THE INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AUTHORITY OCTOBER 2017
TORY BURCH AT THE TOP
THE FASHION STAR’S HAMPTONS WONDERLAND
ELECTRIC COMPANY WHAT’S HOT IN LIGHTING
CREATIVE GENIUS!
Dramatic design Provocative architecture Radical gardens
CONTENTS october
140 INSIDE JENNIFER DOEBLER AND PAT KELLY’S BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, HOME.
Features At her impeccably tailored Hamptons getaway, fashion star Tory Burch lives life to the fullest. By David Netto
140 BACK TO CALI
A young family calls on L.A. design firm Commune to breathe new life into their historic Berkeley home. By Mayer Rus
134 KEEP IT CLASSIC
Rejecting the clichés of funky downtown living, Charlotte Ronson and Nate Ruess set up house in a reimagined loft with a decidedly uptown vibe. By Mayer Rus
152 TOTALLY TIFFANY
In his debut collection, Tiffany & Co.’s Reed Krakoff elevates everyday objects to luxury status. 156 IT’S LIT
How New York became the capital of lighting design. By Hannah Martin
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160 SLEEPING BEAUTY
A storied Connecticut estate lay dormant for decades until Reed and Delphine Krakoff brought it back to life. By Mayer Rus 168 A LASTING MEMORY
For one Italian family, a villa masterminded by the legendary Renzo Mongiardino more than 50 years ago is still home base. By Martina Mondadori Sartogo (CONTINUED ON PAGE 20)
TREVOR TONDRO
120 PERFECT FIT
CONTENTS october Discoveries 39 THE PLUSH LIFE
India Mahdavi’s new velvets for Pierre Frey are a seductive sensation. 40 DEBUT: MAGIC CARPETS
Artist and furniture designer Fernando Mastrangelo brings his topographical creations to the floor. By Hannah Martin
42 SHOPPING: WERK IT
Taking cues from the Wiener Werkstätte, the graphic verve of the early–20th century design movement is making a comeback. Produced by
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Parker Bowie Larson
NATE RUESS (IN A GUCCI SUIT) AND CHARLOTTE RONSON (IN A VALENTINO DRESS) IN THEIR NOHO LOFT.
44 DEBUT: OUT OF THE WOODS
Artist Marc Hundley launches a furniture collection inspired by an iconic beach house on Fire Island. By Bart Boehlert 48 BETWEEN THE PAGES: SOFT SELL
52 LEGACY: TOTALLY RADICAL
The design world rediscovers the controversial creations of Italy’s most revolutionary movement. By Hannah Martin (CONTINUED ON PAGE 22)
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HAND-WOVEN STERLINGSILVER BIRD’S NEST WITH TIFFANY BLUE PORCELAIN EGG. TIFFANY.COM
ON THE COVER (NEWSSTANDS) TORY BURCH, WEARING A TORY BURCH SKYE CAFTAN, IN THE GARDEN OF HER HAMPTONS GETAWAY. “PERFECT FIT,” PAGE 120. PHOTOGRAPHY BY OBERTO GILI. STYLED BY CARLOS MOTA.
ON THE COVER (SUBSCRIBERS) A TWISTING STAIRCASE TORY BURCH’S AT REED AND HAMPTONS RETREAT. DELPHINE KRAKOFF’S “PERFECT FIT,” PAGE CONNECTICUT HOME. 120. PHOTOGRAPHY BY “SLEEPING BEAUTY,” OBERTO GILI. STYLED PAGE 160. BY CARLOS MOTA. PHOTOGRAPHY BY IVAN TERESTCHENKO.
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TOP RIGHT: WILLIAM ABRANOWICZ; BOTTOM LEFT: GRANT CORNETT
Joseph Dirand, a strict modernist, makes a soulful transition. By Mitchell Owens
CONTENTS october
120
TORY BURCH, WEARING A TORY SPORT METALLIC NYLON COAT, CHEVRON LEGGINGS, AND NEOPRENE SNEAKERS, IN THE GARDEN OF HER SOUTHAMPTON HOME.
57 WORLD OF: YVES BÉHAR
At home in San Francisco, the designer puts his smart devices to the test. By Emily Holt
60 TRAVELS: FERTILE IMAGINATIONS
The young minds at Rural Studio transform a quiet corner of Alabama into a hotbed for cutting-edge design. By Fred A. Bernstein 64 INSPIRATION: CZECH MATE
Architect Peter Pennoyer finds creative fuel in Prague’s Cubist past. By Elizabeth Fazzare
New Creatives 99 From emerging stars to
established talents still flying under the radar, these designers are reshaping the way we live, think, and build.
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In Every Issue 28 EDITOR’S LETTER By Amy Astley
30 OBJECT LESSON: UP RISING
Fifty years after its creation, Gaetano Pesce’s revolutionary feminist seat is more relevant than ever. By Hannah Martin
34 DEALER’S EYE: STEVEN CHAIT
The third-generation dealer on how to buy antique Chinese porcelain.
156
TOTEM I, BY LINDSEY ADELMAN, FOR THE FUTURE PERFECT. THEFUTUREPERFECT.COM
By Hannah Martin
178 RESOURCES
The designers, architects, and products featured this month. 180 LAST WORD: BLOOMING GENIUS
In an exhibition at the Hermitage, Vladimir Kanevsky’s porcelain florals soar to new heights. By Sam Cochran
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FROM LEFT: OBERTO GILI; LAUREN COLEMAN
Culture
THE INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AUTHORITY VOLUME 74 NUMBER 10
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editor’s letter
2
1. A MATTIA BONETTI “ABYSS” CONSOLE CREATED FOR THE KRAKOFFS, ALONG WITH A VINTAGE EMILIO TERRY CARPET AND ANDRÉ DUBREUIL LIGHT, IN THEIR PARIS APARTMENT. 2. A BRONZE LALANNE CROCODILE CHAIR TAKES PRIDE OF PLACE IN THEIR EAST HAMPTON HOME.
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3 4 5
3. THE NEW BOOK BY DELPHINE AND REED KRAKOFF DOCUMENTING THEIR EXTRAORDINARY HOMES. 4. THE LALANNE SHEEP IN NYC AND ON BOOK COVER IN EAST HAMPTON DEMONSTRATE HOW THE KRAKOFFS SUCCESSFULLY MOVE THEIR COLLECTION AMONG RESIDENCES. 5. ATTENDING A KRAKOFFSUPPORTED BENEFIT FOR THE GLASS HOUSE, IN NEW CANAAN, CT.
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I am one of those lucky New Yorkers who have experienced the profound excellence of Reed and Delphine Krakoff’s homes in person, rather than on Pinterest or via a magazine. Reed, the chief artistic officer of Tiffany & Co., is a noted design connoisseur and collector, and Delphine an accomplished decorator. The many exceptional houses they have created together for their family have been much documented and drooled over, and now the Krakoffs have compiled six of those superbly curated residences into a most personal book, Houses That We Dreamt Of (Rizzoli). AD is proud to present their newest collaboration, Clark House, in New Canaan, Connecticut, which is featured in the book. Houses That We Dreamt Of is a pleasure to study not only for interior inspiration but also for a tutorial in living with blue-chip design. It is fascinating to realize, page by page, that the Krakoffs’ vast and exemplary trove of treasures—Lalanne sheep, Royère Polar Bear furniture, John Dickinson plaster pieces, JeanMichel Frank screens and sofas, Marc Newson and Joris Laarman chairs, Mattia Bonetti and Pierre Jeanneret tables, Serge Mouille lights—has moved with ease from New York City to Palm Beach to Paris to East Hampton. “This house [Clark] gave us the opportunity to recombine and recontextualize things we’d purchased years ago and used in other homes. The process isn’t about trying to create artificially theatrical juxtapositions. It’s about finding a way to live with the things you love,” says Delphine. The Krakoffs are the rarest of patrons, promoting and supporting the design world while also pushing it AMY ASTLEY forward with their singular, Editor in Chief @amytastley fearless vision. Dream on!
1. AND 2. IVAN TERESTCHENKO; 3. COURTESY OF RIZZOLI; 4. SHEILA METZNER; 5. ANGELA PHAM/BFA.COM
“A house tells you what it wants to be. Every house we’ve done tells a different story.” —Reed and Delphine Krakoff
object lesson
THE STORY BEHIND AN ICONIC DESIGN
Up Rising Nearly 50 years after its creation, Gaetano Pesce’s revolutionary feminist seat is more relevant than ever 30
AR C HD I GES T.CO M
DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN/TRUNK ARCHIVE
AN UP CHAIR-ANDOTTOMAN IN FASHION DESIGNER MAX AZRIA’S LOS ANGELES HOME.
object lesson
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1. LISA PERRY PLACED THE ICONIC SEAT ATOP A PLATFORM IN HER HAMPTONS BEACH HOUSE. 2. GAETANO PESCE, LOUNGING IN AN UP ARMCHAIR. 3. UP5 AND UP6, FROM B&B ITALIA.
—HANNAH MARTIN
Masonville With a fixed outer frame and a movable inner frame, Masonville can alternate between a flat or three-dimensional appearance. Available in aged brass, polished nickel or old bronze.
www.hudsonvalleylighting.com
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2
1. NIKOLAS KOENIG/OTTO; 2. AND 3. COURTESY OF B&B ITALIA
I
t was 1968, and Gaetano Pesce was in the shower. “I had the sponge in my hand,” explains the Italian designer. “When I pressed the sponge, it shrank, and when I released it, it returned to its original volume.” An idea occurred: Couldn’t a chair behave the same way? At his Paris atelier, Pesce began experimenting with vacuum-packing the hippest material of the moment: polyurethane. Soon he’d developed a gravitydefying model: a four-inch-thick disk that, when removed from its PVC envelope, would rise from the floor into a cushy armchair. Fittingly, he named it Up. The form that emerged was no typical seat. Its bulbous shape, inspired by silhouettes of ancient fertility goddesses and accompanied by an affixed ottoman resembling a ball and chain, was rife with meaning. “It’s an image of a prisoner,” Pesce says. “Women suffer because of the prejudice of men. The chair was supposed to talk about this problem.” Furniture manufacturer B&B Italia (then known as C&B) produced the seat the next year: It was innovative, it was easily transported, it was the future. Or so the firm thought. In 1973 B&B Italia ceased production of Up after discovering that Freon, the leavening ingredient mixed with polyurethane, was harmful to the ozone layer. But the chair had already made a name for itself—actually several. Referred to as La Mamma, Big Mama, and Donna, nearly 50 years later the icon (B&B introduced a Freon-free version in 2000) has developed quite a following (fashion designer Lisa Perry; Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis). Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, who has shown Pesce’s work at her New York gallery Salon 94, calls it “practical radical.” bebitalia.com
dealer’s eye
WHERE ART MEETS COMMERCE 2
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Steven Chait The third-generation dealer on how to buy antique Chinese porcelain
SPECIALTY: Chinese porcelain and works of art from
antiquity to the early 19th century.
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1. EARLY–18TH CENTURY TURQUOISE GLAZED BOWL WITH ORIGINAL STAND. 2. CHINESE TAKE ON THE JAPANESE IMARI STYLE, CIRCA 1700. 3. ENAMEL WINE POT FROM THE MID– 18TH CENTURY.
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a.k.a. porcelain—originated in China more than 1,000 years ago. But Europeans didn’t develop a comparable technique until the 1700s. A-LIST REQUESTS: “Herbert Hoover collected blue-and-white porcelain, and Martha Graham had a passion for small jade objects,” says gallery owner Steven Chait. RARE FIND: A 17th-century porcelain model of a Dutch ship. “Because of the sails, the figures, and the ropework, it would have been incredibly hard to make.” TOP DRAWER: “Blue-and-white porcelain from the early Ming dynasty (around the 15th century) is considered among the finest ever made.” CLOSE UP: The wine pot (left) is not actually porcelain but enameled copper, used to imitate porcelain in the 18th and 19th centuries. LOOK FOR: Peach bloom, a rare copper-based glaze with a pinkish hue. “Because the kiln’s heat interacted with the chemical properties of the glaze, causing pieces to emerge brown, black, or cloudy, successful examples are very rare.” IMPERIAL PREMIUM: “A yellow glaze was used on porcelain for the Chinese courts, which was often marked with six characters to indicate the commissioning emperor’s name.” rmchait.com —HANNAH MARTIN
1., 2., AND 3. COURTESY OF RALPH M. CHAIT GALLERIES, INC.
HISTORY LESSON: Snow-white, hard-paste ceramics—
DISCOVERIES
THE BEST IN SHOPPING, DESIGN, AND STYLE
EDITED BY JANE KELTNER DE VALLE
The Plush Life
COURTESY OF PIERRE FREY
India Mahdavi’s new velvets for Pierre Frey are a seductive sensation
DESIGN SUPERSTAR INDIA MAHDAVI’S SOFT TOUCH FOR PIERRE FREY: DIAMONDS VELVET ON LOUNGE CHAIR AND CUSHION, PLAIN VELVET ON WALLS, SIDE CHAIR, AND FLOOR; TO THE TRADE. PIERREFREY.COM AR C H DI G E S T. CO M
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DISCOVERIES debut MASTRANGELO IN HIS EAST NEW YORK, BROOKLYN, STUDIO WITH A PLANTER OF CRUSHED QUARTZ, SILICA, AND POURED CEMENT, AND THE SILENT WATERS RUG FROM HIS NEW FLOOR-COVERINGS COLLECTION WITH EDWARD FIELDS.
Magic Carpets Artist and furniture designer Fernando Mastrangelo brings his topographical creations to the floor
F
ernando Mastrangelo’s world is awash in icy shimmer—crystalline sconces, crushed-glass tables, mirrors coated in sweeps of sand. But at last spring’s Collective Design fair in New York, one wall-mounted work departed from the artist’s usual granular-material palette. Closer inspection revealed it was, in fact, a wool-and-silk rug. The installation offered a sneak peek at his latest creative endeavor: Reverence, a series of 12 floor coverings with storied manufacturer Edward Fields. “I wanted it to be as sculptural as possible,” Mastrangelo says of the collection, which christens him the first contemporary designer to join George Nakashima and Raymond Loewy on the brand’s exclusive roster. Known for mixing unexpected materials such as sugar, coffee, sand, and crushed crystal with resin to cast sculptural furniture, Mastrangelo started this project the same way he approaches making a painting or a table: by examining changing landscapes. “I showed Edward Fields aerial shots of canyons; a glacier that, through pollution and volcanic ash, had developed these emerald-green stripes; the salt flats in Utah,” he explains. “I thought, Wouldn’t it be awesome
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to have flatness here and shadow there to mimic the topography?” And so the experimentation began. Explorations unfold rapidly within his vast new studio and showroom space in East New York, Brooklyn—“Generally, if I have an idea, we can have a finished piece in about three days”—but realizing a collection of painstakingly detailed floor coverings is a different story. Producing a single hand-tufted rug takes a team of artisans roughly three months. “We spent so much time working on every fiber, every color, every detail,” he explains. “I wanted it to really feel like salt.” Ultimately, through thoughtful use of pile, material, and shape, he and Edward Fields created the same organic forms that characterize Mastrangelo’s furniture and artworks. The gradated lines of his poured-concrete pieces are rendered in nubby cool grays; his sand-slathered Drift mirrors find their silk-andwool doppelgänger. “I didn’t want to get too political,” he says of the collection’s nod to the threat of climate change. “But these are issues I’m concerned about. I like to inject ideas in the work subtly, through beauty.” fernandomastrangelo.com; edwardfields.com —HANNAH MARTIN
P ORT RAI T BY NI C HOLAS C A LCOTT
DISCOVERIES shopping 2
3
4
5
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Werk It As New York’s Neue Galerie opens a show celebrating the Wiener Werkstätte, the graphic verve of the early–20th century design movement is making a comeback
1. OTTO PRUTSCHER ANTIQUE WINEGLASS FROM KUNSTHANDEL KOLHAMMER. 8.25" H.; $70,450 FOR SET OF SIX. 1STDIBS.COM 2. JOSEF HOFFMANN BY STUDIO PRINTWORKS BLUEBERRY WALLPAPER; $95 FOR FIVE-YARD ROLL. SHOP.NEUEGALERIE.ORG
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3. JOSEF HOFFMANN BY AUGARTEN WIEN MELON MOCHA CUP AND SAUCER IN RED; $405. MARYMAHONEY.COM 4. DIMORE STUDIO LAMPADA 110. 31.5" D. X 46.5" H.; PRICE UPON REQUEST. THEFUTURE PERFECT.COM 5. TOMÁS ALONSO FOR WIENER SILBER SILVER TEA SERVICE; $16,000. ATELIERCOURBET.COM 6. DONGHIA BERLIN CLUB CHAIR UPHOLSTERED IN CROSSTOWN IN EMERALD. 35" W. X 38" D. X 32" H.; TO THE TRADE. DONGHIA.COM 7. COMMUNE FOR REMAINS LIGHTING TABLE LANTERN. 9.75" DIA. X 10.75" H.; $2,525. REMAINS.COM
P ROD U C ED BY PARK ER BOW I E L A R S O N
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES
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DISCOVERIES debut 1
Out of the Woods Artist Marc Hundley debuts a furniture collection inspired by an iconic beach house on Fire Island
W 2
3 1. INSPIRED BY WATER ISLAND’S MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE, ARTIST MARC HUNDLEY DESIGNED A SUITE OF FURNITURE IN LIGHT OAK FOR JUSTINIAN KFOURY’S BEACH HOUSE. 2. THE RIG LAMP, $6,000; TOTALWORLD.COM. 3. HUNDLEY, WITH KFOURY’S PUG, HECKY, AT THE BLUE ENAMEL DINING TABLE FROM HIS ISLAND COLLECTION.
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hen artist Marc Hundley was invited to take a booth at the sprawling Frieze New York art fair last summer, he re-created his Williamsburg, Brooklyn, apartment right down to the art he fantasized was on its walls. “I wanted to make the space comfortable,” he says, “so people would connect.” The same sentiment prevailed when Hundley set out to design furniture. The artist first built pieces for his friend the creative agent Justinian Kfoury, who had bought the beach house built by the renowned arts patron Morris Golde in 1957 in the remote and fashionable community of Water Island, off Long Island. (Michael Kors has a house next door.) Golde famously hosted creative cohorts there, including playwright Edward Albee, and poets W. H. Auden and Frank O’Hara, who was visiting on the fateful night he was struck by a vehicle on a beach and killed. Using leftover materials he found under the classic wood house, perched high above the trees with stunning views of the ocean and bay, Hundley made a bench and a daybed for Kfoury. They were so successful that he then moved on to designing a sofa, floor lamp, dining table, chairs, and more out of light oak. Inspired by the idea of being shipwrecked, he says, “I cut the wood into little strips to make it go as far as possible.” Hundley built the handmade, limited-edition pieces with a simple dowel construction and topped off some with oil enamel in colors like blue lagoon and marigold. Arranged in a room, the furniture has an appealing airiness as light travels through the slender legs; its easy elegance invites a guest to relax. “I like making spaces nice,” says Hundley. “I want people to feel welcome. I want them to stay.” —BART BOEHLERT
P HOTOGRAP HY BY D OU GLAS F R I E DM A N
DISCOVERIES between the pages
1
Soft Sell
2
Joseph Dirand, a strict modernist, makes a soulful transition
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1. FOR CLIENTS IN GERMANY, ARCHITECT JOSEPH DIRAND CREATED A FLUTED MARBLE CHIMNEYPIECE. 2. AN ORANGERIE-STYLE POOL BUILDING IN PARIS.
1. AND 2. ADRIEN DIRAND
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hen French architect Joseph Dirand began his career, he was obsessed with minimalism. Under the scoured spell of everything from writer Curzio Malaparte’s shockingly spare clifftop villa on the isle of Capri to British reductivist John Pawson’s sun-splashed architectural severities, the impressionable young designer-to-be began by exploring the possibilities of what he calls “the blank white page—I had to start there.” Today the scruffily handsome designer to the stars (Kanye West is a fan, as are myriad anonymous corporate chieftains) and leading labels (boutiques for Alexander Wang, Rick Owens, Chloé, Balmain, Givenchy, and more) has set aside that jejune fascination to develop a distinctive language that is restrained in its elements but opulent in spirit. “My work has evolved from minimalism to much more narrative,” says the designer, who is the subject of a new book that proves that statement. Joseph Dirand Interior (Rizzoli)— with photos by his brother, Adrien—opens with an accessoryfree Paris flat that Dirand describes as an early experiment in “the radicalism of emptiness and contrast.” Today, though, his projects feel like movie sets awaiting their casts.
DISCOVERIES between the pages 2
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“My work has evolved from minimalism to much more narrative.” —Joseph Dirand
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1. DIRAND AT REST. 2. JOSEPH DIRAND INTERIOR ($65; RIZZOLIUSA.COM) FEATURES THE ARCHITECT’S OWN HOME ON THE COVER. 3. A SENSUAL MARBLE TUB IN A FRANKFURT PROJECT. 4. THE CHAMPAGNE BAR AT THE SURF CLUB.
1. DOUGLAS MCWALL; 2. COURTESY OF RIZZOLI; 3. AND 4. ADRIEN DIRAND
“I’m always talking about cinema because, in a way, I’m writing scenarios and only need the actors,” Dirand explains. “I want people to disappear into the rooms, to become immersed, rather than just to contemplate them.” That, he observes, is how “you create memories.” Dirand’s decors embody echoes of 4 the past, often sparked by the projects’ buildings, histories, or neighborhoods, the designer says, “to establish strong emotions.” His recently opened Surf Club at the Four Seasons Hotel in Surfside, Florida, potently alludes to its Jazz Age heyday but in contemporary fashion. “It’s not about re-creating another time,” he adds, “but designing spaces where people of all cultures can find a connection.” At the restaurant Monsieur Bleu in Paris, Dirand wrapped the banquettes in greenish Connemara marble, his ode to the lush trees seen through the eatery’s verdant garden. (Marble is one of Dirand’s favored materials, though rounded and honed rather than flashy.) And a ’70s-inspired table for a Pucci boutique is made of the same stone that he spotted in the aristocratic fashion family’s 18th-century Florentine palazzo. Most of all, Dirand notes, his projects, rich with craftsmanship, feel grounded rather than fleeting. “Ours is a period of consumption, but we want to create things that last.” josephdirand.com —MITCHELL OWENS
DISCOVERIES legacy
AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR GRUPPO STRUM’S 1966 PRATONE LOUNGE.
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ARCHIZOOM’S 1967 SAFARI SOFA FOR POLTRONOVA.
LAPO BINAZZI’S CIRCA 1975 DOLLARO LAMP, CONCEIVED FOR THE SHERWOOD RESTAURANT.
ideas in Turin, where labor riots surged around the city’s many factories. Art critic Germano Celant, who covered the movement in Ugo La Pietra’s In magazine in 1971, awarded the extended group their official name: the Radicals. Nearly 50 years later and still as radical as ever, their designs are ripe for rediscovery. Gufram, the Italian manufacturer behind the movement’s famous foam furniture, has put many of its cartoonish creations back into production, including Gruppo Strum’s 1966 Pratone lounge (basically a giant patch of grass), and Studio 65’s 1970 lip-shaped Bocca sofa, the latest incarnation of which— with zippered lips—has been devised by Moschino’s Jeremy Scott. Collectors such as Dennis Freedman (more than 60 pieces from his trove go on display at the Museum of Fine Arts,
A 1969 PROTOTYPE OF STUDIO 65’S LEONARDO SOFA.
Totally Radical The design world rediscovers the controversial creations of Italy’s most revolutionary movement 52
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FROM TOP: UGO MULAS/COURTESY OF PIETRO DEROSSI; JOE KRAMM/COURTESY OF R & CO. (3)
t Milan’s Salone del Mobile in 1971, Florentine architect Lapo Binazzi assembled polyurethane pieces into a Doric temple, queued up his sound track, and pressed play. “Our dream was to ruin the temple to the ground, to the sound of an earthquake,” remembers Binazzi, now 74 and still based in Florence. The practical application of the remaining chunks of columns and pediment? Chairs and tables for college students. Such playful destruction was a fitting metaphor for the time, as the world convulsed with student protests, worker revolts, and creative outbursts like Pop Art and rock ’n’ roll. In the mid1960s, young architecture students across Italy began channeling their revolutionary ideas into provocative furniture, interiors, artworks, and installations that challenged the prevailing less-is-more modernism and rampant consumerism of postwar Italy. While Binazzi’s UFO collective, alongside Superstudio, Archizoom, and Gianni Pettena, stirred the waters in Florence, Franco Audrito of Studio 65 carried out similar
DISCOVERIES legacy “It was a rich, rich, rich period. There hasn’t been anything close to it before or after.” —Dennis Freedman 1
Houston, in 2019) and museums like New York’s Met have begun scooping up vintage pieces at a breakneck pace. On November 7, New York’s R & Co. gallery will unveil “SuperDesign,” the first major U.S. survey—complete with a corresponding documentary—since MoMA’s landmark 1972 exhibition “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” christened the movement Stateside. “This work feels more relevant now than ever,” says R & Co. cofounder Evan Snyderman, who has been collecting Radical design for more than 20 years and collaborated with Milan-based curator Maria Cristina Didero on the show. “Italy was a total disaster in the ’60s. It seems like we’re at that moment again—this apex of chaos.” Since there was no funding for these architects to erect their experimental buildings, many brought their wild ideas to life in domestic interiors, nightclubs, and public spaces. At Binazzi’s annually reincarnated Bamba Issa disco in the coastal town of Forte dei Marmi, party people lounged on camelshaped sofas or among the foam ruins of a Greek amphitheater. Diners at his Sherwood restaurant in Florence, meanwhile, ate from the wood leaves of a giant beanstalk that snaked from the basement to the second floor. The rest of the space bore a potpourri of references: a chalet-style entrance covered in faux leather, a kitchen inspired by the Kremlin, a courtyard resembling a Scottish castle. “It was a semantic atomic bomb!” Binazzi remarked at R & Co. last year. “We had a thirst for rebellion,” says Audrito, at the time a student in Turin, “so architecture and design became the language of our revolution.” It began with public installations—for example, a long line of clothespins hung with drawings that critiqued the university system—and evolved into polyurethane furnishings that captivated with their cheeky wit. A wavy, starred-and-striped sofa targeted America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and Audrito’s Capitello lounge upended the architectural poster child of power: the capital of an Ionic column. As Didero explains, “It’s asking you to put your bottom on history.” “The world is in a very difficult moment again,” says Audrito. “It’s time to rediscover this attitude. Young people need to believe that the world can change.” —HANNAH MARTIN
1. STUDIO 65’S BOCCA SOFA, DESIGNED FOR GUFRAM IN 1970. 2. ARCHIZOOM’S 1966 SUPERONDA SEATING. 3. THE RIMINI NIGHTCLUB L’ALTRO MONDO, DEVISED BY PIETRO DEROSSI AND GIORGIO CERETTI IN 1967. 4. LAPO BINAZZI’S 1971 INSTALLATION FOR SALONE DEL MOBILE.
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1. AND 4. JOE KRAMM/COURTESY OF R & CO.; 2. DARIO BARTOLINI/COURTESY OF CENTRO STUDI POLTRONOVA; 3. COURTESY OF PIETRO DEROSSI
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YVES BÉHAR AND HIS WIFE, SABRINA BUELL, WITH THEIR CHILDREN AT THEIR SAN FRANCISCO HOME (VOGUE, 2016).
CULTURE
WHERE TO GO, WHO TO KNOW, WHAT TO SEE
EDITED BY SAM COCHRAN
Yves Béhar
FRANÇOIS HALARD/TRUNK ARCHIVE
At home in San Francisco, the designer and his young family put his smart devices to the test
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his is why we live in San Francisco,” says Yves Béhar, standing on the deck of the master bedroom at his Cow Hollow house, a minimalistverging-on-brutalist structure overlooking the sparkling teal bay and sprawling Marin Headlands. The Swiss designer is working on only a few hours of sleep, having flown in from Vancouver, but it’s clear he feels rejuvenated by the natural beauty of his adopted hometown. Béhar, who founded his firm, fuseproject, in 1999, is that unique combination of hippie and techie. One of the most sought-after innovators in Silicon Valley, he has designed, among other things, Jawbone’s wearable fitness tracker,
an affordable tablet for children, and a bassinet that rocks babies to sleep at the first sound of crying. He spent five years dreaming up the house he shares with his wife, art consultant Sabrina Buell, and four children. The space serves as both lab and inspiration for his work. (As he reflects, “If I don’t experiment in my own life, who will pay me to do it?”) The front door automatically unlocks as he approaches it; inside, motorized screens can be voice-activated, as can the sound system, using the home-automation app Simple Control. “The point was never to decorate a house,” Béhar says. “The point was to build a life within it.” That life is as connected socially as it is digitally. Part of the motivation for creating his August Smart Lock was so
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that he and Buell could let friends and family—not to mention deliveries—into their house more easily. (Doors can be opened, digital keys shared, and activity tracked, all via an app.) The couple can transform their bedroom into an entertaining space for movie nights or dance parties by dropping down a projection screen or activating a trippy animated LED light show with just a tap on Béhar’s phone—though he prefers voice control because it means he doesn’t have to take 5 himself out of the moment by reaching for the device. “What’s really exciting is building a lot of surprises into an environment,” says the designer, who will soon be able to link his sound system with the smart turntable he’s creating called Love. And he can record all the fun on the Super 8–style camera (a film-digital hybrid) he will introduce next year in collaboration with Kodak. As a family, Béhar, Buell, and the kids are more inclined to fly drones in the living room (in spite of artworks by the likes of Nicole Wermers, Wyatt Kahn, and Ken Price) than watch TV. So for years, Béhar has hidden their television away in a cabinet of copper-colored, anodized aluminum that also serves as storage for tableware. Recently, however, he added The Frame, a discreet, wall-mounted Samsung television of his own design that displays art when not in use. (Choose from 100 free works by more than 35 artists, including Todd Eberle, Barry McGee, and John Severson, a personal favorite photographer of Béhar’s.) Coming up, he’s also got a smart box, developed with MIT Media Lab, in which you can grow any kind of food; a headband that prolongs deep sleep; and a top-secret virtual-reality project. Thrown together, all this technology might make it seem like robots are taking over. But Béhar is devoted to ameliorating the fear that thought can induce. “The design is much more important than the tech,” he says. “Making things approachable and familiar so people will adopt them in their life is key.” fuseproject.com —EMILY HOLT
INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR: FRANÇOIS HALARD/TRUNK ARCHIVE; ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF FUSEPROJECT
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CULTURE travels
Fertile Imaginations The young minds at Rural Studio transform a quiet corner of Alabama into a hotbed for cutting-edge design
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ighty-one years ago, Walker Evans came to Hale County, Alabama, to photograph the region’s crushing poverty. These days, tourists come to photograph its architecture. Since 1993, students from Auburn University have been designing and building structures that improve the lives of residents while adding a contemporary edge to the local mix of mobile homes and antebellum houses. In Newbern, a town with fewer than 200 residents, they have produced a firehouse sheathed in polycarbonate panels that shimmer every time a car goes by, a town hall made of cypress timbers, and a public library in an old bank building that had been unoccupied. When visitors walk through the library’s front door, “they marvel at the creativity inside,” says Alfreda Howard, Newbern’s former librarian, of the space designed and built by architecture students. Auburn’s program, called Rural Studio, was cofounded by Samuel Mockbee, a Mississippi-born
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architect and larger-than-life figure (known by all as Sambo) who rallied students behind his cause of building for the poor. In the beginning, the focus was on houses—but not ordinary houses. One was made from stacks of carpet tiles, another using tires. A chapel, meanwhile, was created, daringly, from surplus Chevy Caprice windshields. There is little official building-code enforcement in Hale County, so it’s a good place to experiment. Student projects, nonetheless, are rigorously vetted by Auburn faculty and visiting architecture critics. Working in teams, students not only produce detailed drawings but also build physical mock-ups that they subject to stress tests before construction can begin. “You have to show that you deserve to build,” says Xavier Vendrell, an architect from Barcelona who joined the faculty in 2013. Though Mockbee died in 2001, his legacy is carried on by Rural Studio’s British-born director, Andrew Freear. Responding to requests from
CREATED USING 55-GALLON DRUMS, LIONS PARK PLAYSCAPE IN GREENSBORO, ALABAMA, IS ONE OF MANY LOCAL STRUCTURES DESIGNED AND BUILT BY THE STUDENTS OF RURAL STUDIO (RURALSTUDIO.ORG).
P HOTOGRAP HY BY T I M OT HY H U R S L E Y
CULTURE travels THE HALE COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER, ALSO IN GREENSBORO, FEATURES A CURVED ROOF THAT EMPLOYS OFF-THE-SHELF LUMBER TO ACHIEVE A LARGE SPAN.
“We tend to be suckers for scrappy underdogs,” says Rural Studio director Andrew Freear. community leaders, Freear shifted the program’s emphasis from houses to schools, senior centers, animal shelters, and other public buildings. “We tend to be suckers for scrappy underdogs,” he explains. Among the triumphs of the Freear era is a group of structures that have made the 600-acre Perry Lakes Park, closed for decades, into a must-see destination. The structures include an extraordinarily elegant bridge, a pavilion for events and performances, a series of one-of-a-kind restrooms, and a perch (popular with birders) made from the armature of an old fire tower. As a fifth-year architecture student in 2005, Natalie Butts-Ball was part of the team that dismantled the tower, moved it 73 miles, and reconstructed it at Perry Lakes. In 2012, she returned to Newbern as Rural Studio’s communications manager, a job that sometimes entails leading tours of the more than 200 extant Rural Studio projects. She also hopes to make plans for some Rural Studio 20K Homes (studentdesigned houses that can be built for $20,000 or less) available to the public free of charge. On a recent Thursday afternoon, one group of students was getting ready to build such a home for a client in the town of Faunsdale, while others were testing a giant new greenhouse in Newbern. Along
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BY ADAPTING A DECOMMISSIONED FIRE TOWER, RURAL STUDIO DEVISED A VIEWING PLATFORM FOR BIRDERS AT PERRY LAKES PARK, JUST OUTSIDE HALE COUNTY.
with its architectural ambitions, the studio has plans to jump-start local agriculture, which has declined to the point that the area has become a produce desert. The availability of fresh fruits and vegetables will benefit everyone in Newbern, including Rural Studio faculty and students. Unlike other altruistic architects who undertake projects far from home, they are rooted in Hale County. “We don’t fly in and fly out,” Freear says. “We’ve dug ourselves in here, and we live surrounded by our projects.” —FRED A. BERNSTEIN
CULTURE inspiration
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1. A PULL ($236) AND 2. THUMBTURN ($155) FROM PETER PENNOYER’S LINE FOR LOWE HARDWARE (LOWE-HARDWARE.COM). 3. AN ELEVATION OF THE OHIO HOUSE HE DESIGNED IN THE SPIRIT OF CZECH CUBISM.
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Czech Mate Architect Peter Pennoyer finds creative fuel in Prague’s Cubist past
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A 4. EMIL KRÁLÍČEK’S 1913 LAMPPOST IN JUNGMANN SQUARE. 5. INSIDE PRAGUE’S ICONIC HOUSE OF THE BLACK MADONNA. 6. A PRAGUE HOUSING BLOCK BY JOSEF CHOCHOL.
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rchitect Peter Pennoyer is famously fluent in all things historical. But when he began designing a house in Hunting Valley, Ohio, he encountered an obscure source of inspiration. The client, an art collector, asked Pennoyer to delve into Czech Cubism, a scarcely known movement that ran a short course in the 1910s and spanned multiple media, from decorative arts to architecture. “It’s a fascinating style but one I knew nothing about,” reflects Pennoyer, who pored over Art Deco catalogs, eventually traveling to Prague to visit surviving examples like the 1912 House of the Black Madonna and a 1913 lamppost. The style was
popularized in the city’s Artěl workshops, where radical talents like Josef Gočár, Pavel Janák, and Vlastislav Hofman broke from neoclassical conventions, studying crystalline structures, orthogonal prisms, and the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. “I see the movement as a celebration of geometry beyond any rational limit,” says Pennoyer, who, with a 3-D printer handy, modeled new hardware for the Ohio house after vintage Czech Cubist designs. A collaboration with Maine-based Lowe Hardware, the collection makes its public retail debut in November. (It comprises faceted handles, pulls, hinges, doorstops, levers, and window stays in a variety of metal finishes.) “Angular forms express more force and energy,” says Pennoyer, reflecting on the need to balance striking silhouettes and everyday functionality. “That’s a tall order for any designer.” —ELIZABETH FAZZARE
1. AND 2. STUART TYSON; 3. COURTESY OF PETER PENNOYER ARCHITECTS; 4. IVOHA/ALAMY; 5. YADID LEVY/ANZENBERGER/REDUX; 6. PETR BONEK/ALAMY
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EDITED BY SAM COCHRAN
HAND-LETTERING BY LEANNE SHAPTON
From emerging stars to established WDOHQWV VWLOO »\LQJ XQGHU WKH UDGDU these designers are reshaping the ZD\ ZH OLYH WKLQN DQG EXLOG -XGJLQJ IURP WKHP WKH IXWXUH LV EULJKW
Photographed at their London live/work space, Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves of Studio Swine pose with the model for the New Spring installation they created with COS.
PORT R A IT BY WILL S ANDERS
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2 1. An assemblage of materials scavenged from the Indian Ocean. 2. Studio Swine’s New Spring collaboration with COS. 3. A comb made from resin-coated hair. 4. A stool cast from aluminum waste found on the streets of São Paulo.
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Alexander Groves and Azusa Murakami, the husbandand-wife founders of Studio Swine, are always down for an expedition. Speaking from their London home, the designers recall one of their farthest-ung trips to date: a voyage deep into the Amazonian rain forest to visit an enclave of rubber tappers. Getting there required two planes, a six-hour drive, and, when roads became unnavigable, a cattle caravan through the rain forest. Then the couple spent four days studying the material that they would transform into ebonite (a plasticlike substitute for ebony wood) and use for their Fordlandia collection of chairs—so named for Henry Ford’s deserted manufacturing town, another stop on their journey. “If you can support their economy, you support the forest,â€? says Groves, who explains that because rubber-producing trees have been exported to Southeast Asia, weakening the industry in Brazil, native Amazonian species are at risk of being cleared for agriculture or for the valuable tropical hardwoods found among them. Deep research dives are par for the course for him and Murakami, who founded their ďŹ rm in 2011 after graduating from London’s Royal College of Art, eager to channel their eco-friendly ideas into high-concept designs. “Sustainability is the starting point, but we don’t like the 4 term,â€? says Groves, noting that they want
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people to appreciate their work on an aesthetic level, rather than allow any environmental credentials to take over the narrative. At Salone del Mobile this past April, Swine turned many heads, collaborating with the clothing brand COS on a tree sculpture dripping with gelatinous spheres of foggy air. “Every year in Milan it’s just more stuff,â€? says Murakami. “We didn’t want to add to the mass of things, so we created an experience.â€? They’ve since landed on the roster of Pace’s sister gallery, Future/Pace. Now it’s all eyes on Swine. Good luck ďŹ nding them. While Murakami and Groves call a small apartment in London’s Bethnal Green neighborhood both home and ofďŹ ce, their adventures continue to lead them across the globe. They have befriended garbage collectors in SĂŁo Paulo, turning assorted trash into seating. They have teamed up with ďŹ shermen in coastal England, melting plastic ocean debris into stools while at sea. And they have traced a wig trade from East London markets to Chinese factories that weave human hair. The duo cast strands into resin furniture, vessels, and, rather wittily, combs that mimic tortoiseshell or endangered tropical woods. “The ďŹ rst time you see hair being washed it looks really repulsive, but after a while it becomes dehumanized, just another material like wool or silk,â€? says Murakami, pointing out that, given Earth’s exploding population, it’s also a renewable resource. As Groves notes, “Design is a tool for changing perceptions.â€? studioswine.com —HANNAH MARTIN
1. PETR KREJÄŒĂ?; 2., 3., AND 4. COURTESY OF STUDIO SWINE
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1 1. Voutsa founder George Venson, surrounded by his own fabrics, at home in Manhattan. 2. A painting for his new floral collection. 3. A range of trunks showcase Voutsa’s patterns.
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GROOMING BY MIKE FERNANDEZ FOR ARTISTS BY TIMOTHY PRIANO USING NARS COSMETICS AND EVO; 2. AND 3. COURTESY OF VOUTSA
Voutsa
Pattern maestro GEORGE VENSON SXVKHV GLJLWDO WHFKQRORJ\ WR SDLQWHUO\ H[WUHPHV LQ ZDOOSDSHU IDEULFV DFFHVVRULHV DQG PRUH “Have a seat! Have a whiskey!â€? George Venson says with a wave of his arm, gesturing toward the beaded Yoruba chair in his Manhattan live/work loft. Tempting though a drink may be, there is already plenty to lift one’s spirits in the apartment. Window shades in his theatrical fabrics mingle with paintings in progress and rolls of the wallpaper that catapulted his career—exuberant patterns like coiling snakes, pouty lips, and costumed Ballets Russes dancers. Pinned to the wall, meanwhile, are studies for his latest creations, a oral series referencing 1920s French prints that he reinterpreted in Gustav Klimt colors. Since founding his company, Voutsa, in 2014, Venson has helped transform the wallpaper industry from a dusty art form into a fresh creative frontier, adapting his paintings into vibrant motifs using state-of-the-art software and printers. New technology and traditional artistry, he insists, don’t have to be at odds. “Digital printing has had the reputation of being second tier,â€? Venson reects. “But people just weren’t used to seeing highly considered examples treated with the same passion as screen printing.â€?
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Creating a successful pattern, of course, is as much a mathematical exercise as a visual one. Even with the help of a computer, rhythms must be planned from the painting stage, keeping paper widths and repeat thresholds in mind so that edges meet organically, maintaining a sense of spontaneity. “You want it to flow,” says Venson, who, in a feat of right brain/left brain acrobatics, studied economics and art at Rice University in Houston. “The more you respect the painterly qualities and leave them be, the better a pattern is.” “In these dark, crazy, mean times, George’s work reminds us what the pleasures of life can be,” says artist Justin Vivian Bond, who collaborated with Venson on a 2015 wallpaper that will appear in the New Museum’s fall show “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon.”
Architect Kunlé Adeyemi with his MFS II Floating School at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, where he received the Silver Lion award.
Kunlé Adeyemi
A roll of wallpaper from Voutsa’s 2017 Tahitia series.
Nowadays, Venson spreads joy not just through wallpaper but also through luggage, candles, lampshades, and garments (including the robe—designed with Paul Marlow—that Jenna Lyons wore to this year’s Tony Awards). In addition, last spring he officially expanded into textiles with the launch of Tahitia, along with 20 of his most popular wallpaper patterns. And he continues to take on custom commissions, whether for AD100 designers like Robert Couturier or hospitality projects like the soon-toopen Itz’ana resort in Belize. Next, Venson plans to debut his own Manhattan showroom, where— in the spirit of Fornasetti or Marimekko—he can translate his patterns into an ever-expanding array of objects. As Venson puts it, “Whatever I do needs to be fierce.” voutsa.com —SAM COCHRAN
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“What are today’s global challenges? How can you make an impact?” These are the questions Kunlé Adeyemi recently posed to a crowded room at New York’s Center for Architecture, questions that continue to guide his innovative design practice. Since founding his firm, NLÉ, in 2010, the architect has studied how two of the world’s most pressing issues—urbanization and climate change—are converging throughout coastal Africa. “People are crowding into cities, cities by rising water,” he reflected. “In order to create coexistence between humanity and the environment, we must build differently.” Adeyemi has pioneered just such a model, developing floating architecture partly inspired by one man’s humble dwelling in Lagos, Nigeria. “I do not know his name or when he built it, but it is one of the most relevant works I have ever seen,” said Adeyemi, who splits his time between Lagos and Amsterdam. “Out of nothing this unknown architect created almost everything he needs.” With that example in mind, Adeyemi created the Makoko Floating School in 2012. In that structure he sought to offer a prototype for alternative building types in developing coastal communities. Unfortunately, after being damaged in a heavy storm last year, it collapsed while out of use. A second iteration of the school, this time built using a prefabricated system, earned Adeyemi the prestigious Silver Lion award at last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. And he is preparing a final, completely modular variation for the 2018 Bruges Triennial. “We are working with local partners to develop a version that can be rolled out for mass production,” he said. “The idea is that you can use it not only for schools but homes, clinics, markets, and more.” nleworks.com —S.C.
FROM TOP: IWAN BAAN; COURTESY OF VOUTSA
In the face of urbanization and climate change, the Nigerian architect pioneers a new way to build
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1. Richard Petit (far left) of The Archers, with colleagues Dan Baklik, Mary Casper, Stephen Hunt, and Andrew Elmendorf, at Mare, a West Hollywood salon the firm recently remodeled. 2. For a 1940s house in Silver Lake, they conceived a modernist steel staircase lacquered cadmium yellow.
1. GROOMING BY CARISSA FERRERI FOR TRACEY MATTINGLY USING CHANEL LES BEIGES; DAYBED: JF CHEN; 2. COURTESY OF THE ARCHERS
The Archers
%HORYHG E\ +ROO\ZRRGÂąV \RXQJ HOLWH WKLV /RV $QJHOHV FROODERUDWLYH PLJKW be the most exciting design ÂşUP \RXÂąYH QHYHU KHDUG RI Richard Petit and Stephen Hunt borrowed the curious name of their Los Angeles–based design ďŹ rm from British ďŹ lmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the pioneering duo behind such classics as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes, who wrote, produced, and directed under the banner of The Archers. “They were intensely collaborative and experimental, and they always pushed the boundaries of their medium,â€? Petit says of the homage. “Stephen and I didn’t want to use our own names—or anything with the words interiors or architecture—because that would limit our purview. We’re interested in everything visual, and everyone in the ofďŹ ce has a stake.â€? Considering their loyal following among L.A.’s young creative set, including some of Hollywood’s leading lights, The Archers’ fanciful cinematic name seems apt. “We’re all crazy cinephiles, but it’s not simply about mining the history of ďŹ lm for individual images. We’re looking for connections and inuences, how ideas evolve and morph.
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We’re not just building Lana Turner’s country house from Imitation of Life,” Petit explains. The Archers’ devotion to the study of history finds eloquent expression in the firm’s impeccably curated Instagram feed (@the.archers.inc), which supplies design junkies across the globe with a steady stream of bewitching interiors, furniture, and decorative bijoux. More often than not, the treasures on display are drawn from 20th-century European design, one of The Archers’ chief wellsprings of inspiration. “Milan was the cradle of modern decoration,” says Petit of his favorite design capital. “The culture of innovation, academic rigor, and artistry produced one maestro after another.” The team is known for its sophisticated color palettes (the artist Balthus is a major influence) as well as a preference for combining humble materials in unexpected ways. Intricate tile patterns rendered in striking hues are a signature flourish. For a recently completed apartment in Las Vegas, The Archers created radiused bathrooms sheathed in penny tiles, replete with ceramic murals of Rorschach inkblots. Although their practice is mostly residential, The Archers have designed offices for clients in the entertainment world, as well as the ultrachic Mare salon in West Hollywood. “In every project, we try to do something we’ve never done before,” Petit points out. “We’re always looking for this moment of joy, which usually starts with someone saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if. . . ?’ ” team-archers.com —MAYER RUS
bath at an L.A. cottage, The Archers used Ann Sacks tile to riff on the pattern of the Theo van Doesburg floors at J.J.P. Oud’s 1918 De Vonk house in the Netherlands. 2. The living room of a newly completed home in Silver Lake.
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1. For the master
Lara Zureikat (photographed at a residential project) designed the gardens at the new Palestinian Museum.
Lara Zureikat
“My favorite moment is right after a garden’s installed,” says Lara Zureikat, Jordanian landscape architect and associate director of Amman’s Center for the Study of the Built Environment (CSBE). Within hours, butterflies flit out of nowhere, bees buzz in, and birds perch. “That’s when a garden isn’t mine anymore. It takes on a life of its own.” At the Palestinian Museum in the West Bank town of Birzeit, the fauna materialized on schedule, but significantly, so have thousands of people. Though the prismatic structure by Heneghan Peng Architects was completed last year with lofty goals and empty rooms—internal disagreements delayed exhibitions until this September—visitors could luxuriate amid the plants that Zureikat had assembled on the grounds, a permanent collection of the vegetal sort. Terraces hemmed with fieldstone dominate the ten-acre site, radiating from the museum in zigzags and echoing the hilly region’s land-use traditions. Zureikat approached the localization similarly, greening the arid plot with 72 species that represent Palestine’s agricultural traditions and bear witness to trading, commerce, medicine, cuisine, and more. Chickpeas flourish, as do spearmint, apricots, wild leeks,
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sticky Jerusalem sage, black mulberries, even saltbush, which is grown to feed livestock. They are plants that every visitor recognizes, can relate to, and, perhaps, can take comfort in. “I went around Palestinian villages, took lots of photographs, talked with people, and just absorbed it all,” Zureikat says, “observing the simple things that people take for granted and finding a way to draw attention to their beauty.” To achieve that she grouped species into dramatic geometric clumps and swaths that recall the gardens of Roberto Burle Marx, whose work she admired while earning her master’s degree at UC Berkeley. As one of the Middle East’s handful of landscape practitioners, which Zureikat describes as “a very young profession here,” she emphasizes indigenous plants in her commissions, which include private gardens in Jordan and a forthcoming hotel in Saudi Arabia. “People often wonder why there aren’t any lawns or jacarandas or very flowery ornamental plants in my work, but the natural landscape is the theme I explore— how people have shaped their environments, the stories you can read in the landscape, and how to find ways to represent them.” csbe.org —MITCHELL OWENS
P ORT RAI T BY NADI A B S E I S O
EXTERIOR: IWAN BAAN
A Jordanian garden guru greens the :HVW %DQN DQG UHGHºQHV WKH ODQGVFDSH SURIHVVLRQ LQ WKH 0LGGOH (DVW
1. Peter Bristol’s Dot lamp for Visual Comfort. 2. The designer, with an expandable LED chandelier, also from his Visual Comfort line. 3. Dot pendant light. 4. Oculus Rift headset.
Peter Bristol
In real life and virtual reality alike, an innovative product designer lights the way
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It’s an overcast afternoon, and industrial designer Peter Bristol is invigorated. Never mind that he’s arrived to work straight from the airport, having flown to Seattle from New York, where he exhibited his latest lighting designs at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair 2 (ICFF). “I didn’t sleep or use my laptop—I just sketched for hours,” reflects Bristol. “There are enough thoughts to occupy the trip.” As the creative director and head of industrial design at Oculus VR, Bristol is no stranger to challenges, working on groundbreaking devices like the Oculus Rift virtualreality headset as well as its attendant controllers, sensors, packaging, and branding (everything related to how we physically interact with VR in real life). But Bristol is also an independent lighting, furniture, and product designer, known for employing state-of-the art technologies to create forms at once minimalist and whimsically evocative. He has combined two tools for carpal-tunnel surgery into one device, updated an ergonomic mouse and keyboard for Microsoft, and devised a microscope slide that yields superprecise imaging of live cells. Most noteworthy of all, however, may be his lighting, which relies on LED technology to achieve strikingly spare silhouettes. As part of a new collection for Visual Comfort, for example, Bristol has created a cylindrical lacelike chandelier that can be expanded and contracted—its steel and electrical connections all intricately woven together—as well as an array of kinetic floor and pendant lamps with delicate LED-lit discs of varying diameters. At ICFF, Bristol debuted new additions to Juniper’s THIN lighting collection, so named for its superslim forms. “His entire mind-set is one of reduction,” explains Juniper CEO Shant Madjarian. “He wants a design to be intuitive, its function to stand out.” While the THIN chandelier (a smaller version of which was unveiled) features 12 svelte branches able to stretch wide like a tarantula or collapse like an unused umbrella, the THIN task lamp is pared back to just base and arm, with an embedded LED strip. “There are designs that just feel right and truthful, and you’re always hunting for those,” says Bristol, a Washington-state native with a love of the outdoors, especially snowboarding. “It’s always the things that push boundaries that are the most interesting.” In the future, Bristol hopes, more products can realize the same honesty as his lighting, asking, “How transparent can you make the architecture of a product?” His pen and paper, of course, are never far away. peterbristol.net —BRIAN LIBBY
It’s a peculiar political moment for globally minded creatives, and for emerging talents in particular it takes some chutzpah to establish oneself internationally. Architects Eduardo Cadaval and Clara SolĂ -Morales didn’t really have any other choice. Born an ocean apart—he in Mexico, she in Spain— the two met while studying at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, eventually launching their own studio in 2003 after stints at New York practices. They began working out of a tiny Manhattan apartment but soon enlisted collaborators in Barcelona and opened their main ofďŹ ce there. They now have a satellite team in Mexico City, too. “We started almost naturally,â€? reects Cadaval. “On both continents, we answer with the same strategy: Say the most with the least.â€? As their ďŹ rm has expanded to 12 people, he and SolĂ -Morales have managed to preserve that sense of ease, evidenced by a growing portfolio of private homes that manage formal acrobatics in even the most daunting of contexts. In Spain’s rugged Pyrenees, the architects designed what seems at ďŹ rst a simple A-frame cottage but reveals an interior of startlingly irregular rooms. Half a world away, in Puerto Escondido, they created a house of typical Mexican concrete that lightens the mood with bright-red hammocks slung from its multilevel decks and breezeways. “If you’re simplifying a project, you’re making it stronger,â€? declares Cadaval, who sees this aesthetic Occam’s razor as the unifying element in the
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Cadaval & SolĂ -Morales
&ULVVFURVVLQJ WKH $WODQWLF D 0H[LFDQ 6SDQLVK DUFKLWHFWXUH GXR WDLORUV GDULQJ UHVLGHQFHV to challenging sites
FROM TOP: SANDRA PEREZNIETO; MARTI ENTIRACH
A house on the coast of Spain by architects Eduardo Cadaval and Clara SolĂ Morales (inset).
1. A poolside pavilion for a compound in Tepoztlán, Mexico, distills three living quarters into a Y-shaped plan with an open core. 2. X House in Cabrils, Spain. 3. Inside another house by the firm in Tepoztlán.
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firm’s work. At its most extreme, this surgical simplicity reduces plans to daring geometries, from an X-shaped villa dangling off a cliff to a Y-shaped pool pavilion that pushes indoor-outdoor living to the limits. Their greatest challenge may be to carry that same precision to bigger commissions. “We were afraid of being trapped just doing houses,” Cadaval admits. It’s a snare they’ve recently escaped thanks to a bevy of large-scale projects, including a 500,000-square-foot residential tower in the Mexican capital’s tony Polanco district. And having taught at the University of Pennsylvania and MIT, Cadaval and Solà-Morales have already made inroads into the U.S. design community. The response has been encouraging, to say the least. This year, 3 the firm was honored as one of the Architectural League of New York’s prestigious Emerging Voices (an award previously bestowed upon now-established stars like Studio Gang and SHoP Architects). “I wouldn’t associate them with a singular style but instead a real joy in designing in response to singular sites,” says Anne Rieselbach, the League’s program director, adding, “not just by creative planning but also through construction techniques and building materials.” In uncertain times, the architects’ approach seems to be paying off. “We don’t want to be one office in Spain and a different one in Mexico,” says Cadaval. Wherever they go, the designers remain determined to be themselves—and they want to go everywhere. ca-so.com —IAN VOLNER
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1.,2., AND 3. SANDRA PEREZNIETO
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A CLASSIC COLEFAX AND FOWLER FLORAL SETS THE TONE IN THE MASTER BEDROOM OF WESTERLY, TORY BURCH’S SOUTHAMPTON HOME. THE PAINTED GEORGE III–STYLE FOURPOSTER IS DRESSED
IN D. PORTHAULT LINENS; CARLO BUGATTI CHAIRS FLANK THE FIREPLACE; BOTANICAL PRINTS BY RENZO MONGIARDINO; LA MANUFACTURE COGOLIN CARPET. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
Perfect Fit At her impeccably tailored Hamptons getaway, fashion star Tory Burch lives life to the fullest DAVID NETTO OBERTO GILI STYLED BY CARLOS MOTA
TEXT BY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
HAIR BY TARA JARVIS USING ORIBE, CHRISTOPHE ROBIN, AND REVERIE. MAKEUP BY BERTA CAMAL FOR ARTISTSANDCOMPANY
TORY BURCH, IN THE SYLVIA GOWN FROM HER FALL 2017 COLLECTION, STANDS NEXT TO A CELEBRATED DIEGO GIACOMETTI TABLE IN THE ENTRANCE HALL. CARPET BY STARK. OPPOSITE THE LIVING-ROOM SOFAS ARE UPHOLSTERED IN COLEFAX AND FOWLER’S ICONIC BOWOOD. 1930S CRYSTAL CHANDELIER FROM LIZ O’BRIEN; CURTAINS OF A BRUNSCHWIG & FILS SILK; LA MANUFACTURE COGOLIN CARPET.
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FROM THE MOLDINGS TO THE BLACK-AND-WHITE FLOOR, ORIGINAL ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS ARE FRONT AND CENTER IN WESTERLY’S GROUNDFLOOR HALLWAY. LOUIS XVI CHAIRS AND BENCHES. OPPOSITE THE GARDEN FAÇADE.
Her tennis buddies call her Mighty Mouse. This is the kind of disarmingly pleasant thing one hears constantly about Tory Burch: She’s fun. She’s funny. She’s a great athlete. She loves children, even yours. She’s irreverent, informal . . . and so on. But when you roll up to the front door of Westerly, the enormous 1929 Georgian house in Southampton she bought nine years ago and has been decorating with Daniel Romualdez ever since, none of that seems possible. This is not by any outward appearance the house of someone who giggles—this is the house of the father-in-law you never wanted to meet, and who never wanted to meet you. Or the intimidating banker in a blackand-white movie you’d rather die than borrow money from. Think The Philadelphia Story and how that house reduces the hard-boiled journalists played by Jimmy Stewart and Ruth Hussey to blubbering bumpkins. When Burch acquired the house in 2008, it was during the darkest days of the financial crisis, when pretty much no one was acquiring anything. She had intended to build a place on the water, and designs had been drawn and permits acquired. But when the statelier inland option came on the market, it inspired her to discard those plans and buy boldly. What Burch gave up in terms of water views she got back in scale, dignity, and seven acres of expansive gardens, today redesigned with achingly beautiful results by landscape architect Perry Guillot. At 15,000 square feet, this has always been one of the biggest houses in Southampton. It is also, for the area, an unusually formal one: In the land of shingle and white-painted clapboard, Westerly’s red brick, black shutters, and slate roof stand out. Westerly also has reams of riotous folklore swirling around it, much of which emanates from the notorious 1963 debutante party thrown for Fernanda Wanamaker Wetherill (the real chandelier-swinging of that night did not actually take place here, but at an after-party), and her wedding five years later to Jamie Niven, son of the debonair movie star David, which packed the house with the likes of Lauren Bacall, Jason Robards, Gregory Peck, and every socialite from New York and Philadelphia. So, don’t be intimidated—despite the scale, there is a tradition of fun here, and with it a certain sweetness. Fernanda W. Niven today has wonderful memories of the house: “On Saturday my mother had breakfast in bed, and everyone in the house’s trays were brought into her room. That was where the party started.”
If buying such a house might be overwhelming, decorating a property its size is a truly daunting proposition. “We didn’t start empty,” explains Romualdez. “I said to Tory, ‘This house is vast—let’s keep things until we find something we like better.’ ” They took small bites: Remember, most people in a position to do so today do not choose to live on this scale and look at running a house like Westerly as just a lot of work. Burch enjoys it. Now that the house is basically complete, Romualdez explains that “the way Westerly has been decorated is the way a lot of those houses were done, before decorators played such a role.” What does that mean? Inherited furniture, personal style built on instinct, and a sense of patina built up over generations? Like an English country house, or maybe something in Maine? Exactly, says the designer. “Back in the era of the great American country house, from the 1890s to the 1920s, there was no storyboarding,” he notes. “It was much more organic.” When I ask if there was ever a moment in nine years that stumped him, Romualdez comes clean. “At some point, I started thinking we should just make that ballroom smaller, divide it into two rooms,” he recalls. Burch also continues to wrestle with the size of this room (50 by 25 feet) and confesses that she considers it something of a work in progress. At present it has been tamed with unlined melon taffeta curtains that billow and transmit light, and suites of comfy furniture upholstered in Colefax and Fowler’s classic 1938 Bowood print. There are some striking works of contemporary art by Walton Ford and George Condo, and a piano for good measure. I attempt to console them both with the news that in the Wetherills’ time this room was never even furnished, just sprinkled with a few ballroom chairs and used only for dancing. Sighs ensue, but too late—the work’s been done, and it’s already a beautiful room. If nine years sounds like a long time, keep in mind that while renovating this house, Burch and Romualdez have also been working on nearly 200 stores together. This is a serious level of collaboration, a little like a marriage, and as with any married couple the first question one wants to ask, of course, is “Have there been any fights?” Not that anyone remembers or is saying. Least of all the famously serene client: “Daniel takes people’s taste and makes it better” is Burch’s measured response. Romualdez admires the way she lives at Westerly as much as any of their aesthetic results. “I think this house is
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LULU, A STANDARD POODLE, SITS OUTSIDE THE POOLHOUSE FESTOONED WITH CLIMBING ROSES.
Don’t be intimidated—despite the scale, there is a tradition of fun here, and with it a certain sweetness.
RIGHT ZUBER’S EXUBERANT BAMBOO ADORNS THE POWDERROOM WALLS. OPPOSITE THE BED AND WALLS IN A GUEST ROOM SHARE THE SAME BRUNSCHWIG & FILS PATTERN. BEDDING BY LEONTINE LINENS AND D. PORTHAULT.
less ‘ironic’ than the stores,” referring to their zippy palette and general irreverence, “but the way she lives in it is. She is the most informal, unstuffy hostess I have ever been exposed to.” When pressed to describe any moment they might have disagreed on something, Burch has to think, but offers this: “We have a different take on color.” Even after all this time, the decorating—and collecting— continues. Not long ago the skirted table in the front hall was replaced by an octagonal bronze masterpiece by Diego Giacometti. The iconic piece was a favorite design of Hubert de Givenchy, who owned three versions. Burch is not specifically a collector of important furniture, but to those who are, this table is a legend, one of the great things one could ever own. Burch loved this work of art for its place in design history but confides that she pursued it not just for its beauty, but for personal reasons: Hubert de Givenchy reminds her of her late father. She’s leaning on it today in a tennis dress just the way she would any other table that might not be, as her friend Reed Krakoff describes it, “one of the great intersections of
design and art.” This is chic and disarming. “I like the mix of high and low,” Burch says, smiling. “To me that’s what makes style interesting.” Rather than the opulent backdrop for leisure the house was built to be, Westerly now functions as something of a lab—a source of inspiration and a tool for conjuring ideas for her collections. The master bedroom upstairs—probably the room most people would have finished first—has only just been completed. With its pale faux-stone diamond pattern– painted floor and potted topiaries, Colefax and Fowler floral chintz, and framed botanical prints, it is overtly feminine and an enchanting homage to Bunny Mellon, whose fabled house in Antigua Burch recently bought and is decorating with Romualdez. But that high/low, beauty-by-contrast thread runs even here amid all this loveliness, in the surprise appearance of a pair of rare and theatrical Carlo Bugatti chairs flanking the fireplace—pieces one might rather expect to find in a room by Peter Marino than by Bunny Mellon. In decorating as in fashion, no guts, no glory. ★ EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: TORY BURCH AT HOME, ARCHDIGEST.COM.
“I like the mix of high and low,” says Burch. “To me that’s what makes style interesting.”
IN THE DINING ROOM, STEPHEN ANTONSON TABLES ARE SET WITH A MIX OF CHINA INCLUDING DODIE THAYER FOR TORY BURCH LETTUCEWARE AND TORY BURCH SPRING MEADOW GLASSES.
ANTIQUE CHAIRS PAINTED CHALKY WHITE WITH SEAT CUSHIONS OF A LES INDIENNES COTTON. CUSTOM IKSEL– DECORATIVE ARTS WALL COVERING AND CURTAINS; LA MANUFACTURE COGOLIN CARPET.
design notes
THE DETAILS THAT MAKE THE LOOK
FUCHSIA COTTON IN BLUE BY COLEFAX AND FOWLER; TO THE TRADE. COWTAN.COM
THE SECONDFLOOR LANDING.
T-TILE BEACH TOWEL IN BLUE BIRD; $118. TORYBURCH.COM
“
I knew Tory well enough to know that blue would play a major role in this house,” says Romualdez.
LETTUCE WARE TUREEN IN WHITE BY DODIE THAYER FOR TORY BURCH; $350. TORYBURCH.COM
CAT-O-NINE-TAILS MIRROR BY CARVERS’ GUILD; $1,050. THEGILDEDMIRROR.COM
PRESERVED BOXWOOD TOPIARY; $65. BALLARD DESIGNS.COM
MARIAGE STANDARD SHAM; $500. DPORTHAULTPARIS.COM
CHAIR BY CARLO BUGATTI FROM BERND GOECKLER; $17,500. 1STDIBS.COM
CM350 PLASTER CROWN MOLDING; $33 PER LINEAR FT. HYDE-PARK.COM
OCTAGONAL TABLE BY DIEGO GIACOMETTI, C. 1980
PORCELAIN HYDRANGEA; PRICE UPON REQUEST. THEVLADIMIR COLLECTION.COM
“
I want everything— every room—to be lived in,” says Burch. “My goal is to use it.”
THE SUNROOM.
INTERIORS: OBERTO GILI; SHAM: GABRIELLA IMPERATORI-PENN; TABLE: © 2017 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/ADAGP, PARIS/COURTESY OF CHRISTIE’S IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES
SPRING MEADOW RED-WINE GLASS; $98 FOR SET OF TWO. TORYBURCH.COM
DARCY EMBROIDERED CLUTCH; $558. TORYBURCH.COM RUFFLE SNEAKER; $225. TORYSPORT.COM DECORATIVE LEAF PLATES; $198 FOR SET OF FOUR. TORYBURCH.COM
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keep it classic Rejecting the clichÉs of funky downtown living, fashion designer Charlotte Ronson and singer/songwriter Nate Ruess set up house in a reimagined loft with a decidedly uptown vibe
TEXT BY
MAYER RUS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
WILLIAM ABRANOWICZ
STYLED BY
MICHAEL REYNOLDS
FASHION STYLING BY JESSICA SAILER VAN LITH. HAIR BY MIKI FOR SEE MANAGEMENT USING WELLA. MAKEUP BY JUNKO KIOKA FOR JOE MANAGEMENT USING CHANEL LES BEIGES
ABOVE CHARLOTTE RONSON (WEARING A VALENTINO DRESS AND AN ANA KHOURI BRACELET) KICKS OFF HER HEELS IN HER BRECCIA CAPRAIA MARBLE–CLAD MASTER BATHROOM. OPPOSITE A MURANO-GLASS CHANDELIER FROM NEWEL HANGS IN THE MASTER BEDROOM; THE BED AND ITS NICHE FEATURE A BRUNSCHWIG & FILS FABRIC WITH SAMUEL & SONS TRIM. PAUL MCCOBB BENCHES; WALLPAPER BY CLARENCE HOUSE. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
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ut the whole MTV Cribs visual out of your mind. You won’t find a pinball machine, a Scarface poster, or a gallery of tricked-out sneakers in the Manhattan home of musician Nate Ruess and fashion designer Charlotte Ronson. “Those kinds of clichés are the exact opposite of anything we’d ever want,” insists Ruess, the Grammy-winning lead singer of the band Fun and a current solo artist. Ronson, who recently gave birth to the couple’s first child, Levon, underscores the sentiment: “Adult was what we were going for.” The story of this renovated NoHo loft is really about a love affair—not just between Ruess and Ronson, but also their designer, Paul Fortune, the famously oracular West Coast arbiter elegantiarum. Four years ago, before he’d met Ronson, Ruess purchased Fortune’s beloved Laurel Canyon home in Los Angeles, which had been an oasis of civility for the beau monde for three decades. “I knew the house was amazing the first time I saw it,” the singer enthusiastically recalls. “I’ve tried
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to stay 100 percent true to Paul’s aesthetic. I treat that place like a museum.” Fortune was similarly taken with Ruess, who quickly became a friend and client. “Nate got it. He was happy to move in and take the whole thing over, furniture and all. He’s unusual for someone of his generation, and he’s in the music business, which makes it all the more surprising,” says the designer, winding up for an invective against the young and the tasteless. Fast-forward several months. Nate meets Charlotte, love ensues, and the dashing pair decide to make their home in Manhattan, where Ronson— daughter of jewelry designer and social darling Ann Dexter-Jones and sister of DJs Samantha and Mark—has lived and worked for years. Naturally, Fortune got the call when they acquired a spacious but outmoded loft boasting exposed-brick walls, kooky level changes, and other telltale signs of a 1980s renovation. “We wanted a similar vibe to the one in Laurel Canyon, but also something right for New York,” Ronson explains. “The idea was to take a raw downtown loft and make it look and feel like a grown-up uptown apartment.” Fortune, who worked with New York–based Gachot Studios design firm to execute the elaborate
“The loft is civilized and comfortable. It’s not about a flashy moment or a photo op.” —Nate Ruess
RIGHT AN EDWARD WORMLEY CREDENZA FROM JF CHEN SERVES AS A DINING-AREA BAR. BELOW IN THE LIVING ROOM, A PAUL MCCOBB CIGARETTE TABLE SITS BETWEEN TWO 1940S FRENCH CHAIRS COVERED IN SCHUMACHER FABRIC.
OPPOSITE UNDER A MATTEA PERROTTA PAINTING, CHARLOTTE RONSON (IN A COACH 1941 DRESS) AND NATE RUESS (IN GUCCI PANTS) LOUNGE WITH BABY LEVON ON A LAWSONFENNING SOFA COVERED IN LEE JOFA VELVET.
LEFT RUESS PERFORMS AT HIS 2015 RECORDRELEASE PARTY IN LOS ANGELES. BELOW RONSON (IN A MIU MIU DRESS) AND RUESS RELAX IN VINTAGE OLE WANSCHER CHAIRS CUSHIONED IN A SCHUMACHER STRIPE; CUSTOM-MADE WALNUT DINING TABLE BY FISCHER FURNITURE. PAINTING BY CECILY BROWN; JACQUES ADNET SCONCES; VINTAGE KHOTAN RUG.
TOP LEFT: SCOTT DUDELSON/GETTY IMAGES
“There was no point in cramming in extra rooms. Nate and Charlotte have the sophistication to appreciate the luxury of space.” —Paul Fortune
★ EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: CHARLOTTE RONSON AND NATE RUESS AT HOME, ARCHDIGEST.COM.
remodel, sketched the floor plan for the long, highceilinged railroad flat on his first visit. A capacious living-and-entertaining space is situated at the front of the apartment, along the street-facing window wall with its gift of natural light. Sage-green cabinetry, wainscot, and moldings define the open kitchen and dining room at the center of the loft. A framed passageway marks the transition to the baby’s room (né guest quarters) and master suite, which are raised two steps from the dining area to differentiate public and private zones. References to Laurel Canyon, as well as other Fortune projects, abound. The ivory leather floor of the hallway to the master bedroom, for example, replicates the same luxurious detail from the designer’s erstwhile L.A. bathroom. The particular shade of green that proliferates in the kitchen/dining area nods to a similar hue in fashion designer Marc Jacobs’s Paris apartment. As for furnishings, the mix includes a wide range of vintage 20th-century pieces and custom elements that, taken together, do not suggest any one specific decade or style. “Even within the open plan, each space feels like a complete thought, a proper room differentiated from the other areas of the loft,” observes John Gachot,
lending his voice to the Fortune lovefest. “It’s incredibly inspiring for everyone in our studio to work with Paul and see things through his eyes. Like the Murano chandelier in the bedroom. We were a little unsure about the choice, but Paul said, ‘This is it.’ And once it was installed, it looked perfect—the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae.” Ruess, who is currently writing a Broadway musical, frames the success of the project in terms of the apartment’s mood rather than the individual elements that create it. “The loft is civilized and comfortable. It’s not about a flashy moment or a photo op. It’s about real life—our life,” he says. Ronson adds, “Nothing feels overly modern or heavily traditional. The look is simply classic.” And that was the point from the outset. “All these so-called luxury apartments being built in New York today, with their eight-foot-six-inch ceilings and warrens of depressing rooms, they’re just ghastly,” Fortune opines. “Nate and Charlotte have the sophistication to appreciate the luxury of space and the importance of getting the proportions right. Of course, this is just a start. The loft will evolve into something else over time. But that’s their job, not mine.”
ABOVE POPS OF METAL FROM A WOLF RANGE, WATERWORKS FAUCET, AND VINTAGE POUL HENNINGSEN SUSPENSION LAMPS COMPLEMENT IMPERIAL DANBY MARBLE AND CUSTOM MILLWORK IN THE KITCHEN.
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BACK TO CALI For a young Manhattan family recently transplanted to Northern California, the L.A. design ďŹ rm Commune breathes new life into a historic Berkeley home TEXT BY
MAYER RUS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
TREVOR TONDRO
ABOVE A VIVIENNE WESTWOOD SQUIGGLE WALLPAPER COVERS THE MUDROOM WALLS. ALVAR AALTO PENDANT LIGHT; CUSTOM-MADE CABINET AND SHAKER HOOKS BY COMMUNE. OPPOSITE A HAMMERHEAD CHAIR BY MICHAEL BOYD SITS AT A VINTAGE ROSEWOOD BUREAU IN THE LIVING ROOM. JOSEF HOFFMANN AND WIENER WERKSTÄTTE SCONCE; CURTAINS OF A FABRIC BY CASTEL. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
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ABOVE A HENRYBUILT WARDROBE ADDS A PUNCH OF COLOR TO THE MASTER BEDROOM. NIGHTSTANDS BY COMMUNE; THROWS BY GREGORY PARKINSON. OPPOSITE JENNIFER DOEBLER AND PAT KELLY WATCH DAUGHTERS SCARLETT (LEFT) AND INDIA. GARDEN DESIGN, JUDY KAMEON OF ELYSIAN LANDSCAPES.
ennifer Doebler and Pat Kelly were looking for a new adventure. In 2009, the pharmaceutical executives decided to decamp from their Greenwich Village apartment in Manhattan and begin a new life with their two young daughters, Scarlett and India, in Berkeley, California. The couple had loved the Bay Area for years, and they were eager to trade the mean streets of New York City for the verdant hills and famously progressive milieu of Berkeley. “We wanted something genuinely different for our family, and this seemed like the perfect place to raise the girls,” Doebler explains. “Plus, Berkeley has lots of great old houses that hadn’t been messed with in the 1980s.” An online search led the couple to the perfect setting for their reimagined vision of domestic bliss: an archetypal Northern California redwood home built in 1915 in First Bay Tradition style, a vernacular dialect synthesizing elements of East Coast Shingle style, American Craftsman, and English Arts and Crafts. Doebler and Kelly enlisted Liesl Geiger-Kincade of Manhattan’s
Studio Geiger Architecture to bring the stalwart residence up to snuff, including stabilizing its foundation (Berkeley is located in an active earthquake area), in a sympathetic renovation that hews closely to the original design. Once that yearlong process was complete, the family packed up their things and headed west. Despite the many virtues of First Bay Tradition— quality craftsmanship, volumetric brio, organic connections to the landscape—a sort of brooding gloom remains endemic to the architectural style. “Bringing light into this house was our first order of business,” recalls Roman Alonso of Commune, the Los Angeles design firm tasked with creating the home’s interiors. “Some of the rooms were like caves, so we had to banish the darkness before even thinking about furniture.” Doebler and Kelly had long been attracted to Commune’s aesthetic sensibility, where unpretentious bohemian chic meets a vivid, contemporary spirit. “We’d bought a couple pieces of furniture from their website a decade ago, and I had a lot of Commune images on the inspiration boards that I’d assembled for the house,” Doebler explains. “After our first meeting with Roman, we knew we’d found
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THE LIGHT-FILLED LIVING ROOM IS A HUB FOR FAMILY TIME. BOTH CUSTOM-MADE SOFAS BY COMMUNE; HALF-BACK SOFA WEARS A KEELEN LEATHER; GREEN SOFA WEARS A TEDDY MOHAIR BY PIERRE FREY; BRASS-AND-WALNUT COFFEE TABLE BY ALMA ALLEN; HAND-KNOTTED WOOL RUG BY AMADI CARPETS.
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ABOVE AN ISAMU NOGUCHI LAMP SITS ON THE LANDING OF THE ORIGINAL REDWOOD STAIRCASE. VINTAGE STICKLEY CONSOLE; ANTIQUE BERBER RUG. OPPOSITE THE PATTERN OF THE BREAKFAST-ROOM FLOOR IS HAND-PAINTED OVER ORIGINAL DOUGLAS-FIR BOARDS. HANS WEGNER WISHBONE CHAIRS; ASPLUND TATI TABLE; BERTJAN POT FOR MOOOI LIGHT FIXTURE; FARROW & BALL PAINTS ON FLOOR.
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the right collaborator,” Kelly explains. “The touchstones for this project—from Wiener Werkstätte to Scandinavian design—emerged naturally from our conversations.” But first, the light. Alonso and his team installed discreet solar tubes above the entry, atrium, and staircase. In the shadowy dining room, a paper with a shimmery gold-foil ground now covers the walls, and wavy-pattern mirrors line the backs of the original redwood cabinetry for added sparkle—the latter is a trick they picked up from the work of architect and designer Josef Hoffmann, who cofounded the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903. In another nod to the Austrian master, Alonso and his clients selected Hoffmann’s classic Moldauer sconces of brass and silk to join the chorus of floor and table lamps that illuminate the capacious living room. Out of respect for the house, they generally avoided ceiling fixtures. “There’s nothing precious or showy about this place. Everything is geared toward the comfort and ease of the family,” Alonso explains. “You see that in the living room, which is essentially the family room. That’s where everyone reads and relaxes every day, where the kids do their school projects and practice on their instruments. We built in plenty of storage for
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all that stuff so that the living room works equally well for entertaining,” he adds. The decorative mix in the living room typifies the laid-back yet sophisticated ambience that pervades the home. Along with custom-made Commune sofas, there are vintage French, Danish, and Swedish furnishings, Indian cushions, a 1960s Brazilian armchair from the couple’s New York apartment, and an expansive brass-and-walnut coffee table by Alma Allen. “We weren’t looking to do a slavish reproduction of an Arts and Crafts home, but we still wanted to honor that spirit,” Kelly says. Notable departures from period orthodoxy include the graphic, hand-painted floors of the kitchen and breakfast room as well as the squiggly Vivienne Westwood wallpaper that covers the mudroom. “The Westwood paper, which I love, was something that Jennifer had put up before we signed on to this project. It works so well because it adds a punchy, modern jolt to all the serious wood,” Alonso observes. “We wanted this house to remain true to its Berkeley roots, but we had to be careful to avoid clichés. This is a warm, inviting home for a young, contemporary family, not a TV-show version of what Berkeley life is all about.”
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD WALLPAPER BORDER COURTESY OF COLE & SON FROM LEE JOFA
ABOVE THE MASTER BATHROOM FEATURES SINKS AND A TUB BY DURAVIT. FITTINGS BY DORNBRACHT; CANE CHAIR BY SERENA & LILY; PILLOW BY ADAM POGUE FOR COMMUNE. OPPOSITE IN THE READING NOOK, DACHSHUNDS BERNHARD AND POPPY LOUNGE ATOP SHEEPSKINS BY GRAND SPLENDID. HARTMANN & FORBES MATCHSTICK BLINDS; DAYBED WITH SHEARLING BOLSTER BY COMMUNE; PILLOWS BY ADAM POGUE FOR COMMUNE; VINTAGE WALNUT SIDE TABLE AND TURKISH RUG.
design notes
THE DETAILS THAT MAKE THE LOOK I-BASE DINING TABLE; $18,000. HUDSONFURNITUREINC.COM
TAIKA SALAD PLATE IN WHITE BY KLAUS HAAPANIEMI & HEIKKI ORVOLA; $28. IITTALA.COM
WISHBONE CHAIR IN DEEPSEA BLUE BY HANS WEGNER FOR CARL HANSEN & SON; $595. DWR.COM
MOCHI CEMENT TILE IN PINK BY COMMUNE FOR EXQUISITE SURFACES; $28 PER SQ. FT. XSURFACES.COM MISSION CONSOLE TABLE IN OAK; $2,334. STICKLEY.COM
BEAN CEMENT TILE IN TERRACOTTA BY COMMUNE FOR EXQUISITE SURFACES; $28 PER SQ. FT. XSURFACES.COM
MICHAEL ANASTASSIADES PENDANTS HANG ABOVE THE KITCHEN ISLAND.
CUSHIONS BY GREGORY PARKINSON FOR COMMUNE; FROM $350. COMMUNEDESIGN.COM
“
We focused on things of great quality that aren’t obviously expensive or precious.” —Roman Alonso
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“
There’s no reason a house can’t be beautiful and completely user-friendly. That’s what a real home should be.” —Jennifer Doebler
NEW MIRRORED GLASS LINES THE DINING ROOM’S ORIGINAL REDWOOD CABINETS.
INTERIORS: TREVOR TONDRO; ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES
LEATHER CREDENZA IN AQUA; $25,800. BDDW.COM
JUG BY KEVIN WILLIS FOR COMMUNE; $600. COMMUNEDESIGN.COM
MOLDAUER WALL LAMP IN PATINATED BRASS; $4,385. WOKA.COM
ABSTRACT C1, BY STEVEN JOHANKNECHT; $2,000. COMMUNEDESIGN.COM
PLAID RUG BY COMMUNE FOR CHRISTOPHER FARR; $6,000 FOR 8' X 10'. CHRISTOPHERFARR.COM
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TIN CAN, IN STERLING SILVER AND VERMEIL; $1,000. ALL OBJECTS AVAILABLE AT TIFFANY.COM.
TOTALLY TIFFANY
A soup can rendered in sterling. Straws dipped in gold. For his debut collection, Tiffany & Co.’s new design wizard Reed Krakoff elevates everyday objects to luxury status
PROP STYLING BY JOCELYNE BEAUDOIN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
GRANT CORNETT
CRAZY STRAW, IN VERMEIL, ROSE VERMEIL, AND STERLING SILVER; FROM $250.
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TABLE-TENNIS PADDLES, IN LEATHER, WALNUT, AND SILVER; $650 FOR A SET OF TWO.
PAPER PLATE, IN STERLING SILVER; $950.
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How New York City became the capital of lighting design HANNAH MARTIN FRANÇOIS DISCHINGER
TEXT BY PHOTOGRAPHY BY
“I like to say that Lindsey [Adelman] is my lighting mother and David [Weeks] is my lighting grandfather,” says BEC BRITTAIN, who, after a stint in architecture, entered the lighting biz in 2008 as Adelman’s first paid employee. (Adelman is a Weeks alum.) “New York’s lighting scene is like a family tree.” Since going solo in 2011, Brittain has quickly established her own branch. Her flexible SHY light system—an infinitely reconfigurable constellation of LED tubes and metal rods—has become her own lighting-world claim to fame, winning her the attention of clients ranging from Mike D of the Beastie Boys to J. P. Morgan.
IN THIS STORY: GROOMING BY LAURA BUCK
IT’S LIT
“It’s about putting it together, taking it apart, putting it together,” says LINDSEY ADELMAN. “I think a lot of the designers I’ve worked with have that approach.” Adelman is pictured (seated right) in her studio with (clockwise from left) production manager ALEX SNOOK, design director KARL ZAHN, former senior designer BRENDAN KEIM, and senior designer MARY WALLIS. Snook is behind the furniture-and-lighting line Arddra. Since 2016, Keim—of McKenzie & Keim—has designed lighting at West Elm. And Zahn and Wallis—who design their own collections for Adelman’s studio—also sell lines at Roll & Hill (Zahn) and the Future Perfect (Wallis).
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JASON MILLER (far right), who got his break in the early 2000s with a series of Antler chandeliers, founded lighting manufacturer
Roll & Hill in 2010. Now, at its 40,000-square-foot plant in Brooklyn’s Industry City, the brand fabricates Miller’s lights and offers a production model to select designers. For newcomers like DYLAN DAVIS and JEAN LEE of Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, whose geometry-driven lighting hovers between functional and sculptural, the partnership acted as a launchpad for their careers. “Jason—along with Lindsey Adelman—has really changed the way lighting is perceived as art,” says Lee, pictured with Davis.
IT’S A BRIGHT SPRING DAY IN MAY,
and with New York’s annual style extravaganza NYCxDesign about to open, the city’s cadre of lighting designers are down to the wire preparing to show their newest creations. Lindsey Adelman, the genre’s grande dame, is carting her latest fixtures—including new works by protégés Karl Zahn and Mary Wallis— to her NoHo showroom. Bec Brittain is assembling prototypes of her Aries system. And Apparatus’ Gabriel Hendifar and Jeremy Anderson are tinkering with the bulbs of their Wiener Werkstätte– inspired collection, which will twinkle overhead at the pop-up disco they host to close out the multivenue fair. Designing lighting (and buying it, too, for that matter) has never been this popular. Just 20 years ago, the category was decidedly dim. “It wasn’t even considered a category,” remembers pioneer David Weeks, who showed six cutting-edge desk lamps at New York’s ICFF furniture fair in 1997. “There were maybe two or three other people doing it.” This year 18 percent of the fair’s exhibitors (up from 8 percent in 2014) showed some kind of switched-on creation. “Throughout history there are instances where people are making the same things at the same moment. Think about Abstract Expressionism!” says Jason Miller, the founder of hip lighting brand Roll & Hill. “And for whatever reason, it’s happening right now with lighting in New York City.” There are practical reasons one might take up lighting design in Manhattan. Components are accessible, no serious square footage is required, and the final product has but one mandate: to illuminate. Still, it took the success of pioneers like Weeks, Miller, and Adelman (who worked with Weeks for five years, going on to launch her own studio in 2006) to make it a viable livelihood. For Adelman the eureka moment came after she spent months wrestling with her
“The tripod standing lamp was the piece that really launched my business,” remembers lighting pioneer DAVID WEEKS, whose industrial-meets-organic fixtures (like the chandelier, above left) took off in the late 1990s. Weeks, who got his creative start working with jewelry designer Ted Muehling, soon became known as “the light guy,” and brought the category to a new audience by showing at top-drawer gallery Ralph Pucci and locking down high-level architectural commissions. Of choosing the medium, he says that “it’s the perfect mix of practicality and magic.”
now-iconic Branching Bubble chandelier. “I saw how it could be this straight shuttle to becoming an independent designer,” she explains. “And it was.” For more than a decade the popular design and its offshoots have fueled Adelman’s business and inspired her disciples to pursue independent ventures. In 2011, Brittain struck out on her own. Last year, Brendan Keim exited and went on to design lighting for West Elm. Even talents who continue to work in Adelman’s orbit have established themselves beyond her atelier: Wallis, Zahn, and Alex Snook hold day jobs there but produce independent lines, too, adding yet another
layer to the electrifying array of products on the market. For designers who don’t want (or, more likely, aren’t ready) to handle their own manufacturing, Miller of Roll & Hill (established in 2010) offers an alternative that is based on European models like Flos and Artemide. At his studio in Brooklyn’s Industry City, Miller churns out lights by established designers (there are series by both Adelman and Brittain) and newcomers (among them Ladies & Gentlemen Studio). “David, Lindsey, and Jason identified and helped create the market,” says Brittain of the industry’s meteoric success. “Now everyone wants in.”
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THE ELEGANTLY SERPENTINE STAIRCASE RISES OVER DIEGO GIACOMETTI CHAIRS, A JEAN-MICHEL FRANK LAMP, AND A DEMAKERSVAN CINDERELLA TABLE. OPPOSITE A FRANÇOISXAVIER LALANNE BRONZE SHEEP KEEPS WATCH IN THE MAIN GALLERY. LOUIS XVI ROCK-CRYSTAL CHANDELIER; GEORGE III TABLE; ANDRÉ ARBUS STOOLS; VINTAGE LA MANUFACTURE COGOLIN RUG BY HENRI GONSE. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
SLEEPING BEAUTY A storied Connecticut estate lay dormant for decades until Reed and Delphine Krakoff brought it back to life
TEXT BY
MAYER RUS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
IVAN TERESTCHENKO
IN THE MASTER BATH, A JEAN-MICHEL FRANK PARCHMENT WATERFALL COCKTAIL TABLE SITS BETWEEN A PAIR OF JACOB FRÈRES CHAIRS. OPPOSITE REED, DELPHINE, AND DAUGHTER LILY AT HOME IN MANHATTAN (VOGUE, 2010). AL HELD PAINTING; LOCKHEED LOUNGE BY MARC NEWSON.
PORTRAIT: SHEILA METZNER
t
he autumn leaves have barely begun to turn and the sweepstakes for the most ravishing design tome of the fall season may already be over. Houses That We Dreamt Of (Rizzoli) takes readers on a fantastic voyage through six treasureladen homes conjured by Reed Krakoff, chief artistic officer of Tiffany & Co., and his wife, interior designer Delphine Krakoff, for themselves and their children. Each project is a tour de force of idiosyncratic vision and fastidious connoisseurship, chockablock with object lessons in the inspired melding of the art and design of far-flung periods and pedigrees. Although several of the houses have been glimpsed in magazine articles over the years, the book offers the kind of deep dive that warms the hearts of design aficionados. A word of warning: Have a fainting couch nearby as you leaf through the delectable volume, in case all the gorgeousness triggers an attack of the vapors. The latest production in the Krakoffs’ astonishing repertoire is the couple’s country home in New Canaan, Connecticut, previewed here for the first time. The 52-acre property boasts a seriously strange history. Its nine-bedroom, elevenfireplace French-style mansion, known as Le Beau Château, was built in 1937 and acquired by the eccentric copper heiress Huguette Clark in 1952 as a sanctuary amid Cold War–era fears of nuclear Armageddon. Clark, however, never spent one night there, nor did she install a single chair or doily. During the last two decades of her life—which she spent voluntarily living in New York hospitals, despite owning a vast Fifth Avenue apartment and an estate in Santa Barbara, California, in addition to the Connecticut place—she never even set foot on the property. Yet for more than half a century, a caretaker kept the barren house in impeccable condition, polishing its floors to within an inch of their lives. Clark’s idiosyncrasies—if that’s the word—were surveyed in delicious detail by authors Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr. in their 2013 book Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune. It was a must-read for anyone obsessed with elusive, daffy socialites and fancy real estate, including the Krakoffs. “After we read the book, we took a field trip to New Canaan to check out the place out of curiosity. It had been on the market for a long time, but we
were honestly not looking to buy another house,” Delphine says of the couple’s first visit to Le Beau Château (a.k.a. Clark House) in 2014. “Reed and I felt a strong, immediate connection to the place, which had nothing to do with the location or value. We were smitten by its mysterious, romantic history and amazing potential.” So the enterprising duo bought the white elephant and set about the task of bringing life and beauty to the forlorn estate. “Every house we’ve done tells a different story—a story we develop intuitively. It’s an organic process, not a dry intellectual exercise,” Reed says of the couple’s approach to the architectural restoration and decor. Yet despite his protestations, an incisive intellect is clearly on display in the Krakoffs’ ministrations. They kept the floor plan largely intact, save for some remedial rejiggering of the awkward master-bedroom suite, and they replaced various architectural flourishes— notably, the ornate verdigris wrought-iron balustrade of the focal staircase—with pared-down designs more sympathetic to the building’s classical lines and airy, modern spirit. “A house tells you what it wants to be. Here we wanted to celebrate the light and views by keeping the decor more restrained than in any of our other homes,” Delphine explains. In practical terms, that meant leaving the walls largely white and tying the overall composition together with a consistent upholstery treatment of neutral, monochrome fabrics. Of course, within this setting of quiet luxury, there are plenty of bravura moments. A flock of Lalanne sheep that once graced the couple’s East Hampton home (which had belonged to Jacqueline Kennedy’s Bouvier grandparents) now grazes peaceably in Le Beau Château’s main gallery, atop a sprawling Cogolin carpet. In the dining room, American Queen Anne chairs from the late 18th century surround an avant-garde Martin Szekely table of Corian and honeycomb aluminum. And in the voluminous library—a bibliophile’s dream—the mix includes a spidery Joris Laarman table, a Pierre Jeanneret teak daybed, and Louis XV armchairs covered in blue dyed calfskin. “This house gave us the opportunity to recombine and recontextualize things we’d purchased years ago and used in other homes. The process isn’t about trying to create artificially theatrical juxtapositions. It’s about finding a way to live with the things you love,” Delphine says. Her husband seconds the notion. “A house is not a still life,” Reed avers. “There always has to be a comfortable place to sit and relax. And this is what Delphine does so well. She doesn’t design places solely meant to be seen or photographed. She creates homes for our family to inhabit.”
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ABOVE A SET OF 60 DRAWINGS BY ALLAN McCOLLUM COVERS A WALL IN THE LIVING ROOM. SHAKER NO. 7 ROCKING CHAIR; EBONIZED TRIPOD STOOL BY CHARLOTTE PERRIAND.
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BELOW IN THE MASTER BEDROOM, A CUSTOM HERMÈS BENCH SITS AT THE FOOT OF THE CHRISTIAN ASTUGUEVIEILLE BED. SERGE MOUILLE TWOARM SCONCE; LOUIS XV SOFA IN SILK VELVET; JANSEN BERGÈRE UPHOLSTERED IN UNPRIMED ARTIST CANVAS.
“We were smitten by the house’s mysterious, romantic history and amazing potential,” says Delphine.
TOP IN THE DINING ROOM, A FELT WALL SCULPTURE BY RONAN AND ERWAN BOUROULLEC MAKES A SPLASH. SERGE MOUILLE SUSPENSION LIGHT; MARTIN SZEKELY TABLE; QUEEN ANNE DINING CHAIRS; WINDSOR CHAIR
(FOREGROUND). LEFT IN THE KITCHEN, A JOSEF HOFFMANN AND OSWALD HAERDTL SETTEE STANDS ON ENCAUSTIC CEMENT TILES. ABOVE THE KRAKOFFS PAINTED THE HOUSE’S ORIGINAL REDBRICK EXTERIOR WHITE.
A COLOSSAL PAUL COCKSEDGE ENAMELEDALUMINUM LIGHT HANGS OVER THE LIBRARY’S JORIS LAARMAN TABLE. LOUIS XV BEECHWOOD CHAIRS UPHOLSTERED IN BLUE CALFSKIN; PIERRE JEANNERET TEAK DAYBED; ANTIQUE BAMBOO LIBRARY LADDER.
“A house is not a still life,” Reed avers. “There always has to be a comfortable place to sit and relax.”
For one Italian family, a villa masterminded by the legendary Renzo Mongiardino more than 50 years ago is still home base TEXT BY
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MARTINA MONDADORI SARTOGO
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIGUEL
FLORES-VIANNA
BORDER DESIGN: BONAPARTE CARD BY CABANA FOR PAPERLESS POST
A Lasting Memory
FLAMESTITCH MEETS CHINTZ IN THE SITTING ROOM OF THE 17TH-CENTURY VILLA RONCHE. CUSTOM RENZO MONGIARDINO FABRICS THROUGHOUT; 18TH-CENTURY JAPANESE IMARI VASE. OPPOSITE CABANAMAGAZINE FOUNDER SARTOGO’S SONS TANCREDI AND LEONARDO PLAY IN THE GARDEN’S RUSSELL PAGE–DESIGNED BOXWOOD ROTUNDA. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT A STRIKING TERRAZZO FLOOR STARS IN AN ENTRY HALL, COMPLEMENTED BY ANTIQUE PRINTS AND ITALIAN FURNITURE. PETER AND MARTINA (WEARING A VINTAGE YVES SAINT LAURENT TOP AND A LISA MARIE
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FERNANDEZ SKIRT) WITH THEIR THREE CHILDREN. IN A GUEST BEDROOM, THE HEADBOARD OF A STUDIO MONGIARDINO BED IS COVERED IN A TRADITIONAL ITALIAN FLORAL. VINTAGE NEEDLEPOINT PILLOWS; LAMPS BY RENZO MONGIARDINO.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP THE LONG PORTICO ON THE GARDEN SIDE OF THE HOUSE. TANCREDI AND LEONARDO IN ONE OF VILLA RONCHE’S STAIRWELLS. A PRINTED INDIAN FABRIC IS DRAPED OVER A LOUNGE CHAIR IN THE VIBRANTLY HUED MASTER BEDROOM.
No matter how grand a house was, Mongiardino never forgot that a family was going to make a life there.
e
arlier this year my mother and He organized the architecture around two very long I were sitting in my London spaces, the portico that opens onto the garden and the living room making plans for “long gallery” (130 by 16 feet) directly on the floor above it. the upcoming christening of Instead of keeping the gallery a regal, merely decorative my cousin’s daughter, to be held space, he divided it into several cozy sitting areas, with sofas at Villa Ronche, our family home and curtains in a simple red-and-white toile de Jouy. In a near Venice. With her typical typical Mongiardino flourish, the same fabric was used for attention to every tiny detail, she the lampshades and table skirts. asked me what scent we should In discussing this space of “disquieting length” in use to perfume the rooms. Roomscapes, Mongiardino noted that he took inspiration from a similar room at Syon House on the outskirts of London. He Without hesitation, I replied, chose not to play up the dramatic effect with a rigidly formal “Gardenia.” I believe every decor, but instead made it the hub of the house by arranging house has a scent of its own and that it’s one of the things that make it into a home. In this case, gardenia reminded me of my furniture into small, more intimate groupings conducive to reading, listening to music, playing games, or simply settling late grandmother Gina’s personal fragrance. She passed away a little over a year ago, and I guess I automatically translated that in for conversation. As a result, he declared, “life streamed into that long gallery.” smell into one of the thousands of Proustian madeleines that I He also rearranged the living spaces on the ground floor encounter in each room of the house and corner of the garden. to better accommodate everyday family life. There is a comforI grew up coming here every summer for the two weeks table sitting room with simple before the school year started. and timeless sofas covered This is where I took my first in a beige-and-ivory-striped steps at 15 months and where Italian cotton (some of my I learned to ride a bike a few favorite things in the whole years later. This is where Peter house), the dining room filled and I celebrated our wedding with the incredible collection in 2006, and where I spent of copper objects assembled the night before chatting until by my grandmother over her three o’clock in the morning lifetime, and the kitchen— with my best friend in the yellow always the heart and soul of bedroom overlooking the long this house—where I can still gallery. My parents were married see my grandmother reading here, too, in 1975 in the little recipes and arranging her family chapel in the garden, wonderful meals to perfection. my mum wearing a gorgeous No matter how grand a embroidered Valentino dress house was, Mongiardino never and holding a simple gardenia forgot that a family was going bouquet. Gardenia again. to make a life there and so In the late 1950s, my grandalways managed to make it easy father Lino Zanussi bought the to live in. I approached my book house, a 17th-century villa on The Interiors and Architecture the border of the Veneto and of Renzo Mongiardino: A Friuli-Venezia Giulia and just about a 30-minute drive from Painterly Vision, to be published this month by Rizzoli, from the the Venice airport. At the time, perspective of someone who his home-appliances company, MARTINA (IN GIAMBATTISTA VALLI HAUTE COUTURE) WITH discovered the designer’s work Zanussi, was growing to be one COSIMA. OPPOSITE THE VILLA’S FRONT FAÇADE. by simply living in one of his of Italy’s largest manufacturers, houses. It’s not a detached, providing Italian families after objective take but an intimate one, written from the point of the war with modern fridges, ovens, and, later, TVs. His family view of someone sitting on the sofa and taking in the details. was growing, too. My mother, Paola, arrived in 1946, followed With his unrivaled ability to mix colors and patterns and by Antonia, my aunt—and beloved godmother—in 1948, and Andrea, the baby of the family, in 1961. In 1968, my grandfather to work with light, his vision was really more that of a painter than a decorator. was killed in a plane crash at age 48, and my grandmother Unfortunately, these days we don’t get here as often as I Gina lived alone here until her death. would like. Nevertheless, when we do, my own three kids love After seeing what Renzo Mongiardino had done for the it. I hope they feel their family roots when they’re here. But Brandolinis in nearby Vistorta, my grandmother decided to even if they don’t fully appreciate the magic of this place yet, ask him to restore and decorate the villa. He did so between for me it is simply touching to see them play with my cousins’ 1962 and 1963. She liked to say how she kept repeating to him children the same way we all played together 30 years ago. This that she wanted the house to feel warm and welcoming, not is what family homes are for, generation after generation. just glorious and formal.
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With his unrivaled ability to mix colors and patterns and to work with light, Mongiardino’s vision was really more that of a painter than a decorator. 174
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IN THE LONG GALLERY, THE DESIGNER SWATHED WINDOWS, SOFAS, CHAIRS, TABLES, AND EVEN LAMPSHADES IN THE SAME FRENCH TOILE DE JOUY. MONGIARDINO-DESIGNED COCKTAIL TABLE; ANTIQUE VASES AND MIRRORS.
design notes
THE DETAILS THAT MAKE THE LOOK SOUP PLATE BY RICHARD GINORI FOR CABANA; $195 FOR SET OF TWO. MODA OPERANDI.COM
HAND-PAINTED GLASS BY CABANA; $255. MODAOPERANDI.COM
MARTINA MONDADORI SARTOGO WEARS A GUCCI DRESS IN THE GARDEN OF HER FAMILY’S HOME.
“
For Mongiardino, the final effect mattered most. There was perfect harmony in the elements of every single project he did.” —Martina Mondadori Sartogo
WELLINGTON COURT BREAKFRONT SERVER; $7,797. CENTURY FURNITURE.COM
HAND-PAINTED MURANOGLASS PITCHER BY CABANA; $700. MODAOPERANDI.COM
CABANA WALLPAPER BY DEDAR; TO THE TRADE. DEDAR.COM 176
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PORTRAIT AND INTERIOR: MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA; ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE COMPANIES
FLORENCE FLAMESTITCH VELVET IN FIESTA; TO THE TRADE. CLARENCE HOUSE.COM
ARABESQUE COROLLA QUILT IN BLUE RUST; $375 FOR 71" X 106". LISACORTI.COM
THE INTERIORS AND ARCHITECTURE OF RENZO MONGIARDINO: A PAINTERLY VISION, BY MARTINA MONDADORI SARTOGO AND THE EDITORS OF CABANA; $75. RIZZOLIUSA.COM
SEMI–REZZONICO MURANO GLASS CHANDELIER BY STRIULLI VETRI D’ARTE; $42,000. ARTEMEST.COM
CABANA POUF UPHOLSTERED IN VELVET BY DEDAR AVAILABLE IN NOVEMBER; $1,899. 1STDIBS.COM
WHITE SOLID– CARRARA MARBLE URNS FROM REGENT ANTIQUES; $4,319 FOR PAIR. 1STDIBS.COM
THE MASTER BEDROOM.
DEYA TABLE LAMP IN RUBY BY PAOLO MOSCHINO FOR NICHOLAS HASLAM LTD.; $1,455. NICHOLASHASLAM.COM
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If the skeleton of a house is good, an object, even an unexpected one, can be inserted into the whole and can enliven a room.” —Renzo Mongiardino
WAINSCOTT FLORAL IN CAMEO PINK; $195 A YARD. RALPHLAURENHOME.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. PERFECT FIT PAGES 120–133: Tory Burch of Tory Burch; toryburch.com. Interiors by Daniel Romualdez Architects; 212-989-8429. Landscape architecture by Perry Guillot Inc.; perryguillot.com. PAGES 120–21: On bed, Reve d’Orient embroidered linens by D. Porthault; dporthaultparis.com. Carlo Bugatti chairs (flanking fireplace) available through Bernd Goeckler; bgoecklerantiques.com. Grand Quadrille carpet by La Manufacture Cogolin from House of Tai Ping (T); houseoftaiping.com. Tufted Marshall Field sofa by De Angelis (T); 212-348-8225, Arpa rattan chair and ottoman by Renzo Mongiardino for Bonacina 1889 (T); bonacina1889.it, antique side chairs, and curtains, all in Fuchsia cotton, in blue, by Colefax and Fowler (T); cowtan.com. PAGE 122: Paley sofas by De Angelis (T); 212-348-8225, in Bowood cotton, in green/gray, by Colefax and Fowler (T); cowtan.com. Vintage chandelier from Liz O’Brien; lizobrien.com. Curtains of Ninon taffeta by Brunschwig & Fils (T); brunschwig.com. Raffia carpet by La Manufacture Cogolin from House of Tai Ping (T); houseoftaiping.com. PAGE 123: On Burch, Sylvia dress by Tory Burch; toryburch.com. Irish weave carpet by Stark (T); starkcarpet.com. PAGE 124: Compiegne hanging lamp by Galerie des Lampes; galeriedeslampes.com. On table, Pyne Hollyhock cotton, in charcoal, by Schumacher (T); fschumacher.com. PAGE 128: On walls and bedskirt, Bird and Thistle cotton, in green, by Brunschwig & Fils (T); brunschwig.com. On bed, custom monogram linens, in white Dakota piqué with ocean linen trim, by Leontine Linens; leontinelinens.com. On boudoir pillows, Carnations cotton sham by D. Porthault; dporthault.com. PAGE 129: Singapour wallpaper by Zuber (T); zuber.fr. PAGES 130–31: Custom dining tables by Stephen Antonson; stephenantonson.com. On tables, Dodie Thayer for Tory Burch Lettuceware, in white, and Spring Meadow glasses by Tory Burch; toryburch.com. Parrot Butah napkins by Anokhi; anokhiusa.com. On vintage dining chairs, Juliette cotton, in Indigo, by Les Indiennes; lesindiennes .com. Curtains of Sinan fabric and custommade wall covering, both by Iksel– Decorative Arts (T); iksel.com. Raffia carpet by La Manufacture Cogolin from House of Tai Ping (T); houseoftaiping.com. KEEP IT CLASSIC PAGES 134–39: Interiors by Paul Fortune Design Studio; paulfortunedesign.com; in collaboration with Gachot Studios; gachotstudios.com. PAGE 134: Murano glass chandelier from Newel; newel.com.
In bed niche and on bed, Bosporus Ottoman Texture viscose-cotton, in smoke, by Brunschwig & Fils (T); brunschwig.com; with Latour Border silk trim, in light plum/cream, by Samuel & Sons (T); samuelandsons.com. Vintage Paul McCobb benches from Blend Interiors; blendinteriors.com. On walls, Clifton Stripe wallpaper, in pale lilac, by Clarence House (T); clarencehouse.com. On armchair (at left), Matchsticks cottonviscose blend, in sienna, by Rose Tarlow Melrose House (T); rosetarlow.com. Vintage Frits Henningsen chair (at right) from JF Chen; jfchen.com. PAGE 135: On Ronson, gown by Valentino; valentino .com; and diamond Mirian bracelet by Ana Khouri; anakhouri.com. Custommade framed shower enclosure, in polished brass, by Mr. ShowerDoor; mrshowerdoor.com. Easton classic shower and sink fittings, in polished brass, by Waterworks; waterworks.com. Custom-made cabinetry and hardware by Paul Fortune Design Studio; paulfortunedesign.com. Custom-made mirror/cabinet by Paul Fortune Design Studio in collaboration with Habiterra; habiterranyc.com. PAGE 136: On Ronson, dress by Coach 1941; coach.com. On Ruess, pants by Gucci; gucci.com. Montebello sofa, in American walnut, by LawsonFenning (T); lawsonfenning.com; in Fulham cotton-linen velvet, in coral, by Lee Jofa (T): leejofa.com. PAGE 137: In dining area, Edward Wormley credenza from JF Chen; jfchen.com. In living room, vintage Paul McCobb cigarette table and custom cocktail table, in walnut, from Fischer Furniture (T); fischerfurniture.biz. On vintage French club chairs, Shock Wave silk-cotton, in sand & sable, by Schumacher (T); fschumacher.com. On custom sofa, Bentley ticking-stripe fabric, in honey, by Brunschwig & Fils (T); brunschwig.com. Custom-made Roman shades of Satinee (front) silk-cotton, by Sahco (T); sahco.com; with Cambridge Strie Braid trim, in café au lait, and French grosgrain ribbon, in java, by Samuel & Sons (T); samuelandsons.com; and Challis (back) wool, in bianco, by Holland & Sherry (T); hollandsherry.com; fabricated by French Elegance; frenchelegance.co. PAGES 138–39: On Ronson, dress by Miu Miu; miumiu.com. In dining area, vintage Jacques Adnet sconces from Thomas Brillet; 1stdibs.com. Custom walnut table by Fischer Furniture (T); fischerfurniture.biz. Chair cushions of Syncopated velvet stripe by Schumacher (T); fschumacher.com. Vintage Khotan rug from Doris Leslie Blau (T); dorisleslieblau.com. In kitchen, range by Wolf; subzero-wolf.com. Easton kitchen faucet, in stainless steel, by Waterworks; waterworks.com. Poul Henningsen PH Stammekrone chandeliers by Louis Poulsen, in browned brass and white opaline glass, from Gallery L7; galleryl7inc.com. Custom-made millwork by Paul Fortune Design Studio; paulfortunedesign.com; in collaboration with Gachot Studios;
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. 10. 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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gachotstudios.com; custom-mixed paint by Benjamin Moore; benjaminmoore.com. BACK TO CALI PAGES 140–151: Interiors by Commune; communedesign.com. Architecture by Studio Geiger Architecture; studiogeiger .com. Landscape design by Elysian Landscapes; elysianlandscapes.com. PAGE 140: Hammerhead chair by Michael Boyd for PLANEfurniture; planefurniture.com. Josef Hoffmann and Wiener Werkstätte Moldauer sconce by Woka; woka.com. Curtains of Shalimar viscose-blend by Castel (T); castelmaison.com. Vintage Orrefors table lamp from Lief; liefalmont .com. PAGE 141: Squiggle Blue wallpaper by Vivienne Westwood for Cole & Son for Lee Jofa (T); leejofa.com. Alvar Aalto Beehive pendant light for Artek from YLighting; ylighting.com. Custom-made cabinet and Shaker hooks by Commune; communedesign.com. On floor, Charleston Gray, Ammonite, and Stiffkey Blue paints by Farrow & Ball; farrow-ball.com. PAGE 143: Wardrobe by Henrybuilt; henrybuilt.com; in Drawing Room Blue paint by Farrow & Ball; farrow-ball.com. Nightstands and custom-made headboard, upholstered in wool mohair, both by Commune; communedesign.com. Decorative pillows by Gregory Parkinson for Commune; communedesign.com. BB1/30DL Akari table lamps by Isamu Noguchi; shop.noguchi.org. CW47 Brazilian teak matchstick blinds by Hartmann & Forbes (T); hartmannforbes .com; trimmed with Liberty of London fabric; libertylondon.com. Custom-made wool rug by Christopher Farr (T); christopherfarr.com. PAGES 144–45: Custom-made sofas by Commune; communedesign.com. On half-back sofa, Natura 1101 leather by Keleen Leathers (T); keleenleathers.com; with sheepskin throw from Adesso Eclectic Imports; adessoimports.com. On green sofa, Teddy mohair velvet, in olive, by Pierre Frey (T); pierrefrey.com. Custom-made handknotted wool rug by Amadi Carpets; amadicarpets.com. PAGE 146: In stairwell, on landing, BB3/33S Akari floor lamp by Isamu Noguchi; shop.noguchi.org. On vintage Stickley console, Bottle table lamp by Victoria Morris; victoriamorrispottery .com. Large cylinder sculpture by Mitsuko Ikeno for RTH; rthshop.com. Antique Berber rug from Alberto Levi Gallery; albertolevi.com. PAGE 147: Hans Wegner Wishbone chairs; danishdesignstore.com. Tati Sofatable by Asplund; asplundstore.se. Non Random ceiling light by Bertjan Pot for Moooi from YLighting; ylighting.com. On floor, Charleston Gray, Ammonite, and Stiffkey Blue paints by Farrow & Ball; farrow-ball.com. Custom-made bench, shearling throw, and pillows, all by Commune; communedesign.com. PAGE 148: Mirror, sinks, and tub by Duravit; duravit.us. Tara sink and tub fittings by Dornbracht; dornbracht.com. Glo-Ball light by Jasper Morrison for Flos from Design Within Reach; dwr.com. Cane chair from Serena & Lily; serenaandlily.com,
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.
with pillow by Adam Pogue for Commune; communedesign.com. Vintage Khotan rug from Mansour Modern; mansourmodern.com. PAGE 149: Daybed by Commune; communedesign.com; with Patagonian sheepskins from Grand Splendid; grandsplendid.com; and pillows by Adam Pogue for Commune. Prelude walnut side table from Den Møbler; denmobler.com. CW47 Brazilian teak matchstick blinds by Hartmann & Forbes (T); hartmannforbes.com. Vintage Large cylinder sculpture (used as planter) by Mitsuko Ikeno for RTH; rthshop.com. SLEEPING BEAUTY PAGES 160–67: Interiors by Pamplemousse Design; pample moussedesign.com. Architecture by H. S. Jessup Architecture; hsjessup.com. PAGE 160: Diego Giacometti armchairs from DeLorenzo; delorenzogallery.com. Cinderella table by Jeroen Verhoeven and Demakersvan from Friedman Benda; friedmanbenda.com. Bold wool rug by Hella Jongerius for Danskina from Design Within Reach; dwr.com. PAGE 161: Louis XVI chandelier from Dalva Brothers; dalvabrothers.com. George III Irish oak table from James Graham-Stewart; jamesgraham-stewart.com. Vintage rug by La Manufacture Cogolin; similar styles available from House of Tai Ping (T); houseoftaiping.com. PAGE 164: In living room, curtains of a linen by Rogers & Goffigon (T); rogersandgoffigon.com. Grotto silver-plated bronze table lamp by Mattia Bonetti from David Gill Gallery; davidgillgallery.com. Antique stone mantel from origines.fr. On bergères, linen canvas by Pierre Frey (T); pierrefrey.com. In master bedroom, three-seater bench, customized in oak and leather, by Hermès; hermes.com. Tralure wood-andrope bed by Christian Astuguevieille from Holly Hunt (T); hollyhunt.com. Serge Mouille two-arm sconce from Guéridon; sergemouilleusa.gueridon.com. Pair of Saladino glass lamps by Saladino Furniture (T); saladinostyle.com. PAGE 165: In dining room, Serge Mouille three-arm ceiling lamp from Guéridon; sergemouilleusa .gueridon.com. H.A.P. table, with Corian top, by Martin Szekely; martinszekely.com. Antique Queen Anne dining chairs from Bernard & S. Dean Levy; levygalleries.com. Circa-1780 Windsor chair from Skinner; skinnerinc.com. PAGES 166–67: Capture aluminum light by Paul Cocksedge Studio and Bridge aluminum–and–tungsten carbide table by Joris Laarman; both from Friedman Benda; friedmanbenda.com. A LASTING MEMORY PAGES 168–177: Martina Mondadori Sartogo of Cabana magazine; uniquemagazines.co.uk. PAGE 168: Bonaparte card (used as border) by Cabana for Paperless Post; paperlesspost .com. PAGE 170: On Mondadori Sartogo, skirt by Lisa Marie Fernandez; lisamarie fernandez.com. PAGE 172: On Mondadori Sartogo, skirt by Giambattista Valli Haute Couture; giambattistavalli.com.
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Blooming Genius At the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, two opulent halls are hosting a secret garden where morning glories spiral, foxgloves arc, and hollyhocks tower. Vladimir Kanevsky, a Ukraine-born, New Jersey– based artist, shapes, paints, and fires porcelain blossoms at his atelier, then assembles them into fragile specimens. As for the copper leaves— fashioned by hand, too—some look nibbled by beetles, while others wilt beneath an imagined sun. “I can create a perfect plant, but why?” says Kanevsky, a former architect. “Reality is more beautiful.” Through October 1; hermitagemuseum.org —MITCHELL OWENS