKANDIUM, THE CONRAN SHOP, TWENTYTWENTYONE | MANCHESTER: FERRIOUS | NOTTINGHAM: ATOMIC INTERIORS | SHEFFIELD: NEST.CO.UK, OLSON AND BAKER

U K & R E P U B L I C O F I R E L A N D D I ST R I B U TO R : AT R I UM LT D, 2 8 L E O N A R D ST R E E T, LO N D O N , E C 2 A 4 BY, + 4 4 (0) 2 07 6 81 9 93 3 - S A L E S @ AT R I UM . LT D.U K

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY ZO Ë G H E RT N E R

ARRANGEMENTS

BY M I C H A E L A N A STA S S I A D E S

2018 F LO S .COM

FROM THE EDITOR

M

indfulness. It’s tempting to dismiss it as one of a handful of zeitgeisty terms thrown around a bit too freely. What does it mean? When can we say we’ve achieved it? It’s possible that the concept has been cheapened by its overuse. Nevertheless, while putting together issue 05, we’ve been heartened by the people applying it to their work with admirable gusto. Be it designers, architects, artists or brands, there is evidence of good intention, thoughtfulness, slowing down, conscientiousness, authenticity – however you want to characterise the thing that’s so hard to define: mindfulness.

At the start of the issue, our first fashion shoot (p36) is remarkable for its location in Paradise Soho – a contemporary Sri Lankan restaurant new to the London food scene. Its owner Dom Fernando, and Hackney-based designer Dan Preston, designed the space according to a “tropical brutalist” vision inspired by Geoffrey Bawa’s architecture. Every detail is considered – from recycled tableware, to lighting that is meant to transport you to a terrace in the tropics, to the best local ingredients available. It’s soulful and beautifully done – the perfect inspiration for the first Design Anthology UK fashion narrative.

Further in, we go on a journey with photographer Alaistair Philip Wiper, who had thought he was compromising with a family holiday in Lanzarote.

Instead, he discovered the visionary work of the artist and architect César Manrique who, in the 1960s and 70s, advocated for “intelligent tourism” on the island and dedicated his life to creating architecture to facilitate it. See his fascinating work on p60.

We also tell the story of the striking modernist Church of the Penitent Thief, erected outside Bologna by prison inmates nearing the end of their terms (p154). Plus, we highlight a group of design-led brands taking the lead in waterless and refillable personal care products, in an effort to help reduce the environmental impact of a mega-growth industry (p170).

Last but not least, is the story of Leeds-based artist, Alarah Gee, who makes captivating abstractions in pen and ink (p132). “At the simplest level, her pieces are an exercise in shape and structure; while at the most complex, a story of rebellion, catharsis and self-discovery.”

Enjoy.

Elizabeth Choppin Editor-in-Chief

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MASTHEAD

05

April 2020

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Choppin elizabeth@designanthologyuk.com Art Director Shazia Chaudhry shazia@designanthologyuk.com Sub Editor Chantelle Pattemore Commercial Director Rebecca Harkness rebecca@designanthologyuk.com Editorial Concept Design Frankie Yuen, Blackhill Studio Words Charlotte Abrahams, Jonathan Bell, Emily Brooks, Nell Card, Francesco Dama, Philomena Epps, John Jervis, Jo Leevers, Joe Lloyd, Ella Marshall, Fiona McCarthy, Harry McKinley, Karine MoniĂŠ, Emma Moore, Becky Sunshine, Ginny Weeks, Richard Unwin Images Simone Bossi, Joanne Crawford, Harry Crowder, Claire Esparros, Jack Hobhouse, Malcolm Manzies, Joe McGorty, Gavriil Papadiotis, Rachael Smith, Alastair Philip Wiper, Nicholas Worley, Max Zambelli Styling Sorrel Kinder

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Design Anthology UK is published triannually by Astrid Media Ltd hello@astridmedia.co.uk astridmedia.co.uk

Media Sales, UK and Europe Rebecca Harkness +44 7500 949434 rebecca@designanthologyuk.com Media Sales, Italy Angelo Careddu Oberon Media srl +39 02 87 45 43 acareddu@oberonmedia.com Media Sales, other regions Astrid Media sales@designanthologyuk.com Printer Park Communications Alpine Way London E6 6LA United Kingdom Reprographics Born London 90/92 Pentonville Rd London N1 9HS United Kingdom Distributors UK newsstand MMS Ltd. Europe newsstand Export Press UK / EU complimentary Global Media Hub

K I N — W E LC O M E TO T H E FA M I LY By surprising yourself, unsurprisingly, creative flair will strike you in every day life.

This is Allermuir.

KIN BY PEARSONLLOYD

allermuir.com

CONTENTS

Front cover Spring fashion shot at Paradise Soho.

Image by Joe McGorty.

Styled by Sorrel Kinder.

Blazer, Acne Studios; Shirt, Isabel Marant at Selfridges; Jeans, Goldsign; Boots, ¯ Ssone.

See p36

Radar

Journey

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Products Collections and collaborations of note

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Openings New showrooms and retail hotspots

Hotel openings New design hotels offering the best in home comforts across the globe

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

Hotel, Switzerland Relais Castello di Morcote, a lovingly restored mountain hideaway

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Photo essay, Lanzarote César Manrique’s architectural and artistic love notes to the island

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Peace offering Ogata Paris is the perfect blend of Japanese and French influence

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The shape of things Northern Irish furniture makers Orior adopt a fresh new approach

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Throwing shade This season’s fashion trends in a tropical brutalist interior

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Q&A In conversation with the founder and designer of eatery Paradise Soho

Home 70

Bold as brass Hidden behind traditional Victorian frontage lies a touch of modern shine

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Pure and simple William Smalley creates a serene retreat in the heart of London’s bustle

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Step change A floating red staircase is just one of this property’s surprise quirks

102 Timeless appeal Enduring design sits the heart of this faithful renovation by Kerri Lipsitz 110 In the pink Carlos Alberto Cabral’s architectural feat of Art Deco design

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CONTENTS

Art + Collecting

Style

122 Diary Preview the most compelling art and design shows coming up

164 Most wanted Clothing and accessories that are beautiful, thoughtful and good

132 Profile Artist Alarah Gee on the return to her hometown and creative roots

170 Products of our time Balancing sustainability with design credentials is beauty’s latest challenge

138 The new storytellers How Visto Images employ art and sculpture to create a narrative

Architecture

Pioneer 176 Syrie Maugham The designer who defied expectations and paved the way for her female peers

144 Survey Royan: a French mecca for 1950s and 60s architecture 154 Spiritual awakening The religious and artistic influences behind a contemporary Italian church

Alarah Gee Design Anthology UK shot the artist at the Leeds Art Gallery.

Image by Joanne Crawford. See p132

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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

The Bianca chair and Hex screen by Orior. Read the full story on p34 Image by Claire Esparros

R ADAR Global design news

R ADAR / Products

101 Copenhagen Founded in 2017, 101 Copenhagen fuses Scandi design with a Japanese approach to materials and techniques – and this Colonial lamp demonstrates a softer side to their lighting portfolio. Consisting of two leather-trimmed circles of French rattan, which create a play of light and shade when the light is switched on, the designers were inspired by mid-century colonial-style furniture and Mathieu Matégot’s use of perforated materials to create pieces with a soft and organic appearance.

101cph.com

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Gubi Deriving its name from the narrative poetry of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the Epic table is also inspired by classical architecture – being made from travertine, a limestone used in buildings such as the Colosseum. The cream version is complemented by a more fiery red travertine, and three coffee table designs are also available. They were devised by GamFratesi, the prolific Copenhagen-based studio that has delivered several other bestsellers for Gubi, including its Beetle dining chair and TS tables. gubi.com

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Paper Collective Collaborating with artists, designers, architects and illustrators to create affordable limited-edition art, Paper Collective delves into a world of abstraction for its latest collection. Norm Architects’ Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen has designed ink drawings inspired

by Japanese calligraphy, while designer and creative consultant Nina Bruun creates depth by laying slim black lines over fat beige ones. Pictured are BjerrePoulsen’s Ensõ Red II (on table) and Ensõ Yellow I (on wall, left); and Bruun’s Different Strokes. papercollective.com

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&Tradition Designed to bring “folksy comfort to any interior”, &Tradition’s first accessories line takes a rustic, earthy approach. The cushions and throws have subtle natural textures thanks to their use of organic cotton and linen, complemented by subdued colours such as burgundy, slate and sand. Hand dip-dying brings a colour-fading effect to the linen cushions, while the throws are reversible. Space Copenhagen designed the range, which also includes large concrete planters in a greyed-out terracotta or black. andtradition.com

Menu Copenhagen architect Danielle Siggerud has expanded her Androgyne collection for Menu, with a lounge table made from warm-toned breccia stone. Androgyne is so-named because of Siggerud’s assertion that it balances the masculine and feminine; the oval-shaped cut-out detail of the legs

has been carried over from her first design in the collection, a side table. Breccia stone is nature’s own terrazzo – it’s made from broken fragments of rock bound in finer particles that cement them together. menuspace.com

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Romina Gris Inspired by art and architecture, Romina Gris makes playful “ceramic cities”. Barcelona-based Gris trained as an interior designer, and looks to the work of post-modern architects, such as Michael Graves and Aldo Rossi, to inform the shapes of her structures. Her Big Tower series consists of three stacking shapes that come in a variety of colours, as well as a contrasting black and white stripe, all intended to be mixed and matched. Complete your cityscape with one of the designer’s lacquered wood Léger trays, inspired by the simplified clouds in the paintings of artist Fernand Léger. rominagris.com

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ERCOL.COM

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Saint-Louis These Matrice vases are new to Dutch designer Kiki van Eijk’s collection for French crystal company Saint-Louis and are inspired by the forms of the thousands of moulds held by the centuriesold company. A small table lamp (pictured) and circular sconce have also joined the range. Now part of the Hermès group, Saint-Louis’ roots date back to 1586, and the brand has worked with designers such as Hervé van der Straeten and Paola Navone to gain a current sensibility. saint-louis.com

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Jesper Flobrant

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Hästens Best known for luxury beds and mattresses, Hästens has moved into bedroom furniture design, collaborating with fellow Swedes Bernadotte & Kylberg. This Appaloosa ash storage bench has a subtle pattern made by the opposing directions of the grain – the classic Hästens check, but viewed through a cubist lens – and features sidewaysmoving drawers to organise the space within.

There’s also a bedside table to complement the bench, and walnut versions of both pieces. hastens.com

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Banda Property development company and design studio Banda has launched its first furniture collection, Kwanza – which includes this Kinyesi stone stool in calacatta viola marble, intended to work as a seat, table or a decorative object. Banda’s recently finished lateral apartment in London’s Leinster Square appeared in issue 03 of Design Anthology UK, and three of the pieces in the capsule collection – a dressing table, brass-topped dining table and fireplace – were first observed in that project. bandaproperty.co.uk

Iittala Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec designed the Ruutu glass vase for Finnish brand Iittala in 2015. Now, their updated collection includes a mouth-blown extra-large version, at 500mm high – a size to test Iittala’s mouth-blowing glassmakers. In different sizes and colours, they can be combined to form a

small installation, and these limited-edition pieces are also complemented by another new variant: a ceramic version in hand-finished cast porcelain, with a thin enamel glaze that gives lustre and depth. iittala.com

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Campbell-Rey Don’t let the delicate appearance fool you: this Venetian glassware is actually made from Pyrex, so, post-party, can be slung straight in the dishwasher.

Designed by the creative consultancy CampbellRey, it’s made in collaboration with Venice-based glass studio Laguna B. There are two complementary collections: Cosima, which features a swirled pattern found in traditional Murano glass and a coloured rim; and Cosimo, whose stem and bowl come in contrasting shades. www.campbell-rey.com

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In-Out 2015 / bathtub, design Benedini Associati Lariana 2017 / washbasin, design Patricia Urquiola Square 2005 / taps, design Benedini Associati Solid 2014 / mirror, design Diego Vencato, Marco Merendi

www.agapedesign.it

E X C L U S I V E

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LIGHT BETWEEN from the Looking Glass Collection www.deirdredyson.com

Joceyln Low

RADAR / Openings

Uncommon Projects This spring, bespoke plywood joinery company Uncommon Projects opens its first showroom next to the Barbican Centre in an original Chamberlin, Powell and Bon-designed shop in the Golden Lane Estate. Since launching almost a decade ago, the brand has become known for precision-engineered kitchens, wardrobes and storage, and this new space will be set up as a real home where visitors can experience their award-winning, inventive products – all designed and manufactured in London – and meet the team. Each project brief is met with a bespoke solution, using digital manufacturing to create components, followed by a careful process of sanding and coating each piece of hardwood-veneered plywood by hand for a highquality, durable finish. uncommonprojects.co.uk

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RADAR / Read

Unintended Beauty

Studio Gang: Architecture

One wouldn’t think that heading behind the scenes into the technical facilities of worldleading brands such as Boeing, Playmobil, Adidas and Absolut would necessarily make for the most picturesque of monographs.

Yet, here, British photographer Wiper intends to demonstrate otherwise: “I want to… challenge what people think of as beautiful,” he states. Succinctly capturing the unintended beauty of patterns in machinery, vibrant colours on the factory floors, and shapes of prototype dummies, readers are encouraged to reflect on what we deem truly beautiful – and ugly – as science and design seamlessly merge.

For over two decades, the Chicago-based architecture firm Studio Gang have created buildings that not only encompass spectacular design, but address a host of pressing social concerns. Led by Jeanne Gang, the team have worked to highlight issues ranging from climate change to inequality, in constructions including the Aqua Tower in Chicago and Solar Carve Tower in New York. Divided into six sections and showcasing 25 of the company’s previous projects, this tome comprises sketches, photographs and renderings, plus insights from Gang herself; and illustrates the role that research plays in their bold approach to design.

by Alastair Philip Wiper (Hatje Cantz)

foreword by Mohsen Mostafavi (Phaidon)

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RADAR / Read

Beyond The West: New Global Architecture

The Design Lab: Galerie Kreo

Sometimes it can be hard to see what isn’t directly in front of us: and this new volume aims to open our eyes to the world of architecture outside of the West. With rich, engaging imagery dominating the pages, readers are taken on an illuminating journey amongst architecture from countries spread across Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Meanwhile, in-depth features and interviews highlight the innovative approaches that architects have taken when faced with changes and challenges within their own regions – from sustainability and construction materials, to local traditions and transportation.

Since launching at the end of the last century, the London and Parisian spaces of Galerie Kreo have provided an artistic haven from which designers can produce, exhibit and distribute works. In addition to a retrospective of over 100 exhibitions, the book presents a deeper dive into pieces by some of the globally renowned names on their roster – such as Marc Newson, Konstantin Grcic and Hella Jongerious – and aligns these with key moments in design history to offer context. Interviews with Kreo’s founders help interlace elements together, while tributes from companions explore the gallery’s wider impact on contemporary design.

(Gestalten)

(Flammarion)

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Peace offering

Traditional Japanese culture fuses with French architecture in Shinichiro Ogata’s new Parisian venture

Words Karine Monié Images Courtesy of Ogata

D

iscreetly opening a few months ago in the heart of the third arrondissement, Ogata Paris offers a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese culture in a carefully restored historic building.

“I was looking for a place in Paris for a long time, and I found this 17th-century hôtel particulier that matched with my aesthetic and harmonious ideal,” explains Shinichiro Ogata. The Japanese interior and product designer, restaurateur and founder of Simplicity design studio has called Paris home since 2017 and, fascinated by the architecture, culture and history of the City of Lights, had no doubts about opening his new space in the French capital. “I believe that France and Japan have cultural proximity,” he states.

“The way we respect our history, our heritage, our traditions, our roots.”

Inspired by nature, and constantly combining tradition and innovation, Ogata brought together various influences to create a place that connects past and future, alongside Japanese and French savoir-faire.

Left In the atelier, guests can browse and purchase traditional homewares crafted from sustainable, natural materials

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“Ogata Paris is the place where I gathered my 20 years of experience in Japan, reuniting a sabō (tea salon), restaurant, bar, boutique and gallery in the same building,” he says. “Through each space you will be able to feel the sahō – the Japanese art of being – by enjoying a cup of tea, savouring a meal, using the tools, in harmony with the surroundings and with nature.”

A historic wooden door is an invitation to step into the peaceful interiors of Ogata, which spread over 800 sqm and four floors. The sound of

RADAR / Paris

“Ogata is a sensorial experience, where you can discover a different approach to life through tea, cuisine, craftsmanship, hospitality and culture” flowing water pervades the first long and meditative space, featuring white walls and ceilings covered in shikkui plaster – a Japanese technique using lime and eggshell powder with a matt finish – and a stone monolith. On the left of the entrance hall, a jewellery boxlike space is dedicated to the art of tea and tea roasting, and comprises a wall featuring a collection of wooden drawers strapped in paulownia wood, and a sculptural bar. A circular counter with a block of black stone and a bright display case with a solid oak frame presents a variety of teas. “The culture of tea played a fundamental role in [Asian] civilisation: filled with wisdom, it sheds light on the relationship between human beings and

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nature,” Ogata explains. “To me, tea is an almost mystical drink: it links cultures… and connect humans to nature, beyond geographic and cultural differences.”

Beyond these spaces, the Wagashi confectionary boutique is a study of contrasts, featuring black hexagonal terracotta tiles, a reddish-brown ceiling, walls covered with pastry-mould shaped ceramics, and a mix of surfaces in copper, black stone and hiba wood.

Facing the boutique, the atelier comprises more than 200 design products, including the S[es] line by Ogata, with everyday tableware made exclusively from natural and sustainable materials.

RADAR / Paris

At the end of the entrance hall, a central space leads to the upper floors. Scheduled to open in spring, the gallery – which will occupy the first floor and mezzanine – will showcase a collection of culinary art and furniture, and temporary exhibitions.

The second level hosts a 15-seat bar and a 50-person restaurant (plus a private salon with 10 seats), led by chef Kazuki Watanabe: with an open kitchen and bistro decorated in woods, warm colours, satin plaster, beige mortar and cut stone.

The basement, however, is the true centerpiece of Ogata, introducing the world of sabō. The

sound of waterfalls emanates from the walls, welcoming visitors to this place of celebration and ceremony, where floating Japanese persimmon wood shelves combine with a polished burnt wood bar and a central table made from jindai tamo – the essence of a semipetrified tree.

“Ogata is a harmonious space and sensorial experience, where you can discover a different approach to life through five pillars: tea, cuisine, craftsmanship, hospitality and culture”, the founder explains. “Each space offers a unique experience, opening the door to a new way of being… I want to propose a vivid place to exchange in order to create a new culture.”

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Facing page A key part of Japanese culture, tea is given pride of place Above A table made from the essence of a semi-petrified tree is the centrepiece of the basement at Ogata Paris

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RADAR / Orior, Northern Ireland

The shape of things

Furniture makers Orior have been designing for over forty years – but now, thanks to a new creative director, they’re blending heritage with a fresh aesthetic

Words Nell Card Images Claire Esparros

O

n a freestanding shelf in the showroom of furniture company Orior, a copy of Yohji Yamamato’s autobiography, My Dear Bomb, lies open. Several sentences of the text are underlined, such as: “He must spend years, perhaps decades, as an unknown while he polishes his craft”, and “without that preparation, victory will elude one. Without that preparation, a personal vision will remain forever beyond one’s grasp.” Lastly, at the bottom of the page, underlined and marked either side with two spidery asterisks is the quote: “The classics stand the test of time.”

It’s a philopsophy that works for Orior, founded in Northern Ireland in 1979 by Brian and Rosie McGuigan. Today, their bestsellers – the Canyon sofa, Pop swivel chair and André armchair – are all “original Brian pieces,” handmade to order by a steadfast team of furniture builders, pattern cutters and sewers.

They are designs rooted in an appreciation for Danish design, a commitment to luxury materials and – in Yamamato’s words – decades spent polishing the craft of furniture making.

Facing page Clockwise, from top: Orior’s pieces reflect the brand’s commitment to textures and shapes; the Arctic Wardrobe comprises sleek functionality with sculptural style; blending brutalist materiality with clean lines, the Marmar table is a marble classic

The pair fled the Troubles in the early 1970s and spent four years in Copenhagen before returning to set up their workshop and showroom on an industrial estate in Newry, a city at the foot of the Mourne Mountains.

The first piece they designed – the timeless Shanog sofa, upholstered in thick black leather with deep cushions that hug the frame – set the bench mark and is still in production today.

The brand was discovered by influential buyers and, in the 1980s, handmade Orior sofas could be found in the homeware department at Liberty. As the brand expanded, contract work overtook the retail offering, and their bespoke

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pieces furnished high-end hotels, restaurants and developments – including London’s opulent private member’s club, Annabel’s.

In 2018, as their 40th year approached, the McGuigan’s decided to re-evaluate the brand, taking it back to its “designer-maker” beginnings. (Orior is Latin for ‘I rise’ and also the name of the road Brian grew up on in Newry.) Their son, Ciaran, was brought in as creative director – a graduate of The Savannah College of Art and Design, he has overseen the recent relaunch and expansion of the brand.

There is now an Orior showroom in Tribeca and a fresh team of designers in New York who are working with the founders to revive the core collection. They also plan on expanding the range with solid, sculptural pieces that juxtapose raw materials – such as Irish timber, lime stone and marble – with exquisite Ventian silks, luxury leathers, linens and velvets.

A potent palette of ochre, toffee, crimson, emerald and blue gives the brand its identity.

The Mara credenza – a rich, walnut shell on elegant brass legs, topped with a single slab of Irish green marble and faultlessly wrapped in two tones of green leather – typifies their newfound aesthetic.

Orior’s rise continues this year, with the expansion of their Newry workshop and the opening of a waterfront showroom in Omeath on the shore of Carlingford Lough. Plans are also underway for a hospitality project in Savannah. In the workshop though, it’s business as usual. Six of Orior’s original staff members still work for the company and, 40 years on, Brian’s workbench occupies the same position it always has: bathed in natural light, awaiting the next order.

Throwing shade

The chiaroscuro stylings of Paradise Soho set the scene for a seasonal edit of sleek silhouettes and tactile tones Images / Joe McGorty Styling / Sorrel Kinder

Previous page Blazer, £550, Acne Studios at Harvey Nichols; Striped shirt, £385, Isabel Marant at Selfridges; Flared jeans, £390, Goldsign; Patchwork boots, £895, Ssone ¯ This page Houndstooth jacket, £3,200, blouse, £1,450, skirt, £2,500, belt, £760, all Dior; Black sandals, £165, Ancient Green Sandals; Gold ring, £150, Laura Lee

Black dress, £710, Cecilie Bahnsen at Selfridges; Black ballet flats, £895, Jimmy Choo

Above, from top Gold dress, £750, Ssone; Ring, £175, ¯ and petal drop earrings, £450, Ariana Boussard-Reifel; Black and white bag, £575, Rejina Pyo Facing page Gold dress, as before

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Below, and facing page Khaki sleeveless coat, £350, Mackintosh; White top, £325, and skirt, £295, Teija; Pearl drop earrings, £234, Anni Lu; Twist ring, £120, Annika Inez

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Model: Clara Raddatz at Milk Management. Hair and make-up: Dina at Frank Agency, using Tropic Skincare and IGK Hair

RADAR / Q&A

Treasured island

Founder Dom Fernando and creative partner Dan Preston discuss the authentic nods to Sri Lankan food and design that underpin new London eatery, Paradise Soho

Tell us how Paradise Soho came about.

Dom: I spent 15 years in hotels, the last five as head of brand for the Intercontinental Asia, Middle East and Africa. So coming from hospitality, I hadn’t specifically been in restaurants, but it was always something that I’d wanted to do ever since I was younger.

Growing up (in London) with Sri Lankan roots, I spent a lot of time going there, and I’d see how people did restaurants, design and hospitality on that side of the world. Two years ago, I quit my job in Singapore and came back to London to start up Paradise.

What was your vision and why Soho?

Dom: The thought behind Paradise was to blend the best of Sri Lankan contemporary design and food with the eclectic restaurant scene and edginess of London. Our tagline is “From Sri Lanka to Soho”, because for us, it’s the epicentre of food in the capital. The site we’ve gone into on Rupert Street was previously Spuntino, which was iconic when it first came along in 2009. Down the road you’ve got The Palomar and XU Tea House, and on the next street is the original Lina Stores. We wanted to be in that sort of company, among the best independent restaurants out there, but do it with Sri Lankan food.

Tell us the story of the food and how you came up with your concept.

Dom: Sri Lankan food is a mix of so many cultures; it’s got influences from South India, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Malays.

I wanted to take those recipes I grew up on and mix them with the best that the UK has to offer. When you go to Sri Lanka, no matter where you sit in the social pyramid, food is critical to everybody – and getting the freshest ingredients is what they’ll spend time and money on because it’s what brings food to life.

There have always been Sri Lankan restaurants in London – in Tooting, Wembley and Harrow – but the produce they use is not always the best quality. At Paradise, we get fresh day boat seafood like you get in Sri Lanka, but source it from the southern coast of England. We bring ingredients in from Sri Lanka but we’re looking to grow our own curry leaves and aubergines in Cornwall. So, with our ingredient-led philosophy, being in the restaurant really transports you to Sri Lanka for an hour and a half.

How did you find your head chef ?

Dom: I looked all over in the depths of East Ham and elsewhere for the right person, and I eventually met Charith Priyadarshan through a friend. He cooked for my family and they loved it, so we started doing supper clubs in London together each month to test the concept. Then we took a gamble and opened up Paradise Soho.

What look and feel were you going for with the interior design, and how did you connect with Dan? Dom: A lot of Asian restaurants are quite clichéd. I wanted to go down the bespoke

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As told to Elizabeth Choppin

RADAR / Q&A

Right Prior to launching Paradise, Charith Priyadarshan (left) and Dom Fernando held supper clubs to test the concept Below right Dan Preston designed and crafted the restaurant’s furniture in his Haggerston studio

route. I’d eaten at Kiln (another Soho restaurant designed by Preston) and I noticed how beautiful the stools were, and so I asked who designed the space. That’s how I found Dan. He positioned himself as a designer and maker, and from there the process was really collaborative.

John Neate; Courtesy of Dan Preston

What was the brief ?

Dan: A definitive brief was never really set; however, “Tropical Brutalism” was discussed during meetings at my studio, where we chatted through materials. From these meetings, we went away and experimented in the workshop, creating samples, finishes and models.

Were there specific sources of inspiration?

Dan: We took inspiration from tropical modernist architecture, namely Geoffrey Bawa.

Bawa’s architecture, although in materials it contrasts with its surroundings, seamlessly embraces its environment. Soho doesn’t have much tropical forest, but we thought a reference to the outdoors, with a subtle, softer garden experience, was important to incorporate within the design. The use of hand-made tiles and exposed brickwork (in the snug at the back) added to this idea.

Dom: We wanted to transport people with the design. Bawa’s architecture brings the outside in; it’s quite minimalist, and it mixes Scandi and Asian sensibilities. When we saw our Soho space for the first time, with its amazing

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RADAR / Q&A

“The restaurant is sleek and blends very simple, honest materials; while all the colour comes from the food and the people” high ceilings, we knew that we could do what we wanted with it.

How does materiality play into the design?

Dom: When you go to Sri Lanka, you see a lot of worn concrete and straight lines. It’s very pared back, with the colours brought about by the surroundings. Similarly, the restaurant is sleek and blends very simple, honest materials (like metal, timber, leather and glass), while the colour comes from the food and people. The thing that brings the space to life is the micro cement veneer (done by The Plaster Collective), which tries to mirror Bawa’s Sri Lanka.

Describe the difference between designing a place where people eat and drink versus other types of spaces?

Dan: It’s a good question… My approach to designing spaces is strongly influenced by my

fine art background and working as an installation artist at the start of my career.

I approach the design of restaurant spaces as an immersive experience, and not just as a place to eat and drink.

Dom: We’ve really taken an artisanal approach to each element of the space, from the bespoke tiles by Reiko Kaneko in the back of the restaurant, to our amber water glasses, which are recycled lime lager bottles cut in half and polished. The floor tiles are individual slate mosaics from the tropics, and all of our crockery was created for us in London. Every piece of furniture was handmade in Haggerston

by Dan in his studio. Really, our aim with Paradise was to transport people to Asia for a couple of hours, and introduce them to fresh food, atmosphere, and all the best that Sri Lanka has to offer.

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Above Most elements in the space, down to the crockery and water glasses, are bespoke

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César Manrique’s Cactus Garden. Read the full story on page 60 Image by Alastair Philip Wiper

JOURNEY Distinctive destinations

JOURNEY / Openings

New hotels

Unique places to stay, in destinations of note

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JOURNEY / Openings

Can Ferrereta, Mallorca

Paragon 700, Puglia

The second Mallorcan opening from hotelier Andrés Soldevila Ferrer, owner of design favourite Sant Francesc Hotel Singular in Palma, Can Ferrereta is a 17th-century townhouse in the coastal town of Santanyí. The hotel houses 32 rooms, two bars, a terrace restaurant, pool, gym and spa, and surrounding gardens. The Soldevila Ferrer family worked alongside the Mallorcan-based Bastidas Architecture and Spanish design house WIT Lab to create a “grand summer house feel”. Design details include a hessian palette with contrasting black wood panelling and metalwork, natural textured finishes, and a focus on local and Spanish contemporary art.

As Puglia’s tourist numbers start to swell, new boutique hotels are appearing in unique locations across the region. One such launch is Paragon 700, a strikingly elegant hotel and spa in Puglia’s “White City”, Ostuni. In contrast to its surroundings of picturesque white homes spread across the hillside, the 17th-century building is the only red palazzo here. Its history has been beautifully restored, from the frescoed walls and cathedral ceilings to the original 18th-century tiles in the bar. It’s furnished in eclectic style by owners Pascale Lauber and Ulrike Bauschke, and has 11 guest rooms, an enclosed citrus orchard and swimming pool with relaxation area.

hotelcanferrereta.com

paragon700.com

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Ben Fitchett

JOURNEY / Openings

Urban Cowboy Lodge, Catskills Designed as a rustic escape for city dwellers, Urban Cowboy Lodge makes the most of its mountainous location with rooms and communal areas that frame the view of the surrounding forest. Just two and a half hours’ drive from New York, the lodge itself dates back to 1898 and is located inside the Big Indian Wilderness area of the 700,000-acre Catskills Park. Interiors are thanks to co-owner and

designer Lyon Porter, whose signature style consists of geometric patterns, Americana antiques and repurposed structures. Room features include copper clawfoot bathtubs, potbelly stoves, fireplaces and private decks; while activites range from movie nights and board games to fly fishing and yoga. urbancowboy.com

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JOURNEY / Openings

Kãlesma, Mykonos Occupying a hilltop cluster of new whitewashed villas is Kãlesma, a boutique hotel set to open this June above Ornos Bay in the south west of the island. Inspired by the concept of a traditional Mykonian village, architects K-studio (who recently completed the new Mykonos airport) have created 25 sleek and minimalist suites and two separate villas, all with private pools and uninterrupted views over the bay. Bougainvillaea-filled archways set the scene outside and, inside, interiors by Vangelis Bonios display a signature sophisticated Mykonian style of white walls, a neutral and earthy colour palette and decorative straw accessories. kalesmamykonos.com

Hotel Plaza 18, Spain Located in one of Spain’s most beautiful hilltop towns – Vejer de la Frontera, in Andalucia – this striking “home-hotel” is poised to become a design favourite in the region. The six-room property, housed in an imposing 19th-century merchant house, has just undergone a two-year restoration by interior designer Nicky Dobree, using only entirely organic building materials. Its elegant original features are revived in a bold monochrome theme, cleverly softened with splashes of ochre velvet, azure blue upholstery and red artwork. Outside, there is a palm-filled courtyard and, upstairs, a roof terrace with views to the Atlantic beaches; plus, guests are granted full access to the facilities at the adjacent Hotel La Casa del Califa. califavejer.com

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Modern relic

A quiet Swiss town has been awoken by an ambitious restoration project Words / Ella Marshall Images / Max Zambelli

JOURNEY / Switzerland

W

ith its abundance of rolling pastoral hills, the turquoise blue waters of Lake Lugano and acres of vineyards, the village of Morcote could be in Italy. And it almost is. For this corner of Switzerland – just a mile from the border – Italy is more than a mere neighbour, it’s a prominent force, recognisable in both the landscape and contemporary aesthetics. It’s no surprise then, that when designer and architect Francesca Neri Antonello was commissioned in 2017 by a Swiss family to transform an ancient Morcote building into a hotel, the project soon became an artfully curated incarnation of a private Italian villa, bound together by equal parts classic charm and surprising modernity. The result, Relais Castello di Morcote, is now leading the charge in an unexpected rebirth of a town that has slept for years.

Previous page Rich hues and warm textures complement a panelled 19th century Japanese screen Facing page Touches of modern decor contrast with the historic fabric of the building

Described as a unique land between lake and sky, the village of Morcote is situated in a nook of Ticino’s most southern coastal stretch and positioned where huge swathes of agricultural land, forestry and lake shore converge. This sleepy medieval village is defined by a collective of stone houses, narrow alleys and the castle of Morcote – after which the Relais is named – and together, these are framed by a commanding scenery of rugged mountains and vast meadows. It all adds up to a monumental and well-placed launchpad from which to explore the many facets of southern Switzerland, an idyllic base made all the more alluring by the arrival of Relais Castello di Morcote last year.

Cut from a 19th century villa built on the remains of an ancient monastery dating back to the 1500s, Relais Castello di Morcote presents a retreat in every sense. Set on an expansive estate, the hotel possesses the intimacy and charisma of a private home

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and is where curious visitors are granted the opportunity to fully live and experience the fruits of Antonello’s painstaking restoration.

Having previously masterminded the renovations of two other properties in the area, the Switzerland-based designer knew enough about the remote town and –importantly – its history, to give the hotel the revival it deserved.

“This is a building that went through a lot of different lives,” she explains, “and one of my biggest objectives was to allow guests to be able to breathe in that history.” Galvanised by the freedom of reconstructing an historic site using memory as both a starting point and an intrinsic concept, Antonello was initially inspired by what she describes as “the essence” of the site, and found herself being guided further by additional research into its previous embodiments. Having first functioned as a villa for noble families in Morcote, then more recently as the headquarters of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), the property was already rich in history – the task was realising how to tangibly manifest that magic into a functioning hotel.

“This was, and is, a town of farmers – yet this is an extremely sophisticated villa,” observes Antonello. “It was owned at various stages by important families in a historically poor land – so, for me, the obvious direction was to go back to basics and try to encapsulate the essence of the territory.” Accordingly, the property is designed in a way that those who encounter it are genuinely unable to distinguish pre-existing features from newly-installed forms. Exuding the character of a private Italian villa, the hotel immediately puts visitors at ease; welcoming guests via a soaring, highceilinged living room, replete with original frescoes, painted wooden coffered ceilings and a cosy fireplace – a dazzling space in which to idle and, all clichés aside, feel “at home”.

JOURNEY / Switzerland

Above Left to right: antique items mix with custom pieces; original flooring was given a new lease of life

An intimate tearoom and Mediterranean-style garden add to the warm atmosphere, which Antonello says was achieved by leading the design process with the structure’s intrinsic attributes, rather than a modern hospitality blueprint.

organic tones and bold or pastel hues saturates the entire property and, when aligned with the hotel’s assortment of tactile textures, an abundance of natural light, and reclaimed oak and fir wood accents, emerges as a reflection of the encompassing scenery.

Correspondingly, an immense amount of dedication has been poured into the revamp of existing features. Original wood doors were enhanced and given new life, refreshed and revived with coats of bold blue paint and bronze handles; while a restored staircase was updated with new vigour. Antique furniture pieces gathered from Les Puces de Saint-Ouen in Paris are paired with newer cabinets, beds, handles, fireplaces and tables, all custom designed by Antonello and hewn by Italian craftsmen using local materials.

A striking palette that jumps between earthy,

It all comes to a stunning crescendo in the hotel’s 12 rooms, each space crafted to a tailored outline that pays respect to the both building’s ancient framework and the designer’s desire to allow every accommodation to tell its own story. As such, each room and suite follows its own colour theme and features a wholly individual setup and layout. However, all are bound by familiar threads: antica calce painted walls, delicate lighting – both natural and by way of fixtures by Viabizzuno – and an exciting play between textures and even design sensibilities. “When I started the project, I had

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JOURNEY / Switzerland

just returned from Japan,” reveals Antonello.

“If you look closely, you can see where my concept was influenced by this – especially in the volume and proportions as I tried to bring that Japanese simplicity and elegance to the project.” Ostensibly, this influence can also be detected in the presence of washi paper lamps and an unmissable art piece in the living room: a panelled Japanese screen dating back to the 1800s.

hikes through the nearby meadows and trails, horse-riding at the hotel’s own stable, or hiring electric mountain bikes to explore the site.

Off-site excursions extend to Vicania, the hotel’s second restaurant, located around three kilometres from the property and offering classic Swiss-Italian dishes created with seasonal ingredients – while for those remaining on-site, La Sorgente serves up Mediterranean fare.

Beyond the property’s storied walls, there is yet more to explore – 172-hectares to be exact.

The most obvious starting point for most visitors is Relais’ very own vineyard and winery – the hotel forms part of Tenuta Castello di Morcote, an estate producing biological wine varieties that span Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay and Sémillon.

More proactive guests may enjoy taking long

Together, it combines to create an impossibly bucolic Swiss fantasy come to life. Pure yet luxuriant, this hideaway strikes the right balance for truly sequestered stays inspired by the past that also remain very much in the present. Antonello sums it up best: “Elegance is simplicity. You can see everything at Relais Castello di Morcote. There is nothing and yet… there is a lot.”

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Above Left to right: colour palettes were carefully selected to complement existing features; Neri Antonello took inspiration from her Japanese travels for the washi paper lamps

JOURNEY / Photo essay

Two men, one island

For photographer Alastair Philip Wiper, a family holiday to Lanzarote led to a fortuitious creative awakening: it was on this Spanish island that he discovered the visionary works of former local artist, architect and activist, César Manrique, which were devised as a form of “intelligent tourism”. A return trip allowed Wiper to explore and document Manrique’s creations – and encapsulate the Spaniard’s legacy in his own distinctive style

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Previous page Left: At Casa del Campesino (1972), Manrique’s distinct architectural style purposefully juxtaposed the “soulless” buildings that were being developed elsewhere on the island.

Right: A spellbinding corridor of mirrors awaits guests at the Jameos del Agua – an Art, Culture and Tourist Centre nestled in a volcanic tunnel and featuring a blue lagoon Left Taro de Tahiche (1968), Manrique’s private residence for two decades, was built amongst a coulee formed from lava spewed during volcanic eruptions on the island in the 1700s – and sees his vibrant design married with the lunaresque landscape

Below Sat on a dormant volcano, food at the El Diablo restaurant in Timanfaya National Park (1968) is cooked using geothermal heat resonating from the ground below

Facing page At Casa del Campesino, art is also used to convey Manrique’s love of the island. Fertility (1968) is reflective of the rural landscape and was created using old sailing water tanks

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“The whole island is littered with Manrique’s sculptures and artworks – huge, colourful and intricate windmills and mobiles pop up on roundabouts and at the sides of roads”

“Manrique was very funny, enthusiastic and vehement about everything.

He was a man of black and white – there were no medium tones for him. You can feel that in his creations, which balance art, nature and bold modernity”

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Facing page At Mirador del Rio (1974), a spiral staircase carved from stone descends into a cave-like seating area which offers views over the Chinijo Archipelago National Park

Above Perched atop the Risco de Famara escarpment, vast windows on the other side of the property provide vistas of craggy, weatherworn rocks and the ocean below

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* DAMA armchair by Sentta // REED floor lamp by Creativemary EMILY armchair by Salma // RICHARD center table by Wood Tailors Hand-tufted RUG by Ferreira de Sá // PLANTS by Fiu - Jardins Suspensos

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

Floating stairs in a property designed by Michaelis Boyd. Read the full story on p90 Image by Gavriil Papadiotis

HOME Timeless spaces

Bold as brass

This refurbished west London home is a shining example of Astridge Szczepaniak’s collaborative talents Words / Jonathan Bell Images / Nicholas Worley

HOME / London

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stridge Szczepaniak is a new architecture studio, established by Simon Astridge and Nicholas Szczepaniak. Both had been in private practice on their own; Astridge has spent six years at the Architecture Workshop, a collaborative effort including an in-house collective of craftspeople, while Szczepaniak’s firm was established about five years ago. The two architects both worked at the studios of Michaelis Boyd, so have a long history of collaboration. Last year, Astridge took a short break to go travelling and returned to find a major commission had come his way.

“I discussed it with Nicholas, and we thought it would be nice to do it together.” Astridge Szczepaniak was born. By joining forces, they hope to combine specialisms and expand their reach; and both are keen to realise experimental ideas that help push the boundaries.

Previous page Glistening touches, such as taps and hobs, accentuate larger metallic storage pieces Right Dark wood furnishings complement the muted metallic tones

The Brass House is one of the first projects to be revealed by the new firm. A radical reconstruction of an early Victorian midterrace house in west London, Astridge Szczepaniak’s involvement included digging out a new basement and building a rear extension, as well as a complete refurbishment throughout. “The clients loved the colour of brass, so it became a theme,” Astridge explains from their Soho studio. “They also had a strong cultural connection to cooking – hence the

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brass kitchen became a focal point.” Working closely with regular collaborators Bulthaup, the architects explored the potential of using brass.

“It was the first time Bulthaup had ever worked with the finish,” Astridge reveals. ‘In the end, they built the kitchen then sprayed the units with liquid brass. It created an amazingly rich depth and texture.” Depending on the viewing angle, the units reflect light in subtly different ways, giving the kitchen a shimmering quality.

The material theme is continued throughout the upper floors. The linking staircase, for example, is built from folded mild steel but also given the brass spray treatment. All lighting fixtures, sockets and switches are also made of brass, while the yellow sofa upholstery helps bring out the alloy’s colouring. Lights are by Michael Anastassiades, while the taps used throughout are from VOLA’s custom brass range, with brass strips ringing the doorways.

Astridge Szczepaniak emphasise a consistency of finish and details – the same hinges and fixings, for example, are used in every door.

The highest floor is home to the master suite, planned around the activities of sleeping, bathing and dressing. The bed itself is treated as a secluded sleeping space, with the larger area at the front of the house given over to a suite of activities that pivot around a central

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Facing page Clockwise, from top left: Sprayed liquid brass units are a unique kitchen focal point; a cohesive palette is maintained throughout; shimmering stairs take the theme up a level; a dramatic circular skylight adds height

Above Long skylights, tall windows and glass panel doors allow an abundance of natural light to flood the space.

Reflected off the metallic surfaces, this serves to enhance the bright, airy and open feel

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HOME / London

“Once the kitchen was built, the units were sprayed with liquid brass. It created an amazingly rich depth and texture”

Right Small decorative touches allow the brass theme to continue throughout Following page The angular exterior panels and frames reflect the interior design; while Crittall doors allow more natural light to flow in

top-lit WC pod. “It’s basically divided along the lines of the fact that you need 30% of the space for sleeping and 70% for everything else,” explains Astridge. “There’s a bath area, dressing room space, washing area and large wardrobe.”

The flashes of brass are offset by rich natural materials like dark wood and brick, as well as polished concrete and parquet flooring. Space for planting is accommodated in the bathroom, further helping soften the edges of each room.

The new basement is given a distinctly different material treatment. There’s a small selfcontained flat, as well as a family activity area complete with boxing punchbag. The folding metal stairs that lead down to it are sparse and minimal, in keeping with the moodier theme. This is an area designed for flexibility and changing uses as the family grows.

Outside, exterior finishes were limited by planning concerns, but the new rear extension has rigorously simple cladding formed from vertical matte black metal trays which are hung from the structure. Crittall windows are used throughout, whether as internal divisions in the shower area or for the large openings to the garden. A final touch is the glazed “box” that projects out from the kitchen extension; it serves as a compact reading snug, cantilevered out above one of the two lightwells that bring sunlight down into the new basement.

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At 320 sqm, this is a generously sized house, with a modulation of light and materials that creates a subtle transition between the different living spaces. Astridge Szczepaniak’s bespoke approach is evident throughout, as is the experienced interaction between architect and craftsperson that is crucial to achieving so many of these details. The newlyfounded studio hopes to take these skills to another level, fusing Astridge’s experience in craftsmanship and the domestic realm with Szczepaniak’s more commercial and retail experience. Ongoing projects include a chain of high-end barbershops in the Middle East, shortly to expand to New York, and a regular commission for L’Occitante’s windows along Regent Street, which offers a chance to flex a more playful, installation-based approach.

There are other houses in the works, and the studio has no problem with staying small and engaging its network of close collaborators as required. “We really enjoy working together,” Astridge says. “We want to share the joy – and pain.” That will include an emphasis on craft and careful detailing, a shared obsession that runs through all their previous work.

While bigger jobs may offer a chance to distil the essence of a brand into a space, private residences like the Brass House offer a chance to push the boundaries of bespoke design.

Pure and simple

For a Japanese client, William Smalley created a peaceful abode with character and soul Words / Fiona McCarthy Images / Harry Crowder

HOME / London

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ool, calm and quiet – monastic even – are possibly not words you’d expect to describe an apartment on the fourth floor of a five story Italianate/late 19th century corner block on Jermyn Street in St James’s – an area renowned for its centuries-old gentleman’s tailors, shirt makers and barbers, and just a stone’s throw from the bustle of Piccadilly Circus. Yet, in this two-bedroom pied-à-terre, this is exactly how architect William Smalley’s well-considered, uncluttered design feels.

down to “an almost identical apartment” he had recently renovated for the landscape designer Kim Wilkie. Fascinated with the architect’s clever tricks of hidden pocket doors and dramatic vaulted hallway ceiling, it is unsurprising that, three months later, after Smalley had requested visual references from them for the things they might like, “I received an e-mail saying: ‘we have been through many websites and in conclusion we like Kim’s,” Smalley laughs.

The apartment, previously redeveloped in the late eighties, was a mess of yellow wallpaper, tired carpets and excessive window treatments.

“Huge curtains, then blinds, then net curtains, concealed five magnificent south-facing windows,” remembers Smalley. When the builders arrived, everything – including “sofas which needed sawing in half to remove, bad retro 1930s furniture, mean little Scottish watercolours, and an oven still with its instructions inside” – was discarded and Smalley started entirely from scratch.

He conceived the concept for a vaulted ceiling while redesigning Wilkie’s apartment, after realising that the then false ceiling concealed a brick arch tying it all together. In Wilkie’s abode, the vaulted ceiling runs only halfway: here, Smalley has run it full length, at nearly 3 metres high, off of which runs two bedrooms (with a desk integrated into one of the bedheads), two bathrooms (where the front bathroom doubles as a guest powder room), a living-cum-dining room and small kitchen.

The client, the owner of a Japanese trading company, had worked previously with Smalley on another apartment in the same building which was renovated and rented out. Here, “they wanted an English, not Japanese apartment, to be used a few times a year when visiting for business,” Smalley explains. Thanks to the “refined cultural sensibility” they brought to the project, the brief was “free from quotidian demands,” he enthuses. Carte blanche was given to create “spaces with a sense of purity.”

To discern ideas for how they might redesign the space, Smalley took the clients two floors

With the front door closed behind you, just a few moments standing in the hallway is grounding. It is a space imbued with an “incredible palpability”, Smalley enthuses. “It feels really dense, partly because there are no edges, as the wall seamlessly flows up on one side, across the ceiling, and down the other.”

Previous page The Amy Revier wall hanging is entitled “The Waves” – after the Virginia Woolf novel penned in the London Library across the road

In the living room, a dialogue of horizontal lines exists between the original streamlined cornicing and the sharp edges of the polished plaster fire surround and double layered skirting board. This contrasts with the otherwise subtle sensuality of curves found throughout the rest of the apartment – from

Facing page Details of custom furniture pieces, such as the sunken desk nook to hold pens and paper, reflect the level of detail in Smalley’s work

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Facing page The hallway was purposefully lined with polished plaster to capture and use light to optimum effect

HOME / London

“The hallway has incredible palpability. It feels really dense – partly because there are no edges. The wall flows seamlessly up one side, across, and down the other ”

the concaved full-height wall in one of the bathrooms designed to match the arc of the bathtub, to the way the walls in the rear bedroom imperceptibly meld into the ceiling, blurring the edges and helping prevent the room “from feeling like a box”.

A discreet playfulness with texture has also brought “a softening in subtle ways,” says Smalley: from the “imperfect” knotted English oak used for floors and bespoke furniture to shelving niches lined with supple leather. The polished plaster of the hallway and bathroom walls, as well as all the doors, dreamily “catches and reflects the light in a dappled way,” he adds. Other details, like a bench by Muller van Severen, executed with three different slabs of marble, creates interest at the end of the hallway alongside the sculptural Ingo Maurer paper and stainless steel floor lamp.

Facing page While Smalley remarks the leather armchair slightly resembles “a punchbag”, it serves to balance out the polished living space Following page An array of textures – wood, marble, ceramic and linen – are used to create elements of interest within the pared down bedroom

In the living room, the Purbeck stone used for the fireplace hearth is polished in the vertical plain and flamed horizontally to lend a visual twist on the same material. Alongside this sits the slightly leftfield choice of Lucy Kurrien’s Rondo leather armchair for Molinari Living – “a bit like a punch bag,” beams Smalley; yet this works to balance, rather than disrupt, the otherwise pared back space. “In any interior, it’s all a question of equilibrium,” he says. “This big russet-red armchair could make the whole room want to tip up in a way but, actually, it balances the desk, holding its own in the corner.” Otherwise, “none of the pieces are trying to make a statement or be part of the architecture,” he says. The chairs are soft and

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curved simply because “soft and curved makes for a nicer chair to sit in.”

Moving on, over the dining table, a specially commissioned wall hanging by textile artist Amy Revier – famed for her one-off coats which she fashions from fabric, and into which elements such as stainless steel, paper and cedar are woven – perfectly offsets the black and white of the Howard Hodgkin etching hung on the opposite wall.

Alongside choosing all the furniture – including mid-century classics such as Hans Wegner’s CH23 dining chairs and CH22 lounge chair for Carl Hansen & Søn – as well as crockery, cutlery and Italian bedlinen, Smalley also custom designed the sleek brass door handles (inspired by similar he’d once seen at the Katsura Imperial Villa in the outskirts of Kyoto) and wall lights which intimate the idea of “a cupped hand holding a candle,” he explains. Both were made specifically for the project by the fifthgeneration Carl Auböck workshop in Vienna.

The result is a space which feels inherently comfortable but timeless. Small, welcoming gestures, like the way Smalley has designed the carving of discreet nooks into the top of bedside cabinets or the desk to place rings, keys, pens and paper, “make all the difference,” he says. When the owners came to see it for the first time, having been away for a year, “they were fairly silent, giving just a nod, which I took as a sign of great respect,” reflects Smalley.

“It was clear they felt very at home here.”

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Step change

In this three-storey London family flat, a floating staircase sets the tone for an array of inspiring quirks and design touches Words / Becky Sunshine Images / Gavriil Papadiotis

HOME / London

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rchitect Alex Michaelis, co-founder of the award-winning London and New York practice Michaelis Boyd – best known for their work with commercial and residential buildings, including numerous private residences around the world – savours the experience of working with a client willing to take chances. Ideal then, that a west London-based family, who engaged the studio to design their two-storey apartment 10 years ago, returned for a challenging update.

Originally, the architects were asked to connect two separate apartments spread across the first and second floors of a five-storey stuccofronted Georgian building to become one home. Then, more recently, the place was reconfigured to include new family rooms and an outdoor terrace on an additional third floor.

“It wasn’t in a wonderful decorative state when we started the project,” admits Michaelis.

“Great ceilings, all the standard period details – we kept most of them – but it was boring.

The husband is a financier and she’s a Parisian art consultant and collector; between them they wanted to inject a bit of life into the place.” The couple also had an art and 20th century furniture collection, which they were keen to incorporate into the design scheme.

The maisonette, now a substantial 270 sqm of bright living space, is a seamless mix of elegant

and lived-in, fusing the architectural vernacular of the neighbourhood with the family’s more contemporary tastes.

Where there were dividing walls on the first floor, most were knocked down to create a large, open-plan 50 sqm living space. It’s a practically uninterrupted stretch, save for some internal Crittall glazed walls – which form a small study, floor-to-ceiling with books.

A kitchen is at the one end, again partitioned

by Crittall glass, and features a bespoke Bulthaup stainless-steel clad island and worktop with an intimate dining area.

“We wanted to add something that defined the space, but allowed the client to still read the volumes,” explains Michaelis. “Volumes are so important in these types of buildings. If you suddenly take two metres to put in a wall, you can end up with something uncomfortable that doesn’t feel right. This way, it allows you to read the space as it should be read, to understand its proportions.”

Adding a sense of fun and adventure in the home is a signature for Michaelis Boyd. The architect’s own London home, which he shares with his wife and their seven children, is case in point – there’s an internal slide and a fireman’s pole. “We’re all children until we die, aren’t we?” he says. “I’ve always felt that architecture can be taken too seriously but, actually, it can

Previous page Inspired by Korean installation artist Doh Ho Suh, the dramatic stairs accentuate the grandeur of the living space Facing page Internal Crittall glazed walls create a sense of airy flow, while still allowing for privacy

“I’ve always felt that architecture can be taken too seriously but, actually, it can be the most amazing, playful, sculptural thing”

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be the most amazing, playful, sculptural thing.

Those lovely, quirky details we can add to buildings that don’t always cost much more, make people smile and add an element of surprise and fun.”

Previous page The owners’ existing collection of art and 20th century furniture was integrated throughout Facing page Top to bottom: the bespoke kitchen is ideal for both intimate family dinners and entertaining; the architects wanted to retain – but liven up – the home’s period features

The quirky touches at this residence – aside from some wonderfully-spirited bathrooms with clashing graphic walls and unexpected skylights opening up internal rooms – is focused on one architectural showstopper: a post-box red, perforated metal suspended staircase designed by Michaelis Boyd in collaboration with Webb Yates Engineers and Diapo, that connects the first and second floors. Inspired by the work of Korean installation artist Doh Ho Suh and set within the traditional grandeur of the room, the floating stairs, which hover lightly above a Dinesen oak floor and next to a long formal dining table, is where the magic of this entire home lies. Arguably, the industrial quality of the material and it’s lack of direct relationship with any of its surroundings, should jar here.

And yet, it suits the room perfectly. Michaelis is clearly thrilled with the results.

“It was really brave of the owners to agree to it,” says Michaelis. “It’s completely floating and really is a piece of art. We don’t have many clients who are willing to let us do something as mad as this. There was months of design work with structural engineers trying to make

it work without obvious steels and visible fixings. There were discussions about colour, too. I initially wanted a subtler, more elegant off-white, but someone I was working with suggested it should be bright red. We rendered it and it looked incredible; you could see its form much more clearly, so that’s what we did.”

Up those unexpectedly easy-to-navigate stairs and you’re into the family’s private area: four bedrooms and two ensuites; while a corridorlike walk-in wardrobe off the pared-back white master bedroom conceals a pleasing amount of storage. “The client was very keen to get those details right, and ensure it wasn’t boring,” says Michaelis. Off the more informal family kitchen on the third floor, dark grey USM units become the perfect showcase for the children’s toy collections.

The natural light here is particularly special.

The apartment being set in a corner property means large windows on the front, back and sides of the building. It makes a difference.

On the new third floor addition, there’s also a sizeable indoor and outdoor terrace. The indoor section has a retractable glazed roof, an ideal spot to sit during the colder months. As the weather warms, the doors slide open to reveal an outdoor seating area with a table and chairs designed by Michaelis Boyd, using Dinesen timber. It’s easy to picture the elegant parties at this place.

“It was really brave of the owners to agree to the staircase… We don’t have many clients who are willing to let us do something as mad as this”

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Facing page It took months of planning with engineers to conceal fixtures and fittings and give the stairs their seamless ‘hanging’ appearance

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Below In contrast to the sharp lines of the staircase and Crittall panes, the bathroom comprises smooth curves in a Kubrick-like design

Above Left to right: Dinesen oak flooring in an arrow design adds length to the dressing room corridor; myriad textures and lines are carefully coordinated in the master bedroom 100

Below The new third floor terrace boasts outdoor space and an indoor area with retractable roof – making it ideal for year-round entertaining

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Timeless appeal

A refined colour palette and restored original features align in this Georgian home Words / Charlotte Abrahams Images / Malcolm Manzies

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HOME / London

“T

imelessness is an important quality,” says London-based interior designer Kerri Lipsitz. “I tend to steer clear of anything too ‘of the moment’, because I believe my clients should invest in something that will last a lifetime.” Her latest project, a three storey Georgian home in one of the capital’s leafy northern ‘villages’, is an elegant, tranquil example of this philosophy in practice.

Despite last being modernised 20 years ago, Lipsitz felt an instant affinity with the building.

“I am very interested in architectural features, such as cornices, architraves and panelling,” she explains. “They mean you have history and beautiful detail built into the architectural canvas. Not all the original features [here] had been maintained well, but it had good bones.”

Her first response was to restore the canvas, turning those good bones into great ones. In some cases, this meant repairing what was there; elsewhere, it required a bit of architectural licence. The panelling in the living room was a Lipsitz intervention to accentuate the ceiling height, while the central staircase was remodelled with bespoke newel posts and hidden support beams to give it “a more considered, lighter feel that had real presence.”

Attention then turned to the decor. Lipsitz prefers paint over paper and, in this house, she painted everything – walls, ceiling, doors and all – the same shade of warm white. “There’s a lot of natural light, so we worked to ensure we chose a colour that was appropriate day and night,” she states. “When doing something so simple, it has to be very considered.”

Such decorative restraint not only delivered the fresh, calm interior the client had requested, but it also provided the perfect neutral backdrop for one of Lipsitz’s signature techniques – the creation of what she calls ‘confident contrasts’.

“It’s about the balance of opposing elements, using one to off-set another,” she explains. “It’s how I create what I believe to be an aesthetic of discrete luxury. In the living room, for instance, we used the low-backed sofa to act as a contrast to the height of the ceiling. In the kitchen, we

mixed styles of furniture – placing mid-century Kaare Klint dining chairs with an antique French refectory table and bespoke joinery.”

There are textural contrasts everywhere, too.

Hard surfaces such as limestone, granite and marble rub up against soft wood; shiny leather is set against slubby linen. “Texture is the focal point for me,” says Lipsitz, “so the feel of the materials I use, and the relationship they form because of the way I have placed them through the scheme, become very important.”

The visual impact of materials is also crucial.

Lipsitz has used them in this house to build another layer of confident contrast, and also to create pattern. A single armchair and a scattering of cushions aside, there is no printed pattern here at all: but the rooms are so full of interest that it takes a while for this to sink in.

In the study, there is pattern in the grain of the 1960s Danish rosewood and teak desk and the veining of the limestone floor tiles; in the master bedroom, it’s in the coarse weave linen light shade and bedhead; and, in the living room, the pattern comes from the everchanging surface of the zinc-wrapped bar unit.

“I always encourage clients to use natural materials that get better with time,” she says.

“In this project, I was particularly keen that the hard finishes should build up a lovely patina as they age. Zinc is one of those beautiful living materials that is always changing as it oxidises.”

Persuading her clients to choose materials with aesthetic and functional longevity is one way Lipsitz ensures her interiors stand the test of time. Another is to design spaces which suit their lives. These clients wanted to live in an uncluttered way, and that meant giving them plenty of storage – particularly in the kitchen.

“We wanted the kitchen to be functional,” she explains, “but also feel like a wonderful place to entertain. The solution was a bespoke cupboard – it means there’s a place for everything.”

Lipsitz says she loved working on this project.

It shows. This is a beautifully understated space that speaks to and of those who call it home.

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Previous page A 2018 untitled painting by Spanish artist Pati Batzán makes a bold statement Facing page Left to right: the same warm white shade was used for floors, walls and curtains; original features are key to the ‘architectural canvas’ of this period home

Right An oil on canvas piece by Spaniard Guillem Nadal brings a touch of the modern to the original wood panelling

“I tend to steer clear of anything too ‘of the moment’, because I believe my clients should invest in something that will last a lifetime”

Above Next to a bespoke armchair by Julian Chichester sits a one-of-a-kind Tonga stool, hand-carved by the Batonga people of Zimbabwe

Right The bright kitchen offers prime entertaining space and functionality, with bespoke features and storage units helping enhance both aspects

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In the pink

Villa Serralves is a homage to Art Deco style – and the vision of its single-minded creator Words / Jo Leevers Images / Rachael Smith

HOME / Porto

W

hen the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes was held in Paris in 1925, a new style was born. And it was also at this now-legendary exhibition that the movement was given a name – Art Deco.

I have taste – and French taste at that’,” explains architect and curator João Almeida e Silva, who works with the Serralves Foundation.

As bold statements go, Cabral’s villa took a while to make its point. Building work began in 1927, but a series of revisions and additions meant it wasn’t finished until 1941. The Portuguese architect José Marques da Silva oversaw the work, but the style and decoration definitely took its lead from Paris.

Among the visitors in thrall to this modern look was Carlos Alberto Cabral, the 2nd Count of Vizela in Portugal. Cabral’s money came from his family’s textile mills in the north of Portugal, but he was more an aesthete than an industrialist. He visited the 1925 exposition with the aim of acquiring inspiration and expertise for his own project back home, and was particularly taken by a set of rooms by the furniture designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann.

When Cabral returned to Portugal, he began the process of building a home that would pay homage to his beloved Parisian style.

The striking pink palette was dreamed up by the French architect Charles Siclis, who Cabral consulted. He sent the count two watercolours depicting the facades of the villa. “In these paintings, the plasterwork, the flowers, even the gravel, were tinted a creamy pink,” says Almeida e Silva. “They gave Cabral his starting point and his palette.”

Previous page and facing page: Serralves Foundation/Gervais Outubro

Today, Serralves Villa in Porto stands as an outstanding example of French Art Deco architecture. Known locally as ‘Casa Cor de Rosa’, or the Pink House, it was built on the site of his family’s more modest 19th century farmhouse. Cabral’s aim was to establish a modern architectural icon for the city – and to show Porto high society that he was a gentleman to be reckoned with.

Having seen Ruhlmann’s work in Paris, Cabral commissioned him to decorate and furnish the villa’s interior, but unfortunately Ruhlmann died in 1933, before he could complete it.

Instead, his nephew Alfred Porteneuve, also a designer, took over.

It was Portenueuve who created the villa’s pink marble bathroom – perhaps the best preserved of the rooms, and the one that gives a true flavour of the lifestyle enjoyed by the Count and his wife, Blanche Daubin.

“With this house, he wanted to say, ‘Admire me, not just because I am rich, but because

Facing page Built on the site of a modest farmhouse, locals fondly call the villa Casa Cor de Rosa, or 'The Pink House'

Previous page Count Alberto Cabral's villa brought the best of Art Deco architecture to the heart of the Portuguese coastline

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HOME / Porto

Sections of pink Portuguese marble and mirror glass form a circular shape within the room: “It’s designed like a clock face, emphasised by the marble floor tiles, which radiate from a central point,” Almeida e Silva explains.

by Lalique, and the dining table would have been exquisitely laid with Rouard porcelain and silverware from Mappin & Webb.

Receipts for these items – and more – are among Cabral’s paperwork, now filed away in the foundation’s archives. But almost all the original furniture is long gone, auctioned off in the 1950s when real life finally intruded on the Count’s vie en rose.

When Madame Daubin entered from the master bedroom, her bath lay straight ahead, at 12 o’clock. Turning her gaze out of the window, at 2 o’clock, she could survey neat parterres and water features created by Parisian garden designer Jacques Gréber.

“It was as if Cabral created a microworld at Serralves,” says Almeida e Silva. “For 14 years, he deliberated over the designs, adding and rebuilding. In the meantime, war broke out in Europe, and Portugal entered a dictatorship.

Yet, by and large, work seemed to continue slowly and steadily, in a sort of vacuum.”

Meanwhile, to the left, mirrored doors concealed cabinets (including a safe for her jewellery) and her dressing room. A final door hid a toilet and bidet: “Following the French way, they were kept separate from the bathing area,” adds Almeida e Silva.

But, eventually, there was no avoiding the reality of Portugal’s post-war economy, which hit the family business hard; and in 1955, the villa was sold to another textile magnate, Delfim Ferriera. The Portuguese state bought the house and grounds from him in 1987.

The inset white enamel tub is a later addition, dating from the 1950s when the house was sold. “The next lady of the house found the bare marble too cold for comfort,” explains Almeida e Silva. However, the museum has not attempted to remove it for fear of damaging the marble underneath.

However, Almeida e Silva says, it would be glib to dismiss Cabral as a Gatsby-esque figure.

“Yes, he built a pink palace amid a grey, granite world. But Cabral was essentially a good man.

He cared deeply about design and wanted to create a piece of architecture for Porto that would endure. And, in that, he has succeeded.”

Every room of this house was once full of Art Deco furniture, lighting and rugs that were on a par with the quality of work in this bathroom.

Parquet flooring was laid by a carpenter trained in Paris. A glass rooflight was designed

Facing page The angles and shapes within Jacques Greber's landscaped garden design mirror those seen in the main property

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Serralves Foundation/FG + SG Facing page Located off the garden, the collonade bucks the colour palette that dominates the rest of the villa

Above Although much of the original furniture was sold in the 1950s, the property retains its bold architectural features

“Cabral cared deeply about design and wanted to create a piece of architecture for Porto that would endure�

Facing page The white enamel bath was added to the original marble tub by the villa's subsequent ower in the 1950s

Above With the room unusually designed in the shape of a clockface, mirror panels and doors reflect light and conceal cabinets

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‘Tulips’ by Alarah Gee. Read the full story on p132

ART & COLLECTING A cultural review

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Agenda

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

Zanele Muholi, Tate Modern, London 29 April – 18 October 2020

Zanele Muholi’s artistic mission is “to re-write a black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence.” Born in Durban, Muholi came to prominence in the 2000s with bold, celebratory photographs of the LBGT+ community – using imagery as a form of empowerment,

and a way to remedy invisibility and counter victimhood.

Muholi refers to themselves as a “visual activist”, and their more recent striking self-portraiture series interrogates heteropatriarchy and racist spectatorship.

This exhibit marks Muholi’s first mid-career survey show in the UK, and will also travel to Germany and Sweden.

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Courtesy of The Museum of Everything

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Glasgow International, Scotland 24 April – 10 May 2020

The theme of the 2020 edition of Glasgow International – Scotland’s biennial celebration of contemporary art – is ‘attention’: asking pertinent questions about focus and consciousness in a frenetic era of 24-hour news cycles and social media. Directed by Richard Parry, the

programme encompasses exhibitions, events, talks and screenings: highlights include new commissions from Martine Syms, Georgina Starr, and Jenkin van Zyl, and a performance from Lina Lapelytė, fresh from winning the prestigious Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

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Courtesty of Langlands & Bell

Courtesy of Xu Zhen and Art Night. Image: Hugo Glendinning

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Langlands & Bell, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London

Art Night, London

The remarkable Sir John Soane’s Museum, the former house of the renowned neo-classical British architect, offers an enigmatic backdrop for this exhibition by collaborators Langlands & Bell. In addition to showing key pieces from their four-decade career amongst the museum’s permanent collection of art and antiquities, the artists have conceived a special commission for the Breakfast and Library-Dining Rooms. Thinking through ideas about international travel and architecture, this explores the 18th century tourism custom of “The Grand Tour”, and society’s relationship with architecture today.

Founded in 2016 by Ksenia Zemtsova and Philippine Nguyen, Art Night is London’s free, nocturnal, contemporary art festival. This year’s event will be the second edition curated by their Artistic Director Helen Nisbet, and is titled “Nothing Compares 2 U” after the iconic song famously performed by Sinead O’ Connor.

Each year, the festival focuses on a different area of London, this time taking place on The Strand. Across venues including Somerset House and 180 The Strand, the programme seeks to explore small acts of defiance and self-determination in music, literature and art.

20 June 2020

Until 31 May 2020

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Courtesy of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tate Britain, London 20 May – 31 August 2020

With around 80 paintings and works on paper from 2003 onwards, this exhibit will mark the most extensive survey of British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s career to date.

Her enigmatic paintings can be seen to embrace the conventions of European portraiture, but the genre is

transformed via her depiction of fictional subjects within otherworldly, often timeless environments. Her evocative and lyrical titles, such as Tie the Temptress to the Trojan (2016), underscore her interest in creating an imaginative space in which the viewer can project interpretations.

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© 2019 Alex Katz/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Courtesy of Helsinki Art Museum. Image: Maija Toivanen

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Helsinki Biennial 2020, Finland

Alex Katz, Museo Thyssen, Madrid

The inaugural edition of the Helsinki Biennial, organised

by Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola, head curators of Helsinki Art Museum, will collate the work of 35 leading Finnish and global artists. Taking place on Vallisaari island, a former military base with an intriguing combination of biodiversity and urban heritage, the biennial will address the art industry’s responsibility for the environment, by showing how the cultural sector can set a positive example in sustainability – particularly apt, as Helsinki aims to be a carbon neutral city by 2035.

The Museo Thyssen is one of three points on Madrid’s “Golden Triangle of Art”, which also includes the Prado and the Reina Sofia. This summer, works by Pop Art’s idiosyncratic outlier Alex Katz will grace their walls, marking the artist’s first retrospective in Spain.

Accompanied by various preliminary studies, the display will include around 30 large-scale oil paintings in his trademark colourful, graphic style, and offer a survey of all of the artist’s habitual themes: individual and group portraits, distinctive flowers and sweeping landscapes.

12 June – 27 September 2020

23 June – 4 October 2020

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© Sheila Hicks. Courtesy of Alison Jacques Gallery, London. Image: Noam Preisman

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Sheila Hicks, The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire 24 June – 7 October 2020

Designed by acclaimed architect David Chipperfield, The Hepworth Wakefield is in the heart of Yorkshire, overlooking the River Calder. This summer, they will host a major exhibition of work by the pioneering American textile artist Sheila Hicks. Known for her monumental,

colourful, site-specific installations, the show will also display smaller woven drawings from earlier in her career – demonstrating her lifelong experimental and innovative approach. Hicks is also slated to engage with the outdoors, notably at the adjacent Hepworth Wakefield Garden.

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Courtesy of Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/2020, ProLitteris, Zurich

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Isa Genzken, Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland 6 June – 11 October 2020

The Kunstmuseum Basel, the most significant public art collection in Switzerland, will this summer present exhibitions by three leading contemporary female artists: Kara Walker, Tacita Dean and Iza Genzken. The Genzken show will focus on the artist’s career from 1973 to 1983,

presenting the largest-ever gathering of the “Ellipsoids” and “Hyperbolos” works. She began these monumental lacquered wooden floor sculptures while at the Düsseldorf Academy, in response to the American AbstractExpressionist and Minimalist art being shown at the time.

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© Ninagawa Mika

© Manifesta. Image: Simone Sapienza

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Manifesta 13, Marseille, France

Tokyo: Art & Photography, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

7 June – 1 November 2020

16 July – 22 November 2020

This year, the European Nomadic Biennial, Manifesta, will take place in the lively port city of Marseille. The event originated in the early 1990s in response to the socio-political upheaval that followed the end of the Cold War, seeking to develop a roving dialogue on art and society throughout the continent. Against the location’s history of immigration, multiculturalism and trade, this edition focuses on themes of solidarity and diversity – with the curators promising to transform and activate the existing cultural institutions with fresh voices.

To coincide with the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is due to explore the varied and vibrant history of the Japanese capital, and the art it has generated over the last 400 years. Starting from its beginnings as the headquarters of the Tokugawa shoguns in the early 1600s, the show will include exquisite arts from the Edo period (1603 – 1868) when the country was officially closed to the outside world; iconic woodcuts from Hokusai and Hiroshige; and the avant-garde photography of Moriyama Daido and Ninagawa Mika.

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© Unidade Infinita Projectos

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Joana Vasconcelos, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton Until 3 January 2021

Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s 2020 exhibition programme is dominated by women and, in March, they opened the largest-ever presentation of sculptures by contemporary Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos – known for her vibrant, monumental sculptures which blend everyday

objects and the traditions of craftwork. Central to the exhibit is Valkyrie Marina Rinaldi (2014): with wild limbs made from fabric, multi-coloured crochet, and flamboyant embellishments, it is a vivid re-imagining of the prestigious female warriors from Norse mythology.

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ART & COLLECTING / Profile

Coming full circle

Leeds-based artist Alarah Gee on why defining her process meant finding herself

Words Harry McKinley Portrait Joanne Crawford

A

rtist Alarah Gee is a Yorkshire lass through and through. She was born and raised in Leeds and, after lengthy stints in Manchester and London, it is to Leeds she has returned. We wander the city’s art gallery together. It’s a place that has long inspired her – its labyrinthine library a space she often comes to find solitude. She is, she explains, most at peace and most able to create, alone.

Gee’s work is measured, even careful, but to the observer, rarely tentative. Abstractions in paper and ink, there’s a sense that her marks have been placed with confidence. Used so sparingly, they must be.

“I map a composition out in my head,” she says, “and then it’s almost a case of continuously removing elements. It’s a dangerous game though, as I might go too far. The brushstrokes lead what I’m constructing, but people respond to objects that they’re used to.”

Her Leeds vowels are still pronounced, unsoftened by her time in the capital. Unlike other young creatives lured by the Big Smoke, there was no process of personal reinvention; no period when her accent was forced into submission in favour of something more inline with her peers. She talks about Yorkshire with a still fresh fervour. It’s doesn’t inform her work, per se, but it has shaped the artist she is.

Facing page After initially facing creative uncertainty, Gee now designs on her own terms

In adolescence, Gee attended a comprehensive school. She recalls it fondly, but wasn’t particularly well behaved or all that academically minded; although she excelled in art. Her teachers encouraged her to concentrate

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her efforts, to “make a go of it.” She would ultimately secure a place on the Fine Art Foundation at Leeds College of Art, now Leeds Arts University.

“It changed my world completely,” she explains.

“There have been some great artists through those doors: Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, even Damien Hirst. You can see the commonality in how we were taught, the use of the circle for example – something you still see in Hirst’s work.”

Upon advancing to a bachelors at Nottingham Trent, anxiety set in. She felt she had fallen into a pigeon hole, choosing a textiles degree like her female peers; while the boys invariably gravitated towards graphic design.

“It was years ago now, but I was at a point in my life when I didn’t know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be. Even worse was that voice from Leeds saying, ‘you need to get a proper job’.” She listened though, got various “proper jobs”, and a period in the wilderness beckoned. It’s not a time she’s keen to linger on – after all, two years ago she course-corrected and began to apply her talents, on her own terms.

“If you’re creative in nature, you’ll never be able to turn away from it without feeling as though you’ve lost a part of yourself,” she says. “No matter how hard I tried, I certainly couldn’t.”

Now represented by online art gallery Tappan Collective, Gee has refined her work and developed a solidly identifiable aesthetic. At

Tappan Collective

ART & COLLECTING / Profile

Facing page Still Life 14 (2019) Right Top to bottom: Brushstrokes bring a sense of authenticity and creativity that Gee believes technology often cannot muster; stemming from her days at Leeds College of Art, circles play a key role in her artworks

the simplest level, her pieces are an exercise in shape and structure; while at the most complex, a story of rebellion, catharsis and self-discovery – for artist and audience alike.

“I’m hyperactive, even childlike,” she explains.

“Because my mind is so busy, my work helps me regain focus. It’s the balance to who I am as a person. The precision levels me.”

There’s something interesting in the juxtaposition between a buoyant, at times untethered personality, and austere, measured work – Gee and her pieces are two sides of the same coin, her creative outlet serving to create some intangible sense of equilibrium. It’s why the authenticity of her process is so important, each circle painted and every line etched with the sweep of a hand. She has nothing against digital processes but, as in life, has gradually fallen out of love with the encroaching nature of technology.

“Knowing which tool to apply on a computer is different from knowing how to apply a particular brushstroke to a piece of paper. It changes the creative process entirely. Working digitally takes a part of the magic away – it’s just not as soulful or personal. There’s nothing like applying a brush to paper and seeing what happens. I’ll never be able to create that stroke again and there’s a beauty in that. Generally, I’ve got no time for phones or emails either, I’ve just become less tolerant,” she says, with

a wide laugh, the words of a much more wizened character than the 37-year-old artist strolling alongside us.

For her next gambit, to be unveiled later this year, Gee has turned her hand to colour, inspired by the Bauhaus redesign of the humble Nivea tin in 1925. It took hours of alchemy to perfect the warm blue ink needed.

“I’m at an exciting juncture where I feel the possibilities are endless. There’s so much I still want to experiment with. Being back in Leeds reminds me that it’s the way you learn, not where you learn. As for me, I’m still learning and relearning, pushing myself a little further creatively every day.”

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Following page Clockwise, from top left: Tulips (2019); YA LI Pear (2019); My Girl (2018); Mi Haus (2018); Light Up My Life (2018)

Tappan Collective

Visto Images

ART & COLLECTING / Profile

The new storytellers

For art consultancy Visto Images, paintings and sculptures represent far more than just decor: together, they can evoke a visceral response and open windows into a whole other world

Words Richard Unwin

Facing page Top to bottom: At the Fairmont Rey Juan Carlos I in Barcelona, Visto aimed to create a dialogue between art in the city and the hotel; ‘Portrait of Mary Spencer’

by Follower of Godfrey Kneller hangs at The Lanesborough

Q

uestions about how people inhabit and interact with specific public places have occupied Alex Toledano for a long time. As he explains, when studying for a PhD in history, focused on the 20th century story of a particular neighbourhood in Paris’s 10th Arrondissement, he spent a lot of time looking at a single street corner, watching how people responded to it: how fast they walked, where they stopped, which posts they leaned on.

The connection wouldn’t have been apparent at the time, but Toledano’s interest in the details of how people experience space is something he now regularly puts to use - in considering how people will react to the artwork his consultancy, Visto Images, selects for some very high profile places. Co-founded with his childhood best friend, Seth Rosenbaum – who holds a PhD in literature – Visto’s academic credentials are not unusual for an art consultancy. However, the pair’s ability to think about a space in its broad historical and cultural context, and to find art that can sit within an overarching, site-specific narrative, has set them apart for major hospitality and real estate players.

With offices in Paris, Cyprus, the United Kingdom and the United States, and a modus operandi of supplying individually curated art

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collections to some of the most prestigious international hotels and property developments, Visto’s world is ostensibly one of glamour and elegance. Delving deeper into the company’s story doesn’t necessarily remove any of that veneer or exceptionalism, but it does become clear that a readiness to ride with the rhythm of construction and large-scale renovation projects is key to their work. What is perhaps most apparent, though, is that this is very much a cerebral, ideas-driven enterprise; where the intention is to link spaces with the places where they are situated, and to create a narrative that can engage and stimulate the people who experience them.

Having completed dozens of high-end projects in a period of only a few years, Visto’s portfolio encompasses apartment buildings in Hong Kong and New York, and shopping malls in the Middle East. The company is best known, though, for its work in hotels – with its services usually engaged during a moment of construction or major renovation, when the funds to spend on an identity-defining art collection are more likely available. Rather than loaning the work, clients buy each piece outright, with Visto exploiting every avenue of the global art market, often including commissioning new work, to build the collection. Key hotel projects include creating

ART & COLLECTING / Profile

be decorative. The challenge for Visto, Toledano continues, is around “trying to… create meaning. Even if we do an amazing job and an entire collection that we’ve put together is curated to the same level of detail of a gallery or museum exhibition, people don’t expect it, so they won’t look for it. So the question is: how do you show someone that there is something to look at?”

Above Seth Rosenbaum (left) and Alex Toledano, co-founders of Visto Images Image by Christopher Lim Facing page Top to bottom: Picasso’s ‘Femme au Tablier Raye Vert’ catches eyes at the London Model Apartment; over 2000 pieces were sourced for The Lanesborough

collections for The Lanesborough, London – Visto’s first large-scale project, completed in 2015 – and 25Hours Hotel Paris Terminus Nord, recently dubbed the “coolest new hotel in Paris” as a result of Visto’s input.

The answer to Toledano’s question includes not only selecting the right pieces in the first place, but also the careful consideration of where each piece is placed and how people will approach and interact with them. Pathways through a space are taken into account, so that a narrative can form as people view work in a certain sequence, or so that a painting viewed in a guest’s bedroom can trigger a connection to a statement piece positioned in the lobby.

Even so, more complex concepts can sometimes prove a particular challenge. In the case of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, for example, the collection was based around artists who engage with the environment and nature, but through the use of new technologies: in reference to the greenery of the park, as well as the Great Exhibition held there in 1851 to celebrate technical innovation. A nice concept, but not, Toledano acknowledges, an obvious one. Visto’s solution was for the hotel to leave cards in guests’ rooms each evening that briefly introduce an individual artwork and explain its connection to the collection’s concept. As Toledano says, “It only takes a small cue and a few seconds to trigger a connection… to engage people in the narrative.”

What Visto does, Toledano says, is “curating, but with a view to permanence rather than temporary impact.” A crucial consideration is always how to communicate the curatorial concept to the people who will ultimately use or experience a space after the artwork is installed. As Toledano explains: “In a hotel, you have to show someone, show a guest, that there is something to look at.” As he says, people don’t normally “walk into a hotel expecting to learn something or to have a special experience looking at art.” Rather, the expectation is that, if there is art, its job is to

Visto projects in the pipeline include the Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid and a waterthemed collection for the planned Fleming’s Selection Hamburg. What keeps them motivated, Toledano says, is the opportunity to work on developments “where the stakes are high: where the buildings have interesting stories and great architecture, and to enhance that with the artwork… Those are the projects that we want to do more of, where people want the art to do something special, to shape the building’s identity and transform the experience of people who use the space.”

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Visto Images

“This is very much a cerebral, ideas-driven enterprise; where the intention is to create a narrative that can engage and stimulate�

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The baptismal font in the Church of the Penitent Thief. Read the full story on p154 Image by Simone Bossi

ARCHITECTURE Surveying the built environment

A new lease of life

Once full of hope for post-war rejuvenation, the French seaside town of Royan was cast aside when funds ran dry. Today, it stands as a mecca of modernist architecture Words / John Jervis

imageBROKER / Alamy

ARCHITECTURE / Survey

R

oyan isn’t your standard post-war town.

Harlow and Le Havre, as we are frequently informed, deserve great respect for their enlightened social and urbanistic ambitions.

To stand on Royan’s seafront, however, is to experience something entirely different: more inviting, more playful, more relaxed and, frankly, more beautiful. This is perhaps to be expected. After all, it is a fashionable Atlantic resort, not a working port or dormitory town.

The arrival of the train in 1875 brought wealthy Parisians and, consequently, eclectic summer villas. Lavish yet compact, these Renaissance chateaux, Alpine chalets, Japanese pavilions and Bavarian castles compete in both ostentation and twee monikers – and comprise one of the most outstanding accumulations of Belle Epoque architecture in France.

Previous page The lines of the town's seafront casino were a prime example of mid-century geometry Facing page Finally nearing completion, Église Notre-Dame de Royan is a modern take on a gothic cathedral

The town stands at the mouth of the Gironde estuary. Heavily fortified by the Germans during the Second World War, it was the last major French town to be liberated, in April 1945. By this point, allied bombing had reduced three-quarters of Royan to mounds of rubble that took two years to remove. This delayed reconstruction had unexpected architectural consequences. The planners initially employed existing best practice to – in the words of chief architect Claude Ferret – create “an entirely new town conceived and equipped along modern urbanistic lines.” The main transport artery from the train station split to reach the lengthy seafront and the commercial centre. The imposing central boulevard connecting the two was traditional in form, style, and even social hierarchy. Long symmetrical blocks housed shops at their base, with commodious apartments on the principle floors, rising up to modest attic homes under the tiled roofs, and their ordered facades softened by modish artdeco panels and wide gateways.

In late 1947, however, an edition of review title L’Architecture d’Aujord’hui was published that focused on recent Brazilian projects. Its contents, in particular Oscar Niemeyer’s beautifully realised garden suburb of Pampulha in Belo Horizonte, had a profound impact on the architects and engineers working in Royan.

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The slow pace of reconstruction allowed a pivot to this striking new architectural language, which exploited the plastic qualities of concrete to create free-flowing, elemental forms with crisp, curved surfaces, dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, and eye-catching dashes of colour. Its airy aesthetic and blending of indoor and outdoor were perfect for the French resort, as were its concerns for economy and climate.

The plans for Royan were transformed, with sculptural forms raised on slender columns, curving apartment blocks, deep loggias, openwork screens, sweeping arcades, layered balconies and sinuous covered walkways, echoing many of the characteristics of “tropical modernism”. Surfaces were predominantly white, bringing to mind a Mediterranean village; but enriched by the joyful colour palette applied to the recessed balconies and the metalwork motifs of railings and grills.

Jumpstarting the economy was a priority. Two central blocks were built in a gentle curve along the seafront, with elegant porticos and balconies running their length, the latter punctuated by panels of “corsair-red” aluminium designed by Jean Prouvé. The shelllike market, with undulating vaults creating a self-supporting concrete dome, was an eloquent expression of the Brazilian influence, but also of the role played by audacious engineering in Royan’s reconstruction. Next came the dignified Palais des Congrès, an attempt to diversify the town’s economy with the first of such conference halls in France.

A restrained take on Niemeyer’s Yacht Club at Pampulha, it was animated by the protruding curve of its auditorium, clad in more of Prouvé’s colourful aluminium panels. An ambitious raised block was positioned at right angles, with a wide elevated platform and a mix of singles, duplexes and triplexes, all intended to encourage a strong, diverse community. Its Corbusian rigour was tempered by white paint, slimmed-down piloti, and the patterns of light and shade playing across its staggered balconies.

Elsewhere, bandstands, gymnasiums, schools, shipping offices and more sprung up in the same idiom, with an occasional nod to the

Office de Tourisme de Royan © Ph.Souchard

Hemis / Alamy

ARCHITECTURE / Survey

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ARCHITECTURE / Survey

nauticality of 1930s modernism, or the classical rationalism of Auguste Perret. Glamorous apartments for holidaymakers were adorned with glass bricks, colourful loggias, decorative stairwells, angled facades, open spiral stairs and overhanging brise-soleils. Around the main park, peppered among their extravagant Belle Epoque predecessors, an equally flashy new generation of summer villas arose, all jutting cantilevers, open plans and plate glass.

When it came to religion, Royan’s thriving Protestant community adorned its sober new church with a surprisingly sensual covered courtyard, its flowing roof supported on slim columns and punctured by an elegant belltower.

In contrast, Guillaume Gillet’s Notre-Dame de Royan, conceived as a symbol of the town’s rebirth, is among France’s most theatrical modernist buildings – the raw concrete of its towering grey silhouette in extraordinary opposition to the decorous modernism of the town below. The serried V-shapes on its shuttered facade provide structural integrity, while recalling the grain silos beloved of early modernists. Inside, tiered ambulatories circle the unobstructed, uplifting expanse of the nave, all topped off by another engineering feat, a thin hyperbolic-parabaloid roof of prestressed concrete.

The money started to run out at the end of the 1950s, with a parallel, and damaging, decline in the quality of the concrete. Notre-Dame came to a shuddering halt in 1958, still bereft of fixtures and fittings; while plans for a new town hall were abandoned as people agitated for homes rather than public buildings. The new market thrived, but nostalgia for old Royan – and for lost houses – contributed to a lack of affection among many inhabitants for

Left The orange La Perrinière originally comprised three apartments, and reflects the influence of Brazilian modernism in the 1950s

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Above The market hall, completed in 1956, is designed as a reinforced concrete shell – resting on 13 outer points with no central support pillar

Š a.valli

ARCHITECTURE / Survey

the unalloyed modernism and apartmentliving of the new town, and thus to a gradual deterioration of its integrity that has plagued Royan since. Besides the creep of pitched roofs and disappearance of original colours, there are more serious losses to mourn. The futuristic casino – a curvaceous set-piece on the seafront designed by Claude Ferret – was sacrificed in 1985 when re-development seemed more lucrative than blackjack under a crumbling concrete canopy. The portico that joined the two seafront blocks, providing a broad elevated walkway, was demolished at the same time to allow vehicle access. The glass rotunda of the Deco-esque post office was replaced by a “robust” concrete version in the 1970s, while many of the meandering promenades are now filled in with snack bars and swimwear stores.

In 2011, however, Royan was given the prestigious “Ville de l’Art et d’Histoire” label – only the third post-war town to gain this accolade – resulting in a welcome burst of research and restoration. Notre-Dame is now finally edging towards completion, and the Palais de Congrès is being stripped of accretions, including an additional facade installed in the mid-1980s to protect its weathered auditorium. There was, however, an unexpected blow just three years ago: the dismantling of a prototypical prefabricated house by Prouvé, installed in 1951 to test its durability in seaside conditions. It is now in the hands of a Parisian gallery, and all that remains here is a stump on the coast road, depriving the town of a major lure for architectural devotees.

Over the last 20 years, Royan has evolved.

Once dominated by holidaymakers, it is now home to an ever-growing number of permanent residents, often well-heeled pensioners seeking the good life, enjoying the marina on the seafront and the tennis courts spilling down to the beach, as well as the proximity of the Medoc and the Côte Sauvage. They may be ageing and – whisper it – gentrifying, but they have given new life to the long runs of small shops in the centre: delicatessens, hatmakers, bookshops, chocolatiers and endless boutiques.

A ferry service to bring weekenders across the Gironde from Bordeaux would be welcomed,

“The town’s modernist heritage is a unique asset, and its authorities and individuals must be persuaded to nurture this inheritance” but there is little desire to radically alter the status quo. The lack of a TGV has preserved Royan; few want to see that change. Even those seeking to nurture it as a year-round destination act as much out of a desire to convince inhabitants that its modernist heritage is a unique asset, and to persuade all – authorities and individuals – to nurture this inheritance. Once the Palais des Congrès re-opens, complete with a new architectural centre and associated conferences, modernist devotees and flocks of young architecture students may once again be lured to the finest post-war town in France – and perhaps Europe.

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Above Built in 1952, the Immeuble des Ponts et Chaussees (Bridges and Pavements Building) is one of Royan's most recognisable Facing page A dramatic blue grill curves out from the midst of this modernist apartment block

Office de Tourisme de Royan © photo art; © Ville de Royan

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Spiritual awakening In designing this strikingly simple modernist church outside Bologna, its architects took their cues from both religious and artistic references

Words Francesco Dama Images Simone Bossi

I

n the late 1940s, Henri Matisse, who was then living in Vence, in the south of France, famously accepted work on a chapel for the town’s Dominican convent. The French master went beyond himself, designing every detail – from the main architecture and furnishings, to the stained glass windows and priests’ vestments.

In spite of the fact Matisse was a fervent atheist, working on the Chapelle du Rosaire must have had a certain influence on him. “Most painters… look for an external light to see clearly into their own nature. Whereas the artist or the poet possesses the inner light that transforms objects, creating a new world with them, a sentient, organised and living world, a sure sign of divinity in itself, the reflection of divinity,” he told art historian Louis Gillet in 1943.

Designing sacred spaces requires extraordinary skill and rationale: aesthetics and function must meet specific liturgical requirements, which are unalterable.

Left The gable facade is reflective of many Romanesque churches in Italy

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Over in the little Italian village of San Lazzaro di Savena, on the outskirts of Bologna, the new Church of the Penitent Thief shares some of the same “refection of divinity” as described

by Matisse.

Facing page Simple selenite stones, the altar and baptismal font make a strong statement and complement the other organic materials

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Below Angular oak pews were custom designed by the project team to accommodate over 300 devotees attending the space

ARCHITECTURE / Bologna

“We spent almost 10 years doing research and designing the building.

During this time, we frequently asked the opinion of the whole community”

Arriving at the church, visitors are welcomed by the clean surfaces of its front – an interpretation of the gable facade typical of so many Romanesque churches in Italy – which are interrupted by the main gate of a tall, single-leaf door rendered in dark oak.

White walls bending and sliding off each other define the perimeter of the church, and evolve into large half-open doors that signal two points of access to the main hall.

“We started the project in 2009, and we spent almost 10 years doing research and designing the building. During this time, we frequently asked the opinion of the whole community,” reveals Luca Ladinetti from Lado architetti, who worked alongside Mario Assisi and Valentina Milani from Inout Architettura and Fiorella, Paolo and Mario Lamber from Lamber + Lamber to realise the building.

The most prominent element of the project is a dramatic glazed slit, running along the length of the structure, splitting the building shell and allowing natural light to come in. The feature references the episode of the tearing of the temple veil, as told by the gospels.

Facing page One of the most striking features is a glazed slit through the heart of the church

At the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross, the heavy curtain that cordoned off the most Holy space within Jerusalem’s temple was torn in two. “Christians recognise this episode as a sign of God turning from a mysterious and invisible entity into a tangible being – a man,” explains vicar Don Paolo dall’Olio.

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The same idea of openness and clarity inspired the architects in their designing of the breach.

Even the cross hanging on the altar has been simplified so that it wouldn’t cover it. “The kids who come to play in the park nearby often peek through the glass to see what’s going on,” dall'Olio continues.

Inside, the main liturgical spaces are organised along the perimeter, built in wall niches: the baptistery next to the entrance, a weekday chapel beside the altar and an area dedicated to the choir. The resulting central void is devoted to the assembly hall, an intimate and measured space whose fulcrum is the altar. Around it, pews – unique angular oak pieces designed by the project team – are arranged in a semi-circle to accommodate over 300 devotees.

Each liturgical element – the altar, the ambo, the baptismal font – is a stone piece in selenite: a characteristic crystalline gypsum from the Bolognese hills. While strong, the material emerges humbly from the white background of the interior, matching its simplicity.

Bathed in the copious light coming from the ceiling, the baptismal font holds the same reverential presence of a suiseki – stones traditionally displayed in Japanese houses for aesthetic appreciation.

The result is a meditative space characterised by a few carefully selected materials, exuding an intimate and welcoming ambience. A place that, indeed, reflects divinity.

PARTNER CONTENT / Workplace

Feel-good factors

Co-founder Katrina Larkin on how wellness and community sit at the heart of Fora’s philosophy

Can you remember the moment you decided to launch Fora? What was your vision?

Myself and (co-founder) Enrico Sanna were introduced by our investors Brockton Everlast, with the idea of developing a new progressive workspace. From that moment, we forged our different backgrounds in hospitality and experience to build Fora. We then spent a year researching before breaking any ground. The data supported our vision of what was needed in the industry – a workspace that curates the best elements of co-working, flexible offices, private members clubs and dynamic events spaces. The result is a portfolio of premium workspaces that support the needs and ambitions of some of the world’s most exciting businesses, through design that drives productivity, wellbeing and collaboration.

Fora is expanding at a rapid rate, yet each London location is really distinct. What is the common thread through each?

People are at the centre of our ethos, and decisions are always made with residents’ needs in mind. Consistently excellent service and hospitality, eventful curation, design, healthy food and the promotion of wellness are the common thread of Fora. We bring a local story to each location, and our goal is to give people a sense of belonging and connection to the neighbourhood they’re in.

It seems like Fora is at the heart of a workplace movement taking place in the capital. How is the nature of work and office life changing?

Attitudes are definitely shifting to favour access over ownership. You can have a far more beautifully designed space that is enriched with events, concierge service, wellness studios and shared spaces that fuel residents through both food and community. The sustainability renaissance has brought about a commitment to more discerning habits. At Fora, this is fundamental to our approach – from design, to the events we curate, through to the brand partners we work with.

Let’s talk about the design of Fora spaces, which is a USP. How do you choose the architects and designers you work with?

First and foremost, we collaborate with designers who are passionate about creating great spaces for people, and who understand Fora’s brand principles of integrating technology and wellness features throughout our buildings. Our design partners, all of whom excel in their fields, tend to vary from project to project. Hassell, who designed Fora Shoreditch, really understands our overall strategy. Whereas, Piercy and Co., who recently completed the Princelet Street location in Spitalfields, are very detail oriented and materially conscious.

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As told to Elizabeth Choppin Images Jack Hobhouse

PARTNER CONTENT / Workplace

The newest location in Shoreditch is awash with plantlife. It’s visible from street level.

Was that part of your wellness brief ?

Definitely. We work with local supplier Conservatory Archives to bring in plantlife, creating biodiversity across our spaces. At Fora we design for the ambitious, so wellness is woven into our design at every touchpoint: from the sense of light, both natural and indoor, to the overall layout. Our design teams are continuously imagining new spaces for people in which they can connect organically, encouraging relationships to forge. There’s also a need for space that is designed for people to find a moment for themselves during the day.

What types of businesses are you hoping to attract? Who is the Fora Resident?

Fora is home to discerning, ambitious people who seek out what’s disruptive and different; the possibility thinkers and proactive problem solvers. Fora is for the companies and individuals who prefer to be surrounded by like-minded people who share their values.

Where is Fora going next? Will it remain London-focused or branch out to other cities?

We are indeed looking to expand outside of London – so watch this space!

In the past, you’ve mentioned community being a core Fora value. Can you elaborate on how this has come to fruition?

Fora is the plural of forum. It’s all about people and understanding them, and how everyone is an individual. We start by investing in our team at Fora, training people how to relate to and read residents in order to give them the level of service they need and build lasting relationships. Our programme of curated events then allows for our team and residents to meet one another in an inspiring space.

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Facing page Katrina Larkin, Fora co-founder Above and below The bright and leafy lounge at Fora Shoreditch, designed with Matter of Stuff and Hassell Studio

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

Addition Studio’s native body scrub. Read the full story on p170

STYLE Fashionable pursuits

Most wanted

Clothing and accessories that are thoughtful, expressive, beautiful and good Words / Emily Brooks

STYLE / Products

Le Kasha Parisian brand Le Kasha is known for its natural textiles, only using 100% cashmere, linen and silk in its garments. Its collections are inspired by the romance of travel, including this feather-light silk Turfan dress, which has an asymmetrical hem, side pockets and a freshwater pearl fastening at the neck.

Layer it with one of the brand’s celebrated cashmere

pieces to feel completely cocooned in indulgence.

Le Kasha is more than a century old: founded in 1918 as a supplier of the finest Kashmir goat-hair fabrics, the family business was revived by current creative director Mali Marciano. â‚Ź1,250; lekasha.com

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STYLE / Products

Want Les Essentiels Chunky-soled slides aren’t going anywhere, as these Ataturk leather platform examples prove. They’re the work of Want Les Essentiels, a luxury-meetsutility Candaian accessories brand founded in 2007; best known for its bags for the discerning traveller, its shoes are just as covetable. The Ataturk’s twotone wide straps have comfort in mind, and details

like the go-faster stripe on the sole and mixedmetal eyelets bring a design sensibility as elevated as the shoe itself. The brand’s SS20 collection also includes nautical-striped bucket bags, cotton/linen blend totes and patent leather backpacks. £245; wantapothecary.com

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STYLE / Products

Alice Early With a remit to create clothes that have a minimal impact upon the environment, former Paul Smith womenswear designer Alice Early’s brand comprises contemporary style as well as substance. Early launched her first collection in 2018, and the black Demi Shirt builds on her affinity for classic silhouettes and quality, durable materials. Made in

London from certified organic cotton, it has deftly pleated sleeves, a slim collar and an optional tie waist that elevates this look from daywear to evening; while the buttons are made from corozo, a nut that is a more sustainable alternative to plastic. ÂŁ295; aliceearly.co.uk

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STYLE / Products

Marni The Marni aesthetic has been described as having a “wondrous awkwardness”, thanks to the viewpoint of creative director Francesco Risso – and these decidedly geek chic trousers from the SS20 collection bear witness. This season, the Italian brand’s trousers either skim the ground or finish above the ankle, and this cheery sky-blue pair are an

example of the latter, made from cotton sateen that gives a low-sheen finish. They’re crying out to be worn with a great pair of socks and, thankfully, Marni’s got that covered, too – including examples with cartoonish palm tree and water bottle motifs. £420; marni.com

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STYLE / Products

Alice Made This Cufflinks have a poor reputation as the unfortunate choice of novelty dressers, but the Erno design from Alice Made This aims to bring a touch of gravitas to this classic accessory. These solid nine-carat-gold cufflinks were inspired by the blocky Brutalist style of architecture, and can easily flit between black-tie and something less formal. If you believe that

details matter, then you will enjoy their two contrasting finishes – a high-shine polish on the top and a matt surface on the sides. Made in Birmingham’s jewellery quarter, Erno also comes in a polished silver version, which can be engraved. £1,500; alicemadethis.com

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STYLE / Wellness

Products of our time

Can personal care brands really be carbon neutral while maintaining efficacy and looks appeal?

I

n the same way that empathy is no longer the commendable add-on to good parenting, watching out for the world can no longer be the sole factor in selling a serum. Solutions to the cosmetics world’s carbon output are still being sought, but there is unmistakable momentum behind moves to make the industry more circular. With social design a discipline in ascendancy, young creatives are taking on the challenge to clean up cosmetics; while mindful entrepreneurs are experimenting with ways through which to make corporal care more sustainable, yet no less desirable.

Entering the fray in February of this year was the Swedish design collective Form Us With Love (FUWL), with Forgo – a sustainabilityfocused bodycare line. Applying design brains to issues of circularity in the cosmetics industry, the FUWL team began with the worrisome fact that many of the products we buy are comprised of up to 80 percent water, a resource most of us have at our fingertips – and which perhaps doesn’t need to be shipped around the world with all the ensuing polluting packaging and energy-guzzling transport implications.

FUWL’s answer is a sachet of dry ingredients, parcelled in paper that is topped with a compostable paper coating (as opposed to the plastic covering of sugar sachets – a hardsought resource they found in the UK) to be released into a refillable glass dispenser and shaken at the point of use with the last required component: hot tap water. Forgo’s launch product begins as 12 grams of powder, and becomes 250 millilitres of hand soap.

“What was surprising is how simple it is to make things exponentially more sustainable with small means,” says FUWL design manager and Forgo co-founder, Allon Libermann. “Marketing departments stick to the belief that consumers are only interested in personal wellbeing, so things like organic, safe and healthy are the priority, not the planet and the full lifecycle of a product. That’s shifting rapidly now. It just all feels a bit late, considering how simple it is to do.” In fact, it took two years of working with an openminded laboratory in Montreal to bring the hand soap to market – but a deodorant, toothpaste and body cream should be added by the end of the year. Libermann is transparent about the compromises they had to make and describes it as a work in progress. “We know what needs to be done to make things more sustainably, and we know that some new things are a few years out for some of our suppliers.

But we’ll get there soon,” he pledges.

In its pursuit of carbon neutrality, FUWL identified three areas to focus on: eliminating water from formulas, alongside compostable and refillable packaging. While their ongoing research has the potential to further disrupt unsustainable manufacturing practices, they’re not alone in promoting waterless and refill culture. By Humankind, a carbon neutral brand from the U.S., offers a deodorant that is refillable, and mouthwash and shampoo that have no added water. It was an early proponent of shampoo and conditioner bars which are now proliferating: Amsterdam’s Tautanz are

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Words Emma Moore

Facing page Forgo’s bottles comprise sturdy glass and steel pumps designed to stand the test of time

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Jonas Lindstrรถm

STYLE / Wellness

the most recent to start crafting beautiful bars for the care of body and hair, with a manifesto to create and consume consciously.

Haeckels, the seaweed-focused skincare brand founded by former commercials director Dom Bridges, is also set to enter the waterless market with an all-natural waterless cleanser, packaged like a pill. Arguably the most earth-loving of cosmetic brands, Haeckels’ chief material is essentially surplus seaweed (the natural resource was once prone to over-running the local bay in Margate). They have developed packing materials from the parts of the seaweed left over from their processing, make packaging from biodegradeable mycelium, and paper embedded with seeds for good measure so that as waste it can also be regenerating. They reward beach-cleaners with product, and even recycled Christmas trees in January into pinepacked candles.

The great thing about many of these potion pioneers is that a design sensibility comes alongside innovation, meaning there need be no compromise on looks when consuming sustainably. And, let’s face it, if we are going to be refilling, there has to be compatibility with a container. Myro, a deodorant brand that started in the U.S. in 2018, boasts a refillable container so pleasing in colour and form it has

made responsible deodorant buying a pleasure.

Ryan Hanrahan of Australia’s Addition Studio has increasingly honed his design of beautiful objects towards the wellness world, and now produces waterless skincare products in sachets to be contained and mixed within his more permanent, decorative designs.

Meanwhile, Perfumer H has taught us that mindful packaging can come in the form of hand-blown coloured glass jars – collectable pieces in themselves made by London-based glass craftsman Michael Ruh – designed to be returned to source and replenished.

Refillable makeup also started at a niche level, with the likes of Serge Lutens, Kjaer Weis and La Bouche Rouge bringing infinitely retainable packaging to market – and it’s now broadening out. The approach was recently adopted

by Hermès, whose first foray into makeup is lipstick in a covetable, colour-blocked, replenishable container by Pierre Hardy.

The bottom line is that we won’t feel so good in our luminescent skin much longer if our beautifiers have turbocharged our carbon footprint. Forget consuming with conscience, it’s mindful manufacturing that will stop earth-shattering decisions being made at the point of sale. And, with baby steps, it looks like we could get there.

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Above Refillable Hermès lipstick cases designed by Pierre Hardy Facing page

By Humankind’s reusable glass cups are designed to be filled with water to dilute the mouthwash tablet

“Sustainability within wellbeing products is shifting rapidly now – but it just all feels a bit late, considering how simple it is to do”

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Facing page Addition Studio’s native body scrub comes in a chic glass container, while refills are packaged in recyclable papers cartons or sachets

Above The shampoo bars from Tautanz are made from natural ingredients and created via a cold press method to retain the raw materials’ properties

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PIONEER

Breaking the mould

Defying expectations of elite society, Syrie Maugham paved the way for British female designers Words / Joe Lloyd

A

t the stroke of midnight, one evening in April 1927, Syrie Maugham lifted the metaphorical curtains on a new type of interior. Her music room at 213 King’s Road was a landmark in 20th century design. “White walls,” reported Harper’s Bazaar, “white satin curtains, white-flowered chairs, white lilies, and the light softened by a white velvet lamp-shade, all give that modern feeling which, in conjunction with old furniture, is so attractive.”

It was the white room, though, that sealed her reputation.

Though she had grown up in a strict evangelist household, Maugham’s aesthetic was in no sense puritan. She was a voracious buyer of fine antique furniture, which she would strip, bleach and dip in acid, exposing the knots and whorls of the untreated wood below. Unforgivingly expensive for all but the wealthiest clients, her interiors were oriented towards luxury and leisure.

Yet, she was already a pioneer. By 1910, during her unhappy first marriage to pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome, she had learnt how to restore furniture and upholster chairs, forsaking the life of idleness expected of a high society lady. And, in 1922, Maugham had gone a step further and borrowed £400 to launch her maiden interiors store on Baker Street. A formidable businessperson, she was among the first British women to own and operate their own enterprise. By the decade’s

The vogue for all-white passed, but Maugham had ploughed ahead, diversifying into shocking pinks and emerald greens, and arranging houses for everyone from Elsa Schiaparelli to Edward James. Her true legacy is less the colours themselves but how she used them: layering hues for light, texture, and the promotion of pleasure.

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© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s

end, she had opened shops in New York and Chicago, and decorated residences in France and California.

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