ODI L E DECQ
ISSUE 128 MAY 2016
THE DESIGN ISSUE
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A L L I M AG E S A R E A R T I S T S ’ R E N D E R I N G S . A D D I T I O N A L I N F O R M AT I O N AVA I L A B L E AT T H E S A L E S O F F I C E . T H E CO M P L E T E O F F E R I N G T E R M S A R E I N A N O F F E R I N G P L A N AVA I L A B L E F R O M T H E S P O N S O R . F I L E N O . C D 1 3 - 0 2 5 8 . S P O N S O R R E S E RV E S T H E R I G H T TO M A K E C H A N G E S I N ACCO R DA N C E W I T H T H E T E R M S O F T H E O F F E R I N G P L A N . F U R N I T U R E N OT
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LET’S MEET UP.
NO. 128
CONTENTS 26 28 30 32 34 58 60 62 76 84 88 90 94
Masthead Editor’s Letter Contributors Essentials Social Select Detail Watch Destination Hotel Bar Restaurant Store
96 102 106 110 112 114 116 144 150 152 243 272
Insider Know Now Transport Art Books Material Survey Endorsement Executive How It’s Made Itinerary Object
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product Styling: Courtney Kenefick Photos: Claire Benoist
ODI L E DECQ
ISSUE 128 MAY 2016 THE DESIGN ISSUE
104 taste A Brazilian artist’s friendship inspires a master of haute cuisine. By Daniel Boulud
who’s on the cover? Odile Decq is a bold French architect who pushes the limits of the buildings she designs. She is the winner of the 2016 Jane Drew Prize, awarded for raising the profile of women within architecture, and recently founded the experimental Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture in Lyon, France. Decq recently completed the Le Cargo office complex in Paris.
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ideas in design Peter Marino dreams up a limited -edition cabinet for a good cause. The Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, gets a new addition. Author Elliott Holt gives her take on loneliness in the modern age.
208 gallery Twelve leading design firms offer their visions for consumer marijuana in the 21st century.
254 culture club A photo portfolio of events in the Surface universe. This month, Calvin Klein throws a party in Palm Springs, the New Museum hosts its annual gala, and Palazzo Fendi opens its doors in Rome.
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PHOTOS: IDEAS IN DESIGN, ANDREA MONGIA. PRODUCT, CLAIRE BENOIST. TASTE, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GALERIE XIPPAS, PARIS. GALLERY, COURTESY ORIGINAL CHAMPIONS OF DESIGN. CULTURE CLUB, SAM DEITCH/BFA.COM.
departments
NO. 128
170 built tough Edgy French architect Odile Decq has become an unstoppable advocate for women in the field.
178 heading for the hills Governors Island welcomes new terrain, and with it, continued growth and development.
194 givers run through it An ambitiously philanthropic East Coast couple brings art and music to Big Sky Country.
204 for the people Snøhetta’s Craig Dykers brings a humanistic touch to the newly expanded SFMOMA.
cover: Odile Decq at her studio in Paris photographer: Franck Juery
184 external forces A family-run Spanish outdoor furniture empire takes stock of its past as it turns 75.
190 cesar’s palaces A venerable architect has built an empire on a simple life principle: Take things in stride.
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PHOTOS: BUILT TOUGH, ROLAND HALBE. HEADING FOR THE HILLS, IWAN BAAN. EXTERNAL FORCES, JOSEP ALFARO. CESAR’S PALACES, EVA O’LEARY. GIVERS RUN THROUGH IT, ALEXIS PIKE. FOR THE PEOPLE, JUSTIN KANEPS.
CONTENTS
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chockstones, crags and edging paint by kristin baker
Three years ago, during an interview for Surface with the late architect Zaha Hadid, she told me, “I think the mindset about women [in society] has changed a lot, but there are still areas we haven’t been able to get to. I know for a fact that if you’re a woman and you’re opinionated, you’re considered difficult, you’re considered pushy. But a guy is expected to be like that. That has to change.” (Hadid passed away in March at age 65.) In this issue’s cover story (page 170), the French architect Odile Decq—another pioneering woman in the field—recalls when, in 1999, she listened to Hadid give a talk on the subject of women in architecture. Back then, Decq says, she was optimistic that women would quickly rise in the profession, but sadly, even in the time that’s passed, Decq feels little has changed. In this issue’s Studio Visit interview with Italian designer Gaetano Pesce (page 38), this refrain continues. He points out that the plight of women is still a major international issue, and not just in countries with oppressive regimes, but in the United States as well. Since 1969, when Pesce introduced the socially incendiary “Donna” chair—his indictment of a perceived enslavement of women at the time—he, like Decq, says he expected a transition. He remains disappointed by the results. The focus of this year’s Design Issue isn’t women, but the subject continues to bubble up, just as it continues to in politics and society at large. As Pesce puts it, “The personality closer to the nature of our time is the female one.” When it comes to design, I’m excited by leaders like Deborah Berke, who was named the next dean of the Yale School of Architecture (taking over from Robert A.M. Stern), and Amale Andraos, who replaced Mark Wigley as the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation in 2014. Unfortunately, though, these are haloed examples. Much more change is needed. When I mentioned the success of architects like Jeanne Gang, Farshid Moussavi, and Elizabeth Diller to Hadid during our interview, she acknowledged that a shift for women in the upper echelons was taking place, but added that it was minimal, since you could basically name them on one hand. Decq is another prominent design figure who deserves far more attention than she has received. In addition to designing major projects such as Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the restaurant at the Opéra Garnier in Paris, she’s also an accomplished educator who recently launched her own school, called the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, in Lyon, France. Decq doesn’t only deserve attention; she commands it. In this issue, Pesce says that only when women are empowered can humanity have a brighter future. I agree. I’m sure Hadid would have, too.
Spencer Bailey, Editor-in-Chief PHOTO: OGATA.
Editor’s Letter
EDITOR’S LETTER
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Contributors
CONTRIBUTORS
RACHEL SYME Rachel Syme got more than she bargained for writing for this issue. She was sent to rural Montana to report on Tippet Rise (page 194), a new art and music destination near a town called Fishtail. “I found that I had this sudden craving for Montana that I didn’t know I had,” Syme says. “There was always a Montana-shaped hole in my heart. I just didn’t know it was there before.” If anything, it should help her relate to the main character of the nonfiction book she’s writing for Random House, which is about a woman who heads west in the 1930s. “My time in Montana really added a great deal to my understanding of women who moved in that direction across America,” she says. When Syme isn’t dreaming of Montana, she writes for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, GQ, and NPR. CLAIRE BENOIST As a child, Claire Benoist called Strasbourg, France, home, but the truth is she was rarely there. Her intrepid parents took her jetting around the globe to China, Japan, New Zealand, Tonga, Russia, and throughout Europe. Some of that aesthetic exposure must have worn off on her. Now based in New York, Benoist makes a living making products look good. Her portfolio is filled with photographs of artfully composed perfume bottles, precariously stacked fruit cubes, and swirling liquid makeup. For this issue’s Product (page 64), she shot a summer accessories story. She admits she’s proud of the results, describing the photographs as “so cool—dark, lush, and equally ornate as the beautiful wares.” Benoist’s work can be found in a myriad of publications, including Men’s Health, Entertainment Weekly, and Bloomberg Businessweek.
AARTI VIRANI You could say Aarti Virani was literally shaken into a passion for writing after a childhood experience involving the Hanshin Earthquake. Since then, the Japanese-born Indian writer has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, Vogue India, CNN.com, and other outlets, and now sits on the board of the South Asian Journalists Association promoting fair media coverage of the South Asian-American community. Among her many projects, Virani is chronicling the experiences of the Indian immigrant community in Kobe, Japan. We asked her to show us her Tokyo in this month’s Destination story (page 76), a place that intimidated her as a child. “In the early ’90s,” she says, “it felt like one giant pachinko parlor: all pinball machines, dizzying crowds, and flashing lights.” Happily, on her more recent visits, she has been able to discover the city’s quieter side.
FRANCK JUERY To capture the spirit of master architect and goth-style iconoclast Odile Decq (page 170) for this issue’s cover portrait, photographer Franck Juery had to engage in what he described as “acrobatics” to set up his lights in her crowded Paris studio. “It was pretty funny,” he says. Juery, who is located in French capital, frequently works in advertising for clients including Panasonic. He also shoots album covers for French rock bands and creates content for a variety of French magazines as well as Vogue Japan. Currently, Juery is planning a year-long photography project for a book about a French vineyard. ALEXIS PIKE Photographer Alexis Pike calls Montana home. Although a sixth-generation Idahoan and proud Boise State grad, Montana’s big sky and open prairies swept her away soon after she completed an MFA at the University of Iowa. Currently an associate professor at Montana State, Pike was assigned by Surface to photograph the outdoor sculptures at Tippet Rise (page 194), an hour outside of Billings. “With almost no light pollution, no people, and the openness of the landscape, Tippet Rise provided a sense of seclusion in a magnificent place that few experience,” she says. Pike’s work has been published in Harper’s and Wired, and a monograph of her photographs was published by Blue Sky Gallery.
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Selections from the Surface team’s endless list of personal obsessions.
STACK MUG BY HEATH CERAMICS $30, heathceramics.com “My fiancé and I hate working on our wedding registry, but San Francisco–based Heath Ceramics was an easy first stop for us. Its popular Stack Mug, designed in the 1960s, recently got a color-revamp with a new glaze: ‘Tartine Teal.’ I now want everything I own to be this funky shade of blue.” —Dani Vernon, Photo Editor
RIMOWA ELECTRONIC TAG LUGGAGE From $670, rimowa.com “Being borderline O.C.D., it drives me crazy when my airlines sticker-up my luggage. Rimowa’s digital-tagged sets not only help me speed through check-in, but also keep my mind at ease.” —Marc Lotenberg, CEO
MAMA SHELTER, LOS ANGELES From $159/night, mamashelter.com/los-angeles “This hotel is my kind of L.A. stay: laidback, unstuffy, and with local flavor but not in a celebrity-oriented kind of way. When I spent a few days there last fall, parking nearby was easy—a very welcome surprise—and Hollywood Boulevard is just a block away for early-morning runs. The delicious chilaquiles at the ground-floor restaurant are reason enough to visit.” —Spencer Bailey, Editor-in-Chief
002 LINEN BOMBER JACKET BY STOFFA From $1,000, stoffa.co “I’m obsessed with Stòffa’s sophisticated take on menswear, from the made-to-measure outerwear to the handpainted cotton bandanas. There are a handful of cloth and cut options for the jackets, but the cropped bomber styled in sturdy basketweave linen is a perfect spring/ summer layer. This is about as good as a casual jacket gets.” —Stephen Pulvirent, Executive Digital Editor
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PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) COURTESY HEATH. COURTESY MAMA SHELTER. COURTESY STÒFFA. COURTESY RIMOWA.
Essentials
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The standout Instagram account that’s capturing our attention right now.
@george_byrne Painter-turned-photographer George Byrne doesn’t capture any partciuarly extraordinary subjects—just the city of Los Angeles, where he’s based. But by often taking his subject matter out of context, he turns his shots into geometric abstractions. “It’s all about the form and getting lost in it,” he says. 85,700 followers
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Graphic Thought Facility and Peter Saville
Ideas In Design A brief look into projects and creatives capturing the moment, including menschy master Gaetano Pesce and 3-D printing brand Othr.
IDEAS IN DESIGN
STUDIO VISIT
Gaetano Pesce
He’s one of the most celebrated Italian designers in modern history, and, as ever, social issues are his inspiration.
INTERVIEW BY CHARLES CURKIN PHOTOS BY OGATA You designed a chair made of rags in 1970. Do you have one of these in your home?
No. How sad for you. It’s definitely one I’d want. For which room in my apartment would you suggest I place it?
The rag chair is a piece of reality. It’s good in any place, like the lobby of a hotel, for instance. The one I did is in a living room. Is it flammable?
No, because they are treated in a way that they are fireproof. So you’re aware of such hazards when you’re designing? That falls under the category of “functionality,” no? If a piece is beautiful to look at, but at the same time one spark away from becoming an instrument of death, one of your boxes as a designer isn’t being checked, right?
More or less everything I do, I take care of the practical side first. If you do something that’s not practical, it’s not a service to people. Functionality is very important. >
(FROM TOP) Inside Gaetano Pesce’s New York City studio. Pesce’s latest pieces. (OPPOSITE) Pesce holding a shoe he designed for the brand Melissa.
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IDEAS IN DESIGN
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IDEAS IN DESIGN
give the “Donna” chair the body shape of a woman. It’s the image of a prisoner. With the ottoman, it looks like a ball and chain. Have things improved since then?
I don’t think so. I thought maybe the situation was changing. But no. How often are you motivated by society’s ills?
It’s my job to witness what’s going on in everyday life. Also, sometimes with my work I touch philosophical points of view, such as: People must be free of coherence. It’s a state of mind that asks you to always be the same. When I was 20 years old I was talking about the necessity of being incoherent. Are we living in incoherent times? Yes. We’re living in a time that’s very liquid. Values go up and down. It’s like the waves of the sea. In reality, we have very weak values today. They appear in reality and then they disappear. In a certain way, this is good. It shows that our time has a lot of vitality. I assume you’re following the current U.S. presidential race.
I hear a lot of people being contradictory toward Donald Trump because he’s vulgar. The moment we accept democracy—when someone is elected by the people—we can’t discuss it. If we talk about vulgarity, a lot of politicians are very vulgar. The political class is at the end of an era because in the old days being a politician meant serving a country. Now it’s the contrary. Now the people have to serve the politician. You’ve been living in the U.S. for decades. Are you a citizen yet? What other things do you take care of in your work?
No. I generally try to give meaning to an object—what I think politically guides me, things I was reading in the paper in the morning. Treating the object in this way, it becomes art. This is a wonderfully cluttered studio you have here. Did you design it?
If you could vote here, who would your candidate be?
Personally, I hope a woman will be the president. She will represent half the population of the world. That can give hope to women globally who suffer in their reality, knowing that a woman occupies the most important political position in the world. The job of a man is an old job. The personality closer to the nature of our time is the female one.
I did very little things. It’s very simple. It was empty at first, but after 30 years we have no space to move around. What does that last part mean? The “Donna,” or Up 5 and 6, chair and ottoman from the late ’60s are among your most famous creations. They were designed as a statement about the endemic mistreatment of women. Are you an activist?
No. As a citizen of a country, you participate in the political debate. You take a position in front of certain problems. We don’t need to pay close attention to see that women are mistreated in many countries—not only 50 years ago but today. We’re talking about half the population of the world. Even in the U.S., a very evolved country, women are paid less than men. That’s when identity becomes like a prison. I was trying to
I don’t want to talk about revolution. But an evolution in society can take place when women take power. >
(FROM LEFT) A customized doll of Pesce and his popular “Donna” chair. Models of Pesce’s “Shadow” chair.
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#EVERYDAYMADEWELL
MADEWELL.COM
IDEAS IN DESIGN
right to be different. The best that we can say is that we’re unique. In 1975, for Cassina, I made the first chair where each one coming out of production was similar, but not the same. It was a very important moment. That chair is now at MoMA. You mentioned architectural drawings. Where have you built buildings?
That’s an important subject, buildings. Big projects in New York, for example—that’s not architecture. Those are products. They’re not pretending to be architecture, but we call them that anyway, and I don’t know why. Architecture is very rare. The radical side of it is not there. In New York, we have maybe two examples of architecture: The Louis Sullivan building on Bleecker Street and the Guggenheim building by Frank Lloyd Wright. So architecture doesn’t exist in this country? Is Hillary that woman?
Symbolically speaking, I think yes. Any woman?
Yes. What about Sarah Palin?
Between a man’s Right Wing and Sarah Palin’s, I take Sarah because she’s a woman. A show of your work recently opened at the Palazzo Morando in Milan (through July 31). What can we expect?
My work is multidisciplinary. I’m a jewelry-maker sometimes. When I see a movie, I’m someone who’s watching a movie. We are not static in one thing. In Milan, it will be architectural drawings; sculpture made of ice; resin jewelry, Up 5 and 6. And I stress multi-disciplinary because in America there’s an emphasis on specialty. It’s very important. Michelangelo was a poet, a painter, and a sculptor. You mean he was a “Renaissance Man”?
[Points to this interviewer, waving his finger, and nods his head in agreement.]
I think it’s rare in America that people know what architecture is. Frank Gehry did something important with the Guggenheim in Bilbao, but then he started to repeat himself a little bit. When I was in university, [Finnish architect] Alvar Aalto came to give a lecture. He came in and said, “Architecture is very difficult.” And then left. That’s all he said?
Yes. How many Gandhis in the world? One. How many architects? Not many. As a New Yorker since 1980, do you feel the city’s skyline is changing for the better?
We’re not pursuing equality, but we are pursuing diversity. The buildings going up in New York reflect that. Mies van der Rohe brought us the paradigm of the monolithic, vitreous tower with the Seagram Building of 1958? Are you a fan of his?
Mies van der Rohe as a designer was a disaster, making chairs that are super heavy and uncomfortable, but he was fantastic with the Barcelona pavilion. Philip Johnson destroyed Mies van der Rohe by bringing him here. The Seagram Building is horrible. He lost the energy he had when built the Barcelona pavilion. Would you ever design a luxury tower?
What’s next for you?
Yes, if someone asked me. It would be very innovative. Soon it will have been 50 years since I created Up 5 and 6. We’re making a special edition [with B&B Italia] that will correspond with times of days and seasons. At night, it will be wrapped in pajamas, for example. Objects in a certain way are like people. They both have the
(FROM LEFT) Pesce working in his studio. Sketches by Pesce.
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Moroso USA 146 Greene Street New York, NY 10012 212 334 7222 info@morosousa.com www.morosousa.com Gentry seating system by Patricia Urquiola, 2011
IDEAS IN DESIGN
ARCHITECTURE
Speed Art Museum
Since its inauguration in 1925, the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, has continually grown in both its physical spaces and in the breadth of its collection. This careful cultivation and strong identity has made it one of the U.S.’s leading art museums. Its latest expansion, by the gallery-design experts at the L.A.-based firm Why, follows Speed’s well-established path while also unifying its multifarious layers. An “act of acupuncture architecture,” as Why creative director Kulapat Yantrasast describes it, the design consists of a series of interventions not only on the inside of the complex, but also on its exterior grounds, all of them woven together with the existing spaces to create a single complex. One of the key elements of the operation is a fritted glass skin with 400 custommade panels that vary in opacity: The facade controls heat gain to achieve comfortable interior spaces suitable for an art collection. Seen from the outside, the building’s exterior gives the museum a unified look. The project’s most ingenious component is the relationship between the interior and exterior exhibition spaces. “These outdoor spaces are among the most important ‘acupuncture points’ of the design,” says Yantrasast, “because they flip the museum experience flowing outside and allow the overall complex to connect well with the campus and to freshly welcome visitors with activities of art, nature, and architecture.” —David Basulto, founder and editor-in-chief of ArchDaily
Mr. Richard Sapper (Phaidon) PHOTOS: ARCHITECTURE, RAFAEL GAMO (2). BOOK, COURTESY PHAIDON.
BOOK
The first image in “Domestic Contours,” the photo essay composed by Ramak Fazel in Richard Sapper (Phaidon), edited by Jonathan Olivares, shows the late Sapper standing up, arms crossed with a pensive look on his face in front of a recently-lit hearth at his Los Angeles home. This image is a possible representation of Sapper’s illustrious career. Imagine, for a moment, the famed industrial designer standing strong and straight-faced, his placement synergistic with whatever leftover embers burn throughout the night. Sapper’s work is continuously acclaimed and forward-thinking, but oft-forgotten in today’s increasingly complex world of design. The book, which is separated into three sections, includes an oral history of the designer’s life told by him with sparse narration from Olivares, as well as a photo chronology of Sapper’s life. In captivating detail, Sapper recounts how he met his mentor, the theologian and philosopher Romano Guardini, and his 17-year-long collaboration with designer Marco Zanuso. Given Sapper’s unfortunate passing on New Year’s Eve in 2015, this new text effectively anthologizes his career and gives original perspective into the mind of a brilliant designer. —Logan R. Baker
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Townhouse Rooftop Terrace
A Rare Edition The Printing House — the iconic loft building that anchors the West Village — introduces five eagerly anticipated homes along its lush and private mews. Two expansive newly-built townhouses with private elevators, and three exceptionally designed maisonettes line the private oasis fully re-envisioned by Gunn Landscape Architecture. As imagined by workshop/apd, these timeless residences embody the signature crafted modernism of The Printing House, offering private residence living with all the benefits of a full-service condominium building. Occupancy commences Summer 2016 Three bedroom maisonettes from $4,275,000 Four bedroom newly-built townhouses from $13,125,000 421 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
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IDEAS IN DESIGN
“Future Present”
We live in an era of technological and scientific influence, and art that acknowledges that is a natural way forward. Perhaps no one understood this better, or at least earlier, than László Moholy-Nagy, whose sprawling oeuvre is finally being honored comprehensively in the Guggenheim’s “Future Present” (on view from May 27 to Sept. 27). Moholy-Nagy died prematurely in 1946, but not before distinguishing himself as a photographer, painter, sculptor, printmaker, and industrial designer, with most of his works borrowing from at least two of those disciplines. Consider his 1930 kinetic sculpture “Light Prop for an Electric Stage,” a glorious design object that reflects and projects light, essentially painting a nearby wall. “Future Present” aims to show the artist in all his eclectic glory, with more than 300 works on display, the result of four years of curatorial work. “He wasn’t just after one facet of what art can be, he really wanted to go beyond that,” says Karole P. B. Vail, organizing curator for the exhibition. To her, the show really comes together in Moholy-Nagy’s “Room of the Present.” A sort of walk-in camera with floating, ethereal photographic reproductions projected on unorthodox surfaces, the design of the space adds “architect” to his already hefty curriculum vitae. Moholy-Nagy died before “Room of the Present” could be realized, but Vail said that more than any other piece, it shows his prescience in anticipating a world dominated by social media. “I think Moholy-Nagy is, in many ways, a precursor to how we look at images and disseminate images to the outside world,” she says.—Dan Duray
LIMITED EDITION
Peter Marino x Barrique The Third Life of Wood
With Adam and Eve—the archetypal story of temptation—as his inspiration, a new project by architect and designer Peter Marino peripherally helps people struggling with just that. With San Patrignano, a rehabilitation community in Rimini, Italy, that aids those suffering from drug addiction and marginalization, he designed a pair of cabinets named after the biblical story. This is hardly his first contribution to the locality—Marino has worked with its weaving and decoration departments for nearly two decades. As part of the center’s project titled “Barrique: The Third Life of Wood,” Marino is the latest designer of note to create an original piece constructed by members of the community. The model of the cabinets, rather than focusing on desire, weighs convex and concave—male and female— through the use of wine-stained wood staves with inward and outward curves. Anna Zegna of the Fondaziona Zegna (and the scion of Italian fashion designer Ermenegildo Zegna) introduced Marino to the furniture program. Her foundation was working to relaunch a textile atelier for the rehabilitation community, and after seeing what their design lab was creating, she gauged Marino’s interest. Fittingly, the pieces premiered at the Ermenegildo Zegna store in Milan during last month’s Salone del Mobile. “Anna always tries to give back to the community,” Marino says. “This collaboration with San Patrignano is like being ‘green’ on a human scale, which I’m very supportive of.” —Maranda Janky
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PHOTOS: EXHIBIT (FROM TOP), KRISTOPHER MCKAY/COURTESY GUGGENHEIM. COURTESY GUGGENHEIM. LIMITED EDITION, COURTESY ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA (2).
EXHIBIT
ANDY sofa. LA BIBLIOTHĂˆQUE FIL shelf. Design Pierre Paulin. www.ligne-roset-usa.com
Quick-Ship now available
IDEAS IN DESIGN
UP AND COMING
Studio Brynjar & Veronika
TECH
The Spectre Notebook by Hewlett-Packard
These days, a new laptop is a legitimate object of desire—almost as much as a shiny new Patek Philippe. But Hewlett-Packard is taking the premise to a new level with its 13.3-inch Spectre notebooks, the thinnest laptops ever made, releasing limited-edition models by acclaimed jewelry designers Jess Hannah and Tord Boontje. “It felt like anything was possible,” says Hannah of her collaboration with the tech company. Just as she approaches jewelry from a sculptural point of view, she applied the same philosophy to the Spectre by fully plating it in 18-karat gold and studding the HP logo in a full carat’s worth of pavé diamonds. “Quality craftsmanship, thoughtful design, and practicality are the power players [in luxury] right now,” says Hannah, whose creations certainly deliver on all three points. Boontje’s design is more whimsical, with gilded peacocks and cherry blossoms sprawling across a sleek, midnight-blue casing. And since the laptops will be auctioned off at the New York Times Luxury Conference in Versailles, they’ll also deliver in another way: by benefiting the Nelson Mandela Foundation, a long-time partner of HP. —Nikki Ekstein
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PHOTOS: UP AND COMING, FABRICE GUSSET (2). TECH, COURTESY HEWLETT-PACKARD.
To label Brynjar Sigurarson and Veronika Sedlmair as multidisciplinary designers doesn’t quite do the Berlin-based duo justice. The couple, who are the founding partners of Studio Brynjar & Veronika, approach design as a means to establish a visual lexicon. “In a way, what we do is not far from the work of an anthropologist. Things such as atmosphere or a certain feeling are hard to put into words— translating them into the shape of objects may not be such a bad idea,” says the Icelandic-born Sigurarson. The expanse of preferred platforms for the pair—which include a porcelain used for an installation with storied manufacturer Sèvres, textile pieces in the form of oversized sweaters, taxidermied animal backpacks, and even a bit of theater—reiterates their desire to create a nuanced visual language with both a sense of humor and profundity. Sedlmair and Sigurarson have most recently been dubbed by Swarovski and Design Miami as this year’s Designers of the Future. So what’s next? “We’re creating a new musical instrument,” Sigurarson says of a project in conjunction with Fondation Galeries Lafayette, for which a Parisian flutemaker will build the piece based on his interactions with the four musicians that will learn how to play it. “It’s music from a new object. We find it interesting to be in between things—to discover new domains somewhere on a thin line.” —Mieke ten Have
IDEAS IN DESIGN
Othr
The future of houseware design is arriving, and it’s courtesy of 3-D printers. This month, entrepreneurs Joe Doucet, Dean Di Simone, and Evan Clabots are launching Othr, a home-goods disruptor set to liberate designers from mass-production and consumers from the premium costs of limited-run products. (Full disclosure: Surface editor-in-chief Spencer Bailey is an advisor to and investor in Othr.) “3-D printing has just reached the point of viability in terms of price versus quality,” says Doucet, a designer who formerly used the technology to model his designs in different types of polymers and resins, but still had them manufactured in high-end materials the old-school way. “Now we can produce products in 3D-printed metals, porcelains, and on-demand textiles,” he says. Luxurious materials and methods like 3-D knitting will shape Othr’s 13 initial product lines, which will be unveiled at Manhattan’s New Museum on May 11. Beyond that, a new one will come to market every two weeks—an unheard-of pace, but not a surprising one. “It seems breakneck, but once you remove all of the hurdles of traditional manufacturing and all of the complexities of the supply chain, it’s actually quite leisurely,” Doucet says. Not only does 3-D printing shorten the creative process, it eliminates the need to choose between mass-manufacturing and high production costs. Now, designers can take greater risks—objects will be printed individually for each customer rather than pre-fabricated and stocked
in a warehouse. Nothing is made until it’s sold. That explains how the founders have roped in elite names like Claesson Koivisto Rune and Luca Nichetto to design their initial collections, which include candlesticks, vases, breakfast trays, and birdcages. The individual merchandise might be small, but Othr is a company with big ambitions. “Technology allows us to bring more exceptional design to the world with minimal impact on the environment,” Doucet says, highlighting one advantage. Another: the opportunity to take chances on emerging talent, a deep focus for the company. “Having been in the game ourselves, we understand how difficult it is to break through. We’d love to become a source for not only the greatest designers, but also for what and who comes next.” It all adds up to something that has the potential to be truly gamechanging. “We believe there’s an opportunity to become the first important American design brand in decades,” says Doucet. “That’s what we’re striving for.” —Nikki Ekstein
Vessels by Jonah Takagi. (OPPOSITE, FROM TOP) A Fort Standard bottle opener. Othr founders (from left) Dean Di Simone, Joe Doucet, and Evan Clabots.
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PHOTOS: RETAIL (THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE), COURTESY OTHR (3).
RETAIL
IDEAS IN DESIGN
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IDEAS IN DESIGN
CRITIC
All By Ourselves
BY ELLIOTT HOLT ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREA MONGIA
I spend a lot of time on airplanes, so I’ve been seated next to all kinds of people all over the world. But now an odd question haunts me: Were they all, in fact, people? In January, Thai Smile Airways made headlines when it announced that passengers would be allowed to purchase seats for their dolls. The Luk Thep, as they’re known in Thailand, or “child angels,” are lifelike—and exceedingly creepy—simulacra that many people believe are animated with human souls. (Buddhist monks bless the dolls, thus inviting human spirits to inhabit them.) People there are so devoted to these dolls that they are willing to buy a second airline seat for them. One can’t blame an airline for trying to capitalize on the trend. Thai Smile treats these dolls like children: They are served snacks, and their seatbelts must be buckled during take off and landing. Perhaps the craze for these dolls represents nostalgia for childhood innocence. And perhaps they function as child substitutes. The BBC website quotes anthropologist Asama Mungkornchai, from Prince of Songkla University, who notes that the dolls “appear to be particularly popular with middle class women.” I’ve never been to Thailand, so I’m not qualified to comment on the role of Luk Thep in Thai society, and yet I’ve been thinking about these strange supernatural dolls a lot. And I can’t help but think that these dolls are also a response to the loneliness that seems systemic in global digital culture. In her 2012 TED talk, “Connected, But Alone,” Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less from Each Other, argues that the more digitally connected we are, the more lonely our society becomes. Because we’re so “connected” at all times, we no longer know how to be alone. Turkle says we’re designing technology to compensate.
Such technological illusions of companionship come in the form of social networks and so-called “sociable robots.” As Turkle says in her talk, “Many people share with me this wish: that someday, a more advanced version of Siri will be like a best friend, someone who will listen when others won’t.” It seems to me that we’re trying to design our way out of loneliness. It might seem absurd to buy an airline seat for a doll, and yet is it any more absurd than sleeping with your iPhone next to you? According to a 2015 study by Deloitte, the average American checks their phone 46 times a day. (For 18 to 24-year-olds, the average jumps to 76 times.) I’m guilty of it, too. As a single, childless woman, who now lives in Paris, thousands of miles away from my family and most of my friends, I have become overly dependent on virtual companionship. I’m too far away to meet my friend in San Francisco for dinner, but I can see pictures of her meals on Instagram. And sometimes that seems better than nothing. Even a curated glimpse of my friends’ lives is better than no view at all. But the “connections” I have on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter are poor substitutes for real company. Our smartphones have become our companions; when forced to put them in airplane mode, we can feel cut off, not just from our information and social networks, but from a sense of well being. Many of us are so reliant on our phones—for directions, for information, for connection—that the devices are security blankets. No, we don’t take our devices to Buddhist monks, but the Genius Bar has similar powers of animation. We’ll keep trying to escape our existential loneliness through technology. And until dolls have something interesting to say, I’ll continue flying solo.
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75 YEARS 1941-2016
BLAU design Fran Silvestre www.gandiablasco.com
GANDIABLASCO NEW YORK 52 Greene Street New York, NY 10013 T. 212-421-6701 info-usa@gandiablasco.com GANDIABLASCO MIAMI 3650 North Miami Ave Miami, FL 33127 T. 305-576-8181 miami@gandiablasco.com GANDIABLASCO LOS ANGELES 301. N Robertson Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90048 T. 310-278-3191 losangeles@gandiablasco.com GANDIABLASCO ATLANTA 670 14th Street Atlanta, GA 30318 T. 404-605-0196 atlanta@gandiablasco.com
ODI L E DECQ
ISSUE 128 MAY 2016
THE DESIGN ISSUE
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Fashion A finger on the pulse of the latest in international style, including Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry and bodacious summer accessories.
Van Cleef & Arpels is certainly in touch since the 1920s for their beauty and grace, with nature, manifested in its imaginative and for being a symbol of good luck, also high-jewelry iterations of birds of paradise, creeds of the house of Van Cleef & Arpels. koi fish, and cherry blossoms—but this ver- Combinations of vivid gems—sapphires, sion of the natural world is an ethereal fan- spinels, diamonds, garnets, and onyx—give tasy land where fairies, with their diamond each piece its distinguished allure, just like dresses and stained-glass wings, dance on the colored wings of their counterparts in lily pads encrusted with garnets to flow- the wild. Van Cleef & Arpels Moments de ers made from mother of pearl. Floating Chance clip from the Palais de la Chance throughout the French jeweler’s utopia is collection, Macaon clip from the Butterflies a collection of butterflies ranging from collection, and Moment de Chance Vert clip dainty pendants and between-the-finger from the Palais de la Chance collection; rings to these 18k white-gold clips. The prices upon request; vancleefarpels.com papillons have been a staple of the maison —Courtney Kenefick
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PHOTO: DANI VERNON. PROPS: AMBER MAYKUT/HOARDACULTURE.
Wings of Desire
SELECT
Taking care of light Marset USA Inc. 20 West 22nd Street – Suite 903 New York, NY 10010 T +1 646 727 4250 | F +1 646 304 6959 marsetusa@marset.com Canada – except Québec – Contact LightForm info@lightform.ca
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Amanda Phelan, a former knitwear designer for Alexander Wang, debuted her namesake collection of unconventional pieces for spring 2016. “The idea for a concept often sprouts from a library of techniques that I mix and challenge against one another,� says Phelan of her bold designs. The 3-D details on this skirt were made by placing yarn inside a layer of thin nylon as another lycra yarn behind pushes the shapes outward. Phelan 3-D circle weft inlay bubble mini skirt, $675, phelan.com
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PHOTOS: DANI VERNON.
On the Ball
DETAIL
KWIAT D I A MO N D B A N G L E S 800 927 4 3 6 7 | K W I AT. C O M
Underneath It All
WATCH
PHOTO: COURTESY JAEGER-LECOULTRE.
Christian Louboutin and Jaeger-LeCoultre are deftly skilled at adding a subtle wink to their respective designs—the former with his red-soled stilettos, the latter with its rectangular Reverso wristwatch that unassumingly flips to reveal a completely different look. To celebrate the style’s 85th anniversary, the brand has overhauled and updated the entire Reverso collection. Helping mark the occasion is Louboutin, who has created dials and straps for the new Atelier Reverso line, a series of customizable timepieces. On the opposite side of this Duetto is a more traditional face. But here is something a bit bolder. The mother-of-pearl dial, with bright color options, is framed by two delicate rows of diamonds. To complement are special straps in iridescent leather, clear plastic, and crocodile in—of course—bright red. JaegerLeCoultre Atelier Reverso by Christian Louboutin, dials from $10,300 and straps from $385, jaeger-lecoultre.com —Stephen Pulvirent
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HOSPITALITY MADE FOR NEW YORK RESERVE YOUR STAY TODAY
GRAMERCY PARK HOTEL 2 Lexington Avenue Gramercy Park, New York 212 920 3300 Reservations: 866 784 1300 gramercyparkhotel.com
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PARAMOUNT
HOTELS
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PRODUCT
Tropical Form Rich colors and blithe accents send an equatorial breeze across summer accessories. STYLED BY COURTNEY KENEFICK PHOTOGRAPHY BY CLAIRE BENOIST SET DESIGN BY JENNY WICHMAN
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PRODUCT
(FROM LEFT) Bag, Louis Vuitton. Sunglasses, Max Mara. Sandals, Sergio Rossi. Wallpaper, Designer Wallcoverings.
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PRODUCT
(THIS PAGE) Backpack, Anya Hindmarch. Sunglasses, CĂŠline. (OPPOSITE) Sandals, Trademark. Clutch, Edie Parker.
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PRODUCT
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PRODUCT
(THIS PAGE) Sandals, Salvatore Ferragamo. (OPPOSITE) Sandals, Dolce & Gabbana. Wallpaper, Designer Wallcoverings.
(FROM LEFT) Vases, Calvin Klein Home. Bowl, Lladr贸. Paperweight, Herm猫s. Candle holders, Fort Standard.
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PRODUCT
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PRODUCT
(FROM LEFT) Bag, M Missoni. Sunglasses, Marc Jacobs. Shoes, Tabitha Simmons.
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PRODUCT
Vase, Spin Ceramics.
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PRODUCT
(THIS PAGE) Sandals, Malone Souliers. (OPPOSITE, FROM LEFT) Bags, Fendi and Stella McCartney. Wallpaper, Designer Wallcoverings.
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Travel The world through the lens of design, making stops in Tokyo, Zurich, Amsterdam, Savannah, and Los Angeles.
Tokyo
DESTINAT ION
BY AARTI VIRANI I was raised in the port city of Kobe and remember my family’s maiden voyage to Japan’s otherworldly capital. It was a three-hour train ride that had us hurtling through rice paddies and fishing villages until we pulled into a concrete labyrinth, swathed in a canopy of blinking crimson lights. A majestic, five-storied pagoda rose in the distance. Tokyo has left me speechless since that first encounter: a neon-tinted blur of shrine visits, market tours, and seemingly endless elevator rides. It’s been over two decades since my initial trip, though I’ve returned numerous times, always inspired by the city’s steady commitment to renewal. Despite enduring a decade-plus economic slump and a devastating earthquake in 2011, the world’s largest megalopolis continues to
display unrivaled grace and optimism. A transformative undercurrent, essential to Tokyo’s survival strategy, runs through its 400-year-old feudal foundation. It’s evident in the recent demolition of the iconic Hotel Okura, which was an exemplar of 1960s Japanese modernist design. The Yoshiro Taniguchi–designed property will be replaced by a pair of vertiginous glass towers—constructed by the architect’s son—in time for the 2020 Summer Olympics. (The original happened to be built in advance of the 1964 Tokyo games.) Change also surfaces in the form of a new home for Tsukiji, the gargantuan fish and seafood market, best known for its boisterous tuna auctions. It will soon end its 80-year tenure in the city’s pulsing nucleus and relocate to a man-made island, a mile and a half away. Even Tokyo’s ability to retain the coveted Michelin-star since 2009, a distinctly European benchmark for excellence, is a testament to how readily it pairs deep-rooted culinary traditions with boundary-breaking techniques. Though it seems like the crush of 13 million residents operate solely on bullettrain speed—just spend an evening at the Shibuya Crossing, a swarming intersection where thousands of pedestrians simulta-
neously traverse from five different directions—a careful second look will reveal pockets of tranquility: hushed teahouse pavilions, dimly lit whiskey bars, or even the shade of a maple tree in Shinjuku Gyoen, often dubbed Tokyo’s answer to Central Park. If it’s marvels of the architectural variety you’re seeking, then it’s best to view them from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. Disregard the decidedly drab name—the observation deck here offers the city’s most sought-after skyline view. Breathtaking, incandescent, and ever changing, it’s a view that embodies the formidable spirit of Tokyo itself.
The National Art Center in Tokyo. (OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) The “Museum Cone” at the Mori Art Museum. The front exterior of 21_21 Design Sight. Exterior of SCAI The Bathhouse. The gallery’s “Color Unfolds” exhibit by the artist Yusuke Kouta. An aerial view of the National Art Center.
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PHOTO: VEROYAMA/FLICKR.COM.
In Japan’s capital city, a reverence for tradition doesn’t mute an enthusiasm for change.
DESTINAT ION
PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) COURTESY MORI ART MUSEUM. MASAY YOSHIMURA FOR NACASA & PARTNERS. COURTESY SCAI THE BATHHOUSE. NOBUTADA OMOTE/COURTESY THE ARTIST. KIM AHLSTRÖM.
CULTURE Tokyo’s cultural scene was once starkly binary, leaving visitors to choose between its bygone Edo past and a sci-fi future. Today, the two worlds fuse to create alluring hybrids, confirmed by spaces like SCAI The Bathhouse (scaithebathhouse.com), a 200-year-old public bath turned avant-garde gallery in Yanaka—a set of rickety lockers still graces the entrance—that’s played host to biennale bigwigs like Anish Kapoor and Jeppe Hein. Fresh from a recent makeover by Kengo Kuma, the local architect designing the city’s National Stadium for the 2020 Summer Olympics, the Minato district’s Nezu Museum (nezu-muse.or.jp) contrasts clean, modern exteriors with more than 7,000 Asian antiques. Much of the prolific collection once belonged to railway mogul and tea ceremony enthusiast Kaichiro Nezu, which explains the prevalence of brew-related paraphernalia. The Mori Museum (mori.
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art.museum), one third of Roppongi’s famed Art Triangle, is known for its funnel-shaped elevator designed by Richard Gluckman (of Whitney Museum fame), and rotating photography, fashion, and architecture exhibits. Another member, with its curvy glass facade and a staggering 150,000 square feet of installation space, is the National Art Center (nact.jp), the largest of its kind in Japan. It forgoes a permanent collection, however, relying on captivating cameos instead: Current displays include a Renoir retrospective and a spotlight on fashion icon Issey Miyake. Incidentally, Miyake is also the creative force behind Akasaka’s 21_21 Design Sight (2121designsight.jp), an experimental design museum conceived by Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Ando, who crowned it with a sloping, steel-plated roof inspired by Miyake’s “piece of cloth” sartorial philosophy.
DESTINAT ION
HOTELS
PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) COURTESY AMAN. COURTESY CLASKA (2). COURTESY AMAN.
Omotenashi, or bow-over-backwards Japanese hospitality, is ubiquitous throughout the capital, whether you’re staying in a whimsical boutique hotel or a plush high-rise retreat. Spanning 10 floors of a Shiodome skyscraper, Park Hotel Tokyo (parkhoteltokyo.com) is home to 18 “Artist Rooms”—suites with hand-painted murals by popular Japanese artists, ranging from Hiroko Otake, who was spurred by the national obsession with cherry blossoms, to Hiroyuki Kimura’s austere sumo-accented wall. Four distinct themes, including one filled with framed wildflowers, shape the 21 rooms at Claska (claska.com), created by furniture and home-appliance craftsman Tei Shuwa. In Asakusa, matcha green carpets and vibrant fabric panels by Marimekko’s Masaru Suzuki accentuate the 137 rooms at the Gate Hotel (gate-hotel.jp), a modern juxtaposition to Sensoji, the city’s oldest temple complex, across the street. With inimitable Imperial Palace views, Aman Tokyo (aman.com), the brand’s first city property, offers dramatic natural flourishes in the form of rock gardens and a stunning reception desk, crafted from the trunk of a 250-year-old camphor tree. Longtime Aman collaborator Kerry Hill Architects put a contemporary spin on a ryokan in the 84 rooms, with sliding shoji screens and low-slung daybeds. One of the latest additions to the jagged cityscape is Toranomon’s Andaz Tokyo (tokyo.andaz. hyatt), the combined vision of TaiwaneseAmerican designer Tony Chi and local mastermind Shinichiro Ogata. The harmonious results: traditional touches such as the lobby bonsai tree, expansive rooms with Hokkaido walnut wood paneling and deep soaking tubs, and a clean-lined indoor pool on the 37th floor.
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DESTINAT ION
MICHIYO NAKAMOTO, EDITOR AND PRODUCER, JAPONICA.INFO PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) COURTESY PARK HOTEL (2). COURTESY GATE HOTEL. COURTESY ANDAZ (2).
“Sasha Kanetanaka is perfect when I’m in the mood for Japanese cuisine but don’t have the time or patience to sit through an hours-long kaiseki meal. With a garden designed by Hiroshi Sugimoto, who is better known for his serene photography, it feels like a cross between a Zen temple and a hip Scandinavian café.” kanetanaka.co.jp “Acrylic is a boutique by Masako Ban, wife of the award-winning architect Shigeru Ban, who showcases her bold, functional accessories made from unusual materials like rubber and sponge. They are beautiful complements to cutting-edge clothes by Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto.” acrylic.jp
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Park Hotel’s “Artist Rooms” (2). A painting by Katsuhiko Hibino adorns the Gate Hotel lobby. Scenes at the Andaz (2). (OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) An Aman suite. Interiors at Claska (2). Aman’s basalt–lined pool.
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RESTAURANTS waterwheel—and interior garden, dotted with carp ponds and maple trees. Further afield in Meguro, Yakumo Saryo (yakumosaryo.jp) is the creation of the aforementioned Andaz hotel designer Shinichiro Ogata. The teahouse and restaurant are a Zen minimalist’s nirvana, awash in stone, wood, and natural light. The futuristic AO towers, in the shopping district of Aoyama, are the setting for Two Rooms (tworooms. jp), where black granite counters and custom artwork by Masashi Ozawa outfit two spaces connected by a water-terraced bridge. On the 40th floor of Shinjuku’s legendary Park Hyatt hotel (Bill Murray fans will recognize it from the indie hit film, Lost in Translation), Kozue (tokyo.park. hyatt.com) is a stylish sake and kaiseki bar, wreathed by dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows that offer glimpses of the coneshaped Mount Fuji.
ASHLEY RAWLINGS, DIRECTOR OF BLUM & POE, TOKYO “I like Bar Zingaro for its totally bizarre clash of visuals. Nowhere else in Tokyo can you find a 1950s-esque interior with contemporary pop art on the walls next door to stores crammed with anime paraphernalia.” bar-zingaro.jp “One of my favorite little shops is Kamawanu in Daikanyama, which specializes in tenugui. These long and narrow strips of dyed fabrics come in a seemingly infinite variety of designs and are very versatile—they can be used as a towels, wall decorations, sweatbands, or gift-wrapping.” kamawanu.co.jp
(FROM TOP) A dish at Kozue. The restaurant’s private dining room. The teahouse at Yakumo Saryo.
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PHOTOS: (FROM TOP) JUN SEITA. COURTESY KOZUE. COURTESY YAKUMO SARYO.
As the world’s Michelin-star stronghold, Tokyo’s dining culture reflects the dignified metropolis itself: steeped in artisanal traditions, but poised for change. Japan’s culinary epicenter is a blend of European transplants and homegrown heroes, all catering to increasingly cosmopolitan palettes. Tucked inside a generous green patch of a sprawling Midtown shopping complex is the Tokyo branch of a Kyoto stalwart, Canoviano Café (canovianocafe.jp). The Tadao Ando–designed structure—it’s virtually identical to 21_21 Design Sight, which sits next door—gives an unexpected sleek aesthetic to the organic Italian trattoria. Tender tofu dishes, served in stackable lacquer boxes, take center stage at Shiba Tofuya Ukai (ukai.co.jp), a collection of 55 tatami-clad dining rooms in a centuries-old sake brewery. Each private chamber faces the restaurant’s focal point—a slow-moving, wooden
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“Imagine the world’s most welldesigned bicycles in a custom atelier, staffed by one bilingual speaker who knows more about the subject than 99.9 percent of the world’s enthusiasts. Then imagine that he can also perfectly fit, tune, and hack one of those bicycles to your height, weight, physique, and cycling habits. That’s Alpha Cycle, world-class and one-of-a-kind.” alphacycle.co.jp
SHOPS From Rem Koolhaas’s Coach flagship, an unofficial ode to the Rubik’s cube, to Renzo Piano’s slender glass Hermès tower, global architectural stars have often been summoned to imagine the Tokyo outposts of international luxury brands. While these urban castles are destinations in their own right, the city’s kaleidoscopic shopping landscape also exudes plenty of local flavor. The brainchild of designer Eiji Hatanaka, Icon (icontky.com) stocks high-end labels like 3.1 Phillip Lim, T by Alexander Wang, and J.W. Anderson. A residential vibe infuses a converted split-level Omotesando home, complete with a bedroom, kitchen, and even a garage that doubles as a pop-up boutique. A former paper processing plant in sleepy Nakameguro is now the site of Traveler’s Factory (travelers-factory.com), a wanderlust-themed stationery shop; your
haul might consist of retro bumper stickers and notebooks splattered with vintage airline ads. At Okura (hrm.co.jp/okura), unisex jackets and tees get0 the aizome (or indigo-dye) treatment, using an all-natural technique that finds its roots in the 10th century; the rustic ceiling is studded with seashells and driftwood. A succession of wavy bamboo slats lines architect Kengo Kuma’s Pigment (pigment.tokyo), a traditional art supply store in Shinagawa teeming with over 4,000 paint vials and rare animalhair brushes. Channeling a library in the woods, Tsutaya, part of a trio of interlocking buildings with latticed front, is a shrine to the analog age. British transplant Klein Dytham Architects is behind the cavernous bookstore, which includes a generous range of English titles, and draws crowds to its swish, leather-bound café, Anjin.
“Tokyoites have developed an obsession with Portland, fetishizing every aspect of indie DIY culture from those rainy environs. Paddlers Coffee is a café that mixes some of Portland’s best small-batch roasted beans with homespun interior design.” paddlerscoffee.com
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Pigment. Tsutaya’s bookstore. The exterior of Icon. Brushes at Pigment.
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PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) COURTESY PIGMENT. NACASA & PARTNERS. COURTESY ICON. COURTESY PIGMENT.
IAN LYNAM, GRAPHIC DESIGNER, TEACHER, AND WRITER
all-suite hotel | delanolasvegas.com
DEFIANTLY INSPIRED
A clean-lined hotel arrives to a traditional Korean resort town. BY SARAH KHAN
Seamarq overlooking the East Sea. (OPPOSITE, FROM TOP) A chandelier by Ingo Maurer hangs above a table made from a zelkova tree trunk. The hotel’s fifth-floor pool.
With a distinguished career spanning more than five decades, one would think that architect Richard Meier has done it all. Yet his New York firm recently celebrated the completion of its first ground-up hotel, the 150-room Seamarq in Gangneung, South Korea. The project proved challenging in numerous ways, not least of which being the harmonization with the diverse natural surroundings. “The first impression is that you don’t want to touch anything because the landscape is so beautiful,” says Dukho Yeon, an associate partner at Richard Meier & Partners Architects. “We wanted to preserve the quality of the site as much as possible.” The 2018 Winter Olympics may still be two years away—Gangneung will be hosting the games along with nearby Pyeongchang—but Seamarq is already changing the makeup of this ancient city known more for its classic Joseon-era buildings than modern architecture. The milky white structure rises above a treecovered hill overlooking Gyeongpo Lake and the Sea of Japan, with views of the Taebaek Mountains in the distance. “Both the hotel tower and banquet hall are integrated into the landscape,” Meier says.
“The whole entry sequence, a winding road from the gate up to the hotel, gives you a sense of being out of the urban area and into a special place.” The location is, indeed, special, and not just because it now houses a 21st-century architectural marvel. The land and the hotel that stood on it previously are owned by billionaire Chung Mong-joon, scion to the Hyundai empire and a prominent South Korean politician and former FIFA official. (He’s currently serving out a six-year ban for corruption.) This scenic stretch is where he was born and also where his father would go to get away from the frenetic pace of the city. Because of a deep personal connection to the site, the owners were hands-on in every stage of its development. “The architect can do his work, but when you have a good relationship with the owner it makes it even better because they add so much,” Meier says. “They brought a lot of ideas to the table that maybe we wouldn’t have considered, but they knew what they wanted and were able to articulate it in a way that makes it better for everyone.” The result of that synergy is an airy structure of glass, metal, and porcelain-like concrete cladding imported from Italy, all
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ALL PHOTOS: PARK YOUNG CHAE.
High Marq
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positioned in a geometric tilt that maximizes the views in every direction. “Even though it’s a tall building, it feels light,” says Meier. “I wanted to have a certain amount of transparency, openness—you can see the sky, the sea, the landscape around it.” The cavernous two-story lobby feels like a design showroom. The centerpiece is a 65-foot table crafted from a single Japanese zelkova tree trunk, with George Nakashima chairs and a wavy check markshaped chandelier by Ingo Maurer hanging above. In the lounge, a soaring granite fireplace wall is accented with Mies van der Rohe– and Eero Saarinen–designed furniture. A Venetian plaster staircase that resembles a martini lemon twist leads to the mezzanine. “As you move through the hotel, your curiosity is aroused so that you want to see everything,” Meier says. That includes a locally sourced Cantonese restaurant, a spa lined in oak slats, spacious rooms with Jasper Morrison tables and floating balconies, and an infinity pool rimmed by a teak patio. While the complex is contemporary, the grounds—the work of New York studio James Corner Field Operations, whose past projects include the High Line—are dotted with ancient pine trees and a cluster of small suites modeled after traditional Korean hanuks that incorporate local stones and wood, not to mention an open-air amphitheater. But no amount of planning—and with the 12-hour time difference between New York and Seoul, plenty of it was required— fully prepared Meier and Yeon for the dramatic end result. “You always have an idea about how it is to be there, and how it is to experience the spaces,” Meier says. “But when you see the reality you say, ‘Hey, this is even better than my ideas!”
(FROM TOP) A presidential suite. The Thermal Suite spa. The open-air amphitheater.
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An Amsterdam hangout inspired by a legendary New York painter. BY LINDSEY OLANDER Javastraat, the main thoroughfare—and heart—of Oost, an artistic neighborhood in eastern Amsterdam, is a multi-ethnic strip brimming with Turkish grocers, Surinamese restaurants, and Caribbean food markets. A creative energy pulsates through the area, where young professionals and expats have set up shop with ventures that honor their roots. The same might be said of Bar Basquiat, the latest from Studio Modijefsky, a small Dutch design firm that is slowly building a mini-empire in the city with popular spots like the very bobo Roast Room and Bar Bukowski. “During the design process, we consider not only aesthetics and visual ideas but also historical data and the context of the location,” says Esther Stam, Studio Modijefsky’s creative director. Bar Basquiat’s identity, in this case, begins with its name. Jean-Michel
Basquiat was a Brooklyn-born graffiti artist turned Neo-Expressionist painter known for his superposition of color-text-sketch. Together with Andy Warhol, he dominated New York’s experimental art scene during the 1980s. “We interpreted his work by overlapping materials and combining them in different ways,” says Stam. Stepping inside the light-filled entrance reveals myriad references at every turn. Paint splatters a wall next to custom wooden tables. Hobo signs—symbols that panhandlers use to communicate, a prevalent motif in Basquiat’s work—mark the restrooms, where snippets of his poetry are scrawled across the mirrors. Even the vintage bar stools lining the concrete bar and the subway tiles backing the bartender space are nods to the artist, who frequented the edgy watering holes of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Most intriguing, however, are the ways in which Bar Basquiat’s design leans not only on the nature of its namesake, but on its former life as a super market. Subtle but bold clues are everywhere. Pink neon lights beaming “KEEP FROZEN,” in Basquiat’s signature script, replace a refrigerator. Custom cork seats on the windowsills recall the
former nuts and dried fruits aisle. The walls of what used to be the dairy section are now slathered in milky, textured paint. Bottles of spirits sit on a shelf masked with metal mesh, reminiscent of a shopping cart. The former butcher’s counter is now the bar; painted red and running the length of the space, it acts as a focal point for the room, its bright hue lightening the mood. Locals flood in for weekend brunch, crowding the wooden benches outside; at night, they lounge on the midcentury furniture and order Amsterdam-brewed craft beers like Zatte and Ijwit from an oversized wall menu that recalls a shopping receipt. “We wanted to push the tactility of the space by balancing the raw vibe of Basquiat’s street life with warm materials and colors that create good day ambiance,” Stam says. A bar where diversity is top of mind? On Javastaat, it’s a welcome masterpiece.
The rear section of the bar. (OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Poetry on a bathroom mirror. A cocktail by Michael Neff. The bar’s back room.
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PHOTO: MAARTEN WILLEMSTEIN.
Portrait of the Artist
BAR
BAR
Cocktail by Michael Neff INSPIRED BY BAR BASQUIAT
PHOTOS: INTERIORS, MAARTEN WILLEMSTEIN. COCKTAIL, DANI VERNON.
For this recipe, I referenced the work of Basquiat, and the mission of the bar, which prides itself as a place where people can walk in at any hour. First off, I used a Dutch vodka to reflect the Amsterdam location. (The bar also touts its affinity for breakfast, so the cocktail is light enough to be consumed any time of day.) The space is inspired by the style of the American artist for which it’s named, notable for the disparate elements and feelings that conflict with and complement each other at the same time. To reflect that I chose two very big favors, ginger and cardamom, and gave them a relatively neutral environment in which to shine. Just like Basquiat flourished his graphic works with colors and symbols, at my bar in New York I brandish drinks with whimsical touches. For instance, a bright blue airplane figurine.
1 oz ⁄2 oz 1 ⁄2 oz 2 dashes 1
vodka fresh lemon juice Canton ginger liqueur Scrappy’s cardamom bitters sparkling wine
Add all ingredients into a shaker tin, shake vigorously, and fine strain into a Belgium glass over cubed ice. Garnish with yellow umbrella and mint sprig.
Michael Neff is the beverage director at Holiday Cocktail Lounge in New York’s East Village. Previously, he oversaw the drink programs at Tribeca’s Ward III and Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles.
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A conceptual artist turns a restaurant’s interiors into an exhibition space. BY GISELA WILLIAMS
When the owners of the Dolder Grand, an iconic historic hotel set on the fringe of the Adlisberg forest overlooking Zurich, decided to renovate and add an extension almost a decade ago, they smartly hired Norman Foster. The British architect restored much of the beauty of Jacques Gros’s original fin-de-siècle building and added two wings with stencil-cut aluminum facades, one of which is taken up by a soaring 43,000 square-foot spa with a black-tiled pool and a meditation room of golden mirrors. Taking a risk on a forward-thinking architect paid off: It remained respected among regulars and earned design cred with the younger generation. So when it came time to reinvent one of the Dolder’s restaurants,
the owners turned to an equally modern creative thinker, the German conceptual artist Rolf Sachs. Sachs was a more obvious choice than one would think. The polymath, who as a child spent winters in the Swiss Alps, has designed furniture and sets, made sculptures, and, most recently, put on a solo photography show at the Galerie Andrea Caratsch in St. Moritz. The hotel also houses a vast art collection that includes originals by Dalí and Anish Kapoor. For Sachs, designing the angular dining room was all about the visual effect that references the Alps. “I didn’t think about the chef or the food,” he says. (In fact, it was chef à la carte Patrick Hetz who used
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PHOTO: NICO SCHAERER, COURTESY THE DOLDER GRAND AND ROLF SACHS.
Grand Plan
RESTAURANT
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RESTAURANT
Dish by Patrick Hetz INSPIRED BY SALTZ There’s a synergy between Rolf Sachs’s design, which references the rugged Swiss landscape, and the sustainably sourced menu I created for the restaurant: an ode to Alpine ingredients. (The origin of each one is declared on the menu.) This recipe celebrates the region’s heirloom produce and fresh trout, a staple of Switzerland that puts a focus on the homemade character of the food. It’s a dish that tells a story. Just like the aesthetic at Saltz.
Serves 4
2 lbs ⁄2 tsp 1 ⁄2 tsp 1 ⁄2 oz 1 ⁄2 oz 2 1 ⁄2 oz 3 oz 1 5 oz 3 oz 4 1
trout fillets (with skin) ground caraway seeds thyme ground coriander seeds ground fennel seeds cane sugar coarse sea salt pinch of lemon zest poultry stock fresh parsley La Ratte potatoes
Mix together the spices—salt, thyme, lemon zest, sugar—and sprinkle half of the mixture on a piece of cling film. Lay the fish on top and sprinkle the rest of the mixture over the fish. Wrap the fish in the cling film and refrigerate for around 12 hours. Then cold smoke it with cherrywood in a smoking oven. Rinse, dry, skin.
La Ratte potatoes Cook four potatoes in boiling water, then peel and dice. Fry in oil until brown and crisp. Serve with: sliced apple, trout roe, creamed horseradish, and preserved calamondin.
Patrick Hetz is the chef à la carte at Saltz in Zurich. His previous stops include Switzerland’s Gstaad Palace and Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland.
the design as inspiration for his menu.) Sachs started by dividing the restaurant into three spaces, each with a distinctive concept: one corner is entirely red with a back wall of cherry-colored felt; a central dining area has a constellation of furniture that includes chairs by Eero Saarinen and Jean Prouvé, as well as a self-designed couch made of layered Kvadrat felt; and then a section with a back wall of fleur de sel encased between two plates of glass over a neon sign that reads Das Salz in der Suppe—the salt in the soup. “It’s a German saying that means ‘it’s the spice of life that makes it worth living,’” Sachs says. Above the main seating is an abstract web of mountaineering rope resembling
a game of Cats Cradle; a solitary boulder hangs from it near the floor near a window—a nod to the nearby mountains in the distance. Sachs’s original idea was to hang hundreds of sleds meant to look like they were “flying across the ceiling.” It was one of the few ideas that the Dolder Grand owners asked that he rethink. He did it without a fuss. “I come up with new ideas rather quickly,” he says. “If the restaurant would have been opened a year later it would have looked completely different.” As Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
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PHOTOS: (FROM TOP) COURTESY SALTZ. NICO SCHAERER, COURTESY THE DOLDER GRAND AND ROLF SACHS.
Parsley stock Mix in a blender or using a hand mixer and pass through a fine sieve.
P H : Zo ë G h e r t n e r
ST R I N G L I G H T BY M I C H A E L A N A STA S S I A D E S
2014
F LO S U SA .COM N e w Yo r k F l a g s h i p S t o r e - 1 5 2 G r e e n e S t r e e t
Tables of Elements
STORE
A fragrance boutique showcases a Chinese philosophy in L.A.
In choosing holistic-minded Los Angeles for its U.S. flagship, French maison de parfums The Harmonist found the ideal location for its feng shui–inspired scents. The city’s topography reflects its five harmonious elements: water (the Pacific Ocean), earth (San Gabriel Mountains), wood (Angeles National Forest), metal (skyscrapers), and fire (San Andreas Fault). The fragrance brand, whose first boutique sits on Avenue George V in Paris, is guided by this ancient principle in all aspects of its craft, from the design of the store to the aromas themselves. “Perfume is an invisible energy—put it on and it follows you throughout the day,” says creative director Aymeric Wuidart, who extolls the ability of the brand’s products to help people reach scent-based self-actualization. Wuidart, an industry veteran of over a decade, gained an appreciation for the Eastern school of thought while traveling. It caused him to look at the olfactory arts through a more personalized lens. “When you go to Sephora, they don’t care about who you are, they just try to sell you the novelty of perfume,” he says. “But it’s something that’s very personal and we want to go back to a time when it wasn’t created for everybody, but for someone specific.”
At the entrance of the narrow Melrose Avenue boutique, video monitors display images of exploding volcanoes and serene waters. Inside, the space is done up in an ebony-and-ivory aesthetic, including the custom Murano glass chandeliers and ornate silver chairs, in order to convey the Chinese concept of yin and yang. “I kept the idea of black and white as a central piece [of the design],” says Alnoor, the mononymous designer who leads a namesake firm in France. “Not opposite but always sharing.” Alnoor spent countless hours imagining a way for customers to discover the perfumes without being in direct contact with the bottles. The goal was to put the focus squarely where it belongs: the smell. So he created a natural flow that leads visitors past a series of bowling ball–shaped glass olfactoriums atop curvaceous tables, to engage with the aromas. The sensory experience ends at the emerald-hued malachite countertops where, beneath suspended globe-like gardens, the brand’s 10 fragranc-
es are presented on small silver plateaus: the floral Magnetic Wood, lavender-andsage Velvet Fire, and marine-esque Sacred Water, among others. “The earth’s minerality is reflected by the counters, the gardens represent its naturality,” Alnoor says. He worked closely with a feng-shui master who analyzed the space to ensure the five elements are represented in the different materials and that the spatial organization aids the flow of energy. “We don’t just sell perfume. We really try to understand who the person is so we can define their element and propose a scent that will answer their needs at that moment in life,” Wuidart says.
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PHOTO: COURTESY THE HARMONIST.
BY LOGAN R. BAKER
A MODERN UPDATE ON A CLASSIC MAYFAIR HOTEL FLEMINGS MAYFAIR HOTEL A modern renovation in the heart of London’s posh Mayfair neighborhood. Book your stay at SurfaceHotels.com
The president and co-founder of SCAD has forged a deep connection with Savannah. BY HEIDI MITCHELL Paula S. Wallace is a rare breed. She’s the trailblazing academic who reimagined the American art college from a Georgia studio. That was nearly 40 years ago, before students of fashion, design, and architecture realized that success in their vaunted disciplines required mastery of less-flashy skills. “Most art students don’t know that majors like industrial marine design or user experience even exist,” says Wallace, 67, whose new book, The Bee and the Acorn
(Assouline), chronicles the growth of the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) from a hair-brained idea to a curriculum and an accredited school with four campuses across the globe. “It doesn’t occur to them that they need to go to school to learn luxury management, or branded entertainment so they can compete.” Wallace saw all of this coming four decades ago. Back then, she was an Atlanta school teacher who believed that higher education lacked the student-centric approach that she was giving her pupils in grade school. “Colleges focused on teaching subjects, not students,” she says. So in 1978 she sold her Volkswagen Beetle, received some money from her mother, and bought an old armory—which would become SCAD’s first building—in the highly livable historic town of Savannah. The only furnishing was her kitchen table, and on it Wallace wrote the first curriculum devised specifically for students seeking careers in creative professions. “Going from zero to one student was the biggest challenge ever,” she says. But by 1979, SCAD had enrolled 71 students and enlisted seven teachers. Eight degrees were offered, and the first student, a transfer interior design major, graduated in 1981. “All the staff wore caps and gowns and that one graduate was delivered on horsedrawn carriage to Madison Square for the ceremony,” she says. Now SCAD has 12,500 students across four campuses—Savannah, Hong Kong, Atlanta, and Lacoste, France—with some 42 disciplines and more than 100 degrees ranging from the first MFA in motion media visual effects to game development to historic preservation. As its president, Wallace has her finger on the pulse of the up-and-coming creative class. In the 1980s, SCAD was one of the first art colleges to offer computer art as a major. Now students have the opportunity to work with companies like Google, Pixar, NASA, Proctor & Gamble, and Disney. “We listen to students with one ear and to the professional world with the other,” Wallace says. Job placement at name-brand firms is high. To Wallace, education is a kind of immortality. “You are passing on the essence of all you know to people who go on to succeed,” she says. “It’s gratifying to know that you’ve been a small part of someone’s story. That’s why I wrote the book: to hopefully share a bit of my story.” >
Paula S. Wallace on the porch of Magnolia Hall, a guest house at SCAD.
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PHOTO: CHIA CHONG.
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Sandfly Bar-B-Q
PHOTOS: (FROM TOP) DYLAN WILSON. JUSTIN CHAN. MARC NEWTON.
“Many SCAD graduates are so enchanted by Savannah that they build their own businesses in the midst of its storied streets and squares. One of my favorites is Arcanum, a lifestyle boutique and interior design studio co-owned by alumnus Sim Harvey. The emporium embodies the ingenuity and joy that our grads conjure through design. The myriad antiques, fine art, and contemporary curios mix harmoniously, all on the site of a former gas station.” 346 Whitaker St.; 912-236-6000 “Back in the early days of SCAD, a retro doubledecker bus ferried students to and from class. That very bus now stands inside Art’s—a one-stop café, market, and gift shop, where healthy meals and smoothies are prepared in the lower-level kitchen, and you can dine on the upper deck. My go-to is the seasonal beet bowl, a blend of fresh beets, greens, quinoa, and goat cheese.” 345 Bull St.; 912-525-4480 “The exquisite interior of Chocolat by Adam Turoni drew me in, and the delectable confections beautifully crafted by the master chocolatier keep me coming back. One bite of a Savannah Honey Chocolate Bar, filled with wildflower honey from Savannah Bee Company, and you will understand what the buzz is all about.” 321 W Broughton St.; 912-335-2915; chocolatat.com “Established in 1750, Colonial Park Cemetery is one of Savannah’s oldest treasures. Just steps from my back door, its oyster shell–speckled walkways are perfect for a peaceful, reflective stroll past the resting place of some of the first Savannahians. It’s also an ideal vantage point from which to gaze toward the twin spires of the glorious Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.” 201 Abercorn St.; 912-651-6843 “SCAD restored this 1940s-era diner, originally a Streamliner car, to serve as a diner for the fashion and accessory design students and faculty based in Eckburg Hall across the street. Now it’s home to the Art Deco Sandfly Bar-B-Q—replete with mahogany booths, marble counters, and stained-glass windows—which dishes out the best Brunswick stew and pulled pork sandwich in Savannah.” 1220 Barnard St.; 912-356-5463; sandflybbq.com “In 2011, the SCAD Museum of Art rose from the reclaimed ruins of an antebellum railroad complex— the only one still standing in the country. Don’t miss the exhibition ‘Carrie Mae Weems: Considered’ (through June 12), which spotlights a range of works by the photographer and recent honoree at SCAD Define Art 2016. When you visit, be sure to take in the lobby’s newly dedicated bronze medallion that commemorates the journey of William and Ellen Craft. During their heroic escape from slavery in 1848, the remarkable couple passed through this very spot.” 601 Turner Blvd.; 912- 525.7191; scadmoa.org
SCAD Museum of Art
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A MODERN CLASSIC HUDSON HOTEL The design, courtesy of Philippe Starck, merits attention even years after its debut. Book your stay at SurfaceHotels.com
Orbit A mix of movements in lifestyle and the arts, including Lisson Gallery’s first New York outpost and the automaker maestros at Pininfarina.
Open House
KNOW NOW
James Goldstein hopes to bring more awareness to L.A. architecture through an unusual museum gift. In this column, we ask our special projects editor, Bettina Korek, founder of the Los Angeles–based independent arts organization For Your Art, to select something in the world that she believes you should be aware of at this particular moment. BY BETTINA KOREK PHOTOS BY SPENCER LOWELL
One of artist Jenny Holzer’s famous truisms is “Money Creates Taste.” Taste can be defined as knowing exactly what you want. Yet the tastes of the wealthy are often not particularly original. Real estate investor James Goldstein, however, has paved his own stylistic path. The source of his wealth is shrouded in mystery, but his presence courtside at Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers games and at fashion shows—always in his distinct uniform of a cowboy hat and exotic animal-skin coats—is well-known. And now, his taste in architecture is in the spotlight. Over 40 years ago, he bought an iconic John Lautner house, best known today for its appearance as the residence of a pornographer in the Coen brothers film The Big Lebowski (1998). While countless other domestic architectural masterpieces have been torn down across L.A. over the years, Goldstein’s recent decision to gift his home to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), effectively turning it over to the public, may inspire other Angelenos to become patrons of architecture. The love story between Goldstein and his house—originally built in 1963 for architectural patrons Helen and Paul Sheats—began the moment Goldstein first set foot inside it in 1972. Lautner was a midcentury modernist stalwart whose style quickly became synonymous with L.A. The Sheats-Goldstein residence, with its dramatic hillside setting and cantilevered concrete roof, embodies Lautner’s dramatic flourishes, which were loved by Hollywood as both personal residences and settings for films. “Even though it was in horrible shape, I immediately knew this was it,” he says. The decision changed his life, he recalls, speaking from a tennis tournament in Indian Wells: “The house has definitely become an extension of my persona. I’ve worked diligently on it for 35 years and am still working on new projects for the property. I’m involved in every little detail and design decision.” Growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of a clothing retailer, Goldstein’s interest in design emerged early on. As a teenager, he remembers, “I always tried to be ahead of my high school class in terms of wearing the latest styles.” In the absence of any notable fashion figures—his hometown had its limits—Goldstein carefully cultivated a personal look all his own. What Milwaukee did have to offer, however, was a wealth of modern architecture close at hand. One of Goldstein’s best friends’ houses was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and his father’s business was close to another Wright building, the Johnson Wax headquarters. Years later, he would purchase the home designed by Lautner, who had been one of Wright’s apprentices, and work closely with
James Goldstein at the SheatsGoldstein residence in Los Angeles. (OPPOSITE) Interior and exterior shots of the John Lautner–designed home.
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KNOW NOW
Lautner to bring the house up-to-date. Goldstein’s gift of the residence to LACMA, along with a $17-million endowment, reflects his wish that L.A. be a city that supports great design. “I don’t think there’s enough new architecture in Los Angeles, which is very disappointing,” he says. “For the most part, people in Los Angeles seem to want period-style houses as opposed to something modern and creative that hasn’t been done before.” Goldstein notes that a city like Dubai has no equal in terms of encouraging forward-thinking designs on a grand scale. While L.A.’s most avant-garde architectural designs have largely been domestic spaces, recent projects such as The Broad museum (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) and LACMA’s forthcoming redesign (Peter Zumthor) may well be shifting this emphasis. Goldstein’s bequest has the potential to play a similar role. “As more architects and students see my house, I’m hoping the awareness of modern architecture in Los Angeles becomes stronger.” The decision to donate the house was more than 10 years in the making and involved many potential institutions. He built a strong rapport with LACMA’s director, Michael Govan, in whom he found an ally with a similar vision for the home’s future. “Michael demonstrated that he wanted to continue operating the house in the same way [I did],” Goldstein says. “It was a meeting of the minds.” Some of those operations are an abundance of parties and photo shoots—events that Goldstein vets himself, and that have given the home an incalculable aura. Since the addition of an entertainment facility, and as the house becomes better known, there are always more requests to use it. Lautner may not have foreseen such an active future for his original design, but Goldstein’s decades-long commitment to the residence certainly stands as one of the success stories of an architectural gem remaining relevant.
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A Brazilian artist’s friendship inspires a master of haute cuisine. BY DANIEL BOULUD
Vik Muniz’s “Double Mona Lisa (Peanut Butter and Jelly),” from his 1999 “After Warhol” series, currently on exhibit at the High Museum in Atlanta.
Growing up in the ’70s, every chef then magazines for skin colored ones; and fashhad a relationship with an artist. Art- ion magazines for special colors. He was ists are bon vivants, and lovers of culture, collecting thousands and thousands of food, and wine. I relate to their creative these dots in little boxes. One by one, Vik minds because, in a way, we have our own placed them next to each other in order to artistry in the kitchen—but it’s for the create a piece of art. It was mind-blowing. And I don’t think I’ve seen everything out memories, not to keep but to consume. An artist I have a great friendship with of Vik. When I proposed the idea of doing artis Vik Muniz. I’m very much inspired by his work, but I get more inspired by him work at Bar Boulud in New York to him, I as a person. When we’re together, I always explained that wine would take a big role know it’s going be a joyful moment. He’s at the restaurant, especially Burgundy, piso full of life and always has a new story to not noir, and shiraz. He said we should tell me from his travels around the world. start by drinking some and then decide We both have passion for what we do and what we’re going do. The wine made him enjoy sharing our craft and creativity. Vik think of a party and what’s left when it’s has always been surrounded by chefs: He’s over—the stain on the table that reminds friends with all the best ones in Brazil and you of a good time. So we did three parFrance, so he understands the creative pro- ties—two dinners and a brunch—to create Bar Boulud’s “Wine Stain” series from cess of making a meal. What’s extraordinary about Vik as an napkins. It was really personal, spontaneartist is that there’s always some renewal ous, and fun. I’m sure that life will bring us together of himself, expressed in a way that’s surprising, but not different from his way of to do other things. Vik is always motivatthinking. For example, when he designed ed to do something new. His father was a plates for Bernardaud, he took the idea of bartender and our dream is to open a bar microscopic cells in petri dishes and used together. It would be a mix of the two of them as patterns. They’re crazy beauti- us: friends, flowers, porcelain, and ingreful. I also love that Vik will take a subject, dients with fruits. And coconuts. choose a material, do a series, and then it goes away. He won’t go back to that series. Daniel Boulud is a French chef and restauI remember going to his studio one time rateur based in New York. and his son was perforating magazines— a golf magazine for little green dots; sex
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PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GALERIE XIPPAS, PARIS.
Joie de Vivre
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Pininfarina diversifies its portfolio with a new U.S. outpost and a fantastical concept car. BY JONATHAN SCHULTZ PORTRAIT BY ANDREA WYNER One of the largest pieces in MoMA’s permanent collection is a mixed-media sculpture fashioned from aluminum, steel, rubber, and wood. There are no blockbuster exhibitions on the calendar in its honor, no parties hosted by Björk or Yoko Ono, yet it’s one of the finest pieces of its kind. The 1946 Cisitalia 202 coupe marks a turning point where the fluidic, smooth, and “essential”— the word preferred by its designer, Battista “Pinin” Farina—came to car design. Unlike
Cisitalia or countless forgotten carmakers of the postwar period, however, the 202’s designer remains a vital, going concern. Pininfarina, the design firm that Battista founded, helped give shape to the 20th century as much as Knoll, Gwathmey Siegel, or Boeing did. Based in Cambiano, an exurb of Turin, the firm achieved a quiet ubiquity on the world’s roads, and it did so by being its own boss. If Ford called just minutes after Alfa Romeo rang, nothing precluded Pininfarina from saying Si to commissions from both companies. Pininfarina was a design assassin in a Brioni suit, able to hit multiple targets at once. It’s a different century for the company—and for all carrozzerie, the traditional Italian automotive-design consultancies that have been bludgeoned to the brink of extinction by tectonic shifts in the car business. Today’s automakers perform virtually all their design work in-house, a mortal threat to the carrozzeria model. Pininfarina is still standing, albeit with significant reinforcement from an unlikely source. In December, one of India’s largest industrial conglomerates purchased a controlling stake in a deal worth roughly $185 million. Such a coupling, the likes of which Battista could never have fathomed, might make Pininfarina more influential than ever before. Not that the company is sitting on its hands waiting to find out. “It’s one of the main questions that we ask ourselves: What is our role in this climate?” says Fabio Filippini, Pininfarina’s vice president of design. Keen foresight in the 1980s led Pininfarina to branch out from its automotive comfort zone, and the company may well be alive— unlike former archrival Stile Bertone—because of it. The company is as diversified as any time in its history, with tendrils in residential architecture, kitchen design, marinas, agricultural equipment, and yes, Coca-Cola vending machines, but car-design consulting remains central. “The carrozzeria side has two approaches: one, when you’re working with mature carmakers in established markets, and two, when you’re working with companies in emerging markets that still don’t have strong design identities,” Filippini says. “The risk is to become too dependent on either one of them.” That pragmatism has informed much of Pininfarina’s recent movement. Preceding its purchase by a subsidiary of Indian heavy-industry colossus Mahindra Group in December, Pininfarina launched its first office outside of Italy, in Miami. Under director Matteo de Lise and lead designer Paolo Trevisan, the subsidiary office has delivered two residential towers in South Florida with the Related Group of Florida: 1100
Designer Fabio Filippini with the H2 Speed concept car at the Pininfarina headquarters in Cambiano, Italy.
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The H2 Speed. (OPPOSITE, FROM TOP) Concept sketches of the H2 Speed. A 1969 Ferrari Sigma Grand Prix alongside the H2 Speed, which it helped inspire. The spoiler of the H2 Speed.
Millecento in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood and Beachwalk in Hallandale Beach. Augmenting these are a marina project in Argentina and a residential tower in Brazil, each managed out of Pininfarina’s new American beachhead. “Traditionally, Pininfarina has had a conservative approach to growth,” de Lise says. “It was, ‘Let’s keep all our expertise in one place.’ And that was perfect from the standpoint of keeping the quality the main and only goal. But by scaling in a very intelligent way, by opening other offices around the world that have specific areas of expertise based on what the local territory needs, we think we can maintain this quality.” Not that signs of strain don’t emerge. Pininfarina’s restyling of Eurostar’s Standard Premier train cars came in for criticism earlier this year, with high-profile takedowns from editors at Wallpaper, U.S. Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar U.K. Yet these are leavened by plaudits for Pininfarina’s ambitious condo tower in São Paulo, which netted a 2016 iF Design award in Germany. It’s the Mahindra Group acquisition, however, that will most acutely test the elasticity of Pininfarina, particularly in its central automotive-design business.
Mahindra & Mahindra is India’s secondlargest carmaker by sales volume, and among the world’s largest producers of agricultural tractors. Though one of the most recognizable brands in a nation of one billion people, Mahindra & Mahindra lacks a cohesive style; notwithstanding variations on a slatted grille, its cars share few cues. Mahindra, then, is Filippini’s emergingmarket test case writ large—very large. With this in mind, Filippini argues that the Indian market and other emerging economies don’t require region-specific style considerations. “Right now, all over the world, there are certain fundamental expectations of good automotive design,” he says. “There can be variation, but I don’t think car companies should design cars too different from country to country. Good stance, good proportion, it’s sitting well on its wheels, the amount of front overhang and rear overhang—those I think are recognized worldwide. A certain expression of dynamic fluidity is valued worldwide.” As for that telltale, florid “Pininfarina” badge rendered in chrome script that appears on select creations—from the Maserati GranTurismo to a one-off Czech farm tractor—don’t expect it to colonize Ma-
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PHOTOS: (THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE) COURTESY PININFARINA.
hindra’s lineup. “We think our badge is one of the most valuable assets in our company because it’s always been used for our most exclusive projects,” Filippini says. “Unless we do something very exceptional, it’s unlikely we would use it. Now, I don’t exclude the possibility, but it’s not right now something we plan to do.” For emphasis, Filippini need only gesture toward the H2 Speed concept, a flamboyant calling card for Pininfarina’s design services unveiled in March at the Geneva Motor Show. It’s extremely far from mass transportation, and the farthest thing from mass anything. A hydrogen-powered fever dream somewhere between racecar and TEI starfighter, with a glass canopy and an acid-green rear wing, the H2 Speed is a ruthlessly streamlined wedge of impossible. The car exists beyond the outer bands of fantasy, where few carmakers dare dream of going. Only an outsider, albeit one with intimate knowledge of car design, would ever conceive of anything like it. And that is precisely the point of Pininfarina.
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Growing Up
ART
Following outposts in London and Milan, Lisson unveils a spacious New York City gallery. BY MARINA CASHDAN PORTRAIT BY BRYAN DERBALLA
Lisson gallery director Alex Logsdail may have been raised in London, but he cut his art-world teeth in New York. He started with internships at Artforum and Deitch Projects, followed by two years working at then-“It” gallery Team. Following this, in late 2009, he returned to his native city to work for Lisson—which his father founded in 1967—but Logsdail had an itch to get back to New York. “I returned four years ago as more and more activity started to take place in North America for our artists,” says the 30-year-old Logsdail, “and to ultimately begin planning Lisson’s New York gallery.” He adds, “Having a broad view of how things operated in various galleries and cities was invaluable and in retrospect was something of a baptism by fire.” This month, Lisson’s fourth space and the first in the U.S.—it follows two London locations, and third in Milan, which opened in 2011—opens with a show by 100-year-old Cuban-American artist Car-
men Herrera. “This is a particularly special exhibition, as it will feature recent paintings by Carmen from the last two years,” Logsdail says. “On the eve of her 101st birthday, she still works and paints in her [New York] studio every day.” The gallery exhibition is just a preview to a major survey show in September of the artist’s work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, just blocks from the gallery. The 4,500-square-foot space—designed from ground up by architect Markus Dochantshi of Studio MDA and Studio Christian Wassmann—runs the length of a city block and sits directly under the High Line. It features two full-length skylights on either side of the elevated park to allow natural light to move through the space. “While informed by the aesthetics of our other galleries in London and Milan, it’s our largest single-room exhibition space,” Logsdail says. “Constructing a new building that was situated underneath the High Line
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ART
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) Stanley Whitney’s “Insideout” (2011), part of an upcoming exhibit at Lisson Gallery London. A piece from Ryan Gander’s “Fieldwork” (2015). Carmen Herrera’s “Alba” (2014). Herrera at work on a painting. (OPPOSITE) Alex Logsdail at Lisson Gallery in New York City.
was an involved process, but the end result is one we’re very pleased with. I’m hopeful that the architecture and the geographical backdrop will inspire artists to create challenging and inspiring new works or new ways of presenting their existing practice.” By positioning the New York gallery as a venue to host shows by artists who currently don’t have representation in the U.S.— and many who have limited visibility in the U.S.—Logsdail hopes that the program will expose American audiences, including museum directors and collectors, to some of their international roster for the first time. “The gallery has had a strong presence in New York since the early 1970s,” he says, “[so] the opening of a space here is a natural evolution of the gallery’s strong history with the city and the long list of American artists that we currently represent or have represented over the years.”
PHOTOS: COURTESY LISSON GALLERY.
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Books
BOOKS
In his new book, A Burglar’s Guide to the City (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), blogger and futurist Geoff Manaugh posits an oftenignored question when it comes to thinking about buildings: What does architecture look like through a criminal lens? Over its fascinating 275 pages, Manaugh explores nearly 2,000 years worth of burglaries, break-ins, and heists. Using information culled from the FBI, the LAPD Air Support Division, and architects, among many oth-
ers, the book may just be the most accessible piece of contemporary architectural literature out there. One need not be a building bookworm or even know who Rem Koolhaas is to be compelled by its seven chapters. “If architects are to be believed,” Manaugh writes in the book, “no one but them pays attention to the buildings around them.” For him, someone planning a robbery provides a special kind of insight into understanding architecture. In Los Angeles, Manaugh flies around with an LAPD helicopter, getting an aerial view of the sprawling city; in New Jersey, he meets with an expert on panic room design and construction. We rarely think of the subversive uses of structures. A Burglar’s Guide to the City shows us with informative wit why we should. Modern Forms (Prestel) compiles nearly 200 images of modernist buildings, all selected from award-winning photographer Nicolas Grospierre’s A Subjective Atlas of Modern Architecture blog. The structures featured hail from Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia, and are dated between 1920 and 1989. With accompanying text by Adam Mazur, the book arranges the images not by date or location, but by visual similarity. The result is a series of unlikely pairings: a church in Missouri and a pavilion in Lebanon, the St. Louis Arch and a zoo in Bulgaria. Each comparison displays an unmistakable resemblance. The trade-
marks of modernism—concrete construction, minimalism, an embrace of geometry— seem to transgress geographic and political boundaries. Some of the featured buildings are well known, like the Eames House in California, but many are obscure. All of them come to life through Grospierre’s lens. The byline of Design for People (Metropolis Books)—“by Scott Stowell and a cast of hundreds”—seems like hyperbole. Crack it open, though, and it’s immediately apparent it’s not. The book tells 12 stories of the design process, each with a coherent narrative assembled from hundreds of individuals’ quotes. These are spliced together from countless interviews, as well as original correspondence sent at the time, giving the stories an honest and conversational tone. The design projects vary widely, from the brand identity for a pizza company to the design of New York’s famous Brooklyn Bridge Park. The tome communicates through its form as much as its text. The transparency afforded to the reader in the design process—especially to its less glamorous side—is echoed in the book’s translucent cover. The publication proudly displays its binding through a sheer plastic shell. Each color-coded chapter is sewn together with white thread, hinting at the graphic colors contained within. The pages are as pleasurable to look at as they are to read. If you’re designing for people, that really is the point.
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PHOTO: SCOTT BURRY.
Though the subdued aesthetic of its cover belies the thoughtfulness inside, City Squares (Harper) packs an anthropological punch. Gathering the voices of some of most lauded writers and thinkers of our time—including Zadie Smith, David Remnick, and Michael Kimmelman—Catie Marron’s second compilation articulates how the city square has been central to the formation of human history. Exploring internationally, from Tahrir Square to Piazza Navona to Harvard Square, the book’s pages take the phrase “heart of the city” to, well, heart. In 18 essays and 93 photographs, the anthology muses its way through four continents’ worth of public spaces. Particularly interesting is the piece by Gillian Tett, who explores the creation of the virtual square—how social media frees the structure from its architectural bindings. The book isn’t just a chronicle of the formation of urban identity; it speaks to the evolution of the modern human.
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PHOTO: DANI VERNON.
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Weather or Not
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This year’s best outdoor furniture designs offer highly flexible interiorexterior solutions. BY LILY WAN
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The svelte teak platform of Tribu’s Vis à Vis sofa makes the modular system seem to nearly levitate. The waterproof cushions filled with ventilating stuffing show no visible structural support, perfecting the clean design. tribu.com
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Ligne Roset’s Roslina chair designed by Alice Rosignoli is a timeless and elegant design of quartz grey lacquered steel and sturdy rose beige cord. A flexible form, the stackable chair comes with and without arms. ligne-roset.com
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THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAKING A KITCHEN – AND MAKING KITCHENS
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The Flat Circular Bed designed by Mario Ruiz for Gandia Blasco is a new addition to the Flat collection. The thermo-lacquered aluminum base comes in white, sand, bronze, or anthracite, with 72 cushion color options. gandiablasco.com
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Introducing the Belleville Chair and Belleville Armchair. www.vitra.com/bellevillechair Developed by Vitra in Switzerland, Design: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec Contact a Vitra Showroom for more information: New York +1 212.463.5700 | Los Angeles +1 310.839.3400 | San Francisco +1 415.296.0711 | Chicago +1 312.645.1245
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With no screws or bolts visible, the Palma umbrella designed by Kris van Puyvelde for Royal Botania is truly minimal. The palm tree–inspired sun shelter also features an automatic opening system. royalbotania.com
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A collaboration with French landscape architect Louis Benech introduces Royal Botania’s new Nara collection within its Black Label series. Here, the low side-table set made of dense teak and a ceramic surface.
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RH Modern’s solid teak Ciel lounge chair is a sturdy piece composed of sleek angles and softened lines. Designed by Brad Ascalon, the collection is a throwback to 1950s Danish modern design. rhmodern.com
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Stephen Burks teams up with Roche Bobois to expand the 2014 Traveler collection. This new Asian edition, similar in form to the Europeen, has a seat made of polyurethane cord textured to feel like leather. roche-bobois.com
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Kenneth Cobonpue’s Yoda easy chair is at once simple and intricate. As with the design’s original release in 2007, this year’s Pantoneified “Rose Quartz and Serenity” reissue is inspired by the natural tension of rattan. kennethcobonpue.com
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The expansive Boma collection, designed by Rodolfo Dordoni for Kettal, includes a sofa, daybed, benches, and side and center tables. The tables, pictured here, are made of aluminum and teak.
The Riva collection by Jasper Morrison, also for Kettal, is made completely of teak, in a traditional plank construction. The complete family includes a two- and three-seater sofa, dining tables, and armchairs.
kettal.com
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With a geometricized Bohemian look in durable powder-coated steel, the Betty stacking chair by Bend Goods is at home both indoors and outdoors. It is also available in white and black. bendgoods.com
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Completely weather-resistant, the Contour chair from Tribu appears to be supported by delicate, toothpick-like stilts, complementing the more complex design of the Polyolefin fiber backrest. tribu.com
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DA BOMB design Richard Shemtov
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With the Tigmi, Dedon defines a new typology. The top is removable and creates what the brand calls a “micro-architecture” that gives a sense of enclosure while still feeling exposed and connected to the outdoors. 14
Introduced at this year’s Salone del Mobile, Dedon’s Dean slingback chair, designed by Jean-Marie Massaud, took nearly two years of development. It is inspired by the racing yachts of America’s Cup. dedon.com
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Special-finish teak and ecru ribbons form the new Gio series, designed by Antonio Citterio for B&B Italia. The range of seating styles can be arranged as modules to fit any space. bebitalia.com
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The Dimma chair and stool conceived by Swedish designer Alexander Lervik pay homage to classic furniture—the Thonet bistro chair and classic British bar stool, respectively. The collection is made of porous steel. lervik.se
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Adaptable to both indoor and outdoor spaces, the Delta chair designed by Jorge Pensi for Vondom is light and stackable. The design strives to evoke maximum emotion on minimal resources. vondom.com
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Elegance Even the simplest of woodcarvings creates an environment that is personal and elegant. At Enkeboll it all starts with a piece of wood. Our philosophy is that the smallest details count. Manufactured from the finest materials, every Enkeboll accent is handcrafted to enhance the elegance of your home. It’s the details that make the difference in our products.
That’s The Enkeboll Way
It’s all about the details. That’s The Enkeboll Way
Tradition The Enkeboll Tradition of creating the finest architectural wood carvings began in 1956 when Raymond Enkeboll’s love for art and expertise with wood led him to begin crafting distinctive furniture. Today, Enkeboll proudly carries on the legacy of our founder. Each Enkeboll woodcarving is a work of art. Exquisitely carved, richly detailed and inspired by great design traditions from around the world. It’s the details that make the difference in our products.
That’s The Enkeboll Way
Fine Architectural Wood Carvings Made in the USA since 1956
www.enkeboll.com 800.745.5507 Catalog Available For Your Inspiration
16ED014-04-132707-2
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Blackened steel tubing meets a deep, durable teak in the DK chair by Uhuru. Two years after introducing an indoor version made of Claro walnut and leather, the brand toughens up the versatile piece. uhurudesign.com
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A Mighty Wind
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Can an American-led furniture company be a force for change in Nicaragua? BY NATE STOREY PHOTOS BY STEFAN WIGAND
Dave Grossman (left) and Jon Beer. (OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) A mango tree at Enrique Sanchez’s farm. A scene inside the factory. A Maderas Collective cutting board made from recycled wood.
The Maderas Collective furniture factory has almost burned down again. Two of its partners, Dave Grossman and Jon Beer, are standing at the edge of a bluff in Managua, Nicaragua, looking at the smoldering wake of a fire that stopped 10 feet from their wood-filled warehouse. It’s the third year in a row that a blaze has flirted with the cement-and-zinc headquarters during dry season, the result of locals trying to smoke iguanas out of the flora with small fires. The duo seems oddly calm considering six years of hustle and hard work were nearly torched into the night’s sky. But that’s the rhythm of Nicaragua, a place that runs on upheaval and disorder, and requires a skillful ability to adapt to circumstances beyond your control in order to survive. “I fell in love with the chaos when I first came down here eight years ago,” says Beer, a surly transplant with a grating drawl who hails from a blue-collar section of Cambridge, England. “We bring order to that chaos,” adds Grossman, a native New Yorker who arrived in 2010 for a long-range biking trip through Central America and ended up putting down roots. “But you need to be a masochist—you need to love it.” Speaking of love, Collective’s furniture is getting a lot of it these days, particularly from New York’s design community. Both new guard and celebrated firms have commissioned them for hospitality concepts, residential projects, and private offices. When Vice Media opened its new
60,000-square-foot Brooklyn mothership in a converted Williamsburg industrial building last year, locally based Uhuru was tapped to design the space, with Collective taking on the production. It’s a relationship that’s blossomed even more since. “They’ve become an extension of our family,” says Uhuru co-founder Jason Horvath, who’s also taken on the role of Collective’s creative director for its first line, Maderas Signature, which comes out this fall. At first, Horvath was weary of collaborating with what could be considered competition, but it was nothing a little surf diplomacy couldn’t assuage. “Our board meetings consist of taking our surf boards out on the waves,” he says. “The partnership has been an amazing asset for both brands.” Another Brooklyn studio, Home, recently prototyped with Collective a metalframe chair called Stiletto, named for its heel-shaped feet, for chef Curtis Stone’s soon-to-debut restaurant Gwen in L.A. (The two have collaborated on numerous New York culinary ventures, including Sisters, Tørst, and Ramona.) Manhattan’s Parts and Labor tasked them to fashion 146 desks for the coming Midtown coworking space Blender, while Roman and Williams hired them to make pieces for the just-unveiled Ace Hotel New Orleans. Not bad for a neophyte furniture company, whose growth velocity falls somewhere on the spectrum between whiplash and high-
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speed train. “We’ve focused the last 18 months on being a really cool production house and creating great things,” Grossman says. “Our design partners want to come to paradise to prototype, surf, and hang with like-minded people. We’re building furniture because we enjoy it.” Therein lies the magic dust. Collective pairs beautifully crafted woodwork with a free-spirited lifestyle. The business is an outcrop of Maderas Village, a surf camp, yoga retreat, and music studio outside of the coastal fishing town San Juan del Sur that has become an asylum for the creative class. (Its visitor’s log reads like a VIP Coachella party, with everyone from the musicians Tove Lo and The Knocks, to Denver weed entrepreneurs, to Hollywood screenwriters.) Using sustainably sourced Nicaraguan timber, Grossman hand built the 20 thatched-roof bungalows with cofounder and Torontonian Matt Dickinson on a verdurous hill overlooking a silky Pacific Ocean surf break in 2011—evading the corporate world to live out an Endless Summer fantasy. They took an altruistic approach, ensuring the property was designed with renewable materials; it was a thorny process that landed them in the conference of Kalashnikov-wielding cliques in the northern jungle, near the Caribbean side, and at deceitful plantations where they discovered clear cutting, a destructive form of deforestation in which trees aren’t replenished. (The jarring aftermath can be seen in barren countries like Haiti.) Along the way, they learned the ropes of sourcing responsibly, and opportunity came blowing through like the offshore winds that form the perfect waves outside their hotel: Why not start an environmentally-minded furniture company? “You have such raw nature here, so being protective of it is the right thing to do. Yes, there’s a lot of value, but we don’t want to take advantage of that because we get to see things most people don’t get to see. Leave it the
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A factory-worker uses a vacuum press to shape wood. (OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) A valley in Managua. Staff at the Collective (3). Collective Geometric Inlay console table from Signature line.
way you found it,” says Grossman, before doing a little jiu-jitsu with some terminology from his old life. “It’s adventure capitalism.” Collective has allied with the few plantations that harvest trees in an eco-conscious way. They also source downed hurricane trees and wood that’s atypical to furniture making. “We have a giant lemonade stand,” says Beer, alluding to their adaptive use of unconventional materials, an ethos the guys call found design. For instance, they bought a large amount of ironwood, supposedly a bad investment in the carpentary industry— now it’s the core of stools that sit in Vice’s office. Tigerwood, long considered a trash tree, is used in various chair models. Rebar, the mesh of steel wires often found sticking out of crumbling or half-finished buildings in this part of the world, is deployed in table bases and bar stools. “When I get designs produced, I really want to know who’s making it and what the conditions are like,” says Evan Haslegrave, who runs Home with his brother. “I don’t mean this in a spaced-out hippie way. A project can have all the right things—the chef, the space—but it all depends on the nucleus. Does it have a good energy? If you’re getting things that are coming from a bad situation, it’s hard not to receive that negative energy.” To get a sense of the farming culture, I headed to the countryside and Nagarote with Grossman and Enrique Sanchez, 47,
the son of a former general in the northern Contra army. After the civil war ended in 1990, Sanchez returned to his beloved Nicaragua from Miami to reclaim his land. Now he’s pairing with Grossman to start a sustainable sea-cucumber farm off the country’s Pearl Key islands. “That’s the enemy of Nicaragua,” he says, pointing to a brick farm that harvests the area’s clay soil. “I love my country. It’s not hard to plant trees. These guys are doing something positive. They’ve created jobs and don’t rape the land. I wish we had a million like them.” We take a dirt-covered side road to a cluster of hot springs sprinkled around a river at the foot of the Momotombo Volcano. We’re ensconced by golden grassland, an attribute of dry season. “Dave! Dave!” Sanchez shrieks. “You should see the ducks here during rainy season!” He has the enthusiasm of a kid who’s visiting the zoo for the first time. The region’s natural beauty elicits that kind of emotion. By most measures, Nicaragua is on the upswing, though it still remains the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Tourism is growing thanks to projects like Maderas Village and Mukul, a massive $250 million resort an hour up the Emerald Coast. New roads and highways are cropping up in the capital. Investors are salivating at the thought of the country becoming the next Costa Rica. But just as the hordes descended upon that rainforest land-
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scape for a slice of pura vida without much benefit to the local population, Collective is wary about exploiting the rich topography and impoverished people like so many multinational corporations before them. “In the past, parasitic furniture companies have come in to make as big a profit with as little investment as possible. They take advantage of the local makers instead of building something with them,” says Beer. “We’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re giving them the basics: dignity, even just saying thank you.” They also pay salaries that are 25 percent or more above the market rate, while providing unheard-of benefits like small interest-free loans and yearly acrossthe-board raises. But Beer, who taught carpentry to underprivileged kids back in Cambridge, might be most proud of the way they’ve been able to take the workers’ raw skills and hone them in a dynamic way by nourishing critical thinking. “They’re so used to seeing things through a short-term lens because that’s how they survive,” Beer says. “Fostering team building and accountability, getting them to buy in—they’re thriving in this atmosphere now because someone took the time to explain how to do it right.” Case in point: Most local craftsmen have never been taught how to properly dry wood, or the need to leave a little room in the furniture for when it changes climates and expands. A telling stat of the inherent shortsightedness comes from 2011, when Nicaragua exported more than $13 million of tropical hardwood, and imported more than $12 million of wooden furniture, according to Indexmundi. Next, Beer and Grossman take me to a small artisan town named Masaya, a 30-minute drive from the Managua, where their employees live. On the edge of a lagoon, with Volcán Masaya rising in the distance, humble cinderblock structures fan out from a central square with a crafts market. Everywhere you turn there’s a workshop that specializes in any industry that can fit in your kitchen: carpentry, leathery, ceramics, and more. We maneuver through the narrow cobblestoned streets, stopping in a woodworker’s shop before heading to a humble house that belongs to the head finisher, a local named Henry. He tells me about growing up learning carpentry from his dad. He’s always looked at his trade as a way to put food on the table and not much else. He talks about the work and how it was difficult and stressful at first, scrapping a myopic way of thinking and learning how to distill a complex project into a blueprint that envisions the end product. Now he’s flourishing, say Grossman and Beer, who are perpetually wowed by his talent. “We consistently ask him to do the impossible, and he always has the same response: ‘No problem,’” Beer says. The pride Henry takes in the work, which is reinforced by the pictures he sees of his products stylishly placed in hotels and restaurants in the U.S., adds an intrinsic value that goes beyond money.
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PHOTOS: (VICE) COURTESY MADERAS COLLECTIVE. (SISTERS) COURTESY HOME.
Now his only work-related worry is how he’s going to get all the neighborhood artisans a job. Everyone wants to join the team at Maderas Collective. This month, the company will relocate from its semi-shoddy Managua factory, where a kitten-eating boa constrictor lives, to a shiny new 20,000 square-foot space in Masatepe, a lush, high-elevation area surrounded by coffee plantations, 1,800 feet above sea level. It’s a game-changer for the brand and its employees, who will get to work in a cutting-edge facility for the first time in their lives. (Collective is also expanding its workforce from 25 to 75, bringing many of Henry’s neighbors onboard.) One thing that won’t change: the antique equipment used to produce the furniture such as a 1942 leather machine that once made truck tops and parachute canopies during World War II. “Modern machines don’t work here,” Beer says. “The older ones are Nicaragua-proof, like a Land Rover. Computers can’t handle all the dirt, and it’s difficult to get parts. These can’t break.” Or, he should mention, catch fire.
(FROM TOP) Maderas Collective workshop. The lobby of Vice’s office, outfitted with a Collective reception desk and coffee tables. Stools line the bar at Sisters restaurant in Brooklyn. (OPPOSITE) A welder at the factory. Detail of a Nanciton Slab conference table designed for Pipeline Doral.
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Outside the Box
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Alex Alorda of Spain’s Kettal puts a premium on designers, innovation, and the locally-made. INTERVIEW BY CHRISTINA OHLY EVANS PHOTOS BY ADRIA CANAMERAS
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Your father founded Kettal in 1964 and is still the president. What did he teach you about running a business that has helped you in your role as vice president?
He taught me the enduring values of consistency and common sense, as well the importance of being humble. He also taught me—all of us at the company—how to manage and empower people. He’s no longer involved in the day-to-day running of the company, but he comes often to have lunch. How has the marketing strategy changed from the 196 0s when Kettal threw branded beach balls out of an airplane onto the crowded beach below?
Our marketing strategy today is entirely by word of mouth. The hospitality industry is a smaller world than people think, and one project often leads to the next with hotel groups, and with our other customers as well. How important is it that Kettal products be made in Spain?
Our company is more of a “project” that’s by people, for people. Everyone who works here feels linked to the product. Our factory is set up to work directly with the designers, and because everything is produced in and around Barcelona, we can control the quality and explain our values—without anything getting lost in translation. You’ve collaborated with design greats like Patricia Urquiola, Jasper Morrison, and Nanna Ditzel. How do you choose these partners?
We don’t collect designers. We work with people who share our passion and we help make their designs a reality. Patricia Urquiola is a godmother to us all and she helped transform the company from one that made garden furniture to one that makes design furniture for the outdoors. She changed our mentality and that was a great opportunity. Patricia’s a cat with nine lives—always reinventing herself—and we’ve been producing collections with her for more than 12 years. What other lessons have you learned from your design partners?
One of my favorite Jasper stories happened at the Milan Furniture Fair. He came on a Sunday when five of us were setting up the Kettal booth. We were exhausted and he pointed out that this hands-on approach was actually our strength: We have fewer people doing things, but we do them right. This was a very important insight for me.
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What, in your mind, is good design?
Jasper Morrison said it best: “A design that is still in production after 30 years is a good one.” You will never create a good design with only a good designer—you also need a good company to make good things. Good designs involve long-lasting materials and are still being made years after their original production. Chairs by Charles and Ray Eames and Jean Prouvé that are still being made by Vitra are prime examples of this.
thing is stunning. A new project for JW Marriot Los Cabos is another very rational, timeless project, and the Oasia Hotel in Singapore that we recently did with Patricia [Urquiola] is cutting-edge and colorful.
In terms of the perfect outdoor setting, where might it be?
This is almost impossible to answer, but both Minorca and Formentera have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
Whom would you like to collaborate with?
It’s too bad the Eameses are dead, and Jean Prouvé, too, as I would have loved to collaborate with them. We are always looking for people with long-term vision, original ideas, and who understand our ethos. What are some of your most notable recent projects?
It was an honor to be a part of the Fondation Louis Vuitton project [in Paris]: the architecture, the outdoor spaces—every-
In an ideal world, what products might be next?
The wheel has already been invented, we just need more good wheels.
Kettal’s Stampa and Basket chairs, the former designed by the Bouroullec brothers, the latter by Nanna and Jørgen Ditzel. (OPPOSITE) Alex Alorda at Kettal’s headquarters in Barcelona.
How It’s Made Our deep dive into B&B Italia’s Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano– designed factory in Novedrate, Italy, as the company turns 50.
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OPPOSITE B&B Italia’s Grand Papilio chair (2010), designed by Naoto Fukasawa, comes out of its mold.
Breaking the Mold Fifty years after its founding, B&B Italia celebrates the industrial processes that catalyzed the company. BY COURTNEY KENEFICK PHOTOS BY VALERIO VINCENZO
It starts with a toy duck. To tell the story of B&B Italia is to explain the history of its production process, which begins at a trade fair in London, where a small plant presented its method for manufacturing the small children’s trinket. It sparked a big idea. When the late Piero Ambrogio Busnelli founded the Italian furniture line with Cesare Cassina in 1966 (it was called C&B Italia until Busnelli took full ownership in 1973), he had the foresight to evade traditional hand-construction, which limited sofas and chairs to 90-degree angles and standard materials, and focus on industrializing production. In England, he saw how the anatre were made: Polyurethane is cold foamed in molds, then it solidifies into the desired shape. Busnelli, a shrewd and dogmatic entrepreneur, decided to adopt such a technique for interiors—an idea that classified him as a pioneer of modern Italian furniture. His thinking proved to be, quite literally, outside of the box—sofas and chairs began to take on sinu155
ous, fluid shapes, standing out from the squarish options then on the market. “My father realized that he’d done something incredible, something that didn’t exist,” says Giorgio Busnelli, CEO of B&B Italia and son of Piero. And so, a company that started with just 10 employees in Novedrate, Italy, became a rule-breaking global force. Fifty years since its inception, the brand—still based in the same municipality, in its Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers–designed headquarters—celebrates an impressively vast portfolio of indoor and outdoor furniture that includes collaborations with designers such as Gaetano Pesce (see page 36), Antonio Citterio, Patricia Urquiola, and Naoto Fukasawa; 45 monobrand stores around the world; and its contract division, whose recent projects span the Mandarin Oriental in Milan to the soon-to-open, John Pawson–designed W Tel Aviv–Jaffa. “The cycle of life for a good product is timeless,” says Busnelli, who still green lights each design
that goes into production with a keen decisiveness—a trait passed down from his father. It could be said that such intuition for staying power is the reason for his company’s rich history, evident in B&B Italia’s current catalogue, which includes pieces dating back to its founding year. Now, with decades worth of stories to tell, its rich past has been chronicled threefold: A documentary by Didi Gnocchi and Milan-based 3D Produzioni aired last month on Sky Arte HD in Italy and during events worldwide; writer and designer Stefano Casciani conceived and edited a hardcover tome; and during Milan Design Week, an interactive exhibition by Migliore + Servetto Architects was on display at the Triennale Design Museum. But the most marked point of the company’s narrative is inside the factory, where the founder’s technology, adapted from an unsuspected industry, remains unchanged. Here, a close look at the brand’s inner workings. >
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In 1971, Piero Ambrogio Busnelli commissioned Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers—then fairly unknown young architects—to design B&B Italia’s headquarters. Today, the company operates out of the same building. The structure stands as an emblem of the founder’s instinct for quality design. “I fully recognize how much of a visionary my father was,” says Giorgio Busnelli.
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP Busnelli outside the company’s Novedrate headquarters. The building’s exterior.
OPPOSITE Ducts outside the structure mimic those carrying polyurethane inside the factory.
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Each piece of furniture begins with a sketch, which goes through rounds and rounds of changes until it is approved by Busnelli. “It’s really difficult to come out with something new that makes you say, ‘Oh, wow,’” Busnelli says. “When designers come here and see what we’re doing, they realize that we’re not just another big sofa producer.”
Once approved, a product is prototyped using 3-D printing. Simultaneously, materials and stitching are researched and decided upon.
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Sketching upholstery options. A 3D-printed model of a chair. A sketch of a sofa.
OPPOSITE Rolando Gorla, director of B&B Italia’s research and development center, works on sketches. He has been at the company since 1972.
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B&B Italia dedicates a minimum of 3 percent of its annual revenue to a robust research and development department. “It’s one of the most important things I’ve done,” Busnelli says. But, the production technology hasn’t changed since its founding, so where does innovation happen? “New isn’t really in new things. It’s in improvement,” he says. “Typology is the new technology.” Advancements in material or ergonomics are constant, but more interestingly R&D often tends to be adjustments to contemporary culture and living needs.
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP Fabric samples strewn over a desk inside the headquarters. A close-up of a full-size prototype.
NEXT SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Creating a mold, which, depending on the design, takes about two to three months to make. Building chair prototypes inside the research and development center. The mold used to make Moon System (2007), a sofa designed by Zaha Hadid.
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“We use the same technology as 50 years ago,” Busnelli says. “It’s still the best technology available to produce interiors.” The process of cold foam polyurethane uses two different kinds of liquid polymers, which are simultaneously injected into a mold. The chemical reaction of their combination induces expansion and solidification. The density of the foam depends on the amount of each substance that’s used.
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP B&B Italia’s molds stored inside its headquarters. A mold on the factory floor is injected with the polyurethane’s two chemical components.
OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT The Grand Papilio chair’s metal frame, which is put inside the mold before it’s injected with polyurethane. Dried polyurethane on a mold’s exterior. Polishing off a finished piece of foam. An employee carrying a chair form.
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The bare furniture pieces are upholstered in innovative material, which must be as durable as the foam itself. Fabrics and leathers are sourced from top suppliers, and are inspected by hand for imperfections before being used.
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Removing imperfections from foam. A close-up of the process. Shaped chairs as they come out of the mold.
OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Fabric swatches. Cut pieces. Lasers dictate where leather is to be cut by a machine.
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Fabric is cut, sewn, and ironed before dressing a piece of furniture. “We always need to make a statement,” says Busnelli of the finished products. “We need to say, ‘Hey, we found another route.’”
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT A chair waits to be upholstered. Adding the finishing touches. Sewing the material.
OPPOSITE Papilio chairs outside of B&B Italia’s headquarters.
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The Design Issue Our annual global design check-in, including French architect Odile Decq, Spain’s Gandia Blasco, and Tippet Rise in Montana.
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(OPPOSITE) Odile Decq at her studio in Paris.
Built Tough Edgy French architect Odile Decq has become a strong-willed advocate for women in the field. BY CLARA LE FORT PORTRAIT BY FRANCK JUERY
Odile Decq’s appearance may stand out, but its her work that really grabs attention. Not only is the 60-year-old a leading booster for women’s rights in architecture, she also recently founded France’s forward-thinking, highly experimental Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture in Lyon. She’s the creator of a wide range of disruptive, unforgettable structures, too, including the organic interiors of the Palais Garnier’s restaurant in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (MACRO). Decq’s architecture challenges the world we live in. It is intentionally resistant, not conforming to the norm. Among her recently completed projects are the Fangshan Tangshan National Geopark Museum, in China, and a five-year renovation of Hungarian architect Antti Lovag’s iconic 1970s “bubble house,” in the South of France. The 2016 recipient of the Jane Drew Prize, a London-based honor awarded for raising the profile of women in architecture, Decq is among just a dozen or so female practitioners who have made names for themselves in the male-dominated
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world of architecture. This has long been the case, and it doesn’t seem to be changing, at least not fast enough. Decq remembers when, in 1999, a French trade magazine invited her to speak about the status of women in architecture. “Back then,” she says, “Zaha Hadid was being pushed away from the Cardiff Bay Opera House project she had just won. I was confident then that the 21st century would bring women to the forefront of architecture; I asked my students to remain patient. Sixteen years later, I’m losing patience!” (Hadid passed away on March 31 at age 65; she was the winner of the 2012 Jane Drew Prize.) Beyond her influence as a women in an industry that desperately needs it—in the U.S., for example, the number of women architects has only increased from 24 percent to 25.7 percent since 2004, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—Decq’s architecture is incredibly impactful on its own. One example is Le Cargo, a newly opened office building she designed in Paris. “Le Cargo aims to become a leader in innovation technology,” says JeanLouis Missika, the urbanism and architecture counselor at the City Hall of Paris.
“Odile’s vision was to turn the former warehouse into a luminous beacon for start-ups; we hope Le Cargo’s content will be as visionary as its architecture.” Opened in March, after eight years of planning and construction, Le Cargo spreads itself across 173,000 square feet. “I tried to redefine what an incubator is: I pushed for more public spaces mixing with community spaces,” Decq says. “I embraced an Anglo-Saxon approach to force people to live transversally. I designed it as a place for accidental creativity.” A spirited rule-breaker, Decq is typically perceived as a willful punk—much like the teenager she used to be—and an irreverent mind. From a young age, she stood up to authority, often bending the rules of her Catholic upbringing: She sewed her own jeans even though she wasn’t allowed to buy any, and she took part in the May 1968 demonstrations in France. It wasn’t long before she was thrown out of school and began to clash with her father. “‘You can’t study architecture, it is impossible,’” Decq recalls him saying. In response, she rebelled and soon enrolled in what is now called the Ecole Nationale Supérieure
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d’Architecture de Paris La Villette. She was very driven from the start. In 1978, Decq established her own practice. She ran the studio with her partner and husband, Benoît Cornette, until his death in a car accident in 1998. Decq’s persona is much like her buildings: evocative and seemingly spiky on the outside, but gentle, balanced, and open-minded on the inside. For Decq, architecture evolves from the inside out. First she experiments with the idea of a building and then establishes the form from there. She likes to manipulate and challenge the space inside, sometimes playing with the color red—one of her trademarks. Rome’s striking MACRO, completed in 2010, wears lacquered red, functioning almost like the heart of the historic building. Taking center stage, the dynamic, unexpected form inserts itself rebelliously and with authority but in a somehow subtle way. “My red is particular—it is fundamentally bright. It represents life, the energy within,” says Decq, who used to conduct TV interviews wearing deep-red eye shadow to contrast with her ink-black haircut. (Her edgy appearance, though entirely her own, recalls
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PHOTOS: (THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE) ROLAND HALBE.
(THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE) Scenes at Le Cargo in Paris, designed by Decq.
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Scenes at Studio Odile Decq in Paris. (OPPOSITE) Decq’s “glass house.”
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PHOTOS: FRANCK JUERY.
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PHOTO: COURTESY STUDIO ODILE DECQ.
that of Robert Smith from The Cure.) The late French architect Claude Parent, a close mentor, used to say that Decq “has unusual looks, like no other.” Which may be an understatement. For those who aren’t frightened by her appearance, Decq wears a strong carapace on the outside. It’s a presentation that could also be compared to her buildings, which unfold one layer at a time. “This is the way I am: I want visitors to explore and discover my buildings step by step. I don’t like presenting everything at once,” she says. “My architecture hides secrets. I love surprises.” Underlining her approach is a true sense of the baroque. In Decq’s mind, neo-classical designs offer the viewer a static overview; with baroque buildings, however, one has to travel through the many layers to discover their full potential. By abolishing symmetry, the baroque offers multiple perspectives and embraces a surrealist sensibility. From the outside, Decq’s projects like FRAC Bretagne (Brittany’s Regional Fund for Contemporary Art, inaugurated in 2012) or GL Events headquarters in Lyon (2014) unfold as sculptural monoliths. Inside, they resemble a series of complex spaces and perspectives, each informed by the other. Yet another example of Decq’s wild imagination is a “glass house” she completed last fall for a man losing his eyesight. “This Englishman wanted a house by the sea infused with light,” she says. “As there were no architectural restrictions, we decided to experiment with glass. The house is an inclined box, a geometric space tilted on the side: It has no roof, nor wall. It explores sloped horizontality and verticality. Completely translucent, one has to adapt one’s every move to live in it.” She describes the result as “utter freedom” for her client. Decq has several more projects in the pipeline, too. One of them is an office building in Paris called Twist, set to be completed in 2018, for the developer Icade. “I cut the building in three blocks and inserted huge glass houses with trees to create sudden interaction in between the elevators.” Another, which she recently won in a competition, is the Diagonal residential tower in Barcelona that upgrades a concrete structure built 10 years ago. “It will give the [apartments], in the end, a real specificity,” she says. Being specific about architecture could very well be Decq’s modus operandi. “Odile has always supported innovation and architectural research,” says architect Dominique Jakob, cofounder of the Parisbased firm Jakob + MacFarlane. “I was moved when she came to congratulate us in 1998, the day we won the competition to design the restaurant Pompidou, on top of Centre Pompidou. In everything she does and ever did, Decq has always been generous and open-minded. It’s such a rare quality in our profession. Odile shows a
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renewed involvement in today’s architecture; she never ceases to push its boundaries, to break new grounds, to foster innovation and creativity.” Teaching and architectural education has long been a core interest of Decq’s, and it’s where she thrives most outside of her design practice. She taught at Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture (ESA) in Paris from 1992 to 2007, before becoming head of the school from 2007 to 2012, and she has been a visiting lecturer at Columbia University in New York, Bartlett in London, and Kunstakademie in Vienna and Düsseldorf. All of which helped lead her to establish her own international school in Lyon, which opened in 2014. Called the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, it’s housed in a former market building that was converted by Decq herself. “I chose everything down to its name, which highlights a new
approach to architectural studies,” she says. “The world has changed: Today an architect needs to be able to manage, create, and apply his learning to many fields, and not only to the architecture world. If you think about it, architects need to assess multiple constraints and synthesize a complex program to propose one solution. “Architecture today is about creative strategies,” she continues. “I think ‘architecture thinking’ will replace ‘design thinking’ as the world grows more and more complex. I wanted to create a school to support and explore this frame of thinking. Architects are tomorrow’s problem solvers.” Inside the school, Decq pushes students to discover their own way. She sees no one-size-fits-all model for architectural thinking; her aim is for it to be personal, to let strong voices shine. “Fostering autonomy enables different perspectives,” she says. “I’m not a master. I want the school to be a nurturing ground for disruptive thinking. What do I know about architecture tomorrow? My students will never be architects like I once was. The world is a different place.” How much architecture has changed in recent decades—or at least what can happen to a building as technologies and client needs evolve—is encapsulated in Decq’s award-winning Banque Populaire de l’Ouest (BPO) in Rennes, France. The building is now threatened with demolition, just two and a half decades after its completion. “I went back there last December to meet with the new owners,” Decq says. “I was surprised by how much I still loved it. It looks powerful yet remains simple.” A long, empty void, the flexible space was built so that the client—a bank— would organize it over time in various ways. A slap in the face, the news of its possible demolition shook the architectural world, which has launched a fight to save it. “I am restless and always ready to stand up for a good cause,” Decq says. The website savethebpobuilding.com has already gathered thousands of signatures, including those of Pritzker Prize winners—all of whom are men—such as Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Toyo Ito, and Jean Nouvel. Decq has long been embraced by the leading minds of her time. And now, not only has she joined their ranks, she’s helping pave the way for many more to join as well. If she has her way, a majority of them will be women.
(TOP AND OPPOSITE) Antti Lovag’s “bubble house,” which was renovated by Decq. (THIS PAGE, BOTTOM) A sketch at Studio Odile Decq.
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PHOTOS: (FROM TOP) YVES GELLIE. FRANCK JUERY.
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Governors Island welcomes new terrain, and with it, continued growth and development. BY LILY WAN PORTRAIT BY DUSTIN AKSLAND
In New York Bay, a few thousand feet from the southern-most tip of Manhattan sits a 172-acre ice cream cone–shaped island of rolling hills, rock scrambles, and sinuous paths. No one lives there. There are no bike messengers, taxi cabs, skyscrapers, or subway stops. The City of New York, a place known for never sleeping, has in Governors Island a perfect foil. When viewing it from the tip of Battery Park, it’s a verdant but otherwise uninteresting span on the horizon. Such a survey passes over the office of Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governors Island, a non-profit organization created by the city to manage the operations, maintenance, and planning of a majority of the island. Her office is situated just between the octagonal Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Vent Building and red-and-white gantries, which tower over the main ferry dock. A New York native, Koch had never even heard of the island until she was offered the gig in 2006. At that time, the island didn’t have potable water. Hardly anyone knew what or where it was, let alone why they should care to go there. But over the past 10 years, she has turned it from a ghost town into a cultural mecca, a sort of backyard to the entire city. This summer, the island celebrates the opening of The Hills, the final phase of its redesigned master plan by Dutch landscape architecture firm West 8. The project is finishing nearly a year ahead of schedule—thanks to an unseasonably warm winter and good management. And it’s a world apart from any other public space in the city, in large part due to the leadership of Koch.
Originally known as Pagganuck (“Nut Island”) to the Lenape Indians, the island was the first landing place of the Dutch settlers when they founded New Netherland. In more recent history, just over 200 years ago, the land belonged to the U.S. Army before becoming a Coast Guard base. In 2003, the federal government sold 150 acres of it to the state for $1. The 22 acres not transferred in the sale, which make up the Governors Island National Monument, are landmarked and managed by the National Parks Service. In early 2006, the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, the predecessor to the Trust, put out a call for development proposals for the northern parts of the island. The 10 finalists ranged from a frivolous scheme involving a Nickelodeon-themed resort complex with a SpongeBob SquarePants hotel to a more practical—winning—proposal for the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School. Koch’s main focus was to then culturally and recreationally enliven the island and sculpt its southern half into a park. Her team declared that the park must provide “two-and-a-half hours of delight.” The Trust invited the world’s leading landscape architects to compete for the park’s design, and following visits to 13 parks and public spaces designed by West 8, Koch decided on that firm. The Rotterdam-based practice, founded by Adriaan Geuze and Paul van Beek, developed a topographically rich, curvy master plan to be built in two phases. Koch then tapped renowned graphic designer Michael Bierut and his team at Pentagram to design the island’s signage and environmental graphics. The font he created, “Guppy Sans,” has a softness to it, but pretty isn’t the word he’d use to describe it. “It’s certainly not an enchantment-under-the-sea, mermaid kind of font,” Bierut says, “which I think everyone would’ve been revolted by.” Though physically detached from any borough, Governors Island unites all of New York, at least in the minds of Koch and her team. Its location—right in the middle of the harbor—is as powerful as what The Hills may grow to mean to New Yorkers. “For the past 10 years, America—especially New York—has been experiencing a sort of ‘urban renaissance,’”
The ice cream cone–shaped Governors Island. (OPPOSITE) Leslie Koch on a granite scramble at the island.
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PHOTO: IWAN BAAN.
Heading for The Hills
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PHOTO: DUSTIN AKSLAND.
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The Hills from above. (OPPOSITE) Slide Hill under construction.
PHOTO: IWAN BAAN.
Geuze says. Governors Island plays a major role in the city’s new relationship with the water. The ferry ride, however quick, turns the park into a destination, inviting visitors to an off-the-clock respite. “The New York harbor is so astonishing, so special,” Geuze says. “The island as a park hardly needs to be designed.” A visit to the island, though, reveals his very intentional design. Starting with land he likens to a pancake, Geuze and his team planned a landscape of undulation and height to unite the sky with the harbor. Manhattan’s skyline—the main star of the park—poses effortlessly as the backdrop. The Hills, which range from 30 to 70 feet in height, were created using clean-fill, recycled material from demolished obsolete buildings on the island’s southern side. Some slopes are laid with granite scrambles made of the island’s old seawall; another hill has slides running down it. While the design uses topography to embrace the views and entertain, it also secures the future of the park. Lifting the trees and bushes above the projected flood levels protects their root zones from being killed by salt water—a very “Dutch way” of tackling the design, as Geuze notes.
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Development was just over four years in when Hurricane Sandy devastated the Eastern Seaboard, putting the design to a very unfortunate but very real test. The fill for 30 acres of the first phase was in place, but nothing had been planted or groomed. Koch describes it as a moonscape. The construction crew had parked its machinery at the highest point, which was then located in the island’s 10-acre Hammock Grove. There was no flooding or pooled water after the storm. Construction resumed 48 hours after Sandy had passed; phone service was restored to the island in 363 days. “Sandy showed us this was really the right approach [to design],” Koch says. While West 8’s park design has now been eight years in the making, Koch has wasted no time culturally activating the island. From day one, she has been experimenting. Her guiding question: What would happen if we just said yes? As it turns out, a lot. Before the island opened for seasonal public access in 2004, New York wasn’t truly the city that had it all. It didn’t have space for, say, unicycle or kite festivals, Civil War reenactments, or a pavilion design competition and exhibi-
tion. Now—12 years later, when the island’s annual visitor count has risen from 8,000 that inaugural year to more than 450,000 in 2015—it does. Each festival, pop-up art gallery, and installation on the island started as an idea proposed to the Trust, which doesn’t provide funding or curate programming. It simply provides free space. Year after year, Koch continues to collect ideas and take them to the field. While the island is open for season from Memorial Day weekend to the last weekend in September, there is a suggestions board that clutters up with Post-Its and sketches. And during any other time of the year, those with ideas can submit their pitches online. Koch and her team read every one of them, liberally assess the possibilities, and try to find space to give each a try. She calls this the “Spaghetti Strategy,” imaging each idea as a noodle being flung on a wall. If it’s good, it’ll stick. “People throw this term ‘design thinking’ around quite a bit, and I look at it with real suspicion myself,” Bierut says, jaded by words like “empathy” and “iteration.” “But on the other hand, Leslie is a great example of how you can use ‘design thinking’ effectively. When [she] iterates, she just
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says, ‘Okay, well what if we have a beer garden here?’ And the next thing you know people are drinking beer. There is an idea, and then it is executed. And if it works, let’s do more things like that, and if it doesn’t work, let’s learn from that. That is Leslie.” The goal, Koch says, has always been to have Governors Island open 24/7, year round. Slowly, the Trust is working toward that, though currently the date’s unknown. And while The Hills won’t be capping off development of the island—a destination day spa will be built in the northern half, with more projects to come for the southern side—the project welcomes New York to another summer and Koch to another season of experimentation. Stuck to Koch’s office computer is a single Post-It note. Scrawled in excited lines of red marker and signed by a kid named Michael, it reads, “You should make a mini Lego sculpture of Governors Island.” It was one of hundreds of ideas tacked onto the island’s suggestion wall four years ago. “That one,” Koch says, “we’re working on right now.”
PHOTOS: (FROM TOP) KREG HOLT. DUSTIN AKSLAND.
(FROM TOP) Because the island isn’t under the jurisdiction of the city’s Parks Department, adults can play on the playgrounds, too. A view of the Statue of Liberty from The Hills. (OPPOSITE, FROM TOP) Hammock Grove. Liggett Terrace and The Hills.
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PHOTOS: TIMOTHY SCHENCK.
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External Forces
(OPPOSITE) José A. Gandía-Blasco, center, with his daughter, Alejandra, and son, Alvaro.
A family-run Spanish outdoor furniture empire takes stock of its past as it turns 75. BY IAN VOLNER PORTRAIT BY JOSEP ALFARO
In 1996, José Antonio GandíaBlasco Canales was building a house for himself on Ibiza, designed by architect Ramón Esteve. At some point in construction, an issue presented itself, one that stymied the pair. They simply could not find the right kind of furniture for its outdoor spaces. Undeterred, Canales and Esteve struck on a novel solution: They would make it themselves. With surprising speed for a firsttime furniture maker, GandíaBlasco was able to put into production the Na Xemena line, a collection of all-white anodized aluminum chairs, tables, and lounges that seemed a perfect fit for his dreamy beachfront villa. The
first foray by his family’s eponymous company—one that his father, Jose Gandía-Blasco founded 55 years earlier—into the outdoor market, Na Xemena has been followed in the two decades since by a veritable swarm of furniture that has transformed the celebrated Spanish fabric-maker into a protean, multifaceted presence on the international design scene. This most recent chapter in the Gandia Blasco story is only the latest in a journey that’s had its share of twists and turns. “My father [José] founded the company during the Second World War, right after our civil war,” notes the younger José; as inauspicious a year as 1941 might seem to start
a major manufacturing concern in Western Europe, Gandia Blasco managed to weather not just global conflict but the sometimes dizzying changes in Spanish cultural and political life. “There have been crises as you’d expect during this period, but we’ve survived all of them,” says José, adding that the real challenge has been to keep up with the changing design landscape. “Taste,” he says, “has changed just as much.” The passing of the torch, generationally speaking, began in the late ’80s, as the current José began to assume a more active role in the company from his father. “Up to that point,” José says, “we only made blankets.” > SURFACE
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(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) The Blau Singular lounge chair, designed by Fran Silvestre. The Francesco Sillitti– designed Dozequinze rocking chair. A textile being completed at the Gandia Blasco factory. (OPPOSITE, FROM TOP) Aram stools by Nendo. Rug and pillows from the Raw collection of Gandia Blasco’s textile brand, Gan.
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PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) JOSEP ALFARO. COURTESY GANDIA BLASCO. JOSEP ALFARO. (OPPOSITE) COURTESY GANDIA BLASCO.
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In a rapidly globalizing economy (in which Spain, after the Franco years, was more and more an integral part) the necessity to diversify became increasingly pressing, and so Gandia Blasco began to expand from quilts and comforters into rugs and carpets. With a new company logo—the abstract form of a black cat, its back mischievously arched—and new designer partnerships (with Sandra Figuerola and Marisa Gallén, among others) the company began to take up a little more bandwidth in the interiors trade. The move into more and bigger fabrics was easy enough, logistically: The firm’s longtime factory, located in the small town of Ontineyent, near Valencia, was quickly re-geared for the new materials and patterns being created by Gandia Blasco’s growing roster of collaborators. But the shake-up in the ensuing decades—particularly the establishment of the blockbuster outdoor furniture business—has completely reshaped the once-modest family firm into a global behemoth. Now divided into two primary brands, Gan (responsible for the textiles side) and Gandia Blasco (which handles the outdoor furniture), the company produces more than 300 different products across 15 collections, distributed through 11 directly-owned showrooms and dozens of licensed dealers worldwide. Symptomatic of Gandia Blasco’s approach to outdoor furniture—and of its success—is a recent collaboration with Seville-based architect Fran Silvestre. The designer was commissioned to create the new Blau collection after an introduction whose fortuitousness recalls the origin story of Gandia’s first furniture initiative 20 years ago. “They’ve often used our houses to photograph their furniture,” Silvestre says. That shared aesthetic is one Silvestre describes as less minimialistic than holistic, as evident in Blau’s simple contours, cleverly masked joints, and a playfulness that turns a slender-silhouetted lighting standard into the shape of a slim, leafless tree. “The identity of Gandia Blasco,” Silvestre says, is about “transmitting Mediterranean design to the world.” While the company’s outdoor furniture expresses a sense of breezy modern cool, the Gan brand stays close to Gandia’s roots in textiles, even as it subtly pushes what fabrics can do to enliven and enrich the interior environment. Patricia Urquiola’s recent Mangas collection takes large swatches of bright color, splices them patchworkstyle with thick woven grays, and applies them not just to floor treatments but to ottomans and settees as well. Hector Serrano’s Sail uses beguiling black-and-white patterned Dhurri wool to form a subdued ensemble of stuffed seating and rugs. The sense that this really is a family enterprise is reinforced by one of Gan’s most charming new lines, Valentina. Traced in light arabesques, Valentina is the work of Alejandra Gandía-Blasco, José’s daughter. >
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With one foot planted firmly in tradition, José seems determined to continue exploring new territory. “In the next few months, we’re getting ready to launch three new brands,” he says. At Milan’s Salone del Mobile in April, he unveiled two of them: GB Modular, a new aluminum furniture line for interiors, and Exterior Spaces, a dedicated brand for Gandia’s larger outdoor fixtures. New clients, new markets, and new showrooms may follow. As it enters its 75th anniversary year, the little-family-company-that-could isn’t just chugging along. It’s picking up steam.
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) The Jian Sofa Modular 2 designed by Neri & Hu. A Jian chaise longue. Pieces from the Blau collection. (OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) Gigante wigwams designed by José A. GandíaBlasco. Pieces from the Saler collection and a folding ceiling module, both designed by José A. Gandía-Blasco. The Blau Tree lamp.
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César’s Palaces A venerable architect has built an empire on a simple life principle: Take things in stride. BY PAOLA SINGER PHOTOS BY EVA O’LEARY
One of the most impressive things about César Pelli—aside from a long career designing buildings—is his charm. He’s almost 90 years old, but doesn’t look a day over 70. When we meet, he pulls out a chair for me, and pours me tea. In conversation, he’s refreshingly candid, when he’s not erupting into bouts of laughter. Pelli has the air of someone who has ridden life’s rollercoaster through the peaks and gullies, always taking the good with the bad. The Argentine architect and former dean of Yale’s School of Architecture is the definition of longevity. His first project was completed in the mid-1960s, and over the ensuing decades he built iconic buildings such as the World Financial Center in New York, Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong’s International Finance Centre. Unlike many architects whose style is easily recognizable, Pelli doesn’t have a hallmark aesthetic. He dwells in anonymity, designing buildings that fit in with their natural surroundings or the client’s wishes. It may seem with a portfolio full of financial towers that Pelli could be perceived as a stooge for “The Man” or architecture’s corporate crony. This doesn’t seem to be case, but critics don’t necessarily fawn in unison over his work. As Sarah Williams Goldhagen, The New Republic’s former architecture critic, puts it, “Pelli is a perfectly mediocre architect.” And then there is Thomas Hine, who wrote in The New York Times: “As a serious architect who functions so well in the commercial arena, Mr. Pelli risks being underestimated.” Those sorts of opinions come with the territory for someone who seesaws between the commercial and public worlds. While Pelli doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously, he does speak earnestly about his work. “My projects are like my children,” he says. “So I cannot have a favorite.” But if he must point his finger, it’s always to the ones that are currently under construction.
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Currently in progress at his firm, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, is the soaring 60-story Residences by Armani/Casa in Miami. The residential condominiums are designed by Armani himself and located in Sunny Isles Beach, just north of Bal Harbour. It will rise like a set of inverted sails, widening at the top and “appearing to move,” Pelli says. The skyscraper was commissioned by developers Jorge Pérez and Gil Dezer, two local real estate heavyweights who were impressed with Pelli’s drawings, which subtly nod to the area’s signature Art Deco architecture. “You have high expectations when working with someone that has the kind of talent possessed by César, but the way in which he was able to reinterpret and modernize South Florida’s established style was spectacular,” Pérez says. “The tower looks like something a futurist from the 1920s would have thought of, but been unable to build.” Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, founded four decades ago in New Haven, Connecticut, is a fitting match for this kind of grand, innovative undertaking. The firm is known for designing some of the tallest buildings in the world, a specialty attained after winning a competition to design the World Financial Center in the early ’80s. “We had a tiny office at the time, and we won,” Pelli says. “That forced us to restructure our firm to do large-scale projects.” He starts to chuckle with an expression of wonder, as if to say “Can you believe it?” But Pelli’s steady rise over the years isn’t hard to comprehend. His talent was spotted early on as a graduate student attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One of his professors recommended him to Eero Saarinen and Associates, where he ended up working on the famous TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport. About a decade later, Pelli found himself at Yale, and shortly after-
(OPPOSITE) César Pelli at his office in New Haven.
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A model of the Moody Gardens Amusement Park in Galveston, Texas. (OPPOSITE, FROM TOP) A model in Pelli’s studio. Renderings of San Francisco’s Transbay Transit Center.
wards was asked to design an expansion to the Museum of Modern Art at its former location in Manhattan. I called his son Rafael, who is one of the firm’s three principals, to ask about the key to his father’s sucess. “The qualities that make him so exceptional are a fundamental intelligence and clarity of mind. He also has an incredible discipline and drive,” he says. “This is what he loves to do. He has no hobbies.” The elder Pelli sees things a little differently: “I’ve been successful but not too much, which is probably better,” he says. “Fame is a very corroding thing, I can see it in a couple of friends of mine. You lose touch with reality and everything becomes possible and easy, and that’s not life.” Pelli grew up in Tucumán, a small province in northwestern Argentina where he attended the school of architecture at Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Ulti-
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mately, though, his skill and enthusiasm were far too great for that anonymous corner of South America. In the early ’50s, he traveled to the United States with his wife, Diana Balmori, and never left. “I could have been stuck there,” he says, growing somber for the first time during our talk. “I used to think the only option I had was to practice in Tucumán.” Getting stuck is the opposite of what happened to Pelli, who’s entering the tenth decade of his life shepherding one of the biggest projects of his career: a transit hub and public park in San Francisco spanning five blocks. The Transbay Transit Center, slated to be partially unveiled in 2018, will transform the city’s downtown along with its entire transportation system. Renderings show an elongated, undulating structure wrapped in translucent white lattices consisting of perforated metal panels created by the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose. During the day, light and
air will filter in through the tiles. At night, the building will glow like a lantern. A densely planted, 5.4-acre urban park designed by PWP Landscape Architecture will occupy the roof. “It’s very contemporary, not just architecturally but also technologically and structurally,” Pelli says. “It’s an immense undertaking by the city.” It’s also a monumental endeavor for Pelli, who acknowledges matter-of-factly the challenges at every corner. One gets the sense that nothing fazes him, it’s all just part of the ride. “He’s one of the great 20thcentury architects and yet he maintains a humility and accessibility,” Pérez says. Even after working for more than half a century, and earning numerous awards, Pelli’s focus remains on getting the job done. “I work every day,” he tells me from his unassuming office across the street from Yale’s historic Old Campus. “Except weekends.”
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(OPPOSITE) “Beartooth Porta” by Ensamble Studio at Tippet Rise.
Givers Run Through It An ambitiously philanthropic East Coast couple brings art and music to Big Sky Country. BY RACHEL SYME PHOTOS BY ALEXIS PIKE
In 1967, working as a box boy at the IGA store in Absarokee, Montana, Jim Baken helped a 67-year-old woman carry a bag of groceries to her car. He remembered her, he would later say, because she was a Johnson woman, one of three “eccentric” unmarried sisters who lived together on a 6,000-acre ranch. They inherited the ranch from their parents, Albert and Irene, Norwegian immigrants who had come to settle on the banks of the Stillwater River after winning a patented land claim from congress in 1897. Like all homesteaders who had only ever experienced the vastness of the West in their minds, the Johnsons arrived expecting an arable Arcadia, full of milkweed and honeycomb. They expected the land to open itself up to its new owners with gentle give, like chicken falling from the bone. Instead, they found that their land was designed by an invisible hand to repel them, set on a tectonic rise that caused water to flow underneath instead of over the property when it rained. And it always rained. Montana has one of the most fickle environments on Earth; in the winter, blizzards can arrive without announcement and bring everything to a sudden halt. The spring is all water and wind, often working in tandem, so that storms become weaponized, high-speed gusts rattling windows and licking the shingles off barn roofs with a sandpaper tongue. The airless summer heat on the Stillwater rise cooks the dirt to a caramel color, the crickets sing so loudly it sounds like a fire alarm. The Johnsons had no idea what they were in for. Montana is a one-two punch: the beauty overwhelms, the pain comes later. The empty West is, as writer Gretel Ehrlich put it, a “geography of possibility,” and there are prices to pay for all of that unchecked, untapped potential. The open space gives its inhabitants the gift of hope, the ability to see constellations, the first morning
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light over a ridge blanketed in wildflowers, the perpetual chance of a new crop, a new run of trout in the river. But in exchange it also takes. It demands toughness, lonesomeness, the feeling of being infinitesimal. A ranch hand told Ehrlich that the West is “all a bunch of nothing— wind and rattlesnakes—and so much of it you can’t tell where you are going or where you’ve been and it don’t make much of a difference.” Montana offers revelations but bargains hard for your sanity; days melt into nights which melt into strange visions. When I was up on the Johnson rise, alone at night, I thought I saw a silver wolf skulking outside my window, waiting for me. In the morning, it turned out to be a chrome gas grill. I understand why the Johnson sisters might have wanted to stick together, using each others’ bodies and minds as beacons of reality out on the ranch, surrounded by miles and miles of no one else. But I also understand how this decision turned them into Absarokee folk tales. Three women up there, by themselves, bracing against the elements, wearing men’s overalls. The kind of women you remember when you bag their groceries. I came to visit the Johnson ranch, outside the town of Fishtail, in March, because it is becoming something different now, something completely new. For the first time since the Johnsons took over the deed 120 years ago, the public will get the chance to walk the land. This summer, the Johnson property, along with the remaining parcels of a few other family ranches, opens to the public as Tippet Rise, an 11,500-acre “arts center” dedicated to the intersection between visual art, music, and the land. If this description sounds vague, that is because Tippet Rise began as a vague, shimmering dream in the mind of its benefactors, philanthropists Peter and Cathy Halstead. The Halsteads, whose fortunes
come from a legacy of American entrepreneurism (Cathy’s father was the billionaire alcohol magnate Sidney Frank, famous for importing Jägermeister and dreaming up Grey Goose vodka; Peter comes from a line of bank chairmen and oil executives), searched across the country for a patch of land big enough to accommodate their vision—an immense refuge for art and classical music in the middle of nowhere. Peter is a classical pianist who collects Steinways and has traveled to the great concert halls of the world in search of nirvana in the form of perfectly calibrated acoustics. Cathy is a painter who fell deeply in love with the idea of hulking, grandiose sculptures jutting out of unexpected settings. “Tippet Rise is the dream we’ve been dreaming for so many decades,” Cathy tells me. “Art and music were deeply in us even before the two of us were together.” The Halsteads looked at Colorado, and then Hawaii. But they were waiting to feel the magic they felt when they stepped onto the Johnson property. “We thought of every beautiful place in the world we had been,” she says. “But we were looking for that place where we could feel it in every cell of our bodies.” “We wanted rolling hills,” Peter adds. “We wanted them usable for walking, hiding pieces of art. This land for us has become a metaphor, a sourcebook. We wanted to build a space where a person could have an overwhelming experience with art, if they chose to make the journey.” The poignancy of building a new sanctuary dedicated to the private experience of art on the very place where the Johnson ranch stood cannot be lost on the people of Stillwater County, who now know that Isabelle Johnson, the old woman from the grocery store, was one of Montana’s most significant painters of desolate landscapes. They only know this now, because for
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Alban Bassuet, director of Tippet Rise, inside “Daydreams.” (OPPOSITE) Patrick Dougherty’s “Daydreams.”
the most part, up until her death, which ended the Johnson bloodline, in 1992, she worked quietly and alone, choosing to put the backbreaking work of tilling the land ahead of shopping her en plein air watercolors to the great museums of the world. But she had been exposed to great art, and also to the world. Albert and Irene Johnson ensured that all four of their children went to college, that they all had an escape route. They knew that sometimes what allows people to embrace their origin story is a chance to leave it all behind. This priority already made the Johnson family sui generis; most homesteading families who make it past their first season remain rooted in place for generations. Isabelle, however, was given the freedom to roam. She went first to New York City, where she earned a master’s degree in history from Columbia. She returned to Montana to teach high school in Billings, but spent her summers studying art in distant
locales—Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, the bohemian Skowhegan School in Maine. When she started painting in earnest in her 30s, she decided that her main subject would be, and should be, none other than her family’s ranch. It contained more than enough material: the story of hard work, of immigrant hopes, of excess beauty, and of crushing solitude. She painted trees the way Cezanne painted fruit—each cottonwood had its own little life story of graceful decay. Her trees bend and bow against a lavender sky. One critic wrote that Isabelle’s trees “seem to dance with life, even though bare of leaves.” Johnson once said that the artist’s life, at least the way she lived it, was a “lonely business.” Johnson taught art at MSU Billings from 1949 to 1961, rising to become the head of the department when women were barely breaking into academic life. But she chose to retire early, at 61, in order to live out her final act on the ranch with Grace and Pearl. She lived another 30 years, out there with her sisters, spending every moment she wasn’t turning the soil turning their lives into art. She passed away at 91, leaving her land to the Montana State University Foundation for veterinary research. Eventually, the foundation sold it to a couple with money who promised to uphold the legacy of those who had walked on the fields before. They were outsiders, but they promised that they felt electric connection to the property—the same magnetic pull that had brought Isabelle back from Europe every summer. In November of last year, the Halsteads underwrote the largest-ever exhibition of Isabelle Johnson’s work at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings. The museum showed 63 of her paintings, journals, and sketches, as well as the phonograph that was in her studio when she died. They commissioned a new essay collection reappraising her work. Peter Halstead wrote in the book, “Not much has happened to Fishtail. But what really happened to Fishtail was that Isabelle Johnson went to Paris. She went to New York and Rome. And she brought home the light from distant worlds.” One must believe that Halstead sensed the irony of his own project, which aims to bring more than just light from distant worlds to the spot where Isabelle once lived. He wants to bring in major art, musicians, audiences. Yet the aim of Tippet Rise—and this is still the part that might be difficult to wrap one’s head around—is to never feel like a mass tourist destination. The Halsteads built it two hours from anywhere for just this reason. They even want to limit the number of visitors that can walk around at any given time to 100 per day, so that it might be possible to be alone on the ranch with no one around you for miles. They have created—the way only truly unfettered philanthropic sums can—a space for privacy, where a person can go to
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feel like a solitary dancing tree. Montana locals know that this kind of peaceful contemplation comes at a price if you want to stay too long, that the land challenges and threatens settlers as much as it embraces them. Visitors who come will get to see the same landscapes that Isabelle Johnson did, but without any resentment or heartache. Tippet Rise turns Isabelle’s idea of the lonely business of art in the Montana high country into an art business that traffics in precious loneliness. Tippet Rise is an ever-evolving idea, one that will keep expanding and refining its definition over time. Every single person I asked about the center gave me a different answer as to what, exactly, it was meant to be. But the basic idea is that it’s the world’s biggest sculpture park, which will also feature a world-class concert hall in the shape of a larch-frame barn designed by Laura Viklund of Gunnstock Timber Frames, a state-of-the-art recording studio, and several small cabins where visiting artists can stay. The concert barn will host some of the world’s best classical musicians when it opens on June 17; some will also play pieces out on the land among the sculptures. Visitors, who are expected to be both locals and those who come from great distances, will be encouraged to take long hikes and go exploring. There are no rules except to be curious, able-bodied, and interested in the collision of art, mu-
sic, and nature in a setting so unworldly and surprising that it can feel like the surface of the moon. Concerts will only cost $10—and be free for anyone under 18— emphasizing the “non” in the Halsteads’ non-profit endeavor. The property, which visitors can enter by driving 15 minutes outside of Fishtail, which itself is 65 miles southwest of Billings, is primarily self-sustaining. Over the past five years of development, contractors have built systems that harness that land’s geothermal and solar energy for power (the energy-storage facility is built underground, like a bunker, and then hidden from view to blend into the landscape). When visitors arrive at Tippet Rise, they will be chauffeured around to the sculptures in carbon-neutral electric vans. There is no traditional restaurant on site, but instead the food will be catered every day from a cherry-red food truck run by Nick Goldman and Wendi Reed, a married couple who used to own a quaint yellow bed-and-breakfast in Absarokee. Tippet Rise will also remain a fully working ranch—a veteran Montana rancher named Ben Wynthein has come in to oversee the animal population and to finally remedy the Johnson plot’s age-old water problem; he is digging deep wells into the earth’s crust to tap into buried water and make the land fertile again. He will allow herds of sheep and cattle to roam and graze freely on the property all summer long.
“Beethoven’s Quartet” by Mark di Suvero. (OPPOSITE, FROM TOP) Construction of a new sculpture. Di Suvero’s three-story-tall “Proverb.”
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But what visitors will come from all over to see, the bold aesthetic gamble and true allure of the place, is the the sculpture collection. Tippet Rise will open with nine pieces, with the intention to collect more every year. The sculptures, which sit miles apart from each other, are all mammoth in size—the tallest is 60 feet high, the longest is 100 feet across—but because of their placement in such an epic panorama, they can also look in danger of being swallowed up by the earth. This is the trick Montana plays with scale: Nothing feels big enough to contend with it. Instead, artworks so massive that they would not fit inside most museums look like toys the mountains have decided to play with. They don’t compete with the land; they give into it. In Montana, ego has little currency. Toughness has more value than bravado, instinct has more application than intellect. This creates nothing if not an interesting tension in which to showcase art, and particularly some of the largest artworks in the world. Take Mark di Suvero’s “Proverb,” the tallest sculpture on the Tippet Rise property. It is a minimalist tower of Cor-Ten steel three stories tall, painted neon red, with a colossal silver pendulum hanging in the center. It is tucked into a canyon, and you can only view it if you drive 20 minutes from the entrance. “Proverb” was the crowning centerpiece of the Dallas Arts District, but doesn’t loudly announce itself in its new Montana setting. Instead, it playfully speaks to the cliffs on either side of it, looking like a landmark from the alien future. Near it, a rusted iron plow from the 1840s melts back into the land— Tippet Rise is full of artifacts of past inhabitants—a kind of cosmic joke that no metal thing can last forever in Montana. The sculpture, so formidible in Dallas, looks almost fragile here, like it will one day turn to dust. “Do you think we’re crazy?” This is what Alban Bassuet asks me on our second day out on the rise, visiting three sculptures that a sudden snowstorm had kept us from the day before. Bassuet is the director of Tippet Rise, which means that he makes almost all the decisions—he, along with the Halsteads, picked the sculptors, the architect, the landscape designers, the contractors, the rust siding for the concert barn, and the placement of each artwork on the property. He liaises with construction workers and artists, local skeptics and international patrons, and now, the press. He is exceedingly charming—a Frenchman in his 40s with a heavy accent and the cool air of Belmondo, stomping around the ranch in a leather bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses. A casting director could not have picked a better character to drop into the center of the Tippet Rise story—he comes from the Loire Valley, but spent most of his young life working in New York City for Arup, a design
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group that specializes in concert halls (he has built more than 200, he will often let you know). A trained classical pianist, Bassuet is a master of aural architecture, which is why the Halsteads called him in 2010 to consult on how someone might build a world-class music venue in rural Montana. He found the project intriguing, and put it on his long list of future developments. What Bassuet didn’t know is that Montana would pull him in completely. After only a few years of sketching out the idea, Bassuet decided to leave New York behind and move his wife and child to a small town outside Billings, devoting himself to Tippet Rise full time. “Montana does this thing. It gets inside of you,” he says. “I knew I would move here the first night. I laid down on the grass and looked up, and I knew.” Bassuet talks about Tippet Rise in grand terms, about the redemptive qualities of art and music, about how they can make us feel whole. He talks about the land as if it was a temple, a place you must venture to out of some sacred compulsion. “To get here, you have to really want to get here,” he says. “It’s supposed to feel like a gradual leaving of the world.” I was warned about Montana’s gravitational pull by Katy Martin, the plucky woman who owns the Fishtail General Store, the most booming business in town (population: 405). Within one day of my arrival, she was calling me “Rach” and offering to hand-deliver my postcards to the nearest post office. “Be careful,” she told me. “This place draws people in like a trap.” She’s not wrong: Montana is the kind of place that immediately makes you question your entire life and why you’re not spending it prowling free across the plains, growing strong and tan and weathered. Some of the locals in town are not sure how to approach Tippet Rise and all of the new roads the Halsteads and Bassuet are carving into the hillsides. “Not everyone understands what we are doing,” Bassuet says. “We’ve spent a long time explaining this place to the community, and engaging the locals. We have brought many school children here to visit the sculptures and hear concerts. Look, this is our private property. The Halsteads own it, and we can do what we want with it. But the locals are important to me. If I have learned one thing, it’s that an art center is never
really successful until its become vital to its community.” He continues, “This project is hard to understand, because it’s unusual. It would be unusual anywhere in the world, but especially here. We hear some people saying, well, Montana has been like this forever, why do you want to change it? But of course, that idea is controversial. What Montana are they talking about? Settlers have been here 200 years, but Native Americans were here long before that. This was Native territory, then it turned into homesteads. And I think we are paying homage to that pioneering spirit, working with and not against the land.” How local Montanans will respond to Tippet Rise when it opens and how many people will come from far-flung places to view the art remains to be seen. Bassuet has big hopes for the first season, especially as he is so proud of the site-specific art installations that one cannot see anywhere else. The first piece built at Tippet Rise, which is also the first piece visitors see, is called “Daydreams,” a model of an 1840s schoolhouse that sculptor Patrick Dougherty covered inside and out with giant gnarled masses of twigs. The building looks like it is being attacked by nefarious trees (it is no coincidence that the schoolhouse sits only feet away from where Isabelle Johnson painted). Visitors can glimpse “Daydreams” from the music barn, but the rest of the pieces require exploration, venturing out into the emptiness. Some of the sculptures are five miles apart. Some are tucked inside canyons. Some stand out on top of ridges in the distance. After “Daydreams,” a short drive leads to “Satellite No. 5 Pioneer,” by Stephen Talasnick, a hollow jungle-gym stucture nestled inside a soft bluff. This is one of Talasnick’s “nomadic wooden structures” (the first of three), inspired by the 1960s space probe project. Afterwards, visitors can venture to see three concrete pieces from Ensamble Studio, scattered miles apart higher up on the rise. Ensamble, a Spanish architecture firm with an office in Boston, made three works that blur the lines between sculpture and structure. The two “portals”—each made of giant slabs of concrete that were first poured into holes in the earth and then propped against one another using the largest crane in Montana—create picture frames through which to view faraway
(OPPOSITE) Walking through “Inverted Porta” by Ensamble Studio.
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mountains. Their largest piece, “Domo,” is almost 100 feet long and will be a kind of cement tent, an above-ground system of crags and crannies. Bassuet says that musicians will play concerts inside the portals and underneath “Domo”; he also suspects that sheep will gather at these pieces to sleep in the shade. I tell him they look a little bit like a 2016 version of Stonehenge. “Ah, well, yes,” he says, “We have talked about that a few times. These are markers of the edge of consciousness. Maybe people will encounter these in 100 years and wonder how they got here.” The only music I wanted to listen to when I was in Montana was Mark Isham’s score for A River Runs Through It, a romantic ode to the state’s big rivers full of fiddles and mournful flute. Somehow it just felt right. I played it on Highway 78, the small back road that leads to and away from Tippet Rise, and I kept thinking about the last words in Norman Maclean’s book: “Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.” Montana feels like a very haunted place. Even in Bozeman, you get the sense that the stories of that mining town go way back and the ghosts have no intention of being
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quiet about it. In Livingston, a small town I stopped in on my way to Fishtail, I stayed at the Murray Hotel, which has the distinct feel of The Shining. A desk clerk must take guests upstairs via a rickety manual elevator, and as I got off on my floor late at night, the old man on duty told me that my room was indeed full of spirits. Five minutes later, sitting stick straight-up in bed with all the lights on, I got a call. It was the clerk, saying that he was just joking. “In fact,” he said to me. “The actress Michelle Williams just stayed in the room for six weeks doing a movie. If your room is haunted, she didn’t complain about it.” I barely slept that night, not because I felt a ghost, but because the wind was so loud it turned the windows into subway grates. When I think about women like Isabelle Johnson and her sisters, I wonder how they slept through the howling. After visiting Tippet Rise, though, I also understand how. Montana requires a surrender to the elements, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get to join them one day. Isabelle Johnson is everywhere at Tippet Rise, even as it becomes something new. Under some of the rocks there, even the hulking manmade ones made of concrete, are her words.
A view of the ranch at Tippet Rise. (OPPOSITE) A portion of “Beethoven’s Quartet.”
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For the People Snøhetta’s Craig Dykers brings a humanistic touch to the newly expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
A view of Natoma Street from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. (OPPOSITE) Craig Dykers at the new SFMOMA building.
BY JOHN GENDALL PHOTOS BY JUSTIN KANEPS
Craig Dykers, a founding partner of the Oslo- and New York–based architecture and design firm Snøhetta, is fresh from completing the highly anticipated expansion to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). For Dykers, though, the completed building itself is just one point of departure. As he sees it, to know and evaluate it would take at least a year of watching just how people move through its spaces. “We don’t like to publish our buildings as soon as they’re completed,” he says during a conversation at the firm’s U.S. base in New York’s Financial District. “We prefer to wait a year to see how they’re used.” This approach is the product of Snøhetta’s having gone through the unpredictable process of designing several landmark projects on complex sites. When the firm first came onto the world stage, back in 1989, Dykers and his design partners had devised the winning scheme in an international competition for a new library in Alexandria, Egypt. With an opening date set for September 2001, world events forced the building to open quietly and set the project against the backdrop of political turbulence in the Middle East. Since then, Snøhetta has taken on designing the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo (2007), the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion (2014), and a refresh of the streetscapes in Times Square, set to be completed at the end of 2016. Snøhetta is one of seven firms currently in contention to design the Barack Obama Presidential Center. Of the firm’s multifarious projects, Dykers says, “You can’t predetermine how people will be. If you make a model for how people are supposed to behave, the first thing they’ll do is break that model.” Exactly what he looks for as he evaluates his buildings is very much his own proprietary blend. There are the standard bucket-list items—things like energy, performance, and visitor numbers—but there are also other, more qualitative metrics: “One of the things we’re going to try to count [at SFMOMA],” he says, “is the number of people kissing in the building.”
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Dykers thinks deliberately about how people move through space. “I went to Grand Central Terminal and watched everyone moving through the Great Hall,” he recalls. “Everyone loves that space, and they always say, ‘It’s so nice—you never bump into anybody.’” Whereas the most likely explanation for that effect would seem, at first glance, to be the space’s soaring vaults, Dykers offers another theory:
“They put that information kiosk dead center in the middle of that space. That way, everyone has the same problem—they all have to get around it. If you took that away, everyone would take the shortest route possible, and everyone would bump into each other in the middle,” he says. This kind of sensitivity to the human experience of space has come to distinguish Snøhetta’s oeuvre, and so it will be
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(THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE) Interior and exterior shots of the new Snøhettadesigned SFMOMA extension, including, here, a Richard Serra installation.
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at SFMOMA. There, the firm’s expansion more than doubles the space of the original museum, designed by Mario Botta in 1995, by adding a 10-story tower immediately behind the existing building. At first glance, the new SFMOMA tower seems to be entirely distinct, its faceted white surface—a skin of lightweight panels—contrasting with Botta’s monumental marble forms. But to Dykers the two are fundamentally related. “When we’re working with existing architecture,” he says, “we think of it in terms of being a dance partner: You don’t want to duplicate their steps because you’ll step on each other’s toes, but you’re still dancing with a partner.” The new responds to the old without pandering. As Dykers puts it, “Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow.” There are nuanced ways he tied the two structures together. The color of the addition’s skin, made with sand from nearby Monterey Bay, corresponds to the color of the marble Botta used on the oculus. And in the original, Botta created a series of terraces that step upward—a “wedding cake design,” as Dykers calls it—and the addition extends this rhythm upward in its own setbacks. But Dykers also made notable departures. Whereas the Botta building is squat and solid, framed by thickened walls, Snøhetta’s is vertical and light, emphasizing transparency. That feeling of openness was one of Dykers’s principle objectives. “Many people think that modern art is alien to their lives,” he says. “But to open
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up that world to people is what the museum is all about.” Dykers achieves openness in a number of ways. First, there’s the transparency of the ground-level spaces. Glass openings connect the sidewalk with the first-floor gallery (which remains free and open to anyone), providing a visual connectivity between the museum and the city. Dykers designed the building’s circulation to be inviting, too, making the stairs as enticing as possible. “When you take a stair, you feel more connected to a place than if you push a button and wait for the [elevator] doors to open,” he says. The challenge for SFMOMA, though, was the very verticality of the expansion. “Museums, like many things, work best horizontally,” Dykers says. “People don’t like to go up and down too much, so we had to make interesting ways for people to move between the floors—without a sense of being funneled into a staircase.” Despite Dykers’s warmth and candor speaking about the SFMOMA project, the experience wasn’t all a bed of roses. When Snøhetta unveiled the scheme in 2011, as is often the case with museum projects, it wasn’t immediately met with glowing reviews. “The new wing is a chiseled behemoth,” wrote Christopher Hawthorne, the Los Angeles Times’s architecture critic, “and though it does its best to hide, trim, shade, and disguise its bulk, the result is somehow disingenuous, impressive and amusing all at once, like an iceberg trying to convince everybody that it is in fact an ice cube.”
Dykers lets those kinds of criticisms roll off. “All museum expansions elicit reactions, and we knew that going in,” he says. “We were surprised, actually, that we had unanimous approval all the way through the process.” Already, the project has given a big shot of B12 to the Bay Area’s art scene. Two art-world titans, the gallerists Larry Gagosian and John Berggruen, are poised to open new outposts opposite SFMOMA’s entrance. Anton Kern and Andrew Kreps have also announced they’ll be unveiling San Francisco locations and tying opening dates to the museum’s relaunch. And Untitled, the art fair based in Miami, has announced a San Francisco edition to take place next January. “The last three years have been a long dry spell, so having a strong museum of contemporary art back up and running raises the temperature in the community,” says San Francisco Chronicle art critic Charles Desmarais. “But,” he goes on to caution, “people will want to capitalize in the short term, so one thing we’ll be watching is how long they’ll stick it out. Berggruen is a solid business and part of the community, so his move makes sense. For others, we’ll have to wait and see.” If Snøhetta’s track record of creating robust urban interventions is any indication, SFMOMA’s new building will continue to spur plenty of activity, cultural and otherwise, both inside and outside its walls. Dykers will certainly be back next year to check in on it, studying the unexpected ways in which it’s being used.
Gallery We asked 12 design firms to conceptualize marijuana branding and packaging. This is what they came up with.
By Spencer Bailey and Lily Wan
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(OPPOSITE) Branding marajuana: Brooklyn-based firm Franklyn uses its product, Sprankles, to create copyright and trademark symbols.
Long gone are the days of Reefer Madness and anti-marijuana McCarthyism. Since 2012, when Colorado and Washington became the first two states to pass laws taxing and regulating marijuana, its image in American culture has changed drastically. Over the past few years, cannabis retail stores in these states have become a common sight; last year, both Alaska and Oregon legalized weed, and several other states may soon join them. Medical marijuana is currently legal in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Public approval of the drug, not surprisingly, continues to grow. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center report, 53 percent of the population favors pot legalization, and within the millennial generation that number is far higher (68 percent). In California, where recreational use is still not legal but could become so following a public vote in November, medical marijuana sales hit $2.7 billion last year, according to cannabis research company ArcView and New Frontier, which also called legal pot “the fastest-growing industry in America,” with 74 percent growth between 2013 and 2014. Even though it’s prohibited to transport across state lines, marijuana is quickly turning corporate. The branding, packaging, and design of it, however, typically remains kitsch, cliché, and decidedly amateur. This too, though, appears to be changing, albeit slowly. Rapper Snoop Dogg’s Leafs by Snoop brand recently unveiled packaging conceived by New York firm Pentagram; Tommy Chong, of Cheech and Chong fame, is planning to mass-produce his
professional-looking Chong’s Choice label; and private equity firm Privateer Holdings inked a 30-year licensing deal to create the contemporary-feeling Marley Natural. Designer smoking-accessories companies like Tetra and L.A.’s Mister Green Life Store have also entered the mix. In light of the current bud rush, Surface asked 12 leading design studios to rethink marijuana branding and packaging. (Two other firms we reached out to weren’t able to participate, they said, because of underway collaborations with soon-to-launch pot companies.) The brief we sent over was simple: to create a fictionalized aspirational marijuana brand—essentially, the future Starbucks of weed. In turn, they supplied us with the name and concept of the brand, a logo, and basic packaging. Here, we present the results, which include three companies called Hi (a total coincidence), a weed-laced tea, and a marijuana-infused water concept targeting working moms. Consider this our effort to spur further conversation about the branding of marijuana, and where design fits into that. As Jonathan Ford, one of the participants and a founding partner and the chief creative officer of the firm Pearlfisher, puts it, “While it’s fun to imagine what these products could be like in a world with minimal restrictions, one wonders whether this style of pared-back design will be possible for a product that will likely need safety labeling akin to cigarette packaging—a challenge for our culture as it seeks to integrate this product in a modern context.” Perhaps the reefer business remains a bit mad after all.
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PHOTO: COURTESY FRANKLYN.
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Hi by Bruce Mau Design, Los Angeles “Hi is a monthly subscription service that aims to democratize the experience of living with cannabis in a way that demystifies the product. Customers order ‘BudBoxes’ online, indicating what kind of usage they desire—they can choose from select product lines such as Soothe, Relax, Passion, Energy, and Focus. Custom-tailored boxes are then delivered to their doorstep, each containing single servings of cannabis products, pre-measured to optimal dosages. With its casual and welcoming name, the brand stands out among an overwhelming amount of existing medicinal and esoteric brands. Hi conjures up a bright and fun state of mind, designed to put consumers at ease in what otherwise may be an overwhelming decision. The vibrant colors and bold, friendly typography evoke both simplicity and general cheeriness, while the character Bud serves as a friendly guide to choosing products in an enjoyable way.”
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Botánica 1545 by Saatchi & Saatchi Design, New York “Cannabis, a medicinal intoxicant, has traditionally been used to both socialize and relax. Tea, the most widely consumed drink in the world after water, has traditionally been used for the same purpose. They are combined here to create the Botánica 1545 cannabis-infused botanical teas. The name is no accident: We chose the Spanish word for botanical and 1545 is the year cannabis officially arrived in the New World aboard a Spanish ship. Interestingly, tea—having been introduced to Europe in the 16th century from China—would likely have begun to make its way to the New World around the same time. The historical Spanish connection inspired not only the name but also the bottle form and pattern design. To ensure the product felt like tea and not alcohol, the bottle draws on 16th-century Spanish medicine bottles. We liked the black opaque glass look, feeling that this elevated the premium feel. ”
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Haze by Wax Studios, Brooklyn
PHOTO: DAVID BRANDON GEETING
“We thought it fitting to respond with humor to this brief, so we created a fake Wikipedia entry on the brand, year 2036: ‘In early 2016, Green Seed Ventures, Inc., partnered with Haze Corporation to bring a $12 million capital investment to the fledgling marijuana retailer. Only eight months later, with an unprecedented 30-second-sell-out IPO of over $9 billion, Haze became the first multi-national cannabis corporation, finishing its minute on the NYSE up 2000 percent from its initial $300 share. Haze quickly diversified beyond weed-based goods to homecare, affordable fashion, server software, and financial consulting. With 1.5 billion worldwide locations, Haze now owns the likes of amazehaze.com (formerly Amazon.com, Inc.), Goldman Shaze (formerly Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.), and Starhaze (formerly Starbucks Corporation).’”
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Water Water by Omnivore, Brooklyn, Portland, and Los Angeles
PHOTO: MARIO GALLUCCI
“Water Water is marijuana-infused, organic, and has fewer calories than alcohol. Flavors in three different THC levels pair with supplements to accent the three pillars of the working mother’s life: work (“Air”—power), children (“Earth”—balance), and partner/relationship (“Fire”—love). Water Water was born out of our own chaotic lives as working mothers. We wanted to poke fun at our impossible dream to “do it all” without sacrificing anything. Our inspiration also comes from the problems with access to clean water today in the United States, the high cost and waste involved with the bottled-water industry, and the fight for natural water rights between corporations and governments. We aimed to create an ironic aspirational brand that speaks to a holistic, decluttered, and sustainable and fashionable wellness.”
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GALLERY L’Enfer Est Volontaire by Karlssonwilker, New York “Our brand’s name is French. And it rhymes. It’s quite long, unwieldy, and nicely pretentious. It means that hell is only optional, that one has a choice to live in it or not. The accessible premium products of L’Enfer Est Volontaire (or L’EEV) give you that choice. The first one is a bag of artisanal chips filled with organic weed smoke from the Rocky Mountains, conveniently sealed together for highest quality and freshness. Adding marijuana smoke doesn’t use any additional energy or resources in its supply chain than an ordinary bag of chips. Aesthetically, the design doesn’t align itself with the long lineage of ‘weed graphics,’ and the packaging isn’t meant to be appealing and appetizing in the typical ‘chips bag’ category. We liked this idea so much that we already secured the patent.”
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GALLERY
Hi by MGMT, Brooklyn “Our brand is a personal chronic concierge, providing both on-demand delivery service via mobile and web and a monthly curated selection of high-end organic varietals. The assortment includes a thorough description and provenance of each strain. Products vary each month and include artisanal take on classic munchies: Himalayan sea-salt chocolate bars, organic gummy bears, and hybrid kale chips—all providing a guaranteed ‘Hi.’ The aesthetic could be described as a post-modernist lava lamp; the mutable logo acts as a free-spirited doodle. Inspiration was drawn from Karel Martens and Gabriel Orozco. Unfortunately, no products were tested during the creation of this image.”
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GALLERY
Allay by Pearlfisher, New York and London “Allay is a product range that uses the naturally alleviative properties of the marijuana root to relieve persistent symptoms of stress, sickness, and pain. Taking a number of on-the-go lifestyle forms, including a wristband, an edible oil, and dissolvable oral tabs, the selection is designed to soothe and sedate by intuitively administering controlled and customized medical dosages of marijuana. The idea of reduction and minimization implicit in the name is stylistically brought to life across the brand, product concepts, packaging design, imagery, and tone of voice. The aesthetic is simple, calming, and pure, challenging the traditional and functional language of the pharmaceutical category. Anchored in the idea of subtraction, implicit in the ‘minus sign’ of the ‘A’ logo, the design reflects the alleviative effects of the product, while educating consumers on correct dosages.”
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GALLERY
Float by Public Library, Los Angeles and Portland
PHOTO: RYAN BUSH
“In coming up with the brand’s name, we wanted a word that sounded and looked like the emotion we wanted to convey. The meaning, sound, and letterforms were all elements we wanted to work together to reinforce the concept, an abstracted and visual onomatopoeia. In the design, there’s a lot of play with textures, opacity, muted colors. It’s the grown-up version of a nostalgic high-school experience: the various plastic bags, envelopes, and paper footballs that were vehicles of the bathroom-stall trade. To us, this packaging recalls the parking lot and passing period meet-ups. Any project that leads to hours of entertaining—and retrospectively idiotic—stories of adolescence is a success. The process was a good reminder that everything is cyclical, and every experience can be turned into something positive, depending on the context.
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GALLERY Sprankles by Franklyn, Brooklyn “Sprankles is the original cannabis condiment. A premium blend of flower crumbles and kief, decarboxylated to optimize the medicinal or psychoactive effect, it turns anything into an herbal edible. Sprankles is a conflation of the words ‘sprinkles’ and ‘dank’—the latter a slang term for high quality marijuana. It also sounds a bit hip-hop, which we like. Sprankles was conceived as an accessible marijuana brand that lowers the barrier of entry to consumption. Packaged in single-serve packets, it’s convenient and discrete. The visual identity is clean, modern, a bit irreverent, and primarily focused on showcasing the herbal shake. Like many design consultancies these days, we’re eager to develop product of our own, so we treated this exercise as an opportunity to extend the Franklyn brand. Conveniently, green is our color and ‘all-green everything’ has been our motto since we opened the studio.”
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GALLERY
Hi by Open , New York “We wanted to make something bright and happy and unintimidating—Hi is a gateway brand. We always encourage companies to talk directly to their customers and make them feel comfortable and welcome. The friendliest way to do that? Say Hi. Hi sells cigarettes, snacks, and vaporizers to people who want to casually enjoy some weed, but don’t need to make a big thing about it. The few existing and forthcoming commercial marijuana brands all trade on preexisting aesthetics and clichés. Other categories of products have gotten past that by now. We didn’t want to wait. But while we gave Hi a clean look, one of our designers reminded us to not get too cute: Marijuana is not for kids. So though Hi may use playful colors and typefaces, it’s aimed at grown-ups.”
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GALLERY Skunk by Original Champions of Design, New York “Skunk’s aerated packaging delights your sense of smell on first contact. Across a miscellany of products, scent and sensation work together to affect your mood. Cool undertones of sandalwood relax; zesty wafts of lemongrass energize. The brand and its packaging design reflect the way you’ll feel when using Skunk. In marijuana culture, ‘skunk’ refers to strong-smelling cannabis strains. We liked that, so we adopted it. We encourage users to let their noses guide them. Product names like Sunday Paper, Easy-Bake, and Colombian Roast are equally deliberate, evoking pungent aromas associated with mood-changing moments. Skunk’s identity is developed specifically to aid with choosing the strain that’s right for you. The two key design decisions are the signature white stripe that works like a highlighter to emphasize the product name and the perforated colorcoded shell that provides a whiff of each distinctive marijuana varietal on contact.”
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Okay by Base Design, New York “Because legal marijuana is a relatively new category, existing products rely heavily on conventional symbols: psychedelia, the leaf, etc., and traditional modes of consumption, like smoking and edibles. We wanted to move away from such stigmas and instead imagine how marijuana might exist 10, 20, 30 years from now, as a part of everyday life. We envision Okay as a mood modifier, a socially accepted additive as common as coffee or chamomile tea—in essence, a less sinister version of Soma from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Consider it a generic ‘masstige’ product that has become the Kleenex of its category, one that feels as ubiquitous in our culture as Sweet ’N Low or Budweiser.”
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A promotional section in which we survey the luxury real estate landscape, highlighting projects with cutting-edge architecture and interior design. FOR SUBMISSIONS, PLEASE CONTACT: OTM@SURFACEMAG.COM
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
181 HUDSON STREET | 4BC | NEW YORK
SURFACE SAYS
“Little else beats living on a beautiful, cobblestoned block in Tribeca. Bonus points for the charming views of Vestry Street and over 11-foot-high ceilings.”
Situated on a quaint cobblestoned block in the heart of the North Tribeca Historic District, this sprawling three-bedroom, three-bathroom condo loft was artfully conceived by acclaimed architect Hal Goldstein of Janson Goldstein. High style and modern comforts were at the forefront of design when the well-appointed finishes, materials, and luxuries were selected throughout the home. With over 11-foot-high ceilings, 10 south-facing windows overlooking Vestry Street, and a 37-plus-foot living room, this apartment is the ideal home. Track lighting controlled by Lutron dimmer switches throughout, industrial grade independently controlled central HVAC, Somfy powered window shades on all windows, and a three-zone Sonos system complete the exceptional space. PRICE: $5,950,000 SQUARE FEET: 2,919 INTERIOR ROOMS: 3 BEDS | 3 BATHS MONTHLY COMMON CHARGES: $1,280 MONTHLY REAL ESTATE TAXES: $1,527 PROPERTY TYPE: CONDOMINIUM
RAPHAEL DE NIRO O: 212.460.0655 E: deniroteam@elliman.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
132 PERRY STREET | 8TH FLOOR | NEW YORK
132 Perry Street has a sprawling loft with more than 3,000 square feet of interior space. This beautiful four-bedroom, three-bathroom home with a terrace has been skillfully crafted by lauded interior designer Thomas O’Brien. This coveted condominium is located on one of the most charming and tranquil historic cobblestone blocks of the West Village. Through keyed elevator access, enter onto the private eighth floor retreat featuring 11-foot ceilings, massive oversized casement windows, and four exposures with protected Hudson River views. The large sunflooded living room offers magnificent views to the north and west. French modernist–inspired sliding doors lead to the library/den and can easily be converted to a fourth bedroom. A 1950s-style wood-burning fireplace seamlessly transitions into the open dining room that has French doors leading out to the private south-facing terrace. PRICE: $9,500,000 SQUARE FEET: 3,040 INTERIOR PLUS PRIVATE TERRACE ROOMS: 4 BEDS | 3 BATHS MONTHLY COMMON CHARGES: $2,634 MONTHLY REAL ESTATE TAXES: $3,198
PROPERTY TYPE: CONDOMINIUM
SURFACE SAYS
“With a beautiful wood-burningfireplace and views of the Hudson River, this full-floor apartment in the West Village is not one to miss.”
RAPHAEL DE NIRO O: 212.460.0655 E: deniroteam@elliman.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
187 MILBANK AVENUE | GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT ROB JOHNSON O: 203.869.8100 M: 203.979.2360 E: robjohnson@halstead.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
SURFACE SAYS
“This spacious home so close to Greenwich Avenue couldn’t get much better. Bonus points for the stunning staircase.”
This house, only minutes away from Greenwich Avenue, is the best in downtown living. It is meticulously finished with extensive custom features and millwork. The traditional exterior combines a two-car garage with extra parking for four to five more vehicles within the rear courtyard and custom electric gates to ensure privacy. Spectacular interior features include an elevator, large mudroom, top-of-the-line kitchen, and office with a separate powder room. This home has five bedrooms, all complete with ensuite bathrooms. The master suite overlooks the town and includes Lutron shading, extra-high ceilings, and a large walk-in closet. Also included is premium wine storage, a glass-sided staircase, and a second living room in the lower level. PRICE: $4,800,000 NEIGHBORHOOD: GREENWICH SQUARE FEET: APPROX. 5,497 ROOMS: 14 ROOMS | 5 BEDS | 5 BATHS | 1 HALF BATH PROPERTY TYPE: HOUSE
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
737 PARK AVENUE | 20C | NEW YORK JULIETTE R. JANSSENS O: 212.606.7670 E: juliette.janssens@sothebyshomes.com
ALLISON B. KOFFMAN O: 212.606.7688 E: allison.koffman@sothebyshomes.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
SURFACE SAYS
“Living on the corner of Park Avenue and 71st Street, you essentially have all of Central Park as your backyard.” Built in 1940 and situated on the corner of Park Avenue and 71st Street, 737 Park Avenue is the ultimate Pre-War condominium. Residence 20C is a stunning light-filled high-floor home with a generous layout. There are four open exposures showcasing iconic New York landmarks from new casement windows. A manned elevator opens directly into the private gallery which leads to a living space that, while very open, still allows for defined lounging, dining, and media room spaces. The windowed eatin-kitchen is equipped with Miele stainless steel appliances, glass and aluminum cabinetry by Varenna, and marble floors and countertops. A separate bedroom wing includes a luxurious master bedroom suite with a dressing area and his-and-hers bathrooms. Completing this magnificent apartment are two additional separate bedrooms with ensuite baths, a laundry or pantry area, and study. Residents enjoy a 24-hour doorman , a wonderful sky-lit fitness center, private storage, and more. PRICE: $12,750,000 NEIGHBORHOOD: UPPER EAST SIDE SQUARE FEET: APPROX. 3,374 ROOMS: 7 ROOMS | 3 BEDS | 5 BATHS MONTHLY COMMON CHARGES: $3,751 MONTHLY REAL ESTATE TAXES: $4,332 PROPERTY TYPE: CONDOMINIUM
JACQUELINE ROHRBACH O: 212.606.7646 E: jackie.rohrbach@sothebyshomes.com
737parkavenuenyc.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
101 20TH ST | SETAI | APT 3509 | MIAMI BEACH JEFF MILLER O: 305.726.0100 M: 305.610.4509 E: jeff.miller@bhsusa.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
SURFACE SAYS
“With full-time Setai service, beach access, and unparalleled sunset views, this unit is a steal. Also, did we mention the three infinity pools?”
Located in the Setai—an intimate and serene oceanfront resort in the heart of South Beach—this beautiful 35th-floor unit has three spacious bedrooms and three bathrooms. With panoramic ocean, city, and sunset views, this 2,521-square-foot residence includes two master suites, two expansive balconies, hardwood flooring, and floorto-ceiling glass windows. Amenities include three azure infinity pools, beach facilities with full food and beverage service, three restaurants, a world-class spa, and 24-hour room service. Residents are also entitled to complimentary 60-minute yoga every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on the Setai’s beach. PRICE: $10,950,000 NEIGHBORHOOD: MIAMI BEACH SQUARE FEET: 2,521 ROOMS: 3 BEDS | 3 BATHS MONTHLY MAINTENANCE: $8,151 PROPERTY TYPE: CONDOMINIUM
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
293 LAFAYETTE | PENTHOUSE 1 | NEW YORK DEBORAH GRUBMAN O: 212.836.1055 E: dg@corcoran.com
DAVID ADLER O: 212.605.9287 E: david.adler@corcoran.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
SURFACE SAYS
“One of New York’s most beautiful homes. With two terraces and an outdoor spa, there’s little else one could desire.” This penthouse is an exceptional duplex condominium in the iconic Puck Building with a history dating back to 1896. The apartment combines the classic charm of the building with a 21st-century aesthetic. This residence truly has it all: four bedrooms, seven and a half baths, a library, a gym, a media room, a staff room, a studio, a wine cellar, three gas fireplaces, and sprawling terraces on each level, one including an outdoor spa. Floor-to-ceiling windows fill the apartment with natural light and lend a fantastic view. The finishes throughout define luxury, with the finest Italian marble and a state-of-the-art kitchen. The luxurious master suite incorporates a sitting room, two dressing rooms, two full baths, access to a terrace and the studio, which could serve as a home office or atelier. The Puck Building is a full-service condominium for the discreet buyer. PRICE: $58,500,000 NEIGHBORHOOD: SOHO SQUARE FEET: 7,241 INTERIOR | 5,158 EXTERIOR ROOMS: 10 ROOMS | 4 BEDS | 7 BATHS | 1 HALF BATH MONTHLY COMMON CHARGES: $13,406 MONTHLY REAL ESTATE TAXES: $8,264 PROPERTY TYPE: CONDOMINIUM
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
THE APTHORP | 390 WEST END AVENUE | 4G | NEW YORK GREGORY WILLIAMSON O: 212.712.6088 M: 718.490.6519 E: gwilliamson@elliman.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
SURFACE SAYS
“A private courtyard, soaring ceilings, and light-flooded rooms— this property has it all.” This classically renovated three-bedroom and two-and-a-half bathroom residence at the famed Apthorp is truly beautiful. The home features a grand entryway with a mosaic floor, a gracious dining room, meticulously renovated chef’s kitchen with Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances, and marble-clad master bathroom. With views of West End Avenue and the picturesquely landscaped Apthorp courtyard, every inch of this home has been thoughtfully designed. The Apthorp is a treasured New York City landmark for its Italian Renaissance Revival architecture and private drivable courtyard. The gated entries and lobbies are attended full-time and other amenities include an on-site parking garage, entertainment lounge, playroom, and a 6,500-square-feet resident’s suite. PRICE: $4,995,000 NEIGHBORHOOD: UPPER WEST SIDE SQUARE FEET: APPROX. 1,890 ROOMS: 3 BEDS | 2 BATHS | 1 HALF BATH MONTHLY COMMON CHARGES: $2,317 MONTHLY REAL ESTATE TAXES: $1,406 PROPERTY TYPE: CONDOMINIUM
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
29 BEEKMAN PLACE | NEW YORK DAN DANIELLI O: 212.381.3325 E: ddanielli@halstead.com
SURFACEMAG.COM/OTM
Located on Beekman Place, an exclusive enclave on the East River with security, privacy, tranquility, and easy access to Midtown, FDR Drive, and heliport, this property was built in 1934 as the largest of nine mansions in the neighborhood. Flooded with natural light from open east and west exposures, its size makes it appropriate for live/ work, a foundation, a school, or a consulate/diplomatic residence, with its proximity to the United Nations. With nearly 12,000 interior square feet and 1,437 exterior square feet, spread over eight floors, this home has 17 rooms, with eight rooms offering full river views. There are eight wood-burning fireplaces, two large terraces, six master suites, 11 baths, and five additional rooms for guests, staff quarters, and more. An impressive spiral staircase accesses four floors, an elevator, and dumbwaiter servicing seven floors, and two private stairwells access the remaining floors. The basement includes storage room and a wine-cellar. PRICE: $34,000,000 NEIGHBORHOOD: MIDTOWN EAST SQUARE FEET: APPROX. 12,000 INTERIOR | 1,437 EXTERIOR ROOMS: 17 ROOMS | 10 BEDS | 11 BATHS REAL ESTATE TAXES: $129,765 PROPERTY TYPE: TOWNHOUSE
SURFACE SAYS
“With that much natural light and beautiful views of the river, this mansion is certainly worth living in. Plus, only three people have ever lived in it before!”
Itinerary & Culture Club Our roundup of upcoming and recent events in the Surface universe, including Palazzo Fendi’s opening party in Rome and the New Museum Gala.
ITINERARY
Itinerary
Upcoming must-attend global goings-on in the worlds of architecture, art, design, fashion, and beyond. To submit events, visit surfacemag.com/itinerary
MAY 5–JUNE 4 TOM SACHS’S “NUGGETS” AT DEITCH GALLERY New York
PHOTO: COURTESY DEITCH GALLERY.
Sculptor Tom Sachs has been dominating New York lately, with oneman shows currently at both the Brooklyn and Noguchi Museums. Add to this an upcoming exhibition at Deitch Gallery titled “Nuggets” (through June 4). The show promises to feature a wide selection of Sachs’s tastefully eccentric works. deitch.com/current 243
ITINERARY
MAY 2 MET GALA New York
Few social events are comparable to the Met Gala. Held annually to kick off the Costume Institute’s new exhibition (this year it’s “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology”), the gala is co-hosted by Jony Ive and Taylor Swift. Expect to hear about the gowns more than the party. metmuseum.org
FRIEZE ART FAIR
MAY 5-8 FRIEZE ART NEW YORK ART FAIR Randall’s Island, New York
Frieze Art Fair, curated by High Line Art’s Cecilia Alemani, showcases sitespecific installations, a talk series, and works from top galleries. On view at the event will be commissioned work by Heather Phillipson, David Horvitz, and Alex Da Corte, among other artists. frieze.com
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PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) COURTESY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART/BFA.COM. COURTESY MARCO SCOZZARO/FRIEZE (4).
THE MET GALA
ITINERARY
MAY 10-13 MAISON & OBJET AMERICAS Miami Beach
International trade show Maison & Objet makes a stop in Miami Beach for the second year in a row. The event brings together a community of 300 brands, designers, architects, and property developers, who will showcase their upscale interior creations. maison-objet.com/americas MAISON & OBJET AMERICAS
PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) GREG SEVAZ (3). COURTESY DIA. COURTESY FOA.
SCOTSTYLE
MAY 6–JUNE 30 SCOTSTYLE - BUILDING THE CENTURY Scotland A tour of Scotland will visit 100 of the country’s best architectural sites, all of which were publicly nominated for the event. Starting in Portree, the country-spanning “exhibit” highlights architecture from the past century. foa2016.com DIA: ART FOUNDATION
MAY 8
MAY 8–AUG 28
MAY 7
BEYOND BORDERS: STOREFRONT FOR ART AND ARCHITECTURE’S SPRING BENEFIT Queens, New York This year’s Storefront for Art and Architecture’s spring benefit will be the final public event held in the iconic TWA Flight Center before its redevelopment. The benefit includes a silent auction, cocktails, performances, a dinner of international cuisine, and, of course, an after-party. storefrontnews.org/benefit
LANDMARK AT SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK Queens, New York Queens’s Socrates Sculpture Park celebrates its 30th year with a new exhibition called Landmark. The show is composed of several artist commissions and projects that transform the land of the public space. Among those exhibited are Meg Webster with a 70feet in diameter living sculptural installation and Hank Williams Thomas, who created a billboard for the main entrance. socratessculpturepark.org
DIA: ART FOUNDATION ANNUAL SPRING BENEFIT Beacon, New York Attendees at this year’s Dia: Art Foundation annual spring benefit will be the first to view three new installations by Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, and Bruce Nauman. The annual luncheon raises money for Dia:Beacon, a museum famous for its site-specific installations from artists ranging from Dan Flavin to Richard Serra. diaart.org
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NYCxDesign in May 6-9
BKLYN DESIGNS Across the East River, in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood, Bklyn Designs will showcase the best in contemporary furniture, lighting, accessories, and art from the talents of the ever-burgeoning borough. In addition to the products, visitors will experience a Coney Island–inspired lounge by Uhuru and a pop-up textile studio from the Textile Arts Center. bklyndesigns.com
13-16
SIGHT UNSEEN OFFSITE
For those in town for New York Design Week or any other travel this month, New York artist Hank Willis Thomas shares his favorite places and events of the moment. “May is a busy and buzzing month in New York for the worlds of art and design. A few highlights are the ‘Kambui Olujimi: Solastalgia’ exhibition at the Cue Foundation (through May 12), which I curated; ‘Disguise: Mask and Global African Art’ at Brooklyn Museum (through Sept. 18); and if you can get your hands on a ticket, Hamilton on Broadway is a must, too. Stay at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg or the SoHo Grand Hotel, and squeeze some
ICFF
time in for a meal at The Mermaid Inn or the city’s best ice-cream waffle the city has to offer at Mikey Likes It. I’m also looking forward to Frieze, the 1:54 Contemporary African Arts Fair, and the Skowhegan 70th anniversary celebration.”
WANTED DESIGN
For this year’s Sight Unseen Offsite, Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer, the co-founders of online magazine Sight Unseen, return to curate works of the best independent design studios including Bower, Aelfie, Dusen Dusen Home, and more. It will take place at the Grace Building in Midtown. offsite.sightunseen.com
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WANTED DESIGN For the third year in a row, Wanted Design continues its quest east with an additional show at Industry City in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where among the highlights are a show of Parsons School of Design’s select student works, an installation born from a collaboration between Visual Magnetics and Instagram influencer @PlantsOnPink, and Paul Clemence’s “Red Overture” exhibition. The Manhattan show will set up in the Terminal Stores building in Chelsea. wanteddesignnyc.com
HERMES “HERE ELSEWHERE”
MAY 10–12 14-17
ICFF Taking place in the Javits Center just north of Manhattan’s Hudson Yards is the 28th annual ICFF, one of North America’s largest showcases of contemporary design. More than 750 exhibitors from around the globe will present their latest and best in design of seating, lighting, wall coverings, and more. icff.com
HERMES “HERE ELSEWHERE” INSTALLATION OPENING New York Director and visual artist Robert Wilson will reveal a collaboration with Hermès in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood titled “Here Elsewhere.” The project seeks to put the French label’s Maison collection into a different perspective through an installation that uses video portraits and live performers. HERMES “HERE ELSEWHERE”
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PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) COURTESY NICK PARKER. COURTESY WANTEDDESIGN. COURTESY HERMES. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND HERMES. SCOTT RUDD.
SIGHT UNSEEN OFFSITE
ITINERARY
MAY 11 TADAO ANDO TALK AT COOPER UNION New York The Architectural League’s “Current Work” series, an event that features some of the top industry leaders in design, will be hosting Tadao Ando to speak on behalf of his firm, Tadao Ando Architect and Associates, and its latest work. This co-sponsored series will take place at Cooper Union’s Great Hall. archleague.org
MAY 11 DANIEL BUREN “OBSERVATORY OF LIGHT” Paris A collaboration between Foundation Louis Vuitton and Daniel Buren will be on display in Paris in an installation called “Observatory of Light.” The artist’s array of colored filters will play upon the Frank Gehry–designed museum’s glass “sails.” fondationlouisvuitton.fr
MAY 12–14 SEVEN MAGIC MOUNTAINS
MAY 11 UGO RONDINONE’S SEVEN MAGIC MOUNTAINS EXHIBITION OPENING Henderson, Nevada Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone’s site-specific exhibition will open in the Nevada desert after a five-year developMUSEO SALVATORE FERRAGAMO ment process. The piece consists of seven monumental sculptures, which resemble columns of carefullystacked rocks. Only a 30-minute drive from Las Vegas, the work serves as a cheeky critique of Sin City. sevenmagicmountains.com
ART FAIR TOKYO Tokyo, Japan As one of the largest fairs of its kind, the 2016 Art Fair Tokyo showcases an expansive range of artistry brought together from domestic and international craftspeople. From contemporary styles to timeless antiques, the wide range of art will be on display at the Tokyo International Forum in Tokyo, Japan. artfairtokyo.com
MAY 12
ARCHITIZER A+ GALA
MUSEO SALVATORE FERRAGAMO
MAY 18 MUSEO SALVATORE FERRAGAMO EXHIBITION OPENING Florence, Italy
Museo Salvatore Ferragamo will open a new exhibit titled “Across Art and Fashion” (through April 17, 2017), curated by Maria Luisa Frisa, Enrica Morini, Stefania Ricci, and Alberto Salvadori. The show explores the relationship between art and fashion with pieces like a dress from the 1930s by Elsa Schiaparelli in collaboration with Salvador Dalí and a collection by Rodarte informed by Beato Angelico. ferragamo.com/museo
MAY 12 ARCHITIZER A+ GALA New York Architizer, the largest online curator of architectural projects, is hosting its fourth annual A+ Gala to honor the winners of this year’s A+ Award, which recognizes the top projects across the globe. This year’s notables include Roger Ferris and Partners, Nartarchitects, and Wolfgang Buttress with winners spanning from Palo Alto to Fogo Island. architizer.com
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PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) GIANFRANCO GORGONI. JENNA BASCOM. COURTESY FERRAGAMO (2).
EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO GALA 2016 New York El Museo del Barrio, New York’s preeminent Latino cultural institution, will host its 23rd annual gala. The party will take aesthetic cues from El Museo’s summer exhibition, which features the late Puerto Rican fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez. elmuseo.org/gala-2016
ARTEBA
ITINERARY
ARTEBA
MAY 19-22 ARTEBA Buenos Aires, Argentina ArteBA annual art fair is South America’s answer to Pulse, showcasing contemporary work from galleries, curators, and collaborative projects, focusing on Argentinian artists. Content creators for the 2016 edition include Manuel Segade, Cecilia Szalkowicz, Inés Katzenstein, and more. arteba.org
MAY 23-26 INDEX (INTERNATIONAL DESIGN EXHIBITION) Dubai The International Design Exhibition is the region’s premiere interiors and design showcase, presenting the works of more than 720 brands. The networking event-cum-showcase includes categories like eco, sleep, technology, artisan, lighting, plus a talk with Karim Rashid. indexexhibition.com
“There’s tons to fill your days with at the 15th Annual International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. The Giardini and the Arsenale, main venues of La Biennale, will host 62 national pavilions and 88 individual exhibits under the theme ‘Reporting from the Front,’ directed by Pritzker laureate Alejandro Aravena. A must-visit is the Nordic Pavilion (which I’m curating), designed by Sverre Fehn. The building, built in the the ’60s, is one of the most beautiful permanent structures at the Giardini. Across the Arsenale you will find the Palasport ‘Giobatta Gianquinto,’ a brutalist gymnasium from the ’70s that will host the Baltic Countries Pavilion, offering a rare opportunity to visit this building. Nearby the Biennale venues, you will find the Fondazione
Querini Stampalia, an architectural masterpiece designed by Carlo Scarpa, and the ‘Time-Space-Existane’ Biennale collateral event, showcasing the work of more than a hundred contemporary architects. During the Biennale, architects, critics, and visitors will unwind on the many osterias and bars in the historic city, including some architects’ favorites such as the bars of the Bauer Hotel (Bar Canale during the day and B Bar at night) and the Club del Doge restaurant of the Gritti Palace. For sure, most will end at the the Campo Santa Margherita.”
THE GORDON PARKS FOUNDATION
MAY 24-26 CLERKENWELL DESIGN WEEK London In London’s Clerkenwell neighborhood, the city’s epicenter for design, U.K. and international brands will host exhibitions and showroom events during the three-day independent festival. Highlights include a functional installation from Giles Miller Studio, a Charles and Ray Eames exhibition at the Barbican, and a talk series. clerkenwelldesignweek.com CLERKENWELL DESIGN WEEK
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THE GORDON PARKS FOUNDATION 10TH ANNIVERSARY AWARDS DINNER AND AUCTION New York The Gordon Parks Foundation’s awards dinner and auction will be hosted at Cipriani. The institution, which was founded to preserve the work of the late photographer Gordon Parks, is honoring Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow of Public School and Janelle Monáe. gordonparksfoundation.org
SEMI PERMANENT Sydney, Australia Semi Permanent, a yearly event that brings together design professionals, will feature lectures from executives at Google, Netflix, Ace Hotels, Facebook, and other industry leaders during the “Future States” session. The three-day series is filled with interactive workshops and lessons that will be held at Carriageworks. semipermanent.com SEMI PERMANENT
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PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) STUDIO TOMAS SARACENO. COURTESY DESIGN UNDEFINED. QIAN/FLICKR.COM. COURTESY GORDON PARKS FOUNDATION. COURTESY DESIGN UNDEFINED.
Contributing editor David Basulto, who is also the founder and editor-in-chief of ArchDaily, looks forward to a trip to Italy for the Venice Architecture Biennale.
ARTEBA
Design Dialogues No. 27
COLLABORATION
On March 28, fashion designer Joseph Altuzarra and New York Times fashion director and chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman joined Surface editor-in-chief Spencer Bailey for Design Dialogues No. 27. The talk, which took place at the Gramercy Park Hotel, explored Altuzarra and Friedman’s respective careers, at one point landing on the idea of “slow fashion” in a fastfashion world. “I think we forget that clothes are things that are special,” Friedman said. “Recently, we’ve gotten into this skewed cycle where people just think you just get more stuff, and if you don’t like that stuff, then you get rid of that stuff. It’s a very contemporary way of thinking, not just about fashion, but anything. And it’s not very healthy for anybody. I think it undervalues what someone like Joseph does. We’re sort of due for a correction.” (Photos: Dani Vernon)
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Culture Club Suno Los Angeles Dinner Party
Ashlee Margolis opened her Beverly Hills home to host a dinner party on April 12, celebrating Suno’s fall 2016 collection. Many of the guests were the first to wear pieces from the not-yet-in-stores line. At the event were the label’s Max Osterweis and Erin Beatty, along with Rashida Jones, Gabrielle Union, and Tracee Ellis Ross (pictured here), among others. (Photo: Sam Deitch/bfa.com)
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Palazzo Fendi Opens in Rome
On March 10, Italian fashion house Fendi inaugurated its new Palazzo Fendi in Rome with an event hosted by Pietro Beccari, Karl Lagerfeld, and Silvia Venturini Fendi. Those in attendance enjoyed dinner at Zuma restaurant, located in the five-story building, as well as DJ sets by Lucien Bruguière, Adrien Callier, and the restaurant’s resident DJ. Guests included Kendall Jenner (pictured here), Sofia Coppola, and Bernard Arnault. (Photo: Jacopo Raule/Getty Images for Fendi)
David Yurman and Guggenheim Young Collectors Party
On March 31, the Guggenheim Museum’s Young Collectors Party celebrated its third year of partnering with jewelry designer David Yurman. The evening, hosted by Sarah Arison, Laura de Gunzburg, and Nell Diamond, included a private dinner in the building’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed rotunda. Among the guests were Bee Shaffer, Lindsay Ellingson, and Claire Distenfeld. Pictured here are Corey Wash and DJ MeLo-X. (Photo: Matteo Prandoni/bfa.com)
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Launch of Naomi Campbell Collector’s Edition Book
On April 7, Naomi Campbell, Marc Jacobs, and Benedikt Taschen (pictured, right, with Campbell) hosted a party to celebrate the New York launch of the collector’s edition of the supermodel’s selftitled book. The event took place at the Diamond Horseshoe in New York City, where guests such as Bella Hadid (pictured, left, with Campbell), Anna Wintour, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Von Unwerth, Al Sharpton, and André Leon Talley enjoyed dancing and a performance by Sylvester. (Photos, from left: Dimitrios Kambouris and Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Marc Jacobs International, LLC)
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Chanel’s Spring Dinner
On April 18, Chanel hosted its 11th-annual dinner to celebrate the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival Artists Program. The event took place at New York City’s Balthazar restaurant and honored artists and their contributed original work that was on display during the evening. Guests in attendance included festival co-founders Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, along with Robert De Niro and Katie Holmes. Pictured here, left to right, are Dree Hemingway, Tabitha Simmons, Giovanna Battaglia, Lauren Santo Domingo, and Chloe Sevigny. (Photo: Billy Farrell/bfa.com)
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Dom Pérignon Hosts Event in Joshua Tree
During the week of April 18, Dom Pérignon hosted a three-day experience in California’s Joshua Tree National Park to celebrate its P2 1998 vintage champagne. Guests, among them Kofa Muse (pictured here), Brendan Fallis, and Fuschia Kate Sumner, were helicoptered into the park, where chef Richard Geoffroy offered a tasting of the bubbly that was 16 years in the making. (Photo: Joe Schildhorn/bfa.com)
Matchesfashion.com Celebrates the Launch of New York Residency
Carlos Mota and Nicholas Rytting hosted a party for matchesfashion.com co-founders Tom and Ruth Chapman. The April 14 dinner event marked the launch of the company’s three-day residency at the WOM Townhouse in New York’s Soho neighborhood. Guests in attendance include Lisa Marie Fernandez (pictured here), Diane von Furstenberg, Inga Rubenstein, Adam Lippes, and Sofia Sanchez de Betak. (Photo: Paul Porter/bfa.com)
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Calvin Klein Hosts Coachella Party
On April 16, Calvin Klein hosted a pool party at L’Horizon Hotel and Spa in Palm Springs as part of its weekend-long Coachella festivities. Guests including Caroline Vreeland (pictured, left), Adriana Mora (pictured, right, with Luka Sabbat), David Blaine, and Jaden Smith enjoyed a DJ set by Twin Shadow, sketches by Sean Ryan of Badly Drawn Models, and an acoustic performance by Goldlink. (Photo: Neil Rasmus/bfa.com)
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Sofia Sanchez de Betak and The Luxury Collection’s Private Dinner
To mark the launch of her Greek holiday–inspired Globe-Trotter luggage, Sofia Sanchez de Betak (pictured here) hosted a private dinner with The Luxury Collection on April 11. Guests included Aleksandra Woroniecka, Leandra Medine, Linda Fargo, and Carlos Mota. All enjoyed a Mediterranean meal at the popular Greek outpost Loukoumi Taverna in Queens. (Photo: Billy Farrell/bfa.com)
New Museum Gala
This year’s New Musuem Gala, sponsored by DKNY, honored John Giorno (pictured here, right, with Malcolm Morley), Ugo Rondinone, and Toby Devan Lewis in New York on April 4. The Rainbow Festive theme was inspired by Rondinone’s “Hell, Yes!” sign that once hung outside the museum. Guests including Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne of DKNY and Public School, Jeff Koons, and Mia Moretti enjoyed an art auction by Simon de Pury and music by DJ Stretch Armstrong. (Photo: Madison McGaw/bfa.com)
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YoungArts New York Inaugural Gala
The National YoungArts Foundation raised nearly a half million dollars on April 6 at its inaugural New York gala, hosted with Swarovski at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Guests, among them Omar Hernandez and Laura Gomez Eastwood (pictured here), enjoyed a seated dinner and vignette presentations by YoungArts alumni throughout the evening. (Photo: Carl Timpone/bfa.com)
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Hublot Celebrates New York Flagship and 10 Years of All Black
After a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the occasion of its new Peter Marino–designed Fifth Avenue flagship, Swiss watch brand Hublot hosted a party at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to toast the 10-year anniversary of its All Black watch. Guests enjoyed a DJ set by Hannah Bronfman (pictured, right, with Swizz Beatz) and Brendan Fallis, followed by a live performance from Wyclef Jean. In attendance were Ricardo Guadalupe, Usain Bolt, Pelé, Maxime Büchi, Victor Cruz, and Carmelo Anthony. (Photo: David X. Prutting/bfa.com)
Y-3 Sport Launch
On April 12, Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas celebrated the launch of Y-3 Sport with a dinner at London’s Clocktower in the Edition hotel. Guests including Dilone (pictured here), Nick Wooster, Ruby Aldridge, and Jessica Joffe were treated to a viewing of “There Are No Rules,” a special concept film directed by Nathalie Canguilhem in partnership with Alastair McKimm and Graham Rounthwaite, who hosted the event. (Photo: Matteo Prandoni/bfa.com)
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OBJECT
Slow Rush
RUSH CHAIR BY CHRISTOPHER JENNER BY THE NUMBERS: 1 216 2 3 5 14.5 7 11 104 28 117 0
Year of design development Hours it took Felicity Irons to weave the seat Sections in the frame Materials used Computer programs required to develop the chair Weight in pounds Machines to construct the frame People involved in the construction Total number of components Oak components Inches around the seat frame Right angles
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PHOTO: COURTESY CHRISTOPHER JENNER.
A new, limited-edition chair by Christopher Jenner celebrates the ancient and assiduous craft of Rush matting through a year-long collaboration with Felicity Irons, the last remaining European Rush weaver.
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by Jun I.
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