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ART TAKES CENTRE STAGE
Illustration: Ayushi Teoria and Jishnu Bandyopadhyay
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` 200 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2021 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HOMES IN THE WORLD
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QUEEN OF HER CASTLE S O N A M
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the worlds of fashion and design:
Sonam Kapoor Ahuja in her London
Bijoy Jain crafts a two-piece
home and studio. The sofa beneath
furniture collection for Hermès. As
her feet is the Camaleonda by
Chanel No. 5 turns 100, we take a
Mario Bellini for B&B Italia. The
look at the timeless design of the
Pierre Jeanneret desk in the back is
bottle. DeMuro Das move into a
husband Anand Ahuja’s workspace.
swanky new address in Manhattan.
Sonam is wearing a Type A Dress,
Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien
by Charles Jeffrey Loverboy. Interior
design a plush, versatile new sofa
styling: Isabelle Dubern-Mallevays.
for Hay. And a suite of other design
Fashion styling: Nikhil Mansata.
stories, high on the style quotient.
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(Additional credits inside, pg 160.)
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2 2 ED ITO R ’S L E T TE R 2 4 CO NTRI B UTO R S THE SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER ISSUE 35 DISCOVERIES Our latest dispatch of stories from
PHOTO: DAVID MITCHELL.
PHOTO: SIMON UPTON.
A H U J A
MILANO via Borgospesso, 11 | meduri.luca@turri.it | www.turri.it
NTEN PHOTO COURTESY OF CHANEL.
4 2
11 8 N E L LY S E T H N A
142 M A N S I P O D D A R
AD takes a look at the first-
From its brass details to its mosaic
ever retrospective of the all-
floors, Mansi Poddar’s Mumbai
but-forgotten fibre artist Nelly
apartment is an extension of her
Sethna and her three-decade-long
own fashionable minimalism.
career. Curated by Nancy Adajania,
152 E VA C H E N
74 TRE NDS
hosted at Chatterjee & Lal, the
The Instagram director of fashion
86 A D 100
exhibit is one of three shows, as
partnerships, and sartorial
AD’s annual list of the biggest
part of Cymroza Art Gallery’s 50th
sensation herself, updates a
names in architecture and design.
anniversary celebrations.
Connecticut home for her
11 0 C O N S C I O U S , C O M PA S S I O N AT E
1 28 L O U L O U VA N D A M M E
growing family.
The inimitable Loulou Van Damme
FA S H I O N
opens the doors to her most
Bandana Tewari introduces AD
beloved project, a home she
to six emerging fashion labels
lovingly designed for her soul
championing sustainability around
sister, and owner of the former
the world.
Bungalow Eight, Maithili Ahluwalia.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF HAY.
T H E ST Y L E I S S U E
www.baxter.it
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PHOTO: PANKAJ ANAND.
1 2 8
AF TE R PA RTY 18 3 S A L O N E
The actor and fashion entrepreneur
Floral designer Nazneen Jehangir
AD heads to Milan for a crisp
puts a fabulous new spin on the
round-up of the hottest products
classic stiletto.
headlining at the fresh, new Salone
16 0 S O N A M K A P O O R A H U J A
199 T H E F L O R I ST
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del Mobile this year, aptly named
A witty column by illustrator
Supersalone.
Cyrus Daruwala.
1 93 ST Y L E B O O K
202 THE MO OD: R I M Z I M D A D U
opens the doors to her sumptuous,
Our selection of the best design
A master of material innovation,
art-filled home in Notting Hill,
products to own this season.
fashion designer Rimzim Dadu
studio she set up a stone’s throw from her home. Photography
1 96 ST O C K I ST S
styles a mood board for AD.
An A-to-Z listing of stores.
1 6 0
1 98 T H E S P O O N
by Simon Upton, text by Cosmo
Chef and restaurateur Eeshaan
Brockway, interior styling by
Kashyap pulls out a terracotta
Isabelle Dubern-Mallevays, and
matka from his new range of
fashion styling by Nikhil Mansata.
tableware to age a negroni.
PHOTO: SIMON UPTON.
London as well as the creative
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H M BITT RSW T H M Every time someone opens the doors of their home to us, I’ve begun to realize, it’s a bit terrifying for them—an emotional leap of faith. During the making of this issue, I’ve felt keenly aware of this internal struggle people go through when they have to publish their bedrooms and verandas and kitchens. Loulou, the delightful Isla Maria Van Damme, called and said, “It’s my first and my most favourite project.” Maithili Ahluwalia’s home. On the phone, I could hear PHOTO: SARANG GUPTA.
the rain in the back, as she called from Chennai to say, “I’m flying down for the shoot,” with a tremble in her voice. “It’s very dear to my heart,” she repeated. Mansi Poddar held her breath at the slightest suggestion that we leave the terrace out of the feature. I was arguing for visual purity and she very simply said, “But the terrace is important to me.” And Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, who began with “just my office, please”, soon enough found the courage and generosity within her heart to open the doors to her fabulous London home and studio. She spoke so tenderly and breathlessly of her art and design, all in a first-person voice—“My Swaminathan, my Manjit Bawa, my Jeanneret”—that to me it sounded very much like, ‘My love, my darling, mi amor….’ A home is nothing less than a love affair. As editors, we often forget that. We think of it as a story, a layout. We’re looking at it from a point of view of proportions and symmetry. We’re trying to achieve diversity—a content-mix, if you will. We get greedy for credits: What antiques can I call out in the captions? I am personally obsessed with headlines, waking up in the middle of the night to jot down a song that works as a title. But for a homeowner, it’s their home—actual and lived and imagined. Space is a physicality, but also an emotion, the innermost recesses of someone’s memory. I’m reminded of a book I read in graduate school, The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. Apart from being utterly dense, it opened my world to the magic of attics and doorknobs and childhood homes, and the emotional response that buildings can evoke. The hope is that you’ll turn these pages with that thought in mind. While there’s the annual AD100 to pour over, and you’ll notice that our radar moves along the lines of style and fashion in this issue—an Hermès collaboration with Bijoy Jain, Bandana Tewari’s sustainability outliers, and my personal favourite, drawings of that timelessly sexy Chanel No. 5—but mostly, I invite you to look at these as private, personal homes; photo albums of people’s lives, however choreographed; their dreams made real; fragments of their chaos and their harmony; pieces of the love that they give and the love they receive. It’s more fun that way!
KOMAL SHARMA
COSMO BROCKWAY
REMA CHAUDHARY
WRITER
PHOTOGRAPHER
Brockway is the co-author of ‘Glorious Hotels of India’. In this issue, he heads to Sonam Kapoor Ahuja’s home in London (pg 160): “Sonam is a passionate aesthete, in her own words, and the chance to see her multifaceted talents for design in her Notting Hill home was an inspiring moment.”
A portrait and fine-art photographer, Chaudhary’s work is often set within landscapes. For this issue, she turns her lens on young, feisty fashion designers championing sustainability, and photographs them in the heart of their homes and studios (pg 110).
SIMON UPTON PHOTOGRAPHER
SOONI TARAPOREVALA PHOTOGRAPHER
Taraporevala is a photographer, award-winning screenwriter and film-maker. She has written films like ‘Salaam Bombay!’ and ‘Mississippi Masala’, and also wrote and directed ‘Little Zizou’ and ‘Yeh Ballet’. In this issue, she shares a portrait of textile artist Nelly Sethna shot in 1984, in her home in Mumbai (pg 118).
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A celebrated photographer with a decades-long career, Upton travels to Notting Hill to shoot Sonam Kapoor Ahuja in her home and creative studio (pg 160). “Sonam is both passionate and informed, which has influenced not just the decoration of her apartment, but also her art collection, which is both personal and knowledgeable.”
NANCY ADAJANIA WRITER
Adajania is a cultural theorist and curator based in Mumbai. She was the joint artistic director of the 9th Gwangju Biennale and has curated major retrospectives of Navjot Altaf, Sudhir Patwardhan, and Mehlli Gobhai. In this issue, she writes about Nelly Sethna’s retrospective hosted by Chatterjee & Lal (pg 118).
ADITI MAHESHWARI
PANKAJ ANAND PHOTOGRAPHER
A regular contributor to Condé Nast magazines, Anand photographs Maithili Ahluwalia’s Mumbai apartment, lovingly designed by Loulou Van Damme (pg 128). “It was a fanboy moment for me; I’ve admired Loulou’s work since my photo research days at AD back in 2012. So this was an incredible opportunity.”
WRITER
AD’s former digital editor, Maheshwari met Loulou Van Damme in the home she designed for Maithili Ahluwalia (pg 128). “This home is a story about two women who share a cosmic connection so deep, pure and tangible, it’s writ large across the interiors.”
BANDANA TEWARI WRITER
KANIKA PARAB WRITER
In this issue, the co-founder of Brown Paper Bag writes about her colleague and friend Mansi Poddar’s Mumbai apartment (pg 142). “It’s only right to let other people into a home that has offered me a bounty of mint margaritas and sage advice. I hope you enjoy the tour.”
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Vogue India’s former editor-atlarge, Tewari now campaigns as a sustainability activist and writes for fashion magazines and sites. In this issue, she curates a global list of young, emerging fashion designers, for whom sustainability is uncompromising (pg 110). “It is the joy of discovering ordinary people who do extraordinary things to cause less harm to the environment that really makes me enjoy writing about sustainable fashion.”
ASHISH SAHI PHOTOGRAPHER
AD’s former art director shoots Mansi Poddar’s Art Deco apartment in Mumbai (pg 142). “Mansi’s chic style and impeccable taste transcend seamlessly into her home as well. We had so much fun styling and shooting her incredible closet.”
PHOTO: IMTINUKSHI JAMIR.
SHUBHAM LADHA
CHRIS MOTTALINI
WRITER
PHOTOGRAPHER
Ladha is a writer based in Kolkata, working at the intersection of fashion, style and culture. For this issue, he takes a deep dive into the design history of Chanel’s iconic No. 5 perfume and its signature bottle, and charts what’s changed since its 1921 launch, and what’s stayed the same (pg 42).
Based in Hudson Valley, New York, Mottalini specializes in architecture, interiors and design. His atmospheric and intimate photographs have been widely published in T magazine, US and France ADs, Casa Vogue, and Elle Decor, amongst others. In this issue, he shoots Eva Chen’s bucolic home in Connecticut (pg 152).
SAM COCHRAN WRITER
RIMZIM DADU DESIGNER
A fashion designer known for curious material innovations, Dadu founded her eponymous brand in 2007. In this issue, she styles a mood board that brings together the brand’s many material experiments and a few prized objects she’s collected over her career (pg 202).
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Sam Cochran is the global features director at Architectural Digest. In this issue, he speaks to Eva Chen, the director of fashion partnerships at Instagram, and an influencer herself, about updating her Connecticut home for her growing family (pg 152). “For Eva, family is very much the centre of her life and the house reflects that. Her full embrace of country life is so inspiring.”
CHAVI SOOD STYLIST
AD’s stylist has perfected the art of working remotely, having produced many elaborate shoots during lockdown. In this issue, she constructed our annual Salone del Mobile report (pg 183). “It’s always interesting to study the undercurrents at Salone—and not surprising that, during these difficult times, we’re opting for comforting curves.”
O Up your home’s glam quotient with small changes that exude a grand statement with Asian Paints’ newest collection of luxurious paints. With its sweeping looks and opulent air, Royale Glitz is sure to steal your spotlight If a year in your abode has given you major home goals, chances are, you’ve set your sights on giving your home an upgrade. Of course, knowing where to start can be a daunting prospect, and if you’re yearning to transform your home— you’d probably want to start by sprucing up the walls. And who better to offer lust-worthy paint
ideas than the pioneer in the paint industry? Asian Paints’ latest launch, Royale Glitz, is resplendent of aweinspiring colours and charming shades to help you create the home of your dreams. Since its foundation in 1942, Asian Paints has been innovating new concepts and setting design trends—their mastery in the industry is also reflected in
their newest collection of luxury paint offering—Royale Glitz. A confluence of décor and performance, Royale Glitz adds a distinct quotient of glamour and uniqueness with a luxurious ultra sheen—the best in class shiny finish that exudes a rich and lustrous air. Royale Glitz lends a polished pizzazz, with Teflon™ surface protector which
SPECIAL FEATURE
allows you to wipe off stains from the wall easily, inviting you to truly experience luxury with Teflon™. Inspired by the heartland story of India, the designer shades under Royale Designer Palette have been exclusively curated by the best minds in the industry to bring to the fore true sophistication. With names that reflect Indian culture, the diverse shade selection tool, Royale Book of Colours offers more than a 100 hues to choose
from, with eccentric and vivid options such as Chutney Green, Calcutta Rains, Coromandel Indigo, to name a few. Demonstrating their epic mastery, the colours are segregated on the basis of moods and showcase accented wall textures as well. “Consumers today are looking for that X factor in their home interiors. Something that will create a memorable and definitive impact while enhancing the beauty and glamour
quotient of your home. This is what we bring to our customers with the new Asian Paints Royale Glitz interior luxury paint,” says Amit Syngle, MD and CEO, Asian Paints Limited. For more details, log on to www.asianpaints.com/royale-glitz
M DISCOVERIES Chanel No. 5 turns 100. Bijoy Jain collaborates with Hermès. DeMuro Das opens in New York’s Flatiron District and Vishal K. Dar bends light in Klove’s new space. Design and style news go hand in hand this month.
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TEXT: RITUPRIYA BASU. P HOT OS :S TU DI O ES D F HERMÈS. URTESY O /CO S R EU FL
THE PURSUIT OF BEAUTY BIJOY JAIN CRAFTS TWO PIECES OF FURNITURE IN HIS LATEST COLLABORATION WITH HERMÈS
F
or Bijoy Jain, every design begins with a material. Whether he’s working on a space or an object, Jain’s process begins with his inimitable grasp of traditional craft techniques and his gentle play on materials, moulding them into forms that reflect their fragility and strength. This is a facet of his sensibility that he brings to his latest collaboration with Hermès—a twopiece collection, comprising an armchair and a table—unveiled at the Milan Furniture Fair, which took off on 5 September. For Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry, artistic directors of Hermès Home Universe, the collaboration seemed like an ideal fit. “The fact that he works very closely with the people involved in the making of an object is one of the reasons we wanted to work with him,” says Perelman. “When we approached him for the project, we had a very open discussion about the aspects of his work that speak to us the most—his take on craftsmanship, proximity with the materials, his modern approach.” Jain, who’s previously worked with an array of materials like bamboo, silk and Japanese washi paper, turned to papier mâché for the Sillage d’Hermès armchair (pictured left), and developed a prototype at Studio Mumbai, the practice that he runs out of Mumbai’s Byculla neighbourhood. Hand-made by craftsmen in Puglia, the armchair is made of wood but hand-coated with a unique papier-mâché compound, the cellulose microfibres of which create strikingly soft edges. Each armchair is then varnished and painted in a graphic striped pattern, one line at a time. Jain approaches design like a craftsman, nudging materials into unexpected, conceptual forms. This sensitivity with materials and processes lies at the heart of Studio Mumbai, which he established in 2005. Today, he has a portfolio of houses in Alibag and Mumbai; a mountain lodge on the foothills of the Himalayas and a weaving studio in Dehradun; and, most recently, he took on the restoration and building of the Lantern Onomichi Garden (LOG) hotel in Japan. In 2019, for his second collection of furniture for the Brussels gallery Maniera, he turned marble, lime and rice husk into daybeds, some rendered with a line made of kohl. With strips of
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ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF STUDIO MUMBAI. 38
bamboo and silk rope woven around angular metal frames, he created a set of chairs, one of which found itself in the LOG hotel library—the walls of which are lined with two layers of washi paper to soften texture and light. “The intention with these material investigations was to explore their capacity in weight, volume, mass, lightness, perception and making,” says Jain. “Materials sit latent in our subconscious only to be revealed as and when the opportune moment arises, like when a seed meets a raindrop.” This moment of time when, with a touch of the hand, a material shifts and transforms is best captured in the Lignange d’Hermès stone table (pictured above), carved out of a block of blue stone. A stonecutter marks lines radiating from the centre of the tabletop, which, when carved, turns into sharp white, articulating the precise gesture between man and material. “We needed three years to find a workshop in Italy capable of making the Sillage d’Hermès chair in papier mâché without losing the highly artisanal character of Jain’s prototype, and a stonecutter in Burgundy for the Lignage d’Hermès table,” says Fabry, of the process that took a while to take shape, and yet found its rhythm. “There was calmness in the making of these pieces, even in a period of strife,” notes Jain. “This collaboration, in mutual exchange, traversed boundaries in our ability to transfer thoughts, ideas, ethics and making. Malleable to location, geography, language, material and time—adjusting to its own centre of gravity.” It feels like a natural fit: Jain’s conceptual process and light-handed tempering of materials and Hermès’s centuries-old legacy and values. There is a mutual, feverish pursuit of the beauty of things made by hand.
THEORY OF EVOLUTION TEXT: SHUBHAM LADHA. ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF CHANEL.
AS CHANEL NO. 5 CELEBRATES ITS CENTENARY, IT’S NOT JUST THE PERFUME WE CHERISH, BUT THE CLASSIC BOTTLE THAT HOLDS IT
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he No. 5 has been an indelible icon for over a century. Since its creation in 1921 by couturier Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and perfumer Ernest Beaux, it’s been one of the most coveted products from the brand—so much so, that its “abstract” aldehyde formula has been Chanel’s best-kept secret till date. However, its meteoric rise to success is owed to several other factors too, one of which is the bottle. When designing the original bottle, Chanel wanted something simple and transparent to showcase the perfume in its limpid beauty. The austere laboratory bottle pushed against the conventions of the time with its vial-like, clinical structure, made of sharp lines and angular facets. While the more ostentatious perfume bottles of the 1920s drew inspiration from nature, Chanel looked to whiskey flasks for their simplicity. The stopper—cut like a diamond—was designed to evoke the geometry of Place Vendôme, a space close to Chanel’s heart. The bottle also featured the iconic logo—the interlocked C’s—for the first time. Since then, the design has been modified eight times to reflect the changing times. The delicate bottle from 1921 was strengthened in 1924, and the logo was dropped before reappearing in the 1970s. Later, it was the stopper that changed form—going from glass to metal with a bevel cut. The fact that so little of its design changed over the century is a testament to Chanel’s vision, and the timelessness of the bottle, which was catapulted to 20th-century stardom through Andy Warhol’s screen prints and has since become a part of MoMA’s permanent collection. A lesson in modernity, the stark, minimal bottle has been a significant part of No. 5’s mystique, and still remains as timeless as the perfume it holds within.
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COUTURIERS SHANTANU & NIKHIL BRING THEIR SIGNATURE STYLE TO OBEETEE’S ‘PROUD TO BE INDIAN’ SERIES OF DESIGNER CARPETS
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ow do you tell the world a story of India’s incredible crafts, its people, and its history? For Obeetee—the 100-year-old company specializing in handmade rugs—the answer lay in an heirloom-worthy collection crafted in collaboration with couturiers Shantanu & Nikhil. The Obeetee story began in 1920, in Mirzapur, the heart of India’s carpet district. Enamoured by the craft, three British gentlemen—F.H. Oakley, F.H. Bowden and J.A.L Taylor—decided to work with the region’s best artisans. Since then, Obeetee has perfected its techniques and workmanship, producing the finest rugs in the country, and showcasing its rich heritage to the world. As part of this vision, it has recently unveiled the fourth edition of the ‘Proud to be Indian’ series, in collaboration with couturiers Shantanu & Nikhil. Handcrafted in the Bhadohi district of Mirzapur, the new collection is divided into three themes: Independence, Regimental Regalia, and the IndiaProud Story. Rudra Chatterjee, the chairman of Obeetee, describes it as a collaboration that brings together contemporary ideas and age-old artistry. “The collection merges Obeetee’s ancestral carpetweaving tradition with Shantanu & Nikhil’s signature contemporization.” The themes were translated into a colour palette of rich reds and blues, brick textures, and insignias of battle victories that evoke India’s pre-independence era. “We have portrayed India’s innate contrasts— where the roots are indeed modern yet cultural, exotic yet familiar, and unassertive yet proud,” adds Shantanu Mehra. With 200 knots per square inch, the rugs are crafted with handspun wool and silk, while the motifs are given a high-shine silk wash. Upon a closer look, each warp and weft tells a tale—of timehonoured crafts and their custodians.
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TEXT: SHWETA VEPA VYAS. PHOTO: SIDDHARTH DHARAMJIT.
MODERN HEIRLOOMS
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Superior design, contemporary aesthetics, sustainable elements, and an eco-friendly approach to construction blend seamlessly in a lavish residential project designed by Mindspace Architects in Bengaluru. AD offers a glimpse into Svamitva Group’s latest project—Svamitva Terravana—homes for your mind, body and soul
The pandemic-induced lockdown that forced us to stay indoors did not just push us to take stock of our health, but also our homes. And amidst all this, we realised that as much as luxury is about owning a home that is opulent and comfortable, it is also about thoughtful interiors, the usage of sustainable materials, and access to nature. And one such fine example is Svamitva Terravana—a project designed by Mindspace Architects, with interiors by Svamitva Architecture Studio in Bengaluru, Karnataka—part of a 21 acre project comprising 155 Villa’s and Row Villa’s. With a design aesthetic that travels along the lines of earth and sustainability, the family home, spanning 2400 sq.ft, is earthy and rooted while being luxurious and contemporary. A perfect blend of classic and modern, the material palette comprises Kota stone and wooden laminate for flooring, and the age-old technique of lime plastering for the walls.
Adding an ethereal element to the beautiful space is the usage of diffused natural light to complement the warm hues throughout the house and custom-made lights that revive traditions and art forms. With curated furniture and an extensive range of thoughtfully designed decor pieces, Svamitva Terravana explores the modern setting of the homeowner’s lifestyle through traditional tones of nature and nurture. Talking about the project, principal architect Medappa says, “The design of Svamitva Terravana facilitates community living and emphasises on connecting with nature, both at the macro level-masterplan and at the micro level of individual villas. An earthy ambience is achieved by using mud and lime as materials of construction while the porosity in planning allows continuous breeze movement, and comfortable well-lit spaces that encourage holistic well-being of the dwellers.” PHOTOS: CREATE STUDIO
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LIVING ROOM
The living room which is a part of the central atrium serves as a space for relaxation and conversation inside the residence. While intricate Kota stone for the flooring lends charm and sophistication to the three-bedroom home, the muted colour palette gives an even more expansive feel to the doubleheight ceilings that are adorned with lights fixtures made from banana leaves. To create a place that blends the old and the new while accommodating a contemporary lifestyle, the interior setting transcends time with lime plastering technique complemented by mid-century themed furniture— the centre of attention being the opulently upholstered sofa combines rustic and modern design elements. Quirky knickknacks and curios brighten up the corners while the handpainted artwork above the sofa draws attention and adds character to the space.
DINING AND KITCHEN
Harnessing the power of light and space to create a visual impact, the focal point of Svamitva Terravana is the minimalistic design of the dining area that flawlessly transitions to the living room. Further, the kitchen is seamlessly connected to the dining and living area, emphasising the open layout which transitions into a landscaped niche that perfectly adds volume to the compact nature of the space. The highlight, however, is the exposed concrete light
above the dining table that brings out the true nature and warmth of the material and colour. Sleek, minimalistic, and equipped with the latest technology, the intuitively designed modular kitchen is a celebration of contrasting textures and complementing colours, making the space not just smart but also, efficient.
BEDROOMS
Wooden laminate flooring, glass windows offering uninterrupted views of the lush foliage, an earthy colour palette, and plush furniture—all three bedrooms in this sprawling home have a distinct character that lends the space a sense of calm and serenity. The sylvan design elements work well with the natural tones of the interiors while the complementary colour palette perfectly augments the fine texture detail in the space. The classic design of the bedpost and the warm lighting fixtures lend the bedrooms a natural and rustic feel while the contrasting artworks with warm coloured accents and furniture, make the space earthy and edgy.
For more information, visit www.svamitva.com/terravana or call 8880748748
TEXT: AVANTIKA SHANKAR. PHOTO: HEATHER HAZZAN.
The base of the sculpture is a cloud-like structure comprising acrylic rods and nine mandalas, or receivers, into which the audience can speak.
HAVE YOU MET SUCHI? NEW YORK–BASED DESIGNER SUCHI REDDY UNVEILS AN ‘EMOTIONAL’ INSTALLATION AT THE SMITHSONIAN IN NOVEMBER
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or Suchi Reddy, form follows feeling. The Indian-origin architect and founder of New York–based firm Reddymade is a practitioner of neuroaesthetics, a discipline that considers the neurological and psychological impact of design. The firm designed Google’s first physical store, which opened in New York this June, that explored how colours, textures and movement could create an immersive experience for visitors. Reddy also worked with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei to design a 2,000-square-foot hexagonal extension for a residence in Salt Point, New York; the creative collaboration evolved from the duo’s shared love of poetry. In November, she will be unveiling a stunning two-storey AI sculpture, commissioned and co-created by Amazon Web Services (AWS), for the Smithsonian’s ‘FUTURES’ exhibition. Titled me + you, the installation invites audiences to speak “a word for their future” into one of nine designated points at the cloudlike base. An algorithm devised by AWS translates the word into a colourful pattern that then floats up into a central totem. As more people speak into the sculpture, more patterns will emerge, creating a beautiful, ever-evolving collective vision of the future. “The sculpture takes sound and turns it into light,” explains Reddy. “I devised it in a way that I am allowing the machine to inform me—all I do is set the rules and the patterns for each letter, and see how the machine learns from that.” The way the totem weaves the patterns together is inspired by Reddy’s fascination with Kanchipuram handlooms, and also references the Vedic ideology that says, we are all one. “I wanted it to be an emotional sculpture that lets people know that whatever you do leaves an imprint,” she adds. “Technology could be used for the worst, but it doesn’t have to be. It is all about how you choose to interact with it.”
AMAN RESORTS’ NEW LINE OF READY-TO-WEAR PIECES IS A BLEND OF LUXURY AND ESCAPISM
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magine, for a moment, if the sense of sanctuary and luxurious sophistication central to the Aman experience were to be brought alive in a fashion line, realized in high-quality artisanal fabrics. That is exactly what the Essentials by Aman collection promises and delivers: Aman’s carefully considered aesthetic with escapism at its core, embodied in trans-seasonal, ageless, ready-to-wear pieces. Much like the skincare line launched in 2018, with packaging designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, this sustainably produced fashion line allows guests to now take the sublime Aman experience home. A swimsuit and monogram scarf from the recently launched Essentials by Aman collection. From its inception in 1988, Aman has created refined experiences rooted in nature, taking cues from the destination and highlighting the work of local artisans. This intrinsic connection with its locations can be felt across all its 33 luxury resorts in 20 countries. Like the resorts, the clothing too is a lush textural haven. For her mood board, Kristina Romanova, the brand’s director of product development, borrowed heavily from natural textures. “The palette draws from the rich colours of Aman destinations: the iconic palm trees at Amanpuri (Thailand), warm terracotta and copper that capture the vibrancy of Amanjena (Marrakech), sea blue and deep greens that celebrate the sea and olive groves of Amanzoe (Greece), and ochre that recalls the other-worldly landscape at Amangiri (USA),” she says. Crafted from Japanese cotton, hand-spun Italian wool and opulent silks, the edit features boxy silhouettes, classic swimsuits and billowy shirt dresses belted at the waist. The collection, that is now available at Aman boutiques across the globe, seems to have arrived at the right time, with the prospect of travel looking increasingly realistic. We cannot wait to pack our bags.
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TEXT: ADITI RAO. PHOTO: CHRIS COLLS.
THE AMAN ENIGMA
wer-toilet SensoWash® Starck f. ic design. Maximum comfort. and Philippe Starck present SensoWash® Starck f, a new generation shower toilet for state-of-the-art, natural ygiene. Maximum comfort is guaranteed thanks to technical finishing touches such as a motion sensor for automatic ng through to a wide range of setting options for seat heating, water spray and the controllable warm air dryer. able with all Duravit design series thanks to its uncompromisingly puristic design. For more information: 66112300, marketing.india@in.duravit.com or www.duravit.in, for technical details visit: www.pro.duravit.in
TEXT: RAJASHREE BALARAM. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE RUG COMPANY.
McQUEEN FOREVER THE RUG COMPANY’S LATEST COLLECTION BY ALEXANDER McQUEEN IS ALL ABOUT THE EARTH’S SUPREMACY AND THE LATE DESIGNER’S SPECTACULAR VISUAL SIGNATURE
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he late Alexander McQueen had a formidable reputation for being picky about which creative projects he collaborated on outside of his fashion house. Word has it that he took no less than a year to offer an affirmative nod to the Rug Company when he agreed to work on his famed four-piece series. That creative effort, from 11 years ago, also marked the last of McQueen’s grand productions. Now, the Rug Company has joined forces with the house of Alexander McQueen for the fifth time to launch Metamorphosis, their latest collection of rugs replete with similar grandeur and spectacle. Through extravagant renditions of butterflies, beetles, and cranes, these rugs—woven in wool and silk— showcase the renewal and rebirth that constantly unfold in nature. While the winged subjects may seem simple enough, they’ve been cast as flamboyant, larger-than-life storytellers under the keen vision of creative director Sarah Burton. The designs nudge memories of Burton’s autumn/winter 2018 collection where beetles, butterflies and moths seemed to regenerate McQueen’s lifelong passion for ideas of life, death and decay. This profound, dark unravelling of life cycles took centre stage in McQueen’s designs. In fact, the Beetle rug (pictured) presents a fantastically detailed abstraction of the elytron, a motif central to the maison’s designs. While the intricacies of the weave—perfected over months of sampling between the atelier in London and the weavers in Nepal—are unmissable, it’s the quiet reverence towards nature that rises above the obvious artistic splendour. “Our wool is sourced from the Tibetan sheep who roam freely in the Himalayas but must have their woolly fleece removed to survive,” explains CEO James Seuss. “This material is rapidly renewable, biodegradable, and recyclable. We hope that this collection encourages a deeper respect towards nature.”
O HEY, BARTENDER
TEXT: ELA DAS. PHOTO: SURYAN//DANG.
WITH EXPANSIVE VIEWS OF THE ARABIAN SEA, THE RELAUNCHED EAU BAR AT THE OBEROI, MUMBAI IS ANOTHER JEWEL FROM SP+A
verlooking the Art Deco–lined bay of the Arabian Sea, the swish set of Mumbai had a dedicated spot to retreat to, where live music floated over unusual tipples from across the globe for those in the know. Today, the quintessential Eau Bar at The Oberoi, Mumbai has been dramatically redesigned by AD100 architects Sameep Padora and Vami Koticha of Mumbai-based firm SP+A, known for their radical yet tasteful designs, previously seen at restaurants like Neel at Tote on the Turf, Khar Social, and Indigo Deli Palladium. Upon taking in the use of space and sculptural detailing while visiting The Clearing House in Colaba and Estella along the beachfront in Juhu, the team behind the award-winning hospitality chain enlisted the duo for the job. The pièce de résistance is the remarkable graphic metal tree that continues to branch out the more you look at it, offset by the velveteen scarlet and slate-grey interiors. “It invites you in!” says Koticha, while describing the sculpture made of brass pipes that can be seen all the way from the lobby. “In the centre, we had a structural column obstructing the floor plan, which had a lot of odd angles and corners. While we could have clad it with mirrors to [make it disappear], we decided to highlight it in a way where it created movement and took you around the space.” Narrow-beam LEDs sprout from each branch of the tree-of-life-inspired structure that symbolizes a new era for Eau Bar. Spread across 5,500 square feet, the bar includes a private lounge and terrace bar with sunken seating designed for an uninterrupted panorama of the sea when indoors. Kept under wraps until the city finally reopened, the bar calls for a visit the next time you find yourself sauntering down the Queen’s Necklace. However, Padora jokes, “It’s impossible to get a table here—even Vami was turned away when she visited after the launch!”
The intricate metal tree, constructed with 800 metres of brass pipes, branches out across the entire bar, designed by SP+A.
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At the newly revived La Samaritaine in Paris, original art nouveau ironwork by Edouard Schenck wows once more.
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TEXT: DANA THOMAS. PHOTO: MATTHIEU SALVAING.
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ne finds everything at the Samaritaine!” That was long the slogan for the grand art nouveau department store in central Paris. And so you could, until 16 years ago, when its current owner, French luxury group LVMH, closed it for a total overhaul. After delays—some political, some pandemicrelated—the Samaritaine Paris Pont-Neuf has finally opened as a gleaming two-building luxury emporium that nods to its opulent history as well as its optimistic future. La Samaritaine was founded in the late 19th century by French retailing power couple Ernest Cognacq and Marie-Louise Jaÿ. In the early 1900s, they engaged Belgian architect Frantz Jourdain to expand it into a multi-building bazaar. For Magasin 2, which opened in 1910, Jourdain created a decorative masterpiece, with a grand central staircase, and ironwork balustrades by Edouard Schenck; ceramic details by Alexandre Bigot; immense peacock frescoes by Jourdain’s son Francis; and a shimmering enamel-tile facade, topped with a vast glass roof. Now the Pont-Neuf building, as it has been rechristened, has been restored to its original glory, with new interior interventions by the Canadian design team Yabu Pushelberg and circulation spaces by Japanese architecture firm SANAA. The first four floors are dedicated to luxury fashion, jewellery, and watches, and the fifth floor to Voyage restaurant, run by a rotation of top chefs in residence. The basement, reimagined by Malherbe Paris, houses Europe’s largest beauty department. A separate entrance leads to a new Cheval Blanc hotel, outfitted by American architect Peter Marino. Next door, LVMH commissioned SANAA to erect the Rivoli building, a strikingly contemporary edifice of rippling glass. With interiors by the French design studio Ciguë that blend traditional Haussmannian and raw industrial design, it houses casual clothes, a Perrotin gallery pop-up, a Prunier caviar cafe, and Ernest, a bistro headed by chef Naoëlle d’Hainaut. Outside, the buildings are bordered by pedestrian-only streets. While you may not be able to quite find everything at the Samaritaine anymore—no workman blue smocks, whisks, or hammers—you’ll certainly find the stuff of dreams.
NEXT LEVEL IMPECCABLY RESTORED BY LVMH, A PARIS ICON STEPS INTO THE FUTURE
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From innovations in design to making strides in sustainability, Everest Industries’ heavy duty boards lend themselves to Safal Profitaire to combine design mastery with eco-efficiency
Located in Prahladnagar, Ahmedabad, is a uniquely innovative office complex— Safal Profitaire. Breaking the norms of typical corporate developments set within compound walls, Safal Profitaire is a fruit of the efforts undertaken by an industrious collaboration that combines design prowess with technical sophistication—HCP Design, Planning, and Management Pvt Ltd., is credited for the design of the office complex and is known to be a prestigious design practice whose work ranges from interior design and architecture to urban design and statutory city planning. Developed in collaboration with TDW Furniture, an Ahmedabad-based design led company that makes furniture and architectural shading systems for building façades. Conceptualised for multiple tenants, the 28,000-sqm sprawling office complex has been arranged around a semi-
public courtyard, without any walled enclosures. Design innovation has been brought in with its specially-devised façade system of rigid vertical louvers using the durable heavy duty boards by Everest Industries. The properties of the new-age material have helped the architects achieve energy efficiency by creating a sustainable concept to shade the glazed façade. The unique façade system of the project, known as the Vertical Rigid Louver System, is a marvel of engineering—crafted with aluminiumframed sliding windows, screened by louvers made from heavy duty boards by Everest Industries. The gap between the two skins helps to maintain air flow, which cools down the external façade. Through a handle-and-stopper arrangement, the position of the louvers can be adjusted in response to the sun to
modulate light, glare, and views. With its changing patterns, the louvered system creates dynamic surface articulations that keep altering the look of the buildings. Interestingly, it is the heavy duty boards that lend the structure its excellence—as the panel material of the louvers, the boards proved to be relatively light-weight with good insulating properties, which added to the overall objective. The façade system is mounted on a 600-mm-wide ledge that runs on each floor along the entire perimeter of the building, with each louver extending from slab to slab. The structural and mechanical components of the system consist of aluminium and stainless steel. EVEREST HEAVY DUTY BOARDS If there’s one company that understands
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the importance of design that is aesthetically appealing yet functional, it’s Everest Industries, where ecoconsciousness and a forward-thinking philosophy is at the core of everything they do. Powered by innovation and efficiency, the company has consistently delivered modern building solutions ever since its inception—from launching India’s first hi-tech roofing sheets to emerging as one of the largest preengineered building companies, Everest Industries is feted for building materials of unparalleled quality and design solutions. One such product from its diverse offerings that stands out for its technical versatility and design adaptability is the heavy duty boards that emerge superior when it comes to providing efficient building solutions— they’re designed to last a lifetime, offering more strength with less thickness that
makes them highly resilient to extreme weather. As a Category 4 and Type A product as per IS14862, it has superior weather resistant properties along with high impact-resistance, making them ideal for external applications, too. Challenging the age-old use of brick and mortar, their compressed cement-based building products are lighter and much more durable. The pre-finished boards also install with ease which significantly reduces the construction period and the carbon footprint of the process. The boards allow for strong, light, rapid and durable construction of residential, commercial, and industrial infrastructure. Manufactured using the Hatschek process enabled with HPSC (high pressure steam curing), this eco-friendly material is moisture and fire resistant while also being termite-proof with good sound insulation. With a significant
competitive advantage over woodbased alternatives, these contemporary boards are low-maintenance, made with environment-friendly materials and certified by Greenpro and Griha, championing sustainability at the very heart of the process. Whether the boards are used in claddings, ceilings, walls, façades, interior or exterior wall lining or mezzanine floors—Everest Industries’ heavy duty boards embellish every space with a polished air.
For more information, visit www.everestind.com, email info@everestind.com or call 1800 419 1991
TEXT: DIVYA MISHRA. PHOTO: DAVID MITCHELL.
Seen in the foreground, around the Emil centre table, are the brand’s Marly pouffe (blue), Drift sofa (white), Antwerp side chairs (dark grey), and Athena side table (white). Flanking the Corbu cabinet are the Hathi side chair (blue) and Acantha side table; in front of it is the Corbu bench (in two sizes).
VIEW FROM THE TOP LUXURY INTERIORS BRAND DEMURO DAS’S NEW FLAGSHIP STORE IN MANHATTAN IS BIGGER, BRIGHTER, AND CLOSER TO THE ACTION
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oving into a Manhattan showroom space was always part of [the long-term] strategy for DeMuro Das,” says Brian DeMuro, co-founder of the design practice. The move to the top floor of the historic Goelet Building in New York’s Flatiron District comes a short three years after the brand’s American debut at their former Industry City space—but it is the obvious next step for a brand looking to expand its reach. DeMuro Das’s new space at 900 Broadway has a lot going for it. In addition to its structural advantages—an additional 1,000 square feet, almost 14-foot-high ceilings, and large west-facing windows that bring in the light and a great view—it adheres to the golden mantra of real estate: location, location, location. The building is less than a mile away from the trade showrooms at the New York Design Centre, and a short stroll down from retailers like ABC Carpet & Home and Pottery Barn. “Convenience for designers and clients was critical,” says Amy Lee, the brand’s North America
PHOTO: ROBERT LINDHOLM.
Puru Das, Amy Lee, and Brian DeMuro.
director, “but just as important was having a beautiful, warm and welcoming environment.” For the two co-founders, creating such an environment was easy. The space had good bones, with original hardwood floors and lots of natural light, so they kept the design interventions minimal. “We wanted to maintain the New York–loft–like feel,” DeMuro explains. But they also wanted to create a functioning office space that didn’t distract from the furniture, notes co-founder Puru Das. Now, sunlight streams in through the large windows into the grouped seating areas, making the space look less showroom, and more gracious loft-apartment done up by a friend with impeccable taste. As Lee puts it: “We hope that everyone who visits feels like they’d like to stay a while.”
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CIRCLE OF LIGHT
TEXT: DIVYA MISHRA. PHOTOS: SHOVAN GANDHI/COURTESY OF KLOVE.
ARTIST-ARCHITECT VISHAL K. DAR’S RENOVATION OF THE KLOVE GALLERY RESULTS IN A SPACE THAT IS PART ART, PART CANVAS AND A WHOLLY POETIC ODE TO LIGHT
Seen here are Klove’s Artichoke light objects. The curved surfaces in the gallery were sculpted on-site in wood and plywood. Vishal K. Dar specifically chose water-based paints for the surfaces for their ability to absorb light.
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ate last year, New Delhi–based luxury lighting brand Klove— founded by Prateek Jain and Gautam Seth—opened the doors to its newly renovated gallery in the residential neighbour hood of Green Park, in South Delhi. The gallery, spread over 3,500 square feet, sits on the first floor of an old building, between two occupied floors. “These were actually its two biggest challenges,” says its architect, Vishal K. Dar. But Dar is no stranger to challenges of the spatial kind. His artistic practice, in fact, often centres on sites and spaces being deconstructed and reconfigured to reshape visual narratives and upend entrenched ways of seeing. Light is one of the mightier weapons in Dar’s artistic arsenal and he uses it deftly—as medium, method and message. If the gallery’s location seems unusual, its design is even more so. Within the surreal, dreamlike space, normal rules of light and refraction seem suspended. Light streams in through circular windows, landing softly on the gallery’s arched doorways and gently curved walls and niches that flow, uninterrupted, to the ceiling. “Its surfaces are imagined as continuous canvas spaces, where strategic corners are erased from sight,” Dar says, adding “Every curve in this complex geometric surface is a segment from a circle. These segments appear to shift through planes...making the surface fold and twist.” The gallery was initially a viewing room, specifically designed to showcase Klove’s installations and products—but the renovated space has greater ambitions. “What we did was to think about the programme in a more expanded way, and we mutually felt that the new space could be a bit more fluid and inclusive,” Dar says. This move towards fluidity and inclusivity are, in Dar’s opinion, a natural consequence of the Klove founders’ increasing number of collaborations and associations—and their willingness to, in a sense, share the stage. “I think you reach a point in your career where you say, ‘Why don’t we also support others? In the absence of design galleries in the country, why not also make the space function as one?’” Dar says, adding, “So the idea behind the renovation was also to create a more neutral space—a space for likeminded people to showcase their work.” The result is the perfect stage—but it is also the culmination of Dar’s architectural and artistic investigations: as the light changes through the day, the surfaces transform, as does the viewer’s experience of the space and the objects on display.
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IF HYGGE WERE A SOFA
TEXT: GAUTAMI REDDY. PHOTO COURTESY OF HAY.
THE NEW QUILTON SOFA BY DOSHI LEVIEN FOR HAY IS DELIGHTFUL, VERSATILE AND AN AD FAVOURITE
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eet Quilton. It’s a family sofa, TV couch, workstation, and a place for hygge and cosiness. As in all spheres of life, the pandemic has had an influence on design. And Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien were thinking of “flexible, adaptable and movable” while designing Quilton—just like our new-found lives and living spaces. “Quilton embodies all the qualities of design we want to live with,” Doshi tells us. Quilton is replete with delicate details—from the classic stitches that define its surface to the skilled craftsmanship of its upholstery. Rounded silhouettes give it a light, floating quality, while its complex yet harmonious surface texture distinguishes it from other modular sofas in the Hay collection. The best part? Quilton is endlessly modifiable and versatile; each individual seat can be arranged in multiple, practical ways. Doshi Levien’s style is unique in that way. Bright and bold, reflecting a convergence of cultures. Doshi, Indian by upbringing and a strong voice in design, and Levien, who grew up in and around a Scottish toy factory where his parents used to work, met at the Royal College of Art in London and founded Doshi Levien in 2000. Their expression has always been a blend of tradition and modernity. With the Rabari rugs for Nanimarquina, Doshi Levien embraced the beauty and simplicity of folk crafts, and with Objects of Devotion made for Galerie Kreo, they brought Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh typology to interiors. With Quilton, the idea was for it to be handmade—like a quilt, from which it gets its name—and inspire a feeling of softness and femininity. At Hay, creative talent is paramount. “Doshi Levien are designers you go to when you want a strong product,” says Rolf Hay, who, along with his wife Mette, is the force behind the eponymous Danish design brand. He adds, “They are distinguished by their ability to create products that truly stand out, and they are incredibly original and detail-oriented in the way they think about design.” From Inga Sempé to Stefan Diez and Doshi Levien, Hay continues to collaborate creatively with designers to produce highquality, affordable products suited to the evolving needs of everyday life. Quilton is a natural fit in such a portfolio. Sculptural and effortlessly simple in appearance, it is also an example of design at its ingenious best. A glimpse into Doshi Levien’s sketchbooks and studio reveals the layered research that informs their creative process. They are artists, sculptors and architects at once, marrying playfulness with precision.
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BLENDING AESTHETICS The single largest space devoted to luxury interiors in India, FCML provides a harmonious integration of unique interior home design ideas and versatile living inspiration
Fancy an elegantly styled and innovative kitchen or want to transform your bathroom into a living environment? As the pioneer of quintessentially European, luxurious design products in India, FCML is here to cater to all your needs and turn your dream home into a reality. The luxurious lifestyle brand offers an array of high-end products and diverse solutions like luxury bathrooms, beautiful, eco-friendly, recycled tiles, a variety of high-quality wood floors, modular kitchens and accessories and a la mode home décor products of unmatched quality.
From humble beginnings in 2002, FCML today has a pan-India presence with its design hubs at Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Indore. Offering complete home interior solutions, the brand has carved a niche for itself in the luxury design space, for the discerning customer, ever since they started their retail journey through their first store in Delhi. As a curator of luxury interior solutions, FCML’s diverse range of products span across four categories that offer unique building blocks designed for specific functions and individual needs.
SPECIAL FEATURE
BATHROOMS When it comes to bathrooms, FCML offers you the best in terms of quality, standard and uniqueness. If you’re looking to give your bathroom an overhaul, the brand boasts absolutely mesmerising products that will bring your vision to life and add a total splendour and grandeur to your personal space. Their expansive range includes sanitary ware, faucets, washbasins, bathtubs, whirlpools and a variety of bathroom accessories—ensuring your bath space is as aesthetically pleasing as your living room. SURFACES Ginger up your space! Be it textured patterns or symmetrical designs, at FCML, one will find exceptionally unique surfaces that add visual accents to your home interiors. Browse through the various IKIGAI surface collections—from floor tiles, ceramic floor tiles, granite tiles, to a host of marble and mosaic tiles—the options are endless! With a keen eye on eco-consciousness, every tile is sustainably designed and custom-created for its patrons, right here in India. The brand is especially known for its collaboration with leading designers such as JJ Valaya, Abraham and Thakore and Pero by Aneeth Arora to bring alive their aesthetics for rich storytelling on tiles. For their latest collection, they partnered with luxury interiors label Nicobar for a line of glossy ceramic wall tiles that are chic, bevelled along their edges, and peppered with motifs inspired by India’s vast coastline. KITCHENS FCML prides itself in providing only the finest materials to build a dream home. By collaborating with expert European
manufacturers, they find the perfect mix of technology and design, fit for the Indian consumer. When it comes to kitchens, the luxury lifestyle brand has a judicious mix of contemporary designs that are aesthetically advanced and impeccable. An important part of the home interior is kitchen décor and FCML offers a wide range in this segment like kitchen fittings, countertops, slabs; in other words, a complete kitchen guide that ensures your space is unique and created in perfect harmony with design and aesthetics. FCML is also an exclusive distributor of the world’s largest and finest kitchen manufacturing brand, Ernestomeda, in India. Ernestomeda specialises in stateof-the-art modular kitchens that are an ideal blend of functionality and indulgence. WOOD FLOORS If you are planning to add a seamless touch of inconspicuous elegance, then there’s no better option than wood flooring that exhibits opulence and style. FCML is the comprehensive one-stop solution for living ideas that speak of good taste and refined sensibilities and where patrons are offered several choices. Choose from engineered or laminated wood floors, or bring hints of outdoor luxury with floor options that vary from unique finishes and inlay options like wood-stone, wood-leather, wood-wood etc. Build your dream home, reach out to FCML at info@fcmlindia.com
L I G H T E N UP C LO CK W I SE FROM TOP L E FT: K A R T E L L Fr i l ly c h a i rs by Patr i c i a U rq ui o l a . T I D E L L I M ed e l l í n l o un g e c h a i r by C ésa r G i ra ld o , fro m t he L at i na c o ll ect i o n. S E L E T T I M i tl a d i n n e r p l at e by L I G N E R O S E T Pump k i n s ofa , ` 3, 1 7 ,3 4 0 . V E R S A C E I co n A ct i ve Ch ro no g ra p h watc h, p r i c e o n re q ue st . STA N L E Y Pres i d e nt h i g h- b a c k c ha i r, p r i c e o n re q uest .
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STYLIST SHALINI KANOJIA.
CT R LZ A K , from th e H y b r i d c o l l e ct i o n.
SPECIAL FEATURE
Known for producing carpets in the most luxurious wool, silk, and pashmina, The Carpet Cellar houses a range of exquisite handwoven and hand-knotted masterpieces that firmly puts the art of weaving at the forefront
Whether you are trying to inject warmth and character into a room or solidify your design theme—carpets are an essential design element that makes or breaks a space. And when it comes to carpets, no one does it better than The Carpet Cellar as their versatile range includes antique carpets, contemporary rugs, gorgeous kilims, durries, shawls, and texCONTEMPORARY Incorporating time-honoured traditions of carpet weaving using traditional techniques, the contemporary collection features pieces that are crafted from wool and cashmere in eye-catchy and modern patterns. With the finest raw material, best facilities, and classically trained artisans, these rugs are designed to be incorporated seamlessly into any space, making them quality centrepieces for a room. TRANSITIONAL With a plethora of designs and patterns ranging from styles such as Hadji Jalili, Suzani, Safavid, and more, the transitional collection is an incredible blend of fusion and aesthetics and features carpets crafted using the Souf technique, whereby there is a play of silk and wool in a high and low formation. The result? A durable carpet in pastel colours and open designs flaunting luxurious silk patterns that are highlighted to give an embossed, 3D effect. TRIBAL CARPETS/KILIMS The epitome of exquisite craftsmanship, The Carpet Cellar’s mesmerising collection of tribal carpets—Treasures from the Orient—features gorgeous vintage rugs and spectacular kilims. Aimed at reviving and re-creating the regalia of the past, the signature designs represent the culture of a vast area stretching from the black sea eastward to China including Mongolia, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and India. 348 D, Mehrauli Gurgaon Road, New Delhi - 110030 Unit 1, Tower 9, DLF The Camellias, Sector-42, Gurgaon, Haryana - 122022 For more information, visit www.carpetcellar.com or call 9811486086, 9810223847
tiles—pieces that will fit every and any décor. Conceived under the expert eye of the founder, the late Sheel Chandra, each piece is mindfully crafted and knotted by hand by expert artisans with decades of experience, ensuring the carpets stand the test of time. AD spotlights three signature collections featuring masterpieces that are nothing short of works of art.
C LOC K W I SE FROM TO P LE FT: C A R P E T K I N G D O M rug fro m t he Fl at We ave c o l l e ct i o n , p r i c e o n req ue st . L E A H S I N G H B l a h B l a h Sh a p e s p i l l o w, fro m th e Bl a h Bl a h (S p r i n g 2 02 1 ) c o l l e cti o n, at ` 11 , 1 42 . P R E C I O S A M uut o s p en d a nt l i g ht , fro m t he S o l i t a i re c o l l ect i o n , p r i c e o n re q ue st . C U LT I VA D O E M C A S A S up er Ja rd i m a r mch a i r, ` 2 , 1 8, 3 8 2. T R O Y S M I T H ST U D I O X-Tra C hub by l o un g e c h a i r, p r i ce o n re q ue st . N I C E C O N D O C h uc k C l ot he s mo d ul a r p e g ra c k .
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ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2021
I N THE F A L L CLO CK W I S E F RO M TOP L E FT: H A N D S S p h ere (r ust) c a rp et , fro m t h e S cu l pte d c o ll ecti o n , st a r t i n g at ` 5 8, 0 4 7. A R N AYA Do ub l e D i a mo n d 2 D t i l e, fro m th e Te ssera co ll e ct i o n by N i k i ta M e ht a , st a rt i ng at ` 10 , 0 00 p er s q ua re fo ot . N A M A H O M E S p i dey c h a i r by N a mi t K ha nn a ,
` 2 0 , 00 0 . J A C K R A B B I T ST U D I O B o l o s et tee , i n b l a c k wa l nu t , li m e pl a st er a n d mo ha i r fa b ri c , by Bret t M i ll er. O B J E C T S & I D E A S M o no c ha i r, i n s o l i d Ca n a d i a n m a p l e , by Di Ta o a n d B o b Do d d . D I O R b rea d p l at e (s et of 2 ) , p r i c e o n re q ue st .
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C LO C K W IS E FRO M TOP L E FT: T H E P U R E C O N C E P T H o me Fa rs k fo l d i n g c h a i r, p r i c e o n re q ue st . I Q R U P + R I T Z Frey Di j o n s q ua re c us h i o n, ` 1 , 50 0 . N O - M A D M o o d Voya g e wa l l a rt ,
` 1, 4 5 0 ( 3 0 x3 5 c m) . N O N O B o o l ea no s c offe e t a b l e (sma l l ) by Jo e l E s c a l o na . T H E F U T U R E P E R F E C T V2 0 1 st o newa re ve s s e l by E ri c Ro i n e sta d , fro m t h e Pe rfect Ves se l c o l l ect i o n, ` 4, 8 2 ,7 7 6 . Z O YA r i ng fro m t he Sa māvé c o l l ect i o n , ` 3 , 08 , 0 00 .
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SPECIAL FEATURE
Reflecting the spirit of Art Deco, interior brand Attitudes invites you to live the stylish life with four collections of dressing suites that bring a touch of opulence to your space In a world where working from home in loungewear is the new normal, Attitudes breathes new life into dressing rooms with its mastery in leather wardrobes and furniture. By drawing on the vocabulary of the 1920s Art Deco style, Attitudes has conceptualised collections that epitomise the notion of ‘functional luxury.’ One such collection, Broadway, speaks a singular yet versatile design language that evolves into multiple design variants; with each design tailored to harmonise with the unique aesthetic of an exquisite home, whether modern or traditional. In an interplay of fascinating materials such as leather, wood, brass and micro-fabric, Attitudes weaves the extraordinary vision of the architect and the homeowner into immersive narratives. Each of these dressing suites is designed with custom-made leather wardrobes, island counters, dressers and autonomous units translating walk-in closets into ‘masterly dressing suites.’
Attitudes launched at ADDS The Broadway Collection dramatically interprets theatrical elements, unfolding into unique design variants from opulent to minimalist
www.attitudesdeco.com
D A N C E P A RTY CLO CK W I S E FR O M TOP L E FT: H E R M A N M I L L E R E a mes Ha ng It A l l co at ra c k by C h a r l e s a n d Ray E a mes,
` 2 6 ,2 5 0 . C U R I O C A S A Enta ng l e d Da nc e s i d e ta b l e, i n w h i t e a n d nat ura l fi ni s h . B O C A D O L O B O Fra nk c hest , fro m t he L i m i t ed Ed i t i o n c o l l e ct i o n , ` 8 ,6 1 , 28 6 . F I L I P P O C A R A N D I N I Si d e b o a rd 0 1 ( tw o un i t s d i sp l aye d ) , p r i ce o n req ue st. S H A Z É m i l k p ot (p a r t of a s et wi t h a su ga r p ot ) . I K E A L j u va re s e rv i ng st a n d by N a d a De bs, ` 1 , 9 90 .
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CLO C K W IS E FRO M TOP L E FT: PA O L A S O R I O L U X U R Y D E S I G N AT E L I E R G i nev ra c ha i r by Pa o l a So r i o , p ri c e o n re q ue st . C H R I ST I A N L O U B O U T I N Pa p a gaya Lev i ta mult i - c a lf s a nd a l , fro m t h e fa l l / wi nt er 20 2 1 co l l e ct i o n . A U D E M A R S P I G U E T Roya l Oa k Fro st ed Go ld Do ub l e B a l a nc e W h e e l Op e nw o r ke d wat c h. G U C C I Free si a M ura n o - g l a s s c a n d l e , f ro m th e G uc c i D éc o r 2 0 21 c o l l ecti o n. S A BYA S A C H I Tro p i c a l s l i n g b a g , p ri c e o n re q ue st . A N D R I I R U D E N KO g rey c a b i n et, fro m th e B ub b l es C o l l ect i o n, ` 10 , 5 7, 4 6 5. Fo r d et a i l s , s e e St o c k i sts .
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THE
Abha Narain Lambah Associates Abhimanyu Dalal Architects
100 MOST
Abin Design Studio
INFLUENTIAL
Abraham John Architects
ARCHITECTS
ABM Architects
Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla Adil Ahmad
AND
Alva Architects
INTERIOR
Andagere Architects
DESIGNERS IN INDIA
Anagram Architects
Annkur Khosla Design Studio Anupama Kundoo Architects Architect Hafeez Contractor Architecture Brio Architecture Discipline Ashiesh Shah Architect Banduksmith Studio Case Design Clay Architecture & Interiors Collective Project Cormac Lynch DDIR Architecture Studio DeMuro Das Design by Darshini Shah Design Consultants
Elsie Nanji
Pavitra Rajaram Design
Stapati
Faquih & Associates
Pinakin Design
Studio Archohm
Gauri Khan Designs
Prabhakar B. Bhagwat
Studio HBA
Ini Chatterji & Associates
Praxis
Studio Hinge
Iqrup Design
Rajiv Saini + Associates
Studio ii
Iram Sultan Design Studio
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Studio Lotus
Isla Maria ‘Loulou’ Van Damme
Red Architects
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J & I Architects
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K2India
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RMA Architects
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Kunal Maniar & Associates
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Talati and Partners
Lijo.Reny.architects
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Tanya Singh Studio
Malik Architecture
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The Orange Lane
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Serie Architects
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ShroffLeón
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Matra Architects
Simone Dubash Pandole
Vastushilpa Consultants
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Morphogenesis
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NUDES
S.P.A. Design
Wallmakers
_Opolis
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MORPHOGENESIS TANYA SINGH STUDIO
MUMBAI/MILAN Ongoing Projects: The architecture, interiors, and landscaping of a villa in Bengaluru; a new furniture collection; several residential apartments in Mumbai. Sustainability in Action: “These days, we are intensely involved in permaculture and the design of sustainable ecosystems at the villa scale. Water, air, energy, materials, plants, soil—we’re working closely with international masters in the field,” says Singh. tanyasingh.com
SANJAY PURI ARCHITECTS
MUMBAI Sourcing Haunts: FCML and Good Earth in Mumbai; Klove in New Delhi. Craft Initiatives: Puri is working with local stonemasons for a Jodhpur-stone house in Rajasthan, and for several projects in Nashik, Maharashtra, that are being constructed with locally found black basalt stone. For a resort in Khardi, Maharashtra, he is collaborating with craftsmen who work with bamboo. sanjaypuriarchitects.com
Sonali and Manit Rastogi NEW DELHI Sustainability in Action: Tucked away in the Himalayan foothills is a new net-zero facility for Forest Essentials that’s emblematic of the brand’s ayurvedic underpinnings. With a meditative material palette of local stone and wood, the project took cues from local, traditional construction techniques. Sourcing Haunts: Internationally, customized furniture from Belgium; in the country, Shades of India and Sogani. morphogenesis.org
LAB
Shonan Purie Trehan MUMBAI Recent Projects: A home in Hampi for Tarini Jindal; a house on a permaculture farm in Bengaluru. Coming Up: Private residences in Goa, Kamshet and Vadodara; a restaurant in New Delhi; hospitals in Patna and Noida. Design Icon: James Turrell, “for his dexterity with light and space”. labwerk.in
MALIK ARCHITECTURE
Kamal and Arjun Malik MUMBAI Project in Focus: With their design for this New Delhi residence (left), Malik Architecture tempers the building’s connection to nature. A central courtyard is structured as a labyrinth of lateral and vertical volumes that dissipates natural light across the interiors, while also balancing the temperature within the house. Recent Projects: A wellness retreat in Alibag, a resort in Lonavala, a weekend home in Palghar—all in Maharashtra. Favourite Room: The chapel at the Convent of La Tourette by Le Corbusier. malikarchitecture.com Photo: Bharath Ramamrutham.
GAURI KHAN DESIGNS
ARCHITECTURE DISCIPLINE
Akshat Bhatt NEW DELHI Project in Focus: The headquarters (above) of the Rug Republic in Okhla, Delhi, is enveloped in a metal shell, designed to serve as protection against pollution and uninspiring views, while steel jalis allow for an inflow of natural light. Favourite Room: The Adam Room—the original dining room of architect Robert Adam, designed in 1763— located on the 11th floor of the Lloyd’s building. architecturediscipline.com Photo: Jeetin Sharma.
RED ARCHITECTS
Rajiv and Ekta Parekh, Apoorva Shroff, Maithili Raut MUMBAI Collaborations: With Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla on the Reddy house in Hyderabad; with Jaipur Rugs, for an online auction of six rugs inspired by Red projects; with Klove for two nature-inspired lights. Favourite Room: “The Egyptian room that displays the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum in New York has always been a favourite,” says the team. redarchitects.in
MUMBAI Recent Projects: Large-scale residential projects in Noida and Kolkata; private residences for Sidharth Malhotra and Manish Malhotra—both in Mumbai. Sourcing Haunts: Roberto Cavalli; Bentley Designs; Ralph Lauren Home; custom lighting fixtures from Timothy Oulton. gaurikhan.in
STUDIO MOMO
Meetu Akali GOA Philosophy: “We focus on reducing human impact on the environment. We don’t cut down trees, use locally available stones and finishes, and a lot of our furniture is upcycled,” says Akali. Favourite Room: “The living room of Gala and Salvador Dalí’s home in Portlligat, Spain. It was designed by Dalí himself.” momo-studios.com
K2INDIA
Sunita and Kohelika Kohli NEW DELHI Project in Focus: Sunita’s home (below) was restored and redesigned by her daughter Kohelika, with a focus on maintaining segments of the original structure while modernizing the interiors. “Our home is biographical,” says Sunita, who also styled the project. “Kohelika created subtle and functional beauty.” Antique Trail: Crafters in Jew Town in Kochi; Karaikudi in Chettinad; kabadiwalas in Lucknow. k2india.com Photo: Deepak Agarwal.
ROOSHAD SHROFF
MUMBAI Ongoing Projects: Sonam Kapoor Ahuja’s New Delhi home; Isha Ambani’s office, and Shroff’s own gallery-studio—both in Mumbai. Collaboration: With artist Tanya Goel on two embroidered C-Chairs launched at the Mumbai Gallery Weekend. Highlight: “We are working on a new collection of furniture for an exhibition in November, which is also when we complete 10 years of our practice.” rooshadshroff.com
DESIGN CONSULTANTS
Taera Chowna MUMBAI Sustainability Icon: “I’m very inspired by Umberto Pasti, who filled his iconic garden in Tangier with plants rescued from local construction sites, and with the help of local villagers, created a garden that doubles as a living museum.” Sourcing Haunts: Bespoke handcrafted planters from Anduze in Provence and Tuscany in Italy, a region famous for terracotta.
KHOSLA ASSOCIATES
ASHIESH SHAH ARCHITECT
MUMBAI Project in Focus: This house (left) in Udaipur is a composite of indoor and outdoor spaces infused with natural light—which washes over the white marble flooring, American oak-clad walls, and a carefully curated collection of artworks. Favourite Room: Jean-Michel Frank’s Smoking Room, circa 1938. “It is the embodiment of subtlety and minimalism—ahead of its time.” ashieshshah.com Photo: Ashish Sahi.
Sandeep Khosla, Amaresh Anand BENGALURU Project in Focus: Set on a hillock within 150 acres of coffee plantations in Wayanad, Kerala, this house (above) is an ancestral property that was reimagined with skylights and an indoor courtyard, with textures of Jaisalmer and Kota stone. Coming Up: The interiors of Green Park, a 120room business hotel; a retail store for Jaipur Rugs—both in Bengaluru; a villa in Raipur. khoslaassociates.com Photo: Shamanth Patil J.
MANCINI ENTERPRISES
Niels Schoenfelder, Bharath Ram K., J.T. Arima CHENNAI Recent Projects: A workspace for Vastrakala in Chennai that accommodates 250 karigars working around a central light well, a beach house in Uthandi, a school on a mango plantation—all in Tamil Nadu. Coming Up: “We’re converting an 8,000-square-foot horse stable from the 1920s into a farm-kitchen and restaurant in upstate New York,” says Schoenfelder. mancini-design.com
SP+A
Sameep Padora, Vami Koticha, Aparna Dhareshwar MUMBAI Recent Projects: Speciality restaurant Wabi Sabi, and Lapis, an all-day dining space—both in The Oberoi in Bengaluru. Favourite Room: The main hall of the Phillips Exeter Academy Library, designed by Louis Kahn. Sustainability in Action: “For an artist residency we are building for the JSW Group, all the building blocks are made from waste products coming out of JSW factories,” says Koticha. sp-arch.net
STUDIO HBA
Rahul Shankhwalker NEW DELHI Craft Initiative: Collaborated with pattachitra artists from Odisha to create a contemporary wall painting for a project. Ongoing Projects: A multistorey residence in Melbourne, Australia; a resort in the Maldives. Antique Trail: Sharma Farms, Delhi; Good Earth in Delhi and Mumbai. studiohba.com
ABM ARCHITECTS
Alfaz and Aahana Miller MUMBAI Sourcing Haunt: “On my last trip to Goa, someone recommended visiting Sotohaus, a furniture and lighting store near Candolim; it is now one of my favourites,” says Miller. Favourite Space: Charles and Ray Eames’s studio in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles, designed by the pair, and seen in the documentary Eames: The Architect and the Painter. abmarchitects.com
SOUK
CASE DESIGN
Samuel Barclay MUMBAI Craft Initiative: Casegoods’ Fold collection of jute dhurries, handwoven by artisans from Bhadohi and then dyed and finished by local craftsmen at the Pulugurtha weavers’ society. Favourite Room: The Chapel at the Brion cemetery by Carlo Scarpa. Ongoing Project: Reimagining and restoring a onceabandoned house in a forest in Alibag. casedesign.in
Soumya Keshavan CHENNAI Project in Focus: Outside Chennai, this beachfront home (below) is at once warm and cool. A white palette offers a backdrop for the Sri Lanka–inspired masonry furniture, an open floor plan, large windows, and a collection of art and artefacts. Philosophy: “Nothing we make is meant to be used and thrown. The furniture pieces we design are timeless and focus on fine craftsmanship, and we source heirloom objects to be passed on from one generation to the next,” says Keshavan, whose multidisciplinary studio straddles interior and product design. soukonline.in Photo: Laya Krishnaraj.
RITU NANDA DESIGN
GOA Recent Projects: The interiors of the Breach Candy home of Anaita Shroff and Homi Adajania in Mumbai; a house on a hill in Goa that is surrounded by multiple courtyards and sits at the edge of a vast forest. Sustainability in Action: “We’re working on ideas to reduce the use of plastic packaging material; the amount of plastic waste and garbage generated on every site is beyond scary.” ritunandadesign.com
SIMONE DUBASH PANDOLE
MUMBAI Recent Project: Inside the 7,000-square-foot office space for content studio Dharmatic Entertainment, a digital-focused extension of Dharma Productions in Mumbai, Dubash used glass and slatted-wood partitions to increase the flow of light within the space. Sustainability in Action: “We make a conscious effort with the use of LED lights, non-toxic sprays, and natural materials.”
IRAM SULTAN DESIGN STUDIO
NEW DELHI Project in Focus: A textured graphite staircase (below) stands in bold sculptural contrast to the soft ivory tones of the wall panelling and warm oak—an example of how Sultan balances texture and tone to create eyecatching tableaus throughout the house. Collaborations: With Orvi for stone textures and inlays; with Peter D’Ascoli for custom fabrics; with HummingHaus for bespoke jute rugs. iramsultan.com Photo: Ishita Sitwala.
ARCHITECTURE BRIO
Shefali Balwani and Robert Verrijt MUMBAI Project in Focus: Perched on the Alibag coast, The Other Side Studio (above) is a futureproof structure built to be easily dismantled and moved should sea levels rise to submerge the land around it. Favourite Room: Geoffrey Bawa’s garden room overlooking the lake at Lunuganga, an architectural space with chequerboard flooring that’s half concrete, half grass. architecturebrio.com Photo: Randhir Singh.
VIR.MUELLER ARCHITECTS
Christine Mueller, Pankaj Vir Gupta NEW DELHI Ongoing Projects: The Site Museum at Humayun’s Tomb, Delhi; the Healthy Planet School in Ghaziabad. Sustainability Icons: “We continue to uphold the values espoused by the early modernists—Habib Rahman, Joseph Stein, and Achyut Kanvinde—who sought to build sensible and frugal buildings,” say the principals. Favourite Room: The reading room at the Yale Center for British Art, by Louis Kahn. virmueller.com
MATHAROO ASSOCIATES
Gurjit Singh Matharoo AHMEDABAD Project in Focus: Log(ical)-eco Housing (left) consists of 25 villas in the heart of Ahmedabad’s business district. “The attempt has been to adhere to simple strict geometry, a restrained palette of materials, and breaking of monotony through variation,” says Matharoo. Favourite Space: Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s pavilion in Barcelona: “The four walls, eight columns, flat roof, and two reflecting pools together create a continuum of an ever-changing experience,” says Matharoo. matharooassociates.com Photo: Dinesh Mehta.
STAPATI
Tony Joseph KOZHIKODE Recent Project: A home in Kochi built around multiple open courtyards that blurs the boundary between the outside and the inside. Craft Initiatives: “We’ve worked with bamboo extensively in the Kaav Safari Lodge in Kabini, Karnataka. We are also working with Uravu, a [bamboo-centric] organization that strives for rural empowerment through sustainable solutions,” says Joseph. stapati.com
SJK ARCHITECTS
Shimul Javeri Kadri MUMBAI Recent Projects: A multi-speciality hospital for JSW and a home in a mango orchard—both in Alibag; a courtyard house in Latur; a hotel in Bodhgaya, Bihar; and a home in Nagpur. Craft Initiative: The multi-speciality hospital in Alibag has a wall with Gond artwork by artisans from a tribal village in Madhya Pradesh, created in collaboration with Baaya Design. sjkarchitect.com
STUDIO ORGANON Saurabh Dakshini NEW DELHI Recent Projects: An office building in Gurugram; a grocery store called Morning Store and a private farmhouse—both in NCR; a third office for ad agency Wieden+Kennedy in Delhi. Sourcing Haunts: Sacha’s Shop in Goa; internationally, the firm “sourced crockery for a resort from Tokyo and furniture for a hotel interior from The Conran Shop”. studioorganon.org
KUNAL MANIAR & ASSOCIATES
MUMBAI Sustainability in Action: “We are working on channelling water residue from air-conditioners and looping it into the landscape water-management system.” Collaborations: Upholstery for a weekend home near New Delhi designed with Rahul Mishra and Rajesh Pratap Singh; custom castbronze and sandstone fountains created with Frozen Music, Jaipur. kunalmaniarassociates.com
ABHIMANYU DALAL ARCHITECTS NEW DELHI Recent Projects: Residences and farmhouses in New Delhi, Raipur and Kolkata; the restoration of Mayo College, Ajmer; a collaboration with sculptor Ayesha Singh for Shrine Empire Gallery, Delhi. Craft Initiatives: Stonework and Indo-Saracenic detailing in the Mayo College buildings using local materials, and Kashmiri pinjra kari wooden screens, created in collaboration with Amrita Guha of Untitled Design Consultants, for a residential project.
BANDUKSMITH STUDIO
Melissa Smith and Sachin Bandukwala AHMEDABAD Recent Projects: Private residences; Ekantar, a centre for architecture, design, and craft by the Takshila Educational Society; several urban projects— all in Gujarat. Sustainability in Action: “We try to source as locally as possible, and we consider the materials we use and the details to join them in a way that allows them to weather and decay appropriately,” says Bandukwala. banduksmithstudio.in
ABIN DESIGN STUDIO ELSIE NANJI
MUMBAI Project in Focus: An ancestral property on a tea plantation in the Nilgiris was converted into a contemporary luxury villa (below left), dotted with whimsical chandeliers and vintage finds from a local antique market. Coming Up: A public art project with Aditya Thackeray; private residences in Alibag; a project to redesign a children’s park in Mumbai. elsienanji.com Photo: Elsie Nanji.
Abin Chaudhuri KOLKATA Project in Focus: A two-bedroom weekend retreat set within a guava orchard on the outskirts of Kolkata, Macha (above) is elevated nine feet above the ground to provide uninterrupted views all around. Sustainability in Action: “We incorporate contextual solutions to make our projects as sustainable as possible, taking cues from historic buildings and reinterpreting indigenous techniques through a modern lens.” abindesignstudio.com Photo: Suryan//Dang.
ABU JANI SANDEEP KHOSLA MUMBAI Recent Project: Mirror and metal harmonize with native Indian woodwork and hand-embroidered textiles in the firm’s design for a luxury ‘sky villa’, set on the 76th floor of Lodha Ciel in Mumbai. Sourcing Haunts: London, Brighton, New York City, and flea markets and antique fairs in Istanbul and Paris. abusandeep.com
COLLECTIVE PROJECT
Cyrus Patell and Eliza Higgins BENGALURU Sustainability in Action: “For a residence in Bengaluru, we are using materials from a demolished structure to make blocks for the new construction—thinking about construction debris as a resource and not waste,” says Higgins. Craft Initiatives: Micro-mosaic for a feature wall in a bar, created in collaboration with Frozen Music; hand-cast mud-concrete blocks made using debris from a demolished building. collective-project.com
MATRA ARCHITECTS
Verendra Wakhloo NEW DELHI Recent Projects: A resort in Manali; a fine-art museum in Rishikesh; residences in Delhi and Uttarakhand. Sustainability in Action: “Careful and creative design detailing increases the life cycle of a building and thus reduces the impact on available resources,” says Wakhloo, “Traditional Japanese timber architecture, besides many other forms of vernacular architecture, has always been a source of inspiration.” matra.co.in
SPASM DESIGN ARCHITECTS
Sanjeev Panjabi and Sangeeta Merchant MUMBAI Project in Focus: Built in the midst of a coconut grove in the Murud region of Maharashtra, this house (below) is a futuristic window into a primitive world. Crafted as a modern yet ancient vessel, the Parikrama House is a simple assemblage of two humble materials, glass and stone. Sustainability in Action: “Sustainability is an attitude to the profession, not a special pursuit. Stone—with its easy availability, low extraction and treatment, and longevity—is a big part of our design production,” says Merchant. spasmindia.com Photo: Umang Shah.
MATHEW & GHOSH ARCHITECTS Nisha Mathew and Soumitro Ghosh BENGALURU Recent Projects: The Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru; a villa in the hills in Coonoor. Craft Initiative: As a part of Anah-Anah—a weaving project set up by Mathew to teach stainless steel weaving to economically disadvantaged individuals using techniques of basketry—she worked with a group of artisans to create an installation of a tiger for a residence. mathewandghosh.com
DEMURO DAS
Puru Das, Brian DeMuro GURUGRAM Recent Projects: Das and DeMuro launched a new, bigger showroom at 900 Broadway in New York; following the launch of the Uncommon Threads and Corbu collections of furniture, work is underway for several more collections slated to be launched later this year. Favourite Room: Jean-Michel Frank’s Nelson Rockefeller living room at 810 Fifth Avenue, New York. demurodas.com
WALLMAKERS SEZA
Seema Puri and Zarir Mullan MUMBAI Recent Projects: Weekend villas and large bungalows in Ahmedabad and New Delhi; a jewellery store in Nagpur; a vocational training centre in Aurangabad. Collaboration: With Scarlet Splendour for a bar area in a home in Delhi. Favourite Space: “The Barcelona Pavilion designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, for its simple design executed in rich marbles and its reflecting pools,” says Zarir. seza.in
SERIE ARCHITECTS Kapil Gupta, Christopher Lee MUMBAI Recent Projects: An ashram in Dharampur, Gujarat, 10 years in the making; two towers for the Singapore State Courts, Sentosa Sensoryscape, a corridor-linking public transport, and leisure destinations on the island of Sentosa—all in Singapore. Design Icons: Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn. serie.co.uk
Vinu Daniel KOCHI Project in Focus: Locked on all sides by buildings, the Pirouette House (above) in Thiruvananthapuram turns inwards into a central courtyard. Made with bricks from local kilns, staircases created with leftover scaffolding pipes, and portions of flooring made from excess wooden planks on-site, this structure is conjured straight out of its context. Coming Up: Residences, schools and commercial buildings, “trying to prove that it is possible to create anything you want with mud, waste and scrap”, says Daniel. Antique Trail: Weavers’ village, Thiruvananthapuram. wallmakers.org Photo: Jino Sam.
RAVI VAZIRANI DESIGN STUDIO
MUMBAI Sourcing Haunts: “For products, it’s Le Mill; The Pure Concept Home for fabrics. And online, it’s Iqrup + Ritz for furniture and accessories; No-Mad India for fabrics; 1stDibs for antiques; and The Conran Shop for accessories.” Coming Up: “As part of our studio’s material exploration, we launched a series of hand-turned wooden vases made of teak. They will be launched online later this year,” says Vazirani. ravivazirani.com
PINAKIN DESIGN
Mohak Mehta, Pallavi Choksi MUMBAI Recent Project: A salmon-pink holiday villa in Alibag, drenched in natural sunlight that streams in through dramatic arches, pivot doors and large windows. The interiors are wrapped in a considered material palette: terracotta, locally sourced ceramic tiles, and Agra red stone. Sustainability in Action: “We use honest materials that are sourced locally, and are never wasteful,” says Choksi. pinakin.in
MICD ASSOCIATES
Channa Daswatte, Murad Ismail SRI LANKA Recent Projects: A hotel in Sikkim; a residence in a hill above Kandy and a beach house in Bentota—both in Sri Lanka. Craft Initiative: Collaborated with craftsmen at Aluwihare Heritage Centre—originally set up by the late Ena de Silva—to create custom batik fabrics for residential projects. Sourcing Haunts: Barefoot and Paradise Road for fabric and accessories; Villa Saffron and Raux Brothers for custom furniture. micda.com
UNTITLED DESIGN CONSULTANTS
Amrita Guha, Joya Nandurdikar NEW DELHI Project in Focus: This townhouse (below) in the NCR region evokes luxury through material and craft authenticity. The hand-cut and -chiselled stone, terrazzo, exposed concrete and wood are moulded into a modern home, which draws cues from traditional and local practices. Sustainability Icons: “Rajiv Sethi for the revival of most dying crafts, and internationally, Alexander Lamont,” say the principals. Recent Projects: Apartments in DLF Camellias, Gurugram; two penthouses and a residence in Kolkata. untitleddesign.org Photo: Nivedita Gupta.
RAJIV SAINI + ASSOCIATES
MUMBAI Project in Focus: This refined, restrained five-bedroom house (above right) in Dhampur, Uttar Pradesh, adheres entirely to its context—hugging its linear topography, donning the local colour of exposed brick and constructed by the locals. Collaboration: A crossbody bag for new Italian brand Up To You Anthology, crafted in leather and nylon. Photo: Ashish Sahi.
REFLECTIONS
Kavita Singh MUMBAI Sourcing Haunts: Flea markets in London, Paris, Bali, and Thailand; closer home, antique shops and design stores in Chennai, Jodhpur, and New Delhi. Coming Up: Amrapali Home, a bungalow for the jewellery brand in Jaipur; the interiors of Sonam Kapoor Ahuja’s residence in Mumbai. kavitasinghinteriors.com
PAVITRA RAJARAM DESIGN
MUMBAI Ongoing Projects: A weekend home in Pavna, Maharashtra; an experiential studio and atelier for an international carpet brand in Jaipur; a custom-made encaustictile collection, hand-painted wallpapers, and revival Mughal carpets for a bespoke home line. Favourite Space: “The corner sofa in the Tasting Room at Good Earth. I designed the restaurant, and it’s where I met my husband.”
VIKAS DILAWARI ARCHITECTS
MUMBAI Recent Projects: Repairs and restoration of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai; a private bungalow in Matheran, Maharashtra, “among the five oldest houses in Matheran, built in the 1850s–60s—older than many of Mumbai’s important public buildings”, says Dilawari. Philosophy: “We believe in the principle of the second man, where we respect the original creator’s creation but keep in mind the current client’s aspirations.” vikasdilawari.in
TALATI AND PARTNERS
Noshir D., Ria, and Xerxes N. Talati, Naushir Devitre, Ratish Patil MUMBAI Project in Focus: In a duplex (right) in a south Mumbai skyscraper, a monolithic staircase connects the two floors, while Scandinavian minimalism offsets the warm vibe of the bespoke leather panelling and Italian furniture. Antique Trail: “The waterside antique stores in the Jewish quarter in Kochi, Phillips Antiques, Raj Company, Mahendra Doshi and The Great Eastern Home,” says Ria. tparch.net
NETERWALA & AIBARA INTERIOR ARCHITECTS
_OPOLIS
Sonal Sancheti and Rahul Gore MUMBAI Project in Focus: Set between a mountain and a lake, this opento-the-elements house (above) located in Maharashtra is topped by a contiguous, undulating roof that arches high in parts to let in the light and dips low elsewhere to keep out the rain. Favourite Space: “The Aurobindo Ashram courtyard in Pondicherry. The scale, proportion, and numerous plants within are what make it very special,” say the principal architects. opolis.in Photo: Ariel Huber.
Phirosa Neterwala, Sunu Aibara MUMBAI Sustainability Icons: Charles Correa and Renzo Piano. Collaboration: With Jaipurbased firm Orvi, a company that specializes in innovative surfaces such as taarkashi and Japanese raku. Sourcing Haunts: “Internationally, we do much of our sourcing from the UK, US and Italy but we also enjoy curating one-of-a-kind pieces from Denmark, Brazil and Japan,” say Neterwala and Aibara. neterwalaaibara.com
STUDIO ARCHOHM
Sourabh Gupta NOIDA Recent Projects: Residences in New Delhi and Agra; a badminton complex in Bhubaneshwar; master-planning works in Odisha and Meghalaya. Favourite Space: “The private chapel in La Tourette, the monastery by Le Corbusier where one experiences the power of light and volume simultaneously and in utmost awe,” says Gupta. archohm.com
SUSSANNE KHAN MUMBAI Collaboration: With Rooshad Shroff and Jyotika Jhalani, of Janavi India, for a collection of soft furnishings and decor accents, slated for release later this year. Coming Up: Two projects in Goa—the renovation of an old heritage building in Panjim for a restaurant; a 12-room boutique hotel sculpted out of a heritage bungalow in Assagao. thecharcoalproject.com
VIKRAM GOYAL
NEW DELHI Sustainability in Action: “For 17 years, we have promoted highly skill-intensive craftsmanship— skills that have not been formally learnt in schools but passed on from one generation to another and incorporate material science, design, and architecture that are inherent to centuries of Indian sculpture.” Ongoing Projects: Private residences in Chennai, Hyderabad, New York and the Himalayas. viyahome.com
STUDIO LOTUS
Ambrish Arora, Siddharth Talwar, Ankur Choksi, Pankhuri Goel, Asha Sairam NEW DELHI Project in Focus: The fluid borders between nature and the living areas in the Earth and Glass House (right) in suburban Delhi are enhanced by covered walkways interspersed with silver oak trees. Metal, timber and stone coalesce into a getaway space of easy connections—between indoor and outdoor, the landscape and the built, relaxation and recreation. Collaboration: “We collaborated with artisans commissioned by Jaya Jaitly, the president and founder of Dastkari Haat Samiti, to develop a tapestry of regional art and craft forms for a corporate workspace,” says Sairam. studiolotus.in Photo: Niveditaa Gupta.
ROMI KHOSLA DESIGN STUDIOS
Martand Khosla NEW DELHI Ongoing Projects: An embassy project in Central Asia; the refurbishment of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in Saket, Delhi; and a research centre in Madhya Pradesh. Craft Initiatives: “For our projects in more remote and rural environments, we work closely with local building technologies and traditions to construct our buildings; this usually involves a great deal of collaborative exchanges with master craftsmen.” rk-ds.com
ISLA MARIA ‘LOULOU’ VAN DAMME
KODAIKANAL/MUMBAI Collaborations: With Shonan Purie Trehan, for the refurbishment of a duplex in Mumbai; with Raw Mango to create patchwork upholstery for furniture. Favourite Space: “The private theatre of Belgian designer Christophe Decarpentrie (which was previously a small cinema) where he stores his antiques and furniture—a mysterious space where he offers his friends concerts and forgotten operas.”
DESIGN BY DARSHINI SHAH
MUMBAI Recent Projects: Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan’s home, a residence for director Amar Kaushik—both in Mumbai. Craft Initiatives: Shell windows created in collaboration with traditional craftsmen from Goa; bespoke antique marble panels by karigars from Jaipur; hand-painted artworks by pichhwai artists from Nathdwara, Rajasthan.
ANDAGERE ARCHITECTS
Ajith Andagere GOLLARAPALYA, KARNATAKA Project in Focus: The warm material palette of this residence (right)—hidden in a wooded area along Karnataka’s Kumta beach—is felt in the smallest details, like this nook for the study desk. Sustainability in Action: “I get a lot of inspiration from vernacular houses,” says Andagere, whose practice is committed to creating structures that tread as gently as possible on their surroundings. Photo: Michael Diakov.
NUDES
Nuru Karim MUMBAI Collaboration: Karim was one of the 200 creatives chosen from across the world to reimagine the iconic Louis Vuitton trunk, to celebrate the founder’s bicentennial birthday. Highlight: The Solar Mountain— Karim’s entry for Burning Man’s upcoming 3,800-acre sustainable, permanent space called Fly Ranch in the Nevada desert—was one of the 10 shortlisted entries that moves into the prototyping phase this year. nudeoffices.com
STUDIO HINGE
Pravir Sethi Mumbai Recent Projects: Villas in Alibag and Murbad, and the refurbishment of a colonialstyle family home in Matheran— all in Maharashtra. Sourcing Haunts: Design ni Dukaan; Red Blue and Yellow. Online favourites include Firefly for lights; Mangrove Collective and Sadaya Guild for furniture. Favourite Space: The interiors of the Bahá’í Lotus Temple in Delhi by Fariborz Sahba. studiohinge.in
IQRUP DESIGN
Iqrup Dhamija GURUGRAM Project in Focus: In this residence (below) in New Delhi, the architecture by Abhimanyu Dalal offers expansive views of the green surroundings, which Dhamija complements with rich wood-panelling, soft-toned upholstery, and delicate flourishes of classical and modern art. Sourcing Haunts: Brown Rigg and Robert Kime for antiques; Arte and de Gournay for wallpapers; Pierre Frey and Mulberry for fabrics. iqrupdesign.com Photo: Arya Arora.
ANUPAMA KUNDOO ARCHITECTS
GERMANY/PONDICHERRY Project in Focus: A daycare (above) in Pondicherry built for Sharana, an NGO that works with socio-economically disadvantaged children, is crafted as a welcoming, open space with reinforced-concrete slabs and angular walls of porous terracotta screens, allowing its young inhabitants visual contact with the garden outside. Philosophy: “I consider where the project is and go deep into discovering that which exists but goes unnoticed. My aim is to work with the ordinary and reveal the extraordinary in it, to reveal the human potential and the constantly evolving human eye and mind,” says Kundoo. anupamakundoo.com Photo: Javier Callejas.
SABYASACHI MUKHERJEE
KOLKATA Collaboration: Mukherjee studied painted fabrics from the Coromandel Coast and the work of miniaturists from colonial-era Murshidabad—and also tapped into his signature, classical Calcutta motifs—to create five distinct collections for Sabyasachi for Nilaya, a new range of soft furnishings launched in collaboration with Asian Paints. Favourite Space: The Games Room at the Taj Falaknuma Palace, Hyderabad. sabyasachi.com
PRABHAKAR B. BHAGWAT
Aniket Bhagwat AHMEDABAD Signature: Known for their lush landscapes that highlight lesserknown native plants and grasses that thrive in India’s extreme climates, and are often found growing along the edges of fields and farmlands. Design Icons: “We have always been inspired by the works of architect Leo Pereira from Ahmedabad, the inimitable Nari Gandhi, and the formidable Achyut Kanvinde.” landscapeindia.net
VASTUSHILPA CONSULTANTS
B.V. Doshi, Rajeev Kathpalia, Sönke Hoof, Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, Radhika Doshi Kathpalia AHMEDABAD Recent Projects: The Svaram Campus, Auroville; a housing complex in Kolkata; Smriti Van Earthquake Memorial & Museum, Bhuj, Gujarat. Sustainability Icon: Neri Oxman, for her path-breaking work. Words of Wisdom: “Architecture is like a fabric generated by life forces. Its form should not be finite but amorphous, so that the experience within is loose, meandering and multiple,” says Doshi. sangath.org
ARCHITECT HAFEEZ CONTRACTOR
MUMBAI Recent Projects: New Kolkata, a large-scale residential project overlooking the Ganges in Serampore; Monte South, a luxury residential tower in Byculla, Mumbai. Coming Up: A museum dedicated to India’s 5,000-year maritime history in Lothal, Gujarat. hafeezcontractor.com
MARIE-ANNE OUDEJANS TUSHANT BANSAL
MUMBAI Project in Focus: A former warehouse in Delhi gets reincarnated as a light, white art space (below) for Nature Morte. White plyboard-clad walls—the exposed brick above doused in white—and original glass panels contrast the cement flooring, all of it highlighting the art on display. Craft Initiatives: Furniture pieces made with traditional cane-weaving techniques in collaboration with The Wicker Story, Hyderabad; throws and cushions handembroidered by women from Kashmir; “I am also researching pink stone carving by the incredibly talented craftsmen in Odisha.” Collaboration: With RMA Architects for a residence in Chennai. tushantbansal.com Photo: Randhir Singh.
JAIPUR Recent Project: Oudejans’s design for the Aquazzura store in Capri drew inspiration from the island itself—the corals, the flowers and its iconic lemons. Red-and-white marble flooring, painted bamboo shelving, and a stunning handpainted ceiling make the store a visual feast that has surprises at every turn. Sourcing Haunt: Idli by Thierry Journo. Coming Up: Villa Palladio in Jaipur.
RMA ARCHITECTS
Rahul Mehrotra, Robert Stephens, Nondita Correa Mehrotra, Payal Patel, Romil Sheth MUMBAI Coming Up: Work is underway on a second phase for Hathigaon, a housing project for mahouts and their elephants, situated at the edge of the Amer Fort near Jaipur. Highlight: Last month, Mehrotra launched Working in Mumbai, a book that weaves together his work across architecture, research, and academics since 1990. rmaarchitects.com
STUDIO POMEGRANATE
Shweta Chhatpar, Pranav Naik MUMBAI Ongoing Projects: Two experience centres for Jaquar in Jalandhar and Bengaluru; a home and resort in the Andamans; The Tangra Project, Chef Vikramjit Roy’s new restaurant in Delhi; a remodel for Miss T in South Mumbai. Antique Trail: “Mahendra Doshi, The Hesperus in Mumbai, and sometimes the client’s own pieces that they have overlooked!” says Naik. Favourite Room: The Garden Room at Taliesin West by Frank Lloyd Wright. spom.in
INI CHATTERJI & ASSOCIATES
GOA Signature: With a minimal design footprint, Chatterji creates structures that rest gently on the earth, often building with coconut wood, a material he zeroed in on after he built a home for his mother in Goa using salvaged wood from coconut trees that were cut down in the area. Coming Up: A resort in Hampi, Karnataka; a home in Goa.
J & I ARCHITECTS
Joseph and Iby Sara John KOCHI Project in Focus: This weekend home (left) on Kerala’s Periyar riverbank unobtrusively inserts itself into its surroundings, has free-flowing spaces, and was shaped into existence with humble materials found locally. Ongoing Projects: Private homes, a play school, a convention centre—all in Kochi; an amusement park and a corporate project—both in Thrissur. jandiarchitects.com Photo: Bharath Ramamrutham.
FAQUIH & ASSOCIATES
VINITA CHAITANYA
BENGALURU Recent Projects: A home in the heart of Bengaluru; a residence in Mangaluru; an estate home in Coorg with sweeping views of coffee plantations. Favourite Space: Coco Chanel’s historic, art-filled Paris apartment at 31 rue Cambon, “with its Coromandel screens and the mirrored staircase that rises through the centre of her home”. vinitachaitanya.com
ADIL AHMAD
NEW DELHI Ongoing Projects: The restoration of a palace and fort in Uttar Pradesh, which will be converted into a heritage hotel; a boutique hotel in Manali for Paro by Good Earth. Craft Initiatives: “We collaborated with Abid Saghir from Jaipur to create objets de vertu with semi-precious stones and marble.” Favourite Room: Nancy Lancaster’s “buttahyellah” drawing room—as the tastemaker referred to it—in London. thepalacecollection.in
ANNKUR KHOSLA DESIGN STUDIO
MUMBAI Project in Focus: Conceived from the ideology that the wall is more than a spatial marker, The Wall Code (below right) is a project that sees a variety of functional elements like lights, planters and storage units, custom-fitted into every partition. Recent Projects: Shahid and Mira Kapoor’s villa in Beas, Punjab; a villa in Bengaluru. annkurkhosla.com Photo: Annkur Khosla.
Kaif and Bahaar Faquih MUMBAI Recent Projects: A villa in Alibag with an open-to-thesky courtyard that sits at the centre of the house; a villa in Indore; apartments in Mumbai. Sustainability Icons: “Most of our inspiration comes from environmental heroes and thought leaders outside of the design field, like James Lovelock, Rachel Carson, and Johan Rockstrom,” says Kaif. faquihandassociates.net
CLAY ARCHITECTURE & INTERIORS
Ahsan Ansari MUMBAI Project in Focus: Ansari’s design for Inaya Living’s flagship project in Assagao, Goa, takes inspiration from the architectural heritage of South Asia, Europe and North Africa. Corten-steel doors and a terracotta façade decorate the entrance to Macassar House (left), one of the three sensitively designed villas, which pays homage to the charm of Tangier and Marrakech. Antique Trail: Phillips Antiques, Chiki Doshi, Taherally’s, The Great Eastern Home, the Oshiwara furniture market—in Mumbai; Jew Town in Kochi. Favourite Space: Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light in Osaka, Japan. clay.net.in Photo: Ashish Sahi.
TARUN TAHILIANI
NEW DELHI Recent Projects: Three villas in Salvador do Mundo, Goa; the interiors of a private residence in Hyderabad; architecture and interiors for a 20,000-squarefoot family estate in New Delhi, surrounded by a private forest. Design Icon: Photographer and interior designer Alberto Pinto, who “left a polished, protean legacy in the design world”. taruntahiliani.com
S.P.A. DESIGN
Stephane Paumier, Anupam Bansal, Krishnachandran Balakrishnan NEW DELHI Recent Projects: A studenthousing project and a sports centre for O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat, Haryana; a student activity centre at Ahmedabad University. Favourite Space: The interiors of the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul—one of the rarest structures in the world, it showcases a blend of two architectural styles, that of a church and a mosque. spadesign.co.in
SHROFFLEÓN
Kayzad Shroff, Maria Isabel Jimenez León MUMBAI Recent Project: The interiors of an Art Deco–inspired fourbedroom home in Mumbai, built in a material palette of wood and marble to create a sense of understated luxury, and finished in muted shades of chalk white and powder blue. Ongoing Projects: Second homes in Karjat and Alibag. Favourite Space: Philips Pavilion by Iannis Xenakis. shroffleon.com
PRAXIS
Ajit Jain, Rajiv Majumdar, Gopa Menon BENGALURU Coming Up: Lounge spaces in the new terminal at the Bangalore International Airport; a farmhouse near Kolar, Karnataka; a private residence in Hyderabad. Favourite Space: Cabanon by Le Corbusier. The 140-square-foot seaside cabin on the Côte d’Azur was designed using the Modulor, a scale of proportions devised by the architect himself. praxis-india.com
SOMAYA AND KALAPPA CONSULTANTS
Brinda Somaya and Nandini Somaya Sampat MUMBAI Philosophy: “Our practice is deeply rooted in an Indian architectural vocabulary,” says Somaya. “Whether it is a sprawling campus or a village school, we approach each project with the same process and commitment.” Favourite Room: “My grandmother’s room in her Bengaluru home,” says Sampat. “It had blue walls, and each piece of furniture was designed with a touch of blue and oak wood.” snkindia.com
DDIR ARCHITECTURE STUDIO
BENGALURU Recent Projects: A resort in Badami, Karnataka; a Buddhist campus in Bodhgaya; private residences in Bodhgaya and Coimbatore; the launch of an in-house art space called DDIR Art, which focuses on bimonthly shows of modern art, digital media and photography. Favourite Space: The Farnsworth House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. ddirarchitecture.com
ANAGRAM ARCHITECTS
Madhav Raman, Vaibhav and Shruti Dimri NEW DELHI Project in Focus: Built on a rectangular parcel of land, Chromatic House (below left) is a composition of tapering, prismatic voids and volumes with red cast-concrete walls and pitched skylights that create an interplay of light and texture. Coming Up: A wellness institute in Haridwar; a heritage boutique hotel in Jaipur; farmhouses in Delhi and Gurugram. anagramarchitects.com Photo: Jaidev Tripathy
THE ORANGE LANE
Shabnam Gupta MUMBAI Project in Focus: Gupta created this duplex apartment (above) in Mumbai, at the heart of which sits a double-height bar—drenched in a vivid blue—which is flanked on either side by lush terraces fitted with daybeds and dining areas. Craft Initiative: With lippan craftsmen from Kutch to create murals for walls and niches in residential projects. shabnamgupta.in Photo: Fabien Charuau.
NOZER WADIA ASSOCIATES
MUMBAI Recent Projects: Private residences in Alibag, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata. Signature: For over three decades, Wadia has remained one of the most sought-after architects in the country, known for his residences that leverage site and context to create spaces with a sense of understated luxury.
CORMAC LYNCH
STUDIO MUMBAI
Bijoy Jain MUMBAI Collaboration: With Hermès, for a two-piece collection of furniture with a sharp focus on craft—a papier mâché armchair and a handcrafted stone table—unveiled at the Milan Furniture Fair (see pg 36). Coming Up: Following the Lantern Onomichi Garden hotel (LOG) in Japan, which was Jain’s first commission abroad, he is currently working on a boutique hotel in the south of France. studiomumbai.com
VAISHALI KAMDAR ASSOCIATES
NEW DELHI Collaboration: With Vastrakala in Chennai, for custom embroidered fabrics for a residence in Kolkata, with architecture by Nozer Wadia Associates. Favourite Space: La Fábrica, a former cement factory near Barcelona that was converted into a studio, gallery, garden, and home by architect Ricardo Bofill in the 1970s.
MUMBAI Project in Focus: “The interiors of this residence (right) were inspired by the historic Art Deco architecture of Mumbai,” says Lynch of the project, where oldworld motifs harmonize with contemporary pieces, like framed wallpaper panels from de Gournay that serve as an artistic backdrop to brass-accented furniture. Collaboration: With Ishrat Sahgal of Mishcat Co for bespoke rugs. Photo: Cormac Lynch.
LIJO.RENY. ARCHITECTS
Reny Lijo and Lijo Jos THRISSUR Recent Project: With the House that Rains Light, Lijo and Jos transform a 2,200-square-foot property in Thevakkal, Kerala, into a biophilic home that reimagines the texture of dappled light, filtering through the trees. Design Icons: “Peter Zumthor, Carlo Scarpa, Le Corbusier, Tadao Ando, and Renzo Piano,” says Lijo. “Their use of materials, texture, light and space is always inspirational,” adds Jos. lijoreny.wordpress.com
STUDIO II
Mitul Desai, Priyank Parmar SURAT Project in Focus: Inverting the idea of a light-suffused space, this cocoon-like lounge (below left), an extension to a Surat home, receives cleverly rationed light that adds to the soft vibe, enhanced by a dark Tandur-stone floor, a bamboo-chick ceiling and shadowy interiors. Favourite Structure: “The stepwells around India built by anonymous builders. They have an amazing material and spatial quality,” says Desai. studioii.org Photo: Mitul Desai.
MUMBAI Recent Projects: Private residences in Bharuch and Alibag; a school—that’s almost ready to welcome around 1,200 children—in Chennai; a community hall outside of Bengaluru; a penthouse in a 100-year-old heritage building and Kathiwada City House, an art and wellness centre—both in Mumbai. Favourite Room: The reading room at Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba Museum. srda.co
ZZ ARCHITECTS
Zubin Zainuddin, Krupa Zubin MUMBAI Craft Initiatives: “For a home we recently completed in Ajmer, we sourced extensively from the local stone markets, and commissioned local craftsmen to create customized pieces for the home,” says Zainuddin. Sustainability Icon: “Kerry Hill, for the nuances of his work, and his extensive collaboration with the Aman Group,” says Zubin. zzarchitects.net
ALVA ARCHITECTS
Ashwin Alva NEW DELHI Project in Focus: A structure of timber and steel was designed to merge the interiors with the outdoors at this home (right) for a family of four in New Delhi. Wood textures, specifically on the underside of the roof—as well as birch-ply panelling and brushed white-oak glazing—offer a warm, earthy undertone to the interiors. Recent Projects: Premium luxury interiors in the Camellias, Gurugram; a small commercial building in the Leh bazaar, designed in “steel, timber, sundried mud blocks with Markalak plaster, and woven-willow-stem trellises”. alva.co.in Photo: Rohan Dayal.
ABHA NARAIN LAMBAH ASSOCIATES
MUMBAI Recent Projects: The new Durbar Hall and Secretariat buildings at Raj Bhavan, sections of the Willingdon Sports Club, the restoration of the Maharashtra State Police Headquarters—all in Mumbai; Lal Bagh Palace in Indore. Sustainability in Action: “The restoration and adaptive reuse of historic or existing buildings is sustainable not only for preserving history, but it also offers lessons in energy efficiency.” anlassociates.com
ABRAHAM JOHN ARCHITECTS
Abraham John and Alan Abraham MUMBAI Recent Projects: An outdoor restaurant in New York; a chalet in Switzerland; residences in Hyderabad, Jodhpur, Raipur, Goa, and Himachal Pradesh. Sourcing Haunts: Italy; flea markets in Sri Lanka and Bali. Coming Up: A complete redesign of the Bandstand promenade in Mumbai, including the public garden in front of Mannat, Gauri and Shah Rukh Khan’s house. abrahamjohnarchitects.com TEXT: RITUPRIYA BASU, GAURI KELKAR, AVANTIKA SHANKAR. ASSISTANT DESIGNER: HUMA SHAIKH.
SAMIRA RATHOD DESIGN ATELIER
THE LAST WORD IN TRAVEL AUG-SEPT-OCT 2021 | 200
THE WAY FORWARD
How to travel slowly, sustainably and mindfully—for yourself and for the planet
THE GREEN LIST
20 earth warriors creating a difference
NEW HOTELS
Six Senses Fort Barwara Raffles Udaipur Welcomhotel Tavleen Chail
SUNDERBANS BY BOAT A new eco conscious cruise makes waves
THE LAST WORD N TRAVEL AUG SEPT OCT 2021 200
THE WAY FORWARD
How to travel slow y sustainably and mindfully for yourself and for the planet
THE GREEN LIST
20 earth warriors creat ng a difference
NEW HOTELS
Six Senses Fort Barwara Raffles Udaipur Welcomhotel Tavleen Chail
SUNDERBANS BY BOAT A new eco consc ous cru se makes waves
THE WAY FORWARD
T
STYL S THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE
This issue is an all-girls party. It wasn’t intended but we’re thrilled with the coincidence. Nelly Sethna, the historic fibre artist, is simply not celebrated enough. Thank you to Nancy Adajania for this powerful essay and Sooni Taraporevala for the iconic 1984 photograph of Nelly. Thank you to Bandana Tewari for her spirit and eloquence in curating six fashion labels cut from a sustainability cloth, and fabulously shot by Rema Chaudhary. And thank you to the homeowners who opened their doors this time: Loulou Van Damme and Maithili Ahluwalia, Mansi Poddar, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, and Eva Chen. What a stunning portrait you make!
C O N S C I O U S ,
Bandana Tewari curates six fashion labels, Indian and international, born with sustainability in their DNA, not just jargon adopted as an afterthought.
PHOTOGRAPHS REMA CHAUDHARY
C O M P A S S I O N A T E
C l o t h e s
s h o u l d
c o v e t o u s n e s s
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l a n d ,
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t h e m
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J u s t
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r o l e
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e n v i r o n m e n t
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e n v i r o n m e n t .
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F A S H I O N
p e o p l e
d r a p e
e a r t h .
M R I G A NorBlack NorWhite | Cultural immersion and experiential fashion are nuanced sartorial directions. The former involves integrating with unfamiliar communities and interacting with local people and their crafts; the latter is an invitation to engage in a fashion journey that involves multiple stakeholders of a collective creative energy that we thrive in, whether we are makers or wearers. However, two Toronto-raised Indians make it look darn simple. From the time Mriga Kapadiya and Amrit Kumar moved to Mumbai in 2010, their creative journey has been an adventurous navigation of the cultural labyrinth that is India. Whilst learning and savouring the ‘craft masalas’ of the country, their clothes manifest the uninterrupted storytelling of humble cultural custodians who have been made invisible by our hyper-industrialized world. To value a thing of beauty is to honour the design trajectory in its entirety— the past, present and future—not devalue the creative continuum with the vocabulary of greed and ignorance. NBNW clothes are stories written on the body with generosity of spirit and love.
&
A M R I T
A L L E N
Bodies As Clothing | Ever heard of ‘bio-logical fashion’ or ‘animistic sustainability’? Welcome to a new language of compassionate fashion that transports us to a pre-industrial era of creativity that relies on sacred colours garnered from the earth, plant-based aesthetics of beauty, and ‘medicinal clothes’ that heal. Bali-based Bodies As Clothing founder and designer Allen Litton rests his laurels on artisans and animism—that we are all matter, and that we all matter. This is a farm-to-fabric experience that has ahimsa as the eminent guide to interconnectedness between what is grown and what is worn with mindfulness. From time immemorial, clothes—like music and art—have been imbued with prayer, symbolism, and ceremony. Bodies As Clothing invites you to this world where there is inner belief: just as the hand that caresses your face is love, the clothes that embrace your body are also love.
L I T T O N
All Things Mochi | Embracing a new vocabulary of pre-loved clothes, (re)created designs, reusability, reinvention, revival, and respect, founder and designer Ayah Tabari brings the spirit of adventure and beauty of eccentricity that only seasoned travellers can boast of. Born in Palestine but having lived in the megacities of Amman, Riyadh, London, Dubai before finally settling in Amsterdam—it’s perhaps this bohemian traipsing that has given All Things Mochi its unique style signature. Vintage and repurposed Mochi fabrics are turned into one-off classics that are designed to last and be loved forever, a design ethic that finds beauty in waste. Her collections are the opposite of fast fashion, recognizing the value of slow fashion that evokes mindfulness in our buying habits, dignity of labour and longevity of the clothes. Some designs—seasonless favourites—use decorative forms of traditional embroidery, making each piece a unique collectible that you can pass down to a younger generation.
T A B A R I
A Y A H
H A R S H Harago | Jaipur-based designer Harsh Agarwal ticks all the boxes of conscious creation and consumption. His commitment towards craftsmanship—handloom weaving, tie-dye, appliqué, blockprinting, and chikankari, amongst others—is at the forefront of a design ideology that puts people over products. Recognizing the ingenuity of the bucolic artisans he works with—the poetry and perseverance of age-old sartorial traditions—allows him to honour the process by making it as invaluable as the final product. The result of this co-creation with artisanal communities—his re-use of vintage fabrics and an overall design oeuvre deeply entrenched in re-use, re-make, re-love—Harago is a delightfully whimsical menswear brand that puts joy and cheer into clothes in the same way the embrace of a loved one does for us.
A G A R W A L
A M E S H Amesh | Unabashedly kaleidoscopic, reflective of the joie de vivre of his motherland Sri Lanka, Amesh Wijesekera weaves magic with deadstock fabric and artisanal handloom fabrics from the country. Distinctly and proudly South Asian, he is a prime example of what’s seen globally as the ‘melanin takeover’: young South Asians, in a variety of artistic disciplines, who have the creative gumption to bridge their cosmopolitan urbanity with the age-old cultural provenance of their motherlands—a stellar expression of young and old, urban and rural. Add inclusivity and gender fluidity into the mix and Wijesekera’s designs are not mere clothes, but a bold display of regional identity, deep heritage and the penetrating idiosyncrasies of a vibrant country. His quirky visual narrative built around craft is a wonderful expression of cultural appreciation, the celebration of difference and unpredictability in a world that is often rendered monochromatic by calculated globalization.
W I J E S E K E R A
R Y A N
Petit Pli | If you are the type that pigeonholes fashion into a nasty class of capitalism, over-production and wastefulness, then think again. Petit Pli is an innovative fashion practice that is multidisciplinary in approach, embracing both humanity and technology. This material technology company, founded by aeronautical engineer Ryan Mario Yasin, comprises a team of aeronautical engineers, neuroscientists and designers who address a fundamental phenomenon of life: growth. Think about toddlers who surge to become teenagers, pregnant mothers who swell to make space for a new life—Petit Pli addresses our reality of the ever-changing orbit of growth. Yasin saw that childrenswear failed to recognize the dynamic and rapidly changing bodies of Earth’s little humans. Inspired by his background in deployable satellite technology, Ryan created a garment that would grow with a child, reducing water and carbon footprints, and the need to keep buying new clothes. ‘Clothes That Grow’ is an answer to the challenges of novelty and disposability. He simply turned to science for a humane solution.
M A R I O
Y A S I N
NELLY SETHNA PORTFOLIO TAPESTRIES OF TIME
Nelly Sethna (1932-1992) is a name we’ve all heard of but not enough has been written about the depth of her contribution and talent. So, we at AD jumped at the opportunity offered by Mumbaibased gallery Chatterjee & Lal, as they planned a retrospective of the artist’s three-decade-long career. Through these images of Sethna’s historical tapestries and a deeply insightful essay by Nancy Adajania, we hope to offer a glimpse of the scale and materiality that Sethna’s art embodied. Her philosophy was drawn partly from Scandinavian modernism, courtesy of her Nordic mentors at the Cranbrook Academy, and the Arts and Crafts lineage of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, and it all came together in Sethna’s warps and wefts in the context of India. A six-foot textile mobile sculpture made in wool, wire and glittering Lurex; a three-storey wall-hanging in the stairwell of the Ford Foundation in Delhi, ceramic murals for the lobby of Joseph Allen Stein’s Express Towers in Bombay—Nelly Sethna’s excellence is present for us to view, touch and marvel at.
PORTRAIT PHOTO SOONI TARAPOREVALA INSTALLATION PHOTOS ANIL RANE TEXT NANCY ADAJANIA
Nelly Sethna ‘The Unpaved, Crusty, Earthy Road’ runs from 1 September to 16 October at Chatterjee & Lal in Mumbai. This retrospective is one of three exhibitions that celebrate 50 years of Cymroza Art Gallery, Mumbai.
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Nelly Sethna at her home that she shared with her husband Homi Sethna at Ashoka Apartments in Bombay, 1984.
Above: Untitled (1980-1990), wool and cotton tapestry, 57 x 28 in., Nelly Sethna. Courtesy of the collection of Gayatri and Priyam Jhaveri. Left: Untitled (c. 1980), wool and cotton tapestry, 44.5 x 59 in. Courtesy of the collection of Jamshyd and Pheroza Godrej. Facing page: Untitled (1989), wool and cotton tapestry, 72.5 x 21.5 in., Courtesy of the collection of Jamshyd and Pheroza Godrej.
Above: A site-specific installation of tapestries at Godrej Bhavan, Bombay (early 1970s), wool and cotton tapestries, approx. 83 x 296.95 in., Nelly Sethna. Courtesy of Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. Facing page, bottom: Detail of a site-specific installation of tapestries at Godrej Bhavan, Bombay (early 1970s), wool and cotton tapestry, 83 x 45 in. Courtesy of Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.
Above left: Untitled (c. 1970), wool and cotton tapestry, 123 x 54 in., Nelly Sethna. Courtesy of the collection of Tara Lal and Mortimer Chatterjee. Above right: Detail of immersive ceramic murals in the Express Towers’ lobby, Bombay (early 1970s), ceramic, 54 x 36 in. Courtesy of the Express Towers. Left: Detail of immersive ceramic murals in the Express Towers’ lobby, Bombay (early 1970s), ceramic, 54 x 36 in. Courtesy of the Express Towers. Facing page: Untitled (c. 1980), wool and cotton tapestry, 83.5 x 33.5 in. Courtesy of the collection of Jamshyd and Pheroza Godrej.
Nelly Sethna sits in her wheelchair, at her loom, stretching yarn
worked with wool, cotton, jute, silk yarn, straw, and sisal, as well
between her fingers. Eventually her body would give up its
as nylon and unpolished strips of leather. Most importantly, she
struggle with multiple sclerosis. Sooni Taraporevala’s subtle
worked at different scales, ranging from rugs and wall hangings to
portrait conveys the generative tension of much of Nelly’s working
a six-foot textile mobile sculpture made in wool, wire and glitter-
life, bracing her between a wall-mounted crucifix and a martial
ing Lurex (the zari of post–World War II weaving!) and also the
Rajasthani puppet, ready to mow down whatever comes in the
massive Air India tapestry and the three-storey wall hanging in the
way of the dance of life.
stairwell of the Ford Foundation, Delhi, in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, she designed the ceramic murals for the lobby of Joseph
My experience of curating the first-ever retrospective of the all-
Allen Stein’s Express Towers in Bombay, and an on-site tapestry
but-forgotten fibre artist Nelly Sethna (1932-1992) has been, by
installation at Godrej Bhavan.
turns, exhilarating and frustrating. Exhilarating because every new piece of material evidence—or clues held by fading marginalia—has
As a textile designer, Nelly led the design studio at Bombay
corroborated a hunch that I was developing through my research.
Dyeing, during its expansion in the late 1950s. In the following
Frustrating because the evidence was so hard to come by, dispersed
decade, she consulted for the National Institute of Design (NID),
as it was across uncatalogued information, the fragmentary
Ahmedabad—where, with her friend, the Finnish textile designer
memories of those who had known her, and folklore that I had to
Helena Perheentupa, she laid the foundations for the textile design
verify against the chronology I was reconstructing.
course. In the early 1970s, as a craft researcher and activist, Nelly pioneered the revival and popularization of kalamkari, the painted
Nelly has inspired me for many years. She was a warrior, refusing
and printed fabrics of Srikalahasti and Masulipatnam in Andhra
to give up even when confronted by the multiple sclerosis that
Pradesh. She retrieved beautiful hand-carved traditional kalamkari
literally struck her blind for a week in 1969, before it slowly wasted
blocks that had long lain dormant in craftsmen’s homes, and crea-
away her petite frame and restricted her movements from the mid-
ted new design layouts to cater to a contemporary sensibility.
1970s onwards. In remembering Nelly, we must invoke the plural contexts she inhabited, the multiple constituencies she nurtured.
I have taken the title of this retrospective—‘The Unpaved, Crusty,
As a fibre artist, she experimented restlessly with materials and
Earthy Road’—from a brief memoir of Nelly’s childhood, in which
techniques, from the hand-woven to the hand-knotted. She
she speaks of walking barefoot to school and feeling the earth
under her feet, “plucking, sniffing, observing the various plants,
We could place Nelly’s expansive oeuvre at the intersection
shrubs, moss, creepers, and trees, big and small”. The exhibits
between a Scandinavian modernism—courtesy of her Nordic
strongly reflect her preoccupation with the design inherent in
mentors at the Cranbrook Academy—and the ecumenical Arts
nature, an organic geometry, as well as her affinity with the simul-
and Crafts lineage of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, an influential
taneously sacred and erotic geometry of tantric ritual diagrams.
figure in the Nehruvian cultural establishment. I would argue that these two lineages are not opposed, but rather, are well aligned.
Nelly was fearless. As a student, she had defied the head of the
Historically, in Scandinavia, modernism has enjoyed a symbiotic
commercial arts department at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay,
rather than an antagonistic relationship with the crafts.
who demoted her. She simply picked herself up and sailed to London, with hardly any money, to earn a diploma in design and textile print-
As a research-driven exhibition, this retrospective also proposes, from
ing at the Regent Street Polytechnic. A chance meeting with the
the empirical evidence, a radical model of Nelly’s more than three-
Finnish-American weaver Marianne Strengell in Bombay got her the
decade-long career. I argue that it went through several phases, being
Ellen Scripps Booths fellowship to study weaving at the Cranbrook
strongly articulated in the expanded, collaborative practice of what I
Academy of Art (1958-1959). Strengell became her lifelong mentor.
define as the ‘Nelly Sethna studio’. A number of collaborators played their part in Nelly’s production process—among them, Roda Gazdar,
A majority of the tapestries in this retrospective come from the
Jerbai Shaw, Bhanu, Chandrabhaga, Mani, Mansingh, Homi Sethna,
Pheroza and Jamshyd Godrej collection. Pheroza Godrej has long
and Roshan Mullan, her soul-sister and chief associate of more than
championed the works of textile artists, ceramicists and subaltern
two decades. Nelly’s artistic practice was nourished by an industrial
artists, practitioners working outside the sanctified norms of
ethos and a craft ethos; she proudly acknowledged the efforts of her
modernist painting. This retrospective is one of three exhibitions
collaborators, who came from diverse class and ethnic backgrounds.
that celebrate 50 years of Cymroza Art Gallery, which Pheroza
Nelly Sethna recognized no social differences as she crafted a solidar-
founded in 1971, and is hosted by Chatterjee & Lal. It includes
ity of talent, whether she was restoring marginalized textile traditions
never-before-seen archival material pertaining to Nelly’s research
to their proper vitality or creating works that defy conventional genre
trips to Iran and Kutch, as well as rare documentation of her
distinctions between tapestry, sculpture, and installation.
adventurous textile mobiles, draperies and room dividers from the 1960s, and her ambitious corporate commissions from the 1970s.
By Nancy Adajania
maIthIlI
Isla Maria ‘Loulou’ Van Damme in the main bedroom—the chest in the foreground, bronze Kerala bust, and painted panels are from Bungalow Eight. The cane box is from an antique market in Karaikudi, Chettinad. The rug is from Jaipur Rugs.
WRITER ADITI MAHESHWARI PHOTOGRAPHER PANKAJ ANAND
A view of the guest bedroom—the teak desk was sourced from Jogeshwari’s antique market, while the baroque chair is a flea-market find. The artwork above is a Manish Nai, part of homeowner Maithili Ahluwalia’s personal collection. The deer sculpture is from Phillips Antiques. Facing page: The dining room is the central space in the house, visible from every area. The cow head is from Phillips Antiques and the horns are from Bungalow Eight. Loulou advised Maithili to purchase art only once the entire home was designed— to find pieces she could live with for a long time. The Krishen Khanna was gifted to Maithili by her father and the Manisha Parekh is from Jhaveri Contemporary. The fluted hanging lamp was sourced from a flea market, while the Irani chairs are from Chor Bazaar.
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The living room is a museum of rare finds. The colonial daybed was once Maithili’s own bed, and was repurposed for this space. The metal floor lamp, Bakelite hanging lamps, ceramic candle stand, glass-and-iron side table, Art Deco lounge chair, and glass coffee table are all from Bungalow Eight. The Naga headgear and framed embroidery are part of Maithili’s personal collection and the cushions were designed from old fabrics.
A corner of Maithili’s bedroom—the painted angel panel is from Bungalow Eight, and the teak chest of drawers, and Anglepoise lamp are from Chor Bazaar. The George Nakashima chairs are part of Maithili’s personal collection. Facing page: The antique embroidery panel was from Maithili’s grandmother. The Art Deco sofa is from Zubee Arts and the lamp is from Taherally’s. The painted cupboard is from Jogeshwari’s antique market.
“Maithili told me she wouldn’t cook but I still insisted she have a well-designed kitchen. She now cooks all the time!” says Loulou. The Anglepoise lamp is from Bungalow Eight, and the fish wallhanging and tray are from a flea market. Facing page: The Japanese plates are from Gramin Arts and the wooden workman table is a flea-market find.
Another view of the guest bedroom—the Art Deco bed is from Chor Bazaar, and the portrait is from Gramin Arts. The drums on the wall are from Vayu. The vintage lamp is from Zubee Arts, while the rug is from Raj Overseas. Facing page: The powder room is a compact, functional space for guests. This was a space that was specially created by knocking down doors and expanding this area. The vintage cabinet is from Lalji Handicrafts, the horse figurine is from a Karaikudi market and the portrait is from Bungalow Eight.
A dressing corner in Mathili’s bedroom—the table and vintage tray are from Lalji Handicrafts, while the industrial metal chair and black-and-white baskets are from Bungalow Eight.
I
remember AD’s 2019 Red issue distinctly, because inside was what I consider the magazine’s most iconic portfolio shoot. Interior designer Isla Maria ‘Loulou’ Van Damme was decked from head to toe in rubies, the precious stone lightly reflected off the delicate folds of her skin, its bold colours confidently pouring across the pages, and her carefully orchestrated and captured silhouettes juxtaposed with her bohemian personality…ah! A ‘fashion shoot’, but not entirely. So clever, so unique, so AD. To me, Loulou—the muse, the designer, the visual artist—is an enigma. One Monday morning as I excitedly rode across rain-washed Mumbai roads to meet with her at her “most beloved project” I knew it would be doubly special because the home belongs to Maithili Ahluwalia—a pioneer who brought a very special, distinct touch to the fashion landscape of Mumbai. Her former store, Bungalow Eight, was one of the first and most-unconventional interior design and clothing concept boutiques, with an inimitable appeal—classic, global, eclectic, yet modern Indian. “Whether it was my Colaba store or the Wankhede Stadium one, my honest ask was for the space to be designed like a home—warm and eternally comfortable. And, that was the value add of the genius Loulou,” says Maithili. “For her stores,” says Loulou, decked in her usual glorious long dress and quintessential silver jewellery, “I told her I knew what she needed, with the right lighting, product display and more. So, we worked together for a year, and I’ll never forget, at the end of it she said ‘Now Loulou, we’ve entered into a lifelong jugalbandi!”’ Surprisingly though, their connection runs even deeper. “My parents, who lived in Bombay in the 1940s, were Maithili’s grandparents’ friends. I remember going over to her family home for rooftop parties. I left India when I was 16 and came back in the 2000s. I started visiting her grandmother again, who was an iconic lady. At one of the lunches I met Maithili, who mentioned that she and I even shared the same nanny. And that’s how we connected. I don’t have children of my own, but she is like a daughter to me,” shares Loulou. Maithili decided to move into her own home six years ago, and found a vintage Art Deco building in South Mumbai; its beautiful old bones and charm-
ing patina resonated with her immediately. In its true essence, though, the home became an extension of her ideologies and a new address for her lovingly sourced Bungalow Eight pieces. While the store may have closed its doors, its spirit, aesthetics and soul still live on in this very home. “And Loulou, of course, was to design it. She has been my creative soul sister, mother, mentor and sparring partner for almost two decades!” says Maithili. The apartment has a natural pull, its surreptitious interiors doused in rare finds. The balmy spaces enhanced with art panels, found objects, and the mild morning light invited even a stranger like me to lounge around with abandon. The design grew out of living and experiencing the spaces first, then organically flourishing them with the classic Loulou-Maithili touch. The closing of unnecessary doors, the creation of a new bathroom, a light paint on the walls and the peppering of Bungalow Eight pieces emerged as the first chapter in the home’s design story. And then the design of the two bedrooms, two bathrooms, guest toilet, and kitchen unfolded. The original terrazzo flooring was an immediate favourite. Perhaps the most whimsical of the lot is Maithili’s colonial bed, which became a wonderful multifunctional piece. With its legs removed and the addition of a thicker mattress it seamlessly converted into a sofa-cum-daybed in the living room—ideal for socials or long stupors. “I think [the home is] a mirror of me at 37, when I moved in: enthusiastic, curious, passionate, impulsive, indecisive, impatient, eclectic, chaotic, but within all that somewhat structured— essentially, a consummate shopper and aesthetic glutton,” adds Maithili. The two are currently working on redesigning the space. Staying home during the pandemic has, after all, made each of us even greater, more astute aesthetes. “Maithili wants a certain lightness and simplicity to the home. We’re going to bring in some glass, and in terms of art, we’re going to add a large painting over the bed and Warli art in the public area. The home doesn’t need more colour, just a fresh coat of homeliness,” says Loulou. And Maithili concludes, “We have entered a new phase of our collaboration and this home represents our legacy together.”
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WRITER KANIKA PARAB PHOTOGRAPHER ASHISH SAHI
In Mansi Poddar’s South Mumbai home, a Pierre Jeanneret brass armchair from Mahendra Doshi sits at one end of the curved foyer.
Ashiesh Shah Atelier’s Moonshadow vase rests below Arjun Rathi’s Wavelength light. The leather upholstered armchair is from Mahendra Doshi, the bar chairs are from Blue Loft. The apartment’s mosaic floors remain unchanged.
PHOTO: TALIB CHITALWALA. HAIR & MAKE-UP: LEKHA SHAH.
Poddar in her living room—the curved couch is by Ashiesh Shah, the coffee table and armchair are from Mahendra Doshi, and the artwork is by Lubna Chowdhary. A jute dhurrie from Casegoods’ Fold collection adds colour and texture.
An original neon sign from a nowshuttered speakeasy sheds light on a carpet from Jaipur Rugs and coffee table from Mahendra Doshi in the den.
An Anissa Kermiche Breast Friend vase perches on an antique pillar sourced from Mahendra Doshi.
White bed linens from Bandit Queen adhere to the bedroom’s minimalist regime. The photograph on the wall is by Rishabh Badoni. Facing page, top: A row of stilettos wait to be asked to the dance floor in this chattai-lined walk-in closet created behind the bed. Facing page, bottom: An Art Deco table by Mahendra Doshi and equestrian lamp from Phillips Antiques decorate one end of this sunlit dressing area.
The lush, all-season terrace houses many, many plants; the stools and soft furnishings are from No-Mad India.
cupants because It curved its foyer to appear softer, more welcoming; it urged the terrace lemon trees to produce more fruit; it prepared its high ceilings to accommodate new feelings. And, in turn, its residents became kinder as well, singing to their plants each morning, making promises to keep the home’s original bones intact, mixing an endless batch of margaritas for guests with no curfew. This is how entrepreneur Mansi Poddar and her Art Deco apartment in Churchgate have grown to sustain each other since December 2020, a relationship gilded with brass and lined with grass—a shiny, ticklish current that lingers in the apartment, that makes its guests glow. Poddar styled her two-bedroom terrace home with help from designer Isla Maria Van Damme— whom a lucky few know as Loulou (also featured in this issue, on pg 128). Both were grateful for the solid shell they had to work with. “The apartment was in great shape when we got it. We retained its 10 chandeliers, round brass switches, beautiful bathrooms and mosaic flooring that we used as a cue for the home’s colour palette—green, maroon, mustard,” says Poddar, co-founder at Brown Paper Bag and the Coup Card. She is yet to pass a full four seasons in this home, but the months already spent here are a tableau of winter parties outside, summer lounging inside and monsoon days in the room that will have them. Let’s begin our tour in the chattai-lined terrace, coloured by the sun and singing with plants—so many that it’s hard to spot the hosts sometimes. Its views of flaming gulmohar trees, a club’s tennis courts, hotels’ neon signs and the Rajabai Clock Tower make the space transition from Tangier garden to Mumbai terrace. A four-poster daybed and mooda stools are there for those who want to sit, but most winter nights here have been spent dancing, while watching a projector cast ’90s music videos on the sliver of bare wall that hasn’t been colonized by bougainvilleas (yet). In the summer, living and loving and lolling moves indoors more often than not. An obsidian-
black line of paint runs across the ceiling and doors, forming a bold frame to contain the living room’s soft curves, the bedroom’s reverential hush. In the living room, a massive round wall mirror— “Loulou’s idea”—is the hero piece, a reflective moon influencing the apartment’s times and tides. Above, bulbs arrange themselves in a single wave; in the middle, a scarlet Lubna Chowdhary work hovers steady on its axis; and below, an undulating couch and coffee table borrow postures from ringed planets. This room packs all the heat and grace of the solar system and it’s hard not to marvel at it. Follow the black line into the bedroom, where the design becomes more chaste, offering just a bed shrouded in creamy white sheets and tall Colinclean glass doors keeping the terrace at bay. This aesthetic is emblematic of Poddar’s minimalist DNA; it extends to the walk-in closet at the back too, which is (probably) this bedroom’s best-kept secret. It’s also where Poddar tricks the metropolis into thinking that it can be calm under the right regime. Picture a long, calm white room the length of a train coach, where a single brass rack holds up her clothes, each cloaked in a white, linen garment bag. Underneath, shoes line up above a cloud-like runner, waiting to be asked to the dance floor. Come with a corsage and dance to the other side of the apartment where its second resident, Karan Rai, thrives. The den keeps safe from the rain, tender relics from this businessman’s past: an Art Deco coffee table; an armada of art; a neon sign that, we’re told, used to belong to Abdully’s Folly, an erstwhile speakeasy in Bombay. This room so far has been conducive to TV-watching and reading marathons, work-from-home predicaments, and early Friday cocktails that have been blamed on the rain. And while the monsoon beats down ruthlessly on an apartment in a building whose name translates to mercy or blessing, this home and its residents take solace in the fact that everything will be washed and new, that every season spent here so far has been more binge-worthy than the last. Winter is coming, and as you’ve learned in this Mumbai terrace story, that’s not a bad thing.
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eva
chen WRITER SAM COCHRAN PHOTOGRAPHER CHRIS MOTTALINI STYLIST DORCIA KELLY PRODUCER JANE KELTNER DE VALLE
Eva Chen with Ren, Tao, and River (on the way).
In the living room, CB2 side tables are paired with a vintage Paul McCobb cocktail table from Chairish, a LawsonFenning sofa, Stone and Sawyer table lamps, Vitsoe shelves, and a Workstead globe light. Facing page: Above the kitchen’s Plain English island are Workstead pendants; on the left is a Bertazzoni range. The paint is by Benjamin Moore.
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The dining room is decorated with wallpaper from Antoinette Poisson, an Apparatus ceiling light, and table and chairs by O&G Studio. Facing page, top: The Nelson thin-edge bed is from Design Within Reach. Facing page, bottom: The attic play area features a B&B Italia Camaleonda sectional sofa; the wallpaper is by Fayce Textiles.
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The artwork above the couple’s Lawson-Fenning bed is an estate-sale find.
but surely, the am feed morphed from shoes, bags, and beauty serums into ceramics, mirrors, and house tours. Meanwhile, words like patina and names like Paul McCobb began to pepper her conversations and thoughts. All signs pointed to her latest project: the renovation of a Connecticut country home for her young family. For Chen, a born-and-raised New Yorker and sartorial superstar who now works as Instagram’s director of fashion and shopping partnerships, these new-found fixations marked an even larger shift. “I grew up a first-generation American in Greenwich Village and didn’t know a landscape beyond Manhattan,” she reflects. “To me, nature was Washington Square Park.” A weekend at Troutbeck hotel with her husband Tom Bannister, an advertising creative director, introduced her to the low-key delights of that sylvan stretch where upstate New York meets Litchfield County. Suddenly the consummate city girl had her sights set on the simple life. “We fell in love with the quietness and with the landscape, which was wild and not groomed to perfection,” she says, adding that, with two young kids, Ren and Tao, “We needed a break from the weekend birthday-party, playground, parksprinkler grind.” (The couple recently welcomed their third, River.) After a search that Chen, also a celebrated children’s book author, likens to the story of Goldilocks, they fell in love with a contemporary Cape Cod house on nearly 10 untamed acres of land. “Some homes were too big, some were too small, but this one felt immediately right,” she recalls of its 2,800 square feet. “The bones were good. The energy was good. I could tell another family had been happy here.” At the recommendation of their real-estate agent and friends, the couple enlisted the Connecticutbased design firm Hendricks Churchill to update
the home. “I introduced myself over DM, my primary form of communication,” Chen jokes. “Heide [Hendricks] and Rafe [Churchill] really understood how to unlock the potential of the house, to make it warm and elegant and not too precious.” Down came a wall, opening up the living room to allow for several seating areas, with ample space for Ren and Tao to build forts while mom and dad, both avid readers, bury their noses in books. In the kitchen, the removal of partitions yielded an equally multipurpose space, with a dining area, fireplace, window seat, and new beadboard walls that satisfied Chen’s call for cosiness. And the conversion of the attached garage into a bedroom anticipated visits from her parents, now regular guests. Throughout the home, meanwhile, Hendricks Churchill updated windows, details, and finishes for optimal light and visual cohesion. “Our goal was not to reinvent the house but to make it work better,” notes Churchill. Adds Hendricks: “It all just sort of flows.” She also worked hand in hand with the couple to furnish the rooms, pulling together sturdy, stylish pieces that could withstand the rhythms of their rowdy brood. Some come from showrooms Chen has long admired— places like Plain English, ABC Carpet & Home, and Apparatus. Others were sourced at estate sales or Reservoir, Hendricks Churchill’s own trove of antique treasures. And many were online discoveries, from artworks seen on Tappan Collective to vintage finds on Etsy and 1stDibs. “I’ve always loved the thrill of the hunt,” Chen notes. Since the family moved into the home in the summer of 2020, the slog of urban parenting has given way to long, happy country days, as Ren and Tao splash around the pond and survey the grounds, looking for newts, dragonflies, geese, turtles, and bunnies. “Losing structure has been the greatest gift,” says Chen. “I never thought I’d be that person in gardening clogs.”
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Intensely intimate. Filled with art. A little bit of London. Plenty of India. Some velvet Rose Uniacke and gorgeous de Gournay on the walls. Magic finds from Paul Bert Serpette and solidwood floors. Love, laughter, and life. Imagined, curated, and choreographed by the actor herself, under the expert eye of Rooshad Shroff WRITER COSMO BROCKWAY PHOTOGRAPHER SIMON UPTON INTERIOR STYLIST
home ISABELLE DUBERN-MALLEVAYS CREATIVE DIRECTOR & FASHION STYLIST NIKHIL MANSATA FASHION ASSISTANT VEDIKA SHARMA
Sonam Kapoor Ahuja in the drawing room of her London home—the sofa is from Knoll, the rug is from Reindeer Antiques on Kensington Church Street; above is an artwork by Jagdish Swaminathan.
On Sonam: Savannah robe with Iris Art Nouveau–motif embroidery, embellished fringe belt, Hamilton trousers—all Dundas World. Velvet Venetian slippers, Le Monde Beryl. Vintage Chanel necklace, The Hirst Collection. Roller Seal ring, the Friendship ring, Virgo Zodiac ring—all Elizabeth Gage.
Glimpsed through the corridor is a Pierre Jeanneret chair; the vintage lighting—including the 1940s Murano Plafonnier chandelier—was all sourced at the iconic Alfies Antiques Market. The antique Chinese chair was a find of Sonam’s; the Alex carpet coat next to it is by Osman Yousefzada. The runner is Kurdish, circa 1900. Facing page: The elegant façade is typical of Notting Hill’s striking architecture.
In Sonam’s drawing room, the Calanque coffee table is by Charles Zana, sourced from the Invisible Collection, while the Mediterraneo side table by the window is Allegra Hicks, and the green pouffes are Rose Uniacke. The yellow sofa is by Knoll. The sconces on the wallpaper are Lianne Gold by Ralph Pucci and the silver elephants were passed down from Sonam’s mother-in-law.
Above: The dressing room doors were carved by artisans in Mumbai and inset with vintage flower paintings from Paris antique dealer Cecilia Lahaye. Below: The main bedroom—the dressing table is from Scarlet Splendour, while the chair was found at Reindeer Antiques. The ceiling light is from Nicholas Wells, London; the Tiffany shade was customized to match the red in the Manjit Bawa seen in the reflection. The large artwork is by Ram Kumar.
Sonam in her dining room with its tropical de Gournay wallpaper and gold Mass table by Tom Dixon. On Sonam: Leather trench coat, Chanel. Vintage 1980s Christian Dior earrings, Susan Caplan.
The wrought-iron four-poster bed in the guest bedroom was found on 1stDibs and dressed in a Hermès throw and custom-made cushions. The shuttered doors are woven cane and teak and were imported from India, while the handmade lamp and shade are from Besselink & Jones on Walton Street. Facing page: The set of Venetian mirrors in the powder room came from Alfies Antiques Market to match the larger mirror from Paul Bert Serpette in Paris. The gilt sconces were found at Kensington Lighting Company and are set off by the dramatic Ralph Lauren Home wallpaper.
sonam kapoor
ahuja
A Rana Begum on the wall. A Jeanneret desk for the husband. And a B&B Italia sofa for naps, ideas and conversations. Ten minutes away from her sumptuous Notting Hill home, she set up a creative studio, a workspace with a very different interiors story, yet signature Sonam still
studIo
Walls in Farrow & Ball Strong White set off the Whitman table by Orior, handcrafted in Ireland, while the candle stands are by Jermaine Gallacher. On the right wall is a ceramic artwork by Lubna Chowdhary, titled Panoramic (2016). On Sonam: Chochin dress, Skin boots, Issey Miyake. 1980s black lucite and paste bracelet, Omnēque. Vintage 1980s Givenchy earrings, Susan Caplan.
In the foreground of Sonam’s studio-cum-exhibition space are a Pierre Jeanneret stool (left) and chair from Studio Bijlani, while the voluptuous sofa is by Pierre Augustin Rose. In the curtained dressing area, a mirror by Gubi is used for Sonam’s fittings; the Tulle dress is by Molly Goddard. On the right is a Rana Begum spray-paint on paper titled No. 982 Painting (2020); on the left is a 2019 textile collage by Shezad Dawood, titled NAB II. Facing page: The Workbench table is by Benchmark. It sits next to a glorious rug by Jaipur’s S.N. Kapoor. Fabric panels by Fermoie line the walls adding depth and texture while the heavy curtains are in a Pierre Frey linen.
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Walls in Farrow & Ball’s Setting Plaster are paired with panels of Fermoie fabric and the colourful jolt of the rug from Barcelona-based Nanimarquina. Sitting on the Pierre Jeanneret desk is a Viola Lanari lamp, the floors are covered in Nursling carpet, a warm-hued sisal by Alternative Flooring. The large artwork above the desk is a circa-1960 Prabhakar Barwe. Facing page: The vase is from Evoke London. The bespoke cabinet is by Rooshad Shroff; the artworks above are by Nicola Durvasula.
Above: The narrow mews staircase is given megawatt impact by the use of Oval Room Blue from Farrow & Ball, while the bespoke light switches are from Buster + Punch. Below: Alternative Flooring’s Nursling carpet lines the entrance stairs, opening from a front door painted in Deep Reddish Brown by Farrow & Ball. The hall is lit by a Trapeze 6 light from Apparatus. The flowers are in a Vincent Darré vase, a favourite of Sonam’s.
The Muse wallpaper by Faye Toogood for Calico features an array of inspirational women from Coco Chanel to Marie Curie and lines the studio powder room. The bathroom fittings are by Porter and the Murano tumblers by Campbell Rey.
Sonam stands on the iconic Camaleonda sofa by Mario Bellini for B&B Italia. The Pierre Jeanneret desk in the back is husband Anand Ahuja’s workspace. A much-loved artwork by Ali Kazim—from his ‘Man of Faith’ series—is in the adjacent space. The stool is Charles Zana for the Invisible Collection, whose co-founder, Isabelle Dubern-Mallevays, Sonam describes as having “impeccable taste”. On Sonam: Type A dress, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy. Vintage 1990s Elizabeth Taylor resin bangle, Susan Caplan. Vintage boots, Sonam’s own.
hen Sonam Kapoor Ahuja first started dating Anand Ahuja, she also fell in love with the setting of his London perch. Notting Hill is one of the last truly bohemian ‘villages’ left in the city and the couple set their hearts on a home among one of its leafy stucco squares. Lockdown offered the actor an unexpected opportunity to roost. “Suddenly I was living a very local life with no planes or premieres,” she recalls, “running in Hyde Park, foraging for olive oils in Portobello market, and bonding with neighbours at this surreal time.” The backdrop to this enforced pause has been a jewel-box apartment perched high up in a grand period townhouse. It is flooded with natural light from windows gazing onto a private garden, used by the square’s residents and brimming with lofty sycamore trees and Victorian palms. Sonam’s vision for this atmospheric pied-à-terre has been brought to life with Mumbai-based architect Rooshad Shroff. “He is a maestro at curating a space towards an individual’s tastes,” muses Sonam of her collaborative choice, “We began with laying a foundation of rich textures and jewel tones together.” This luscious palette was taken even further into transporting realms with walls covered in de Gournay’s ‘Early Views of India’. The trumpeting palm trees, chhatris, and pavilions sing a romantic song of Sonam’s homeland even on the greyest of Anglo-Saxon days. “The Indian touches include a number of personal pieces gifted to us by our mothers,” reflects Sonam, “bringing memories of Mumbai and Delhi to London. There’s a lasting beauty in these heirlooms, however humble, that have seen so many lives and brought joy across the generations.” My first impression of the Kapoor-Ahuja home is how intensely personal it feels. The second is that an intact spirit of India has been allowed to settle like a Colaba sea mist, enveloping the senses. Sourcing eclectic pieces for the apartment awoke a nascent “thrill of the hunt” in Sonam. She recalls afternoons “combing antique markets in London and Paris, Alfies on Church Street, just off Edgware Road, where I unearthed a divine pair of elephant sconces, and Reindeer Antiques on Kensington Church Street, a stroll away from us, have been favourites”. In the French capital, avant-garde pieces were sourced at Paul Bert Serpette, the chicest of flea markets. “Anand and I decided very early on that I would take the reins with the design of our home,” Sonam laughs as she lights the largest Cire Trudon candle I have ever seen, “I saw us both growing in this space for years to come and that feeling informed the level of detail Rooshad and I have gone into.” Shroff is celebrated for his pioneering revival work
with traditional crafts. The apartment has, under his skilful hand, become an ode to Indian craftsmanship. Sonam was resolutely against carpets and shimmies across the parquet floor: “Nothing is quite as beautiful and pristine as solid-wood flooring. It opened up the space and we laid down precious rugs that tie the rooms together. Being barefoot is a joy here.” Sonam’s interior style is refreshingly unstarry. She has a gift, perhaps a legacy from acting, for creating a frisson of intimacy. She agrees, replying, “This is a sanctuary for us, and for those we love, rather than a showcase home. It is not large but it makes an impact.” The designing duo thought carefully about the mingling of local elements with Indian brushstrokes. The Farrow & Ball paints, wallpapers, and kitchen joinery were all sourced in London, along with islands of soft velvet from Rose Uniacke. However, the eye is drawn like a magnet to the intricately hand-carved wardrobe doors—fashioned by artisans in Mumbai—and canework from Arunachal Pradesh in the bedroom. The curtains glint with embroidery by the Lucknow studio of Maximiliano Modesti, creations of Atelier Philippe Coudray in Paris, who also worked on the Hôtel de Crillon. Dinner parties are once again taking place around the burnished gold Mass table by Tom Dixon; here Sonam finds joy in conjuring visually sensual evenings for her colourful circle. Emboldened by her experience, Sonam also used the Great Pause to transform a Kensington mews house into a creative studio. Her imagination captured by its “romantic and nostalgic feel”, Sonam asked close friend and stylist Nikhil Mansata, also marooned in London, to help create a space that is both a working hub of artistic exchange and a canvas for ongoing exhibitions. The latter included art and sculpture from Jhaveri Contemporary mingled on the ground-floor salon with Sonam’s own pieces. The chevron oak flooring is described by Mansata as “chic, amiable and supple”, while film scripts are read and rehearsed on the Pierre Augustin Rose sofa covered in a Pierre Frey mohair. Art monographs are spread across a long Orior Whitman table. To add to the multifaceted aura, Sonam has placed an elegant fitting room in the corner, draped with a Pierre Frey curtain in a beguiling shade of anise. Collaboration is the focus and everywhere are elements to foster this. The first floor is dominated by a large workbench, lit by an Apparatus light. Sonam describes the studio as “an incubator for ideas and projects”. On any given day, she might be seen here with designers fleshing out a new collection for Bhaane, her clothing line with Anand, or curating the hanging of works by zeitgeist artists like Ali Kazim. As I walk out into the cobbled mews, the electric energy seems to follow me. Sonam is a true aesthetic tour de force and I have a feeling this is only the beginning.
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AF R ARTY THE BACK It’s Supersalone this time. The design world’s biggest fair, Salone del Mobile returns in a new format, and here we present our picks of the newest brand launches, all floating in a trippy layout. Nazneen Jehangir’s floral arrangement is runway material, and Cyrus Daruwala’s Zaha-inspired fashion line is copyrighted. Thank you very much.
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST
` 200 JULY-AUGUST 2021 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HOMES IN THE WORLD
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` 200 JULY AUGUST 2021 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HOMES IN THE WORLD
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Ceccotti The word arbol in Spanish translates to ‘tree’. Designed by Jaime Hayon, the Arbol table, as its name suggests, branches out to support three circular tops, giving users, effectively, more table per table.
Cattelan Italia Walking the line between warm expressiveness and sleek functionality, the Bombè dining chair—also available with a swivel base— embraces its curves with flair.
Asnaghi Interiors The tulip-like Beth armchair is a feast of form and texture with a nubuck-anddamask upholstered frame and a gold lacquered metal base that adds to its glamour.
Andreu World The heightadjustable, rotatable Hula 46 barstool gets its name from its elliptical footrest— its chic, fluid form is courtesy of its designer, Benjamin Hubert.
I 4 Mariani The Esa table by Umberto Asnago is a study in materials, forms and geometries. The steel base— of pentagons and hexagons— holds up a smoked-glass top with a sandblasted design.
B&B Italia The Atoll bed is the latest addition to the collection of the same name by Italian designer Antonio Citterio. Clean-lined and elegantly proportioned, the design is modern, yet softly welcoming.
Gufr Pratoam The w To ce ne chair eird and spec lebrate, Gturns 50 wonderf part- ial edition ufram re this year ul compseating d of the p leased a . ar act, a esign nd co that t-sculptu re, vered is mo in fab re ric.
Fratelli Boffi The Archway table by Argentine designer Cristián Mohaded is an arresting combination of craftsmanship and vision in birch, mahogany and brass.
Poliform Inspired by the hide armchairs seen in old-school clubs, JeanMarie Massaud designed Le Club as a reimagination of an old classic.
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Versace The asymmetrical Venus armchair eschews ornamentation. Graceful, streamlined, and set on a gold-polished steel base, the chair embodies the brand’s signature glamour in its most understated form yet.
Porada Experts in wood since 1948, this year, Porada presents the Ekero rack—a sleek valet stand that makes functionality beautiful.
Poltrona Frau Channelling the warmth and delicacy typical of Japanese lanterns, the Sparkler floor lamp was designed by Kensaku Oshiro, which, when lit, casts hypnotic shadows on the ground.
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Seletti The chest of drawers with mirror panels is the product of a collaboration between Seletti and TOILETPAPER magazine. Featuring the magazine’s over-the-top imagery and a wild 1950s vibe, it is a definite conversation starter.
Turri Designed by Giuseppe Viganò, the Lyra armchair is a new addition to Turri’s Harp collection, and features a softly curved seat that gently moulds itself around the sitter.
Giorgetti The Aldìa chair is part of the first outdoor collection designed by Carlo Colombo for Giorgetti. Its asymmetrical window-like backrest is the designer’s interpretation of architecture on a smaller scale.
Baxter While away the hours in the soft curled-leather embrace of the 1970s-inspired Barret armchair designed by Draga Obradovic and Aurel K. Basedow.
Visionnaire Foil is a slender sunbed designed by Marijana Radovic and Marco Bonelli. The swooping design has a metal frame, iroko-wood legs, and a fabric seat that is perfectly ergonomic—and perfectly stunning.
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Dior Dior Maison invited 17 artists to reimagine the Medallion chair, an iconic symbol of the French fashion house, chosen by Christian Dior to seat guests at his fashion shows. In the hands of the artists, the chair finds diverse new avatars: stripped down to its basic graphic elements, or turned into a spiky sculpture, as if caught in a blizzard. 1. Nacho Carbonell (Photo: Nick Van Tiem). 2. Constance Guisset (Photo: Marion Berrin). 3. India Mahdavi (Photo: Marion Berrin). 4. Tokujin Yoshioka (Photo: Yuto Kudo). 5. Khaled El Mays (Photo: Tanya Traboulsi). 6. Linde Freya Tangelder (Photo: Marion Berrin). 7. Pierre Yovanovitch (Photo: Marion Berrin). 8. Sam Baron (Photo: Marion Berrin). 9. nendo (Photo: Yuto Kudo). 10. Pierre Charpin (Photo: Marion Berrin). 11. Joy de Rohan Chabot (Photo: Marion Berrin). 12. Dimorestudio (Photo: Valentin Hannequin). 13. Yansong Ma (Photo: Ken Ngan).
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DESIGN NEWS, TRENDS AND M U S T - H AV E S F R O M T H E M A R K E T
K PERSONAL SPACE
It’s a bonus when products that promote wellbeing while creating a lavish experience to wash away all the stress and worries are also a sight to behold. Crafted by some of the finest ceramic masters from around the world, Queo launches a new collection that gives exquisite form to functionality. The F-Courbe freestanding basin (shaped like a coiled paper ribbon), F-Clair ceiling spout and the Zinnia bathtub, together, create a bathing experience to delight our senses. (queobathrooms.com)
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EXPRESS YOURSELF
From restoring the beauty of your home to creating a whole new look for your space, Somany Ceramics offers promising solutions. With sinuous, geometrical shapes and multifaceted patterns, their tiles play off light and shadows to create spectacular walls that have a simple, yet distinctive visual appeal. (somanyceramics.com)
Kanchi Designs recently unveiled a new collec tion of furniture and soft furnishings, titled DARE 2021, that references 1960s midcentury modernism and the expressionist works of Jackson Pollock through its designs. With its considered colour palettes, the range injects any space with a sense of individuality. (kanchidesigns.com)
ACCENT WALLS HERITAGE WALK
Classic English decor returns as Iqrup + Ritz revisits its rich furniture arch ives. Incorporate these traditionally designed pieces within a modern home to create a fresh look. Upholstered chairs, tufted chester fields and intricately carved furniture are all set to make a big comeback for the brand. (iqrupandritz.com)
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NEW CRAFT
With a keen focus on organic materials, the latest collection by Orange Tree taps into moonj, a natural fibre extracted from the grass found in arid areas near river banks. Titled Tribe, the range brings together lights, mirrors and wall decor that shine a spotlight on the best of African craftsmanship. (orangetree.in)
Echoing semi-circular bamboo channels, the Confluence range of taps by Artize takes the idea of biomorphic design to a whole new level. With its minimalistic shape and meticulous finishes, Confluence redefines the bathscape, and brings it a little closer to nature. (artize.com)
CLOSER TO NATURE
ECO-FRIENDLY DESIGN
Offering a unique range of vinyl and paper-backed wall coverings, Artisan Furnishings collaborates with lead ing manufacturers from the US, Europe and Japan to curate sustain able, fireretardant wallpapers. (artisanindia.com)
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PHOTOGRAPHED BY MANASI SAWANT
SEASON OF SPORT
India’s Most Exciting Olympians The Best Watches Of 2021
FARHAN AKHTAR
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POWERHOUSE
SEASON OF SPORT
India’s Most Exciting Olympians The Best Watches Of 2021
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POWERHOUSE ndia’s Most Exc t ng Olympians The Best Watches Of 2021
FARHAN AKHTAR
POWERHOUSE
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BY EESHAAN KASHYAP
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TERRACOTTA MATKA, TABLESCAPE BY EESHAAN. GLASS, MOON RIVER.
INGREDIENTS 300 ml London dry gin 300 ml Campari 300 ml sweet vermouth METHOD 1
Pour all three spirits in a cocktail mixing glass and stir.
2
Pour into a glazed terracotta matka. Cover and preserve for 24–48 hours.
3
Serve it in a chilled glass with a large, clear ice cube. No garnish is required.
Note: This is not your everyday negroni. It has been aged in the glazed terracotta matka (pictured) for almost 48 hours. The clay has a mellowing effect on this cocktail, every sip feels more textured, smooth, and rich in minerality. While this recipe will make four portions, a little spirit will be absorbed or lost due to the porous walls of the pot. The process of using clay earthenware for aging wine goes back 8,000 years. This modern interpretation of the terracotta matka—part of my new tableware collection launching at the end of this month—allows an exchange of oxygen
PHOTO: ARTFOTO STUDIOS & 1010 CREATIVE.
M AT K A- AG E D N E G RO N I
from its surface, and imparts a unique earthiness to the spirit. Serve this negroni with a large cube of ice (and not with regular cubes, which will water the drink down) in a clean, straight glass. Here, the ice is the garnish. Globally, there’s been a shift towards minimalistic cocktails, served only with ice and no other garnishes, focusing on the techniques used to make the cocktail. This matka-aged negroni is one of my go-to cocktails for its simplicity; it only needs three spirits, a terracotta vessel and a bit of time.
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NAZNEEN JEHANGIR
PHOTO: NEVILLE SUKHIA.
SHE’S SPOT ON NOT JUST WITH SMUDGE STICKS AND KOKEDAMAS, B U T A L S O H O W T O B R I N G S E X Y B A C K W I T H A PA I R O F P U M P S
In fashion—as in life—there are a few inescapable truths. One I can personally attest to is that a good pair of shoes is a reliable companion, no matter what winds blow your way. So, my ode to AD’s Style issue had to be a delicious, sexy pair of pumps adorned with leather leaves with gomphrena, aster and ivy embellishments. To create this, we first stitched leaves onto very fine net in a fish-scale pattern. This ‘material’ was then trimmed and assembled on the shoe. The heel is adorned with ribbon grass, while little floral appliqués add a final, inspired touch. And yes, I did wear them—all day.
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BY CYRUS DARUWALA
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BY RIMZIM DADU
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T H E DY N A M I S M T H AT D A D U B R I N G S T O FA S H I O N I N I N D I A H A S B E E N U N PA R A L L E L E D . N O W T H I S M A S T E R O F M AT E R I A L I N N O VA T I O N B R I N G S A S L I C E O F H E R S T Y L E T O A D An archival crop top made with leather cords that never made it to any of our official collections— but remains a studio favourite. To its left, a piece of a shreddedchiffon-cord textile from 2009 that eventually became a signature technique of our brand.
This was a shredded-steel textile exploration, injecting movement and fluidity into a material like steel. This was eventually a part of our 2011 autumn/ winter collection. To its right are handwoven and fringed metallicleather cords from 2015, and two images from an archival catalogue that explored burning techniques to create embellishments.
A patterning, appliquéing and laser-cutting experiment—part of an upcoming collection of belts. To its left, signature heels that use our metallic-cord textile, and a swatch of our signature handwoven-steel-wire fabric. The colouring process is a result of lots of trial and error, as pigmenting steel is extremely challenging.
(Left to right) The One Shoulder jacket, created using a sculpted metal textile that wraps around the body and arms. A traditional Patola weave reimagined in leather cords, which was part of an exhibition at the V&A, titled ‘The Fabric of India’. Leather used to upholster chairs in our flagship store; we always wanted to create waves and ripples with leather. Giving a third dimension and movement to otherwise-flat materials brings us a lot of joy at the studio.
This was one of the first swatches done as an experiment in weaving silicon and steel that eventually resulted in the ‘Silicon Jamdani Sari’, which took over two years to make, presented at the Devi Art Foundation in 2015. The book below is India Contemporary Design by Divia Patel, a great resource of contemporary Indian fashion, graphics and interiors. It was a privilege to be included in the book.
A panel of our ‘Steel Wire’ sari, the result of hundreds of failed experiments till we re-engineered steel into a soft and fluid texture. Next to it, three spools of traditional zari thread that will be transformed into shredded zari cords—our attempt to reinvent a traditional material in a contemporary way.
When it comes to make-up, I stick to neutral tones. This is reflected in my runway shows and shoots as well. Our ‘Boxed Bag’ experiments that never made it to the final collection. Below it, is my copy of the Pattern Palette Sourcebook 2 by Heidi Arrizabalaga. It’s one of the many pattern books that I have in the studio, browsing through which inspires the proportions and shapes for our collections.
Rocks collected on road trips; I find driving to obscure towns very meditative. Above them, our signature ‘Mini Metal Pouch’. To the right, zari fringe slides from spring/summer 2017. This was the first time we started making footwear and accessories, which has now become a big part of the brand. PHOTO: AVESH GAUR.
