MM Magazine #1

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Issue 1 MARCH 2014 EUR 8 GBP 10 USD 18

Men Carlos Huber

Icons Robert Redford

Dossier The Psychology of the Muscle

Art Walt Cassidy

Architecture Luigi Vietti

Travels The Upper House The Diamond Horseshoe 1

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Nadrzeny Issue 1

Contents

Cont 44 - 49

Picture Perfect

by Marc-Antoine Coulon

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18 - 23

Colpi di testa

Publisher

Federico Melilli

Editor/Creative Director

Daniele F. Mancinetti

Art Direction

M.A.P. Berlin

Contributing Fashion Editor

Jean-Paul Paula

Illustrator

Marc-Antoine Coulon

Contributing Writers

Alan Brake, Alice Parker, Liam J. Aldous, Matt Bell, Mikkel Hyldebrandt, Oliver Noffke

Contributing Photographers

Kevin Tachman, Marco Van Rijt, Michael Weber, Stephen Busken

Advertising Director

Federico Melilli federico@mmmagazine.net

Published by

M.A.P. Berlin UG Dunckerstrasse 24 10437 Berlin Germany www.mmmagazine.net info@mmmagazine.net

by Stephen Busken

Contents 04

Editor's Letter

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Contributors

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Agenda

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Robert Redford - The American Dreamer

by Billy Gray

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Walt Cassidy - Working Out

by Alice Butler

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Carlos Huber - The Scent-ist

by Oliver Noffke

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Bathing Rituals

by Mikkel Hyldebrandt

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Colpi di Testa

by Stephen Busken

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Jimmy Nelson - Documenting Realities

by Oliver Noffke

32

Luigi Vietti - The Jet Setter’s Architect

by Alan Brake

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The Psychology of the Muscle

by Liam J. Aldous

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Staying Fit

by Marco Van Rijt

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Picture Perfect

by Marc-Antoine Coulon

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The Upper House - Residential Calmness

by Matt Bell

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Tortellini alla Yolanda

by Marco Melilli

24 - 31

documenting realities

by Oliver Noffke

36 - 43

staying fit

by Marco Van Rijt

ents

Printed and bound by AZ Druck und Datentechnik GmbH. Reproduction of any part of this publication is strictly prohibited without prior permission from the publisher including all logos, titles and graphic elements. All rights reserved Copyright 2014 by M.A.P. Berlin UG. Printed in Germany

Editor’s Letter Illustration Mark-Antoine Coulon

Editor's Letter M|M is a magazine, which has one simple goal: to be what interests us. Success with style is the ethos around which M|M is being created, a provocative mix of the very best writing, strong and sexy visuals and an unrivalled sense of achievement, intelligence and irreverence, the ultimate sophisticated men’s tip-sheet.

In our premiere issue we spoke to New York’s perfumer Carlos Huber, whose fragrance line Arquiste is making waves in the fragrance world; met with American artist Walt Cassidy who talked art, New York, and the club culture of the 80s and 90s with award winning art writer Alice Butler, and peeked into the world of iconic architect Luigi Vietti. JeanPaul Paula styled the beautiful fashion spread titled “Staying Fit”, lensed by Marco Van Rijt and starring the model of the moment Daan Van Der Deen. German journalist Oliver Noffke spoke to Jimmy Nelson about his latest project “Before They Pass Away”, and amazing book of photographs depicting the hidden realities of almost extinct tribes around the world; Matt Bell visited Honk Kong’s luxury hotel The Upper House; and Billy Gray portrayed Oscar winning actor, and icon, Robert Redford... All in all, this is a selection of what we like and aspire to.

Editing is about searching and we’re happy to share with you what we found along the way while putting together this magazine together.

I truly hope you will enjoy as much as we did.

DANIELE F. MANCINETTI

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Contributors

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1 - Stephen Busken grew up inside his family’s Cincinnati bakery before moving to Los Angeles in 2006. He is best known for his entertainment related portraiture and advertising work. In his short photographic career Stephen has captured some of the most famous personalities in the world like Julianne Moore, Kerry Washington, Sophia Coppola, and Margot Robbie. He has crafted images for Marc Jacobs, Dolce and Gabbana, Original Penguin, and Bravo among others; and his images have graced the pages of Vanity Fair, Brazilian Vogue, Italian Elle, Conde Nast Traveler and Town & Country just to name a few. Stephen resides in New York and Los Angeles with no kids, no pets, and a host of mid-century antiques. Stephen is still mostly inspired by everyday people and freshly-baked desserts.

2 - Matt Bell is a New York City based travel and style writer. He contributes to Esquire, Travel + Leisure, Essential Homme, Men’s Journal, Private Clubs Magazine, Premier Traveler and Passport. When he’s not out surveying the world for the best hotels, most secluded escapes and the latest in style, he can be found sitting in any number of cafés around the world, book in one hand, cup of joe - or vino - in the other. Follow him

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on Instagram and Twitter @MrMattBell.

3 - Oliver Noffke studied journalism in Hamburg as well as in Sydney and practiced it in the picturesque streets of his hometown Weimar as well as in shanty towns in northern India and Brazil. He worked for Stern and German television broadcaster ZDF among others.

When it comes to travel, he thinks its best done setting a sail. The quiet of the Finnish archipelago and the rich blue waters of the Mediterranean are his favorite. He lives in Hamburg, where he enjoys the far and promising evening skies above busy harbour views and the salty sea smells.

4 - Generating a buzz over his androgynous looks, which made him the unisex muse of couturier Iris van Herpen, in addition to landing him a New York Times interview, a Vogue Italia profile, plus a Dutch Fashion Award for

his ability to effortlessly transition from Dsquared2 thigh-high boots and Maison Martin Margiela “L’Incognito” sunglasses, to the more traditionally masculine Adidas sneakers and baggy fit, Jean Paul Paula is the 27-year-old Parisbased stylist who sees fashion without borders, and is currently on his way up as the fashion director of urban culture magazine WAD, in addition to having done styling for The Ones2Watch and hip hop sensation Mykki Blanco.

5 - Louise Moon is one of the most innovative and enduring hairstylists working in the beauty business. Her career is still at its pinnacle after nearly 30 years and she has spanned the globe in her efforts to hone her craft. She worked all the shows including Yves Saint Laurent, Dior, Chanel, Versace, Armani, and Valentino to name a few. Her celebrity resume includes Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Daniel Craig, and Jennifer Lopez among others.

Louise currently resides in Los Angeles.

6 - Marco van Rijt, has been photographing for several years. He is mostly based in Amsterdam, however as a true child of its generation he sees the whole world as his hometown.

Marco has published in several renown fashion magazines such as Vogue Italia, Mykromag, U+Mag, and TheOnes2Watch.

His photography style can be described as classic with a modern twist. He often reveals graphic, minimalist scenes that have a certain alienating character. It is important to Marco to search for the

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extreme in the people he portrays, without ever crossing the border to the provoking or shocking. His objects are portrayed in a mysterious and androgynous way that will leave the spectator questioning.

7 - Born in 1974 Marc-Antoine Coulon began drawing at the age of two. He first worked with his brother for the music industry in France and in Italy. He also made posters for movies (he collaborated on the poster design for the oscar winning movie “The Artist”) and for the international festival “The Night of the Ad Eaters”. He now works for a dozen fashion magazines around the world.

His work will be exhibited at the Carita beauty parlour in Paris, until July 1st.

Agenda

CAN/Toronto What: this is not a toy Where: Design Exchange When: FEB 7th - may 19th

This Is Not A Toy

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Text by Oliver Noffke / Images PR

Remember those days before Christmas, when your parents took you to the toy store? They were stressed and you had the best time in the best place, running through a place packed with model cars or wrestling action figures. Those days may be gone, but there is a place that captures the exact same excitement: Toronto’s Design Exchange (DX) dressed its showroom as your childhood dream for its playful exhibition “This Is Not A Toy”. This marks the first time, music mogul and fashion enthusiast Pharrell Williams is showing his talent as a museum curator. What DX and Williams put together is the colourful candy version of modern art, with a range of collectables that have never been shown in a museum before.

They present an enormous Lego-like version of the Beatles or sculptures inspired by Japanese toy robots from the 80s. On display are works by artists like Japan’s Takashi Murakami or Brooklyn’s KAWS. Most collectables are part merchandise, part art. Some even utilize the mass production methods of their toy store archetype, although in a way that allows to create variations. The sparkler, The Simple Things, is a unique sculpture with broad grin created by Williams, Murakami and Jacob Arabo, a.k.a. “Jacob the Jeweler”. But as you stroll through the worlds of your childhood’s dreams, please remember your mother’s words from the toy store days: Do not run in the alleys. Exhibition is open till May 19, 2014. www.dx.org

Agenda

UK/London

What: BAILEY’S STARDUST Where: national portrait gallery When: FEB 6th - JUN 1st

David Bailey's Icons David Bailey has made an outstanding contribution to photography and the visual arts, creating consistently imaginative and thought-provoking portraits. As well as new work, this landmark exhibition includes a wide variety of Bailey’s photographs from a career that has spanned more than half a century. Bailey’s Stardust is presented thematically across a series of contrasting rooms and illustrates the extraordinary range of subjects that Bailey has captured: actors, writers, musicians, filmmakers, designers, models, artists and people encountered on his travels; many of them famous, some anonymous, all of them unforgettable. Rooms are devoted to Bailey’s time in East Africa, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Delhi and the Naga Hills, as well as icons from the worlds of fashion and the arts, striking portraits of the Rolling Stones and Catherine Bailey and people of the East End of London. Featuring over 250 images, personally selected and printed by Bailey, the exhibition offers an unmissable opportunity to experience the work of one of the world’s greatest image-makers. www.npg.org.uk

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Icons

The American Dreamer Text by Billy Gray Illustration by Marc-Antoine Coulon

The first of surprisingly few honors Hollywood’s self-congratulatory machine bestowed upon Robert Redford was a Golden Globe award for New Star of the Year in 1966. He was recognized for his role as Wade Lewis in Inside Daisy Clover, an ominous fever dream about show business that could only have been produced at the height of the Age of Aquarius. Wade is the fleeting, disastrous love interest of the titular heroine played by Natalie Wood. Wood, well into her glamorous 20s at the time, struggles to portray a teenage tomboy plucked from white trash obscurity and her batty mother (Ruth Gordon, then the grand dame of cuckoo) to become a studio ingénue. Redford appears after an excruciating 45 minutes of Woods’ fragile confusion and Gordon’s boundless hamming. He’s beyond striking, a beacon of refinement amid the screeching drunken imbeciles desperate for, and robotic showbiz insiders angling to generate, celebrity. The red-blond hair is perfectly coiffed, the strapping form outfitted in an immaculately tailored navy suit. Inside Daisy Clover went on to become a minor camp curiosity, a relic of the heady Leary days and testament to the tragic Woods’ sexy-vulnerable appeal. It’s set in the 1930s, an ancient Hollywood melodrama, but has mod trappings—Douglas Sirk meets the stark, white minimalist décor of 2001: A Space Odyssey. There’s that dissonance, and also the fact that Wade is a dissolute bisexual who has screwed and screwed over every sentient adult in the Thirty Mile Zone.

“All the good women and all the good men, couldn’t put Wade together again,” laments producer Ray Swan (Christopher Plummer) after Wade ditches Daisy on their honeymoon. “Age, sex—doesn’t matter.” Ray’s wife cut herself when Wade left her, she admits in a stoned stupor. Wade “never could resist a charming boy.”

Director Robert Mulligan’s film is too big a mess to be lauded for a frank, albeit offscreen, acknowledgement of unconventional sexuality. (Feared New Yorker critic Pauline Kael wrote in her pan of the film that in “one of the most cryptic roles ever written, Robert Redford gives the only fresh performance.”) Inside Daisy Clover lunges for histrionics but is hidebound by self-consciously cool formalism. Still, Redford’s willingness to play this role in a movie that came out during the studio system’s death throes but before Easy Rider ushered in the fabled New Hollywood augers his pivotal, complicated role in the financial and creative evolution of the movies over the last 50 years. Redford is an actor (66 credits), producer (31 credits), director (9 credits), film musician (for his uncredited contribution to the Out of Africa score) and steward of against-the-grain filmmakers (one credit as the inaugural chairman and perennial public face of the Sundance Film Festival, with dozens of trailblazing directors—the Coen Brothers, Soderbergh and Tarantino included—in his debt).

Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born in 1936 in Santa Monica, an independent city in Los Angeles County, and raised in Van Nuys, a section of the eternally dismissed San Fernando Valley. During his Inside the Actors Studio appearance, Redford told moderator James Lipton he was “a fuck up…fascinated with mythology” whose youthful indiscretions included breaking into Universal Studios. After a boozy semester and a half at the University of Colorado, the aspiring artist and poetry lover bumped around Europe before arriving at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

The smog-cloaked constellation of Los Angeles and its nebulous sprawl muddy neat town and country divides, but it’s tempting to look at Redford’s early life in, but not quite of, L.A. and subsequent wanderings as a precursor to his curious dual

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role as archetypal Hollywood heartthrob and well-mannered renegade. Beyond inherited geography, Redford’s filmography and Sundance work—which he had a greater hand in building himself no matter what the showbiz skeptics might tell you—balance tradition and provocation. After Inside Daisy Clover, Redford worked with frequent collaborator Sydney Pollack on This Property Is Condemned and Arthur Penn (two years before he directed New Hollywood touchstone Bonnie and Clyde) on The Chase (both 1966). The revolution was in foment, but in 1967 Redford reprised his stage role in the adaptation of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park alongside (as in The Chase) Jane Fonda. Knowing what was to come, Barefoot in the Park seems like a trifle. Redford’s Paul Bratter is the straitlaced lawyer foil newly wed to Fonda’s manic minx Corie, a horny would-be bohemian.

The couple moves to a dumpy walk-up in Greenwich Village, then still an emblem of downtown New York quirkiness. Corie mimics a Cambodian fertility dance while Paul attempts to prepare for a potential breakthrough trial the next morning.

Paul is the square, but Corie is an amiable fool. In a montage of their Plaza Hotel honeymoon, a week’s worth of New York Times papers piled at the door winks to insatiable friskiness, which is about as ribald as it gets.

In the early stage of Redford’s leading man career, he played either the stolid romantic totem or brusque buddy. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid arguably provided Redford with his seminal role, Sundance opposite Paul Newman’s Butch.

This is a coded wade into the counterculture. Butch and Sundance are squabbling train and bank robbers in the 1890s West being pursued across North and South America by a faceless, blood hungry moral authority.

“Most of What Follows Is True,” read the opening subtitles, and the great film takes certain liberties with and applies a ‘60s varnish to Spanish-American Warera history. Redford’s Sundance is the taciturn straight man to Newman’s voluble Butch. (They were at first considered for each other’s role.) Not a few jokes revolve around Sundance’s lacking, or at least closely guarded, intelligence. The film intermittently bathes itself in sepia; contemporary musical interludes ground it in the then-present. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid came out two years after Bonnie and Clyde, another nomadic criminal buddy picture, pushed the boundaries of screen violence and made, or was at least interpreted as, a more pronounced statement of period piece topicality. The blood doesn’t flow until well into Butch…, the firing squads that kill them at the end are only heard over a freeze-frame (the antithesis to Bonnie and Clyde’s bullet-ridden last dance) and the psychosexual backgrounds of Butch and Sundance are less explicit. (However, note that New Hollywood paragon Warren Beatty, at least per show business lore, was adamant that Clyde’s bisexuality be muted. Any requests Redford might have made for a straighter Wade Lewis were partially ignored.)

Regardless of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s desire (or studio-granted ability to) push the envelope or toe the line, Redford, as Sundance, played the less dynamic, though more complex, half of the partnership. As Butch, Newman gets the showier role and juicier lines, but Sundance’s gruffness obscures complexity— he leaves the saloon whores to Butch so he can chase after Etta (Katharine Ross), whom he makes strip naked at gunpoint (and whose conflicting affection for Butch is played out over “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” in an often-parodied montage). Redford and Newman subtly played off each other to their and the audience’s delight. The debate over who was handsomer in their heydays may never end, though Redford’s classical All-American flawlessness gives him a disadvantage in an age where off-kilter beauty is the sine qua non. (Pollack said that Redford “embodies the best part of the contradiction of America...He looks like a golden boy but is a complex, dark personality.”) Redford may have been too good-looking to pull off the crazed masochistic rebel Cool Hand Luke or bitter Southern aristocrat lush Brick Pollitt (in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) like Newman. He lacked Newman’s guile and Marlon Brando’s broodiness. (The thought of Redford asking a young Maria Schneider to slather her fingers in butter and stick them up his ass just seems sacrilegious.)

In 1972 Redford played Bill McKay in Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate, a topical (and prescient) political satire about a green senate candidate who hits the campaign trail only because he’s guaranteed to lose. The futility of his candidacy lets the liberal-leaning McKay do the unthinkable in election season: speak the truth. The Candidate’s teeth are sharp—screenwriter Jeremy Larner won an Oscar—its camera frenetic and often handheld. Redford’s sideburns practically talk through the screen. With McKay, Redford embraced ambiguity, and being the first film Redford executive produced, The Candidate indicated that Redford, more than a pretty-faced stiff or laconic sidekick, wanted to go in dark, sociological directions. The next year Redford starred back-to-back in The Way We Were and The Sting (for which he received his lone Oscar nod for acting). Both, especially The Sting, were wildly popular with audiences and the Academy (they contended for awards with the gritty trilogy of Cries & Whispers, The Exorcist and Last Tango In Paris). The Great Gatsby (1974), and Redford’s unenviable task of portraying one of literature’s biggest icons, drew mixed notices. All The President’s Men (1976) dragged Redford back into the tumultuous political and cinematic present.

The story of fledgling Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward (Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) exposing the titanic Watergate scandal of 1972 brims with that decade’s paranoia and, with its abundant news footage and, well, journalistic staccato smudges the line between reality and fiction in a more documentary than biopic way. Alan Pakula (an old hand at Me Decade decay and suspicion after Klute and The Parallax View) develops the Woodward-Bernstein partnership slowly, and it’s a pleasure to watch Redford, the prototypical Aryan, and Hoffman, the schlump for whom New Hollywood realism made stardom possible, spar before they congeal. (See also: Redford’s incongruous chemistry with his The Way We Were co-star, Barbara Streisand.)

Redford’s onscreen output slowed after All The President’s Men, giving him time

Robert Redford

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to chair the inaugural Utah/US Film Festival in 1978, to which, Dave Kehr of the New York Times wrote, “the beginning of the American independent film movement can partly be traced.” Three years after that festival’s presentation of eight independent features (and a handful of repertory classics) in Salt Lake City, Redford founded the Sundance Institute, a non-profit filmmaker’s collective that bought, and perhaps saved, the debt-laden festival in 1985. That year the event (still known as the United State Film Festival) presented 80 features (several of them, for the first time, international films) and introduced Joel and Ethan Coen (directors of the Grand Jury Prize-winning Blood Simple) to mainstream film audiences and watchful executives.

The rise of the festival that would be Sundance coincided with the implosion of New Hollywood. Heaven’s Gate, released in 1980, is the movement’s symbolic tombstone: production ran comically overlong; the budget swelled from $7.5 to a then-obscene $44 million; critics gleefully clawed at its bloated, dead on arrival corpse (“An unqualified disaster,” wrote Vincent Canby of the Times); it grossed $3.5 million and sent distributor United Artists to that studio lot in the sky. The auteur template had collapsed under the weight of its own sex and coke-fueled ego.

Appositely, it had lost a bout with the rise of the blockbuster (jumpstarted by Jaws) and dawn of the Reagan era high-concept movie, its ultimate goal to be reducible to the curt pitch hurled at studio heads.

Redford’s directorial debut, Ordinary People, debuted two month’s before the cataclysmic premiere of Heaven’s Gate. Based on a 1976 Judith Guest novel, it was an austerely devastating story of an affluent suburban Chicago family’s Cheever-esque unraveling that undermined the notion of Wasp solvency beyond bank accounts. It starred the resolutely perky Mary Tyler Moore as Beth Jarrett, a mother made frigid by the early death of Buck, her golden boy older son.

Buck’s bright, kind, meek brother Cal (Timothy Hutton) bears the brunt of Beth’s bereaved callousness, which is only compounded by Cal’s botched suicide that precedes the film.

With Ordinary People, Moore subverted her sitcom sweetheart image, but Redford (staying entirely off-screen) pulled off a more impressive coup: the enigmatic heavyweight screen idol won the Academy Award for Best Director— his only Oscar excluding a 2002 lifetime honor—for his delicate filmmaking.

(Ordinary People also took Best Picture over Martin Scorsese’s auteur masterpiece Raging Bull, a minor controversy in hindsight.) With its no-frills approach to American dysfunction, Ordinary People set the template for the early years of Sundance. The low-budget offerings there would eventually flavor their barebones personal narratives with identity politics, redneck minstrelsy and assorted grotesqueries (the ice queen Lake Forest mother shoots heroin through the stump of her amputated leg). But a look at the festival award winners between 1984 and 1994—Blood Simple; Stranger Than Paradise; River’s Edge; sex, lies and videotape; Paris Is Burning; El Mariachi; Clerks; Spanking the Monkey; Hoop Dreams—offers an irrefutable testament to the grimy-cerebral aesthetic of late ‘80s and early‘90s alternative cinema it established under Redford’s guidance. (Reservoir Dogs caused a commotion in 1992, but only won the attention of Miramax.)

The movies Redford directed during the Sundance and independent halcyon days, A River Runs Through It (1992) and Quiz Show (1994), were rightfully acclaimed,

Images News Pictures/Wenn.com / PR

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understated beauties. They were also as ironically edgy as Q-tips. In 1996, four of the five Oscar nominees for Best Picture were low-budget putative independents.

In the coming years, the indie sphere didn’t destroy itself through internal excess or fall to shifting tastes and release patterns as New Hollywood did in the early ‘80s. It was subsumed by the majors and routed through appendage “specialty divisions” whose prestige enhancing duty was to churn out Oscar-baiting holiday releases.

Amidst this paradigm shift critics charged that Sundance had lost its way. Vapid starlets who lacked a single film credit, paparazzi and high-end liquor sponsors elbowed out the starving artists and erudite critics in Park City. (The festival moved there, and to January from September, at the early behest of Pollack, who foresaw Hollywood types flocking to a ski town in the heart of winter as a boon, not a threat.) As “Dogville vs. Hollywood” author Jake Horsley put it, “getting your film shown [at Sundance] no longer meant reaching an audience, it meant going on auction…and ‘sell[ing] out’ to big studios.” In response, the festival instituted the palliative “Next” program category showcasing low- and no-budget fare. Through all the alternative-mainstream contretemps, Redford has maintained a steady, quiet hand. With Sundance, he’s incubated raw talent, shepherded (and financed) the vanguard while on his own time making and starring in movies of the classical mold. Unlike some of the old firebrands, Redford has largely avoided paycheck roles (De Niro, Hopper), front row Academy Awards showboating (Nicholson) or steroidal self-caricature (Pacino). His record is clear of personal peccadilloes. (In her review of Michael Feeney Callan’s 2011 Redford biography, USA Today book critic Susan Wloszczyna cautioned readers “craving a little dirt” that the 500-page tome offered “few revelations about matters of the heart.”) The two wives he’s had over 54 years are anonymous to all but friends, family and fanatical fans.

It seems unlikely that the unassuming Redford was ever interested in saving the movie industry from itself or sustaining Sundance as a punk upstart and enemy combatant. He’s not a firebrand, though a subtle take on the last line of his breakout movie could apply to him. After torching her oceanfront home, a defiant Daisy Clover, primed to subvert the Hollywood beast that made her explains the blaze to a startled passerby: “Someone declared war.”

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Art

Work-Out Text by Alice Butler Photography by Leandro Justen

In the art of Walt Cassidy, jewellery, sculpture, drawing and photography collide.

Process feeds process; he works it through, works it out even – in what constitutes an art of translation. Biography is fractured into distilled moments of metaphor and motif. Viewing his art is like sneaking a peep of a diary, but that diary is coded and enigmatic: sensory – not legible. In corresponding over email, might I untangle his visual language?

Alice Butler: In works like The Weeping Tower (2011), an abstract structure impinges on a photographic portrait of a reclining male, fusing documentary photography with the plastic arts. Could you describe the relationship between the figurative and the abstract in your work?

Walt Cassidy: Those are from a series I did called The Nervous Peal drawings.

They are fictive structures reimagined as public artworks – and situated in areas of New York City, like Jacob Riis Beach, where the queer community gather. I am interested in restaging these imagined public works as ‘monuments’ to queer communities that exist outside the mainstream. Paradox features heavily in my work: the juxtaposition between drawn sculptural works and contemplative photography creates a tension that is essentially generative.

AB: You have spoken in the past about the role of autobiography in your work: in what ways can your work be seen as a visual diary?

WC: I see myself as a diarist, primarily. But while the work is crudely biographical, it is also coded in ambiguity – and that coding constitutes the art. This process of coding creates spaces in and around the narrative, and enables the viewer to project his or her own fictions onto the work. The autobiographical elements are illustrated through a series of metaphors, conveyed through abstraction, motif and structure. I am interested in using the process of making the work as a means to finding a sense of order: artistic catharsis amidst the emotional chaos.

AB: There is an intimate eroticism at play in The Blossoming Cage (currently showing at M|M Gallery) – how does this relate to your former life as the New York City Club Kid Walt Paper and founder of the band BOOB? WC: The works for The Blossoming Cage are about the relationship to the flesh, and the desire to transform through a process of chrysalis. I use theories of transcendentalism as a foil for more contemporary issues of body identification, and gender spectrum vs. gender binarism. In terms of eroticism, there are often questions relating to dominance and submission running through my work: an undercurrent of violence. But I would say The Club Kid movement was distinctively non-sexual, in that it arose out of the AIDS epidemic of the late 80s / early 90s. It was about dancing, drug-taking and dressing-up. As a young person, there was so much fear around sex at that time – it felt very much off limits – so I offloaded my sexuality, and curiosity about the body, onto my illustrations and paintings. BOOB emerged as the final chapter to that period, and for me personally, this is when I began to evolve from the androgyny of boyhood into the space of becoming an adult gay man.

AB: In the 2012 group exhibition The Displaced Person (Invisible Exports, New York) your work was curated alongside Ron Athey: to what extent do you see yourself working in this artistic lineage of visceral performance?

WC: I relate to Ron’s work through issues of the flesh and transcendence: the arc of gender; the archetypal journey from boyhood to manhood; notions of ritual, and queerness. We share an artistic trajectory that has evolved from street culture and the punk movement. Ideas of athleticism and obstacle, their performative aspects, and how they relate to community and public space are addressed in The Nervous Peal drawings. These are currents attended to in Athey’s work, and also point to our shared connection with Yukio Mishima, the Japanese avant-garde novelist.

AB: Can you describe your aesthetic correspondence with Mishima’s writing?

WC: The initial inspiration for The Nervous Peal drawings came from watching the fitness gangs that occupy the playgrounds of New York, which corresponded with my own personal relationship to physical training. Placing my body in a space of repetitive muscular tension awakened an intensity and clarity within me. It was this combination of artistic research and personal experience that led me to thinking about the performative possibilities of athletic structures as public works. I then re-read an article by Henry Rollins, originally published in Details magazine, entitled ‘The Iron’. The line that stood out was a direct reference from Mishima’s book Sun and Steel: he writes about the iron talking to you; that

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the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. I became interested in Mishima’s biography, and the dilemmas he faced in coming to terms with himself as an artist vs. his relationship to his flesh though physical training, and how this related to his sexuality. This is one contextual component of many that formed the conceptual layers of The Nervous Peal drawings: the appliance of the performativity of public athletics to public artworks – nestled amongst “nonpublic” queer communities.

AB: And going back to Athey: his interest in bodily adornment seems connected to the decorative within your own practice: what role do you think ornament plays in your work and how does it differ from craft?

WC: The ritual utility of ornament, and the intention it is infused with, distinguishes it from craft. In my work, ornamentation serves as a talismanic and meditative mode of working. I use the motif of ornamentation as a way of chewing down and ordering the emotional chaos that stems from the narrative I am seeking to illustrate.

AB: But can craft be art in your opinion? There seems to be a strong relationship between jewellery and sculpture within your work…

WC: For me, the artistic value of the work is dependent on how the work is lived in and its context: how it is occupied, not the means in which it is created. The term ‘craft’ has derogatory connotations. While there may be passion and skill inherent in craft, I feel the term is loaded with negativity. However, the presence of the maker’s hand is implicit in craft, and this is something I value in my own work, particularly with the cut metal pieces. This corresponds with my interest in the talismanic qualities of art, amulets and jewellery – particularly their shamanic usage – such as the Ethiopian Magic Scrolls that are worn as adornments.

Conceptually, the idea of wearing an illustration as an amulet is interesting to me: it feeds my own artistic process. A drawing of a sculpture within a photograph, that is printed on non-photographic paper, is extracted, laser-cut, worn as jewellery, and then photographed on a figure that is once again placed in the same setting of the original image that was culled to create the jewellery. This journey through mediums iconizes the original illustrated gesture.

AB: Lastly, this is your first solo exhibition in Berlin: what do you think the city offers the working artist?

WC: I am excited to have the work seen in a new context outside of New York.

From my experience of living in London, I feel that Europe is much more community-oriented: the competitiveness and individualism of New York can feel depleting. I find retreat in my renegade locales, but I long for the connection and communion with other artists and performers that was so much a part of my youth. The artistic community of Berlin is mythologized, and is often sited as a nourishing antidote to the starkness of New York. I welcome this fresh perspective.

Men

The Scent-ist Text by Oliver Noffke Photography by Kevin Tachman

Changing careers is a gamble. Will you be as successful as you hope to be? Will others take you seriously? Will you end up missing what you did previously? A career change requires an adventurous spirit, courage, and definitely hard work – especially if you want to stand out. A carefree attitude and motivational drive to seek out solutions instead of focusing on problems are also helpful tools. There are people who successfully reset their lives, who are able to leave all baggage behind without ever looking back – because what they really want to achieve is still ahead of them.

Changing career paths doesn’t need to be as significant as it was for the man who is perhaps the very definition of charting a new career course; Albert Einstein, who worked as clerk at a Swiss patent office and went on to become the most influential scientist of his generation. Evelyn Hall is also one of those people, at the age of 66 she decided to become a model. She hit the runway during Berlin’s 2011 Fashion Week. Her slim frame, long legs and her wavy grey mane stunned audiences and critics alike. Of course, it helped that she had been a revue dancer in Las Vegas when she was young, but her will to go against all odds, while competing for jobs along 16-year-olds, drove her to this late fame. Walt Disney was even sacked from his position as a newspaper editor. He was told “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas”. Nobody would say that about the man who fathered Mickey Mouse today.

Sometimes, you might be good with what you do, but you will be great at something absolutely different. No doubt, the name Carlos Huber can be added to the list of incredibly successful career changes. He studied at some of the most prestigious universities in his native country, Mexico, as well as in France, to become an architect specialised in preservation. Today, he is making headlines as one of the hottest perfume creators in the industry. His approach to creating scents is unique. With his Arquiste line of fragrances he tries to retrieve and recreate moments from history that captivate people to this day – past times of beauty, peace and wellbeing. Once those moments are discovered, he tries to reimagine them. The floral-infused scents, Fleur de Louis and Infanta en Flor, reflect the border meeting of France’s Sun King Louis XIV and his Spanish bride Maria Teresa. Anima Dulcis takes us back to Mexico in the year of 1695; a re-creation of how the heyday of the now ruined convent of Jesus Maria must have smelled like, with its kitchens smelling of steaming cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon and infusions of chili. Huber’s intense interest in history is mirrored in all of the fragrances. The whole idea about his Arquiste line of fragrances is to bring certain eras back to life. Patrick Süßkind, author of the magnificent bestselling book Perfume, has described the importance of our sense of smell as follows: “Odours have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odour cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is remedy for it.”

It’s not surprising that it took almost 30 years for his book to be adapted for the big screen. The bold direction of Tom Tykwer does its best to translate smell into visuals.

But any media that misses to a tickle just one of our senses won’t be able to tell the whole story of a specific moment – especially if that moment is engulfed in scent.

Huber is a true cosmopolitan. He worked in Spain and discovered his love for historic buildings in Florence. 21st century marketing tools seem to come easy to the New York-based entrepreneur. He is a diligent user of Twitter and Instagram on which he doesn’t only showcase or bluster, but takes his followers on a journey by sharing interesting views of outstanding works of architecture or giving away looks behind the obvious tourist attractions. He also describes himself as a bit of a nerd maybe due to the fact he seems to know a lot trivia and fun facts about design and architecture. Especially his Instagram should be labelled with a warning sign because, beware, you might get hooked on Huber’s profile.

Carlos Huber’s company was founded in 2011. One year later he launched the first fragrances of the Arquiste line, which was honoured in January 2013 with the Fashion Group International’s 16th Annual Rising Star Award for best Beauty/ Fragrance Entrepreneur Brand. Boutonniere No. 7, a green floral eau de parfum, was chosen as one of the top five fragrances launched in the United States during the Fragrance Foundation Awards in New York City in June 2013.

Huber spoke to us in New York just a few days before a trip to Japan.

Oliver Noffke: You are an architect by profession – how did you get into the fragrance industry?

Carlos Huber: I have always been passionate about perfume. Five years ago I met perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux, who not only became a friend but also my generous teacher and mentor. And at a point my love for fragrances grew too strong for me to not start working on my idea of creating scents based on history.

What inspired you to create your first fragrance? I was reading a book describing the encounter of the French and Spanish royal courts in June 1660, and there were so many references to scent and olfactive materials that made it almost tangible. I thought it would be a great experiment to compose a formula using those ingredients and try to convey the experience of what that moment and place actually felt like.

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ON: Is there a secret to a successful fragrance?

CH: Success depends on a lot of things. Quality and taste are, of course, key, but besides that I think patience and assertiveness are important to let a fragrance grow in the market.

ON: Do you agree with the saying ‘a perfume is memories poured into a bottle’?

CH: Absolutely. Our nose is directly connected to our brain, when it comesto fragrance.

ON: What fragrance are you wearing at the moment?

CH: I’m in the process of developing a new scent that will launch in June. It’s a very woody, ambery fragrance with a crisp herbal opening.

ON: Do you think a man should have a signature scent?

CH: I think he should have a collection of signature scents for different occasions and moods.

ON: With so many scents hitting shelves, do you have any tips for choosing your next fragrance?

CH: Be selective and look for niche fragrances. Choose your three favorites, and then try them on your skin. It’s important to always try them on skin. A better fragrance will evolve with your skin’s chemistry rather than feeling like a coat of paint on top of it.

ON: How different is your approach when creating a scent for summer as opposed to winter?

CH: It is important always to take into consideration where people want to be taken to during that season. Is it a beach or to the countryside in the summertime, or a warm fireplace during winter? I like to think of a fragrance as an invitation to travel. It is fun for me to think where you would like to be taken when developing the fragrance. Nevertheless, it’s a very subjective question. For example, I personally like refreshing, citrusy fragrances during winter, especially with all the indoor heating and the heavy clothing. Plus I love the ‘escapist’ idea of reminding myself of summer.

ON: If you would create a fragrance inspired by Berlin, what would that be like?

CH: It’s easier to think of a particular aspect of the city, or a particular story that has taken place in Berlin, rather than to generalize the city in one scent. I love Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s architecture in Berlin. Maybe we could recreate the lovely scent of the linden trees during a carriage ride on Unter den Linden in combination with the smell of a nearby construction site like the brick and terracotta tiled Bauakademie. The scent would be green and slightly crisp, but also unexpected in the mineral notes of brick, wet earth and clay. I like how that sounds.

ON: Which celebrity or historical figure you would love to create a fragrance for?

CH: William Beckford, the 19th century profligate, art collector and novelist. I’m fascinated by his story.

ON: If you could choose an era to live in, what would you choose?

CH: I love researching the past to understand it better and to daydream a bit, but I prefer living in the present. We as people are educated to live in the present and are prepared for the near future. It’s hard to imagine another era truly being better for us. However, as far as aesthetics go; I love the art and fashion surrounding the French Revolution and the beginning of the 19th century in France.

ON: Describe yourself in 5 words...

CH: Scorpio heart and Sagittarius head.

Men

Carlos Huber

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Grooming

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Steeped in Ritual Text by Mikkel Hyldebrandt Photography by Stephen Busken

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Historically, bathing rituals have been extremely prominent. The ancient Greeks and more so the Romans let the practice of bathing become a significant social part of their civilized society. The same goes for Asian cultures where public baths gained prestige in the pursuit of spiritual and physical cleanliness through the rites of bathing.

And Islamic cultures further refined the ritual of bathing with steam bath spa temples that were meant not only to clean the body, but also provide a venue for more spiritual cleansing, thinking, and even healing. Today, taking a bath or shower is for many a routine task performed one or more times a day. The primary function of bathing is to keep up good hygiene, but a close second is the feeling of cleanliness and freshness a shower or bath provides you with. But what if your bath could become more than just daily routine? What if you could infuse the task of bathing with a few rites to make it more of a ritual? After all, the bathroom has become one of the last bastions where you can truly be alone and experience the coveted and too rare ‘me time’.

It doesn’t have to be every day that your shower is replaced by a bathing ritual, but just like with shaving, it is nice once in a while to pull out all the stops and embrace the ritual and thus leave everyday convention behind.

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Immerse - If you have access to a bathtub, fill it up with hot water and dissolve a handful of bath salt in the water. Bath salt, as opposed to a foamy bath gel, will not strip your skin of natural skin oils, but rather prevent the skin from soaking up too much water. Also, a bath salt will soften the skin aiding natural exfoliation of dead skin cells. If you take a shower, go for a mild shower gel, which will not strip your skin of natural oils. Scent is imperative for a truly immersive experience so choose a product with a scent that will please your senses and not throw you off balance (if it is too feminine for example). Let the warm water relax you for about 1520 minutes and then finish the bathing part of the ritual by washing and conditioning your hair.

4 - Tromborg Vanilla Bath Salt 5 - MensDept. Shampoo & Conditioner 6 - Evolution Man Nu Noir Face & Body Wash

Soothe - Stepping out of the bath (you may need to rinse off the salted bath water in the shower), pat the skin dry with a soft towel - don’t rub it dry as the friction could irritate the warm and supple skin. If you have never tried a Turkish cotton towel, it is highly recommended. It doesn’t have the thickness of a plush towel, but it is extremely absorbent and very soft to the touch.

Immediately following the toweling off massage a body oil into the skin, while it’s still moistened from the warm water. A so-called dry body oil is preferable because its chemical structure is so finely laced that it won’t leave an oily residue on the skin’s surface. And as for any oil: a little goes a long way so be careful not to overdose.

7 - Malin+Goetz Eucalyptus Deodorant 8 - Diptyque Satin Oil For Body and Hair 9 - Clarins Men Line-Control Balm 10 - Bottega Veneta Pour Homme Eau de Toilette 1 2

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Prep - Before even immersing into the wet element, prepare your skin so that it is both freed of the very outer layer of dead skin cells and invigorated to soak up the warmth of the water. The shortcut is to use a body scrub to gently enliven the skin, but if you want to really treat your skin, go for a dry brush. Smoothly brush from the feet up towards the heart to align with your body’s natural lymphatic flow - your skin will feel as if it is breathing, and it will be glowing from the stimulation of the blood flow in the skin’s surface. Purify the pores of your face with a facial mask, which will draw out impurities and also eliminate toxins in the skin surface.

1 - Tom Ford Intensive Purifying Mud Mask 2 - Kyoki BDY-SC Water Body Scrub 3 - Iris Dry Body Brush

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The final steps of your bathing ritual is to equip you to reenter the world outside of your ritualized bubble: A few strokes of deodorant will have you smelling good, a couple of sprays of fragrance to your torso will make you smell even greater, and a nice face cream will get your face ready to meet the world, which by now is less plagued by dreary routine.

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Images PR

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Model Adam Huber @ Adam NYC

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Colpi di Testa

The Buzz Cut

Grooming Louise Moon

by Stephen Busken

Americana

Aerodynamics

The Pompadour

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Modern Punk

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Photographer STEPHEN BUSKEN @ JORGE PEREZ REPS, photographer assistant JORDAN MILLINGTON, grooming LOUISE MOON, models JORDAN MILLINGTON; AARON THORNTON, GEOFF BURNS, and OLIVER BENZ @ WILHELMINA LA

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The Curls

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Centerfold

Photo Š Jimmy Nelson Pictures BV, www.beforethey.com

DRokpa India/Pakistan

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subjects. If you go to a museum that displays artefacts, clothing or historic photos of indigenous people, you easily get the impression that this is something lost, something that will only collect dust, but it isn't. Nelson’s pictures depict life in vibrant colours, of a reality still being lived today on our planet. These are lifestyles on the brink of extinction, and Nelson has not only preserved them in a dignifying way, but also in order to help us understanding their beauty and take action so that tribal life can flourish for at least a little while longer.

We had a chat with Jimmy to talk about his experience.

Documenting Realities Text by Oliver Noffke Photography by Jimmy Nelson

For his book “Before They Pass Away” photographer Jimmy Nelson journeyed to more than 40 countries, during nearly three years he took 13 trips to achieve what he was hoping for. Nelson, born in 1967 in Kent, Great Britain, was able to capture the lifestyles of nearly three dozen indigenous tribes and people from all corners of the world. His travels led him to Ethiopia, New Zealand, Siberia, China, Nepal, Kenya, India, Tanzania, and more. The result is nothing short of mind-blowing: on over 400 pages, his book provides the reader with a glimpse into the lives of proud people that are truly connected to their own environment. Pictures displaying scenes of hardship backdropped by infinite landscapes. Nelson was able to capture intimate portraits of all of them with his 50-year-old plate camera. He visited primitive tribes in the most inhospitable places like the sparse Mongolian steppe during the freezing winter months, and he returned with images documenting the power of the human spirit and the will to survive. Most of the pictures are iconic pieces of art about spirituality, tradition, family ties and life as a group. Each page of his book takes us to a place way off the beaten path that we would utterly consider inaccessible from our developed world perspective. This project could only be undertaken by an experienced artist like Nelson behind the lens, who has worked as a photographer for almost 30 years.

Nelson’s book has so far received rave reviews across the globe, he has been interviewed by NBC's Ann Curry, Al Jazeera and by the German national newspaper, Die Zeit to name just a few. Vietnamese, Russian and Dutch news outlets have also created buzz surrounding the book launch by teNeues in summer 2013. Dozens of photo-related blogs have written about the book, and just recently the book has been awarded with the “Goldener Deutscher Fotobuchpreis 2014 one of the most prestigious photography award in Germany.

More than 80 of his photos are now being exhibited at the Berlin-based Camera Work Gallery, which utilizes for the first time both its showrooms to give the epochal work the space it needs and deserves; an honour that hasn't been awarded to any other artist until now.

The show confronts the spectator with the unknown and the foreign. The visitors find themselves opposite luxuriant fur robes of the Mongolian Kazakhs, further along, the striking pearl jewellery and rich feathered headpieces of the inhabitants of Goroka in Papua, New Guinea, and the proud displays of Maori tattoos telling the stories of their life now and that of their ancestors on their skin. Nelson’s pictures are surrounded by an almost mystical sphere, enabling the spectator to see more than just the unknown and exotic, they instil in us the desire to explore the impossible vastness of the outdoors on our planet. They offer views into lives lived purely, honestly, and connected to the environment, people in balance with themselves and nature. The title of both book and exhibition, Before They Pass Away, seems almost too melancholic, compared to what you see in the pictures, but it is a bitter reminder of how fragile and endangered indigenous life is. Although Jimmy Nelson is not a scientist, his work can be seen as a unique time capsule, his work oscillates both a visual testament of authenticity and the result of a calculated composition committed to the artistic ideas of beauty, pride and dignity toward its

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Oliver Noffke: What is your personal background and motivation as a photographer?

Jimmy Nelson: For as long as I can remember, I have travelled the world. My father worked for a major oil company and by the time I was seven, I had seen more countries than most people get to visit in a lifetime. Thereafter, I travelled back and forth to boarding schools in the UK from all corners of the world. You can imagine that from a very early age I was made aware of the rapid cultural changes happening around the world.

At the age of sixteen, I lost all my hair due to the accidental use of the wrong medicine. This event changed me not only aesthetically, but also personally. I felt different from everyone else due to my new appearance. Soon after, I decided to abandon my plans to go to university and instead disappear on a year’s journey to “find myself ”. I travelled the length of Tibet by foot and on my return the amateurish photo diary that I made was published. This was the start of my career as a photographer.

ON: How did your career develop?

JN: I worked as a photo journalist in various locations like Afghanistan, Pakistan, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the former Yugoslavia. I moved to China for a threeyear project called ‘Literary Portraits of China’, which was eventually published to wide international acclaim. In 1998 I settled down in Amsterdam, where I worked as a commercial photographer and started a family. At one point, however, after living of my commercial work for over a decade, I felt that my career had slipped into a rut of superficiality. What I really wanted to do was get back into the world and search for ancient civilizations.

ON: Is there a general mission behind “Before They Pass Away”?

JN: Our world is changing at breakneck speed. Countries that, not so long ago, were considered developing nations are now among the world’s wealthiest. It’s inevitable that such rapid progress in affluence and technology ultimately reaches those cultures that, up until now, have managed to preserve their own identity and values. And when it does, their longstanding traditions will gradually disappear.

My dream had always been to preserve our world’s tribes through my photography.

Not to stop change from happening – because I know I can’t – but to create a visual document that reminds us, and coming generations, of the beauty of pure and honest living. And of all the important things it teaches us; ingredients we seem to have forgotten in our so-called civilized world.

I’m privileged to have had the opportunity to fulfil this life-long passion, but it is not about me: it is a catalyst for something far bigger.

The main message of this project would be: look closer. We in the developed world are very comfortable with our prejudices and with our judgments. Look closer, because you never know what’s around the corner. Some things can be very different than what they seem to be.

ON: Does the book reproduce the spirit of the exhibition?

JN: The book that originated from this project – containing 402 colour photographs - is meant as a source of inspiration and its main objective is to keep tribal tradition alive for us to learn from.

ON: How did you approach Indigenous tribes and connect with them?

JN: The most important lesson I have learned was that, in order to connect to any kind of people in any situation, you need to let go of all your arrogance.

Showing them that we are - just like them - human and vulnerable, is a prerequisite for a project like this. Only when one is stripped off wealth, class, colour and culture disparities, true humanistic communication can start flowing. As with all relationships in life, the key to profoundly connect with someone is trust.

ON: How did you convince tribal people to pose for the camera?

JN: On a number of locations, when we first arrived somewhere, the people were reluctant to let us photograph them. What we did, was leave the camera behind for the first days, in order not to intimidate them. We would sleep in their accommodation because we did not want to give the impression to feel better than them. Wherever we went, we always approached the people we photographed with enormous dignity. We would try to communicate, usually with the help of translators. When the people we visited finally had warmed up to us, our enthusiasm worked as a catalyst for theirs. Our passion, our perfectionism and our teamwork seemed to be contagious and in most cases, the locals soon wanted to participate in it. The positive energy and pride that emerged from working together with the people, is being reflected in the photographs.

ON: What are outstanding characteristics of the tribes in general?

JN: There is a pure beauty in their goals and family ties, their belief in gods and nature, and their will to do the right thing in order to be taken care of when their time comes. They know what makes them happy and they choose to live that life.

ON: How would you describe the relation between the tribes you have photographed and the areas in which they live?

JN: The tribes are all similar in how they live in balance with their environment.

Photo Š Jimmy Nelson Pictures BV, www.beforethey.com

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Maori New Zealand

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Ladakhi Himalaya - Jammu and Kashmir

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Photo Š Jimmy Nelson Pictures BV, www.beforethey.com

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Ladakhi Himalaya - Jammu and Kashmir

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That is one of the most outstanding differences between them and the people in the more ‘developed’ world. They have achieved the perfect harmony with nature, something that everyone in the West dreams of. It was one of the most essential characteristics of the tribes and I have tried to catch that in my photography ON: Do you favour one people in particular?

JN: That is a difficult one. They all definitely stand out. The further away you go from the developed world, the more pure the experience becomes and each tribe was as special as the next. However, I have to say that visiting people in extremely cold climates was very intense, because they are really surviving on the edge of the planet.

ON: Can you share some special experiences you had while you travelled for this project?

JN: There is one particular story of a tough moment for me as a photographer.

There is a photo of three native Kazakh men from Mongolia with eagles on their shoulders on a mountain. That picture took three days to take, because each morning there wasn’t enough light. On the fourth morning, it was about minus 20 degrees on top of the mountain and the light was beautiful. I took off my gloves to take the photo and they literally froze to the camera. I began crying and when I turned my head I saw that two women had followed us to the top of the mountain.

One of them took my fingers and cradled them in her jacket until I got the feeling back and was able to take a couple of photographs. What I didn’t know was that these women are actually strict Sunni Muslims, and broke all codes of modesty in order to aid me. They had noticed my desperation and did what they could to help me achieve what I was there for.

There is another very unique experience I had, also in Mongolia. When I first met the Tsaatan people, they were a bit distant and refused to pose for the photographs.

It wasn't that they were unfriendly; they repeatedly offered me vodka, which, not being much of a drinker, I refused. But after failing to gain their trust in order to take their picture, I decided to put my camera away and play the grateful guest. The result was that I got completely drunk and slumped into an alcoholic stupor. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a tepee tent surrounded by about 30 people with a bladder fit to burst. Wrapped up in about eight layers of clothes and with the temperature minus 40 outside, I didn’t see any other option but to pee in my pants and drift back off to sleep. The next moment I woke up from the tent that had collapsed under a stampede of reindeer - animals that, as I learned then, are attracted to the salt in urine. So there I was, standing in minus 40 degrees with a reindeer licking my clothes. Well, that broke the ice. Making a complete plonker of myself and becoming the laughing stock of the group, they finally began to open up.

Photo © Jimmy Nelson Pictures BV, www.beforethey.com

ON: Do you see a benefit of your work for the people you pictured?

JN: I want to show these tribes that they are already rich. That they have something that money can’t buy. I would like to demonstrate to them that the Western modern society is not that pure and inspiring as their own culture and values and, therefore, it is not something to necessarily aspire. I want to make the tribes realize that their lifestyle has much more purity and beauty to offer than ‘ours’. Their lives are free of corruption and greed. I want them to be proud of their authenticity and defend it in order to preserve it.

Even though I am aware that my photographic document will not be able to prevent the eventual disappearance of the tribes, I strongly hope that it adds to the realization that by respecting their natural habitat and way of life, we are able to stretch it as long as possible.

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ON: So, you think their disappearance is inevitable?

JN: If we could start a global movement that documents and shares images, thoughts and stories about tribal life, maybe we could save part of our world’s precious cultural heritage from vanishing. I feel that we must try to let them coexist in these modern times, by supporting their cause, respecting their habitats, recording their pride and helping them to pass on their traditions to generations to come. Only that way we can help them keeping their way of life for as long as possible.

ON: What will disappear with the tribes?

JN: If those tribes disappear, we will lose a living example of how to treasure our natural surroundings and values like hope, optimism and courage, solidarity and friendship. We could learn a lot from these authentic cultures that build on principal aspects of humanity, such as respect, love, survival and sharing.

ON: What are your next steps with this project?

JN: We have photographed 35 tribes so far. We chose them based on aesthetic beauty, geographical location, and the diversity of the nature they live in. The photographs in this book show the enormous diversity of extraordinary nature on our planet. The next step is to go back to the tribes that we photographed and show them the results. I want them to realize how important their existence is for the rest of the world and the future of humanity. In the next years, we are planning to visit and photograph another 35 tribes: for example in the Middle East, in China and Indigenous people in Australia. We have to, however, take into account that, because of political situations, religion or conflict, some of these places and tribes might not be as easy accessible as others. Any recommendations or connections to them are of course very much appreciated.

The “Before They Pass Away” exhibition is on display from March 8th till April 19th at Camera Work, Kantstrasse 149, 10623 Berlin, and until June 21st at CWC Gallery, Auguststrasse 11-13, 10117 Berlin.

Before They Pass Away Jimmy Nelson Published by teNeues Size: 29 x 37 cm, 424 pp., Hardcover with jacket 402 color photographs Text in English, German, and French € 128 The book is also available as “Collector’s Edition XXL” For more information visit wwww.teneues.com

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The Jet Set's Architect Text by Alan Brake

In landmark films like L’Avventura and L’Eclisse director Michelangelo Antonioni captured an atmosphere in postwar Italy fraught with anxieties in a rapidly urbanizing nation. These stylish films, shot in hard-edged modernist architecture and windswept plazas, depict a country that has broken with its troubled recent past, leaving the characters unmoored and ambivalent about their futures.

On the coast of Sardinia, architect Luigi Vietti was creating another scenography.

Mining a Mediterranean vernacular, with elements drawn from Spain, Italy, and Greece, Vietti created a resort fantasy along the Costa Smeralda (the emerald coast), that was an escapist answer to Antonioni’s modernist angst. Vietti’s luxurious creation was any but superficial. It was too sensitive to the landscape, to history, and to sensual pleasures to be dismissed. His villas and hotels, which framed and dramatized the landscape of the rocky coast, implied continuity, comfort and leisure, at least for the global elite. In the early 1960s, Vietti was commissioned by Prince Aga Kahn IV to plan and design a new village of Porto Cervo—the functional heart of the Casa Smeralda—along with the luxurious yet rustic Hotel Pitrizza, comprised of a series of stone and white stucco cottages arrayed around pools and terraces, evoking traditional hill towns. Vietti also designed the Aga Kahn’s own private villa. The French architect Jacques Couelle designed the Hotel Cala di Volpe as well as the famous Yacht club. The buildings, landscape and planning all work in tandem.

The Aga Kahn and Vietti understood that the dramatic cliffs and tucked away coves would provide ideal setting for yachting and discreet trysts. Development there was carefully controlled and landscape elements were conserved (planning and design techniques that are widely followed today, but were innovative in the early 1960s). Visitors have the sense of tranquility and privacy, while also being aware that every comfort is within easy reach. The Aga Kahn and Vietti’s vision proved correct, and the Casa Smeralda quickly became a destination for celebrities and royalty, such as Princess Grace, Elizabeth Taylor. “It’s right up there in the pantheon of the world’s great destinations,” David Howerton said, an architect who’s firm worked on updating the conservation plan and infrastructure in Costa Smeralda. “It’s spectacular.”

Vietti knew how to flourish among the rich and mighty. Philip Johnson famously, and crassly, summed up architecture’s relationship to power, saying, “architects are all pretty much high-class whores.” While Italian architectural circles brimmed with leftist thought, Vietti was no radical. He, along with many other prominent architects—such as Aldo Rossi—participated in the 1942 Universal Exhibition, which helped define Mussolini’s architectural style. Vietti’s participation, however, did not mar his career. In the postwar period Italian architecture culture was consumed by infighting, particularly among the leftists, which Vietti steered clear of, focusing on domestic and hospitality projects for the elite.

Vietti’s conservationist approach and engagement with vernacular architecture grew, in part, from his work as a town planner and preservationist. In a period when the past was treated with suspicion and architects sought to break with history and build for a new machine age, Vietti never lost his connection to history.

“He obviously studied the region closely, and reinterpreted these wonderful farm buildings and villages,” Howerton said. Even when designing an entirely new plan, he rejected the tabula rasa approach of many architects of the era. “What makes the Costa Smeralda so successful is that it is built into and really subordinate to the rugged costal landscape,” he said.

Building on Vietti’s initial plans for Porto Cervo and the placement of the hotels and yacht club, the renowned planner and landscape architect Hideo Sasaki further codified the master plan for the region, which the various owners over the decades have upheld. It all comes back to Vietti’s sensitive approach to siting his buildings and their modest profile in the landscape. “I was impressed by the simplicity or the shapes, the forms, the massing, the volumes,” Howerton said. “It has little to do with what we think of as 60s corporate modernism, but it is connected to ideas

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of indoor and outdoor living, of companion indoor and outdoor rooms, which was a part of modernist residential design.” At the Hotel Pittriza, Vietti created an intimate human-scaled ensemble of private houses that share hotel amenities.

Many feature green roofs, which help to merge the modestly scaled buildings with the landscape and preserve sightlines of the coastline below. The interior volumes are legible on the exterior, making the buildings an immediately approachable to visitors. He kept the ceilings low and dug the structures into the rocky landscape and designed secluded terraces so the division between indoors and out largely dissolves. Drawing on vernacular precedents of farm cottages and hillside villages, Vietti retained the scale and feel while simplifying and opening up the spaces, blending traditional architectural styles with modernist residential principles to create a new idea of luxury. “People are attracted to the place because it’s not overdone,” Howerton said.

In addition to his villas and hotels, Vietti was a versatile designer of furnishings and objects, including a series of chairs he designed in the 1930s, made of bentwood and chrome and leather, which are highly sought after today. His attention to the body, eye, and hand is equally in evidence in his architecture at the Costa Smeralda. He commission locally produced Cerasarda ceramics, which were used in bathrooms and kitchen tiles, as well as accessories for the villas and hotels.

Charming mosaics of fish and foul also appear. In addition to his best known work, he also designed villas and other projects in Italy, the Caribbean, and in Eritrea (a former Italian colony).

Viettti wasn’t just a court architect for the Prince, he was very much a part of the social scene at Costa Smeralda. Vietti and the Aga Kahn were both avid yachtsmen, and the architect was a vivid presence at the famous yacht club (which was renovated by the architect Peter Marino, know for his work with luxury fashion brands, in 2002). “He was very much the aristocratic Italian architect,” Howerton said. “They certainly had a nice life there in the 60s and 70s.” The Aga Kahn still serves as the president of the club.

Born in 1903, Vietti died at the age of 95 in 1998 in Milan, living through much of Europe’s most tumultuous century. More than 50 years on, his timeless design have outlasted changing styles and the finicky tastes of the international elite. The global appeal of the Costa Smeralda has only deepened. The Emir of Qatar recently acquired much of this trophy property in 2012. The remarkable stewardship of the area but the Aga Kahn and the various owners that followed should serve as a model for the continued success of the Costa Smeralda. Vietti’s environmentally sensitive design and recognition of the inherent beauty of the region make it one of the world’s most desirable destinations. Let’s hope that his prescient vision is only improved upon.

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Dall’alto in senso orario: Villa Berlusconi, Porto Cervo, Sardinia. Luigi e Riccarda Vietti alla galleria Rabel di Cortina d’Ampezzo. Iconic sign of the Costa Smeralda, Sardinia. Villa Merloni, Porto Cervo, Sardinia. Luigi Vietti e Patrizia Medail alla galleria Rabel di Cortina d’Ampezzo. Una vista aerea dell’Hotel Pitrizza a Porto Cervo, Sardinia. Chalet Barilla, Cortina D’Ampezzo.

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Dossier

Big, Bigger, Biggest!

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Dossier

The Psychology of the Muscle Text by Liam J Aldous

Muscle. The final frontier.

Forget the androgynous skeletal males gliding down the catwalks in Paris and Milan. Apparently real men aspire to be real big. Look around any modern city and the evidence is hard to ignore. An army of men toiling away for hours at the gym.

Endless sequences of the same repetitive actions. Strictly enforced dietary regimes.

Forced consumption of artificially flavored protein powders.

But for what? Why are men putting themselves through such a tedious cycle of pain and anguish? What is the pay off?

Talk with bodybuilders and muscle fanatics only ever seems to concentrate on their physical milestones, their dietary regime, or their personal idols. It never seems to touch on the psychology of their actions. What drives them toward this lifestyle?

And what compels them to stay there? What about the social consequences of getting bigger? Asking any avid gym-goer to pause and reflect on their intricate psychological motivations is not something we would recommend. However, with enough patience and perhaps luck, we found several muscle-bound men who were introspective enough to explain why they just want to get BIG. Look at me - “I was chubby as a kid and I was all shy all the way into my teenage years. One day it just clicked: I wanted to like the guys in magazines,” confesses Zack. A Geek Cypriot now living in the UK, he used to weigh about 75kg. Now hooked on the muscle vibe, he trains for over 2 hours a day, 5 days a week to maintain his 94kg payload. “Muscles, strength, and good physical appearance overshadow the average individual,” admits Zack. “When you get big, you immediately gain respect and admiration because you look great.” He makes no apologies for relishing this attention and isn’t shy about saying why either.

“Guys with a good body will seek attention because it makes them feel dominant and superior.”

Andre, a young professional from Berlin, agrees. “It feels good,” he says with confident smile. “I enjoy the attention in the gym and at the beach but especially in the clubs.” Andre works hard for the attention too. At a staggering 105kg, he spends about 24 hours a week exercising in the gym. He also eats a protein-filled meal every 2 hours and does around 1000 sit-ups a day – which means doing crunches in his business suit on the office floor.

He’s not alone either. Nearly all the men we talked to weren’t professional bodybuilders but were bordering on the obsessive when it came to their bodies.

The common theme was their satisfaction from getting noticed by strangers and receiving compliments about their physique. Call them what you like - attentionjunkies or show-ponies - these guys are clearly addicted to the social spotlight. But why do they seem to care so much about what strangers think of them? We showed their responses to psychology Professor Brian Gibbs, an expert in marketing and behavioral science at the University of Melbourne’s Business School. “These days life in an urban environment is becoming more impersonal. The only things people have to make an assessment of you are your clothes and physical appearance.

People aren’t always going to be impressed by big muscles but they will definitely attract attention. This is because attention is drawn by novelty.”

“In individualistic cultures, of which the United States would be the extreme example, it’s very important to stand out from the group and emphasis is placed upon notoriety. Therefore, modifying your body in order to stand out from the crowd is going to be more of an issue.” Bigger guys are certainly novel. However, getting noticed in the ocean of human bodies that populate any large city could hardly be the only reason guys want to be bigger.

Size Matters - Adrian, a mechanical engineer, says it’s about confidence. “I got into training late, when I was about 20, because I wanted to boost my self-esteem.”

Sick of being overweight, Adrian decided he wanted a change. “When I got a certain size, a lot of people started noticing and began to pay me compliments. It felt good and I began to feel more appreciated and liked.” This source of confidence has kept Adrian pumping iron ever since. But he admits that vanity plays a part too. “Well I guess it is a factor. It is definitely nice when you catch people staring at the pools or at the beach. It makes me feel wanted and it feels good.” Josh, a young accountant, agrees. “Aesthetics matter. Everyone likes things that look good. I’m not like the other accountants and so clients remember me and they relate to me more.” And for Josh, being bigger means being more confident both personally and

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professionally. “I used to be quiet and shy but now I’m anything but! If I was a little skinny guy, I think things would be different. I know there are many studies that have shown that taller men succeed more than shorter guys. I’ll never be tall, but I can be bigger!” Josh, like many men who can’t grow taller, he works hard to grow wider. So what does Professor Gibbs think? “Well, what Josh says is true. There are studies that show that more successful men - in terms of how far they’ve climbed professionally - tend to be taller. This is probably because they are deferred to more or they are seen as more capable and better leaders. This is partly because, as animals we respond to a person’s size.”

Law of the Jungle - According to Professor Gibbs, there is an element of subconscious physical intimidation that comes along with a big and powerful looking man. And this idea - that men respond to size - is something almost universally accepted by the men we interviewed. Adrian summed it up perfectly.

“When you’re big, people automatically respect you because they see you as an “Alpha Male.” People won’t mess with you because you look strong and tough. It’s like the animal kingdom. Animals usually size each other up before fighting and it’s usually the smaller one that backs down first because he knows that the larger animal is stronger and will probably win.”

Mike, a police officer with the elite riot squad supports this theory. “In my line of work, being bigger means we perform better and, as a collective force, look stronger and scarier. When things get violent, size is definitely an offensive and defensive advantage.” “At the gym it’s the same,” says Adrian. “There’s so much testosterone flowing that you size other guys up and you like to know that you’re the biggest guy there.” The idea that these men are merely acting out their primal instincts to become leaders of the pack is an interesting one. Are we all just testosterone-fuelled beasts? We may live in an age of supposed civilization, but beneath the veneer or our designer suits and immaculate personal hygiene, are we really just animals?

“Well we’re not just animals - we’re very complex, social animals,” reassures Professor Gibbs. “Comparison is a critical process for humans to evaluate how they’re doing.”

Professor Gibbs uses the analogy of the man wealthy enough to buy his own airplane but, when he gets to the airport, he sees a more successful man with an even bigger plane. However, the second man is looking further down the tarmac to an even richer man who has an even better jet. And so it continues. “It’s a sort of pernicious fact of life that we tend to make upward comparisons a lot. We would be much happier in lots of domains – including body image - if we made more balanced comparisons upward and downward. However, we tend to look up, and we feel deficient as a result.” This phenomenon has been dubbed ‘Bigorexia’ amongst the most callous gym rats who, no matter how big they get, always view themselves as small because they always see someone bigger.

The Adonis Effect - Comparisons with our fellow man are not the only influencing factors though. This feeling of deficiency can be linked to the omnipresence of media. Imagery depicting the ‘perfect male’ is peppered throughout our cities on billboards, in magazines, and in film and television.

Whole generations of men have been brought up by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Both men, now in their 60s, are still successful, still massive, and still addicted to weights. Hell, one of them even became governor of California.

These living examples ass to the onslaught of gigantic comic book heroes, buff sport stars, and sculpted models that are bombarding us every day. It’s no wonder our expectations are becoming warped as a result. Professor Gibbs believes that there is definitely a strong link between media intensity and a growing materialist sentiment. “I normally think of materialism in terms of buying products and taking your self-image from what you own. But what could be more intimate a material than your own body?”

This is certainly true, especially in cities with warmer weather and big beach cultures (think Los Angeles and Rio De Janeiro), where clothing is minimal and a good body is the ultimate accessory. However, this can lead to extreme expressions of this mindset, such as prolonged steroid use or obsessive-compulsive behavior.

One of the guys even confessed to know a guy who had himself castrated in order to “achieve the ultimate body.” Such examples are just plain scary. “Compulsive behavior, is often linked to an underlying state of mind - namely anxiety,” says Professor Gibbs. Bodybuilder Aziz is unapologetic though. “Obsessed is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated,” he declares assertively. All personal mantras aside, Professor Gibbs still thinks it’s an unhealthy obsession and remarks, “it’s interesting that men are going for big and women are going for small. It’s really just an exaggeration of sexual dimorphism. Just as a woman might dress in a way so as to accentuate her breasts and increase the cues to her femininity, men may want to emphasize their muscles to highlight their masculinity.”

Man Made - And so it comes back to the issue of masculinity. But what is masculinity? Bulging biceps, impenetrable pecs, chiseled thighs, rock-hard abs?

Are these the ultimate goals of every testosterone-filled male? It’s a well-known fact that increased muscle activity increases our testosterone levels. Perhaps this is where the vicious cycle begins. But does bigger mean better?

The truth is that there will always be someone bigger than you. Someone richer than you, better looking, and even smarter than you. But this doesn’t mean our value as men is diminished. Take solace in your own unique qualities rather than constantly comparing yourself to your fellow man. There’s nothing wrong with self-improvement but obsessive imitation is a fool’s game. Of course, too much time spent on our appearance forces us to neglect that other crucial element of our existence - our personality. The danger many of these guys face is that endless weightlifting, protein eating, and infinite sit-ups distract them from the real world.

Intelligent conversation, a sense of humor, and good social skills never go astray.

And if all you’ve got to talk about are dumbbells and treadmills, people are more likely to remember your small brain than your big muscles.

Staying Fit by Marco Van Rijt

Fashion by Jean Paul Paula

This page: leather top and shorts Juun.J, shoes nike, socks (throughout) barcode berlin. previous page: jumper and shorts juun.j, shoes nike.

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Travel

Residential Calmness

The Upper House Hong Kong Text by Matt Bell Photographs by Michael Weber

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Travel

“I really enjoy the way we contrast the dynamics of urban Hong Kong as the backdrop of the Upper House Hotel,” says Andre Fu, the hotel’s architect and one of Asia’s hottest young designers. From the laser-like focus Fu kept on developing a peaceful stay for visitors to one of the world’s most densely populated cities, and having been awarded top honors by Conde Nast Traveler (among others) in the five years since it opened, Upper House has emerged Asia’s - and one of the world’s - most highly regarded and trendsetting hotels.

It is a small boutique hotel found in Hong Kong’s posh Admiralty neighborhood, a few minutes walk from the famed design shops on Star Street and a 5-minute drive from Hong Kong’s Art Basel (May 15-18, 2014).

But to be more precise, Upper House is one of four hotels, plus a well-appointed residency, found inside of the luxe Pacific Place Mall, though it stands well out from the crowd as the only living space that trades in traditional decadence for a decidedly sleeker, smarter and more au courant brand of grandeur. Rather than elaborate design features, Fu zeroed in on what is the most premium resource in a city as jam-packed as Hong Kong - space. He especially considered how spaces could best be used to imbue a sense of relaxation within the bustling city. “Residential calmness” is the phrase Fu kept returning to when thinking about the design. In fact, the name “Upper House” is derived from the design philosophy of “elevating into a serene house above the bustling city,” says Marcel Thoma, hotel manager of Upper House.

True to form, design at the hotel favors the efficacious over the ostentatious. In lieu of a dazzling lobby, there’s an oasis-like “secret” outdoor garden on level six. Designed in perfect geometry to comfortably fit 150 people, it is a rare outdoor, green space in the city - “a gem that embraces the spirit of the hotel,” says Fu. The life of the lawn unfolds throughout the day; it’s perfect for yoga or a cup of tea in the morning, a quiet place to read in the afternoon and a serene space to enjoy a cocktail at night.

“The overall layouts of the guestrooms were a result of prolonged refinement and design development, much to do with the radical concept to delicate almost half of a 67 square meter room (730 square foot) for the purpose of a bathroom,” Fu explains. In fact, with a limestone clad tub, plus-sized walk-in shower, a television and dressing area, all the bathrooms at Upper House have been inspired by a place most of us might like to spend an afternoon after a hectic day in Hong Kong - a spa.

Rooms are designed with a minimalist approach, casting a sense of unfettered luxury by means of material and pigmentation. The contemporary monochromatic design features natural timber, shoji glass, limestone and lacquered paper panels. All rooms are presented in two color schemes: ‘Bamboo’ with solid ash flooring, bamboo timber and lilac upholstery; ‘Celadon’ featuring green tea upholstery, limed oak flooring and cream oak timber. “We have used an extensive amount of bamboo in the Hotel - partly as a reflection of the hotel’s sense of place in Asia, and also the fact that it is

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a rapidly renewable source of material,” Fu says. (The hotel’s commitment to green causes runs deep - they also only use hybrid Lexus’ to transport their guests) There is also an extensive use of highly precious and brittle onyx, which has been carved into thin panels to form the glowing lanterns found dispersed throughout the hotel.

“The most popular rooms are the Studio 70 studios,” says Thoma. They’re the smallest in the hotel, but at 67-square meters they’re some of the largest rooms in town. Given their over three-quarter sized picture-frame windows that look out over an expansive Victoria Harbor or Hong Kong Island from the 38th floor and up, they have the ambience of a much larger space.

According to Thoma, the most popular luxurious quarters at Upper House are in the Upper Suites, 21 corner rooms that afford views of both the island and the harbor and are so large they have that rarest of design features in Hong Kong living - a hallway. But one of the most outstanding design features is experienced on the way up from the lobby to the hotel’s art deco cum 21st century restaurant, Café Gray (opened by renowned New York chef Gray Kunz). A 6-meter umbrella is suspended right below the oval ceiling skylight splashing the entire atrium with natural sunlight by day. At night it is backlit and transforms into an ephemeral floating halo. “This is one of my favorite moments in the hotel,” says Fu, “It marks the aspirational moment of the journey to Upper House.”

Upper House has also streamlined guest services. Instead of conventional roles like the concierge, bellman, cashiering, they use a cohesive “Guest Experience” team, well trained in all arenas to streamline the entire process. They’re also well versed, to the point of being expert, in the hippest and best restaurants, art galleries, stores and cultural entertainment in Hong Kong. They dole out advice on what to do during your stay as if they were your local best friends. In a place as confusing as Hong Kong, this can make all the difference enjoying your stay or not.

But it’s really not necessary to wander too far from Upper House to get your fill of what’s hot in Hong Kong. Star Street is where Hong Kong goes to live design.

Galerie Huit (galeriehuit.com.hk), has book readings, wine tastings and feels more like an open-invitation artist’s salon than just a gallery. Just Green (justgreen.com. hk) is an organic convenience store that curates everything from music to layout to inspire a healthy life. OVO Home (ovo.com.hk) is a furniture store that feels like a gallery, and clothing stores like Monocle (monocle.com), Russell Street (russellstreet.com), and Kapok (ka-pok.com) carry hard to find fashion design.

Scraping the sky while looking down on Hong Kong’s busy design street, Upper House makes perfect sense. Says Fu, “The visual to craft a curated upward journey was immediate.”

The Upper House, Pacific Place, 88, Queensway, Admiralty, Hong Kong T +852 2918 1838 - W www.upperhouse.com

Travel

The Lobby

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Travel

The Penthouse

A Curated Upward Journey On the opposite page, the ‘Sky Bridge� suspended over the hotel lobby. On this page, clockwise, a view of the Penthouse; a bathroom overlooking the green hills of the island; and the entrance to the hotel.

Eat & Drink

Tortellini alla Yolanda Recipe by Marco Melilli Illustration by Marc-Antoine Coulon

Ingredients: 1 tablespoon of olive oil 1 large fennell bulb, trimmed, halved through the core, thinly sliced lenghtwise 450gr of spicy Italian sausages, casing removed, sausage coarsely crumbled 250gr of sliced fresh crimini mushrooms 2 garlic cloves, pressed 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds, coarsely crushed 120ml of heavy whipping cream 240ml (or more) of low-salt chicken broth 500gr of dried tortellini with 3 cheeses filling 150gr of fresh baby spinach leaves 100gr of finely grated parmesan cheese (plus additional for serving)

Execution Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced fennel bulb, sausage, and mushrooms; sautĂŠ until sausage is brown and cooked through and fennel is almost tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Add garlic and fennel seeds; stir 1 minute. Stir in cream, then 1 cup broth; boil until liquid is reduced and very slightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.

Nutritional Information One serving contains the following: Calories (kcal) 425.1 %Calories from Fat 49.6 Fat (g) 23.4 Saturated Fat (g) 10.2 Cholesterol (mg) 70.2 Carbohydrates (g) 34.8 Dietary Fiber (g) 3.6 Total Sugars (g) 1.6 Net Carbs (g) 31.2 Protein (g) 20.1 Sodium (mg) 818.4

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Meanwhile, cook tortellini in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain tortellini; return to same pot.

Add sausage mixture to tortellini in pot. Toss over medium heat until blended. Add spinach; toss gently until spinach wilts. Stir in 1/2 cup cheese; add more broth by 1/4 cupfuls to moisten if dry. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with chopped fennel fronds, and serve, passing additional cheese.

Servings: 8 main courses

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