Design Anthology UK Issue 14 by designanthologyuk

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Lounge

Hans J. Wegner

ENDURING DESIGN

There is a masterful simplicity to Hans J. Wegner’s designs. At Carl Hansen & Søn, we translate these timeless ideas into furniture that lasts a lifetime. Since 1949, we have worked with the finest natural materials to produce a wide range of pieces from Wegner’s collection of lounge furniture. The goal is clear: to create furniture crafted to last a lifetime.

1950

V1 kitchen

KITCHEN PARTNERS Moleta Munro · Edinburgh · Moletamunro.com Tollgard Design Group · London · Tollgard.com

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FROM THE EDITOR

o our female readers: who among you has felt your experience and value diminished at any point in your career? I certainly have. There are complicated reasons for this but no doubt being a woman is a part of it. Since the start, Design Anthology UK has championed work from the many women who are contributing hugely to the areas in our sphere of interest – so it is no surprise that issue 14 is packed with a bevy of super-talented creative women. And while in the past certain creative professions were considered a female domain (interior design, for example) there is a lack of understanding about the myriad ways women have played a part in the architecture, engineering and construction of important buildings across our cities. Enter Part W, a feminist campaign group for the built environment (p112), which “shines a light on the lesser-known female architects, designers, engineers, builders and activists behind some of London’s best-loved landmarks, from the British Library to the London Eye.” Part W’s latest project, Women’s Work: London, is a map highlighting how women have contributed to notable buildings around the capital. It goes some way to bust the myth of the lone “master architect” and shifts focus to other vital roles, particularly those carried out by women with little or no recognition. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find Cassandra Ellis on colour (p38); Mimi Shodeinde’s new Holloway gallery (p30); Hollie Bowden’s designs for Completedworks (p40); and Maria Sole Ferragamo’s upcycled jewellery and accessories (p124), among many other formidable women on their A-game. Enjoy! Elizabeth Choppin Editor-in-Chief

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April 2023

Co-publisher & Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Choppin elizabeth@designanthologyuk.com Co-publisher & Creative Partnerships Director Kerstin Zumstein kerstin@designanthologyuk.com Art Director Shazia Chaudhry shazia@designanthologyuk.com Sub Editor Emily Brooks Commercial Director Rebecca Harkness rebecca@designanthologyuk.com Editorial Concept Design Frankie Yuen, Blackhill Studio Words Charlotte Abrahams, Emily Brooks, Philomena Epps, Amy Frearson, Nicola Leigh Stewart, Joe Lloyd, Dominic Lutyens, Emma Moore, Alice Morby, Sophie Vening Images Armand Da Silva, Douglas Friedman, Genevieve Lutkin, Toby Mitchell, Martin Morrell, Alessandro Timpanaro, Annick Vernimmen, Morley von Sternberg

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CONTENTS

Front cover Completedworks’ showroom in London’s Marylebone, designed by Hollie Bowden. Image by Genevieve Lutkin. See p40

Radar

Journey

Products Collections and collaborations of note

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

Profile Mimi Shodeinde opens a gallery and studio to show her own dynamic work and champion up-and-coming artists

Pub, London Hauser & Wirth’s hospitality wing creates an art-filled Mayfair hostelry

Profile Cassandra Ellis tells stories, taps into emotion and spreads joy through paint

Showroom, London Hollie Bowden’s workshop and retail space for London jewellery and homeware brand Completedworks

Happy hour Mount St. Restaurant, part of The Audley, the Mayfair pub remodelled by Luis Laplace for Hauser & Wirth’s Artfarm group. See p34

Hotel openings New design-centric destinations to explore across the globe

Home 56

Skye A minimalist Hebridean holiday retreat that’s full of material warmth

Napa Valley Created by interior designer Nicole Hollis, this Californian guesthouse heads to the dark side

Paris French design studio After Bach explores the concepts of calm and purity in this duplex apartment

CONTENTS

Art + Collecting

Style

Diary The most compelling art and design events for the coming months

118

104

Exhibition, Derbyshire Contemporary design in dialogue with Chatsworth’s opulent historic rooms

Most wanted A compilation of clothing, self-care and accessories that are beautiful, thoughtful and good

124

Jewellery, Milan Maria Sole Ferragamo transforms remnants of leather into wearable art

Architecture 112

Campaigning, London Part W’s map of London helps to make women’s contribution to the capital’s architecture more visible

Pioneer 128

Victor Horta The Belgian architect who reshaped art nouveau to create a more functional style that beckoned the future

The alchemy of leather So-le Studio’s sparkling, sculptural jewellery, which is made from leather offcuts from the Ferragamo factory floor. See p124

Acis vessel by Miminat Designs. Read the full story on p30

R ADAR Global design news

R ADAR / Products

Buchanan Studio The founders of Buchanan Studio, Charlotte and Angus Buchanan, gave the Muse table its name because of the way it kept finding its way into their interior design projects in new iterations. Now, it’s been given a public release, too, with some flexible material options: the metal base frame is available in bespoke finishes including powder coating or raw metals and patination, while the tabletop comes in any material, including rare marbles (the playful oversized brass wheels, however, remain a constant). buchanan.studio

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Tai Ping This Bonnie & Clyde rug from Tai Ping is the work of French interior designer Fabrice Juan – the first time the rug company has ever invited a designer to collaborate on a Studio collection. Part of Studio by Tai Ping, the brand’s prêt-à-porter label, the collection features seven wool rugs, with Juan’s bold geometrics and bright colours inspired by mid20th-century creatives like Geneviève Claisse and Pierre Cardin; a hand-carved finish creates different pile heights shaped around the graphic lines. taipingcarpets.com

&tradition Designed in 1968, Verner Panton’s Flowerpot light is easily recognisable for its twin-hemisphere spunmetal shade (designed to reduce glare) and pop-art colours. Now part of the portfolio of Danish brand &tradition, the light has been given a palette refresh inspired by Panton’s surviving work held by the family archives; new colours including Swim Blue (pictured), a luscious Dark Plum and a bubblegumlike Tangy Pink – as well as a trippy black and white wave pattern originally released in 1970s. andtradition.com

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Apparatus The Tassel lighting collection was inspired by its namesake, its long cylinders of mouth-blown glass standing in for the traditional textile fringing – the light cleverly refracts down each tube, creating a gentle glow. Its maker, New York-based Apparatus, sums up the resurgence of US manufacture over the past decade, with its beautifully crafted products that offer a balance between the hand- and the machine-made. The collection is available as both a pendant and wall light, in a range of configurations. apparatusstudio.com

Carl Hansen & Søn This Asserbo dining table and bench seating was first created by the late Danish designer Børge Mogensen for his holiday home. It has now been put into production by Carl Hansen & Søn, staying true to Mogensen’s ethos that materials should speak for themselves: his original version was pine,

but this iteration comes in a dark-oiled eucalyptus, set off by gleaming brushed-brass screws. The bench is available with either an attached or wall-mounted backrest, and cushions in leather or fabric. carlhansen.com

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L’Objet Pushing the boundaries of porcelain manufacture, this Neptune centrepiece recreates all of the curves and complexities of a giant shell. It’s available with or without the opulent 24-carat gold inner surface in the version pictured. Beautifully made statement objects like this are L’Objet’s speciality: set up by former interior designer Elad Yifrach in 2004, the brand started with a collection of tableware, and is still the place to go for unusual hand-crafted pieces, from chess sets to barware and ceramics. uk.l-objet.com

ShoP on-LIne: ethImo.Com

Showroom

L o n d o n / m I L A n / PA r I S

rome / CAnneS / CoLogne

Vene XIA by LUCA nIChet to

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New Volumes This Sydney-based brand comes at design from a materially driven perspective: its first collection was entirely made from Greek marble, while the second tests the limits of terracotta, harnessing the skills of several different designers. The ensemble includes Thomas Coward, whose tables reference classical Doric columns; Adam Goodrum, whose Pitcher table and stools feature an extruded square base with the top rotated 45 degrees; and Kate Stokes, whose wall lights have an elegant slender form. In the UK, the collection is available via The Specified, a treasure trove of contemporary Australian design hard to find elsewhere, including rugs by Armadillo and organic-shaped hardware by Barbera. newvolumes.com // thespecified.com

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De La Espada Portuguese brand De La Espada is known for its collaborative work with A-list designers such as Neri&Hu and Luca Nichetto – but, on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, it has now launched an inhouse design studio. The first collection (aptly called Twenty Five) showcases Portuguese craftsmanship at its best: the three-legged desk pictured above was inspired by the work of Charlotte Perriand and the shape of a gourd, while the shelves behind it took Chinese Ming dynasty furniture as a starting point. delaespada.com

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Arca Stone and porcelain specialist Arca has moved into furniture production with Nudo, a collection of 21 pieces designed by Kelly Wearstler. The knotted, rounded and ribbed forms defy the solidity and weight of the stone that the pieces are made from, with Wearstler saying that she was interested in “exploring the possibility of creating a real softness through curvaceous shapes…a nuanced and sensual interplay of suppleness and strength.” The Desnudo bench pictured is made from crema marfil marble. arcaww.com

Workstead Is there a more perfect form for a lampshade than the cone? Workstead’s latest Pendolo collection explores this basic three-dimensional shape across different scales, from a jointed chandelier with multiple shades to simple pendants and wall lights; the shades are made from neutral-toned burlap and linen, the fabric having a softening effect on the hard geometry. To create the collection, Workstead co-founder Robert Highsmith was influenced by the work of Alexander Calder. The US artist might seem an unlikely source, given his love of bright colour and intricate forms – yet Calder frequently incorporated cone shapes in his abstract works, while Pendolo’s jauntily angled shades recall the delicate balancing act of his iconic mobiles.

Jeff Holt

workstead.com

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Brokis Czech lighting brand Brokis is known for melding centuries of Bohemian glassblowing expertise with a contemporary design language. The work of the company’s art director Lucie Koldova, this Prisma pendant light neatly demonstrates that marriage, with smoky glass spheres that bookend a decagonal metal body. It’s pictured here in an iridescent zinc finish that adds to its playful aesthetic, but it is also available with a brushed-steel body; a vertical pendant and a floor lamp complete the collection. brokis.cz

Alium Based in Copenhagen’s leafy Frederiksberg, Alium is a gallery showing work that smudges the line between art and design. Its most recent collaboration is with Norm Architects: Vault and Totem are described as “sculptural fragments”, and while Vault clearly draws on Norm’s architectural roots, with its

classical-looking arches in cool grey tundra marble, Totem is a series of sculptures inspired by primitive monuments such as Easter Island and Stonehenge, made from warm-toned kunis breccia stone. aliumcph.com

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Hem With a bold scale and clashing colour straight out of the postmodernist playbook (but actually inspired by Mexican craft traditions), these Molino salt and pepper grinders by Fabien Cappello will enliven any boring kitchen countertop. They also mark Swedish brand Hem’s further expansion into smaller tabletop items; the grinders have been launched at the same time as a collection of bright-hued mix-and-match tableware by London ceramic duo Supergroup; and an architecturally inspired vase by Jonah Takagi. hem.com

RADAR / Read

Arne Jacobsen in London

Mexican: A Journey Through Design

by Peter Thule Kristensen, Alex Buck, Paul Binding, Margarethe Floryan and Barry Phipps (The Danish Architectural Press)

by Newell Turner (Vendome Press)

When Arne Jacobsen’s Danish Embassy in London opened its doors in 1977, it was the polar opposite of the stuffy stucco terraces that characterise many of the capital’s embassies, with its aluminium cladding, concrete ground floor and swathes of glass. Within it, the architect designed furniture, lighting and other details, and an impressive collection of Danish artwork was installed. This book dissects the project in great detail, with an ensemble cast of authors bringing their expertise to the subject, while Alastair Philip Wiper’s photography brings to life the embassy as it is now – still a landmark building, and one of Jacobsen’s most completely realised projects.

Writer and photographer Newell Turner goes in search of the essential spirit of Mexican design, in a book arranged via nine ages and their corresponding aesthetics, from the preColumbian to the contemporary, via Spanish colonialism and the Mexican response to global movements such as art deco. With such a multi-layered history, it’s no wonder that the places featured are such a diverse bunch, from an eclectic Mexico City apartment to restrained desert architecture. It’s particularly fascinating to see how the work of traditional artisans, from weaving and pottery to stonemasonry and plasterwork, threads through the story, incorporated into each new age in a fresh way.

RADAR / Read

Luna Luna: The Art Amusement Park

Nichetto Studio: Projects, Collaborations and Conversations in Design

by André Heller (Phaidon)

by Max Fraser and Francesca Picchi (Phaidon)

Austrian artist André Heller opened his “art amusement park” Luna Luna on the outskirts of Hamburg in 1987, having spent the previous years assembling an astonishing array of names to create its trippy fairground attractions, from Jean-Michel Basquiat to David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dalí and Keith Haring. After 13 weeks, it was meant to go on a global tour, but never did thanks to litigation; now, 35 years later, Heller and his son are finally making it happen. Phaidon’s book is a reissue of the original 1987 publication that accompanied the fair, translated from the original German, with an updated preface from Heller that anticipates Luna Luna’s upcoming rebirth.

Based between Stockholm and Venice, awardwinning designer Luca Nichetto is known for his friendly, colourful and approachable body of work, bridging a Scandinavian and Italian aesthetic. This is the first monograph dedicated to his studio, featuring more than 400 photographs and sketches of projects and products from the past two decades, lending new insights into the way Nichetto works. Ten projects are sketched in detail, with texts in the designer’s own words, including collaborations with Steinway & Sons, Ginori 1735 and Hermès; and this focus on collaboration is reinforced by interviews with those he has worked with, such as Nendo’s Oki Sato.

RADAR / Profile

Free flow

Designer Mimi Shodeinde opens a gallery and studio to show her own dynamic work and champion up-and-coming artists

Words Emily Brooks Portrait Armand Da Silva

Facing page Mimi Shodeinde, sitting on one of her Omi D3 chairs

“I

t’s the most difficult project I’m currently working on. I’m so used to working with a client brief and this is the first space I get to curate. It’s so personal.” Interior and product designer Mimi Shodeinde of Miminat is gearing up to open her first public-facing venture. In late spring she’ll be launching her 110 square metre gallery-cum-studio in north London, which she says is “an insight into my world. I want to use it as a platform to spotlight up-and-coming artists, from ceramicists to photographers and painters. But I’ve realised that curating is a whole other skill-set…” Shodeinde’s background in fine art, and passion for gathering together the work of people she admires, will no doubt see her triumph on the curation side, but her own work will be on show, too. The designer has built up a wide portfolio of sculptural furniture, lighting and vessels that has evolved alongside her interior design practice, but this is the first time that people will be able to see it in person (the studio will be open by appointment a few days a week). “I think it’s so important to have something that’s more public-facing,” she says. “There’s a scale to my work that you just can’t appreciate online; and the materials and textures are also really thought-through, it’s very tactile. Plus I think it looks way better in real life – photos don’t do justice to the beauty, the essence or the movement to my work.”

She’s still assessing which of her own pieces will be on show for the opening, but something that will be included is her new Nrin collection of vessels, which feature elegantly flowing, highly polished metal forms that wrap around an anchoring central timber column. “The name Nrin comes from the Yoruba word for female,” explains Shodeinde, who is BritishNigerian. “I love working with metal, and I love working with wood, so these pieces merge those two materials, and make reference to African materiality that inspires me.” On the furniture side, she wants to include pieces that are particularly special to her, including the Howard collection, inspired by the business magnate Howard Hughes and his love of aviation: the collection started with an aerodynamic-looking desk with a swooshing C-shaped top, but has expanded to include a dining table, low table and daybed. Mixing materials is one of Shodeinde’s strengths: the Howard daybed features a dramatic curved dark oak section at its head that stabilises a slim aluminium fin for the base, alongside a slab of travertine and a soft nubuck leather pad. Shodeinde thinks that what hangs everything together is the dynamism and fluidity of her work. “I just love form,” she says. “That’s what I want people to feel like when they come into the new space. To just appreciate the form.”

Above Nrin vessels feature polished metal flowing around a timber column

Facing page Clockwise from top left: the Rina cabinet, in Corten steel, brass and mahogany; a detail of the Howard daybed; a pair of Kirk swivel chairs

RADAR / Pub

Happy hour

Gallerists Iwan and Manuela Wirth continue their move into hospitality by taking on a landmark Mayfair pub, and joyously filling it full of art Words / Emily Brooks

Images / Simon Brown

rchitect Luis Laplace has demonstrated some admirable versatility over the years in his collaborations with Swiss gallerists Iwan and Manuela Wirth of Hauser & Wirth. From an 18th-century Menorcan hospital reborn as a gallery and cultural hub (featured in D/A UK issue 9) to the remodelled retail space of the gallery’s Gstaad outpost, each project is acutely sensitive to its surroundings, and their nature and culture. Now, Laplace has taken on that quintessentially British institution, the pub, transforming Mayfair landmark The Audley into a five-storey social space for food, drink and art, on behalf of Artfarm, the growing hospitality arm of Hauser & Wirth.

Above The pub retains its traditional feel, with wood panelling and leather banquettes

The Grade-II listed pub itself, with its long mahogany bar and double-faced clock, largely retains its traditional appearance, save for its very special new ceiling, a colour-saturated abstract collage by Phyllida Barlow inspired by the curvature of the windows. “We carried out long and thorough research on classic London pub architecture so it could feel as original as possible,” says Laplace, and although it looks like it has been there forever, some of the panelling is in fact new. A team of six French polishers spent more than eight weeks bringing the existing woodwork back to life, and its rich burnished finish is now a highlight.

Facing page Rashid Johnson’s mosaic floor in the restaurant; the red chairs are by Matthew Day-Jackson

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It’s in the dining rooms above (known as the Mount St. Restaurant) that Laplace has really gone to town, though, and his previous reverence for creating a sense of place has rather wonderfully been thrown out of the window. The main dining room was inspired by Zurich’s Kronenhalle restaurant, a 1920s grande-dame known for its art collection: “Iwan and I have always wanted to create a contemporary version of the Kronenhalle, where artists and friends could meet, eat, drink and share moments together surrounded by incredible artworks,” says Laplace. There are then three further floors of ‘curious rooms’ available for private hire, including a Swiss Room (“as faithful as possible to modern Switzerland”), an Italian Room inspired by a Venetian palazzo and a Scottish Room with a dramatic antler chandelier. “Even if the rooms are thematic and not directly connected to London history, they also tell a story: they are a celebration of the gallery’s roots, passions and multicultural DNA,” says Laplace. Not forgetting the art. Some of it is part of the fabric, such as Rashid Johnson’s pleasingly irregular Broken Floor mosaic in the restaurant. The pub is hung with pieces conveying the conviviality of a drink with friends, such as Rodney Graham’s A Glass of Beer (2005), while the themed rooms all have country-appropriate art, including works by Giorgio de Chirico and Giorgio Morandi in the Italian Room. No detail has been left unconsidered, from the staff uniforms designed by Savile Row master tailor Kathryn Sargent, to the tableware by Richard Brendon, right down to the cheeky salt and pepper shakers – mini versions of Paul McCarthy’s controversial 2014 Tree sculpture.

Above The Swiss Room’s stained oak floor is a homage to the work of artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp Facing page An opulent green verde alpi marble bar in the Italian Room

“We carried out long and thorough research on classic London pub architecture so it could feel as original as possible”

RADAR / Profile

Rooted in colour

Cassandra Ellis tells stories, taps into our emotions and spreads joy through paint

Words Charlotte Abrahams Portrait Martin Morrell

assandra Ellis, colourist and founder of natural, handmade paint company Atelier Ellis, is on a mission to reconnect us with how colour makes us feel. “I think we have lost our way with decorating, thinking too much about what’s in and what’s out,” she says. “But paint is an emotional thing and I want our colours to help people find their joy, their haven and their personal narrative.”

first floor, meanwhile, are contemplative spaces, domestic in scale, lit with hand-made porcelain lights by craftspeople from the UK, Japan and France and furnished with a spare, unfitted aesthetic – an antique wooden table here, a Japanese noren curtain there. “It’s quite pared back because I want people to have space to see the colours and their potential for their own lives,” explains Ellis.

Ellis has been creating and formulating her own intensely pigmented, exquisitely earthtoned, water-based paints since 2018, selling direct from her working studio and online. This March, however, Atelier Ellis made its first appearance on the high street, enabling its founder’s deep understanding of the power of colour to be set out across the walls, floors, ceilings and doors of a seven-room townhouse in the centre of Bath.

And what colours they are. They will change with the seasons, but this first spring, the house wears shades from the Beginnings collection, which was influenced both by the city of Bath and the season-marking migration of birds. One of the first-floor rooms is wrapped in a milky blue called Tamaki that speaks of summer oceans, the other in a meditative Underwood green inspired by the forest floor. Look up and you will see that the ceiling is painted a beautiful dirty pink Ellis has named Lady Susan. The effect, which you feel as much as see, is both soothing and spirit-lifting.

“Paint shops can be brightly lit, clinical places that have absolutely no relation to people’s homes,” says Ellis about this first venture into a bricks-and-mortar place where she can show her work. “I wanted to create a space that gives people a way to see how colour can be effective and how it can make them feel.”

Facing page Cassandra Ellis, maker of natural handmade paint

The ground floor is the showroom, and presents the full spectrum of Atelier Ellis colours (all of which are mixed and made to order on site). It is painted in Beginnings, a browned-off pinky white that conjures the sunrise, part of a collection of nine new shades that Ellis has created especially for the townhouse. The top floor is home to a studio space and bespoke design room where Ellis will host one-to-one colour consultations. The two rooms on the

These spaces will also play host to temporary exhibitions. The first is a collection of 50 unique cups, each one made by hand by the Sheffield-based Pottery West, which will be displayed in an antique vitrine and set against a series of photographs on the theme of budding and flowering by Jessica MacCormick. “The exhibitions are a subtle way of showing people that home is a conversation,” Ellis explains. “I come from a set- and event-design background so I like creating whole stories and I am interested in home, but there is only so much you can do with paint. I don’t want the townhouse to feel precious, I want people to come in and think, ‘oh, this is nice.’”

RADAR / Showroom

A rare pearl

Interior designer Hollie Bowden creates a workshop and retail space for London jewellery and homeware brand Completedworks

Words Emily Brooks Images Genevieve Lutkin

Fixed shelving units in angular steel contrast with the homewares’ organic outlines

ompletedworks’ new headquarters could be described as more of a salon than a shop: a calm, contemporary space that echoes the beauty and detail of the jewellery and homewares it sells. The former pub in Lisson Street, north of Marylebone – which had been previously converted into bland offices – has been remodelled by interior designer Hollie Bowden, who worked with Completedworks’ founder and creative director Anna Jewsbury. The ground floor of the two-storey space features flexible offices – Jewsbury wanted to be able to comfortably expand her team in the future – while downstairs includes a packing area, workshop and product display. Bowden has reordered the space to seamlessly provide these multiple functions (as well as fulfil a requirement for lots of storage), and like a swan, all the hard work goes on below the

RADAR / Showroom

Above Lime plaster walls unify a previously piecemeal space; the patinated castiron column is an original feature Facing page Hollie Bowden (left) and Anna Jewsbury (right)

surface. The result is ordered and calm, and just the place that you would want to spend time trying on a few of Completedworks’ signature pieces, from baroque pearl earrings to gold vermeil rings that look like they are made from scrunched-up paper. The main issue with the previous interiors was that they were tired and lacked cohesion. “It was kind of scruffy and piecemeal before, but there were some beautiful industrial elements such as cast-iron pillars and brickwork,” says Bowden. “We wanted to keep the materials to

the bare minimum, using lime plaster and concrete flooring to harmonise the space and give a really nice blank canvas.” The columns’ attractive paint-layered patina was given a tidy up; while the glass floor separating the two storeys, which throws light down into the basement level, was also retained. “We developed a minimal display language to really complement the fine jewellery,” says Bowden. There are crisp steel shelves for the homewares as well as a backlit aluminium wall cabinet hung with pins to display jewellery,

RADAR / Showroom

plus free-standing lilac fabric-covered plinths that can be easily moved or changed in the future. Bowden’s partner Byron Pritchard, of furniture workshop 1982, made the jewellery workbench as well as a shoji-screen-fronted timber cabinet that conceals paperwork. “We were also inspired by the architectural, sculptural quality of the jewellery and made hammered aluminium handles for all of the joinery, inspired by Completedworks’ Cohesion earrings, which have a scrunched-metal look,” says Bowden. An angular aluminium packing

table, complete with practical serrated slot for bubble-wrap and tissue paper, doubles up as a meeting table, while a large curving sofa turns the area in a sociable hang-out where visitors are put at their ease. The workshop area is screened off but still visible, so that the jewellers can be glimpsed at work. “Anna said she wanted a big, collaborative workbench: a lot of jewellery studios just have single desks, but this bench seats eight,” says Bowden. “It’s so lovely and satisfying to see pieces being designed and made.”

Pnoes ¯ Tinos. Read the full story on p48 Image courtesy of Design Hotels

JOURNEY Distinctive destinations

JOURNEY / Openings

New hotels

Atul Pratap Chauhan

Unique places to stay, in destinations of note

JOURNEY / Openings

Villa Palladio, India With its countryside setting and whimsical design, Villa Palladio feels a world away from the chaotic buzz of Jaipur. Dressed in a bold yet romantic palette of red, pink and white, the villa’s playful style brings together influences from both India and Italy – the signature shade of red was inspired by cardinals’ robes. Checkerboard marble flooring and scalloped archways lead the way to the nine guest rooms and suites, where canopy beds painted with leafy florals sit alongside bespoke furnishings and embroidered linens, all handcrafted in India. Outside, new walls have been built to create a tranquil secret garden filled with royal palms, jasmine and roses, with a pool, spa and yoga room. villa-palladio-jaipur.com

JOURNEY / Openings

Pnoēs Tinos, Greece through the use of materials such as stone, timber and limewash, complemented by tactile materials in earthy tones. Paying respect to Greek craftsmanship, the bespoke furniture has been crafted by artisans and sits alongside a carefully curated selection of works from young local artists, offered for sale. designhotels.com

Design Hotels; Courtesy of The Hoxton

Athenian studio Aristides Dallas Architects drew inspiration from nature to create Pnoēs Tinos, a collection of three cubic white villas that make a striking contrast to the untouched surroundings of the Cycladic island of Tinos. Each two-bedroom villa looks out on to a private pool and organic gardens (the beach is a five-minute walk away), while inside, guests remain connected with nature

JOURNEY / Openings

The Hoxton Brussels, Belgium The Hoxton has taken over the Brutalist-style former European headquarters of IBM to make its Belgian debut. Sitting just beside the Botanical Garden in the north of Brussels, the hotel has converted the vast office space into 198 guest rooms that nod to 1970s design: think burgundy velvetclad sofas, retro Scandi-style armchairs and rattan light fittings (book a corner room for some of the

best panoramic views). Four floors of the building will be dedicated to The Hoxton’s coworking brand, Working From_, and there’s a lofty double-height lobby for people-watching; upstairs on the rooftop, a bar and terrace are ready for after-work drinks with sweeping views of the city. thehoxton.com

JOURNEY / Openings

The Georgian, USA One of Santa Monica’s most iconic addresses, The Georgian has seen the likes of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe pass through the doors since its 1933 opening. The hotel is now ready for its next chapter after undergoing a sensitive restoration courtesy of design studio Fettle. Historic details have been retained, notably the striking turquoise facade, which has been paired with a zingy colour palette and bespoke furniture that nod to the vibrant colours of Havana and the city’s art deco design influences. Ornate lighting and rare Italian marble add a luxurious finish to guest rooms, which offer views across the sun-soaked waterfront. Dine on the terrace or in the dining room, or head to the reservations-only, speakeasy-style Georgian Room.

Douglas Friedman

thegeorgian.com

JOURNEY / Openings

Umi Tulum, Mexico Sitting on Tulum’s beach fronting the Caribbean Sea, the 14-bedroom Umi Tulum blends Mexican culture with Japanese design and philosophy. Each of the hotel’s blocky cubes was built using ancient building techniques from both Mexico and Japan: the wood has been treated with the Japanese shou sugi ban charring method to improve durability, while the walls employ the technique of chukum

– the Mayan equivalent of stucco, made with bark from a native tree species. Inside each of the suites, moody dark grey interiors have been lifted with natural materials such as raw timber benches and rattan furnishings, which nod to the lush foliage and leafy palms surrounding the hotel. namronhospitality.com

Umi Tulum; Anouar Akrouh

JOURNEY / Openings

Villa Augustine, Morocco After falling under Tangier’s spell during his first trip to the city, interior designer and hotelier Willem Smit bought the property now known as Villa Augustine the very same weekend. After a year-long restoration, the former family home has reopened as an intimate guesthouse, dressed in a bold saffron yellow and olive green colour scheme, which is set to change each autumn in a rotating

palette of colours. Smit has added some personal design essentials (note the marble fireplaces and copper tubs) and championed native craftsmanship through his choice of handmade textiles, from the locally embroidered bedlinens to the curtains, which have been crafted by a father-son team. houseofaugustine.com

Designed for

Work. Wellness. You.

A new Work Space opening Summer 2023 theofficegroup.com/work-well

An apartment in Paris by After Bach. Read the full story on p78 Image by Annick Vernimmen

HOME Timeless spaces

Artfully restrained

A minimalist Hebridean holiday retreat that’s full of warmth Words / Sophie Vening Images / Toby Mitchell

HOME / Skye

ooted into the rugged hillside overlooking Portree harbour on the Scottish west coast island of Skye, this new-build home could easily be overlooked seen from a distance. Its blackened timber cladding blends in beautifully with the Hebridean landscape, but on closer inspection, its high-spec, luxury interior design and natural stone walling details aren’t like anything else on the island, proving that it’s well worth a second glance. Room Studio led both the architectural and interior design side of the project, creating the house as a holiday home for their client during the summer months, and as a holiday let for the rest of the year. “They wanted their home to be visually cohesive, tactile and soothing – a simple and understated retreat where they could escape the pressures of everyday life,” says Room Studio’s co-founder and interior designer Nina Cooley. “In addition, it was essential that the project was built sustainably, supporting local industries where possible.” Right from the outset, the architects wanted to design a building that sat delicately in its wild context without disrupting views across the water. The finished result is a wraparound form that follows the contours of the land. The entrance is on a lower level, with a wing that juts out over the loch to one side that contains an open-plan bedroom-bathroom suite with

spectacular views and private access to an outdoor decking area with a plunge pool. Back into the hallway entrance, and to the left is a room currently used as a home cinema, plus a bathroom. Up half a level to the main house, there’s an expansive living and dining area set in front of a striking kitchen, with bespoke cabinetry framed by twin timber-clad volumes that house the utility and pantry. The master suite lies beyond this living space, the highlight of which is an elegant stone bath sat next to a large frameless window with undisturbed tranquil views. Beyond that is a further shower room with a double walk-in shower and double vanity, plus a dressing room. The house’s sense of space is amplified by the ceilings, which are nearly three metres high throughout: Cooley says that “the client wanted a really dramatic ceiling height. It helps emphasise just how voluminous, light and lofty the interior is.” A restrained palette – where enduring materials such as timber, clay plaster, plant-based resin and marble help create a warm, calming space – allows the views over the water take centre stage. “The client had a very specific palette in mind and knew that, although he wanted the dwelling to be simple and minimalist, he also wanted it to be warm and calming, too. He didn’t want anything too slick and sharp, but rather soft and neutral,” says Cooley.

Facing page The open-plan living zone, with resin floors and clay plaster walls Previous page A soothing palette of warm-toned materials reoccurs throughout

“The client wanted a simple and understated retreat where they could escape the pressures of everyday life”

Above Lambert & Fils’ Dot Line light hangs over the kitchen island, while a slot rooflight washes daylight down the wall. The cabinetry is made from ash veneer, with marble countertops

Facing page The guest suite includes a seating area and dramatic corner glazing. Finnish brand Made by Choice’s Airisto coffee table helps create the interiors’ Nordic-style simplicity

HOME / Skye

Facing page The architecture and layouts have been designed to take advantage of the view over Portree Loch Right Crisp geometric shapes contrast with the textured limestone wall

Although simplicity was key, there is nothing straightforward about the interior; every aspect of the house and its material selection has been thoroughly considered. Shadow gaps replace traditional skirting boards for a cleaner effect; poured plant-based resin flooring is not only eco-friendly, but also provides a seamless surface that creates a visual link between the different zones and helps to establish a coherent flow. Timber features heavily, in the ash veneer bespoke kitchen cabinetry and in the guest bedroom’s engineered oak flooring, sourced locally in Scotland. “It has a beautiful white oil running through it, which helps show off the grain and adds character in contrast to the monotone resin flooring,” says Cooley. Furniture, lighting and accessories also have a natural, organic look, with sheepskin cushions and rice-paper pendants. Clay plaster on the walls has been left exposed creating a simple, raw effect, with microcement used on the bathroom walls for its waterproof qualities, colour-matched to the clay for consistency. To help further connect the home with the exterior landscape, vast expanses of slim-framed aluminium sliding doors and frameless corner windows have been installed. “Because they’re not clunky and the tracks are very minimal, the glazing helps achieve more of the view because your eyes don’t focus on the door itself but the environment outside,” says Cooley. Outside, the Millboard composite deck in a limed-oak finish acts as an extended entertaining space that’s all very free-flowing.

One of the house’s defining architectural elements is its limestone feature wall in the kitchen, which is made from split-faced white limestone finished with hand-trowelled lime plaster. A slot rooflight positioned above it casts daylight down the wall, accentuating its irregular texture. “It creates a lovely backdrop,” says Cooley. “The tactility and texture of the material works beautifully against some of the flatter materials used elsewhere, and it helps bring the kitchen space to life.” Key to the success of this project was the client’s mutual agreement with Room Studio’s organic material and colour palette suggestions. “From the word go, we had a palette of materials with tactile finishes that he said yes to,” says Cooley. “It was the tactility and warmth and the feeling that the materials evoked for him. We knew they were the materials for the job and he really felt they worked for him, too.”

Above The house is clad in black-stained larch and quartzite, with an L-shaped terrace that runs along the loch side, accessible from all the main rooms

Facing page A simple plunge pool visually merges with its wider watery surroundings

Neo noir

A Californian guesthouse heads to the dark side – with surprisingly uplifting results Words / Dominic Lutyens Images / Douglas Friedman

HOME / Napa Valley

an Francisco-based interior designer Nicole Hollis has dreamt up the decor of a guesthouse for a couple’s visiting friends and family with an unusual design equally suitable for indoor and outdoor living. A single-storey, barn-like structure in open countryside in Napa Valley, California – which Hollis calls a “pavilion” – it is generously glazed at one end, drawing daylight into the space. It also boasts a huge window overlooking a lush landscape with trees and a vineyard, outdoor terraces with comfortable seating, and a pool. “The pavilion serves as a separate space for guests to stay in, and an indoor and outdoor living and entertainment space close to the pool on one side and sweeping vistas of vineyards on the other,” explains the designer, who heads up her eponymous studio, which encompasses interior and furniture design and is run in partnership with her husband Lewis Heathcote, the practice’s CEO. “A central living space separates the two bedroom suites, which together accommodate four people. The house is suitable for year-round use as sliding glass doors enclose the living area in winter or retract for a completely open indoor/outdoor experience in summer.” The guesthouse’s dark, pumice-grey interiors are designed to form a cohesive whole with its exterior, which is strikingly clad in FSCcertified accoya wood, chosen for both its sustainability and durability. The dark colour was inspired by the ancient Japanese wood

preservation technique of shou sugi ban, which involves charring the surface – although the process wasn’t applied to this building. Designed by San Francisco practice Arcanum Architecture, the house’s structure was inspired by “the simple barn vernacular seen throughout northern California,” says Hollis. “We were brought on to the project after Arcanum developed preliminary concepts for it. Our teams worked together to develop a seamless flow between the interior and exterior through the use of materials.” The landscaping around the house was mainly designed by local firm Lou Penning Landscapes. The guesthouse’s charcoal grey exterior forms a dramatic, sharp-edged silhouette, while its correspondingly dark interiors, especially in the areas without windows, give it an inwardlooking, nocturnal, almost hermetically sealed feel – especially at night. The same bitumenblack accoya, comprising vertically arranged planks, also lines the snug living room at the core of the building, reinforcing the connection between the exterior and relatively pared-back interior. A fireplace here – albeit a minimalist one – enhances the sense of cosiness. Furniture and fittings throughout help to connect the exterior and interior, too: in the living room, the limestone-topped coffee table has a base with a charred-oak finish, for example. The guest house exterior’s sooty tone and tenebrous interior were also chosen to contrast

Facing page Thanks to the Californian sunshine flooding in, the house is far from dark Previous page A kitchenette is discreetly hidden behind doors in the living room

HOME / Napa Valley

“The materials flow from exterior to interior, with the guesthouse’s cladding wrapping inside the living room”

with the clients’ existing, paler house, says Hollis: “The intent was to create a dark, moody space in contrast to the main house. The materials flow from exterior to interior, with the guesthouse’s cladding wrapping inside the living room. All the materials were selected to complement this palette.” A stone floor in a slightly paler grey unifies the structure while the walls are mainly covered with plaster impregnated with a grey pigment that creates several effects, from smooth and matt surfaces to a tonally uneven, slightly metallic finish. For Hollis, the walls create a neutral backdrop that makes occasional flashes of colour stand out: “They provide a dramatic background for the clients’ artwork, including an acrylic on jute piece by German artist Jutta Haeckel in the main bedroom.” An all-grey kitchenette in the living room is discreetly incorporated into a recessed area. Here, everything from ceramic vessels to wall lights are in similarly dark, unobtrusive tones of gunmetal grey, almost camouflaged against the surrounding accoya walls. The kitchenette, which can also serve as a bar, can be concealed by accoya doors for a sleeker look. Washbasins in grey limestone, supplied by Da Vinci Marble, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, conform to this sober colour scheme, too. Other grey elements include a felted wool wall hanging by Taiana Giefer that adds texture and warmth to a bedroom. The interior might look

uniformly grey at first glance but other neutral tones, including tawny browns, beige and cream, break up and enliven the space. The strongest bursts of colour come from views on to the landscape, however, afforded in particular by the enormous window overlooking a vineyard. “The dark interior is partly intended to make the outdoors look very green, lush and sunlit by contrast,” says Hollis. A mixture of contemporary and mid-20thcentury styles of furniture and homeware, in subtly contrasting materials, further softens the interior, including an inviting sofa covered with an ecru fabric, a teak side table, Moroccan rugs, wool throws and palm-leaf and leather storage containers. The headboards in the bedrooms are upholstered in oxblood or toffeecoloured leather. And although some of the lighting, including a floor lamp by Luceplan, is functional and skeletal, there are also sculptural, off-white pendant lights, such as a cloudshaped one made of Japanese washi paper created by French designer Céline Wright. While the guesthouse seems suited both to diurnal and nocturnal relaxation, it’s simplistic to polarise the day- and night-time entertaining that takes place here, given California’s temperate weather. As Hollis points out: “Our clients’ guests enjoy cocktail and dinner parties during which the house can be completely open, often with dining set up outside so they can experience an indoor/outdoor scenario on mild California days.”

Facing page The Arno Declercq coffee table has a charredtimber base, complementing the dark cladding

Facing page In the bathroom, the grey stone basin’s cloudy surface matches the textured plaster walls; the Triad wall lights are by Apparatus

Above A felted wool wall hanging by Taiana Giefer sits above the bed

A cloud-like pendant by Celine Wright hangs from the soaring roof in one of the bedrooms

“The dark interior is partly intended to make the views outdoors look very green, lush and sunlit by contrast”

Facing page Blue skies throw the crisply outlined gable roof into relief; Lou Penning Landscapes created the surrounding garden

Above Lush vineyard views contrast with the dark interiors. The pair of chairs are Hans Wegner’s GE290 model, while the sofa is from Egg Collective

Peace process French design studio After Bach explores the concepts of calm and purity in this Parisian apartment Words / Emily Brooks Images / Annick Vernimmen

Above After Bach imagined the apartment as a collector’s house, in which tactile, sculptural one-off objects each have a story to tell

Previous page Jessica Berguig has filled the living space with work from her gallery, JAG, including the coffee table by Guy Bareff, alongside vintage pieces

HOME / Paris

“W

e like the idea that architecture is like music; it’s a fragile balance,” explains Francesco Balzano, one half of French design studio After Bach along with his co-founder Jessica Berguig. The recently formed practice is named after an album by pianist Brad Mehldau – a jazz-inspired take on Bach’s work – and Balzano’s analogy is an apt one, since he and Berguig create a fascinating harmony together. He is a furniture designer, while Berguig runs a contemporary design gallery in Paris’ 7th arondissement, JAG. “I think we have the same pleasure and passion for natural materials, a minimal atmosphere and an interest in the detail, and it’s interesting to share our point of view,” says Balzano. “I work on the architecture, the volume and the detail, while Jessica works on the atmosphere.”

bedroom, as well as those memorable views. A balcony runs the length of the apartment, which had previously been made into an enclosed loggia: After Bach opened it up to the elements, once more gifting the property with some outside space. The other major layout change was the redesign of the staircase on a smaller footprint to regain some of that lost internal floor area. The new winding oak-clad structure feels tall and narrow when you climb it, but this heightens the sense of space and light encountered when you reach the top – like holding your breath under water and exhaling as you hit the surface. After Bach was given carte blanche from the homeowner when it came to how to design the space, and the interior architecture was inspired by the mid-20th-century house designs of Los Angeles: After Bach also cites the interiors of David Lynch’s 2001 film Mulholland Drive as an influence, and the apartment does indeed have a certain cinematic quality. There’s also a Japanese influence, in elements such as the fabric walls punctuated by vertical oak battens, and the general air of serenity throughout that comes from careful detailing, such as the jib doors that offer a seamless continuation of the fabric walls when they are closed, with no

An apartment on Paris’ Rue Montaigne is the first residential project the studio has unveiled. Designed as a pied-a-terre for an international businessman, it sits on the two top floors of a modern building that has “probably one of the best views in Paris of the Eiffel Tower,” says Balzano. The lower floor is a smaller space containing the entrance and guest suite, leading to a much larger upper level with an open-plan living and dining area and the main

HOME / Paris

architraves to make them stand out. Some of the walls are not walls at all, but sliding doors or floor-to-ceiling cupboards, the only hint of their additional function being their elegant looped handles in olive green leather.

curation skills to bring together both new and vintage pieces. “In contradiction with the architecture, which is very minimal, we decided to make it like a collector’s apartment,” says Berguig of the furniture and accessories – in other words, more of a series of intriguing oneoffs, such as the ceramic low tables by Floris Wubben in the bedroom or the primitive timber chair by Goons in the living area, both designers that Berguig represents in her gallery.

“The objective was to focus on one or two strong materials and make an accumulation of them,” says Berguig. Oak, tactile natural fabrics and limestone repeat in a rhythm that fits Balzano’s “architecture as music” ethos, and of these Berguig identifies the key material as the off-white Massangis limestone that has been used for the floors, inside and out, as well as for the basins and countertops, which are silkily tactile. In the bathroom, a monolithic bath in the stone seems to grow up from the floor, with the intention that it should all look like one single united surface (the 80kg tub required the floor to be reinforced). In further efforts to create a calm and unified interior, the same banana-fibre wall lights are repeated in almost every room (Pinch’s Pium light, inspired by the shape of a seed pod), layered on top of the fabric walls. There’s also an absence of art on the walls, although practically every piece of furniture has a sculptural quality or hand-made feel that fulfils the same need for objects with a story to tell and a human touch.

Vintage pieces include a Jacques Adnet day bed in the living area, and a French mid-20thcentury dining table by Marcel Gascoin, surrounded by Italian chairs of the same era. Next to the dining space is a tucked-away kitchen accessed by a sliding door, which incorporates the same harmonious set of materials used everywhere else: oak cabinetry topped by Massangis limestone. “There’s something about the purity of this apartment that is very strong,” says Berguig. “On the top floor, with the views, there’s almost a feeling that you are flying. We needed that peaceful feeling – something very cosy, and not too aggressive.” After Bach is already working on another residential project, which Berguig says will be “completely different, but with the same quality of detail and focus on materials. Each space expresses something different, and we listen to that first. We love building the emotion in our work.”

While Balzano is known for furniture design, he says that “the apartment is not a showroom of my work.” Instead, Berguig has used her

Facing page The compact and confined oak staircase creates maximum contrast when you emerge into the light and airy first floor of the apartment

Previous page A Marcel Gascoin table and vintage Italian chairs in the dining room. Doors lead to a balcony that was previously an enclosed loggia

Above Fabric walls separated with timber battens demonstrate a Japanese influence; Pinch’s Pium wall lights are used throughout the apartment

Facing page A near-invisible sliding door separates the kitchen from the dining area. The limestone countertop and oak cabinetry echo the materials used elsewhere

“The objective was to focus on one or two strong materials and make an accumulation of them”

Previous page Built-in wardrobes have the same textile-clad appearance as the static wall panelling used elsewhere, with olive-green leather loop handles

Above In the bedroom, a simple fabriccovered headboard forms the backdrop to side tables by Floris Wubben and Gatto lights by Flos

Above The floor needed to be reinforced to accommodate the 80kg stone bath, which emerges as seamlessly as possible from the floor

Cassiopeia Constellation Lighting Collection by David Rockwell lasvit.com

Untitled (Porcelain Balls) by Ai Weiwei. Read the full story on p99 Image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio

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

Action, Gesture, Paint, Whitechapel Gallery, London Until 7 May

With more than 150 paintings from 80 international women artists, this exhibition demonstrates the global spectrum of female practitioners who have experimented with abstraction since the mid-20th century. A riposte to Western and Eurocentric narratives sees the show explore

how it was reimagined in various geographic contexts, from responses to the rise of fascism in South America or the influence of Communism in Eastern Europe and China. Pictured are Fanny Sanin’s 1968 Oil No.4 (above) and Untitled by Janet Sobel, from 1948 (opposite)

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Trickster Figures: Sculpture and the Body, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes Until 7 May

Organised by independent curator and writer Jes Fernie for Milton Keynes’ MK Gallery, Trickster Figures: Sculpture and the Body presents multidisciplinary sculptural work from the next generation of contemporary British artists, including Ro Robertson (whose Torso II is pictured), Alice

Channer, Jesse Darling, Nicolas Deshayes, Kira Freije and Vanessa da Silva. The exhibition reflects conversations surrounding fluidity and mutability, drawing on themes regarding gender and identity, the virtual world and our relationship with animals and the environment.

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Howardena Pindell: A New Language, Spike Island, Bristol

Big Women, Firstsite, Colchester

This show’s title, A New Language, is taken from an article Howardena Pindell penned in the 1980s: “I am an artist. I am not part of a so-called ‘minority’, ‘new’ or ‘emerging’ or ‘a new audience’. These are all terms used to demean, limit, and make people of colour appear to be powerless. We must evolve a new language which empowers us and does not cause us to participate in our own disenfranchisement.” Spanning work from the 1970s to the present, Pindell’s practice ranges from paintings to video work, made in response to the pressing sociopolitical issues of her time, from police violence to war, the AIDS pandemic, slavery and racism.

Curated by iconic YBA figure Sarah Lucas, Big Women is an exhibition of sculpture, painting, film and fashion. Inspired by conversations with friends and fellow artists, the show explores the societal expectations surrounding youth, ageism, beauty and identity, and is “both an endorsement and a celebration of women’s achievement in the creative field,” says Lucas. “God knows we need it in these times dominated by male aggression, politicking, greed, war and pig-headedness.” Artists include Renata Adela, Angela Bulloch, Maggi Hambling, Polly Morgan, Georgina Starr (whose Spitzing from 2013 is pictured), Gillian Wearing, Sue Webster and Lucas herself.

Until 18 June

Until 21 May

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

General Idea, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Lee Lozano: Strike, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin

From 1969 to 1994, Canadian artists Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson collectively made conceptual artwork under the moniker General Idea. Best known for the Imagevirus series (1989-91), in which the group reconfigured Robert Indiana’s ‘LOVE’ logo to read ‘AIDS’, General Idea is known for its satirical, playful and occasionally controversial critiques of consumerism, the art economy and mass media. Curated in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, this show marks the most comprehensive retrospective of the trio’s output to date, with over 200 works on display, from installations to videos, paintings, sculptures, publications and drawings.

Strike is the first Italian monographic survey of the work of idiosyncratic American artist Lee Lozano. The exhibition spans her prolific and varied 12-year career as part of the 1960s cultural milieu in New York, in which pop art, minimalism and conceptual art were all the rage. Initially making a range of figurative drawings and ribald paintings exploring gender and sexuality, such as the large oil-on-canvas Tools series, she then turned to more abstract, conceptual work, known as her Language Pieces. In 1972, she made her final work, Dropout Piece, and then abandoned the art scene, boycotting functions and withdrawing from museum and gallery shows.

1 April–16 July

Until 23 July

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense, Design Museum, London Until 30 July

Artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s largest UK show in nearly a decade will mix existing artworks with major new commissions. Looking specifically at the realm of design and architecture, he will focus on the history of making as a lens in which to explore questions of value. At the

show’s heart is five expansive ‘fields’ where hundreds of thousands of objects will be laid out on the floor of the gallery, including Stone Age tools, teapot spouts, cannon balls and Lego bricks, collected by the artist for more than 30 years, and never before brought together.

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art, National Gallery, London Until 13 August

This show traces the influence of Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin on the next generation of European artists. Charting the development of modern art from the artistic circles of Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Vienna, and the development of expressionism,

cubism and abstraction, it includes over 100 paintings and sculptures loaned from the world’s greatest museums. Artists include Auguste Rodin, Käthe Kollwitz, Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Kokoschka, Henri Matisse, Camille Claudel, Pablo Picasso and Sonia Delaunay.

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ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Carrie Mae Weems, Barbican Art Gallery, London

Anthony Caro, Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, London

Following its major exhibitions of Carolee Schneemann and Alice Neel, this summer the Barbican Art Gallery will host the first large-scale presentation in the UK of American artist Carrie Mae Weems’ work. More than three decades of Weems’ multidisciplinary work will be shown, bringing together photographs (including 2004’s If I Ruled the World, pictured), videos, films, objects and installations. Trained as a dancer and then studying photography, the artist became first known in the mid 1980s through her photographic compositions that investigated the relationship between race, gender, class and power, exploring the notion of witnessing and history.

Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing, west London, was once the country home of the architect Sir John Soane, and the unique character of the historic building offers a great contrast to its programme of modern and contemporary art exhibitions. This spring, it has worked with the estate of the late sculptor Anthony Caro on a show subtitled The Inspiration of Architecture. In the 1960s, Caro redefined sculpture by making large-scale abstract constructions from painted steel. The exhibition will focus on the resurgence and development of architectural themes in Caro’s work, showing 16 works created between 1983 and 2013 that play with notions of scale, light and materiality.

21 June–3 September

Until 10 September

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ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Betty Woodman and George Woodman, Charleston House, Sussex Until 10 September

This show at the Sussex home and studio of Bloomsbury Group painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant celebrates the life and work of ceramic artist Betty Woodman and her husband, painter and printmaker George Woodman. Similar to Bell and Grant, the Woodmans lived and

worked alongside one another; the show pairs ceramics and assemblage with abstract paintings (such as George Woodman’s 1965 Piazza San Francesco di Paola, pictured) and photographs, demonstrating their lifetime of artistic experimentation and vibrant expression.

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ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Martha Rosler, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

Ragnar Kjartansson, Louisiana Museum, Denmark

The Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt will be dedicating a solo exhibition to the American conceptual and feminist artist Martha Rosler. Rosler’s video, photography, text, installation and performance work has focused on the public sphere, exploring issues from everyday life and the media to architecture and the built environment, especially as they affect women. The Schirn show will explore her political examination of power and violence, the notion of beauty and the relationship between war and consumption, though works such as The Gray Drape (pictured), a photomontage from 2008.

This show focusing on the Icelandic contemporary artist Ragnar Kjartansson will be the first major retrospective of his work in Scandinavia. Acting as “director and a musician, a comedian and a showman, a critic and a visual artist” according to the Louisiana Museum, he uses references including art history, literature, politics and pop culture to explore issues such as love, power, masculinity, identity, comedy and tragedy. The presentation features video art (such as 2017’s No Tomorrow, pictured, which features eight dancers with guitars), drawings, paintings, performance and large-scale installations.

6 July–24 September

9 June–22 October

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ART & COLLECTING / Exhibition

A glorious conversation A show at Derbyshire’s Chatsworth House places contemporary design in dialogue with some magnificent historic settings

hatsworth House has long been a bastion of creativity. Located in Derbyshire’s Peak District, surrounded by lush woodlands and set upon the banks of the River Derwent, the first house on the estate was created by Bess of Hardwick and Sir William Cavendish in around 1552, and it has subsequently been the home of 16 generations of the Cavendish family, spanning six centuries. And as each family member has taken their tenure, they have sought out ways to make their own mark, not just through practical improvements and enhancements, but also via acquisitions for the estate’s Devonshire Collection, which ranges widely and includes everything from a pair of giltwood chairs designed by architect William Kent for George II to a digital portrait by Michael Craig-Martin. Now, a collection of new objects are set to make themselves at home within the house’s many rooms thanks to a new exhibition, Mirror Mirror. “Everything about Mirror Mirror is a response to the specific conditions of the house and garden,” says Glenn Adamson, the cocurator of the show alongside Alex Hodby. “This helped to inspire the title; we were interested to stage a reflection between the past and present, and the present and future.” Running until 1 October, Mirror Mirror aims to create a dialogue between the design details

found in the house – making its architecture, interiors, furniture and ceramics, as well its materials of glass, stone and wood, and a room’s particular quality of light – more visible to the public as they tour the property.

Words Alice Morby

Together with the galleries Friedman Benda and Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Adamson and Hodby have brought together an eclectic, international group of artists and designers: Joris Laarman; Chris Schanck; Ini Archibong; Andile Dyalvane; Max Lamb; Formafantasma; Ettore Sottsass; Faye Toogood; Jay Sae Jung Oh; Fernando Laposse; Ndidi Ekubia; Joseph Walsh; Michael Anastassiades; Samuel Ross; Najla El Zein; and Wendell Castle. Some have created new commissions in response to the space, while others have curated existing work that they felt resonated with its surroundings. “We began by considering the designers that Friedman Benda already works with,” says Adamson. “One designer – Joseph Walsh – already had a strong presence at Chatsworth and this seemed like an ideal opportunity to showcase the collection of his work here.” Elsewhere, Adamson and Hodby were keen to feature leading designers working specifically in the UK, like Max Lamb, for example. In general, though, they selected people whose work would somehow showcase a connection

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Facing page Joris Laarman’s bench, whose tessellated pieces of walnut find an echo in Chatsworth’s checkerboard floor

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Joseph Walsh Studio; courtesy of Friedman Benda and Najla El Zein, photo: Damien Arlettaz

ART & COLLECTING / Exhibition

to the house. “The question of dynamic fit within the historic environment was our most important criterion,” adds Adamson. Each designer had their own space allotted to them – “so at all times one is seeing a singular vision in the Chatsworth context,” says Hodby, who adds that deciding where to place each object was relatively easy. Silversmith Ndidi Ekubia’s work, for example, has found a home in the State Dining Room, her set of functional tableware working in dialogue with an existing ornate silver chandelier. “My silver pieces are reflective and fluid forms,” the Manchesterbased designer says. “These forms respond with each other, the room and the perspective of the observer, and the illumination from the chandelier accentuates this.” Elsewhere, Faye

Toogood’s enduring affinity for the English countryside has led her to create pieces in stone and bronze for the Chapel, inspired by the local history of ancient stone circles around Chatsworth. “She is also so skilled at shaping places for everyday inhabitation – so the Chapel and Oak Room, two adjoining spaces, were ideally suited,” says Hodby. What will happen to the works post-show is still yet to be determined – as despite many of them being site-specific and created especially for Mirror Mirror, the objects exist as pieces of design in their own right. “They are anchored in the realm of functionality,” says Hodby. “It will be wonderful to see them out in the world, carrying that memory of Chatsworth, and potential for use, with them.”

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Facing page Joseph Walsh’s Enignum bed reaches up to the ceiling of the Sabine Room Below Seduction, Pair 06, a red travertine seat-sculpture by Najla El Zein

Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Fernando Laposse

Facing page Fernando Laposse is known for his use of overlooked Mexican plant fibres; his Agave cabinet is sited in Chatsworth’s State Bedchamber Below Plot II, a hand-carved oak piece by Faye Toogood, whose work was selected for its spiritual resonance with the English landscape

“The question of dynamic fit within the historic environment was our most important criterion”

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Promote your products on Dezeen Showroom dezeen.com/showroom

Women’s Work: London map, by Part W. Read the full story on p112

ARCHITECTURE Surveying the built environment

ARCHITECTURE / Campaigning

Credit due

The “participatory activism” of Part W, whose new map of London helps to make women’s contribution to architecture and construction more visible

he Shard must be one of the most talkedabout buildings of recent history. With its elegantly pointed apex inspired by traditional church spires, this 300-metre-high London skyscraper was the tallest in Europe when first completed. It is common knowledge that the architect behind this structure was the Italian, Renzo Piano. Far lesser known is that its structural engineer was an Indian-BritishAmerican woman named Roma Agrawal. Agrawal spent six years developing highly technical solutions for the foundations and spire of The Shard, an achievement that saw her awarded an MBE. Yet unlike Piano, whose name is referenced in almost every article about the building, her role is often overlooked. On The Shard’s Wikipedia page, she doesn’t get a mention. She is not even named on the tower’s official website. Yet without her, the result might not have been nearly as impressive. Her contribution to this landmark project is one of 30 enlightening stories that feature on Women’s Work: London, a new printed map that highlights the key role that women have played in shaping the city as we know it today. Created by Part W, a feminist campaign group for the building industry, it shines a light on the lesserknown female architects, designers, engineers, builders and activists behind some of London’s best-loved landmarks, from the British Library to the London Eye. “History often celebrates the master architect as a lone figure, while other roles, particularly

those of women, are completely overlooked,” says the architect and Part W member Alice Brownfield. “We wanted to create a physical resource – one that people could actually get hold of – which celebrates the pivotal role that women have played.” Some of the other figures featured on Women’s Work: London include Kate Macintosh, the architect who designed the Dawson’s Heights housing estate in Dulwich when she was just 26, and Jane Priestman, the British Rail design director who was the driving force behind the construction of the International Terminal at Waterloo that served the Eurostar when it was launched in 1994. The map also highlights the estimated 350 female welders, stonemasons and labourers who built Waterloo Bridge during the second world war, as well as the instrumental role of campaigner Christina Smith in saving Covent Garden Market from being demolished in the 1970s. “We wanted a balance of different roles,” says Brownfield. “We felt it was important to also celebrate women who have taken on roles that are stereotypically less common, such as big engineering or infrastructure projects.” The chosen list is equally diverse in its inclusion of women of colour, women with a variety of religious beliefs and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Part W achieved this by using crowdsourcing as a tool for gathering as many stories as possible. Having already created a smaller map for the 2021 Barbican exhibition

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Words Amy Frearson Portrait Morley von Sternberg

ARCHITECTURE / Campaigning

How We Live Now, which looked back at the work of 1980s collective Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, they put out a call on social media asking the public for even more suggestions. An independent judging panel then made the final selection from more than 150 tips. “Crowdsourcing allowed us to step outside our narrow thinking and training,” says architect Sarah Wigglesworth, Part W member and director of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects. “Education typically takes you down certain paths, and that can be quite limiting.” Women’s Work: London has the same uplifting spirit as previous Part W projects, like the Alternative List, a campaign that challenged the male-centric history of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal by scouting out female architects who are equally deserving. The group likes to describe its methods as “participatory activism”. Rather than demanding action to tackle gender disparity, they invite the public to explore some alternative possibilities. The idea is to be positive and a little tongue-in-cheek, so that

people feel encouraged to join the conversation rather than chastised for getting things wrong. The map was produced in collaboration with feminist design group Edit Collective, and is available to buy on Part W’s website. In a bid to inspire young people into the industry, at least 50 copies are being distributed to schools around London. The long-term aim is to create an expanded version available digitally, as well as branch out to other UK cities. Part W hopes that the project will challenge a few of the preconceptions about gender roles in the building industry and provoke some important questions about why women’s participation has previously been overlooked. “We want to get away from the conversation about aesthetics, and about what a ‘woman’s building’ looks like,” says Sarah Wigglesworth. “It’s not just showcasing the fact that women have been involved in the built environment, but also questioning the processes that have allowed their contribution to be ignored.”

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Above Part W members (left to right) Yemí Aládérun, Zoë Berman and Alice Brownfield

“We felt it was important to also celebrate women who have taken on roles that are stereotypically less common, such as big engineering or infrastructure projects”

Above Women’s Work: London, a map that highlights the role that women have played in shaping the city

Facing page The map grew from a project for the Barbican that profiled 1980s feminist design collective Matrix

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Shell Diver earrings, by Ruby Jack. Read the full story on p120

STYLE Fashionable pursuits

Most wanted

Clothing, self-care and accessories that are thoughtful, expressive, beautiful and good

STYLE / Products

Toast “Make do and mend” is not just a wartime mantra but a pillar of today’s sustainability movement, as fashion brands find ways to divert garments from landfill and give them as long a life as possible. If the repair is artful and aesthetically pleasing, too, then so much the better. Toast has had an in-store repair service since 2018, but has taken the extra

leap of selling mended items online that had been returned damaged to its warehouse by customers. The Toast Renewed initiative will include designs repaired with the Japanese techniques of sashiko and boro, darned knitwear and embroidered dresses. From £100; toa.st

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STYLE / Products

Ruby Jack A musician before she was a jeweller, Ruby Jack says that her unique style “is born of a style of musical notation that I invented long ago”. These 24-carat gold-plate and freshwater pearl Shell Diver earrings certainly have a rhythm and language of their own, made more idiosyncratic by the fact that the left and right sides have similar-but-different designs.

They are part of Jack’s Good Intentions II collection, which is inspired by everything from the glamour of 1990s fashion to 19th-century French performance artist Paul Legrand “and the stage fashion of that time for pastel silks and pearly moons”. £180; rubyjack.com

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STYLE / Products

Blackhorse Lane Ateliers A manufacturing success story in the heart of Walthamstow, Blackhorse Lane Ateliers opened its doors in 2016 and has become one of London’s best places to source selvedge and organic raw denim garments – while collaborations with the likes of Dutch brand Denham have helped to spread its fame even wider. The E17 Chore Jacket (pictured)

went away for a bit while the workshop sourced a new supplier for its Japanese denim, but now it’s back; its workwear-meets-casualwear look perfectly encapsulates what the brand is about – and like all the best denim, it will only get better with time. £295; blackhorselane.com

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STYLE / Products

Artisan fragrances from Ffern are released every three months, and pay homage to the plants and flowers of each season. Its spring equinox launch centres around the narcissus, whose sweet floral notes are paired with woody petitgrain, cedar and vetiver; earthy ginger and basil; and bright bergamot and green mandarin. The packaging is plastic-free,

recycled and recyclable, including a mycelium bottle tray. Fragrances are made in limited batches (join the online list to subscribe) but if you want to sample the previous ones that didn’t sell out, they are available at Ffern’s new shop in London’s Soho. £79, ffern.co

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Aloha Bonser-Shaw

Ffern

STYLE / Products

Marfa Stance Never let rain spoil your day with Marfa Stance’s rain cape and rain hood. The company has a buildyour-own ethos to its outerwear, with modular pieces that can all work together – “designed to be enhanced, rather than replaced” – so you could always add a quilted hood or cosy shearling-lined collar in place of the rain hood. Made in Italy, the

stone coloured cape is sewn from water-resistant cotton with a quilted nylon lining; while the deep hood is inspired by the styling of a classic military parka, with a drawcord that can be cinched in when the weather really takes a turn for the worse. Rain cape, £595 and hood, £395; marfastance.com

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STYLE / Jewellery

Alchemy of leather

Maria Sole Ferragamo transforms remnants of hide into jewellery and bags that dazzle

o-le Studio’s jewellery both surprises and delights. Wonder comes courtesy of the leather sculpting skills that are employed in the development of these small pieces of wearable art, and from the illusion that the geometrically curled and swirled earrings, necklaces and bracelets are made from luminescent materials far weightier and more precious than animal hide. Delight comes from the knowledge that the polished pendants are in fact made from leather off-cuts, and in some cases factory floor brass shavings. In So-le Studio’s accessories, 20th-century glamour teams with 21st-century notions of sustainability, a formula that has seen the studio’s expansion into bag design and the opening of its first boutique in Milan. The author of this work is young Florentine designer Maria Sole Ferragamo. Given her sculptural skills, her chosen materials and the wearability of her work, her surname offers perhaps the least surprise, since she is the granddaughter of one of the 20th century’s most adventurous shoe designers, Salvatore Ferragamo. But the younger Ferragamo accepts that there is an element of destiny in her career choice. Her trigger came aged 12 in the family shoe factory, when salvaging a leather sample from the floor, she crafted it into flower earrings. Today, the Ferragamo factory is still one of her material sources, and immersion in the family archive has proved invaluable: “Reading and seeing all of this incredible material really nourished me,” she says. A degree in architecture gave her a design foundation and “a project mindset” as well as aesthetic inspiration: her influences are the built environment but also nature’s repeat patterns and optical art. A masters at London’s Central Saint Martins gave her confidence not only in the art of jewellery making, but also in building a business. “Using leather remnants began in an instinctive way, but it become the

core ethos of So-le Studio,” she says. “It’s a different way of working – you don’t start from the design and then pick the right material; they go in parallel. You might have a design but then you have to see what material is available.” Founded in 2019, So-le Studio is based between Ferragamo’s Milanese studio, where she uses architectural software to design the pieces she then personally prototypes, and the Tuscan workshops that make them. Experimentation is what led to the development of the L’una bag; it evolved from a bracelet design into a purse, distinguished by a circular magnetic handle and leather ribs that recall the work of architect Santiago Calatrava. The artistry of the pieces has led to collaboration with galleries such as Elisabetta Cipriani, and the studio’s work has been shown at Art Basel and Miart. Opened in December 2022, the boutique is sited in a new destination for Milan. Edged by buildings that once housed a seminary, the Piazza del Quadrilatero had been closed to the public for 40 years, but was recently salvaged by Lugarno, the Ferragamo family’s hospitality business; it is now the location of Milan’s hottest new hotel, Portrait, and opens up access between two thoroughfares of the city’s retail golden triangle. “It’s a dream come true,” says the designer. “The fact it was an abandoned place coming back to life was something so aligned with what we do at the studio.” The boutique’s interiors, by architects Fondamenta, translate her design principles of illusion, lightness, curvature and sustainability to the interior: “There is not one square angle in the shop,” she says proudly. The lightness of the jewellery is communicated by the fact that they are hung using magnets, while the recycled rubber floor represents reuse. Sculpting leather into wearable art may be in So-le’s DNA, but building a meaningful holistic business around it will be her legacy for the next generation.

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Words Emma Moore Images Alessandro Timpanaro

Facing page So-le Studio’s Ilahoop earrings, made from iceblue leather

Facing page Clockwise from top left: Eclipse earrings; the Mini L’una bag; the Halobag in gold; the Fiore ring, made from sparkly leather stretched across a gold-plated brass base

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Below Spiralling Nastro earrings, made from snake-print leather remnants

PIONEER

Architectural adventurer

Victor Horta reshaped art nouveau to create a more functional style that beckoned the future Words / Joe Lloyd Image / Courtesy of the Horta Museum

t is one of the great crimes against architecture. In 1965, the bulldozers came for Victor Horta’s Maison du Peuple in Brussels. Horta’s 1890s building, constructed for the Belgian Workers’ Party, took the elegance of art nouveau and pushed it to a more stripped back, functional form: a fascinating path until then not taken for modern architecture. A bland skyscraper was installed in its place.

prizes, plus a job working on the city’s Royal Greenhouses of Laeken with his professor Alphonse Balat, court architect to Leopold II. The cast iron and glass building would have an extraordinary influence on his later career. Upon graduating, Horta became active in a conventional historicist style; privately, he became fixated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. In 1893, he was asked by a fellow freemason to design a townhouse, and the resulting Maison Autrique still sings with the curving forms and vegetal decorations of art nouveau. A fleet of commissions followed. In his four masterpieces of the 1890s, Horta marshalled exotic materials, vine-like metalwork and vast skylights to create homes that fused unsurpassed glamour with surprising functionality – and he left nothing to chance, designing everything down to the doorknobs. Once again, he was called a laggard. But few would say the results weren’t worth the wait.

Horta’s surviving works stud the Belgian capital like finely cut gems. Born 1861 in Ghent, the young Horta was a dreamer – adults called him a laggard – but he finally found his calling after doing work experience with his uncle on a construction site. Like many artistically inclined Belgians then and now, he went to Paris, where he worked for an interior designer. On his return, he enrolled in the architecture course at Brussels’ Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Once he applied himself, Horta was a spectacularly successful student. He won multiple

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