THE INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AUTHORITY JUNE 2017
SUMMER ESCAPES!
LUSH GARDENS, FABULOUS POOLS, AND ROOMS WITH A VIEW
IBIZA / MOROCCO / PUNTA CANA / THE ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE
WORKING 9 TO 5 WITH
GWYNETH PALTROW
GOOP’S PICTURE-PERFECT NEW SPACE
CONTENTS june
142
A TILE-TOPPED TABLE AT A ROMANTIC MOROCCAN VILLA.
Features Nestled on a sun-drenched cliff, designer Daniel Romualdez’s Ibizan bolthole offers a dreamy blend of solitude and sociability. By Derek Blasberg
110 ANGLO FILE
India Hicks and David Flint Wood’s charming Oxfordshire manse is bedecked with family treasures. By David Flint Wood 120 THE GOOP LIFE
ON THE COVER BUTTERFLY CHAIRS ON THE ROOF TERRACE AT THE IBIZA RETREAT OF DESIGNER DANIEL ROMUALDEZ. “SEA FOR DAYS,” PAGE 98. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIGUEL FLORESVIANNA. STYLED BY CAROLINA IRVING.
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Gwyneth Paltrow taps the interior-design team at RH to refine the Santa Monica headquarters of her burgeoning lifestyle brand. By Mayer Rus
124 DOMINICAN DREAM
Bunny Williams and John Rosselli are renowned for gracious hospitality and high style at their luxe Punta Cana getaway. By Chloe Malle 138 BEYOND MEMPHIS
On Ettore Sottsass’s centennial, a string of exhibitions shine a light into the unexplored corners of the great Italian architect’s prolific 60-year career. By Hannah Martin
142 THE LIFE AQUATIC
Danny Moynihan and Katrine Boorman’s Oualidia getaway is a discreet modernist villa nestled beside Morocco’s most romantic lagoon. By Robert Becker (CONTINUED ON PAGE 16)
SIMON UPTON
98 SEA FOR DAYS
CONTENTS june Discoveries 39 ZEITGEIST: GREEN ROOM
Hold the flora—the de rigueur way to style one’s home these days is with bonsai, succulents, and outsize potted plants. By Jane Keltner de Valle
42 DEBUT: BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
The world is Carolina Irving’s oyster—and that wanderlust infuses her new fabrics for Oscar de la Renta Home. By Mitchell Owens
46 THINK PIECE: POWER BLOC
Sabine Marcelis’s Equals chair— created for an all-women design exhibition at Chamber—is a poetic exercise in equilibrium. By Hannah Martin
48 SECRET SOURCE: DREAM WEAVERS
110
Three friends in Provence are reviving the local wicker industry for a stylish new audience. By Hannah Martin 56 SHOPPING: UNDER THE SUN
This season’s palette of red and cyan evokes the splendor of the French Riviera. Produced by
DOMINO FLINT WOOD AT HER FAMILY’S OXFORDSHIRE HOME.
Parker Bowie Larson
58 ARTISAN: NATURAL INSTINCTS
Culture 65 LEGACY: THE WRIGHT STUFF
and Mitchell Owens
42
A curator and architecture historian recounts unpacking the Frank Lloyd Wright archive for this summer’s must-see museum show. By Barry Bergdoll 78 GOOD WORKS: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
A new building by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill keeps New York City safe—and looks good doing it. By Fred A. Bernstein
CAROLINA IRVING’S PARIS APARTMENT.
82 PRESERVATION: HOME AGAIN
For the Getty Foundation, the former houses of modernist legends now reveal lessons in historic preservation. By Mark Rozzo (CONTINUED ON PAGE 18)
58 A CERAMIC FLORAL PIECE BY CLARE POTTER.
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FROM TOP: MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA; ELLEN MCDERMOTT; MARKUS JANS
Bound by their love of Mother Nature, three unique talents find romantic ways to bring the outdoors in. By Hannah Martin
CONTENTS june
124
In Every Issue 28 EDITOR’S LETTER By Amy Astley 30 OBJECT LESSON: BENCH MARK
How Sir Edwin Lutyens’s painstakingly hand-carved design became the standardbearer for garden seating.
BUNNY WILLIAMS AND JOHN ROSSELLI’S RETREAT IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.
By Hannah Martin
34 DEALER’S EYE: MODERNITY
Stockholm’s Andrew Duncanson and Isaac Pineus know what Nordic design you should buy now. By Hannah Martin 152 RESOURCES
The designers, architects, and products featured this month. 154 LAST WORD: GOOD MEDICINE
Inside St. Mary’s pediatric hospital in Queens, Dan Colen’s new mural brings a much-welcomed brightness. By Sam Cochran
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FOLLOW
@archdigest
FLORA CHEST BY JOSEF FRANK FOR SVENSKT TENN AT STOCKHOLM’S MODERNITY GALLERY.
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INTERIOR: WILLIAM WALDRON; FABRICS: COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES; CABINET: COURTESY OF MODERNITY
LEFT STONES FABRIC IN SUGAR SNAP BY PERENNIALS. TO THE TRADE. PERENNIALSFABRICS.COM. RIGHT SPOTLIGHT FABRIC IN FLAME BY SUNBRELLA. $44 PER YARD. SUNBRELLA.COM.
THE INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AUTHORITY VOLUME 74 NUMBER 6
EDITOR IN CHIEF
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editor’s letter
1
“When I’m in Ibiza, I’m the most relaxed version of myself, so I wanted the house to reflect that.” —Daniel Romualdez 3
1. GWYNETH PALTROW WITH FOOD EDITOR THEA BAUMANN AT GOOP HQ IN SANTA MONICA. 2. BUNNY WILLIAMS, LEFT, WELCOMES WRITER CHLOE MALLE, RIGHT, TO THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. 3. INDIA HICKS NEEDS A SWEATER AND WELLIES FOR SUMMER IN OXFORDSHIRE. 4. DANIEL ROMUALDEZ KICKS BACK IN IBIZA.
This issue is all about finding your summer bliss, wherever that may be. I think that the genuine smiles on all the power people on this page are evidence of the real joy they feel in their personal “getaway” environments—even if, as in the case of Gwyneth Paltrow, it is the office. The airy and idyllic Goop headquarters in Santa Monica, which includes a chef’s kitchen and none of the typical decorative trappings of a digital start-up, was recently reimagined to striking effect by RH. “We spend crazy amounts of time here. Since we think of Goop as a family, we wanted everyone to feel at home,” says Paltrow, sounding like the best boss ever. I was especially pleased that the discreet and wildly stylish Manhattan architect/designer Daniel Romualdez, known for shielding not only the privacy of his famous clients but his own, allowed AD to provide a tantalizing glimpse of his happy place in Ibiza. Photographed by Miguel Flores-Vianna for his upcoming 4 book, Haute Bohemians, the island hideaway is indeed both haute and bohemian and reveals an unexpectedly laid-back side of Romualdez, along with views that just don’t quit—as shown on our cover. Other major Manhattanites, decorator Bunny Williams and her husband, antiquaire John Rosselli, welcomed us into their Punta Cana mansion, where the house is full of friends and dogs and the living is easy all year round. Don’t miss our visit to India Hicks and family in Oxfordshire, where her partner, David Flint Wood, observes that their Bahamas-based clan enjoys “England’s two weeks of summer.” Touché!
AMY ASTLEY Editor in Chief Instagram: @amytastley
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1.DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN; FASHION STYLING BY ELIZABETH SALTZMAN. ON PALTROW: ROCHAS BLOUSE, MOTHER JEANS, PAUL ANDREW SHOES; HAIR BY LONA VIGI FOR STARWORKS ARTISTS USING KÉRASTASE AURA BOTANICA. MAKEUP BY GEORGIE EISDELL FOR THE WALL GROUP USING TAMMY FENDER. MANICURE BY ASHLIE JOHNSON FOR THE WALL GROUP USING CHANEL LE VERNIS. 2. WILLIAM WALDRON; 3. AND 4. MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA
2
object lesson
THE STORY BEHIND AN ICONIC DESIGN
Bench Mark
How Sir Edwin Lutyens’s painstakingly hand-carved design became the standard-bearer for garden seating 30
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FRANCESCO LAGNESE
A SIR EDWIN LUTYENS–STYLE BENCH OVERLOOKS BEDS OF LAVENDER AT A CALIFORNIA GARDEN BY STEPHEN SUZMAN.
object lesson
2
1
1. PAINTED LUTYENS-STYLE BENCHES STAND IN THE GARDEN OF A CAPE TOWN HOME DESIGNED BY GRAHAM VINEY. 2. LUTYENS, IN THE 1920S, IN HIS OFFICE. 3. LUTYENS FURNITURE & LIGHTING’S HAND-CARVED OAK THAKEHAM BENCH. 4. SISSINGHURST CASTLE GARDEN IN KENT, ENGLAND.
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T
hose less familiar with the Arts and Crafts– style manor houses of Sir Edwin Lutyens have probably spotted at least one design from the English architect’s oeuvre: a carved oak bench. The eight-foot-long Thakeham bench— named for the 1902 West Sussex estate he designed it for—cropped up in several influential projects across England, from Sissinghurst, in Kent, to Hestercombe, in Somerset. Years later, it would be referred to by many as simply the Lutyens bench. But aside from the surviving pieces themselves—many of which remain, now ashy gray, where Lutyens installed them—there are no records of the design, or how he arrived at it. “There’s a similar one that he must have seen at a [Christopher] Wren building in London,” muses his granddaughter Candia Lutyens. “But we know nothing more about where he got the idea. There is no surviving drawing.” Today, using the originals as a primary source, she produces the closest thing to an authentic Thakeham bench (among other notable 4 Lutyens designs), relying on local oak and nearby manufacturers. Still, she’s quick to admit that there isn’t a huge market for the real deal, which costs more than $7,000: “I make it properly, so it costs ten times as much.” Many opt, rather, for one of the countless reproductions that flew onto the market after a Lutyens descendant allowed an original example to be reproduced in the 1970s. Modern renditions of varying quality—often bearing its inventor’s name without his masterly proportions and supple hand carving—can be found everywhere from RH to Walmart. But among designers—Anglophiles in particular— there remains demand for Lutyens-level craftsmanship. “Oh, you mean the one that everyone has?” responds landscape designer Deborah Nevins when asked about the Thakeham bench. Though she prefers to specify the lesser-known Hestercombe bench, which she commissions from an English source, she can attest to the Thakeham’s enduring appeal: “The proportions are just perfect,” says the designer, who has used one in her own Long Island garden. “That’s how you can tell the authentic ones from the knockoffs.” lutyens-furniture.com —HANNAH MARTIN
1. TIM BEDDOW. 2. HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES. 3. COURTESY OF LUTYENS FURNITURE & LIGHTING. 4. STRAUSS/CURTIS/AGE STOCK PHOTO/ALAMY.
3
WHERE ART MEETS COMMERCE
SPECIALTY: Twentieth-century Scandina-
vian design with a dash of contemporary. HISTORY LESSON: The golden age of Swedish design was the 1920s and ’30s, while Denmark’s was the ’40s and ’50s. ONE OF A KIND: Josef Frank’s first Flora cabinet, covered in pages from a botanical reference book. It was commissioned by a Swedish entomologist to house his collection of butterflies and beetles. SURE SALE: “Works by Peder Moos, because he carved everything by hand and his pieces rarely come up at auction,” says Andrew Duncanson. In 2015, a 1952 Moos dining table sold for more than $913,000, setting the world auction record for Nordic design. CONTEMPORARY OBSESSION: “The Denmarkbased ceramist Sandra Davolio. I contact-
ed her after buying a piece at auction to ask if we could represent her. Since then, she’s been collected by many major museums.” RARE BIRD: “Barbro Nilsson, who succeeded Märta Måås-Fjetterström when she died, made her Red Flowerbed rugs in the ’40s. Since the round shape was difficult to make and not as popular, these are scarce.” CLIENT REQUEST: Finn Juhl’s 1949 Chieftain chair. “It always commands a high price if you can find one in original condition. Especially in cognac leather, which everybody wants.” modernity.se —HANNAH MARTIN
1
2
1. BARBRO NILSSON’S 1947 RED FLOWERBED RUG. 2. AN ARMCHAIR DESIGNED BY PEDER MOOS IN 1949. 3. JOSEF FRANK’S 1930S FLORA CABINET. 4. A 1990S VASE BY PER LILIENGREN.
3
Modernity
4
Stockholm’s Andrew Duncanson and Isaac Pineus know what Nordic design you should buy now
COURTESY OF MODERNITY
dealer’s eye
Green Room
EDITED BY JANE KELTNER DE VALLE
Hold the flora–the de rigueur way to style one’s home these days is with bonsai, succulents, and outsize potted plants PH OTO G R A PH BY S PENCER LOWEL L
DISCOVERIES
THE BEST IN SHOPPING, DESIGN, AND STYLE
LIMBER PINE BONSAI BY BONSAI MIRAI’S RYAN NEIL, WHOSE WORK IS ON VIEW AT FORT GANSEVOORT GALLERY IN NEW YORK CITY FROM MAY 11 THROUGH JUNE 10.
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DISCOVERIES zeitgeist
2
1
4 3
I
love the idea of having living, breathing organisms around,” says Moda Operandi cofounder Lauren Santo Domingo, who raised eyebrows last fall when she banned cut flowers at the new Manhattan showroom of her luxury e-tail boutique. Instead she has accented it with bonsai from Saipua, the hip Brooklyn florist. “All the money we were spending on flowers seemed wasteful,” she says, noting that she also has given the miniaturized trees as Christmas gifts. Jewelry designer Delfina Delettrez Fendi isn’t much of a flower person anymore either. Her Rome apartment, which is filled with midcentury Italian furnishings, is forested with furry cacti and a wall of shy mimosa, a creeper whose leaves retract when touched—which happens a lot, since “my daughter likes to torture it,” Delettrez Fendi says. Whether it’s the current nostalgia for Gio Ponti interiors, where tropical plants held court, or a desire to reconnect with nature, going green is in the air. “People are starting to look at how to create an environment where we’re able to reach a better equilibrium in life,” observes Ryan Neil, the founder of Bonsai Mirai, outside Portland, Oregon. The firm’s artful cultivation of centuries-old trees is the subject of an exhibition at Manhattan’s Fort Gansevoort gallery that opens May 11. “The desire to play a role in the existence of this continually evolving piece of art, as opposed to something whose future is going to be limited or terminated,” Neil says, “is really appealing.” —JANE KELTNER DE VALLE
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5
1. CHARLES BOWMAN/GETTY IMAGES; 2. JASON SCHMIDT/TRUNK ARCHIVES; 3. COURTESY OF CARTIER; 4. FRANÇOIS HALARD; 5. TINA HILLIER
1. YVES SAINT LAURENT'S JARDIN MAJORELLE IN MOROCCO. 2. A GIO PONTI INTERIOR. 3. CACTUS DE CARTIER RING; CARTIER.COM. 4. ENTREPRENEUR LAURE HERIARD DUBREUIL AND ARTIST AARON YOUNG’S NEW YORK LIBRARY. 5. CREATIVE DIRECTOR ALEX EAGLE’S LONDON HOME.
DISCOVERIES debut
1
3
2
Bohemian Rhapsody
The world is Carolina Irving’s oyster— and that wanderlust infuses her new fabrics for Oscar de la Renta Home 42
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O
scar de la Renta, the late fashion designer, loved distant lands and exotic textiles. Ditto Carolina Irving, known for the souk-chic fabrics she creates under her own name as well as boho furnishings and tableware for Irving & Morrison and the rani-ready tunics she once created for Irving & Fine. So her serving as the creative director of the Oscar de la Renta Home Collection has been a happy marriage of like minds, as evidenced in her debut textile collection for the house in partnership with Lee Jofa. “The new range is quite faithful to what Oscar liked,” Irving explains of the prints and weaves that launched this May—and, she notes, how he lived. Las Palmas, a 19th-century-inspired palmfrond-printed linen, is her subtle hat-tip to de la Renta’s estate in the Dominican Republic. “Exoticism was Oscar’s thing,” she adds, “and he had a knack for mixing English classical furniture with colorful Indian cottons and Indonesian ikats. Frankly, he wasn’t a beige person.”
P HOTOGRAP HY BY M AR K U S JA N S
MAKEUP BY CAROLE COLOMBANI FOR JED ROOT; 2. AND 3. JOHN MANNO
1. DESIGNER CAROLINA IRVING AT HOME IN PARIS. 2. A SCREEN COVERED IN LAS PALMAS FOR LEE JOFA’S OSCAR DE LA RENTA HOME LINE. 3. A PILLOW IN GOLCONDA IN BLUE.
DISCOVERIES debut
1 2
3
4
“I believe in romance and in living with things that make you dream.” —Carolina Irving
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1. IRVING’S LIVING ROOM WITH LAS PALMAS IN GREEN. 2. GRAND TARTAR GATHERED INTO A LAMPSHADE. 3. A CHAIR CLAD IN MAKASSAR IN GREEN. 4. TORTUGA BAY IN RED/BLUE. 5. AT HER APARTMENT, PRESSED GUNNERA LEAVES SURMOUNT A MARBLE MANTEL LADEN WITH MINERAL SPECIMENS.
5
2., 3., AND 4. JOHN MANNO
Neither is Irving, a houri-eyed Miamiborn, Paris-raised cosmopolitan with a questing personal style that is addictively showcased on @carolinairving. Her flat in Paris’s posh 8th arrondissement is an Aladdin’s cave of Islamic tiles, Chinese porcelains, and Persian textiles. Indian bird paintings hang on boiserie, Turkish cushions printed with stylized flowers blossom on button-tufted armchairs of Victorian mien, and Irving has clustered evocative bits of porphyry and agate picked up in Greece on the salon’s neoclassical marble mantel. All this and more speak of a wanderlust that seems straight out of The Wilder Shores of Love, Lesley Blanch’s swoony chronicle of Westerners—like de la Renta himself— beguiled by the seductions of the East. “I want a house everywhere I go,” sighs the peripatetic Irving, who grew up amid soigné Jansen decors and studied art history and archaeology. “I’m not going to live in Uzbekistan or Egypt, but I can fantasize, and that’s good enough for me,” she continues. “I believe in romance and in living with things that make you dream.” leejofa.com, oscardelarenta.com —MITCHELL OWENS
DISCOVERIES think piece
Power Bloc
Sabine Marcelis’s Equals chair—created for an all-women design exhibition at New York’s Chamber—is a poetic exercise in equilibrium 46
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THERE’S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING. For the Rotterdam-based designer Sabine Marcelis—best known for her neon-tube lighting and the candy-colored resin cubes that appear, plopped like giant gummies, in Céline boutiques—this is her first chair. Marcelis’s creation consists of two components: a heavy, cast-resin base, which acts as a cantilever for a thin, tempered-steel seat that slices through its translucent side. “The two parts are equal in their function,” she says. “Together, they make a chair.” And it’s a chair on message, considering the piece was crafted for—and made its debut at—“Room with Its Own Rules,” the fourth and final show Matylda Krzykowski has assembled for New York’s Chamber gallery. For the exhibition, which opened in May, the Polish curator will exclusively show works by women, ranging from legends like Nathalie Du Pasquier to boundary-bashing newbies like Katie Stout. “The design world has had plenty of shows featuring work by only men,” explains Krzykowski. “There are so many talented women who deserve to take up this space.” chambernyc.com —HANNAH MARTIN
PIM TOP
SABINE MARCELIS’S RESIN–AND–TEMPERED STEEL EQUALS CHAIR.
DISCOVERIES secret source 2
1. A PAIR OF TURQUOISE 1950S RATTAN CHAIRS BY JANINE ABRAHAM AND DIRK JAN ROL. 2. ATELIER VIME’S SOLO PENDANT LIGHTS. 3. A CONSTELLATION OF MIDCENTURY WICKER AND RATTAN MIRRORS.
1
Dream Weavers
Three friends in Provence are reviving the local wicker industry for a stylish new audience
“There were all these stories around us,” Watson says, recalling the baskets that had littered the property upon their arrival. “Benoit said to me, ‘We have to continue the tradition.’” And so they have. Christening themselves Atelier Vime (the French word derives from vimen, Latin for flexible twig or shoot), the duo began collecting important wicker and rattan pieces from the 20th century—a 1950s rattan armchair by Gio Ponti; a pair of sculptural 1960s easy chairs by Tito Agnoli; several chic rattan cribs. But as they examined the resources around them (there’s even a small patch of reeds along the edge of their property), they soon tapped designer Raphaëlle Hanley to devise original pieces for their own line of products crafted out of local materials by nearby artisans.
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1. AND 3. COURTESY OF ATELIER VIME 2. AMÉLIE CHASSARY
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hen friends Anthony Watson and Benoit Rauzy snapped up a crumbling 18thcentury hôtel particulier in the small Provençal village of Vallabrègues, it was only a matter of time before they became entwined in the town’s centuries-old claim to fame: wicker. Their new home had once housed Boyer Ltd., a 19th-century business that harvested the rich crop of reeds growing in the nearby Camargue region and wove them into baskets.
DISCOVERIES secret source 2 1. JEAN ROYÈRE’S 1950S RATTAN CHAIR. 2. ATELIER VIME COFOUNDER ANTHONY WATSON WITH DESIGNER RAPHAËLLE HANLEY. 3. THE EDITH LAMP IS AVAILABLE WITH FIVE DIFFERENT SHADES. 4. A 1950S WICKER BUFFET. 5. VIME’S LARGE-SCALE ARAMIS SUSPENSION LIGHT.
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“There were all these stories around us. Benoit said to me, ‘We have to continue the tradition.’ ” —Anthony Watson
1. AND 5. COURTESY OF ATELIER VIME 2. KAREL BALAS/MILK/ VEGAMG 3. AMÉLIE CHASSARY 4. HEATHER ROBINSON
One year in, Vime has already become an industry secret for designers. Pierre Yovanovitch has commissioned a massive light fixture for a project in Tel Aviv and used their 1950s-inspired Edith lamps at a guesthouse in Portugal. Rose Uniacke, who follows Vime on Instagram, also has a sweet spot for their lighting: “It’s always what catches my eye, whether it’s a simple snaking coil of rope lamp or nautical lanterns.” Still other designers have taken advantage of Vime’s archive of historical designs to create their own twists on the classics: New York–based Virginia Tupker had been eyeing one of Jean Royère’s high-backed rattan chairs for a client’s dressing table but wanted to make a few tweaks—take in the width, a few inches off the back. “A lot of my clients are wicker obsessed,” she explains. “But until now I hadn’t found anyone who does it with the same vintage feel.” ateliervime.com —HANNAH MARTIN
DISCOVERIES shopping RICHARD FRINIER FOR BROWN JORDAN KANTAN BRASS LOUNGE CHAIR IN MELON. 26" W. X 30" D. X 17" H.; $1,430 AS SHOWN. BROWNJORDAN.COM
A VIEW OF THE MEDITERRANEAN FROM A MODERN FRENCH HOME DESIGNED BY BRUNO AND ALEXANDRE LAFOURCADE.
GRAY MALIN FOR SANTA BARBARA DESIGNS RIVAZZURRA UMBRELLA IN TEAL-AND-WHITE. 9' H. X 9' DIA.; $3,450. SBUMBRELLA.COM SMART & GREEN PEARL PORTABLE LED LAMP. 10" DIA.; $119. DWR.COM
Under the Sun
DIMORE STUDIO MONCALVO POLTRONA CHAIR IN RED-AND-WHITE STRIPE. 23" W. X 23.5" D. X 17" H.; $9,660. THEFUTUREPERFECT.COM
MANUEL CANOVAS RHODES IN CARAIBES AND ANAFI IN ANEMONE FABRICS. TO THE TRADE. COWTAN.COM JANUS ET CIE VINO CHAISE LONGUE IN NIMBUS WITH JARDIN UPHOLSTERY. 36.5" W. X 86.25" D. X 14.5" H.; FROM $4,104. JANUSETCIE.COM
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PR ODU CED BY PARKER BOWIE L ARSON
SEBASTIAN HERKNER FOR AMES CARIBE HIGH TABLE IN ORANGE, ROSE, AND CURRY. 19.75" W. X 18" DIA.; $445. AMES-SHOP.DE
EXTERIOR: ANDREAS VON EINSIEDEL/GETTY IMAGES; PILLOWS: JOHN MANNO; ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES
This season’s palette of red and cyan evokes the splendor of the French Riviera
DISCOVERIES artisan Natural Instincts
Bound by their love of Mother Nature, three unique talents find romantic ways to bring the outdoors in
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1. DEIN ARRANGING WILDFLOWERS. 2. A PLASTER PANEL. 3. FRESH BLOOMS PRESSED INTO CLAY. 4. FINISHED WORKS LINE HER LONDON STUDIO.
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RACHEL DEIN
It’s a cold day in March, and Rachel Dein has spring fever. “I hope it speeds up,” says the London-based artist, understandably impatient. Once the seasons change, she’ll have a brief window to forage for her favorite material—wildflowers. “I don’t take too many,” she says. “Just a few weeds and daisies, bluebells, or yarrows.” Dein then acts fast, gently pressing the fresh blooms into clay, removing them to create an impression, and pouring plaster into the mold to make panels that seem to freeze the plants in time. Of course, she’s found ways to keep herself busy all year, like casting a 30-foot-long branch in concrete. Other recent commissions include small panels for the shop at London’s Chelsea Physic Garden that were made using medicinal herbs grown there. Says Dein, “They represent a time and a place.” racheldein.com —HANNAH MARTIN
DISCOVERIES artisan
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Stuart Thornton must destroy nature to perfect it. “If you just press a plant, all you get is a lot of dead leaves—nothing pretty about it,” the dashing Brit explains. Instead Thornton, who shuttles between Italy and England, takes a deconstructivist approach to his art. After gathering specimens—often from the gardens of friends and clients like style queen Marella Agnelli, for whom he works as majordomo—he separates stems from leaves, petals from flowers, dries them, and then selectively recombines the components into idealized, enrapturing botanicals that can reach six feet or more in height. “The form is what’s important,” Thornton says, adding with a chuckle, “It’s still a dead plant but one that looks good.” stuartthornton.com —MITCHELL OWENS
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4. A CERAMIC BOUQUET OF PEONIES. 5. POTTER AT HER MANHATTAN WORKSHOP. 6. AN ARRANGEMENT OF TULIPS, FRITILLARIES, AND HYDRANGEAS.
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“Flowers might seem twee, but they are an endless challenge,” says acclaimed ceramist Clare Potter. “I always want to make them looser or taller, but there are limits to what clay allows you to do.” That being said, the Manhattan talent has cultivated a garden of delights, one luscious ceramic bloom at a time: bruisecolor hellebores, confetti-like sweet peas, striped tulips, and more, gently washed with layers of color and free from shiny glazes “so they look softer, the feeling of life.” Fruit and vegetables are part of Potter’s oeuvre too, wonders that recall long-ago works by Chelsea and Meissen. As she modestly says, “I’m just one in a long line of people who have done this for centuries.” clarepotter.com —M.O.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: STEFANO SCATÀ; DARIO FUSARO; FRANÇOIS HALARD; ELLEN MCDERMOTT; MATTHEW WILLIAMS; HAIR AND MAKEUP BY MARY GUTHRIE USING LANCÔME FOR ARTISTS BY TIMOTHY PRIANO; ELLEN MCDERMOTT
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WHERE TO GO, WHO TO KNOW, WHAT TO SEE
EDITED BY SAM COCHRAN
© 2017 PEDRO E. GUERRERO ARCHIVES
The Wright Stuff
Curator and architecture historian Barry Bergdoll recounts unpacking the Frank Lloyd Wright archive for this summer’s must-see museum show
PHOTOGRAPHED IN NEW YORK IN 1953, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT STANDS WITH HIS MODEL FOR OKLAHOMA’S PRICE TOWER, THE ARCHITECT’S ONLY BUILT SKYCRAPER. AR C H DI G E S T. CO M
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1. THE LIVING ROOM AT WRIGHT’S 1923 STORER HOUSE IN LOS ANGELES. 2. A PLATE DESIGNED FOR TOKYO’S 1923 IMPERIAL HOTEL, NOW DEMOLISHED. 3. A 1920S SIDE CHAIR, ALSO FOR THE HOTEL. 4. TALIESIN TEXTILE FOR SCHUMACHER, 1955.
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he numbers alone are daunting: 55,000 architectural drawings, some 300,000 sheets of correspondence, close to 125,000 photographs, 270 film reels, two dozen models. Those are just the largest categories in the Frank Lloyd Wright archive, amassed over a seven-decade career that yielded more than 500 buildings (some 400 still standing, hundreds of others never realized), not to mention furniture, stained glass, and textiles. With the architect’s 150th birthday upon us—he was born June 8, 1867, though he often fudged the date—a team and I have spent countless hours combing through the trove, which was transferred to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Columbia University five years ago. The result of our digging debuts on June 12 in the new exhibition “Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive.” On the eve of the show’s opening, I am reminded of the moment it all began. Six years ago, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation called inquiring whether MoMA would be interested in assuming stewardship of all those materials—the logistics of which sent my head spinning. After months of discussion, an agreement was struck between the foundation and a new partnership formed by MoMA and Columbia’s Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library. Truckloads of documents began to make their way cross-country from Wright’s home/ studio compounds at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the archive had been kept; Avery’s storage vaults were reconfigured to place Wright front and center; and MoMA’s art conservators rapidly developed plans to restore architectural models. Some, like his severely damaged 1927 proposal for a largely glass residential
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FROM TOP: ANTHONY PERES; © 2017 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION. LICENSED BY ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS) (3)
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1. WRIGHT’S 1935 MASTERPIECE, FALLINGWATER, A RESIDENCE IN RURAL SOUTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 2. A 1956 DRAWING FOR HIS EXPERIMENTAL MILE-HIGH SKYSCAPER. 3. AT A PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE PROJECT IN 1956.
tower in downtown Manhattan, required major interventions. Others were in excellent shape but still posed mysteries. How was it, for instance, that his first model of the Guggenheim was painted beige and not the stark white of the completed building? The answer—that Wright considered 1 cladding the building in creamy stone—was revealed by conservation forensics and is now captured in one of fourteen short films recording the research of conservators, curators, and scholars. Discoveries can still be made about America’s most famous architect. Since his death at age 91 in 1959, Wright has commanded more attention than any other architect in history, and he remains a household name. But his archive still contains more surprises than any one person could process. So the idea emerged of inviting 11 other scholars, both seasoned and novice, to sift through the materials for the MoMA exhibition—a kind of intersecting treasure hunt, 3 with each participant coming to terms with a key object (or group of objects) and a key element of Wright’s career. Much like in a kaleidoscope, ideas that began as fragments have aligned in unexpected ways, suggesting new patterns, new connections. Mabel O. Wilson, a Columbia architecture professor specializing in modernism and race, has unpacked a moment in 1928 when Wright was asked to develop a prototype for the Rosenwald Schools program, an initiative launched by Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald (the president of Sears, Roebuck) to build state-of-the-art schools for African-American children in the segregated South. Communities were expected to construct these facilities themselves, a mandate that dovetailed with Wright’s search for building systems that could be easily mastered and constructed affordably. That quest especially captivated one of MoMA’s other guest scholars, former Taliesin apprentice Matthew Skjonsberg, who has studied Wright’s pioneering 1917 assembly system of prefabricated wooden panels, which later gave way to lifelong experiments in do-it-yourself concrete blocks. Landscape historian Therese O’Malley, meanwhile, set out (CONTINUED ON PAGE 76)
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FROM TOP: CONNIE ZHOU/OTTO; © 2017 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION. LICENSED BY ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS) (2)
“Discoveries can still be made about America’s most famous architect.”
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1. THE TURKEL HOUSE, A 1956 RESIDENCE IN DETROIT. 2. A CIRCA1950 DRAWING OF NEW YORK’S SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM REVEALS A PINK-STONE SCHEME THAT WAS NEVER REALIZED. 3. A CLERESTORY WINDOW FROM THE MRS. AVERY COONLEY ESTATE IN RIVERSIDE, ILLINOIS.
to investigate the hemicycle of plants that extends Wright’s 1905 Martin House, the great Prairie mansion in Buffalo. As she discovered, Wright did not use exclusively native plants, as we have so often been told. What’s more, the client, Darwin D. Martin, turned out to be the very same person who, years later, would introduce the architect to Rosenwald. Arranged in an open plan to maximize connections among objects, the exhibition is filled with unearthed treasures, from a little-known photo album showing rare views of Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo to plans for an entire suburb consisting of circular house plots. As the starting point for my own research, I reserved Wright’s nearly nine-foot-tall drawing for the Mile High Illinois tower, an experimental project he unveiled at a Chicago press conference in October 1956. This publicity stunt—it made headlines for weeks—led me to watch that same year’s episode of the popular game show What’s My Line? in which Wright appeared as the mystery guest. A blindfolded panelist asked if he painted, and when Wright didn’t deny that he did, another wondered aloud whether he worked in an allied field “such as design or architecture, such as Frank Lloyd Wright.” His identity inadvertently unmasked, the architect proceeded to tell the audience about his latest achievement, a tall building 3 “on the western Prairie” for the Price Company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Even in his late 80s, the architect had mastered the new medium of broadcast. The world’s first starchitect had arrived.
“Ideas that began as fragments have aligned in unexpected ways, suggesting new patterns, new connections.”
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FROM TOP: JAMES HAEFNER; © 2017 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION. LICENSED BY ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS) (2)
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DESIGNED BY SOM, NEW YORK’S SECOND PUBLIC SAFETY ANSWERING CENTER PREPARES THE CITY FOR THE WORST.
In Case of Emergency
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kidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has designed some of the world’s most beautiful skyscrapers, often sheathed in curtain walls of floor-toceiling glass. But glass wasn’t an option for one of its latest projects—an emergency call center in the Bronx that brings together response workers from multiple New York city agencies. Completed last year, the $800 million building needed to be able to withstand all manner of disasters. It is, essentially, a bunker. Windows had to be few and far between. But that didn’t stop SOM from making the building beautiful. The firm covered it in brushed-aluminum panels, arranged in a sawtooth pattern. The serrated surface provides soft, pixilated reflections of the sky, which change throughout the day.
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Without any obvious indicators of scale, the perfect cube, which spans more than 450,000 square feet and rises 240 feet (the equivalent of 24 stories), suggests a sculptural object of indeterminate size. By angling the structure away from the roads that straddle it, the firm was able to further camouflage its mass. “It’s almost magical how rotating it from the street grid changed perceptions of its size,” says SOM design partner Gary Haney, who led the project. Earth berms conceived in collaboration with landscape architect Thomas Balsley, meanwhile, surround the facility. Meant to keep it safe, these hills mean that passersby can’t see where the building meets the ground. The structure seems to float. Nearly a decade in the works, the building grew out of New York’s need for a place to backstop its main Public Safety Answering Center, PSAC I, located in downtown Brooklyn. Completed in 2012 as part of an initiative to modernize the city’s emergency-response system—barely updated since
ALBERT VECERKA/ESTO/COURTESY OF SOM
A new building by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill keeps New York City safe–and looks good doing it
CULTURE good works
the 1960s—that project united dispatchers from the fire department, police, and medical services in one space for the first time, equipping them with shared, state-of-the-art technology. The facility can handle up to 50,000 calls per hour, more than nine times the peak volume on September 11, 2001. The Bronx project, PSAC II, can do everything the Brooklyn center does, adding a necessary layer of redundancy— and with generators and large supplies of
food and water, it can operate self-sufficiently for up to 72 hours. It was shepherded by the city’s Department of Design and Construction, which in recent years has completed a number of architecturally significant buildings, including a sculptural Manhattan salt shed by Dattner Architects and WXY Architectecture + Urban Design. Current projects include a library by Steven Holl Architects, nearing completion in Queens, a Brooklyn firehouse by Studio Gang, and a police station in the Bronx by Bjarke Ingels Group. If SOM’s goal for the outside of PSAC II was to make the building seem smaller than it actually is, the goal inside was to make spaces welcoming to those who work long, stressful shifts answering calls. The firm covered some interior surfaces with rustic oak, and to make up for the lack of fresh air, one main corridor features a plant wall. The specimens are positioned so that air circulates through their roots, where it is cleaned in an experimental phytoremediation system. From the cafeteria, meanwhile, those few carefully placed windows frame the back of the berms. Amazingly, says Haney, “it feels as though you’re in a vast expanse of green.” As a 911 call center, the building is about things that go wrong. But its design is very, very right. —FRED A. BERNSTEIN
The facility can handle up to 50,000 calls per hour, more than nine times the peak volume on September 11, 2001.
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1. CLAD IN ALUMINUM PANELS, THE BUILDING IS RINGED BY GRASSY BERMS CREATED IN COLLABORATION WITH LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT THOMAS BALSLEY. 2. CONCEIVED BY CASE, THE DESIGN RESEARCH LABORATORY OF SOM IN COLLABORATION WITH RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, A LIVING WALL CLEANS THE AIR.
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ALBERT VECERKA/ESTO/COURTESY OF SOM (2)
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CULTURE preservation
For the Getty Foundation, the former houses of modernist legends now reveal lessons in historic preservation
LE CORBUSIER’S PARIS APARTMENT AND STUDIO ARE AMONG THE FIRST RECIPIENTS OF THE GETTY’S KEEPING IT MODERN GRANTS.
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n 1946, George Nakashima set up shop in New Hope, Pennsylvania, with little more than a modest parcel of land and a tent. By the time he died at age 85 in 1990, he had become arguably the most celebrated American furniture maker who ever lived, a hero of modernist design. The George Nakashima Woodworker practice continues to craft masterpieces, led by his daughter Mira Nakashima, now 75. On a bright midwinter day, she presided over an intimate gathering of Nakashima connoisseurs at the compound’s Conoid Studio. As they rhapsodized over the site’s history, their focus was the future: namely, how to ensure that the complex, a National Historic Landmark, will survive into the 21st century and beyond. “Would George like it?,” all agreed, would remain the guiding maxim for the work at hand: a comprehensive conservation and management plan, developed by a team from the University of Pennsylvania and made possible through the Getty Foundation’s Keeping It Modern grant program. That ambitious initiative, launched in 2014, is dedicated to maintaining the health of modernist structures around the world, such as Louis Kahn’s Salk
FROM TOP: CÉSAR BARGUES BALLESTER/COURTESY OF THE J. PAUL GETTY TRUST; © FLC/ARS, 2014/COURTESY OF THE J. PAUL GETTY TRUST
Home Again
THE ARTS BUILDING AT THE PENNSYLVANIA COMPOUND OF GEORGE NAKASHIMA.
A GETTY GRANT IS NOW FUNDING A CONSERVATION PLAN FOR VILLA E.1027, EILEEN GRAY’S SUMMER HOME IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.
Institute and Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House. A subset of projects takes in the homes and studios of architects, including Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Charles and Ray Eames, Lina Bo Bardi, and Eileen Gray. Like the Nakashima complex, all of them are open to the public and provide precious insight into their creators. “These buildings are always under threat,” Deborah Marrow, the director of the Getty Foundation, said, citing modernist structures—say, Richard Neutra’s Maslon House—brought low by the wrecking ball. Yet Keeping It Modern is light on polemics. “We are not so much involved with advocacy,” said senior program officer Antoine Wilmering, but rather with outcomes: “how to mitigate change and slow it down, so that our heritage can be enjoyed and understood for many generations.” The many success stories,
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apartment and studio (reopening next February), a maker of cast-glass “Nevada bricks” was found, a crucial resource for many midcentury structures. Modernism embraced then-futuristic materials and techniques whose ultimate lifespans were unknown. As the name implies, Keeping It Modern looks to remain faithful to original 20th-century intentions via the latest 21st-century technology. The $100,000 Nakashima grant, issued in 2015, is focused mainly on the compound’s Arts Building, with its striking hyperbolic paraboloid plywood roof, a conservation challenge. Nakashima designed it as a gallery devoted to his friend Ben Shahn, along with his own collection of folk art. The building, which turns 50 with an anniversary celebration on May 7, is also used for recitals, lectures, and the occasional blowout family reunion. Thanks to Keeping It Modern, a new extended family of conservationists, archivists, and scholars has formed here, committed to securing the Nakashima compound’s future. “We are certainly fortunate,” Nakashima said. “I wouldn’t even have known who to ask.” Would George like it? You bet. —MARK ROZZO
Marrow said, do “spread the word” about modernist preservation. Since 2014, Keeping It Modern has issued grants totaling more than $4 million to 33 projects on six continents. (The 2017 grantees will be announced this summer.) These efforts have resounded throughout the conservation field, as projects become case studies for future undertakings. A 3-D topographical analysis of Bo Bardi’s 1952 Casa de Vidro (“Glass House”) site, in São Paulo, Brazil, pinpointed structural issues that can beset other glass houses, including Philip Johnson’s. Gray’s stunning E.1027 villa, on the Côte d’Azur, prompted a deep dive into the physics of reinforced concrete— along with an examination of the murals Le Corbusier splashed around the place, much to Gray’s fury. For the restoration of Le Corbusier’s Paris
LINA BO BARDI’S 1952 CASA DE VIDRO (“GLASS HOUSE”) IN SÃO PAULO.
FROM TOP: GAELLE LE BOULICAUT/FIGAROPHOTO/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES; PAULO FRIDMAN/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES
CULTURE preservation
MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA
JUNE
UP AND AWAY A ROPE BANISTER GRACES A SUN-DRENCHED STAIRWAY AT DANIEL ROMUALDEZ’S IBIZA VILLA.
sea for d
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Nestled on a sun-drenched cliff, designer Daniel Romualdez’s Ibizan bolthole offers a dreamy blend of solitude and sociability
TEXT BY DEREK BLASBERG MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA STYLED BY CAROLINA IRVING
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
THE CLIFFSIDE POOL AT THE IBIZAN GETAWAY OF DANIEL ROMUALDEZ TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THE SITE’S STUNNING VIEWS OF THE BALEARIC SEA. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
ANTIQUE CERAMICS AND COLORFUL FABRICS POP AGAINST THE WHITEWASHED WALLS OF THE LIVING ROOM. TEXTILES FROM YASTIK BY RIFAT OZBEK, IRVING & MORRISON, AND ROBERT KIME; MOROCCAN BERBER RUG. OPPOSITE ROMUALDEZ CALLS THE COURTYARD, DEVISED BY LANDSCAPE DESIGNER MIRANDA BROOKS, HIS FAVORITE “ROOM” OF THE HOUSE.
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ES VEDRÀ, A DRAMATIC ROCK FORMATION, DOMINATES THE VIEW FROM THE VERANDA. OPPOSITE THE ROOF TERRACE IS FURNISHED SIMPLY WITH LEATHER BUTTERFLY CHAIRS FOUND IN ANTIBES AND MOROCCAN LANTERNS.
“At the end of the day, I love to jump in the pool and watch the sunset.”
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THE VERANDA’S DINING TABLE IS DRAPED IN A JAUNTY MALLORCAN TEXTILE; WICKER CHAIRS BY BONACINA.
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t’s a good thing Daniel Romualdez believes in second chances. The first time the New York–based architect and interior designer, whose client list ranges from Mick Jagger to Tory Burch, visited the famed Spanish island Ibiza he was less than impressed. “It was a total disaster,” he says of that first impression 20 years ago. “I stayed in a remote relais, and I kept to the American schedule. So I couldn’t understand why all the restaurants and beaches were empty, even in the high season. I thought it was deadly and desolate.” A few years later, he returned and learned his first lesson: Get on local time ASAP! “That means lunch is at 5 p.m., and dinner doesn’t start before midnight.” Romualdez first spotted this two-bedroom, cliffside, finca-style house when he started coming back—and enjoying—the island with friend and landscape designer Miranda Brooks (who would eventually help create the lush gardens and outdoor terraces of the villa). He was enchanted by Es Vedrà, a rock formation off the island’s southwestern coast, often pausing on afternoon hikes to watch the sun set over it. He was also bewitched by the tiny house he could see perched farther up the coast. “It was my dream house!” he exclaims. “I even once walked
caked with salt and dust, I love to jump in the pool and watch the sun set,” he says. What also drew him to the house was the nature surrounding it: Its few acres are situated along a preserve and take in a solitary view off the cliffs toward the west. “It’s very dry, fragrant with rosemary, and the only sound is crickets,” Romualdez, who grew up in the Philippines, explains. “You’re by the sea, but it’s a gentle sea. There’s something very calm about nature here. “I love how low-key it is—it’s not Saint-Tropez or Sardinia,” the designer continues. “But it can be as fun as its reputation as a party island!” Unlike other Mediterranean hot spots, Ibiza is a good mix of young and old, those who prefer quiet and those who want to go clubbing. One seasonal ritual at the house is to meet on the roof under the shade of the pergola to watch the sunset, retreat to the garden for cocktails—and then see how the night unravels. That laid-back vibe is felt in the decor. “When I’m in Ibiza, I’m the most relaxed version of myself, so I wanted the house to reflect that,” Romualdez says. All of the white fabric is durable Sunbrella; other fabrics are sourced from his friend Carolina Irving’s line, Irving & Morrison. Most of the table linens and glasses were picked up from boutiques on Mallorca, and he found some of the furniture and objets at the hippie market in the Chiringuitos. “My splurge was the Porthault sheets.” Romualdez’s favorite room is technically not even in the house. “Miranda designed the courtyard to feel like an outdoor room, and it was a complete game changer. I literally never ate dinner at home until the garden was completed.” He’s thankful to Brooks but also jests that now he holds a grudge. “The only negative is that I started having dinner parties, which I swore I would never do. That was the whole reason I tried to create an escape!” The house is featured in Haute Bohemians (Vendome Press), photographer Miguel FloresVianna’s new coffee-table book, which will be published in October. “The view from the house is spectacular, like the best movie you could watch,” says Flores-Vianna. “So Daniel, clever as he is, has made the rooms simple and calm. It faces Es Vedrà, where, according to local lore, a moon goddess once lived. And when you see it, believe me, you feel something spiritual. It’s magic.”
“I love how low-key it is here— it’s not Saint-Tropez or Sardinia.” up to the owner sitting on the porch, asking if she would ever rent it, and was literally sent away with a bark. I actually have pictures of the house that I took from a boat way back then.” Five years ago, the testy owner wanted to move back to the mainland, and word got to Romualdez fast. He hopped on a plane and made an offer. “It was off-season, and it didn’t have electricity or a swimming pool, so that helped,” he says of the quick close with a laugh. The house was built in the 1960s, and with room for only one visitor at a time it was quaint by today’s luxury-villa standards. One of the first things Romualdez did, however, was bring in electricity— and add a pool. “At the end of the day, when I’m
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“When I’m in Ibiza, I’m the most relaxed version of myself, so I wanted the house to reflect that.”
ABOVE ON THE LIVING-ROOM BANQUETTE, PILLOWS BY IRVING & MORRISON SIT ATOP A CHARLES H. BECKLEY BENCH CUSHION IN A PERENNIALS INDOOR/OUTDOOR FABRIC. ANTIQUE PEARL-INLAID MIRROR, PAINTED CAPTAIN’S CHAIRS, CHINESE LONG BENCH TABLE, AND VINTAGE BLUEAND-WHITE LAMP. LEFT THE HOUSE PERCHED ON IBIZA’S MOUNTAINOUS COAST. OPPOSITE ROMUALDEZ ON THE VERANDA.
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“The view from the house is spectacular, like the best movie you could watch,� says photographer Miguel Flores-Vianna.
THE VIEW OF ES VEDRÀ, HERE SEEN FROM THE ROOF TERRACE, NEVER FAILS TO CAPTIVATE ROMUALDEZ AND HIS GUESTS.
CONRAD FLINT WOOD TAKES TO THE AIR AT THE OXFORDSHIRE HOUSE THAT HIS PARENTS, INDIA HICKS AND DAVID FLINT WOOD, BUILT WITH ARCHITECT ANDREW NICHOLS. OPPOSITE A BUST INHERITED FROM HICKS’S FATHER IN THE ENTRANCE HALL. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
ANGLO FILE India Hicks and David Flint Wood’s charming Oxfordshire manse is bedecked with family treasures TEXT BY
DAVID FLINT WOOD
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA
STYLED BY
CAROLINA IRVING
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ABOVE THE LIBRARY’S VINTAGE TELEPHONE, DECOUPAGED WITH COMICS. LEFT DOMINO’S BEDROOM; DAVID HICKS FABRICS; HEIRLOOM BRIDESMAIDS’ DRESSES. BELOW LEFT A GARDEN VIEW. BELOW RIGHT AN ALEXANDER CALDER WORK ATOP AN ANTIQUE FRENCH SECRETARY. OPPOSITE CONRAD, WESLEY, DOMINO, DAVID, FELIX, AMORY, AND INDIA.
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“If we are going to make this work,” India said of the house, “there’s going to have to be a lot of compromise.”
HAIR AND MAKEUP BY JO ADAMS USING PHILIP KINGSLEY AND MURAD SKINCARE. ARCHIVAL PHOTOS FROM TOP: EDWIN SAMPSON/ANL/SHUTTERSTOCK; POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES
ABOVE INDIA’S PARENTS, DAVID HICKS AND LADY PAMELA MOUNTBATTEN, WED IN 1960. RIGHT LADY PAMELA WITH INDIA AND DOMINO. OPPOSITE THE EARL AND COUNTESS MOUNTBATTEN OF BURMA, IN 1952, WITH DAUGHTER LADY PAMELA. BELOW THE SITTING ROOM’S JANSEN CHAIRS BELONGED TO HICKS’S GRANDMOTHER EDWINA MOUNTBATTEN; 1960S BATHING CAPS ARE HOUSED IN AN ACRYLIC CASE.
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lthough India and I have lived in the West Indies for more than 20 years, time finally came to have a home in our native England. Our children had grown up barefoot, chasing snakes up coconut trees and playing pirate with machetes, so we decided to civilize them with British sports and Anglocentric history. What British mother’s heart does not soar when her son can recite the batting order—“divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”—of Henry VIII’s wives? For a decade we crisscrossed the Atlantic, trying to make sure that hardly a weekend went by without the boys’ seeing at least one of us. During this time we had been guests in Oxfordshire of India’s mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, widow of David, the celebrated decorator. But even she—survivor of the Blitz, the Partition of India, and acts of terrorism—could not be expected to endure Romneys and Raeburns swept off walls by indoor rugby matches, or tea trays shattered by cricket balls knocked through windows by malodorous, rampaging teens.
India was lucky enough to have some farmland near (but not too near) her mother, at the edge of the village where our boys had been christened. We had permission from the authorities to take down two 1970s farmworkers’ cottages and build our idea of a house, with a small garden alongside large fields. “If we are going to make this work,” India said to me at that stage, “there is going to have to be a lot of compromise.” The cold hand of fear gripped my heart as I had a flashback to a meeting 25 years earlier in my past life as an advertising man. A rather fierce client had asked me during a stressful creative pitch, “David do you know what compromise means?” I replied, “Yes, meeting in the middle.” With the look of one of those animals that eat their children, she coldly countered, “No, it means doing things you don’t want to do.” Months after that, I left England and that particular career. “So what is your idea of a house in the country?” Andrew Nichols, our architect, asked. Here we got lucky: India and I both wanted something traditional, probably white stucco, a cross between a Danish farmhouse and a Georgian rectory. As a shorthand description I said, “We’d like to live in a Merchant Ivory film like everybody else, I suppose.” We are also complete slaves to symmetry in architecture. Aligning doors and windows is important as they create vistas that expand space. And living in the tropics has taught us that the breezes that pass through opposing windows and French doors will come in handy during England’s two weeks of summer. For the more predictable weather conditions, I was keen to have as many fireplaces as possible through the house. Whilst India loves nothing more than walking in biblical conditions of rain, sleet, and snow, I prefer to gaze upon inclement weather, sitting in the vicinity of crackling logs with a good book and a drink, so we had a Portland stone mantel made for the sitting room and a marble one for the study. I was very keen for another real fire in our bedroom, but India felt that clearing out an upstairs hearth would be a bore. Gingerly, I pointed out that it would be unusual for her to clean any hearth—we compromised with an artificial fire. Though India grew up with vibrating palettes in every room, we tend to go with fairly neutral backgrounds and one keynote color, such as the orange Ultrasuede on my Louis XVI–style chairs. One of our sons’ rooms has gunmetal-andred-striped walls painted on the diagonal; our daughter’s has a lit à la polonaise, covered in David Hicks’s original Tumbling Rose print, that was inherited from the Hicks family’s famous Albany set. Art often supplies the chance to add color, with Gerald Laing’s Baby Baby Wild Things and Alexander Calder lithographs being good cases in point. My antique gouaches of Vesuvius erupting and the 18th-century still lifes, though, tend to find themselves “compromised” and lean against walls. In the mixing of furniture that either I have collected or that India’s parents had at Albany, we could not have been luckier—it all goes together. The first night the seven of us stayed in the house, it felt like home, though I am waiting for the moment when India realizes I’ve hung a very dark Danish interior painting by Niels Holsøe in our bedroom. I sense another opportunity for compromise in the air.
India was lucky enough to have some farmland near (but not too near) her mother.
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ABOVE OLD-FASHIONED ROSES FROM THE GARDEN; EDWINA HICKS FABRIC. RIGHT IAN MANKIN TICKING STRIPES A BEDROOM. OPPOSITE HANS WEGNER CHAIRS FROM THE CONRAN SHOP FLANK A CUSTOM-MADE BARRJOINERY TABLE IN THE KITCHEN; PABLO PICASSO OWNED ONE OF THE DAN MASKS.
ABOVE DOMINO AND WESLEY IN A FIELD. RIGHT HICKS SURVEYS A RIOTOUS BORDER BY LANDSCAPE DESIGNER GUY THORNTON.
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“We’d like to live in a Merchant Ivory film like everybody else, I suppose,” David told architect Andrew Nichols.
DESIGN NOTES
ACANTHUS CREST MIRROR BY CARVERS’ GUILD; $1,975. THEGILDEDMIRROR.COM
David Flint Wood and India Hicks’s style is all about gilded heirlooms, winking humor, and a shared passion for classical symmetry
PALM WALLPAPER IN GREEN ON IVORY BY COLE & SON; TO THE TRADE. LEEJOFA.COM
COPAKE EAGLE CONSOLE BY THOM FILICIA; $5,697. VANGUARDFURNITURE.COM
RIVIERA BASKET WITH RAPESEED-YELLOW INTERIOR; $245. INDIAHICKS.COM
“
We tend to go with fairly neutral backgrounds and one keynote color,” David explains.
FAMILY HEIRLOOMS FURNISH THE SITTING ROOM.
TREASURE BOX IN MINT; $95. INDIAHICKS.COM
CAPSTAN TABLE; $42,675. BAKERFURNITURE.COM
“
TICKING-STRIPE SHEET SET IN BARN RED; FROM $128. SERENAANDLILY.COM
A cross between a Danish farmhouse and a Georgian rectory” is David’s take on the architecture.
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THE MUDROOM. KEW SMALL ROSE POT; $32. BOTANICAL COLLECTIONS.COM
WISHBONE CHAIR IN OAK BY HANS WEGNER FOR CARL HANSEN & SON; $695. DWR.COM
AMBROSIA ROSE FABRIC BY DAVID HICKS FOR GROUNDWORKS; TO THE TRADE. LEEJOFA.COM
THE MASTER BEDROOM, WITH A COPY OF A CIRCA-1600 PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI.
GARDEN TIME COTTON AND LAMBSKIN GLOVES; $940. HERMES.COM
GARDEN TIME STEEL SECATEURS; $1,100. HERMES.COM
INTERIORS: MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA; PLANTER AND PILLOWS: JOHN MANNO; ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES
CHINESE TOILE FABRIC IN RED ON BEIGE; $310 PER YARD. BENNISONFABRICS.COM
REPLICA BUST OF ANTONIA; $280. BRITISHMUSEUM SHOPONLINE.ORG
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GOOP FOUNDER GWYNETH PALTROW IN HER NEW OFFICE, DECORATED WITH THE HELP OF RH; PRADA SHIRT, GOOP LABEL BLAZER, MOTHER JEANS, NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD SHOES. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
OOP LIFE Gwyneth Paltrow taps the interior-design team at RH to refine the Santa Monica headquarters of her burgeoning lifestyle brand TEXT BY MAYER RUS DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN STYLED BY LAWREN HOWELL
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
NEARLY A DECADE has passed since Gwyneth
Paltrow founded Goop, her online oracle of good living. The website (or lifestyle platform, as it’s known in the dry parlance of the internet economy) covers fashion, beauty, wellness, travel, food, parenting, cultural issues, and more, including articles on bone broth and sex toys, moisturizers and business planning. It’s a heady brew, filtered through the lens of Paltrow’s highly particular worldview. The actress turned entrepreneur installed the company’s original Los Angeles office in a barn at her home in the city. A year and a half ago, the Goop team relocated to a no-frills Santa Monica warehouse that was once used as a chicken coop. “We wanted to preserve the spirit of our first office—raw and energetic, filled with natural light, very California,” Paltrow explains. “The warehouse has a similar vibe. It’s tough and industrial, but you also feel the ocean close by.” Still, for all its groovy L.A. charm, the new work space cried out for a boost in comfort and polish. “We spend a crazy amount of time here—lots of late nights,” Paltrow says. “Since we think of Goop as a family, we wanted everyone to feel at home.” Enter the interior-design team at RH, which was enlisted after Paltrow attended the opening of the RH Modern shop in L.A. Eschewing foosball tables, kooky colors, and other trite signifiers of a start-up, RH instead focused on a scheme that reflects Goop’s well-defined culture of creative collaboration and female agency. The aesthetic sensibility—modernist restraint punctuated by moments of sculptural brio—is established in the reception area, where the designers paired RH’s Jean-Michel Frank–inspired Maddox
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“I like simple gestures that elevate your experience of a room,� Paltrow says.
PREVIOUS SPREAD: FASHION STYLING BY ELIZABETH SALTZMAN. KITCHEN PROP STYLING BY SAM HAMILTON. HAIR BY LONA VIGI FOR STARWORKS ARTISTS USING KÉRASTASE AURA BOTANICA. MAKEUP BY GEORGIE EISDELL FOR THE WALL GROUP USING TAMMY FENDER. MANICURE BY ASHLIE JOHNSON FOR THE WALL GROUP USING CHANEL LE VERNIS
LEFT RH MODERN GLOBE PENDANT LIGHTS, RH DINING TABLES AND CHAIRS. BELOW MARCH AND UNION STUDIO DESIGNED THE TEST KITCHEN. OPPOSITE IN THE SALES OFFICE, RH CEILING FIXTURES AND VINTAGE CARPET FROM BEN SOLEIMANI FOR RH.
sofa and chairs with Mariano Fortuny’s theatrical Studio 76 tripod floor lamp. Elsewhere in the office, massive brass dome pendants hanging from exposed rafters conjure subtle drama overhead, while clean-lined tables and seating are assembled in multifunctional work and lounge spaces. “The RH team understood that we needed something sophisticated but in no way flashy or overbearing. They really grasped the Goop ethos,” says Brittany Pattner, Goop’s creative director. That ethos comes to life most eloquently in Paltrow’s office, a bright-white oasis crowned by a jaunty, 1970s-style RH Modern chandelier. “I don’t have a very broad aesthetic,” the lifestyle guru confesses, adding that Goop’s first permanent store, designed by Roman and Williams, opens this summer in L.A. “I like beautiful materials and nice textures, simple gestures that elevate your experience of a room.” Rounding out the revamped Goop headquarters is a test kitchen devised by Sam Hamilton of March, the trendsetting San Francisco kitchen-concept store, working in tandem with the Berkeley-based design firm Union Studio. The kitchen, like the rest of the office, feels quintessentially Goop: smart, efficient, and beautiful. It’s the kind of space that makes millions of women ask, “How does Gwyneth make it all look so effortless—and fabulous?”
Bunny Williams and John Rosselli are renowned for gracious hospitality and high style. Chloe Malle receives a warm welcome at their luxe Punta Cana getaway
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WRITER CHLOE MALLE IN THE ENTRANCE COURT OF LA COLINA, BUNNY WILLIAMS AND JOHN ROSSELLI’S RETREAT IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
AN DREAM PHOTOGRAPHY BY
WILLIAM WALDRON
STYLED BY
HOWARD CHRISTIAN
A SOFT HUE DEFINES EACH BEDROOM. THE GREEN ROOM FEATURES AN ANTIQUE FAUXBAMBOO BED AND VINTAGE WICKER CHAIR. CUSHIONS OF PETER DUNHAM TEXTILES. HAND-PAINTED BERGEN BAG. OPPOSITE RESCUED STRAYS BOB, MARCO, AND BLANCO PLAY IN FRONT OF THE GARAGE.
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reparing for my early February trip to Punta Cana required some foresight: trekking to my building’s basement to extract my favorite summer clothes, getting a bikini wax and pedicure, searching for TSA-friendly-sized mosquito repellent and SPF 50 sunblock— and figuring out how to fit into my carry-on the king-size green vinyl mosquito net my husband ordered online and insisted I take with me as a defense against Zika virus. And I had to do my research. Of course, I knew of Bunny Williams and John Rosselli, design doyenne and revered antiques dealer, but by the time I printed out the endless articles and photo spreads dedicated to them I realized I had a lot to catch up on. After 15 years as business partners in Treillage, their beloved but now shuttered garden-and-home store, and
12 as a couple, John and Bunny, who founded her namesake firm in 1988 following 21 years at ParishHadley, decided to get married only after completing construction on their Dominican idyll, a hill-perched house, thus named La Colina. “We built this house and realized we were in this together,” she would later tell me. I was set to stay at the Westin in Punta Cana, expecting to spend a few hours a day up at the house in formal interview mode, when, a week before the trip, I received an email from Bunny’s assistant alerting me that “Bunny has made arrangements for you to stay at La Colina.” I was giddy and forwarded the email to my mother and husband. Their respective responses—“Duh!” and “Cool, you’re still taking the mosquito net”—did not dampen my enthusiasm as I pored over A House by the Sea, Bunny’s recent book on the majestic seaside house, and imagined myself a tropical elf on a shelf perching in different nooks of the Palladian paradise.
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THE LIVING-ROOM FURNITURE, INCLUDING A PUNTA CANA SOFA BY BUNNY WILLIAMS HOME, WEARS SLIPCOVERS OF BLUE DURALEE COTTON. CHINOISERIE PANELS FLANK A CARVED WOOD MIRROR FROM HARRISON & GIL, PAINTED WHITE.
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he Delta flight from icy JFK to balmy Punta Cana is practically a mini-charter. Ten of that weekend’s 12 guests emerge eagerly into the thatched-roof terminal— winter coats draped over one arm, straw hats poised for use in the other—and are met by Pablo King, the property manager, who whisks us to La Colina. A master hostess, Bunny quickly rattles off our room assignments. “She’s in the green room, she’s in the pink, la verde, la rosa.” I am led to la verde, one of two bedrooms in the Greek temple–style pool house (there are four more in the main house). Each of the six bedrooms was designed around a color, beginning with the watercolor-like shade of Venetian plaster coating the walls and extending to the matching flanges of the sheet sets that Bunny had had made at a tiny linen shop she and John stumbled upon in Ho Chi Minh City. In my room a pair of mirrored Venetian cabinet doors mounted on the walls reflect the azure of the pool, and the pedimented antique Regency-style shelves are filled with shells collected both locally and online. (“You just Google shells!” Bunny exclaims.) The Regency-era faux-bamboo child’s canopy bed, like several of the antique beds in the house, was seamlessly enlarged to California King size by a skilled cabinetmaker. The canopy is draped in a sheer linen lined with hand-blockprinted Indian cotton. I decide then that my vinyl mosquito net will not be leaving my suitcase. AFTER LUNCH, served on a loggia that looks out
onto an allée of roble amarillo and the tranquil Caribbean beyond, we disperse to our own activities: a walk down to the secluded beach cove, reading turned napping, a few lazy laps in the pool, or a stroll through the tropical gardens that form a circle around the property. “The greatest thing about the house,” says John, “is that everyone can get away from each other; there’s chaises and little nooks and crannies.” I join Bunny on a pair of sumptuous chaises on the upper veranda facing the sea. “They’re perfect for two, or one person and several dogs, which is usually the case,” she explains of the oversize lounges designed by Oscar de la Renta for Century. In fact, it was de la Renta who was responsible for La Colina to begin with, having long ago introduced Bunny and John to his enclave on the southeastern tip of the Dominican Republic. His widow, Annette, still owns the house, located just down the road and nestled between Mikhail Baryshnikov and Julio Iglesias, and it was on an annual winter visit in 2003 that the late designer golf-carted his friends over to the threeand-a-half acre plot that architect Ernesto Buch would transform into the Palladio-inspired estate. Today, Bunny shares her chaise with just one dog, Bob, a terrier mutt whose wiry wheat-colored
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“It really is heaven, isn’t it?” Bunny notes. “It’s better than medication.”
WICKER CHAIRS FROM LLOYD FLANDERS WITH MICHAEL TAYLOR INDOOR/OUTDOOR FABRIC CUSHIONS SURROUND AN ANTIQUE INDONESIAN TABLE ON THE POOLSIDE TERRACE. CHAISE LONGUES FROM COUNTRY CASUAL TEAK.
LEFT BUNNY’S BELOVED DOGS JOIN HER IN HER ANTIQUE MAHOGANY BED. 18TH-CENTURY CARVED GILDED SHELL; WHITE-PAINTED SWEDISH BENCH. OPPOSITE AN ANTIQUE FRENCH PAINTED CANVAS SCREEN ENVELOPS THE KOHLER TUB IN A GUEST BATHROOM.
that matches the mixed blue-and-white china laid for dinner: antique Kraak salad plates atop candystriped dinner plates from Pearl River Mart. “John’s a blue-and-white freak,” she explains matter-offactly. Indeed, the entire house is ornamented with pieces from his collection. My earlier foray into Bunny’s china room confirms that this table setting for 14 does not make a dent in the designer’s inventory of dinnerware— whether in blue and white or other colors. “I’d rather have too much china than too many clothes,” she says unapologetically, scanning the glass-faced cabinets. “The best way to collect china is to buy by color. Every time I see blue and white, I know I can put it together.” Illustrating her point, she takes a marbleized Christopher Spitzmiller pasta bowl, a recent gift from the ceramicist, and sets it on top of a Spode Blue Italian dinner plate. Mismatched sets of green, brown, and white pottery—from new Crate and Barrel to old Wedgwood—fill the rest of the cabinets. AFTER DINNER of pumpkin soup followed by
perfectly moist meatloaf and homemade coconut ice cream, the group moves into the main room, where the oversize furniture feels perfectly scaled to the 21-foot-tall ceiling. “With a high ceiling you can’t be afraid of going big,” says Bunny, waving at the enormous elephant ears erupting from the ginger jar on the walnut refectory table that splits the room. “You need a tall arrangement to draw on the height; it actually makes it more intimate.” This logic also applies to the nine-foot-tall Rococo scroll mirrors that Bunny found and had painted white to look like plaster. “Very Dorothy Draper!” she exclaims. On either side of the mirrors hang four-bycoat matches the flecked Coralina stone of the eight-foot panels painted by an artist in John’s studio terrace. (The three other rescues, Marco, Cleo, and in imitation of 18th-century Chinese designs. Blanco, are in the kitchen circling Rosa, the chef, “The nucleus of the furniture in Punta Cana is the like piranhas.) Bob affects a regal air as he gazes over residue of houses and things that I really, truly love the coconut and date palms. and that mean something to me,” says John. Not long “It really is heaven, isn’t it?” Bunny notes. “It’s before they broke ground at La Colina, John had sold better than medication. I can come down here like a family farmhouse in New Jersey that was packed this”—she makes a tight fist—“and in a day. . . . ” She unclenches her hand and sighs in a yogic exhale. to the rafters with 50 years of inveterate collecting. “It was like, What are we going to do with all this furnI have to agree. It is hard to imagine that the now iture?, so I said, ‘Let’s build a house in the Dominican lush tropical garden was once a rocky coral outcrop Republic!’ ” jokes the lady of the house. Perched requiring two feet of topsoil to be trucked in. on the high-backed Sicilian sofa slipcovered in blue cotton duck, she swirls her after-dinner drink and AROUND SEVEN O’CLOCK the group convenes on this same terrace for freshly blended daiquiris before scratches Marco’s tummy. “Buy things you love and moving through the Monticello-inspired triple-hung you’ll have them forever,” she advises. Outside, the palms rustle and the surf echoes. Inside, the stereo is windows and across the great room to a loggia overlooking the courtyard. “This is the dining room,” switched on and one couple begins to dance, gently twirling over the striped dhurrie to the Temptations’ Bunny explains. “When we’re here, we live outside.” “My Girl.” There’s not a mosquito in sight. She wears an embroidered blue-and-white caftan
“Buy things you love and you’ll have them forever,” says Bunny.
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BOB, A TERRIER MIX, STOPS IN FRONT OF AN ANTIQUE ANGLO-INDIAN BENCH IN THE BREEZEWAY. BRIGITTE SINGH PILLOWS. OPPOSITE ON THE DINING LOGGIA, AN ANTIQUE WROUGHT-IRON LANTERN ILLUMINATES A FRENCH LIMESTONE TABLE SURROUNDED BY WICKER CHAIRS.
“When we’re here, we live outside,” says Bunny.
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CATAMARAN-STRIPE INDOOR AND OUTDOOR RUG IN CORAL AND WHITE BY DASH & ALBERT; $338 FOR 6’ X 9’. ANNIESELKE.COM
“
I like to keep things simple,” says John. “Furniture decorates the room, so you don’t need a lot of colorful fabrics.” BIRD FRAME PRINT BY BUNNY WILLIAMS; FROM $449. BALLARD DESIGNS.COM
HAND-MARBLED DINNER PLATE; $125. CHRISTOPHER SPITZMILLER.COM
“
I get so upset when people ask, ‘What’s new in decorating?’ ” says Bunny. “Just take what you have and make it look new.”
BUNNY’S TABLE FEATURES A HARMONIOUS MIX OF BLUE AND WHITE.
RAHI CORAL SETTEE; $3,500. JOHN ROBSHAW.COM
LILY MIRROR; $2,400. OLYSTUDIO.COM
DESIGN NOTES
At home in the Dominican Republic, Bunny Williams and John Rosselli put a Caribbean spin on classic style
SCALLOP-SHELL SCONCE; TO THE TRADE. PORTAROMANA.COM
WRITER CHLOE MALLE’S LOUIS VUITTON DUFFEL WAS DECORATED BY HER MOTHER, CANDICE BERGEN. BERGENBAGS.COM
A HOUSE BY THE SEA, BY BUNNY WILLIAMS; $60. ABRAMSBOOKS.COM
CHARLOTTE EURO SHAM IN LAVENDER BY LULU DK; $135. MATOUK.COM
52 STRIPES TEA TOWEL BY STUDIOPATRÓ; $24. FOOD52.COM
MELANGE FLATWARE FIVE-PIECE SET BY BUNNY WILLIAMS; $79. BALLARDDESIGNS.COM
BLUE ITALIAN DINNER PLATE; $130 FOR SET OF FOUR. SPODE.COM
TABLETOP AND LIVING ROOM: WILLIAM WALDRON; BOOK AND DUFFEL: LIAM GOODMAN; ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES
PAINTED WHITE, A ROCOCO MIRROR ADDS A SUBTLE FLOURISH IN THE LIVING ROOM.
THREE-PANEL SUN & MOON SCREEN; TO THE TRADE. JOHNROSSELLI.COM
BUNGALOW CHAIR IN PETAL-COTTON CANVAS; FROM $1,198. SERENAANDLILY.COM
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GIUSEPPE PINO/CONTRASTO/REDUX
ETTORE SOTTSASS FLOPPING ACROSS THE TOP OF A LAMINATECOVERED-PLYWOOD SUPERBOX, DESIGNED IN 1966 FOR POLTRONOVA.
beyond MEMPHIS
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On the great Italian architect’s centennial, a string of exhibitions shine a light into the unexplored corners of Ettore Sottsass’s prolific 60-year career
TEXT BY
HANNAH MARTIN
hen Italian architect Ettore Sottsass launched the controversial collection of furnishings known as Memphis at the Milan Furniture Fair in 1981, the design world was shocked. “It appalled some and amused others but put everyone attending the fair in a state of high excitement,” Suzanne Slesin wrote in The New York Times after the debut of the colorful, photogenic pieces designed by Sottsass and a group of young talents including Alessandro Mendini, Michele De Lucchi, and Nathalie Du Pasquier. Seemingly overnight, the extravagant furnishings flew into the private collections of David Bowie, Karl Lagerfeld, and other international tastemakers. Suddenly, Sottsass— then 64 years old and more than three decades into his career—became synonymous with the radical Memphis ethos and the movement’s poster child, his ecstatic, anthropomorphic Carlton room divider. Sottsass hated it. “The fear of being stuck with an image, a symbol, gave him a nasty feeling of creative claustrophobia,” wrote Barbara Radice, the late maestro’s widow and the only journalist to be a member of Memphis, in her 1993 book, Ettore Sottsass: A Critical Biography. Just five years after the spectacular coming-out party, the designer rejected Memphis and turned his attention to Sottsass Associati, his architecture practice, where he continued to collaborate with many of the same young upstarts. But despite Sottsass’s best efforts, the design world never quite shook the image. This year, with the celebration of Sottsass’s centennial, several exhibitions aim to deepen the architect’s legacy by surveying his prolific practice and illuminating his important early works, his inspirations, and the type of revolutionary thinking that predated Memphis. “To judge Sottsass on Memphis alone is like judging Robert De Niro on the movie Meet the Fockers,” quips Marc Benda, whose New York gallery, Friedman Benda, represents Sottsass and hosted the final show of his work in 2007, just three months before his death. “You’d be missing many of his investigations into ceramics, his accomplishments as an industrial designer, and his substantial work in glass.”
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1
1. A 1972 GLAZED-CERAMIC HSING VASE FOR ALESSIO SARRI. 2. SOTTSASS’S NEON TUBE ASTEROID LAMP CREATED FOR POLTRONOVA IN 1968. 3. THIS MENTA TOTEM WAS DESIGNED IN THE LATE 1960S BUT WASN’T REALIZED UNTIL BITOSSI PRODUCED AN EDITION OF 20 IN 1985. 4. KACHINA 16, FROM A SERIES OF GLASS DOLLS SOTTSASS MADE IN 2006. 5. AN ENAMELED-COPPER CUP MADE IN 1958. 6. ONE OF SOTTSASS’S CERAMIC VESSELS FROM 1959. 7. AN EARLY CERAMIC WORK FROM BITOSSI MADE IN 1962. 8. CLESITERA AND MAIA, TWO MEMPHIS GLASS WORKS FROM 1986. 9. KARL LAGERFELD’S MONTE CARLO APARTMENT IN THE EARLY 1980S. OUTFITTED ENTIRELY IN MEMPHIS, IT FEATURED SOTTSASS’S CARLTON ROOM DIVIDER AND TWO LIGHT FIXTURES.
6 5
3
4
“To judge Sottsass on Memphis alone is like judging Robert De Niro on the movie Meet the Fockers.” —Marc Benda
1. 2. 3. AND 5. COURTESY OF 1STDIBS; 4. JEAN BERNARD; 6. AND 7. JACQUES PÉPION/COURTESY OF CHARLES ZANA; 8. SANTI CALECA/COURTESY OF MEMPHIS MILANO; 9. JACQUES SCHUMACHER
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THE SON OF AN ARCHITECT, Sottsass, who was born in Austria and
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educated in Turin, set up his own design practice after returning from World War II. He began experimenting with ceramics in 1956, when Irving Richards, a shop owner on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, asked him to create a series of vessels “in the modern style.” While the collection fell short of commercial success—Sottsass hadn’t given much thought to the functional purpose of the objects—the architect continued working in the medium until his death, often producing his designs with the Italian firm Bitossi Ceramiche. “He built his formal language with ceramics,” says Paris-based designer Charles Zana, who began collecting Sottsass’s work in the 1990s. In May, during the Venice Biennale, Zana mounted a show of 70 Sottsass ceramics in Carlo Scarpa’s recently restored Olivetti showroom, where the designer’s iconoclastic calculators and typewriters still line the shelves. Many of the pieces in the show—particularly a six-foot-tall totem he imagined in Palo Alto, California, in 1964—reference ancient architectural forms and ritual objects, constant sources of inspiration for Sottsass that would influence the shapes and structures of Memphis designs decades later. After all, while the group arbitrarily adopted its name from the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song, it’s no accident that the moniker also nods to the ancient Egyptian city. Long before the Carlton room divider enraptured aficionados of avant-garde design, Sottsass spent years playing with radical forms and materials in his furniture, always questioning traditional ideas of functionality. In 1956, when the Florentine furniture maker Poltronova brought Sottsass on as a consultant, he began experimenting with cartoonish cabinets in wood and plastic laminate. Some of the most notable designs from that era were his 1960s superboxes—massive case pieces meant to hold all of one’s belongings and be placed, like a menhir, in the center of a room—that radiated Memphis brio fully 15 years avant la lettre. One of these will star in a wide-ranging exhibition of Sottsass’s work set to open at the Met Breuer in New York in July. “Even people familiar with design tend to equate Sottsass with Memphis, which they’ve written off as not their taste, or simply bad taste,” says Christian Larsen, the associate curator of modern decorative arts and design at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who is organizing the show. “In truth, his work was constantly developing. He was always looking to the next thing.” Larsen will explore Sottsass’s varied influences by juxtaposing his work with pieces from the Met’s collection: Indian ritual objects next to Sottsass’s ceramic totems; Egyptian jewelry alongside his earrings and necklaces. More shows celebrated Sottsass’s lessfamiliar creations throughout the spring. In April, Le Stanze del Vetro, a museum in Venice, unveiled an exhibition of some 200 glass works, many of them created in the 1990s and early 2000s, just before the end of his life. In June, Benda will bring a cabinet from a private collection that hasn’t been exhibited in more than 50 years to Switzerland for Design Miami/Basel. Each of these shows, in one way or another, argues for a fuller appreciation of Sottsass’s oeuvre and his place in design history. As Larsen puts it, “You might know Memphis first and Sottsass second, and that’s what needs to change.”
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THE LIFE
AT KATRINE BOORMAN AND DANNY MOYNIHAN’S HOME IN OUALIDIA, MOROCCO, A 1960S ABSTRACT PAINTING BY HIS FATHER, RODRIGO, MAKES A SPLASH IN THE LIVING ROOM. DANNY PAINTED THE WORKS BEHIND THE SOFA, WHICH IS LAYERED WITH GOATSKINS. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
AQUATIC
Danny Moynihan and Katrine Boorman’s Oualidia getaway is a discreet modernist villa nestled beside Morocco’s most romantic lagoon TEXT BY
ROBERT BECKER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
SIMON UPTON
STYLED BY
ANITA SARSIDI
RIGHT BOORMAN AND MOYNIHAN ON THE TERRACE. BELOW A LEONID BERMAN LOBSTER DRAWING GRACES A KITCHEN. OPPOSITE CHRISTOPHER HODSOLL MADE THE DINING-ROOM CHAIRS. 1930S DINING TABLE; 1940S CHROME ARMCHAIRS FROM MARRAKECH’S BAB EL KHEMIS FLEA MARKET.
b
ack in the late 1960s Danny Moynihan, then seven years of age, was traveling in Morocco with his parents, British artists Anne Dunn and Rodrigo Moynihan, when their car hit a cow near the fishing village of Oualidia. It wasn’t the most convenient place for an accident, an isolated rural track skirting an enormous lagoon. “I remember local people stepping out from behind the reeds to see what had happened,” Danny recalls, adding that the ruminant trundled off without a scratch, though the car required a new radiator. More than four decades later, when Dunn came to stay at the villa her son and daughter-in-law, Katrine Boorman, had constructed near that same body of water, she was stunned: “This is exactly where we hit the cow!” The multi-hyphenate Moynihans—Danny is a painter-curator-writer and cofounder of the Marrakech Biennale; she’s an actress-director known for her extravagant homemade headdresses—were living in London when Oualidia came into their lives. Parents of two teenagers, Kit and Tallulah, the couple spent most school holidays in Marrakech, in an 18th-century riad that they had restored. But Oualidia’s cool breezes turned out to be a perfect antidote to Marrakech’s oppressive summer heat. There’s avian splendor, too: The lagoon, populated with migratory birds, is part of a green zone decreed recently by Morocco’s king, Mohammed VI. “When Kit was young we used to take him fishing up the lagoon,” Danny says, “and we noticed this
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The lagoon, populated with migratory birds, is part of a green zone decreed by Morocco’s king.
THE SWIMMING POOL WITH OUALIDIA’S FAMOUS LAGOON BEYOND. RIGHT PALMS, ROSES, AND JASMINE FILL THE CENTRAL COURTYARD.
thing that looked like an old fort. One afternoon the boatman told us he’d heard it was for sale. An agent showed us the place, we met the farmer who owned it, and we didn’t hesitate to buy it.” The ruin wasn’t an old battlement, but a derelict cowshed. Using its footprint, Danny sketched the house that became Lagoon Lodge, an impressive yet intimate structure that marries Italian modernist architecture from before World War II with Moroccan vernacular. After driving through a luxuriant grove of olives, one enters the house by walking down golden sandstone steps (think Capri’s Casa Malaparte) that follow the land’s steep descent and terminate in a courtyard crowded with traveler’s palms and rosebushes. The dining room, kitchens, and bedrooms all open onto this verdant heart. On the lagoon side of the house is a covered terrace with a sublime vista of shimmering water and flocks of birds. “Lagoon Lodge was always planned as a sanctuary,” Katrine explains, “a place to read and write, where we could be with friends, far from the hubbub of the cities where most of us live.” She and her husband have always been magnets for the erudite and the eccentric, the bohemian and the blueblood. Artists, photographers, dealers, and the like are sighted, and film-business folk are usually part of the mix. Katrine, who appeared as an English duchess in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, is a daughter of John Boorman, the director of Deliverance and Hope and Glory and subject of her 2012 documentary, Me and Me Dad.
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All the bedrooms open to the jungle-like central courtyard. In Oualidia the Moynihans’ relaxed revelry takes place amid Berber wool fabrics and plush Moroccan rugs. Art Deco chairs and writing tables found in various souks furnish rooms hung with paintings by Danny’s father as well as Damien Hirst (a close friend), Rachel Howard, Stanley Spencer, and Michael Wishart (Anne Dunn’s first husband). Tadelakt, the exquisite Moroccan polished plaster, surfaces the walls, and Danny and Marrakech-based architect Fabrizio Bizzarri—who helped with the house—salvaged vintage bathroom fixtures like the master bathroom’s tub. The size of a sarcophagus, it was found in Marrakech’s Bab el Khemis flea market, where it ended up after Jacques Garcia’s 2009 renovation of the famed La Mamounia hotel. The main gathering place is a large, blocky right-angle space that combines areas for living and dining, each with a fireplace that merrily blazes all winter long. Back-to-back sofas and a vast banquette offer spots to read, talk, or play games over cocktails or after dinner. Paintings of rocks that Danny makes while in Provence, where his mother has a house,
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are displayed here, joined by several of his father’s large abstracts. Meals are a high point, served either at the dining area’s immense table for 16 or on the terrace at an equally accommodating stretch of green-glass mosaic. “We’re always discussing what we’ll have for lunch or dinner,” says Katrine, a Cordon Bleu graduate. “It’s all about getting fantastic fish on the beach and finding the best local produce.” Some of the ingredients are raised in the walled kitchen garden, where tomatoes, potatoes, and squash flourish within hedges of rosemary and lavender, all irrigated with recycled gray water. Fowl is raised on site, too, beehives provide delicious honey, and below the house is what Danny describes as the first “natural” swimming pool in Morocco. “It has a sand filter and a UV light in the filter system,” he explains, “while water plants of various kinds, which clean the water naturally, are planted in the trough that runs the length of the pool.” The Moynihans’ serene oasis is at one with ancient Oualidia, where life is guided by the steady cycles of earth and sea. “We find it’s a place where we can reconnect,” Katrine observes. “Here you have everything: earth, wind, water, and sun. There are very few places where all those things come together quite so perfectly.”
THE MASTER BATH IS OUTFITTED WITH VINTAGE FIXTURES, INCLUDING A MASSIVE TUB FROM THE LEGENDARY LA MAMOUNIA HOTEL IN MARRAKECH. OPPOSITE THE MASTER BEDROOM FEATURES A BENI OURAIN CARPET AND BERBER FABRICS; RODRIGO MOYNIHAN PAINTING.
BERBER CUSHION WITH PINK AND X-MOTIF; $129. THEMOROCCAN ROOM.COM
CASABLANCA MOROCCAN WOOL RUG; $9,000. ABCHOME.COM
MOROCCAN HANDMADE BRASS HOOKS; $325 FOR SET OF FIVE. MMONTAGUE.COM
THE MASTER BEDROOM.
ARABESQUE PENDANT LAMP; $600. LAVIVAHOME.COM
BLUE LYLA LINEN NAPKIN; $45. MADELINE WEINRIB.COM
E15 HABIBI SIDE TABLE IN COPPER; $2,574. STILLFRIED.COM
DESIGN NOTES
Rugged textures, earthy materials, and a global sense of chic outfit Lagoon Lodge, the Moynihan family’s North African paradise
KATRINE DESIGNED THE TERRACE’S TILE-TOPPED DINING TABLE.
BEDROOM AND TERRACE: SIMON UPTON; NAPKIN, CUSHION, AND BLANKET: JOHN MANNO; PAINTING: COURTESY OF DANNY MOYNIHAN; ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES
DESERT BLANKET; $200. GARZAMARFA.COM
“
The idea here,” Katrine explains, “is just to lie around, gossip, and have amusing dinners.” ABSTRACT WORKS BY RODRIGO MOYNIHAN, DANNY’S FATHER, HANG THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE.
BEEHIVE CEILING FIXTURE; $231. SELAMAT DESIGNS.COM
CHATWIN LOUNGE CHAIR; $3,250. RICHARDWRIGHTMAN.COM
“
Construction was organic,” says Danny. “Walls went up, came down, and were rebuilt.”
COWHIDE SQUARE POUF; $429. RHTEEN.COM
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RESOURCES Items pictured but not listed here are not sourceable. Items similar to vintage and antique pieces shown are often available from the dealers listed. (T) means the item is available only to the trade. SEA FOR DAYS PAGES 98–109: Interiors by Daniel Romualdez Architects; 212-989-8429. Landscape design by Miranda Brooks Landscape Design; mirandabrooks.com. PAGE 100: On sofa (left), bench cushion by Charles H. Beckley Inc. (T); chbeckley.com, with pillows by Yastik by Rifat Ozbek; yastikbyrifatozbek.com; and Irving & Morrison; irvingandmorrison .com. Table lamp from Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler Antiques; 1stdibs.com. Antique bowls (on table next to sofa) and antique Indian bracelets (on bench in foreground), all from Dario Bome; +34-971-133-4833. Circa-17thcentury chaise longue, from Yew Tree House; yewtreehouseantiques .com; with pillow in a Robert Kime fabric; robertkime.com. PAGE 104: On table, Crisscross plates by Irving & Morrison; irvingandmorrison.com. Wicker dining chairs by Bonacina; bonacina1889.it. On sofa, pillows by Irving & Morrison. PAGE 107: In living room, on banquette, bench cushion by Charles H. Beckley Inc. (T); chbeckley.com, with pillows by Irving & Morrison; irvingandmorrison.com. ANGLO FILE PAGES 110–119: Interiors by David Flint Wood and India Hicks; indiahicks.com. Architecture by Nichols Brown Webber LLP; nbwarchitects.co.uk. Landscape design by Thornton
Forestier-Walker; tfwdesign.co.uk. Construction by StuartBarrCDR; stuartbarr.co.uk. Windows and doors throughout by Barrjoinery; barrjoinery.co.uk. PAGE 112: In Domino’s room, on chair, Ambrosia Rose linen by David Hicks by Ashley Hicks for Groundworks (T); leejofa.com. Artemis sisal, in silver, by Fibre Flooring; fibreflooring .com. In garden, large terracotta urn from Thornton ForestierWalker; tfwdesign.co.uk. In master bedroom, antique French secretary from Brownrigg; brownrigg-interiors.co.uk. PAGE 114: In sitting room, antique English mahogany leathertopped table from Theron Ware; theronwarehudson.com. PAGES 116–117: In bedroom, on walls, curtains, and bed, Tickingstripe cotton by Ian Mankin (T); ianmankin.com. Armoire by Barrjoinery; barrjoinery.co.uk. In kitchen, custom-made oakand-iron table by Barrjoinery. Wishbone chairs by Hans J. Wegner for Carl Hansen & Son available from Design Within Reach; dwr.com. PAGE 119: In master bedroom, on bed, Chinese toile fabric, in pale blue on oyster, by Bennison; bennisonfabrics.com. For lining, linen by Ian Mankin (T); ianmankin.com. Faux-fur striped throw by Helene Berman; johnlewis.com. Artemis sisal, in silver, by Fibre Flooring; fibreflooring.com. In mudroom, on bench cushion and pillow, Climbing Hydra fabric by Edwina Hicks; edwinahicks.com. Cabinetry by Barrjoinery; barrjoinerry.co.uk. On floor, Buscot limestone, in tumbled finish, from Artisans of Devizes; artisansofdevizes.com. THE GOOP LIFE PAGES 120–123: Gwyneth Paltrow of Goop; goop.com. Interiors by RH Interior Design; rh.com. Kitchen design by
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST AND AD ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT © 2017 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. VOLUME 74, NO. 6. ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST (ISSN 00038520) is published monthly by Condé Nast, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: Condé Nast, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. S. I. Newhouse, Jr., Chairman Emeritus; Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer; David E. Geithner, Chief Financial Officer; James M. Norton, Chief Business Officer, President of Revenue. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40644503. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 123242885-RT0001. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 507.1.5.2); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: Send address corrections to ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST, P.O. Box 37641, Boone, IA 50037-0641.
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March; marchsf.com; and Union Studio; unionstudio.com. PAGES 120–121: Emile Chandelier by Adam Grant for RH Modern; rhmodern.com. Ludlow Rectangular Dining Table (as desk) by Richard Forwood and Orbiter II Table Task Lamp by Robert Sonneman both from RH; rh.com. Basket-tray by Amber Interiors; shoppe.amberinteriordesign.com. Pencil holder, silver bowl, and scallop tray (behind Gwyneth) from Elsie Green; elsiegreen.com. Basket (on floor) and vases (on table and shelving) from Tent the Shop; tenttheshop.com. On sofa, Scalamandré Collection Dunden Lodge pillow, in coral, by Kathryn M. Ireland; kathrynirelandshop .com. On desk chair, Felix pillow by Amber Interiors. Brass watering can (on shelving) from Consort; consort-design.com. PAGE 122: Grand Brass Dome Pendants, Maria V. Cano: Road and Air Movement Panoramic, circa-1900 French Brass Brasserie Tables, and vintage rug from Ben Soleimani over Chunky Braided Jute Rug, all by RH; rh.com. Custom banquette by Will Wick for Wick Design; wickdesign.com. Throw from Tent the Shop; tenttheshop.com. Vase from Elsie Green; elsiegreen.com. PAGE 123: In demo kitchen sitting area, Glass Globe Mobile Pendants by Rudi Nijssen and Dominique Sente for RH Modern; rhmodern .com. Flatiron Marble Rectangular Dining Table by RH; rh.com. Saddle Leather Side Chairs by Barlas Baylar for RH. In kitchen, custom March worktable by Union Studio; unionstudio.com. Appliances by Electrolux Grand Cuisine; grandcuisine.com. Stool and custom-made cutting board by Blackcreek Mercantile & Trading Co. from March; similar items available at marchsf.com. On wall, custom-made tile by Fireclay Tile; fireclaytile.com. Photograph (on top shelf ) by Paulette Tavormina,
FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK ISSUE INQUIRIES: Please write to ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST, P.O. Box 37641, Boone, IA 50037-0641, call 800-365-8032, or email subscriptions@ archdigest.com. Please give both new address and old address as printed on most recent label. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. If during your subscription term or up to one year after the magazine becomes undeliverable, you are ever dissatisfied with your subscription, let us know. You will receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of order. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. FOR REPRINTS: Please email reprints@condenast.com or call Wright’s Media, 877-652-5295. For reuse permissions, please email contentlicensing@condenast.com or call 800-897-8666. Visit us online at archdigest.com.
baskets by Jonathan Kline, and antique ladder all from March; marchsf.com. Kitchen apron, in oatmeal, by Studiopatró; studiopatro.com. DOMINICAN DREAM PAGES 124–137: Interiors by Bunny Williams Inc.; bunnywilliams.com. Architecture by Ernesto Buch Architect Inc.; ernestobuch.com. PAGE 126: On vintage wicker chair, cushions of linen-cotton by Peter Dunham Textiles; similar fabrics available at peterdunhamtextiles .com. Hand-painted bag (Louis Vuitton duffel) by Candice Bergen of Bergen Bags; bergenbags.com. On bed, bedspread of Mughal Tree cotton by Brigitte Singh for Aleta; aletaonline.com. PAGES 128–129: Punta Cana sofa by Bunny Williams Home; bunnywilliamshome.com; in blue cotton by Duralee (T); duralee.com. On armchairs, lightblue cotton fabric by Duralee (T). Chinese garden stools from John Rosselli Antiques (T); john rosselliantiques.com. Rococo carved-wood mirror from Harrison & Gil; harrison-gil.com. Wide Stripes handwoven flat-weave wool dhurrie, in beige/white, by Shyam Ahuja (T); shyamahuja.com. PAGE 132: Vintage freestanding tub by Kohler; kohler.com. PAGE 134: On bench, pillow covers of Poppy on White cotton by Brigitte Singh for Aleta; aletaonline.com. THE LIFE AQUATIC PAGES 142–151: Interiors consultation by Fabrizio Bizzarri; +212-670-408032. PAGES 142– 143: Custom-made stone fireplace designed by Fabrizio Bizzarri; +212-670-408032. PAGE 144: Dining chairs by Christopher Hodsoll; similar chairs available at hodsoll.com. Art Deco armchairs from Bab el Khemis; +212-677-263488. PAGE 149: Vintage tub from Bab el Khemis; +212-677-263488.
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last word
For the past 17 years, RxArt has been helping kids heal, enlisting artists to create projects for pediatric hospitals. This past winter, the nonprofit debuted its most ambitious project yet—an immersive mural by Dan Colen for the 2,500-square-foot recreation room at St. Mary’s in Queens, New York. “Nothing was easy about this space,” says RxArt founder Diane Brown, describing the curved walls. “The mural had to be mapped out to the millimeter,” Colen explains. For patients, the installation (an oversize take on the artist’s “confetti” paintings) offers an exuberant backdrop for playtime and visits. “I hope it creates a sense of wonder,” Colen reflects. Of that Brown seems sure. As she puts it: “The room is complete joy.” —SAM COCHRAN
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CHRISTOPHER BURKE
Good Medicine