BOOKS

India Mahdavi Before we see a written word, this book, which arrives in an untitled but richly graphic slipcase, presents us with 14 pages by India Mahdavi of a Mahdavi table design seen in many hues and patterns. Almost all the rather large (9½ x 12 ½ inches) subsequent pages San Francisco: Chronicle Books, $65 are similarly alive with color, as are the Mahdavi interiors. Amid this happy kaleidoscope, 360 pages, 310 color images however, is a 28-page interview with the designer by Javier Fernandez Contreras, dean of the department of interior architecture at the Geneva University of Art and Design, telling us of her background.Born in Iran, Mahdavi was trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at Cooper Union in New York, where her furniture designs were shown by Ralph Pucci. Then, settling in Paris, she was “an artistic director” for Christian Liaigre, before establishing her own showroom and studio with projects in “London, Miami, New York—everywhere but France.” Her work is now global, and she was inducted into theInterior Design Hall of Fame in 2019.

The rest of the book is a visual feast, with some captionless pages not of interiors or furnishings at all but of bright abstractions of form and color. When some text is allowed, it is seldom factual but never dull. For example: “Everywhere, the radicality of the lines is assuaged by the softness of the furniture”; and “Color exudes from an unconscious and subliminal memory of the lights I perceived and faithfully transposed into space.” Slipped into the book as a bonus is a 48-smaller-page album of photographs taken by Mahdavi of a variety of subjects, including a few interiors but many scenes of nature. This book, while often puzzling, is the most visually delightful seen in a very long time. Every library needs a copy.

Peter Marino: The Architecture of Chanel by Pilar Viladas, Felix Burrichter, Sam Lubell, and Peter Marino New York: Phaidon, $125 280 pages, 256 illustrations, 161 color

This is an elegant book showcasing elegant architecture and interiors that are, in turn, showcasing elegant women’s clothing (plus characteristic ropes of pearls and the world’s most famous perfume). The architecture and its interiors are all the work of Peter Marino and the firm he founded in 1978. Inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 1992, he has designed residences, museums, and Andy Warhol’s Factory, but a large part of his practice has been for the fashion world (Armani, Barneys New York, Bulgari, Fendi, Donna Karan, Louis Vuitton). But perhaps his most loyal client has been the House of Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld, its creative director for a quarter century until his death in 2019.

This book shows us 16 of Marino’s Chanel store designs. They are in New York, Chicago, Istanbul, Singapore, Nanjing, Seoul, and Osaka, two in Tokyo, three in Hong Kong, and four in Miami, some of them having gone through several iterations before reaching their present state of perfection. No two are alike, but all comply with Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s favorite palette of black and white (with an occasional touch of beige) and her revolutionary style of radical simplicity—a program not without some similarity to Marino’s own favored costume of black leather. As design writer Pilar Viladas says in her informative introduction, Marino’s showrooms and Chanel’s fashion vocabulary share an approach that is “understated yet luxurious.”

Diana Pisone,

Studio principal–Chicago at Ted Moudis Associates

What They’ re Reading...

The Address by Fiona Davis New York: Dutton, $17 370 pages “I choose books for different reasons. Sometimes the subject matter fascinates me; other times I’m looking to be enriched, fulfilled, or inspired. Occasionally, it's out of respect for the person who recommended it. This book was a combination of all those reasons. Whenever I visit my college roommate Shelly, who is sort of a reading guinea pig for me, she sends me home with two or three titles from her book club. The Address was one of them. Historical fiction is my favorite genre, and by combining an iconic New York residential building like the Dakota with a murder mystery, Fiona Davis has crafted a masterful page-turner. And it’s a reminder that good design lasts. No matter what era we're in, the process remains the same, and it acts as a backdrop to the people by supporting their actions and efforts.”