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ISSUE 123 NOVEMBER 2015 AMERICAN INFLUENCE

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C O N S TA N T E S C A P E M E N T L . M . THE GREATEST INVENTION SINCE THE TOURBILLON GIRARD-PERREGAUX 09100-0002 CALIBER, MANUAL WINDING MECHANICAL MOVEMENT HOUR, MINUTE, CENTRAL SECOND, LINEAR POWER RESERVE INDICATOR 6-DAY POWER RESERVE - 48MM PINK GOLD CASE WITH SAPPHIRE CRYSTAL CASE-BACK ALLIGATOR STRAP WITH FOLDING BUCKLE

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CONTENTS departments

18 Masthead Editor’s Letter 20 22 Contributors 34 Select 44 Detail Know Now 46 48 Travel 50 Hotel 56 Bar 58 Restaurant 60 Store

64 Art 66 Transport 68 Books 70 Material On Time 72 74 Survey 90 Executive 92 Endorsement 96 How It’s Made 192 Object

36 product Styling: Courtney Kenefick Photos: Joanna McClure

taste

The media magnate and craft fanatic on her love of books. Her books. Her oodles and oodles of books.

By Martha Stewart

who’s on the cover? Los Angeles–based architect Frank Gehry has attained the status of legend. At 86, he remains at the top of his game, having just completed major projects for Louis Vuitton’s Bernard Arnault and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. The recent Getty Medal winner is also in the midst of a project to rebuild

168 gallery The Institute of Contemporary Art in

Boston opens the first comprehensive U.S. exhibition about Black Mountain College.

ideas in design New York–based architect and soon- to-be Yale dean Deborah Berke discusses her latest projects and favorite books. A new exhibit shines a light on hippy culture. Cole Haan and Moutain Hardwear join forces to keep urbanites warm.

176 culture club A photo portfolio of recent events in the

Surface universe, including the ground breaking of Virgin’s upcoming New York hotel, the Hammer Museum gala in Los Angeles, and the release event for Google’s Chromecast Audio in New York.

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PHOTOS: IDEAS IN DESIGN, CASSANDRA GIRALDO. PRODUCT, JOANNA MCCLURE. TASTE, MICHAEL MOLFETAS. GALLERY, COURTESY THE WILLEM DE KOONING FOUNDATION. CULTURE CLUB, CHARLES SYKES/INVISION FOR VIRGIN HOTELS/AP IMAGES.

NO. 123

beyond extraordinary Introducing the magnificent waterfront homes of One Park Grove — estate quality condominiums and penthouses with the perfect location, magnificent architecture, spectacular views and a richly-layered lifestyle. Architecture & interiors by OMA • Rem Koolhaas Landscapes by Enzo Enea Interiors & Amenities by Meyer Davis Kitchens and Baths by William Sofield Sculpture by Jaume Plensa Lifestyle curated by Colin Cowie

Signature restaurant by Chef Michael Schwartz PARK-GROVE.COM �� EXCLUSIVE MARKETING AND SALES AGENT DOUGLAS ELLIMAN DEVELOPMENT MARKETING

ORAL REPRESENTATIONS CANNOT BE RELIED UPON AS CORRECTLY STATING THE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE DEVELOPER. FOR CORRECT REPRESENTATIONS, MAKE REFERENCE TO THIS BROCHURE AND TO THE DOCUMENTS REQUIRED BY SECTION 718.503, FLORIDA STATUTES, TO BE FURNISHED BY A DEVELOPER TO A BUYER OR LESSEE. All images and designs depicted herein are artist’s conceptual renderings, which are based upon preliminary development plans, and are subject to change without notice in the manner provided in the offering documents. This project is being developed by 2701 Bayshore One Park Grove, LLC, a Florida limited liability company (“Developer”), which has a limited right to use the trademarked names and logos of Terra Group and Related. Any and all statements, disclosures and/or representations shall be deemed made by Developer and not by Terra Group and Related and you agree to look solely to Developer (and not to Terra Group and Related and/or each of their affiliates) with respect to any and all matters relating to the sales and marketing and/or development of the project. Amenities subject to change without notice.

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CONTENTS

The country’s leading thinkers in art, architecture, and design, plus new hotels to put on your radar.

144 a master’s work

For his latest book, architecture critic Paul Goldberger dives deep into the rich life of Frank Gehry.

114 vision quest Nearly 20 years after Bilbao, architect Frank Gehry continues to transform the world through his genre-defying buildings.

150 mass appeal With Joanne Heyler at the helm

and a bold new museum, the Broad Foundation extends its impact.

124 s tays of the union

It’s been a beyond-stellar year for openings of American boutique hotels. Here, we select a few of the standouts.

156 open plan

As LACMA turns 50, museum director Michael Govan helps usher in an ambitious expansion. cover: Frank Gehry at his studio in Los Angeles photographer: Nathaniel Wood

138 supporting act

or Tom Kundig, architecture is at its F best when it’s a warm-up for the headliner: its surroundings.

corrections: Our September issue’s Know Now column, about a fall Marc by Marc Jacobs campaign conceived by artist Ryder Ripps, was incorrect. After the issue went to press, Ripps wrote to us, “They are not planning on using the images I created.” Also in the issue, the link on page 97 for the Rolf Benz RB 580 chair, was incorrect; it is rolf-benz.com, not poltronafrau.com.

SURFACE

PHOTOS: AMERICAN INFLUENCE, JASPER JOHNS. VISION QUEST, NATHANIEL WOOD. STAY OF THE UNION, COURTESY BORO HOTEL. SUPPORTING ACT, IAN C. BATES. A MASTER’S WORK, MICHAEL RYTERBAND. MASS APPEAL, BRIAN GUIDO. OPEN PLAN, JULIA STOTZ.

112 american influence

NO. 123

THE KWIAT MA D I S O N AV E N U E C O L L E C TI O N 8 0 0 9 2 7 4 3 6 7 | K W I AT. C O M

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Our annual American Influence issue typically focuses on major art and design happenings in U.S. cities that we pay heed to the most: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Chicago. But as we began putting together this year’s edition, it was clear the gravitational pull of the Los Angeles art scene would make the issue largely L.A. centric. When I was there for a few days in late September, I was not only surprised by the number of art spaces, but also by the sheer creative energy. Galleries span the city, and I stopped by many of them: Kayne Griffin Corcoran and David Kordansky, both on South La Brea Avenue; Maccarone, which recently opened a behemoth downtown space; Regen Projects on Santa Monica Boulevard, which had a Matthew Barney show on display (coinciding with a retrospective of his work at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary); and Ace Gallery in Beverley Hills, which was presenting fluorescent works by local artist Ben Jones. Even New York’s 303 Gallery was hosting a two-day Jacob Kassay exhibition at R.M. Schindler’s Fitzpatrick-Leland House on Mulholland Drive. With our special projects editor, Bettina Korek, I also visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, whose charming director, Michael Govan, she speaks with on page 156. LACMA is also where this issue’s cover subject, 86-year-old architect Frank Gehry—don’t call him a “starchitect”— currently has a retrospective of his work (through March 20, 2016). On these pages you’ll find a wide-ranging interview with Gehry (page 114), who recently won the J. Paul Getty Medal and is currently developing a proposal for the future of the Los Angeles River. We also profile Joanne Heyler (page 150), director of the newly opened Broad museum. And there’s an interview with New York–based architecture critic Paul Goldberger (page 144), who spent a significant amount of time out west while researching his new biography, Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry. Elsewhere, we stop by the Topanga Canyon studio of artist Liza Lou for our Art column (page 64), and in Korek’s Know Now (page 46) we celebrate the Los Angeles fine-art printmaker Gemini G.E.L., which turns 50 next year and currently has an exhibition on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (through Feb. 7, 2016). This past summer, a New York Times Style section headline proclaimed, “Los Angeles and Its Booming Creative Class Lures New Yorkers.” When I first read it, I laughed. But it’s not far off. Moving west, specifically to L.A., isn’t just a “trend.” The alluring city’s rich, vibrant culture is both real and visceral. — Spencer Bailey SURFACE

PHOTO: FREDRIK NILSON.

Editor’s Letter

EDITOR’S LETTER

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Contributors

CHRISTIAN HANSEN For our Endorsement piece about Andrew Zuckerman (page 92), we assigned photographer Christian Hansen. A 10-year veteran contributor for The New York Times, he’s traveled and photographed all over the country. Zuckerman was an especially illuminating subject to shoot. “Just seeing the excitement in Andrew’s eyes was really inspiring,” Hansen says. A cloud of embarrassment loomed over the shoot, though, after a certain discovery: Hansen’s shirt was inside out. “Zuckerman was really cool about it,” he says. “He said the look really seemed to be working and that he’d assumed it was intentional.” When Hansen isn’t shooting reportage, he’s diving deep into an interest in conspiracies and the occult, hoping one day he’ll figure out a way to document these worlds through pictures. DAVID KEEPS Los Angeles–based writer David Keeps is the Southern California correspondent for Travel + Leisure. Some may be shocked to discover that he is a native Detroiter, so who better to assign a story about Motown? He may have expected a stroll down memory lane when he met his subject, Andrew Fisher, but it was more, as Keeps puts it, “a pub crawl back through time to the punk rock clubs and concert halls we both frequented.” This made it an exciting, more personal piece to write. “What I like about his story,” Keeps says, “is how he was able to build a business that subverted the traditional model of furniture retailing. It’s a DIY, F-U, punk rock success story.” Other outlets Keeps contributes to include the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and 1stdibs. He’s currently a consulting producer and writer for a forthcoming Bravo series starring Andy Cohen, and has been a member of the Screen Actors Guild for having appeared “ever so briefly” in the ’90s comedy classic Chasing Amy. DAVE KIM To profile architect Tom Kundig for this issue, Dave Kim flew to Seattle, where Kundig is based, at just the right time. “I got to visit during that sweet spot,” Kim says, “when everything is picturesque and the weather is perfect for about a week and a half.” The day before his interview with the architect, he met Matt Anderson, the communications director of Kundig’s firm, for a tour of the office. Housed in an old shoe factory, the studio had a large skylight that could be opened using a handcrank and a bit of hydraulic pressure from the city’s water system. “It was a hands-on example of an important aspect of Tom’s design,” Kim says, “which is to rely on simple processes to do big, superhuman things.” In addition to contributing to Surface as our editor-at-large, Kim works for The New York Times and has taught at Pratt Institute and the City College of New York. He lives in Brooklyn and writes fiction in his spare time. SHANTELL MARTIN “I don’t really plan my drawings in the traditional sense,” says Shantell Martin, a Brooklyn-based visual artist who has drawn on everything—from enormous screens at Shibuya and Harajuku crossings in Tokyo to the walls of the Viacom and Flos headquarters (as well as her own bedroom, which was once featured in The New York Times). For our inaugural Commission column (a pull-out next to page 88), we asked her to put marker to paper to create a piece inspired by her next endeavor: Summit at Sea, a three-day voyage of innovators and influencers including Google’s Eric Schmidt and Uber’s Travis Kalanick (and Surface CEO Marc Lotenberg) that sets sail this month. “I put on some music and drew to the beat until I had a finished picture,” she says of the illustration. “It reflects all the paths we’ve traveled to be where we are in our lives.” TOM DOWNEY Tom Downey is a journalist who has covered everything from Brooklyn firemen—his book, The Last Men Out: Life on the Edge at Rescue 2 Firehouse, focuses on one of the country’s top departments—to Yemeni jihadists and Chinese internet vigilantes. That doesn’t mean he found his turn to architecture for this issue of Surface dull. On the contrary: “I enjoyed having the chance to speak with someone who understands the state of world architecture better than anyone else”—referring, of course, to his interview with critic Paul Goldberger (page 144), whose new book, Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, was recently published by Knopf. “It was really interesting to learn that Goldberger was part of Obama’s Presidential Library search team—and that this was the first such team to consider international architects.” When he’s not reporting for Surface, Downey writes for the likes of WSJ, AFAR, Smithsonian, and others.

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Ideas in Design

IDEAS IN DESIGN

SURFACE

IDEAS IN DESIGN

STUDIO VISIT

Deborah Berke

The New York–based architect and soon-to-be Yale University School of Architecture dean discusses Japanese aesthetics, good books, and her interior designs for the new 432 Park Avenue.

INTERVIEW BY CHRISTINA OHLY EVANS PHOTOS BY CASSANDRA GIRALDO You champion “the architecture of the everyday.” What does this mean to you?

I championed this 20 years ago when I was commuting regularly up 1-95 to teach at Yale. This philosophy celebrated the beauty and inspiration in everyday life: from the diners we’d pass on the road, to new materials being used for construction. I still believe in unselfconscious design that we can all learn from, but I’m now most interested in designing buildings that are linked to where they are. So much of what gets built today could be anywhere. I’m arguing for architecture that’s specific to place. You studied at London’s Architectural Association with Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, and Elia Zenghelis. What impact did this have on your work?

They are all completely fascinating people, but I would have to say that it was the AA that impacted my practice and opened my eyes to a different kind of architecture. There isn’t the same studio culture in the U.K. as in the U.S.—it’s much more about meeting with your critic over there. How does living in New York inform your preference for spare spaces and natural materials? 25

I love New York but because it’s frenetic, dirty, and busy, people want simplicity, clarity, and serenity in their environments. They seek an antidote to the city. In addition to designing minimalist spaces, I tend to gravitate toward natural, clean materials in neutral hues that have integrity to them. You have said that you have a longtime interest in cities as places where things get made. What cities are particularly interesting and productive today?

Right now we are seeing an explosion in cities where things have traditionally been made or exchanged, and Detroit and Nashville are two prime examples of this. Boutique industries are thriving again— from the creation of musical instruments in Nashville, to the production of everything from belts to chairs to custom bicycles in secondary or tertiary cities. Small-scale production is really thriving again. Has being a woman in a field dominated by men felt like an impediment? Is the playing field being leveled with time?

For all women architects I know, there is a glass ceiling of a kind. One example: I was recently sitting in business class on an airplane and was asked what I do by the man seated next to me. When I said I was an architect, he immediately asked, “Do you do interiors?” There are lesser expectations for women. In general, there is a lack of diversity in architecture, and women are certainly better-represented than many other groups. Architecture is hideously unrepresentative of society as a whole. Your love of boutique hotels has led to an ongoing collaboration with 21c Hotels, a small chain of properties housed in restored historic buildings, in smaller cities. What’s important about these properties?

IDEAS IN DESIGN

I came to 21c through an interesting set of circumstances: I had pitched for a project in Louisville that we didn’t get, but one of the principals liked what he heard and asked us to help revitalize that downtown. That has led to work on a series of important buildings, from a conversion project in Buffalo that involves an H.H. Richardson building, to an addition to I.M. Pei’s Rockefeller Arts Center at SUNY Fredonia, to a hotel project in a Shreve Lamb & Harmon building in Durham, and an Albert Kahn building in Oklahoma City that we’re transforming from a Ford plant into a hotel. These are all great buildings that are of a place. We hope to transform them, yet keep them deeply grounded in their sites.

The 6,000-square-foot building refers to the industrial, garage-like composition of the West Chelsea neighborhood. It is composed of custom concrete blocks and also incorporates glazed white brick and corrugated metal. It was the first building built under the new High Line zoning, and it’s contextual to the surroundings. The interiors of the gallery are austere and muted, all to highlight the art within.

How did being a model influence your design aesthetic? Do you have an appreciation for fashion?

If you were to invite the greats of architecture and design to dinner, whom might you include?

My mother was a lingerie designer and I’ve always had a love of fashion. She was a professor at FIT. Her creative life was an inspiration to me, as was her passion for teaching.

By definition they’d all have to be dead—otherwise I’d just have a dinner party! I’d much rather invite poets, composers, and dancers, as I love talking to people who do things other than what I do. Gertrude Stein and Maria Tallchief would be right at the top of my guest list…

Are you still tied to that world? Narciso Rodriguez is a friend.

Narciso and I had drinks last night, and he gave me a beautiful book on Brazilian modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi. He loves architecture, so we always have that to discuss, as well as art exhibits at the MoMA, Supreme Court decisions, government policies, and politics in general. Your firm hosts a rotating art program at the studio that showcases work by up-and-coming artists. How is this series curated?

A three-person curatorial committee selects work by older artists, young people, and artwork that runs the gamut from prints to paintings to sculpture and group shows. The common thread is that the art just has to interest us in some way. These exhibitions are good for office morale—very fun for parties, as they add to the studio environment. And they’re a great forum for emerging artists who don’t always have gallery representation.

New York’s Marianne Boesky Gallery, which you designed, is a combination of corrugated metal and concrete, juxtaposed against the High Line. How did the location influence your choice of materials?

How has your design process evolved from early loft conversions in the 1980s to the collaboration with Rafael Viñoly on 432 Park, currently the tallest building in the western hemisphere?

We are living in cities in very different ways now and the definition of luxury has changed dramatically. Luxury is omnipresent. Much of the work that I do is “whole vision.” We design everything from the building to the furnishings. This project was very different in that way. Can you elaborate on the exquisite finishes, fabrics, lighting solutions, and custom hardware at 432 Park?

Harry Macklowe, the developer, is an old-school modernist and came to us because he wanted an elegant, understated, spare aesthetic that capitalized on the stunning views in all directions. We took inspiration from the classic apartments of Park Avenue for floor plans and layouts. SURFACE

IDEAS IN DESIGN

We looked at the way spaces were traditionally used in terms of general lifestyle and the flow for entertaining in particular. Everything from the herringbone floors, to the baseboards, to the bathrooms with windows that can be seen throughout the half-floor model apartment references the work of historic Park Avenue buildings by the likes of Rosario Candela. Which artists—and what kind of artwork—would you like to see in these spaces at 432 Park?

The walls here are vast and are designed to take art. In the model apartment there are “Seascape” photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto, prints by Ellsworth Kelly and Donald Sultan, and a table by Yves Klein. Old Master paintings would work just as well as the light and spaces are so beautiful. Which building or buildings do you think are greatest of all time?

You famously eschew clutter. What’s an area of your life where you make an exception?

Books. I can’t get rid of them and they line the shelves in both my New York City apartment and at my home in Long Island. From art and architecture tomes, to fiction, to biographies, to books about philosophy, I’m an avid collector. What are the books on your bedside table?

Many at any given time. I’m currently reading the Alexander Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow; Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by New Yorker proofreader Mary Norris; and James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime. Next up will be 1939, a book about the failure of diplomacy to stop World War II. I always have a stack of magazines, too— everything from Vogue and Allure to The Economist and The Nation.

It’s hard to narrow it down, but I’m a huge fan of both Eliel and Eero Saarinen, and the First Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana, is among my favorites. The space, light, and materiality all make this sacred building feel not too precious. Louis Kahn’s library at the Phillips Exeter Academy is another great one. The materiality of it has influenced me forever. What is one place that you’ve traveled to in the past year that really impressed you from a design perspective?

The attention to detail in Japan is incredible. It seems that everything is highly considered, from both a visual and functional perspective. This is true of the architecture, yes, but of every other craft, too. Fabric design, cooking, urban design—they all have a connection to quality and tradition, which is felt even if the idea or expression is new. Naoshima, an art-filled island, is a great example of this.

A conference area in Berke’s Flatiron neighborhood office in Manhattan. (OPPOSITE) An interior model of a residential hall for Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. (PREVIOUS SPREAD) Berke in her office. Stone samples.

IDEAS IN DESIGN

ARCHITECTURE

Grace Farms

Now architecture lovers have something else to do in New Canaan when visiting the Glass House. A building by Sanaa, with landscape design done in collaboration with award-winning firm Olin, brings a Japanese sensitivity for nature into the natural landscapes of Connecticut. Set in the middle of Grace Farms, a new center for artistic and community programming on an 80-acre former horse farm, the pavilion is connected by a single sinuous roof and resembles a small river flowing through a meadow—hence its name, “the River.” The building comprises five sections: a sanctuary, a library, a gymnasium, an orientation center, and a commons with a dining area, placed along a slope for minimum environmental impact. Principal architect Ryue Nishizawa says he hopes that visitors “will have a greater enjoyment of the beautiful environment and changing seasons through the experience created by the River.” Such experiences include Grace Farms’s strong public programming: Site-specific artworks by Thomas Demand, Teresita Fernández, Susan Philipsz, and Beatriz Milhazes are already on display on the sprawling property. —Dave Basulto, editorin-chief of the website ArchDaily

Culture Lab Detroit, an organization that helps pair big-name design stars with Michigan makers, has brought together a new, must-see duo: megawatt event planner David Stark (Brad Pitt and the Whitney Museum are clients) and Rock City ceramicist Victoria Ashley Shaheen. Their brainchild: cream-white stoneware disks that sit atop glass cylinders and make flower arranging a snap, thanks to holes in snowflake and grid patterns. Shaheen makes them all in her Southwest Detroit studio, drilling ceramic slabs by hand and letting them dry for more than a week before glaze-firing them in a 2,175-degree kiln. “You cross your fingers and do some dances for the kiln gods,” she says with a laugh. The resulting pieces—available in 4- to 8-inch sizes—make floral arrangements even more stunning. “Our goal was to create a needed organizational object that was accessible to everybody,” Shaheen says, “whether they live in a studio apartment or are styling their banquet table.” Goal achieved. —Kathryn O’Shea-Evans

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PHOTOS: ARCHITECTURE, IWAN BAAN. UP AND COMING, COURTESY DAVID STARK.

Victoria Ashley Shaheen

PHOTOS: BOOK., NICK WHEELER/COURTESY FRANCES LOEB LIBRARY AND HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN. EXHIBIT, DARIO BARTOLINI (ARCHIZOOM ASSOCIATI).

UP AND COMING

IDEAS IN DESIGN

PHOTOS: BOOK., NICK WHEELER/COURTESY FRANCES LOEB LIBRARY AND HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN. EXHIBIT, DARIO BARTOLINI (ARCHIZOOM ASSOCIATI).

PHOTOS: ARCHITECTURE, IWAN BAAN. UP AND COMING, COURTESY DAVID STARK.

BOOK

“Heroic”

Exposed concrete became the skin and bones of Boston’s civic architecture in the early 1960s. Like other great American cities, it suffered from a severe postwar urban crisis, prompting its leaders to embark on a series of multimillion-dollar urban regeneration projects. Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston (The Monacelli Press), a new book by three local architects and academics, describes the transformative period between 1960 and 1976, and explains how adapting a shared vocabulary of modern concrete architecture allowed Boston to operate as a lab for radical formal ideas. Throughout 300-plus pages, the authors posit that concrete was quite literally a choice between life and death for the city; in doing so, they present a wealth of original drawings and expansive, if academic, descriptions of the city’s Brutalist gems. Projects within the pages include Marcel Breuer’s Madison Park High School in Roxbury—a lesser-known 1977 work from the famous modernist—and the 1969 New England Aquarium, possibly the most insanely ahead-of-itstime sea-life museum in the world, with its super-sized fish tank’s backdrop of ravishing exposed concrete. Although Heroic serves as an important depository, it fails to explain the public’s ongoing dismay for concrete architecture—a noticeable oversight in a time global debate over the very significance and ethics of Brutalist architecture. —Noam Dvir

EXHIBIT

“Hippie Modernism”

There’s a moment in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test when the Merry Pranksters go to visit Timothy Leary at his Millbrook compound, but Leary won’t come out to greet Ken Kesey. The former is “engaged in a very serious experiment, a three-day trip,” and doesn’t care to be disturbed. The Pranksters, who have traveled across the country, respond to this slight with an attitude summed up by Wolfe as “Fuck you, Millbrook, for your freaking frostiness.” Art historians have had a similar relationship to the hippie movement, treating it as something that might make them look bad if they got too close to it. A new show at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, “Hippie Modernism” (through Feb. 28, 2016), however, seemingly seeks to rectify this. The show focuses on the 1960s and ’70s, a fertile period for innovation across art, design, and architecture. The scope is ambitious, from Italian Radicalism (at right, the undulating chairs of architecture firm Superstudio) to the iconic photography of Ira Cohen, who famously shot shamans of the era like William S. Burroughs and Jimi Hendrix. As the show’s curator, Andrew Blauvelt, points out, the title “Hippie Modernism,” is something of an oxymoron, given the flamboyant nature of hippieism’s aesthetic. On the other hand, he says, it was a time when “aspects of modernism were processed through the values of the counterculture.” —Dan Duray

IDEAS IN DESIGN

GEAR

Cole Haan and Mountain Hardwear ZerøGrand Collection

“The urban explorer is looking for both style and functionality,” says David Maddocks, CMO and general manager of business development at Cole Haan, “and is unwilling to sacrifice one over the other.” Aiming to thoroughly combine the two, the footwear label teamed up with adventure outfitters Mountain Hardwear on a collection of men’s and women’s coats and shoes. Keeping city dwellers’ needs at the forefront of the design process, the brands combined their respective scientific know-how—Cole Haan’s proprietary ZerøGrand technology for comfortable, lightweight boots, and Mountain Hardwear’s catalogue of durable fabrics for warmth—to fashion commuter-wear that withstands the elements in flattering silhouettes, fits, and colors. Thoughtfully constructed details show an attention to elevated pieces: an insulated men’s jacket is the length of suit coat, and a women’s parka has a cowl neck. Together, the two lines have acknowledged that city slickers still need weather-proofing. —Courtney Kenefick

TECH

Moto360

PHOTOS: GEAR, COURTESY COLE HAAN. TECH, COURTESY MOTOROLA.

Apple may be the undisputed design champion of the tech world, but when it comes to smart watches, there may be reason to stray. Motorola’s new Moto360—which lets you access email, get directions, and hail an Uber from your wrist, among other things— stands out not for its endless apps and exclusivity, but for a philosophy that says wearables should reflect individual style. Count up all the configurations of case sizes, bezel colors, band materials, and more, and you can come up with more than 300 combos—including one particularly attractive women’s option with a double-wrap leather band and rose gold housing. “People feel a more powerful emotional connection with something when they’re allowed to engage in the design process,” says Motorola Mobility creative director Dickon Isaacs. Even so, Isaacs and his team went to great lengths to make sure that every watch is a top-notch timepiece: The genuine leather straps, for instance, are sourced from Chicago’s 110-year-old Horween tannery, while metal bands are made from aircraft-grade stainless steel. It may not be Hermès (like Apple’s recent release), but then again, you won’t have to get the price upon request, either. From $299, motorola.com —Nikki Ekstein

SURFACE

SCAD congratulates Owen Foster Industrial Designers Society of America

2015 Educator of the Year

Savannah College of Art and Design industrial design chair Owen Foster has earned the respect and admiration of his colleagues and students for his commitment to scholastic excellence, his passion for mentoring tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creative leaders and his dedication to industrial design education.

Discover what makes SCAD stand out. scad.edu

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IDEAS IN DESIGN

60 Water Street

Last fall, before a talk Surface was hosting, I stood next to billionaire real estate developer David Walentas. We weren’t properly introduced; he had come by to say hello to the guests of honor, New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman and architect Annabelle Selldorf. “I love your work,” Walentas told Selldorf. “I steal your designs all the time.” I couldn’t tell whether he was joking. 60 Water Street, a new $150-million building developed by Walentas’s company, Two Trees, next to the Brooklyn Bridge, suggests he was. The 17-story, 425,000-square-foot glass-sheathed atrocity bears absolutely no resemblance to Selldorf’s thoughtfully constructed residential buildings. Designed by Leeser Architecture and Ismael Leyva Architects, it fails to do for the skyline of Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood what architect Jeanne Gang’s wavy Aqua Tower largely does for the center of Chicago: attracting the eyes of passersby while also disappearing into the cityscape. The facade implements fritted glass fins that Leeser claims give it a “cloudlike presence.” Hardly. In stark contrast to the surrounding historic brick structures, it’s just another soulless, corporate-looking tower touting “luxury” rentals. Many neighborhood residents have complained about the loss of views. Walentas’s son, Jed, the CEO of Two Trees, has rebutted these critics, telling The Times earlier this year, “The building blocks views—all buildings block views.” I agree with him, mostly. Views aren’t necessarily the issue here, as the once-empty site was ripe for development. What I simply can’t stomach, though, is the building’s drab aesthetics and poor execution. I live several blocks away, and I cringe every time I walk by it. I’ve never felt as viscerally about a squandered architectural opportunity as with this building. While there are a few aspects to applaud—the roof deck landscaped by James Corner Field Operations, the new middle school, and 58 affordablehousing units—the rest is unredeemable.

It’s a travesty, though not surprising, that the building made it through a drawn-out land-use approval in 2009, winning the signoff of Bloomberg’s City Council. Even powerful critics like historian David McCullough, actor Helen Hunt, and director Ken Burns couldn’t stop the project from moving forward. In the context of Two Trees’s developments and Leeser’s architecture, however, the outcome is very surprising. Founded in 1968, Two Trees has been largely responsible for the revitalization of Dumbo, where it owns 11 other buildings—most of them tastefully done— comprising more than three million square feet. The company has invested a reported $200 million into the neighborhood. And though Leeser, led by principal Thomas Leeser, hasn’t built much, the forwardthinking firm is behind the gutsy expansion of the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. The next major project getting underway for Two Trees is the redevelopment of the Domino Sugar refinery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Currently under construction—it broke ground in March and is expected to continue apace for the next six to eight years— the five-building scheme for Domino, designed by SHoP Architects, creates a new skyline via two bridge-connected towers. The renderings look as harebrained and out of context as those for 60 Water Street did before it was built. And though New York magazine architecture critic Justin Davidson has called the plan “a gesture of masochistic genius,” I’m not buying it. SHoP succeeded massively with its bold and brawny design of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center arena. That doesn’t seem to be the case here. Perhaps simply stealing Annabelle Selldorf’s ideas isn’t enough. Maybe Two Trees should actually hire her. —Spencer Bailey

SURFACE

ILLUSTRATION: VICTOR KERLOW. KERLOW

CRITIC

Designed for excellence In the last two years alone, the Savannah College of Art and Design has amassed an abundance of prestigious awards from many of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading design organizations.

12 Red Dot Awards

4 Royal Society of Arts Awards

4 Industrial Designers Society of America Awards

7 International Design Awards

Discover what makes SCAD stand out. scad.edu

Qâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;WIK 15 John Gray Parker, M.F.A. service design, New Orleans, Louisiana Philip Caridi, B.F.A. industrial design, Alexandria, Virginia

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There’s an ethereal mystery to the clothes from for the resort season,with exotic ostrich skin The Row. They appear to move—or, rather, and a deep, romantic color. The sisters, who float—in an otherworldly way. Perhaps it’s have solidified their spot at the top of fashion, this fluidity that earned Mary-Kate and Ashley will continue to evolve the label in the same Olsen the 2015 CFDA Womenswear Designer thoughtful, intentional-yet-inventive way of the Year award for the second time in four that their clothes carry. Next year, 10 years years. Not shadowed by these idyllic ready- after launching, The Row’s first New York to-wear pieces are the collection’s accesso- City location will open inside a 71st Street ries. Their signature minimalism translates to townhouse, creating an aspirational showsimply stated, but easily perceptible, silhou- case for its quixotic austerity. The Row ostrich ettes. Case in point: this dark spruce Drum bag. Drum bag, price upon request, barneys.com The shape, which debuted in fall, was updated —Courtney Kenefick SURFACE

PHOTO: JOANNA MCCLURE.

Serenity Now

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Bag, Elizabeth and James.

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Natural Selection

A range of bold wares and subtle staples make up America’s diverse fashion landscape. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOANNA MCCLURE STYLED BY COURTNEY KENEFICK

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Shoes, 3.1 Phillip Lim.

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Bags (from top), Mansur Gavriel and Alexander Wang.

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Ford. Vodka, Ketel One. Coat, Moncler. Scarf, AcneSandals, Studios.Tom Trunk, Bertoni 1949. Boots, Louis Vuitton. Hat, Gucci.

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Bag, Altuzarra.

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Shoes, Malone Souliers. Bag, Jason Wu.

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Coat, Ralph Lauren RLX. Ax, Best Made Co. Boots, Moschino. Camera, Pentax QS-1. Keychain, Loewe. Bag, Kenzo.

After discovering the work of New York–based based painter and illustrator Alice Lancaster on Instagram, Calvin Klein’s Franciso Costa collaborated with the artist to create an abstract breast print (seen here on a cashmere dress) for the label’s resort 2016 collection. Calvin Klein woven dress; $4,895; calvinklein.com

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PHOTO: MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

Form Attire

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C O R D I A des ign jehs + laub | quickship

CORDIA FP-SURFACE NOVEMBER.pdf 1 10/1/2015 12:46:09 PM

CMY

A Los Angeles publisher of art prints celebrates its 50th anniversary with a National Gallery of Art exhibition. 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

Installation views of “The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L.” at the National Gallery of Art.

Since co-founding Gemini G.E.L.—a pub- Felsen puts it, “I think artists make prints lisher of limited-edition artist prints—nearly because it’s a challenge. They can experiment five decades ago, Sidney Felsen has been forever and have a very different result.” altering Los Angeles’s art landscape. Gemini quickly became a hub for creative Felsen became involved in the city’s art scene relationships. East Coast practitioners gladly by attending night-school classes—where he crossed the country to spend weeks developing befriended instructors—and frequenting gal- printed works onsite under Felsen’s guidance. lery openings. While traveling through Europe, Local artists hung around, too, including a young he encountered artist workshops and recog- architect named Frank Gehry, who designed the nized the opportunity for one in Los Angeles. company’s building in 1976. Says Felsen: “This He enlisted his close friend, the art collector was before he became Frank Gehry.” (For our Stanley Grinstein. Together they approached interview with the now-famous architect, see Ken Tyler, a master printer who ran a work-for- page 114.) Over the years, Gemini has developed a verihire printing company called Gemini Ltd. At the Grinsteins’s annual Christmas Eve party, Tyler table canon of editioned works. One hundred agreed to go into business with them. With their twenty seven of them are currently on view in powers combined, they turned Gemini into an “The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L.” at the unusually experimental publishing house. National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Though Abstract Expressionists were the (through Feb. 7, 2016). Gemini has inspired most established figures at the time, Gemini many to begin collecting, including Creative gravitated toward working with younger and Artists Agency co-founder Michael Ovitz. The underexposed artists—now all household exhibition—which will travel to the Los Angeles names—including Man Ray, Josef Albers, Roy County Museum of Art, where it’s slated to Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, and Ed Ruscha. open in fall 2016—will very likely expose a new Most were accustomed to working alone in their generation to the rich potential of contemporary studios. The collaborative nature of printmaking, printmaking. which involves the input of artists and skilled printers alike, was therefore new to them. As SURFACE SURFACE

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Detroit Rising

TRAVEL

BY DAVID A. KEEPS PORTRAIT BY WINNI WINTERMEYER Growing up in Motown, Andrew Fisher at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where always heard the same old song. “I’m a third Charles Eames, Florence Knoll, and Eero generation Detroiter, and my grandfather Saarinen once roamed the campus. Shortly described the city as the Paris of the Midwest,” before graduation, he met Ron Saarinen says the founder of the design retail group Swanson, the nephew of Eero, who had Arkitektura. “Detroit was a powerhouse of amassed an impressive collection of design industrial design with incredible enthusiasm and decorative arts. “His wife wanted all that for the next big thing and world-class muse- stuff out of their house,” Fisher says with a ums and architecture.” laugh. “So I opened a showroom.” When Fisher was a child, however, the city For the past 30 years, the Arkitektura flagwas torn apart by racial strife and the begin- ship in Birmingham, Michigan, has champining of a serious decline for the auto indus- oned the classic 20th-century aesthetic forged try. “We lived in hope that someday the city at Cranbrook and introduced new European was going to come back,” he recalls. Fisher’s designers to the U.S. In 1997, Fisher relocated connection to the soul of Detroit—innovation to San Francisco, where he now owns another and craftsmanship—first found expression Arkitektura showroom, as well as stores for in furniture design. Living in Grosse Pointe B&B Italia, Cassina, Poltrona Frau, and Farms, with close proximity to downtown, he Cappellini and Kartell. As much an educator roamed the famed Detroit Institute of Arts as a retailer, Fisher also curates Arkitektura and was fascinated by Mies van der Rohe’s Assembly, a program of lectures, exhibitions, legendary Lafayette Park 1960s apartment and online content. He is buoyed—and sometimes bummed— complex, which this year was designated a National Historic Landmark District. that in recent years Detroit has become After earning a design degree at Northern something of a curiosity, drawing renMichigan University, Fisher became, at 22, egade investors (Quicken Loans’s Dan the woodworking instructor at the presti- Gilbert, Shinola’s Tom Kartsotis), transgious Cranbrook High School in the afflu- planted New Yorkers, and photographers ent Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. He shooting the city’s urban decay. “I suppose earned a master’s degree in furniture design it has a bit of that East Berlin thing going on:

the edginess, the huge bizarre sprawl with little pockets of enterprise, the forgotten tidbits of history, and an economy where you can affordably have an underground lifestyle,” Fisher says. Detroit, he contends, has always been a pioneering frontier, one that has given birth to the modern automobile, the futuristic sound of Detroit Techno music, and the edgy-butelegant rock ’n’ roll fashion of native son John Varvatos. It’s a proletarian town with a subversive streak. Fisher, in fact, began his woodworking career in a suitably countercultural fashion making amplifiers for his high school rock band, and Arkitektura was instrumental in taking down the consortium of trade-only U.S. showrooms that controlled the distribution and sale of European design. Now, after years of recession, his Detroit store has rebounded. “There are cranes downtown and people on the street, new restaurants, and a new energy,” says Fisher, who as a local business owner and board member of Cranbrook, visits often. “I hear from a lot of people that it reminds them of Soho and Chelsea 30 years ago. There’s this potential that the art world could launch the renaissance of Detroit, and I’m really curious to see what happens.” SURFACE

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PHOTO: 01, COURTESY CRANBOOK ACADEMY OF ART. 02, COURTESY WASSERMAN PROJECTS. 03, COURTESY BELLE ISLE PARK. 04, COURTESY HENRY FORD MUSEUM.

Arkitektura founder Andrew Fisher developed his love of design in his home city in the Midwest.

TRAVEL

INSIDE GUIDE TO DETROIT BY ANDREW FISHER 01 The Motor City is a collection of far-flung, disconnected enclaves, says Fisher. For art and design enthusiasts, a must-stop is the campus of his alma mater, Cranbrook Academy of Art, designed by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen. “It was a remarkable period of architecture, a mixture of Arts and Crafts, Prairie style, and Finnish Romanticism,” he says. “The scale, light, furniture—everything about the work is crazy beautiful.” While you’re in the area, stay at the European-style Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, and stop in at his nearby Arkitektura showroom. 2131 Cole Street, Birmingham; 248-646-0097; arkdet.com 02 Once a commercial hub for the restaurant industry, the Eastern Market is now a vibrant area filled with gourmet groceries, artisan businesses, and galleries. The latest entry is the ambitious Wasserman Projects, founded by art collector Gary Wasserman. The rehabbed red brick factory features site-specific installations and musical performances by an international roster of conceptual and experiential artists. Next year, it will host a permanent installation by Belgian artist Koen Vanmechlen’s live fowl Cosmopolitan Chicken Project. “Wasserman had 300 people spilling out on the street at his opening,” Fisher says. “He’s just killing it.” 3434 Russell Street, No. 502, Detroit; 313-818-3550; wassermanprojects.com

PHOTO: 01, COURTESY CRANBOOK ACADEMY OF ART. 02, COURTESY WASSERMAN PROJECTS. 03, COURTESY BELLE ISLE PARK. 04, COURTESY HENRY FORD MUSEUM.

03 “When I was a young degenerate, my friends and I would steal boats from the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle and chase the freighters on the Detroit River,” Fisher says. Once rundown, Belle Isle Park, “a jewel in the middle of the river with views of downtown Detroit and Windsor, Canada,” has been restored to its former glory. Among its many pleasures: A 1904 greenhouse conservatory complex and a green-tiled aquarium designed by the Detroit-based Albert Kahn (1869-1942), who revolutionized industrial architecture and built the Fisher Building, an Art Deco masterpiece, in midtown, near the Detroit Institute of Arts. 04 In the western suburb of Dearborn, Henry Ford, marketer of the first affordably priced car and a curator of historical artifacts, built a lasting legacy. “The Henry Ford Museum is filled with trains, planes, and automobiles,” says Fisher. “And next to it, in his turn-of-the-century Greenfield Village, Ford had Thomas Edison’s incredible Menlo Park laboratory recreated.” 20900 Oakwood Boulevard, Dearborn; 313-982-6001; thehenryford.org

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A Brooklynite takes his urban bed and breakfast concept to the Music City. BY NATE STOREY

Urban Cowboy founder Lyon Porter (right) and Jersey Banks in Nashville. (OPPOSITE) The main foyer of the new Urban Cowboy in Nashville.

For his second act, Porter packed up a It’s 9 o’clock on a Wednesday night in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Lyon Porter is 1989 Jeep Wagoneer and vintage Airstream waxing poetic about his obsession with and headed for the Music City. The location Southwestern Victorian Deco in the living in up-and-coming East Nashville, where room of the Urban Cowboy, his five-room small-batch breweries stand next to craft B&B that landed the former minor-league hot dog stands, is synergetic with the eclechockey player in practically every glossy tic Adirondacks-style outpost in Brookpublication that covers travel and design lyn. However, the design couldn’t be more when it opened in 2014. Beneath a rolling diametrical. The converted 1890s Victorian garage door that opens to the backyard is mansion Porter chose for Cowboy 2.0 takes a guy named Jetski, a rep for fashion brand on the aesthetic of an old western. Zanerobe, taking pulls of whiskey. Actress Emily Ratajkowski, who hates it when you Rooms call her the girl from the Blurred Lines music video, is drinking red wine in the communal “It reminds me of the house where I grew up kitchen with a friend (she’s in town shooting in Ohio,” he says about the layout of the second-floor rooms. The heart pine floors, copher next film). Porter pays no mind. He’s more interested per candlesticks by local maker Hand Dandy in talking about the new Urban Cowboy.. Productions, and beds tucked in century-old “I’m just really fascinated by Southwestern dormers are manifestations of Porter’s childdesign and Art Deco right now. They are hood nostalgia. His version of en-suite tubs both ornate, they are both angular, and they came with the help of boutique construction shop Ochoa Brothers—the clawfoots, which have nothing to do with each other.” In the two years since the Cowboy opened, rest on tiled pedestals that create a floating it’s become a clubhouse for passing-through effect, were placed under skylights so guests Instagram stars, celebrities, musicians, artists, can gaze at the stars (in the octagonal turret the fashion crowd, and most importantly, room, an 1800s copper and wood coffin tub neighborhood denizens. “One of the special sits next to a teepee). things about the original property is that it’s so small, so everyone gets to know one an- Public Spaces other,” he says, before reiterating what has become his catchphrase. “People arrive as Porter assembled a team of eccentric craftsmen to help bring his vision to life. For instrangers and leave as friends.” SURFACE

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PHOTOS: ANDREA BEHRENDS.

Cowboy Culture

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PHOTOS: ANDREA BEHRENDS.

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PHOTOS: ANDREA BEHRENDS.

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stance, he collaborated Patrick Hayes of 1767 Designs, a local woodworker who specializes in reclaimed materials sourced at demolition sites, to create a hammered copper and burnt wood wall. The psychedelic main foyer looks like a Navajo Indian took peyote and interpreted a deep dream with a dazzling pine wall that resembles a massive woven blanket. Not to be outdone is the hidden door it camouflages. “I wanted the first experience upon entry to punch you in the face to reinforce that you’ve never been anywhere like this before,” he says. For accent, he tasked Brooklyn’s Clint Van Gemert of Bklynteriors to design a variety of hand-pasted wallpaper in a range of radical styles, from a distressed turquoise evil eyes motif to a bull skull print that could double as the Texas Longhorns logo. “Clint doesn’t just do wallpaper; he’s an artist who uses wallpaper as his medium,” Porter says. The ground-floor parlors act as the hotel’s social dens. Under 12-foot ceilings, the vin53

tage furniture pieces are the bounty from a yearlong hunt by Porter and innkeeper (slash girlfriend) Jersey Banks to antique shops around the country: New York, Ohio, and Tennessee, among others. Art tile fireplaces, original stained-glass windows, and American chestnut pocket doors are just a few of the found treasures incorporated into the spaces. You might even see a banjo or two. “I designed it like your favorite leather jacket, it looks better the more you live in it, beat up,” he says. In other words, make yourself comfortable. Porter adds, “Jump on the couch, lie on the chaise; it’s not a museum, it’s a rock ‘n’ roll bed and breakfast. Music is Nashville’s creative core. I hope people will pick up a guitar or bang on the drums.” The backyard is a respite for the road-weary. A ramshackle structure that was once a Dairy Queen is now a cocktail lounge. Consider the Airstream, parked next to two 100-year-old holly trees, a nook to sip drinks. Then there’s

the cabin suite, which was built by the previous owner to host his gay lovers while his wife was asleep in the main house. Ironic, since Porter says the property will now function as a sanctuary for the uninhibited. “The spirit of the Cowboy is freedom, a place for locals and travelers to truly be themselves, have a few drinks, play some music, with no pretext or pretention. The ultimate hang.”

A parlor at the hotel. (OPPOSITE) The ceiling with wallpaper by Bklynteriors.

“We’re faced with far too many choices in our day-to-day lives. But more doesn’t equal better. What we do with our time—and where we spend it—is true luxury. This is where Surface Hotels comes in. Our editors are searching far and wide to bring you the best places to stay in the world, and give you our insight into why a hotel may be the right destination for you.” Spencer Bailey Editor-in-Chief, Surface

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A Manhattan cocktail bar’s forward-thinking beverage program comes with a underground aesthetic. BY LAURA ITZKOWITZ At just 575 square feet, the newest cocktail lounge by design firm Avroko has ambitions that far exceed its size, not to mention its location on the fringe of New York’s Little Italy. All the visual cues—the flashing neon sign pointing down to the basement, curtain made of plastic flaps, vinyl floor, retail shelving, and self-serve refrigerators— signify a seedy dive full of cheap booze. Yet this subterranean spot hidden under Genuine Superette, a California-style burger joint Avroko launched in April, contains one of the most innovative cocktail concepts in New York and perhaps, by extension, the world. “We like to try to find the high-low line in a lot of our projects, both in the design and also in terms of the programming,” Adam Farmerie, one of the partners, says. “The space is made up of the cheapest retail fixtures money can buy, thrown up against walls that are just existing, and yet they’re

lit with the perfect temperature LED most refined palate. This three-fold program bulbs so all the bottles glow in a marvelous represents a radical departure from the status way that celebrates the juxtaposition.” quo. Farmerie affirms: “We sort of open up The team collaborated with Eben Freeman, the curtains to let you behind to see the stage who earned a reputation for cocktail set, which I don’t think anybody’s ever done.” What drove Avroko to pair a high-end creativity at Wylie Dufresne’s defunct WD50 and heads the beverage development for cocktail program with a downmarket all of Avroko’s projects, to conceptualize look? “Once we started with that idea, the Liquorette’s drink program and optimize notion of a ’70s California bodega liquor the design to function seamlessly with it. store that’s a little bit run down became the “The inspiration came from thinking about perfect muse for celebrating that access.” what kind of bar we want to sit in,” Farmerie The partners, who are self-described says. “Some of our favorite experiences stem history nerds, did extensive research while from feeling a sense of ownership, when the brainstorming the design: combing through psychological barrier between the customer old Time and Life magazines, browsing and the bartender is broken down.” books at the indie-driven Strand in the East How do you execute that vision? Give the Village, and watching retro TV shows like public full access. Thus the bar’s self-serve, Charlie’s Angels. They puzzled over every pay-by-the-weight model was born. Grab detail, from the black lacquer tables built beer or wine from the Quickie Mart-grade to store 12-packs of beer to the convex cooler, or a bottle of spirits off the shelves, security mirrors in the corners. Even the and if you’ve taken Freeman’s class, mix bathroom is plastered with images of craft cocktails using the tools behind the bar. Farrah Fawcett, one of which once hung on Of course, the pros on hand can shake up Farmerie’s wall. The result is larger than the any concoction a patron desires. The most sum of its parts, but it’s also simply—and envelope-pushing aspect is the bartender’s most importantly for a depiction of a grabchallenge. Each month, Freeman will choose and-go—a place you don’t want to leave. a spurned liquor from the misfits wall— which might be apricot brandy or neon-blue Hpnotiq—and task bartenders from all over the country to create a drink worthy of the SURFACE

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Cocktail by Eben Freeman INSPIRED BY LIQUORETTE What do you get when you marry bulldogstyle cocktails and all-things-mini together? A Cha-Chunker cocktail. I came up with the idea to do these all-in-one cocktails with small-scale ingredients, but when it came to fitting everything into the mouth of the can, we realized it needed to be widened. That’s when I created the machine affectionately known as the Cha-Chunker. It’s an arbor press that we tricked out a bit, and when lowered into the mouth of a can of juice or soda, it widens it. Then I insert a miniature bottle of booze, straw, and a garnish or two, and voila. To do this at home, a citrus reamer mimics the action of the Cha-Chunker, and you still use all the ingredients found in a piña colada; instead, they’re all contained in the mini can of pineapple juice. Once mastered, you can do this with all your favorite mixed drinks, like a gin and tonic, a whiskey and ginger, and more. 51⁄2 oz 50 oz 1 ⁄4 oz

can of pineapple juice bottle Malibu Coconut Rum lime juice pineapple leaf

PHOTOS: GARRETT ROWLAND.

Open pineapple juice can. Use citrus reamer to extend the mouth of the can. Pour out 1 ⁄4 of juice in can. Insert straw and inverted bottle of Malibu Coconut Rum. Garnish with a pineapple leaf on the side of the can. Eben Freeman is head of bar operations and beverage development for Avroko.

Alain Ducasse’s new restaurant inside the Delano Las Vegas gets an ethereal touch. BY NIKKI EKSTEIN

wonder. It retains only one piece from the original space: a bubbles chandelier that has since been copied in nearly every city around the globe. The tables, tucked into curved fabric-covered booths, feel semi-private, and have custom built-in champagne holsters that pop up from a hidden compartment with the push of a button. (This is Vegas, after all.) The main dining area puts a new twist on maritime décor, with a three-dimensional wave wall made of blue-toned plexiglass tiles that’s a sort of pixelated interpretation of the shimmering Mediterranean. A massive horseshoe-shaped, mahogany banquette anchors the room, with enough seats for 40 and the elegance of a Riva yacht. For the stars, head to the private dining room, where a brass-paneled ceiling is outfitted with lightbulbs meant to portray the constellations in the Nevada sky. At the adjacent Skyfall Lounge, a nightspot by the team behind the groundbreaking Death & Co. in New York, amorphous forms on the ceiling resemble clouds that join purple hues, honey gold accents, and red furniture pieces to evoke the sunset. Both have dead-on panoramas of the cityscape. “The design can’t talk over the view,” says Manku, pointing to the Strip below. But clearly, the two can harmonize.

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PHOTO: MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

Not long ago, the 64th floor of the Delano was open to the elements. The former Mix restaurant had run its course—it was a product of turn-of-the-millennium extravagance that felt out of place in the post-crash world—so the original Parisian design team, Jouin Manku, came back to the scene to create something new. “The floor-to-ceiling windows needed to be replaced,” recalls partner Sanjit Manku, “so there was a moment during construction when the whole space was completely open air, nothing but a single long table with construction lights overhead. It was magical. We almost wanted to keep it that way.” Instead, they did the next best thing: bring the elements indoors. The new restaurant, Rivea, has a warmer, softer look than its predecessor, with a menu of Italian Riviera–inspired cuisine by acclaimed chef Alain Ducasse. “In Vegas, you get so much sun,” says Manku, pointing out the one similarity between Sin City and the towns of Portofino, Sanremo, or Vernazza. “But here, you never see the clouds or stars.” So Jouin Manku set the design mission accordingly, beginning with the lofty ambition of bringing the stars and clouds back to Sin City. Two nebulous overhead formations greet guests at the entrance, each one painted in high-gloss metallic blue car paint that reflects off the tinted glass walls. “They’re magnified and multiplied at the same time, almost like they’re being projected into the outdoors,” says Manku. Rivea is glamorous in a modern way: toned down, more human, with a strong feeling of

PHOTO: COURTESY RIVEA.

Stars Over the Strip

RESTAURANT

Dish by Sandy Dee Hall INSPIRED BY RIVEA AND SKYFALL LOUNGE The restaurant’s vivid colors led me to create a seafood trio to showcase the fluidity of the spaces. Starting with the deep red couches in the lounge, I prepared a tuna tartare. The space is more intimate and wraps around, which reminded me of how tuna tartare is diced yet still mended to provide a cohesive dish. Moving toward the middle of the room and the bar, the space becomes more airy, open, and bright—yet remains warm. For this area, I decided to work with red snapper, a larger piece of fish with silver scales. Playing off the colors of the room and the vast space, the dish evolves from the smaller tuna to the larger cut of red snapper. Finally there’s the dining room, which is characterized by an elegant chandelier, and feels clean and fresh—like a clam. Playing with the idea of the hanging bulbs, I prepared it with white wine vinegar, to transition from more robust to extremely light. Sandy Dee Hall is the chef at Black Tree Orchard on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Raw’r Bar in South Hampton. Black Tree Brooklyn opened in October. Serving size 1

Tuna Tartare

PHOTO: MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

PHOTO: COURTESY RIVEA.

Red Snapper Ceviche

Clam Sashimi

Ingredients:

Preparation

1 ⁄4 ¼ 1⁄4 2 1 1

Dice tuna into quarter-size cubes and put aside. In a separate bowl, mix soy sauce, mustard powder, ginger, chives, and ball spice together with salt and pepper to taste. Add tuna to bowl and mix until it’s covered in sauce and marinade. Let it sit for a minute and place cabbage leaf open on plate. Add marinated tuna to ring mold and pack it in. Place onto cabbage leaf and tap it lightly until tuna comes out. Garnish with purple radish microgreens and drizzle with olive oil on top.

pound sushi-grade tuna cup soy sauce tablespoons mustard powder tablespoon freshly grated ginger handful of chopped chives salt and pepper to taste extra virgin olive oil ball spice (pinch of cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, anise) cabbage leaf

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1 2 1 ¼ 6 1 1

Muddle salt, pepper, raspberries, scallions, tequila, and cider vinegar together. Separately, cut red snapper filet into quarters and place in a bowl. Pour mixture onto red snapper, and mix with hands. Let marinate for seven minutes. Separately begin prepping the plating by cutting into red cabbage head vertically into a 1⁄8 ring or a thin slice. Place onto plate. Take pieces of red snapper and lay them on cabbage. Garnish with micro wasabi greens and a spoonful of caviar. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil on top, then add a pinch of sea salt.

filet red snapper ounces reposado tequila cup cider vinegar raspberries handful scallions full red cabbage tablespoon Hackleback caviar micro wasabi greens extra virgin olive oil sea salt

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3 1 ⁄8

Open all three clams and place one on the plate. Take the meat from two clams and chop it up in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, add white wine vinegar, and a pinch of fennel pollen, salt, and pepper. Add the chopped clams to the mixture and let marinate for a minute and a half. After it’s finished, place marinated clams in whole clam. Garnish with micro pea shoots.

Shinnecock Bay littleneck clams cup white wine vinegar fennel pollen pinch salt and pepper micro pea shoots

Krewe du Optic’s French Quarter flagship is a nod to the brand’s southern roots. BY KATIE JAMES

New Orleans does not only serve as the origin of Krewe du Optic—it’s the eyewear company’s livelihood. The buzzy two-yearold label (which takes its name from diverse groups that organize spirited Mardi Gras parades) draws together the city’s historic architecture, vibrant culture, and, of course, the eclectic people. “We truly believe that people are our brand, not the other way around,” says founder, creative director, and NOLA native Stirling Barrett. “That’s why we don’t have any logos, and we’re not out there marketing ourselves.” Instead, the Louisiana destination serves as the homegrown brand’s logo, with each style being informed by the Big Easy. Vintageinspired sunglasses take on the vitality of the metropolis in the form of electric-hued mirrored lenses and 24-karat gold-plated details. One angular frame called the JLP is named after a French-American pirate notorious for his smuggling operation in the region, and the St. Louis derives its brushed metal bridge from the iconic 19th-century wrought-iron balconies of the French Quarter. So when opportunity arose to open Krewe’s first flagship this past August, the Quarter was a natural home. Barrett debuted the 900-square-foot space on Royal Street on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. “It was more emotional than I expected,” he

said. “But to open something new and design it as a place for conversation showed, I think, how far we’ve come in 10 years.” The idea of conversation is central to Barrett’s concept store, which he imagined with the help of designer and fellow local Benjamin Bullins. Customers coming in off of the gallery-riddled street are greeted by a verdant succulent wall (Barrett has an affinity for plants), before moving into the minimalist display area, called the Sun Room, where delicately handcrafted frames are artfully set on linear shelving. Hints of the building’s historical past, like an original 19th-century wall, live harmoniously among new, more modern elements. In the back of the space, an espresso bar run by Merchant, NOLA’s premier java joint, serves up Illy coffee, matcha, and artisan teas. A narrow outdoor courtyard and intimate seating area invite customers to hang out; the latter features low-slung benches that were built from original growth of 1800s Louisiana Cyprus. “You don’t buy sunglasses everyday, but the space is designed for people to have conversations and be part of the creative fabric of New Orleans,” Barrett says. “And then, if you need a pair of shades one day, we’re here too.”

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PHOTO: COURTESY KREWE DU OPTIC.

Easy on the Eyes

STORE

PHOTO: COURTESY KREWE DU OPTIC.

STORE

Reading Rainbow

TASTE

I have a tremendous number of books, so I decided to turn one of the seven buildings on my farm in Bedford, New York, into a library. It’s a 1776 structure, and I gutted it and rebuilt it in the same style as the original. It’s very different from just a room in a house—it is a house. One room is all art books. My ex-husband was the president of Abrams Books, which published the best monographs in America on art. Then he started an imprint called Stewart, Tabori & Chang, which did great big volumes on things like the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, and the Hermitage. So I have wonderful art books on pretty much every artist, from early art, to the Medieval period and the Renaissance, and all the way up to the contemporary.

An evergrowing collection of books satiates an industrious leader’s intellectual appetite. BY MARTHA STEWART ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL MOLFETAS

used. I’m always looking for old garden plans, and information about plants. Those are in the libraries upstairs, in one of two bedrooms there, although my really extensive garden library is still in East Hampton, and has yet to be moved to Bedford. At my house in Maine, I have a library devoted to that state. It’s all books that were written in or about Maine, or by Maine authors, or published in Maine. I don’t know if it’s true, but I was told that Maine has more authors per capita than any other state in America. I’ve catalogued most of my books using a library program, and I’m always editing my books: making room for new ones, and keeping the valuable older ones. I’ve had a real problem choosing the lighting for my Bedford library, because it’s very hard to find library lights. I finally found the right ones at Modulightor on East 58th Street in New York. They’re going to fit into the upper part of the shelving and illuminate the spines. They’re being made right now, and when they’re in place, it’s going to be utterly beautiful. I grew up with books, and I love them. When my daughter was a young girl, my biggest gift to her was, if she wanted to read anything, I would buy it for her. I still pay for all her books, and she’s a mother of two and a grown woman. She has a vast library, and her children, who are only 3 and 4, have hundreds of books in their rooms already—and they know every book in their libraries. It’s in our DNA. Now, though, I read on my iPad. What’s bothersome about reading from a Kindle or an iPad is that you have all your books with you at all times. I’ve never read like this before. I’m in the middle of several books, and I do not like that. I would much rather finish one book and then go on. But I’ve gotten a little sloppy: Right now I’m reading Euphoria by Lily King, The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, The Negotiator by George Mitchell, and H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald. But I encourage people to get real books. Even if you read it on an iPad, if you love it, you should get the hard copy, too, and keep it for posterity for your children and your grandchildren.

The author is the founder of Martha Stewart In the hallways are my classics—and I Living Omnimedia and an Emmy Award– mean real classics, in Greek and Latin. I winning television host. Her fourth annual have the entire Loeb Classical Library American Made Summit, a nationally recogfrom Harvard University Press. The red- nized awards program that celebrates local and bound books are all the Roman books, handmade products, is on Nov. 7. which are in Latin, and the green books are all Greek. You’ll find every single work that has ever been translated from Greek, like Ovid and Homer. I like what librarians call “stacks”—counters in the middle of the room, loaded with books and with workspaces on top where you can stand and look at big volumes—so I have a stack room where I keep my cookbooks, my first-edition novels, and my lifestyle and design books. The cooking and gardening books are the ones I reference the most—my gardening books are very wellSURFACE

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Bead Works

ART

With glass as her guide, Liza Lou constructs wondrous and intricately crafted installations. BY MARINA CASHDAN PORTRAIT BY SALLY PETERSON “I always wanted to be an artist,” Liza Lou says. “I thought it would magically happen, kind of like enlightenment.” The 46-year-old artist, whose room-size installations comprising glass beads have earned her solo shows at major museums and prestigious galleries like London’s White Cube, had a less streamlined, though certainly magical, path to prominence. “I went to art school, but after two months I dropped out and set up an art studio,” she says. “My first major piece, ‘Kitchen,’ took me five years to make. During that time, I had day jobs to support myself. Eventually ‘Kitchen’ sold to a collector, and I was able to quit my job selling prom dresses!” This month, Lou—who divides her time between studios in Los Angeles and KwaZulu– Natal, South Africa, where she founded a collective with Zulu artisans—opens a show at the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College in upstate New York (through Feb. 21, 2016). The exhibition features a 1,800-squarefoot floor sculpture, “Color Field,” made up of Lou’s characteristic “blades” of grass in a variety of striking colors shimmering across the floor like a Tetris board. Similar to many

of Lou’s works, the piece will engage the local community. “It’s a way of extending my studio to the public,” Lou says. The show will also include 20 monochromatic canvases woven out of glass beads, part of her “Solid Gray” series. “They appear to be paintings, but on closer examination, there are streaks and burn marks,” she says of the series. “Sweat, dirt, and fire smoke are embedded into the work, creating singular meditations on process and the impossibility of perfection.” Lou’s rise began in 1996, when she completed “Kitchen.” The piece, a life-size replica of a kitchen, includes everything from a box of Frosted Flakes on the table, to a six-pack of Budweiser on the counter, to dirty dishes in the sink, all meticulously covered with millions of glass beads hand-applied with tweezers. The work was shown at New York’s New Museum and then acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1999, Lou applied glass beads to another life-size work, “Back Yard,” in which the artist constructed a backyard scene, including one million blades of grass, a picnic table, and a barbecue. “The earliest known bead is dated 100,000

years ago, and they are among the earliest objects ever produced. Beads carry the history of mankind, and yet they have zero history as a formal art material,” says Lou of her interest in the tiny pieces that have become her signature. “I was, and still am, excited to work with something that carries so much weight and yet is weightless.” Lou’s installations continue to win the attention of the art world. It was when Lou won the $500,000 MacArthur Foundation “genius” prize in 2002, however, that her work was truly validated as fine art and not “craft.” “The art world can be very provincial, this idea of one thing versus another, fine art versus craft, either/or,” Lou says. “I subscribe to the Zen saying ‘You can’t get over the fence, because there are no fences.’”

The artist in her studio in Topanga Canyon. SURFACE

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Denver’s soon-to-finish A Line service suggests the city is ready for takeoff. BY JONATHAN SCHULTZ

The soon-to-open A Line station at Denver International Airport with a Gensler-designed Westin hotel.

Malik describes an unprecedented opporNothing quite compares to sprinting through an airport, a rolling suitcase nipping tunity. “It may be the only project in the at your heels, sweat beading on your brow, world where civic, hospitality, and transit only to learn at the gate that you missed [design] are so seamlessly integrated,” he your connection. In Denver, a city with pol- says. The bulky, bird-shaped Westin, which icy goals as lofty as its foot-of-the-Rockies opens this month, anchors the South Termielevation, connections of another sort have nal Redevelopment Program, an expansive been missing—but are just a few rivets shy undertaking that will see the airport add more flight capacity and mixed-use spaces of completion. Due to run in spring 2016, a dedicated rail in coming years. The relative proximity of link between downtown and Denver Interna- these pieces, and the A Line delivering pastional Airport is nearly complete. The trains, sengers literally into its heart, makes the with a capacity of 209 people, will travel at up project distinctive. “There are a lot of projects where you’ll to 79 miles per hour. It is the latest high-profile airport rail project to be realized recently have the airport on one side, the hotel on in North America, following the launch this the other, transport on another,” Malik says. past summer of Toronto’s Union-Pearson “The integration is unparalleled. Maybe Express. But whereas that project sought Munich comes the closest.” Also distinctive is the name that was once to ameliorate highway gridlock between Pearson Airport and downtown, Denver’s attached to the South Terminal development: 28-mile A Line quite literally carries the aspi- Santiago Calatrava, he of grandly conceived rations of an entire city fighting to be counted if often shoddily realized civic projects, who backed out in 2011. Citing fundamental among the world’s great transit hubs. “There’s a movement among these ‘airport design flaws, Gensler, working closely with cities,’” says Kap Malik, principal at interna- conceptual engineering firm Arup, reimagtional architecture firm Gensler. “The think- ined the transit hall topped by two curving, ing behind them is airports can be catalysts honeycomb-like canopies, which would for growth in all sorts of areas of the city— provide shelter for the A Line at its terminus retail, housing, cultural spaces. They’re con- as well as for the people mover that would pass among terminals. The uncanny thing is duits. They’re generators.” Malik and his colleagues have enjoyed how well, given the upheaval, the seams are a commanding view of the A Line project hidden. “Calatrava’s project was all arches; from very close range. As the firm retained the project was much larger,” Malik says. to design the airport’s 519-room Westin hotel, “So we worked with Arup on the transit hall Gensler has seen its role expand to master and canopies to come down to two points, planner of the entire airport terminus of the A and that—aside from the hotel itself—has Line. (The line will have eight station stops in become the defining characteristic of the total, including six “Park-n-Rides.”) Its remit whole project.” If travelers can will themselves away from extends from the cocktails being mixed in the hotel lounges down to the train platforms taking in Gensler’s hulking creation, they where travelers, employees, and even curious may make their flight—with time to spare. At least the trains will be on time. Denver residents will disembark. SURFACE

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PHOTO: COURTESY DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

Flight Train

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Books

BOOKS

The word “tile” doesn’t normally denote celebrity—more like a cold bathroom and home improvement projects—but one need only open the front cover of Tile Makes the Room: Good Design from Heath Ceramics (Ten Speed Press) to find an endorsement from Diane Keaton, identified here not as an an Oscar-winning actress but as a fan of Heath Ceramics. “A truly inspiring and informative perspective on tile’s role in architecture and

interiors,” she says of this new release from Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey. The husband-and-wife duo are the owners of the cult Midcentury-era company they bought in 2003, which won the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award this year for Corporate and Institutional Achievement. The book gives background about the company, including visual factory tours, before delving into a range of rooms where the tiles make their mark. Artist and architect Maya Lin is “exceptionally interested in edges, and limits: where the wall ends and the earth begins, how much water can flow across a carved stone monument without turning it into a reflecting pool, how much we can intrude upon the ecosystem before we have changed it irrevocably,” writes architecture critic Paul Goldberger in the monograph Maya Lin: Topologies (Rizzoli). The book, which includes essays by New Yorker staff writer John McPhee, poet Tan Lin, and New Museum director Lisa Phillips, is both proof of Lin’s massive influence and a celebration of her environmentally minded, deeply impactful projects. From her 1982 Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., to her “Wave Field” series, to her 2010

Ellen S. Clark Hope Plaza in St. Louis, Lin’s work subtly connects to landscape, language, history, and memory—all with respect to the natural world. In 1999, two local residents created Friends of the High Line to help save the one-and-ahalf-mile-long stretch of abandoned railway in Manhattan. Five years later, a design team comprising James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf had been selected to build out what would become a decade-long collaboration. Now more than just being a game-changing exemplar of smartly integrated urban planning, the High Line has become a tourist magnet, with more than six million visitors in 2014. The High Line (Phaidon) documents the park’s design work in detail. Included in the book are architectural drawings, photographs, archival documents, and interviews with various players, including architect Elizabeth Diller and graphic designer Paula Scher. Flipping through its pages makes clear that, as Diller puts it, “The High Line produces less a state of distraction or concentration than a state of limbo. [Visitors] are freed from the everyday in order to see the everyday anew.” SURFACE

PHOTO: MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

It’s hard to imagine a child’s playroom without it being littered with Mattel toys—Barbies, Hot Wheels, American Girl dolls—but before the company’s inception in 1945, the industry was stagnant. That all changed in the California garage of Harold Matson, who, along with co-founders Ruth and Elliot Handler, started the forward-thinking brand that would set the pace for progressive toy design. Mattel: 70 Years of Innovation and Play (Assouline) is a collection of the imagination-sparking dolls, figurines, and games that make up the company’s influential catalogue. Many of them, like Polly Pocket and View-Master, induce nostalgia, while 2015’s Hello Barbie (which uses WiFi and voice recognition to create dialogue) shows how Mattel continues to evolve.

ENOUGH TALK ABOUT NORDIC COOKING LET’S TALK NORDIC KITCHEN

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A new technology from Bottle Coatings, Inc., of Sun Valley, California, puts utile decorative veneers on packaging, furniture, and consumer products. The process, which includes cleaning, powder coating, and heating bottles at 380 degrees Fahrenheit, forms a colorful UV protectant shell with a polished finish. Selected by Material Connexion vice president Andrew Dent, Ph.D. SURFACE

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PHOTO: MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

Body Armor

MATERIAL

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Rugged Individualism

ON TIME

Long eclipsed by the Swiss in watchmaking, America is carving out its own niche in the timepiece industry.

BY KEITH W. STRANDBERG

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PHOTOS : TOP, COURTESY RGM. BOTTOM, COURTESY SHINOLA.

The Kobold Langley GMT 1. The Devon Star Wars watch. (OPPOSITE The RGM PS-802 Floating Ring dial. The Shinola Runwell.

PHOTOS: TOP, COURTESY KOBOLD. BOTTOM, COURTESY DEVON.

Though Switzerland is the accepted epicenter of watchmaking—many of the most prominent manufactures were started there hundreds of years ago—it’s the U.S. that made mass production of affordable timepieces possible. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of American watchmaking, from both volume and craftsmanship standpoints. These four brands are celebrating that heritage in their own ways.

ON TIME

01. Kobold

Michael Kobold founded Kobold Watches in 1998 during an entrepreneurship class project at Carnegie Mellon. When the company launched, Kobold says, “there were three watch companies in the U.S., and today there are around 50.” He believes that minimalism has been the American way in timepiece making since the ’70s, and says his company, which makes “so-called tool watches,” takes its design cues from the Bauhaus principle of form follows function. 02. Devon

An outlier to this typical U.S. minimalism is Devon, which has been working outside of the traditional watch industry with a great deal of success. Based in Los Angeles—which “makes us an anomaly in the independent world of haute horlogerie”—Devon designs movements and watches for the U.S. aerospace industry. “I like to say we are more like a Silicon Valley startup inspired by Apple than, say, Rolex or Patek,” Devon says. Other projects include a Star Wars watch, released last month, for which the brand got special access to artifacts from the film franchise. They’re also collaborating with Roland Murphy at RGM on a purely mechanical timepiece to debut at Basel in 2016. 03

03. RGM

PHOTOS : TOP, COURTESY RGM. BOTTOM, COURTESY SHINOLA.

PHOTOS: TOP, COURTESY KOBOLD. BOTTOM, COURTESY DEVON.

RGM is more pointed in acknowledging its national roots. Roland Murphy, who started the brand in the early ’90s, takes specific cues from the country’s watchmaking past. His pieces include details like bridges that reflect those of a model from the Keystone Howard Watch Company, a 19th century American brand; a winding click is influenced by the Illinois Watch Company’s Illini model; and polished winding wheels are finished like those of Illinois’s Bunn Special timepiece. His signature 801 movement “has a high grade finish that denotes the quality of its construction—like the great Railroad watches from America’s past,” Murphy explains. 04. Shinola

04 73

Daniel Caudill, the creative director of Shinola, focuses on cleanliness and timelessness. “Our aesthetic is very American— simple, understated, something that will last,” he says. “We are defining American luxury through American quality rather than price point.” The Detroit-based brand started out assembling watches from Swissmade and other parts, but every year they bring more processes in-house. “Our goal since the beginning has been to create goods that are 100 -percent American-made,” Caudill says. “In the past year, we’ve built a leather strap factory and a dial factory in Detroit, and we’re very proud of that.”

Bright Ideas

SURVEY

Bauhaus riffs, inventive metals, and surprising uses of color make for a playful new season. BY HALLY WOLHANDLER

Copycat, designed by Michael Anastassiades for Flos, joins two spheres that meet at a single point. Made of aluminum and blown opal glass, it comes in 24-karat gold, polished aluminum, black nickel, and copper finishes.

Ex Novoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new Section lamp is 3D-printed, but its high-tech properties actually make it more singular, not less: Every piece is slightly different. It was inspired by the Cabinets of Curiosities of Renaissance times.

usa.flos.com

exnovo-italia.com

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Nendo and Luca Nichetto collaborated to design Kurage—the Japanese word for jellyfish—for Foscarini.The lamp’s diffuser is made of washi paper, which is produced by processing mulberry tree bark. foscarini.com

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Lee Broom’s Crescent table lamp comes from a collection titled “The Department Store,” and takes its cues from a classic Art Deco globe light. Opal acrylic, brass, and a gold fabric cable make up two illuminated half-spheres. leebroom.com

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Inspired by the infinite nature of space, Vibia’s new Cosmos lights were designed by Barcelona design firm Lievore Altherr Molina. They’re available in clusters of three that only need a single power source. vibia.com

Miguel Milá’s Cestita Metálica lamp from Santa & Cole is on the market for the first time since the ’60s. The new version features updates like a glass shade and an optional leather handle. santacole.com

Robert Sonneman designed the Grapes light to distribute light from special LED arrays. Two types of lenses provide direct or general illumination. They’re made of polished chrome with clear glass and satin nickel with white glass sonnemanawayoflight.com

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The new Mono from Karmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Stratos collection is a collaboration between a teacher and his student. Made in Italy of a fiberglass shade and rustcolored iron frame, the pendant pays homage to the bustier and crinoline of the Victorian period.

The Raio collection from Portuguese company Branca is crafted using that countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traditional production techniques. The design of the PVC, cotton, and steel string suspension lamp is intended to create a compelling display of shadows when lit.

globallighting.com branca-lisboa.com

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Swedish brand Studio Vit’s Cast light pendant is a work of contrasts, formed of concrete and handblown glass. Designed specially for the Ace Hotel in London’s Shoreditch neighborhood, they are part of a collection that also includes a table light.

Michael Anastassiades’s Mobile Chandelier 10 overhead fixture features mouth-blown spheres combined with black patinated brass. Every piece is made to order, and engineered to balance in perfect equilibrium.

studiovit.se

michaelanastassiades.com

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Daniel Rybakken designed the Stochastic piece for Luceplan. Each sphere is connected to steel rods of different lengths, which can be hung from the ceiling in different clusters for an infinite number of combinations.

Tom Dixon teamed up with the Swedish design collection Front on the Melt lighting series, created through vacuum metalization. Melt is translucent when turned on, and mirrored when off.

luceplan.com

tomdixon.net

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The Ginger wall lamp is a new addition to Marset’s Ginger collection. Created of a laminate made by pressing wood and paper together under high pressure, the lamp gives off a subtle glow.

The painter Lucio Fontana inspired Artemide’s Reall floor lamp, made of die-cast recycled aluminum. The low-waste, low-consumption light’s head is movable, and the power cable is hidden in an aluminum stem.

marset.com

artemide.net

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Bec Brittainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Zelda Orbits fixture is highly adaptable: its flexible form can be set as a single diamond, fit into others like a linked chain, or arranged in orbit-like configurations. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s made of solid brass and comes in nine different finishes. becbrittain.com

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The Beaubien lamp from Lambert & Fils is made of matte black powder-coated steel and aluminum and natural brass. The piece comes with special hardware so the lamp can be configured as a floor, suspension, or wall lamp. lambertetfils.com

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Moooiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newly released Raimond collection was designed by late designer Raimond Puts, who was fascinated by round shapes created of triangles. Here, hundreds of stainless steel ones combine into a perfect sphere.

The Dandelion lamp looks just like the flower. Many shades with several LED circuits apiece make up this superorganism of lighting. The creation of German designer Burkhard DĂ¤mmer, it comes in 10 color options.

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Surface and Sotheby’s Auction Preview On Oct. 5, Surface and Sotheby’s co-hosted a preview of the latter’s 2015 Photographs auction. Christopher Mahoney of Sotheby’s and Surface editor-in-chief Spencer Bailey each picked their favorite works up for bid, including photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto, André Kertész, and Robert Adams. Jess Richmond and Zhi Wei Hiu, who were among the 10 winners of our 15th Avant Guardian photography competition, were in attendance. The sales total for the night was more than $3,250,000, with a rare print of Robert Mapplethorpe’s “Man in Polyester Suit” selling for a $478,000. (Photos: Courtesy BFA)

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The Lewit Kvadrat lamp from the Metalarte Icons series has a cylindrical shade with Kvadrat fabric shades in coral, gray, and green. The Icons series was conceived to trump trends by taking cues from design greats. metalarte.com

The playful Piu LED wall sconce from Estiluz has a folded form that looks different from every angle. Designed by Serge and Robert Cornelissen, it comes in a standard white finish or in a number of colors. estiluz.com

Paola Navone shows her Memphis roots with the new Panda lamp from the Panda Landscape collection for Cappellini. The base is digitally printed with patterns created by the surface company Abet Laminati. cappellini.it

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The Exchange No. 1 at Phillips

On Oct. 12, Surface and Phillips co-hosted the first edition of The Exchange talk series featuring Londonbased artist and architect Will Alsop and Royal Academy of Arts secretary and chief executive Charles Saumarez Smith. The conversation, which took place at Phillipsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s London Berkeley Square location, was moderated by writer and sociologist Sarah Thornton. Alsop and Saumarez Smith discussed the relationship between art and architecture, the interaction between painting and building, and the restrictions of using computers in design. (Photos: Rocio Chacon)

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Baccarat’s Heritage lamps take influence from 1930s vases designed by Georges Chevalier, Baccarat’s longest-standing creative director. Transparent wiring adds to the flawlessness of the crystal base.

For Saint-Louis’s new Quartz lamp, Etienne Gounot and Eric Jähnke of design duo Ozone bevel-cut and partially sandblasted the brand’s signature crystal. The result is both delicate and solid.

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Commission A pull-out in which we showcase an original work by a graphic designer or artist weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re admiring right now. To inaugurate the column, a drawing by Shantell Martin.

Brooklyn-based artist Shantell Martin is among this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attendees on the Summit at Sea cruise from Nov. 13-17. Here, one of her stream-of-consciousnes

ss drawingsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an image that depicts her looking toward the trip, which brings together nearly 2,000 entrepreneurs, social do-gooders, and business minds.

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Design Dialogues Soho House Edition II

On Sept. 21, Surface and Soho House co-hosted the second Soho House Edition of Design Dialogues. The conversation, which took place at the club’s newly opened Vinyl Room and was moderated by Surface editor-in-chief Spencer Bailey, featured artist José Parlá and architect Craig Dykers of Snøhetta. Parlá and Dykers discussed 9/11 (both have projects at the World Trade Center site), the construction of Parlá’s studio in Brooklyn (designed by Dykers), and the various connection points between art and architecture. (Photos: Keith MacDonald)

Standing Ground

EXECUTIVE

Architectural League director Rosalie Genevro shepherds a sound mission. BY COURTNEY KENEFICK PHOTOS BY EMILY KINNI

Rosalie Genevro at the Architectural League in New York. (OPPOSITE) The League’s office.

What sparked your interest in architecture?

has remained the same since its founding in 1881. Why is it so important to uphold that?

I grew up in Southern California, in Orange County. I was so horrified at the general suburban environment that I grew up in. I went as a summer exchange student to the Netherlands when I was in high school and lived with a family of an architect in a very beautiful, untouched kind of villa-like house, in a small farming village. I had always been interested in architecture and design, but that really crystallized an interest for me.

Because architecture is a very, very, very, very hard thing to do, and it’s both a creative process and a synthesizing process. It takes a lot of effort and will and creative intelligence and talent to do it well. All of those need to be constantly stimulated and encouraged and supported. For people who are trying to do great things in those areas, it’s really important to have stimulation and encouragement.

You’ve described the Architectural League as a cultural, not professional, institution.

In your mind, what’s the line between architecture and art?

We have the privilege of looking at and thinking Well, architecture is a social art. I’m personabout architecture as a cultural act and artistic ally most interested in thinking about architecact. While the professional side of architecture in terms of its use and its significance to ture is very important, those actually are not people in the world. I’m interested in thinking the issues that we’re focused on. We look at about how architecture serves other human how architects think and grow, and how the institutions. work that they create communicates to other Architecture isn’t only about any single indipeople. It’s particularly interesting to look at vidual. It’s made by a team of people, then it’s how architecture embodies society, or projects used by many people, over time. That dimensociety in periods of change. sion of time is interesting and important: How do you understand how humans act to create One thing that hasn’t changed is the something that can have some continuing use League’s mission—“to nurture excellence in over time? architecture, design, and urbanism”—which

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What defines the types of buildings that withstand the test of time?

I think successful buildings in the cities are able to be adapted—architecture that isn’t so specific for one particular, highly demanding use. Something that’s a little bit more forgiving and looser and flexible and that can be adapted to different uses over time is more important [for] projecting into the future. Which doesn’t mean that it’s without character or without a sense of place, both of which are really important, but things that really can be rethought. How has the League changed over your 30 years as director?

We’ve grown. The League is still a small organization, but it was much smaller when I came: two and a half employees, including me. Now we’re at 12 to 13. On the other hand, certain things haven’t changed, and we just celebrated with a publication of the book 30 Years of Emerging Voices. In certain ways, the nature of the projects and of the people who are recognized through that program [Emerging Voices] hasn’t changed. There have been some continuing threads through our programming.

Do you find similarities both in your hiring and when you’re looking to give awards and scholarships to emerging architects?

With both, we look for a combination of openness and a sense of direction or questing. What are some new projects or urban studies that you’re excited about?

We’re starting a housing atlas of the city of New York. I love nothing better than to walk around neighborhoods in the city, particularly neighborhoods I haven’t been to before. Something that has struck me when you think about housing is that New York is a very diverse place in terms of housing types. You’ll have a neighborhood in the Bronx with two- and three-family houses and a neighborhood in Brooklyn with two- and three-family houses, but they look quite different. We’re trying to understand who built these and when and why. What are some of the day-to-day challenges that you face in your role?

In a very big way, being in a non-profit organization with a supportive board is a fantastic, privileged placed to be. The League is a

relatively small organization. It’s pretty nimble. The challenges tend to be around resources and predictability, so the biggest part of our support actually comes from architects themselves. Through the last recession, I have to say, we didn’t see a big dip, which was very gratifying, because it was a pretty bad recession and was hard on architects. Why do you think that is?

The League, in addition to providing recognition and stimulation, provides a sense of community. It also provides very real opportunities for learning and continuing education, so I think people recognize that this was a resource that they could continue to draw on, even when they had more time to draw on it when things were a bit slower. That’s my best guess. And it’s been doing that for almost 135 years …

It’s been a long time, but it’s stayed in business continually. One funny thing we found in the archives at one point was that in the Depression apparently the League bought Irish sweepstakes tickets to fund them—it would increase their fortunes. Times were tough.

Spirit Animal

ENDORSEMENT

Photographer Andrew Zuckerman curates a design show seeking to bridge humans and nature. BY PAULA KUPFER PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN HANSEN

Andrew Zuckerman in his Manhattan studio. (OPPOSITE) A view of the “Human|Nature” exhibition at Chamber.

Andrew Zuckerman has an instinct for Film Festival. The late New York Times reporter discoveries. “I troll weird auctions for things and “Carpetbagger” David Carr called it a that slip through the cracks,” the multi- “great little movie.” Last year, Belgian designer hyphenate photographer confessed on a recent Dries Van Noten commissioned Zuckerman morning in New York while pacing through to create four films that were presented in the the Chelsea design space Chamber. It was windows of Barneys on Madison Avenue. the day before the opening of the gallery’s With “Human|Nature,” the soft-spoken second annual collection, “Human|Nature,” Zuckerman was at first apprehensive about which Zuckerman was invited to curate. the invitation to be a curator—his previous Every few steps, he would slow down, look experience was more in creative direction, film, quizzically at a piece, adjust. and photography work. But as it turned out, Known for his striking, life-size pictures of the assignment dovetailed perfectly with his birds, wild animals, and plant life, the 38-year- inquisitive nature, love for design, and dogged old Zuckerman has an exceedingly diverse pursuit of esoteric objects. résumé. In addition to being a photographer The outcome of nine months of tracking, with a three-tome series of pictures of the commissioning, and acquiring pieces, the natural world—Creature (2007), Bird (2009), exhibit features works by fashion designers, and Flower (2012)—he has also made a sculptors, furniture makers, pottery artists, successful crossover into filmmaking. In 2007, carpet weavers, and jewelry makers. The pieces he received acclaim as a director when his short comprise wood and bone, leather and stone, felt, film High Falls, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and even live plants and fish. There’s a life-size and Peter Sarsgaard, premiered at the Sundance chimpanzee made from needle-felted wool by SURFACE

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A needle-felted chimpanzee by Kiyoshi Mino. (OPPOSITE) Installation views of “Human|Nature” at Chamber.

Kiyoshi Mino, a Japanese-American farmer and artisan; a seductive, knobby carpet modeled after a moss garden with rocks and a pond, by Argentine weaver Alexandra Kehayoglou; and a wispy, multi-textured mobile by Los Angeles–based drawing and collage artist Claire Oswalt. Inspired by the same impulse that governs his work with animals and plants—to “shorten the distance between human beings and nature”—Zuckerman focused on work that’s conceptually as well as physically about natural materials. Like the objects in the show that aspire to a certain in-betweenness—not totally pure, not quite manufactured—Chamber revels in a form of hybridity. The gallery’s Argentine founder and director, Juan García Mosqueda, is interested in organizing one of the shows himself down the line, but for the moment he is more keen on promoting the space’s nimble character. “I really want to push the curators to find their own interpretation of what Chamber is,” he says, referring to the model of inviting a curator, or team of curators, to organize the yearly collections and smaller exhibitions. It’s a collaborative process: For Chamber’s first collection, he indulged his passion for Dutch design by inviting the Amsterdamand Antwerp-based Studio Job to collect a hundred objects. For the second collection, he approached Zuckerman, who set about the project with the same spirit that guides his picture series: a remarkable departure from the often precious approach to creating images. “I’m not interested in making great

photographs,” he says. “I’m interested in transferring that animal from three dimensions to two.” As with his images that present animals and plants with high level of detail, Zuckerman sought to provoke a deeper reaction with the objects he chose. “I value emotional response rather than how expensive something is,” he says. “I wasn’t interested in a design show that was about material value or market value; I was interested in a show that had emotional resonance.” The thematic and material directions of the collection posit questions about the appropriation of elements from the natural world and their commodification. But a quick reconsideration reveals how these objects, many of them made by hand, indeed propose an alternative to the fast-paced exploitation of natural resources for mass production and industry. Whether this is a deliberate or collateral effect of the show is up for discussion, but Zuckerman was attentive from the start to the idea of time. “As technology is rapidly advancing,” he says, “I think I’m drawn more and more to the things that haven’t changed.”

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How Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Made A deep dive into the manufacturing process of a new collaboration with Southern roots.

HOW IT’S MADE

Carolina Boon

Bernhardt Textiles and Raleigh Denim dream up a collaboration that pays homage to a state in the South.

OPPOSITE Bernhardt Textiles, designed by Raleigh Denim, being sewn into furniture upholstery.

BY COURTNEY KENEFICK PHOTOS BY SCOTT RUDD

“North Carolina isn’t a hub for industrial designers,” says Jerry Helling, president of Lenoirbased companies Bernhardt Design and Bernhardt Textiles. So a fortuitous introduction to the couple behind Raleigh Denim, established in the state’s capital, gave way to a fated partnership. When Helling met the denim label’s founders, Victor and Sarah Lytvinenko, it was the beginning of a special kind of camaraderie, the rare type that can only be shared with a fellow local. “It’s like one motorcyclist waving to another on the highway,” Sarah says. The latest unspoken nod to their companionship, a collection of sky-inspired textiles, is the second collaboration between the two

Carolinian brands (the first was Powerbar, a multipurpose table that drew on elements of a cutting workspace in the Raleigh Denim headquarters, where the pair initially had lunch with Helling). With a shared mission to resurrect a craft lost to major metropolises, they set out on a process that included sketching and designing four woven textiles, three celestially-informed and one referencing the 5,000 paper airplanes at the Raleigh Denim workshp. These were then translated into constructions that could be woven on jacquared looms and applied to Bernhardt’s furniture. Here, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the North Carolina born-and-bred collection. SURFACE

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HOW IT’S MADE “We like to turn doodles into repeats for surface design,” says Sarah Lytvinenko on creating the sky-inspired motifs for Bernhardt Textiles. “I’ll take a small element then multiply it.” THIS PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM Victor Lytvinenko with an employee at Raleigh Denim’s headquarters. A mood board inside the denim label’s studio. Prints are seen on paper before being woven into textiles. OPPOSITE, TOP TO BOTTOM Sarah examines fabric swatches. Sketches of the celestial motifs.

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THIS PAGE A sign outside the Bernhardt Design factory; the company employs more than 2,000 people. OPPOSITE Boxes stacked up inside one of Bernhardt’s 11 factories. 103

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Furniture at the Bernhardt Design factory is finished in spray booths using a control finish panel to regulate color.

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THIS PAGE A close-up of the equipment. OPPOSITE, FROM TOP TO BOTTOM The spray booths. Workers employing the process.

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“Bernhardt works with mills that use software which hooks up to the loom to create a repeat that makes sense for the weaving,” Sarah says. Once woven, templates are used to outline individual sections of furniture to be upholstered. Patterns are then studied to ensure proper alignment and fit. THIS PAGE James Greer, who has worked at Bernhardt for 39 years and cut the initial pattern for the first piece of commercial furniture when Bernhardt Design began in 1983, traces and cuts the Raleigh Denim–designed textiles. OPPOSITE, LEFT TO RIGHT Fabric inspired by the 5,000 paper airplanes that hang in the Raleigh Denim workshop. An employee grabs a bolt from Bernhardt’s catalogue of textiles—the factory houses more than 150,000 yards.

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THIS PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM An Eastman circlar cloth cutter is used to accurately trim textiles. Markings on a factory table.

OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT Stitching together cutouts. A Reece 101 key hole buttonhole machine that was made in the 1940s. Chair seats ready to be upholstered.

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HOW ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MADE THIS PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM Applying textiles to a chair. An upholstered seat sits next to one waiting to be dressed. OPPOSITE The finished product,.

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Leading American thinkers in art, architecture, and design, plus new U.S. hotels to put on your radar.

AMERICAN INFLUENCE

Vision Quest

(OPPOSITE) Frank Gehry at his firm’s Los Angeles studio.

Nearly 20 years after Bilbao, architect Frank Gehry continues to transform the world through his genre-defying buildings. INTERVIEW BY SPENCER BAILEY PORTRAIT BY NATHANIEL WOOD

At 86, Frank Gehry gives off the nonchalant vibe of an architect with nothing much left to prove. He’s cantankerous, unafraid of criticizing detractors. But in conversation, true to the style of Los Angeles—where he has run his firm, Gehry Partners, since founding it in 1962—he also comes across as relaxed and easygoing. He’s even nostalgic, though he probably wouldn’t admit it. Gehry claims he can’t walk through his current retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (through March 20, 2016) because it reminds him of his unrealized schemes and dreams. The comprehensive show, which explores his work from the 1960s to present via more than 200 drawings and 65 models, further cements the Toronto native’s legacy. Gehry took a very circuitous path to his current post at the top of the architecture world: In 1947, his family emigrated from Canada to California. He went on to attend Los Angeles City College, and later, the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture, from which he graduated in 1954. After that,

he spent time in the U.S. Army, and continued his studies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, eventually dropping out and moving to Paris for work. At age 33, he moved back to L.A. and ventured out on his own. Since then, he has gone on to design some of the most unforgettable buildings on earth, including the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain (1997), the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A. (2003), and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2014), as well as Vitra and Knoll furniture and Tiffany & Co. jewelry. In addition to the LACMA show, Gehry has seen two other major milestones come about this year. He was awarded the third annual Getty Medal for artistic achievement from the J. Paul Getty Trust, and Knopf recently published a 528-page biography, Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, written by Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger. All of this attention comes as Gehry has taken on, to the disapproval of many, the incredibly ambitious project of rebuilding the 51-mile Los Angeles River (32 miles

of which runs through the city itself); reported estimates suggest each mile will cost $100 million. More focused on hydrology and engineering than architecture, the project is a compelling departure from the bold and experimental sculptural forms that have made Gehry’s firm world-famous. Another of Gehry’s current projects, the renovation and expansion of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, also suggests a more subtle design approach. He will be transforming the interior, adding more than 169,000 square feet of exhibition space while keeping intact the integrity of the existing building. Surface recently met with Gehry at his vast studio located in L.A.’s Marina del Rey neighborhood. Sitting on Knoll Cross Check chairs inside his mezzanine-level library (the books on the shelves include Ian Schrager: Works, Vishaan Chakrabarti’s A Country of Cities, and Rowan Moore’s Why We Build), we discussed his military service, his continued disdain of the word “starchitect,” and more. > SURFACE

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The word “play” appears a lot in Paul Goldberger’s new biography, whether it has to do with your architectural work or your other interests, like ice hockey, jazz, and sailing.

Play is so basic to our lives. When you’re a child, we call it “play.” It’s kind of a preface to adulthood: the interactions between people, your interactions with the world and environments around you. Everything you’re gonna be confronted with in life is sort of worked out when you’re a child playing. It creates hierarchies. It creates visions. One of the scenes that struck me in the book was how, as a child in Toronto, you would watch carp swim in your family’s bathtub. It’s such a powerful image. Did they provide you with this sense of play?

I was scared of them. [Laughs] That story [of carp in a bathtub] is multiplied hundreds of millions of times in Jewish families. It’s not that unusual of a thing. In fact, there are books written about it. It’s compelling, though, that such a usual thing in Jewish households has held such an unusual reverence in the context of your career.

Well, it came to the fore after I got angry with the postmodernist thing and said, “Well, if you gotta go back, why not fish?” That’s real play—it’s adult play. But you start playing with that idea. Maybe it came out of that. I started thinking about it and drawing the fish, and then, as life would have it, I was asked to do things with the fish image. I made the ColorCore lamp [for the Formica Corporation in 1983]; people saw that, and then they asked me to do more. So I made bigger and bigger fish. It was a eureka moment. I was looking for a way to express movement in buildings with inert materials. It was a way of expressing feeling—which was something I was anxious about and interested in—instead of decoration. The story about the fish in the bathtub came about because people would ask me about my work, so I’d tell them that story. It was a way to get rid of them. [Laughs] You gave Goldberger total access to your world and complete control over everything that went into the biography. You must feel really comfortable with him.

It was like how the Sydney Pollack film [Sketches of Frank Gehry] came about. People were saying, “You need to have a biography— either you write it, or get somebody to write it.” I didn’t pay attention to it at first. Then more than one person I respect came to me about it, and thought that there are things in my life misrepresented by the press. A lot of things like that are because people don’t really know what I’m struggling with, what my demons are. I want to meet the asshole who invented the term starchitect. It started out as a complimentary term, I would guess, and then people who like to make trouble grabbed it and used it as a negative thing. By now it’s the most stupid thing you can imagine saying. I find it interesting that Golderberger was the first journalist to cover your work in a national publication, at least according to his biography.

I think that’s true. We became friends over the years. We don’t agree on everything. It’s a comfortable give-and-take relationship. I was at his wedding. Media coverage of your work ballooned around the opening of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in 1997. Do you look back positively on that now? The project completely transformed your reputation internationally and may very well have brought about that loathsome word starchitect.

I’m very proud of the effect of what happened in Bilbao. Three and a half billion dollars has come to that city since the building opened. It changed the character of the city. It changed the politics. Just a little building did that. Oftentimes, architectural forms or material applications that have never been used before imply expense. Santiago Calatrava knows this well—he’s been bashed heavily for the rising costs of his buildings. How do you respond to bad press? You once got so upset at a press conference that you flipped off a journalist.

It’s expected. Like that guy in London, Jonathan Glancey, who called me “the one trick pony’s one trick pony” [in The Guardian] when I built the pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery [in 2008]. That’s something I’d never been called. The biography makes note of numerous setbacks throughout your life. The press makes it sound like you designed Bilbao, and then everything’s been peachy since. That’s far from the truth.

I don’t know many people who have lived their life as a creative person without ups and downs. I think the trajectory I’ve had has been pretty satisfying. But I can’t go look at the LACMA show, because I look at the models SURFACE

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PHOTO: FREDRIK NILSON.

(OPPOSITE) An installation view of the “Frank Gehry” exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); a photograph of Gehry’s studio is in the background.

Yeah, I thought that was the only fair way to get an honest biography. I trusted him. Reading it, there are some places where I wished he hadn’t said some things. It’s all right. There are always issues when you say things about people who you’re no longer friends with—an ex-wife, a lost child. Things are said along the way that have a different feeling when you read them 5 or 10 years later. It reawakens something inside you. In the long run, I just hope it doesn’t hurt people.

When did the biography come about?

AMERICAN INFLUENCE

and get nostalgic about some buildings that haven’t been built. Which buildings are those?

The Corcoran Gallery. The New York Times Building—I quit that one myself, so it’s my own fault. The [Le Clos Jordan] winery in Canada. The Samsung Museum [of Modern Art]. There seem to be quite a few examples throughout your life where you had these potential breakthrough moments and huge opportunities—your work for the cardboard furniture company Easy Edges in the ’80s, the Times Building—and then you walked away from them.

PHOTO: FREDRIK NILSON.

I was insecure about architecture [in the ’80s]. I like invention, and I think there was tons more stuff we could have done with the cardboard had I stuck with it. One of my assistants a few years ago threw out all the Easy Edges press clippings. We had stacks and stacks. It was overwhelming to have all that press. I once walked through the Bloomingdales floor our display was on, and I saw this couple come running toward me. I thought, “Oh my God, 117

is this what fame is? How do I get out of this one?” The lady just wanted to know where the restrooms were. It was quite a comedown. Shortly after that, your office went full-boar into architecture. Years later, though, you returned to designing at a smaller scale, like your 2005 jewelry collection for Tiffany & Co.

I became more secure. During the Tiffany thing, my feelings were much different. So you needed to feel secure as an architect first before you could do other design projects?

Maybe. I was secure in an insecure way. I’m never really secure. I call it “healthy insecurity.” In the first part of the biography, you appear to be an outsider—your teachers would tell you, “You can’t draw. You’re not an architect.” Do you think that led you to eventually finding your way to success?

The outsiderness started when I got beat up for killing Christ in Timmins [in Ontario, where Gehry lived during his adolescent

years]. A lot of anti-Semitism creates outsiderness. And then being poor creates another level of outsiderness. Maybe that’s where it all started. Let’s move on to your time in the U.S. Army. You never complained to your commanding officer about an excruciating pain in your leg. Then, when he found it out, you were essentially rewarded for your toughness.

Leonard Nimoy was my master sergeant. Did I say that in the book? Was that in there? I don’t think so.

I was in the 3rd Infantry Division—I think it was Eisenhower’s division, by coincidence. I was at Fort Benning. I had this bum knee. I was born with it, and it didn’t get me out of the army. I joined the ROTC—I wanted to be a pilot. I did four years of ROTC, and then this guy calls me and says, “Oh, by the way, we can’t graduate you because of your leg. It was a mistake. We should have caught it four years ago.” I had just been married. We were having a baby. And they told me that I wasn’t going on to flight training in the Air Force, which I had really wanted to do. This

So he got transferred to Alaska, and you got transferred to—

Clerk-typist school. I got to learn how to type 25 words per minute. I was very proud of myself. After graduating clerk-typist school, you’d go to a company to be the clerk-typist. I was aligned with an engineering company, where I would have fit in terms of my education, but the dum-dums there didn’t know how to use me. So they put me in as the company clerk. I had to do the daily report. The first day I did the report, I gave it to my boss, and he said, “What else can you do?” Apparently I didn’t do it very well. [Laughs] I tried! I really tried. Anyway, that got me to make signs. They sent me to the general, who needed signs. He swore me into a high-security area. He said, “You aren’t communist or anything, are you?” “Nope.” He said, “Raise your hand.” So I did, and he swore me in right there. In college, I’d been in all these lefty organizations, but I wasn’t gonna do anything against the country. I was making top-secret charts for a new army organization they were exploring. At the same time, a landscape architect from Harvard was at my post, and I used to meet him for drinks every once in a while. He said his general asked him to find an interior designer, and he thought I could fill the job. So he sent me to Atlanta, and I got the job. I was now in special services designing dayrooms. Do you think this experience in the army prepared you well for dealing with some of the setbacks and difficult clients throughout your career? > SURFACE

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PHOTOS: TOP, DON F. WONG. BOTTOM, COURTESY, GEHRY PARTNERS.

A design sketch of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. (OPPOSITE, TOP TO BOTTOM) Gehry’s Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minnesota. A project model of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. (FOLLOWING SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT) Quanzhou Museum of Contemporary Art concept model. Installation views of “Frank Gehry” at LACMA.

triggered my draft board to call me in for an examination. I went in for it, and the doctor who was seeing me was crippled. He said, “Oh, that’s not bad! They’ll find something for you to do.” He made me I-A [meaning available for military service]. I did basic training. I was in pretty good shape. I could do 50 pushups—I still can, actually. But when I went on these 20-mile runs, I’d come back and there would be all this swelling. It scared me. That had never happened. I went to the infirmary, and the orthopedic doctor there got a little worried about it. He said he couldn’t do much, that he would continue the medical research on it. In the meantime, he said, “I don’t think you should wear boots. They’re what’s making it swell.” I found out that if you don’t have boots on then you can’t do “KP” [kitchen patrol] duty. The captain of the company, the sergeant— practically everybody was anti-Semitic. They got nasty. But there was nothing they could do. So they sent me to clerk-typist school. But before I went, on Sundays, at the PX [post exchange], the people in the army who were college graduates would find each other. Some of them were lawyers; some of them were personnel. I told a few of them about the captain, and they were like, “Give me his name.” I did, and he was transferred back to Alaska. [Laughs] He didn’t know what hit him.

IMAGE: COURTESY GEHRY PARTNERS.

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PHOTOS: TOP, DON F. WONG. BOTTOM, COURTESY, GEHRY PARTNERS.

IMAGE: COURTESY GEHRY PARTNERS.

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PHOTO: COURTESY GEHRY PARTNERS.

PHOTOS: FREDRIK NILSON.

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Well, it toughened you up. And I had some tough clients in the army. I never, ever, met the guy who hired me.. So you never met Client No. 1?

PHOTO: COURTESY GEHRY PARTNERS.

PHOTOS: FREDRIK NILSON.

Nope. Lieutenant General Thomas F. Hickey. He was a paratrooper. It turns out that he was getting ready to retire, and he had this idea of building a motel in Miami for his retirement. He wanted to connect to all the furniture people in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where there were all the factories that made furniture. He got this idea that he would use the PX money to rebuild the dayrooms—it was an honorable cause—and then would have access to all the furniture guys. We didn’t know any of this. We took it seriously. We were starting to talk to furniture people and design these dayrooms. These lists of people would come through. We didn’t know that the sergeant and the people over us were filtering them to the general. In 1956, you moved to Cambridge to study urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, which presented a whole other set of difficulties.

Well, I was a do-gooder lefty. I didn’t wanna do rich guys’ houses. I thought that architecture had a broader mission. I had Garrett Eckbo and Simon Eisner as professors at USC. Simon was teaching urban planning, Eckbo 121

landscape architecture, and both of them recommended that I go to graduate school at Harvard in city planning. I just thought that it was the right thing to do, so that’s what I did. And it wasn’t really the right thing to do. In a way, it was. It was a vector I would never have taken. I got to meet Otto Eckstein, the great economist, and take his class. When I quit planning, I did so with a trauma because the teacher diminished my work and insulted me in a presentation. My scheme for the project was about architecture, not about city planning. I got angry and quit. Economics has played an interesting role in your life: Sometimes it was about not having enough money, other times it was about dealing with the pains of growing your own firm. Not many people think about you as a businessman, but you’ve shown great tact on the money side of things. How do you view yourself when it comes to having business acumen?

Well, my father always belittled me, saying that I would never be a businessman, and I wish that he were still around, so that he could see he was wrong. I never, until recently, considered it a business thing as much as a logical thing. When I started, it had to do with having a sense of humanity. I laid down some ground rules: that I would never borrow money, because I was afraid of that; that I would only have people working for me that

I could afford to pay; and that I would discipline myself so that the salaries people got would include yearly bonuses and at least the cost of living. I ended up working longer and harder because I couldn’t afford to do that. I did a lot of the work myself, stayed up late at night. But slowly, it worked, and I was able to make that a reality. The reality was saying I couldn’t do freebee work. I had to get paid a reasonable fee. You’ve had retrospectives at the Walker Art Center in Minnesota and the Guggenheim in New York, and now you have an exhibition at LACMA, which traveled to L.A. from the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Aside from being a chronological showcase of your models and drawings, and a deeper look at your firm, how do you view the LACMA show?

It’s showing the commitment to the project: the search to make humane places, to make uplifting places, to make places that transmit feelings. Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” I think he was on the nose. The urban planning of Los Angeles seems to be a hot topic these days. The New York Times just ran a story with the headline “Frank Gehry Draws Ire for Joining Los Angeles River Restoration Project.” Last week, Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Broad museum opened across from the Disney

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I always thought that L.A. was a linear downtown. This city was gonna be a car city, and it was gonna be spread all over the place. So the logic was, if that’s the priority, why not make a linear downtown? Which would’ve worked perfectly from a traffic standpoint. There were all these missed opportunities. So now we should build a public transportation system—which they’re building. But the line that they’re building does many stops and is slow. A friend of mine says you can walk faster. You decided to engage in this Los Angeles River project, which has so much to do with infrastructure and engineering, not necessarily architecture. Why?

What would you say to all of the naysayers?

I think the people who are pissed off are going to be happy, because this opens the door to making their projects work. Your commissions have been getting more and more major: the Louis Vuitton Fondation, which opened last year; the Menlo Park headquarters of Facebook, which the company moved into earlier this year. What are some of your unrealized dream projects, perhaps one or two that aren’t shown in the LACMA exhibition?

I don’t know what’s in the exhibition. Was Abu Dhabi [Guggenheim] in the exhibition?

and got all the hoopla, I coincidentally went to the Barnett Newman show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with some friends—[museum director] Anne d’Harnoncourt, Ellsworth Kelly, and I forget whom else. Anne told me they had to double the size of the museum. She asked, “Do you think you’d be interested in trying to do something that had the impact of what you did at Bilbao but inside an existing old building?” I said, “Yeah, why not, I’m up for that!” We’ve started working on it, and we’ve got a scheme. I don’t know if it will be as successful as Bilbao, but it will have an impact. It will double the size of the museum, and you won’t see any change from the outside. The concept almost seems like it’s the anti-Bilbao.

It is, yeah! But this is what Anne asked for. She asked to create something as visually successful as Bilbao. I think we’ve done that. How much of it they’ll build, I don’t know. We’re waiting. I don’t think Bilbao needs to be repeated.

No, I’m happy with one Bilbao.

Yeah.

Well, we don’t know if that’s gonna be built. We’re working on the Philadelphia Museum of Art expansion. When Bilbao was finished SURFACE

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IMAGE: COURTESY GEHRY PARTNERS.

The presumption is that somebody who designs buildings like I do would not be interested—that’s what I’m getting from the so-called opposition to my being there. They don’t realize I built a project along a river in Bilbao and changed the whole city. They haven’t done that. I’ll match my creds against anybody. I was asked to do this. I didn’t ask to do it. The people who are complaining think I did that because that’s how they do it—they have publicists and lobbyists. I

haven’t seen a lot of things happen because of this. What I’ve been asked to do is something different. I’ve approached it as a hydrology project because the river must have its own mandate and requirements as a flood-control channel. If we were to reclaim the water that goes down the river and out to the ocean, it’s equal to one-third of the water that goes to the Imperial Valley. That’s a lot of water. That’s a lot of money. Because we buy the water from Imperial Valley, it’s an economic thing.

PHOTO: FREDRIK NILSON.

concert hall you designed, and downtown appears to be in the midst of major transformation. How do you view all of this change, and in what ways are you hoping to get involved?

IMAGE: COURTESY GEHRY PARTNERS.

PHOTO: FREDRIK NILSON.

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Sketch for the 8 Spruce Street tower in New York. (OPPOSITE) An installation view of “Frank Gehry” at LACMA. 123

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Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a stellar year of boutique hotel openings in the United States. Here, we select eight standouts that showcase classic American dynamism.

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1 HOTEL CENTRAL PARK NEW YORK was tricky.” The solution: a little bit of design jujitsu, turning the rough elements—natural wood headboards made from New York City water towers, existing terracotta blocks—into artful finishes. Yes, there are hippyish nuances such as hemp Keetsa mattresses, terrariums, and five-minute hourglasses in the shower that give guests a gentle reminder about wasting water, but it never feels preachy. In case there’s any doubt about the brand’s fusion of scene and sustainability, just head to Jonathon Waxman’s reincarnated ’80s restaurant Jams, where the Barbuto chef turns out a rustic, farm-focused menu. It anchors the lobby, where a living art piece by Brooklyn’s Sprout Home adorns a wall. Say the words and a provided chauffeur awaits, though not in a Bentley. How about a Tesla? 1hotels.com —Nate Storey (THIS PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM) A room number made of nails. A bed with a natural wood headboard. (OPPOSITE) The lobby lounge.

PHOTOS : COURTESY 1 HOTELS.

For the second outpost of 1 Hotels, the flourishing dynasty of stylish, sustainable properties that became an instant hit after debuting last year in South Beach, hotelier Barry Sternlicht chose New York—specifically a corner location one block from the city’s green heart, Central Park. Refurbishing an old Manhattan building presents myriad tripwires, so you can imagine Avroko’s reaction when the local studio was told they had to apply an adaptive reuse process to the design that maintains a negative carbon footprint. “That complex tangle of existing structure and new functionality requires a careful study of the floor plans in order to make sure the guest experience and brand vision are upheld throughout the design,” says Adam Farmerie of Avroko. Adds one of his partners, William Harris: “It was actually less of a challenge finding eco-focused materials; rather, delivering on 1 Hotel’s other cornerstone—luxury—while still ensuring the materials were environmentally sound

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PHOTOS : COURTESY 1 HOTELS.

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SOUTH CONGRESS HOTEL AUSTIN, TEXAS

(TOP TO BOTTOM) The No Sé café. A guestroom at South Congress Hotel.

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PHOTOS: COURTESY HOTEL EMMA.

PHOTOS: COURTESY SOUTH CONGRESS HOTEL.

For sozzled college kids, SoCo is an abbreviation for the sugary liqueur Southern Comfort. In Austin, it’s short for South Congress, a hip, evolving neighborhood near the Texan capital city’s center. For a district that was once known for its seedy, pay-by-the-hour motels, the new South Congress Hotel is a symbol of how far it’s come in an era when the annual SXSW festival turned Austin into a destination for movie moguls and the young pirates of Silicon Valley. At 83 rooms, 12 of which are suites, the hotel is a paradigm of actual Southern comfort. This, according to the hotel’s designer, Milo Garcia, was the goal. “We had a very specific trajectory,” says Garcia, a principal of the Los Angeles based Studio MAI. “One that aimed to achieve a humble, approachable feeling that is characteristic of Austin.” For him, that means an aesthetic that’s rugged, elegant, and minimal. An earthiness pervades the interiors, from the walls to the custom furniture and linens, with the liberal deployment of stitched leathers, reclaimed woods, denims, and unfinished metals. The rooftop pool bar is lined with wood-framed loungers and basketball hoop–shaped canopies; the sunset views of the Colorado River are befitting of a Technicolor Western. Despite the buzz around chef Paul Qui’s highly anticipated 12-seat omakase restaurant, Otoko, a make-yourself-athome vibe runs throughout. The meat-forward café, No Sé, is casual; the rooms come with access to free flicks from local Drafthouse Films; and the street-level vintage motorcycle shop is pure Texas. southcongresshotel.com —Charles Curkin

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HOTEL EMMA AT THE PEARL SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS Is it an overstatement to say that design firm Roman and Williams is the singular origin of the interior trends that characterize New York’s (hell, America’s) hospitality sector right now? That they’re behind so many of Manhattan’s holiest buzz centers—the Ace Hotel, Lafayette, and the Dutch, to name just a few—suggests it’s not. Their aesthetic, a meeting point of Americana and modernism, seems to have become the de-facto approach for any upscale upstart trying to make it in the city’s here-today-gone-tomorrow milieu. This month, though, that style departs for the West, when Hotel Emma opens in San Antonio. The space is part of The Pearl, a development that includes high-end apartments, a farmers market, and campus of the Culinary Institute of America, all on the site of a historic brewery. Named after Emma Koehler, whose husband built the bottling plant in 1894—and who, lore has it, kept it open during prohibition—the expansive project has 146 rooms, a restaurant, a rooftop pool, a cocktail bar, and a 19-foot-ceilinged event venue outfitted with repurposed brewing tanks and chandeliers made of 1920s German bottle labelers. Though R&W is up to its usual tricks—leather and dark woods add ambiance to exposed concrete; handmade Spanish porcelain tiles and brass accents punctuate the rooms—there’s a deep connection to The Pearl’s heritage. The prerequisite reclaimed wood comes from the building itself, and the cement tile floor was rehabbed using remnants of the original. How’s that for authenticity? thehotelemma.com —Hally Wolhandler

PHOTOS: COURTESY HOTEL EMMA.

PHOTOS: COURTESY SOUTH CONGRESS HOTEL.

(TOP TO BOTTOM) A guestroom at Hotel Emma. A bathroom with brass accents.

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PHOTOS : JIM BARTSCH.

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L’HORIZON HOTEL AND SPA PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

PHOTOS : JIM BARTSCH.

Designer Steve Hermann, known for his work with top-tier celebrity homes, brought a once star-studded Palm Springs outpost back onto the A-List when he opened L’Horizon last spring. The hotel sits in the bones of a 1952 William F. Cody property, spanning four-acres, and is a former hideaway for the Hollywood and Washington elite (Marilyn Monroe and the Reagans stayed there). Inside the original shell of seven midcentury bungalows, the 25 rooms were given a $5 million dollar facelift after falling into neglect. Hermann broke the typical mold of uniformly dressed hotel rooms and decorated each as an independent space. Though the suites retain their own distinct flair—a slump-stone wall here, Percival Lafer chair there—a cohesive thread runs throughout each one with

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elements like geometrically-patterned curtains, vintage furniture, and crisp Frette bed linens. Each low-lying structure showcases views of the San Jacinto Mountains and floorto-ceiling sliding glass doors that open to private patios equipped with Planika fire pits, manicured cacti gardens, and marble vanities in the bathrooms (complimentary foot and back massages are a call away). Other touches, like original artwork, copper-crowned fireplaces, and an infinity-edge pool accentuate the rustic setting in the California desert. The newest addition: The Sopa restaurant by chef Giacomo Pettinari, who cut his teeth at Spain’s world famous El Bulli, opened in September with a live-edge walnut communal table and Lindsey Adelman–designed chandeliers. lhorizonpalmsprings.com —Courtney Kenefick

A copper fireplace inside a bungalow. (OPPOSITE FROM TOP) A woodceiling room with a private pool. The exterior of a bungalow.

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QUIRK HOTEL RICHMOND, VIRGINIA lobby, the Ukrop’s decade-long mission to bring some magic to Broad Street was on full display. The developer of an app called Coffitivity shuffled from the attached gallery space, to the barista counter that serves cult roaster Blanchard’s, to his laptop resting on a plush midcentury sofa. Brunch-goers tucked into toasted avocado hash at chef David Dunlap’s restaurant, Maple & Pine. Even Harry Potter (yes, Daniel Radcliffe) whisked himself into an elevator. “The local art scene gets richer every year with more imaginative and creative people moving to town who are making huge contributions to Richmond’s culture,” Katie says. “We’ve established some really strong connections with amazing artists and will continue to exhibit their work at the gallery; hopefully, the hotel will give them a broader audience.” Case in point: the studio around the corner, where the hotel’s first artist-in-residence, paperist Leigh Suggs, is completing a six-month residency. Before she’s done, one of her pieces will join the property’s permanent collection. destinationhotels.com —N.S.

(TOP TO BOTTOM) A guestroom at the Quirk Hotel. A desk. SURFACE

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PHOTOS: COURTESY THE DURHAM.

PHOTOS: COURTESY QUIRK HOTEL.

Richmond’s arts district was an eyesore of crumbling infrastructure and panhandling vagabonds when Ted and Katie Ukrop opened their Broad Street concept shop and art exhibition space, Quirk Gallery, in 2005. Ten years later, the neighborhood has become ground zero for the city’s creative movement, with recording studios, Southern-style gastropubs, indie-label fashion boutiques, and now, the new Quirk Hotel. “The gallery has always operated with that principle in mind: To bring attention back to Broad Street and re-establish this area as a major destination,” Katie says. Inside the facade of the erstwhile 1916 J.B. Mosby & Co. department store, the 74 rooms enunciate the building’s past as well as local talent with original pine floors and bed frames crafted from repurposed 100-year-old wood joists, offset by bright paintings and pink resin ice buckets. In the lobby, soaring segmental arches and a groin vault ceiling house artworks like Chris Milk’s lifesize tin men cyclists and a massive instillation by Susie Ganch called “Pile,” an assemblage of upcycled coffee cup lids, lipstick imprints and all, from nearby cafes. On a recent Sunday afternoon in the

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THE DURHAM NORTH CAROLINA

PHOTOS: COURTESY THE DURHAM.

PHOTOS: COURTESY QUIRK HOTEL.

For the uninitiated, Durham may recall images of airport layovers, Duke University hoops, tobacco smoke, and Kevin Costner wooing Susan Sarandon. These days, the central North Carolina city has been crawling toward relevance, specifically downtown. Real-estate developers have descended from high and low, leaving in their wake a bevy of trendy bars, offices, loft apartments, and art spaces. Banked in the middle of it all, on East Chapel Hill Street, is the 53-room Durham Hotel, which occupies the former Mutual Community Savings Bank, a building that dates back to 1969. The hotel’s viscera is a bright explosion of midcentury modern designs—deep reds, yellows, and caramel tones throughout—by Los Angeles interiors outfit Commune, though a local style prevails. The rooms are appointed with custom Raleigh Denim blankets. James Beard Award winner Andrea Reusing of Chapel Hill’s acclaimed Lantern helms the restaurant. Staff uniforms are made with materials produced at a Greensboro mill. But the lobby, with its black-and-white scalene triangle tiles, is the hotel’s purely hypnotic piece de resistance. Its design, according to the developers, is reflective of both the historic integrity of the building and its period. In addition to that, the National Design Award–winning team looked to the Black Mountain College in nearby Asheville for inspiration. Sometimes all it takes to elevate a small town’s status is a stylish hotel. thedurham.com —C.C.

(TOP TO BOTTOM) The Durham’s exterior. The lobby and reception desk.

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AMERICAN INFLUENCE (TOP TO BOTTOM) The Rivertown Lodge’s lobby. The library. (OPPOSITE, TOP TO BOTTOM) A guestroom. The front desk.

RIVERTOWN LODGE HUDSON VALLEY, NEW YORK

PHOTOS: EMMA TUCCILLO.

Situated in a former 1920s movie house, the justopened Rivertown Lodge reflects the sleepy-nomore state of its hometown. Located in Hudson, about 120 miles north of Manhattan, the cozy hotel celebrates the region’s aesthetic—the valley is renowned for its antique shops—but that doesn’t mean it’s solely folksy. Like its surrounding streets, which include an in-the-works museum by artist Marina Abramovic, an annex office for e-commerce site Etsy (which is headquartered in Brooklyn), and several storefront galleries, the 27-room lodge speaks to the town’s city-dwelling, culturally-in-the-know visitors. Designed by Brooklyn-based firm Workstead, which also did the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and co-founded by Ray Pirkle, whose résumé includes stints working for Grandlife Hotels and Ian Schrager, the property would seem just as much at home in the city (save for the stovepipe fireplace). Interior elements include tables created by Sawkille, a furniture company in nearby Rhinebeck; custom-made beds and lighting by Workstead; and vintage side chairs. Mixologists Natasha David and Jeremy Oertel are behind the cocktail list and Jean Adamson of Brooklyn restaurant Vinegar Hill House does the seasonal menus. Almost like a “living room” for the town—at least that’s how Pirkle sees it—the two-story space features a kitchen and espresso bar in the lobby, as well as a communal dinner table for the urban refugees. rivertownlodge.com —Spencer Bailey SURFACE

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PHOTOS: EMMA TUCCILLO.

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THE BORO HOTEL LONG ISLAND CITY, NEW YORK

PHOTOS: FLOTO + WARNER.

Hotels are neighborhood barometers, whether marking the moment that an area’s gentrification is inexorable or reflecting the most current demographic through its clientele. Take Long Island City in Queens, where the new Boro Hotel—across the street from a Sheraton, in close proximity to a Ramada Inn and Best Western, and a few blocks from the 7 train to Times Square—suggests that the borough has started attracting a new crop of travelers who won’t be spending their vacation in the vicinity of the Naked Cowboy. The first foray into hospitality for a group of five siblings, Boro takes advantage of the area’s industrial roots and Manhattan views, and infuses it with Scandinavian cool while adding enough color to keep it from being too serious. As principal designer Matthew Grzywinski of local firm Grzywinski + Pons says, the goal was to achieve a sweet spot of “happy and minimal.” Where playful accent lighting from brands like Plumen and Muuto and floral tile patterns soften concrete flooring, not to mention views of surrounding warehouses, it does. The Boro notably eschews overt hotel markers: there’s no formal reception desk, just a table where friendly employees sit inconspicuously at laptops, ready to check you in (once you figure that out, they’re quite helpful). Absent are in-room minibars, although the staff is happy to bring one up à la carte. A bar is planned for the rooftop deck, and the restaurant, a French-American bistro, opens in early 2016. Spend a morning scoping out the lively scene at the complimentary breakfast bar—proof that Long Island City really can draw a cool international crowd. borohotel.com —H.W.

(TOP TO BOTTOM) A guestroom desk. A bed. (OPPOSITE) The reception area.

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PHOTOS: FLOTO + WARNER.

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Supporting Act

(OPPOSITE) Tom Kundig at his firm’s Seattle office.

For Tom Kundig, architecture is at its best when it’s a warmup for the headliner: its surroundings. BY DAVE KIM PORTRAIT BY IAN C. BATES

Tom Kundig is standing outside the Charles intervention—a balancing act between Smith Jet City Winery in the Georgetown statement-making and disciplined restraint. neighborhood of Seattle, watching commercial An events room on the second floor, for planes fly overhead. The 60-year-old architect, example, boasts a custom-made bar clad in a principal of the firm Olson Kundig (founded powder-blue steel and long white leather by Jim Olson in 1968), recently turned this couches that evoke the bench seats of a vintage former bottling plant for Dr. Pepper into one Corvette. But held over from the building’s of the largest urban wineries in the country. bottling-plant days are the fir rafters—some After several visits he’s still enamored with its still sporting decades-old scribbles in spray humble environs—the weedy runways of a paint—and weathered floorboards. county airport across the street, a clapboard Kundig is perhaps best known as an tavern next door, and, at the entrance to the architect of picturesque private residences, parking lot, a ramshackle coffee stand that and regularly wins architecture honors for until recently featured bikini-clad baristas modernist houses in breathtaking natural settings. His Studio House (1998), located behind the counter. The neighborhood is roundly industrial about 15 miles north of the winery, is in and full of warehouses. Some of the buildings some ways a total contrast to Charles Smith: are red-brick beauties that date back to the Steel and concrete abound, but the decidedly area’s early-20th-century heyday, but most luxurious house sits on a conifer-covered hill are anonymous, cheaply built containers that overlooking Puget Sound. It’s the kind of hardly merit a second glance. Lately, Kundig getaway-in-the-woods project that garners has been interested in the latter. “I’m most press and social-media shares, and has helped excited about projects that other people might win the firm nine National Housing Awards discard,” he says. “These are some of the most from the American Institute of Architects, satisfying projects. You go into a crappy including one earlier this year. industrial building and hopefully make it into Kundig, though, doesn’t see his urban work an important one.” as being all that different from his rural or Rehabilitating and repurposing old suburban projects. (His range is on view in warehouses is standard procedure in today’s a newly released book, Tom Kundig: Works, design world, but most architects and their from Princeton Architectural Press.) While clients either start with sites that already nature has long been part of his identity—he boast plenty of character, or they render the was a rock climber for many years—Kundig structures unrecognizable with expensive doesn’t value its role in architecture any additions and cladding. Kundig prefers the more than he does the teeming metropolis. challenge of starting with the unremarkable “Our work has always been context-driven, and likens his approach to a kind of surgery— whatever that context is,” he says. “If I do a opening up, stripping away, and making lecture, people will talk about the context of focused changes until the space reveals the landscape. And I’ll go, ‘Remember, there’s moments of beauty. a cultural landscape and a built landscape And indeed, the transformation of the that’s as important as any natural landscape.’” Charles Smith winery appears to be a modest Shaggy-haired and dressed in a crisp one, at least when seen from the street. Aside white button-down tucked into faded blue from the bold signage on the roof, the building jeans, Kundig resembles a veteran craftsman is still nondescript, a dapper black box with who has reluctantly suited up for a client large factory windows. It’s the interior that meeting. He carries a beautifully scuffed more noticeably shows Kundig’s creative black leather briefcase that appears to have SURFACE

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PHOTO: COURTESY OLSON KUNDIG.

PHOTO: IAN C. BATES.

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PHOTO: COURTESY OLSON KUNDIG.

PHOTO: IAN C. BATES.

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been through war but would fetch a tidy sum in a Manhattan consignment shop. He looks the part of someone who thrives on bridging contrasts—rural and urban, economical and stately, rugged and refined—and his buildings often feature raw industrial materials like weathering steel and concrete that are softened by wood, elegant fixtures, and whimsical design touches. Kundig was born to Swiss immigrants who settled in Spokane, Washington, and later in northern Idaho. He grew up in towns defined by mining, lumber, and farming—industries that depend heavily on both the natural world and efficient, functional design. The sculptor Harold Balazs was a family friend, and before Kundig went to study architecture at the University of Washington, he came of age as a laborer in the service of art, helping Balazs grind steel, mix concrete, and work simple machines. “He was an artist who moved big sculptures and steel,” Kundig says of his early mentor. “He would use engineering devices— pulleys or bags of sand or levers. And I was just fascinated with that.” Those elementary engineering solutions have made their way into the architect’s work; in fact, they’ve become something of 141

a design signature. His recently completed Shinsegae tower in Seoul features giant panels in the curtain wall that move up and down via pulleys. Sun screens on an addition for the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington, which the firm completed a year ago, slide back and forth like boxcar doors. And even a child can open a huge wall of glass on Kundig’s Chicken Point cabin, in northern Idaho, with a few spins of a handwheel. Such features—nearly all of which are manually operated and developed in-house by Olson Kundig’s “gizmologist,” Phil Turner—add a little something extra to the projects. But what is it precisely? Surprise? Dynamism? Humor? “Humanism,” Kundig answers. “It’s like, this is the way gravity works. You don’t need a motor. You can do this using just your intelligence.” And so it is with Kundig’s designs, which rely not on the hidden magic of digitization and cutting-edge technology but on human ingenuity and time-tested building processes. This ingenuity is put on full display in the architect’s work—occupants can see and touch the structural beams, the tracks on which doors and walls move, the mechanisms

that allow the space to shift and adapt to various needs. And while Kundig has earned accolades for doing these things for bucolic residences, he’s now taking his tactics more and more to urban environments and to unsung spaces like former warehouses. Whatever changes may be in store, context, to him, is always king. “The architecture that’s more successful,” he says, “is the architecture that takes somewhat of a background and is just supportive.”

Olson Kundig’s Chicken Point Cabin in northern Idaho. (OPPOSITE) Objects, stones, and wood at the firm’s studio. (NEXT SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT) Inside the Charles Smith Jet City Winery. Objects and materials inside Olson Kundig’s office.

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PHOTO: COURTESY OLSON KUNDIG.

PHOTOS: IAN C. BATES.

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A Master’s Work

(OPPOSITE) Paul Goldberger at his home office in New York.

For his latest book, Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger dives deep into the rich life of Frank Gehry. INTERVIEW BY TOM DOWNEY PHOTOS BY MICHAEL RYTERBAND

Paul Goldberger has called Frank Gehry the leading architect of his generation. Goldberger himself occupies roughly the same position in the world of architectural criticism. The parallels between the two men don’t end there: Just as Gehry’s work bridges the gap between the popular and the professorial, Goldberger is adept at moving from the mainstream media into academic circles and back again. His recent and definitive biography of Gehry, Building Art (Knopf), is his first book of that genre. Goldberger viewed Gehry’s personal residence, 145

built in Santa Monica in 1978, shortly after it was constructed, and was immediately struck by the genius of the work—and the man behind it. He’s been following Gehry’s architecture ever since. Goldberger has also authored multiple works of criticism and narrative about architecture, including Up From Zero, his 2004 account of the rebuilding of Ground Zero. He moved from being architecture writer at The New York Times, where he won a Pulitzer in 1984, to 14 years at The New Yorker, and finally to Vanity Fair, his home since 2012. His next project is

a book about the way that the changing geographical positions of baseball stadiums— from urban to suburban and back to urban again—track the way in which American cities have been viewed variously as utopian, dystopian, and then utopian once again. He is on the board conducting the search for an architect for Barack Obama’s presidential library, the first such search to be open to non-American architects. Surface sat down for lunch with Goldberger in New York to discuss his Gehry biography and his opinion on the state of architecture today. >

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Which building brought Frank Gehry to your attention? His own house, which goes all the way back to 1978. It was pretty clear that something amazing was going on. It was different from what everyone else was doing. When did you first see it? I saw it when it was pretty much new. I’ve been watching him for a really long time now. We met by chance at the beginning of my career and relatively early in his, although he’s a lot older then I am. I wrote a piece about the Ron Davis house in Malibu for The New York Times in the mid ’70s. It was just the beginning of my career and the first time one of his buildings was published in a national general-interest publication. In a way, we’ve grown up parallel. His Guggenheim building in Bilbao changed that city forever. It turned the Basque region into an international destination after opening. What makes a building able to transform a city and become instantly iconic? Are there any other examples that come to mind? Maybe the Sydney Opera House. There have been iconic buildings in cities that needed them in quite the same way. A building in London or Paris is not needed to put them on the map, but Sydney is a different story. There aren’t a lot of examples in this country, and I would say in terms of Bilbao, it was a sort of extraordinary coincidence of circumstances that made it happen. It was not the so-called “Bilbao effect.” It’s not something that’s strictly reproducible, which is why it disappointed people when they expected it to happen over and over again. It just doesn’t work that way. Why do you think it worked? For a few reasons. Frank Gehry’s career was at a particular moment where he had a number of ideas that were just coming in full flowered maturity. Technology was making it possible for the first time to do certain things that had not been possible before, so that was a coincidence of time. You can imagine certain shapes, but not build them, at least not in practical and economic ways. Technology coincided with its own maturity in architecture. Also, the city was very eager to redefine itself in terms of tourism and was prepared to pay for a very special building and allow a significant amount of leeway in the process of creating it. And there’s the fact that they had the Guggenheim as a client, an institution that really wanted to do the same thing, that wanted to use this building in the same way—to increase its own international profile—and was prepared to invest seriously. The Guggenheim was given the right by the

region to manage the project entirely, but they paid for it. All those situations were unusual and not likely to be reproduced. In some ways, it’s like the High Line in New York. It does not take away the talent of the people who created it to say that there was an extraordinary amount of good fortune in the way of certain things coming together at the right time, in the right place, with the right people and the right ideas. That does not mean that those ideas can be dropped anywhere and have the same effect. Do you think Gehry’s aesthetic works in places like New York? I don’t want to say his aesthetic can’t work, and we’ve already seen evidence of how he adjusts it and tweaks it for New York. I think there is no question that he is naturally more of a foreground than background architect. I mean, that’s fine. We’ve got plenty of people to do background, and that’s another misunderstanding about him that I hope the book corrects. Nobody said that every architect should do what Frank Gehry does. His work is a thing unto itself. What about the history of commissioning outsiders to do work in foreign cities? It’s similar to what’s happened to food. It used to be that if you were a chef in America, you learned to cook in America. Then, 30 years ago, American chefs starting making trips to France. You’re getting at a much bigger question, which is: Are we losing regional cultures? It seems like that process has accelerated in architecture. Well, look at music. It’s been international for a long time and big names travel all over the world performing. Art and museums certainly have a very international scope. Of course. But what about the things that are at the frontier of art? Which, to me, architecture is. Architecture is absolutely global. Whether it’s more so than other endeavors, I’m not totally sure. I think it’s inevitably global, though. Are we at risk of losing certain regional and national characteristics? Yes. But that’s a cultural problem that goes far beyond architecture. And it’s a genuine loss, even if there are tradeoffs for it, if nevertheless we are getting something in return, which I think we are. The great question is whether in a couple generations there will still be national and regional sensibilities of the sort we are used to seeing. The first generation of Japanese architects to work around the world could be said to have brought a Japanese sensibility elsewhere. But, when we have had several

generations of that, will there be such a thing as a Japanese sensibility to start with? Speaking of Japan, that country is standing out in producing a huge number of toptier architects. Why do you think that is? The fact that it has always been a visually sophisticated culture has to count for something. It’s also a culture that has carried with it a kind of internal gyroscope of consciousness of space. It’s very hard to live in Japan and not be conscious of space—what it implies and public domains—and both the presence of history and the indifference to history. At the end of the day, I don’t know that anyone can truly know what brings forth a particular kind of flowering at any one time, but I’ve tried to figure that out about a lot of things. Why did music flower in London in the 1960s? Why did architecture flower in Chicago in the beginning of the 20th century? Why did paintings happen at a certain time in Paris? And then in New York at a different time? It’s an incredible question to which there is no clear, simple answer—ever. That doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it and have plenty to say. It never comes down to one secret sauce that gets passed from city to city. Like Bilbao and the High Line, I think it’s usually a whole set of conditions that just happen to overlap or coincide at particular times. Economics is part of it, too. If I were a believer in astrology— which I’m not—I would say that the stars are in alignment at certain places at certain times. Do you think Gehry was cognizant of the things that you are now explaining about the success of Bilbao before he took the job? No, I don’t think so. He took it because it was a great job and also a chance to make more of a mark internationally. It wasn’t his first international building; he had done a few others, but his bar was rising and he knew it was an opportunity to do the biggest and most important thing. Another part of it was that Bilbao came at a time when his Walt Disney Concert Hall was having a lot of different callings. Not long after Bilbao started, the concert hall stopped and didn’t resume again until after Bilbao was finished and acclaimed by the world. It became too much of a civic embarrassment for Los Angeles, this bulding they had actually started before Bilbao, which had run into a combination of political, financial, and technical problems. It was never officially abandoned, but it eventually grounded to a halt. It restarted when they realized they’d been saying that Frank Gehry buildings are too difficult, too expensive, too impossible, too this, too that, and now this little two-bit town in Spain had built one, and L.A.—his own city—hadn’t. That was essentially the argument that was made by both political and philanthropic people in L.A. to get it started again. It restarted after Bilbao and eventually SURFACE

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was brought to a very happy conclusion. It was a 16-year arc, which Bilbao fell right in the middle of. In those years, Gehry was very eager to get out of Los Angeles. He felt like a pariah in his home city. His building was the butt of jokes. It was a very hard time. Do you think clients these days still have a willingness to let an architect experiment even while considering the money end of the impulse? It’s uneven and very spotty. It existed for a brief time in China. I think it’s faded already, but there was a narrow window in China. The window began when they had enough money and ambition to do certain things, and it’s beginning to close as they develop too large of a middle class for the economy to produce enormous, ambitious things on the backs of vast armies of underpaid workers. I’ve never forgotten what somebody told me in 2008, when I came to visit the new Beijing airport by Norman Foster before it was finished. I was told that at the peak of construction— do you know how many workers they had? 20,000? 50,000! At the peak! That’s how they were able to produce this thing in no time. The timeline from conception, through design, through building, to the opening of the Beijing airport was shorter than the time period of the environmental review process for Terminal 5 at Heathrow. That’s funny. It’s very funny. You know, democracy isn’t always the best thing for architecture, but obviously it’s the best thing for a lot of other reasons, and we hardly want to give it up to make more buildings. China is also now increasing and beginning to develop its own generation of good Chinese architects, many who have been educated here in the U.S. That’s a real difference from a few years ago. The difference from China and Japan is, of course, that Japan has been developing very strong architects on its own for a long period of time. China has only begun to do so in the last generation. The architect-selection process can be so telling—or not. I’ve been serving as a consultant to the board of the Obama Foundation, in the search of an architect for the Obama Library in Chicago, and its unlike any other presidential library— the search is international, not national, at the president’s request. I don’t think you could be cosmopolitan in 2015 without looking globally. This doesn’t mean they are going to make a choice that isn’t American, but it means they absolutely want to look at a field that’s global, and then make a decision about what they want to do. 147

Who are some architects you look at as being the most expressive of not only the place they’re working in, but also of where they come from? We want to talk about other people than Frank Gehry, but I would have to say he certainly would be on that list. You see a little bit of Los Angeles in everything he does. He was so shaped by the roughness and funkiness of the city. I don’t know whether anybody really represents that well. I remember Gehry telling me that when he got the job to do the 8 Spruce Street apartment building, he started looking at skyscrapers in New York in a way he never had before. He spent a lot of time walking around and just studying them. I think to some extent he’s done that all along. Studying all kinds of precedence. Not to mimic, but just to know. The really interesting question, though, is whether anybody truly represents a place anymore, or embodies it in their work. I’m thinking of most of the best architects I know, and I don’t think of them as particularly doing that. But I don’t know if architects necessarily have done that in the past that much, either. Look at McKim, Mead & White doing traditional and classical buildings as well, if not better than, anybody else around—and becoming quite famous for doing that work. It was primarily in New York, but a fair amount of it was elsewhere in the U.S. Did that represent the people of New York’s sensibility, or was it something else? Henry Hobson Richardson, who created that style—we actually call Richardsonian Romanesque—was based in Boston and did some amazing work all over. But is there something particularly Bostonian about that? I don’t think so. Was there something American about it? Yeah, I think there’s something very American about taking historical precedence and making it a little bit more picturesque, softer, integrating different things. Treating history like a buffet table that you can pick and choose

things from and combine them on your plate in an interesting composition—that’s a very American trait. Where does Gehry come into this? Gehry is very interested in things feeling comfortable and almost sensual. A lot of what he does is really a form of decoration and is against the old, orthodox, modernist doctrine, which is all about structure and purity, directness and simplicity and transparency—as a Robert A.M. Stern mansion would be. The thing, to me, that distinguishes Gehry is that with a lot of the other people’s buildings, there’s a level of abstract thought required to really appreciate them; with Gehry’s, that doesn’t happen so much. That’s another thing that I tried to talk about in the book: Gehry’s work is, in fact, accessible. And it’s rare that work that serious and that innovative—and that much part of the avant-garde—is also as accessible. I think that’s something he very much wants historically. He’s an intellectual when it comes to vivid reading and breadth of knowledge, and where he gets his ideas. But his work is not particularly intellectual. Who precedes him in this vein? I’m not sure that there’s been an American, at least since Frank Lloyd Wright, who has this quality. The only American architect of equal stature and quality, to me, between the two Franks, is Louis Kahn. But Louis Kahn’s work was never particularly accessible, actually. It’s very beautiful and very powerful and very moving. But most of the time you kind of have to know more about architecture to get into it and be thrown into orgasmic delight.

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Mass Appeal

(OPPOSITE) Joanne Heyler in the lobby of the Broad in Los Angeles.

With Joanne Heyler at the helm and a bold new museum, the Broad Foundation extends its impact. BY SPENCER BAILEY PORTRAIT BY BRIAN GUIDO

Hearing Joanne Heyler declare that billionaire philanthropist and entrepreneur Eli Broad “might be the O.G. of Pop Art collecting” isn’t just refreshing; it’s also telling of both the forward-thinking culture at the Broad Foundation—which Heyler joined as an assistant curator in 1989 and has been in charge of since 1995—and her familial relationship with the man who created it. So what makes Eli an “original gangsta,” at least when it comes to Pop Art? For one thing, there’s the Broad museum’s collection of nearly 2,000 works dating from the 1950s to the present day, by more than 200 artists, including 28 Warhols, 34 Lichtensteins, 124 prints by Cindy Sherman, and eight pieces by Kara Walker. For another, the institution has loaned more than 8,000 works to 500-plus museums since it opened in 1984. Yet another reason: Eli’s prescience as a collector was long unparalleled. According to Heyler, the collection comes out of a postwar sensibility, tying one way or another back to the Pop aesthetic. “That taste has become

central to the art market,” she says. “But it of Los Angeles on a site adjacent to Frank wasn’t when the Broads launched the foun- Gehry’s swooping Walt Disney Concert Hall, dation. Eli didn’t come along and try to just which is rightfully one of the city’s most recimitate what others were doing.” ognizable landmarks. “This building manages The Broads—Eli and his wife, Edythe— to respect Disney Hall through counterpoint,” started collecting in the ’70s, but it wasn’t Heyler says. “It’s not trying to be as exuberant until the ’80s that they became immersed in on the exterior. We really thought DSR did it the contemporary art scene. They bought incredibly thoughtfully.” up works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Contextual though it may be, the Broad Haring, and Christopher Wool while those also seeks to be noticed. “The architecture artists were in their prime. “When I started to is almost always present,” Heyler says. “The take the lead role, it was a moment of taking building is just completely taking your attenstock and looking back at the last 15 years or tion.” Integrated into exhibition spaces on the so,” Heyler says. “There was not a conscious first and third floors is a “vault” for collection thought at that time of ‘Okay, we’re going to storage; its sculpted, cavelike underside serves build a museum.” as the lobby’s ceiling, its topside the base of And then, eventually, there was, and now the third-floor gallery. it’s here. The new 120,000-square-foot, Of the third floor, or “veil,” Heyler says: $140-million building housing the collection “It kind of calms you down—the geometry reflects the Broad Foundation’s ambitious of the sky-lit ceiling is dramatic, but it’s 23 focus. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, feet high. We thought about that quite a bit: it not only stands out but also looks unlike Will those diagonals really be too distracting?” any other museum. This despite the fact that The answer is, well, sort of. But the honeyit’s situated in the Bunker Hill neighborhood combed roof is distracting in a welcome way, SURFACE

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(THIS PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM) Three works by Roy Lichtenstein on view in the Broad’s third-floor gallery. Jasper Johns’s “Flag” (1967), part of the Broad Foundation collection. (OPPOSITE) Works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and John Ahearn on display at the Broad. (FOLLOWING SPREAD) Visitors inside the third-floor gallery. SURFACE

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something to look at in between taking in the column-free, art-packed space, a way to recalibrate and clear the head, an element that allows visitors to take in the legion of artworks. If the number of opening-week visitors to the museum—which is free and open to the public—are any indication, the Broad’s distinct mix of highly Instagrammable architecture and art is an extremely successful recipe, both for how to bring more visitors to a largely pedestrian-free neighborhood and how to further engage the public. On opening day, slightly less than 3,000 people came through the museum’s doors, and in a single 24-hour period 10,000 people reserved time slots for visits on the Broad’s website. Within a few days of opening, a total of 180,000 people had registered to come. Whether these numbers can be sustained remains in question—surely the massive media attention has helped—but if Heyler has her say, the space will continue to evolve as a new center, physically and metaphorically, at the cultural core of Los Angeles. “We’re still adding artists to the collection,” she says. “We’ve added quite a few recently, and we don’t anticipate that stopping. Eli has always said, since we started the museum project, that he doesn’t want this to be a static place in any sense.” Among the recent artist additions are Tauba Auerbach, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Goshka Macuga, Alex Israel, and Jordan Wolfson. >

PHOTOS: TOP, BRUCE DAMONTE/COURTESY THE BROAD AND DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO. BOTTOM, COURTESY JASPER JOHNS.

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PHOTO: BRUCE DAMONTE/COURTESY THE BROAD AND DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO

PHOTOS: TOP, BRUCE DAMONTE/COURTESY THE BROAD AND DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO. BOTTOM, COURTESY JASPER JOHNS.

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PHOTO: IWAN BAAN.

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PHOTO: IWAN BAAN.

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(THIS PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM) Barbara Kruger’s “Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground)” (1989). Ed Ruscha’s “Norm’s, La Cienega, on Fire” (1964). (OPPOSITE) Visitors on the escalator and in the lobby of the Broad.

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PHOTO: IWAN BAAN.

IMAGES: TOP, COURTESY BARBARA KRUGER. BOTTOM, COURTESY ED RUSCHA.

All of the work enters the collection only after a conversation between Eli and Heyler. It’s this sort of direct and clear communication—a somewhat rare thing in the museum world—that helps explain why the Broad has been able to grow its collection and build a museum so quickly. Of working with Heyler and the Broad team, architect Elizabeth Diller says, “We put democracy aside.” With projects like, she says, this it’s normal having to deal with many voices. “In this case, there were the ambitions of the architecture, and those of showing the collection as well as possible, and of storing the collection in the best-quality back-ofhouse space.” Despite such lofty ambitions, there weren’t many clashes. “We were really able to work as a team,” she says. “It was efficient.” This streamlined approach also explains the transparency about the Broad’s future: Eli is prepared to pay the foundation’s way forward. “We aren’t planning to do fundraising,” Heyler says. Instead, the plan is to have a self-sustaining museum with a minimum endowment of $200 million; traditional private fundraising isn’t in the works, though Heyler says corporate sponsorships may be considered down the line. “I’m lucky that I can focus that much more on the collection [than fundraising],” she adds. Los Angeles is lucky, too. Over the past few decades, Eli has come to the fore as a, well, broad-minded benefactor, an economic titan whose philanthropy extends deeply into the cultural life of the city. With the Broad museum, L.A. strengthens its position even further as one of the world’s leading art capitals. As Heyler puts it, the foundation isn’t just about writing a check. “The Broads do that critical act, but they also work to make institutions and cities—and L.A. in particular—better.”

PHOTO: IWAN BAAN.

IMAGES: TOP, COURTESY BARBARA KRUGER. BOTTOM, COURTESY ED RUSCHA.

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Open Plan

As LACMA turns 50, museum director Michael Govan helps usher in an ambitious expansion.

(OPPOSITE) Michael Govan on the grounds of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

INTERVIEW BY BETTINA KOREK PORTRAIT BY JULIA STOTZ

I have always had a special relationship with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I often visited growing up and eventually worked there for several years—before the tenure of its current director and CEO, Michael Govan— when LACMA was a sleepier place. Back then, when I would ask other Angelenos to visit the museum, they had a hard time distinguishing between “the one downtown” (meaning the Museum of Contemporary Art) and “the one near the Tar Pits” (LACMA). Today it’s a different story. During his decade at the helm, Govan has elevated the museum’s profile. He has spearheaded projects such as the hugely popular outdoor plaza 157

with Chris Burden’s “Urban Light” (2008), a temple-like arrangement of restored street lamps from all over L.A. that has become a nighttime destination for people visiting the city, and Michael Heizer’s “Levitated Mass” (2012), a 340-ton boulder that was transported by truck to LACMA through three counties. Now Govan has plans to raze much of the museum’s original campus (at a price of more than $750 million) for an ambitious and controversial design by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, which is scheduled for completion in 2023. When we met, I asked Govan about former Univision chairman and CEO Jerry Perenchio’s remarkable announcement

on the 50th anniversary of the museum to gift LACMA a massive collection of 19th and 20th century masterpieces. The offer came with a big string attached: the museum must complete Zumthor’s building before it gets the works. He wondered if I was skeptical about the plan’s scope, which has spurred debate. Govan’s vision for a “non-hierarchical culture space” feels very L.A.—as the home of glitter, the city’s cultural ambitions are not snobby. He also acknowledges the relevance of the ancient in modern life. We also discussed the city, his approach to patronage, and the role of museums in our accelerating culture. >

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How did Jerry Perenchio’s gift come to be tied to the Zumthor plan?

happening now, and maybe I’m a little close to it, but it’s going to happen.

The core of an art museum is its collection. Not only is that what people see, but it’s what you trade with other museums through lending arrangements. The Perenchio gift was the big objective in terms of Modernist painting and sculpture. When I first spoke with Jerry, his first question was: “Where do the works go?” I told him that we were serious about Zumthor’s plan, and that I thought the county would support us. He said, “Okay, then I’m serious.” The building is what made him realize that there would be a proper place to leave the works in Los Angeles.

I’m curious how people responded when you told them you were moving to L.A.

You called Zumthor’s proposal a worthy risk, when most museums aren’t taking risks. It’s a very measured, thoughtful risk. The Zumthor project is actually about sublime accessibility. Everyone else wants to say these two ideas are opposed. Not me. What makes the plan sublime is that it’s so accessible. With smaller projects, it’s difficult to shift attitudes and infrastructure in favor of cultural philanthropy. So the vast scope of the project is in some ways strategic because it will help orient the community toward the museum. It has to be perceived as valuable and exciting, and I think that can happen. I do feel this shift

There was a lot of skepticism from friends in New York who think that’s the cultural center of the universe. But I came to L.A. with great optimism because it’s a metropolis with generations of artists and creativity. The Hammer was doing really well, and MOCA had an amazing history. But who was the leader to look up to? It seemed like LACMA was in that target zone. I told the board it was imperative to raise the bar, and they’ve created that leadership. Since you’ve arrived, the museum has added close to 10,000 works to the collection and attendance has almost doubled. LACMA always seemed to have low attendance relative to the city’s scale. My first week here it was pouring rain. I was at the Grove [shopping mall] and thought, “It’s still full of people outside, spending money; there’s this great mix of people and a sense of community.” That gave me confidence to open things up. Being outdoors, it’s also easier for people to make the decision to go to LACMA. Maybe first they hang outside at one of the museum’s

“Latin Sounds” concerts, and then pop inside. Is the museum’s “Art + Film” initiative an effort to bridge figures from the entertainment world to the arts? The rap on L.A. is that it lacks cultural philanthropy. It’s true that it’s harder to raise money for museums in Los Angeles than in other big cities. We’re a young city, and there isn’t multigenerational philanthropy like in New York. But that doesn’t predict what you can do in the future. There was this rift between the art-cultural world and the movie world, but I think we’ve tried to show that they’re ultimately compatible. This is an entertainment town after all. Cinematic art is art, and that’s what makes Los Angeles feel different. When you google “LACMA 50th anniversary” photos from the star studded gala come up first. Do you wrestle with how best to relate to celebrity culture?

In the world I come from, the huge celebrities are John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, David Hockney … But that doesn’t mean you have to discount other peoples’ accomplishments. Movies and television communicate more broadly. If we didn’t have a balance between the wide communication of movies and television, and the narrower one of

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the visual arts, I think we have a lesser world. They can coexist. The Art + Film gala was all about making it natural and easy for people from these different worlds to talk to each other, learn about art, and learn about film. The further away you are, the more complicated celebrity is. In L.A., Leonardo DiCaprio is at the museum all the time. He sits in the café with friends and visits the galleries, and then he shows up at the gala. Is L.A. more difficult than other cities in terms of patronage? L.A. has the cult of the individual more strongly than other cities, but what it’s not so good at is the collective. If you get too far into the collective, you miss the experimentation and unruliness of the individual and you can become ossified. But if you’re too focused on individual expression, you can miss the opportunity to create community. There has to be a balance. L.A. is starting to move more in the direction of community. You’ve timed the Zumthor expansion to the opening of L.A. Metro’s expanded Purple Line. Was this to give everyone somewhere to go? The subway is a game changer. Frank Gehry always said that L.A. has no city center: It has a line, and that line is Wilshire Boulevard. >

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A rendering of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor’s LACMA plan.

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It connects downtown and the ocean, and we’re in the middle of it. My dream—a sort of secret and not-so-secret plan—is to move LACMA into the communities more physically and permanently through collaborations, and even through physical space. One idea is to run programs wherever you have an off-site storage location. That’s potentially in our future. You say that Zumthor addresses the idea of the sublime in art. Sacred and profane has been ingrained into us as a dichotomy, with the museum on one side and pop culture on the other. But L.A. is the place to indulge both. Obsessing about the hierarchies of better and worse is less interesting than marveling in the power of creativity. I don’t see any contradiction between having people taking their selfies on the plaza, and then coming in, slowing down, and contemplating a 16th-century Ardabil carpet—the greatest Persian carpet in the world. The great thing about an encyclopedic museum is that all of this coexists. Do museums offer a counterpoint to accelerating culture? I believe that Peter Zumthor is one of the few architects who can bring you to this other space of contemplation. A museum should elucidate the idea that there are many ways of seeing things. Any experience of a work of art is dependent on so many things: the frame, the lighting, the weather, what state of mind you’re in, how you arrived there. That affects how you read things. Robert Irwin, or any artist involved in perception, can teach you that. Talk about the pressure of the institution. What keeps you up at night? Institutions have to answer to a lot of stakeholders: our public, our donors, the county, and a staff that is large and smart. Everybody has an opinion, so there’s pressure to make a lot of people feel that you’re doing a good job serving their needs and those of the community. Big public museums are also starved for money given what they have to accomplish, from serving the public through educational programs to trying to acquire art for future generations. You have all the donors who want their gifts to be maximized, and through the county you’re also accountable for taxpayers’ money. Everybody wants magic. They want attendance and they want poetry. What advice would you give a prospective museum director?

What about advice for collectors who are thinking about building their own museum? People vastly underestimate how much money it takes to sustain a cultural institution. In the future, we will see a consolidation of art museums and cultural institutions. If you look broadly, statistically there is not enough endowment and capital to keep alive all the cultural facilities that have proliferated in the last 30 years. Do you think that museums need to do more to investigate other ways they can make revenue? That was a big trend in the 1990s and early 2000s, but most of it didn’t pan out. We’re just not as good at straight business as we are at creating enormous value through art and education. It’s a lot more efficient for one my trustees to make a large amount of money through movies, video games, farming, or whatever, and then give it to the museum. I rely on the fact that wealth will be created in the communities and will then go to the public through the museum. What we have to do is build the best, most attractive possible vessel so that people will feel like they’re seeing great value in their contributions. Do you consider yourself a dreamer? If you’re not dreaming in this business, then you’re not doing your job. Imagination is the key to our survival as a species, and it’s what art is about. If a patron offered you $1 billion for a dream project, what would it be? LACMA. The potential here is much greater than I ever imagined. There’s no other place like it: the multicultural audience, the creative community, the weather, being on the Pacific Rim. You’re on the edge. I can’t imagine anything better than investing in what’s going on right here. This interview is running in Surface’s American Influence issue. Michael Heizer has been enormously influential on your spirit and thinking. Who else? Chris Burden had a very American way of looking at things—that kind of civic community idea. Robert Irwin is a CalifornianAmerican artist in a big way, too. So is James Turrell. And Barbara Kruger, with her interest in pop culture and magazine culture. You never get rid of influence. It’s what makes the future.

Think twice. I found myself in this position by accident. It’s very rewarding, but it’s also grueling and all-consuming.

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Gallery A new exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston focuses on the rich legacy of Black Mountain College.

Text and Interview by Noam Dvir

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Erickson. In the interdisciplinary tradition of Black Mountain, the exhibition features more than 250 objects along with an intriguing program of events and performances; an in-gallery dance floor for live performances, a grand piano that will be “prepared,” or transformed, according to John Cage’s specifications; and a freestanding set decoration by Rauschenberg, titled “Minutiae,” dating to 1957. The show sits comfortably in the ICA’s waterfront location, designed by New York firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro a decade ago. The iconic building has relatively small, challenging gallery spaces and an underutilized 325-seat theater. Unlike previous interdisciplinary projects, it seems that the current exhibition succeeds in fulfilling the museum’s spatial and programmatic potential. Black Mountain College operated until 1957, when it was shut down due to a growing debt burden and a decreasing number of students. Molesworth, who spent a considerable amount of time researching the exhibition on the site, says that Black Mountain was an unprecedented experiment, with little or no chance to reoccur today. “Black Mountain College happens because there’s a great depression and a war,” Molesworth says. According to her, the country has not responded in the same way as in 1933. “We responded with student debt and an increase in militaristic killing.” She adds, “The show is an allegory.” Here, Molesworth discusses some of the standout works in the show.

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PHOTO: TIM NIGHSWANDERS/IMAGING 4 ART/COURTESY THE JOSEF AND ANNI ALBERS FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

This fall, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston opens the first comprehensive U.S. museum exhibition about the work of Black Mountain College, the legendary school in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina that created an experimental interdisciplinary environment for the education and production of art. “Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957” (through Jan. 24, 2016) focuses on the artistic and intellectual wealth of the school and its lasting impact on the art of our time. It tries in earnest to showcase the diverse artistic techniques and movements that emerged on the school’s grounds. The college operated in a picturesque summer camp– like setting and became a seminal meeting place for artists, musicians, dancers, architects, and thinkers who became leading practitioners of the postwar era. This is where European émigrés like Josef and Anni Albers (both of them former teachers at the famed Bauhaus in Germany) rubbed shoulders with emerging artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Motherwell, and Cy Twombly; where music instructor John Cage created his first “happening” and tested his inchoate aesthetics. On the great lawn, overlooking Lake Eden, experiments in structure and form were carried out by Buckminster Fuller, culminating in his first full-scale geodesic dome, while dancer Merce Cunningham introduced students to bodily explorations of movement in space. Teachers and students shared accommodation, worked together in the communal garden and created their own entertainment program. When Japanese-American artist Ruth Asawa married Albert Lanier, a fellow student at the college, it was Fuller who designed her wedding ring and textile artist Anni Albers who provided black fabric to make a dress. Helen Molesworth, the ICA’s former chief curator, organized the exhibition with assistant curator Ruth

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PHOTO: TIM NIGHSWANDERS/IMAGING 4 ART/COURTESY THE JOSEF AND ANNI ALBERS FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

Josef Albers, “Leaf Study IX” (c. 1940): “One of the hallmarks of Josef Albers’s teaching was his assignment of uniform class exercises in color, design, and matière [material studies]. It was extremely important to him that the students learn to use the materials in the world around them in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’m fairly certain that these exercises were done in the fall, when the leaves would have wildly different colors: orange, red, yellow. The fall foliage in the Blue Ridge Mountains is incredibly dramatic. The leaves have obviously faded, but they speak to the exploration of both material and color.”

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(BELOW) Anni Albers, “Knot 2” (1947): “Albers emphasized a return to the foundational principles of textile construction, and she taught her students multiple techniques, like drafting, reading weave patterns, and tying knots. Albers is evidently an extremely sophisticated artist, and this work shows her interest in the complicated relationship between line, color, and form. Like many women artists of her generation who were married to important male artists, her career took a conscious back to his.”

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PHOTO: TIM NIGHSWANDERS/IMAGING 4 ART/COURTESY THE JOSEF AND ANNI ALBERS FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

(ABOVE) Ruth Asawa, “Dancers” (c. 1948): “Asawa was a student in Merce Cunningham’s dance class, and she was greatly influenced by the expressive capacity of the human body. The biomorphic forms in this painting emerged while she was sitting around watching Cunningham dance and rehearse with students. We see these forms as not only having a relationship to the body, but also to moving bodies in space. The forms also appear in her sculptural work, although we are not sure what came first—the drawings or the sculptures.”

PHOTOS: 01, COURTESY THE FINE ARTS MUSEUMS OF SAN FRANCISCO. 02, BEN BLACKWELL/COURTESY THE JOSEF AND ANNI ALBERS FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

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PHOTO: TIM NIGHSWANDERS/IMAGING 4 ART/COURTESY THE JOSEF AND ANNI ALBERS FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

PHOTOS: 01, COURTESY THE FINE ARTS MUSEUMS OF SAN FRANCISCO. 02, BEN BLACKWELL/COURTESY THE JOSEF AND ANNI ALBERS FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

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Josef Albers, “Tenayuca” (1943): “This work obviously emerges from the trips the Josef and Anni Albers took to Mexico in the 1930s. Like many artists who left Europe because of the war, the Alberses had to negotiate. One of the ramifications of the Western civilization is the Holocaust. To go to Mexico and to see this extraordinary culture became a source of hope for the Alberses‚— to see another model of a culture that doesn’t end up eating itself. Josef and Anni were both equally influenced by their trips to Mexico. Anni became extremely interested in the history of Mesoamerican textiles. When she returned to Black Mountain, she made important weavings that were a direct result of her encounters with these Mexican archaeological sites. It’s really Anni who came to believe that the Mesoamerican weavings serve a function of communication, although they are not linguistics.”

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(ABOVE) Jacob Lawrence, “Watchmaker” (1946): “We’re not sure whether Lawrence had done any work at Black Mountain, but this painting, as an image, speaks very much about the trends that we see coming out of the college. The painting depicts a craft, a person at work, an intense relationship between the eye and the hand. It’s also a painting that operates in a kind of a post-cubist tradition. It’s interesting how Josef Albers, who was the head of the painting program, was prepared to invite to the college artists who made work entirely different from his.” (OPPOSITE) Robert Motherwell, “The Displaced Table” (1943): “We were trying to represent works of art both by students and teachers in the exhibition, knowing that it’s impossible to indicate when and if these works were necessarily made in the college. Motherwell’s work is an example of the importance of collage as a strategy of making a picture, a key method exercised at Black Mountain. It has a cut-and-paste sensibility. A lot of artists in the 1940s were still operating in the cubist tradition, working through the foundations Picasso laid out. There’s a kind of shift that happens in the exhibition between pictures that are characterized through cubism and pictures that try to break from that model. This work by Motherwell obviously belongs to the former.”

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PHOTO: DEDALUS FOUNDATION, INC.

PHOTO: LEE STALSWORTH/THE JACOB AND GWENDOLYN KNIGHT LAWRENCE FOUNDATION, SEATTLE/ARTIST RIGHTS SOCIETY/VG BILD-KUNST, BONN.

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PHOTO: DEDALUS FOUNDATION, INC.

PHOTO: LEE STALSWORTH/THE JACOB AND GWENDOLYN KNIGHT LAWRENCE FOUNDATION, SEATTLE/ARTIST RIGHTS SOCIETY/VG BILD-KUNST, BONN.

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(OPPOSITE) Franz Kline, “Painting” (1952): “Like many of his peers, Kline was using a mixture of oil and house paint, largely reduced to a palette of black and white. There are many interpretations of Kline. Some see him as painting roughly sketched urban landscapes: trains, steel girders, windows, bridges, a kind of 1950s New York landscape. Others argue that Kline was thinking about and looking at Japanese calligraphy. Although he distances himself from calligraphy at a certain moment, but I think that this is slightly disingenuous. This is one of the only paintings that was definitely made in Black Mountain because there’s a photo of him standing with the work outside of his studio. For this reason this work is a little bit of a Holy Grail. Another interesting thing about this work is the radicalness of the abstraction and the way in which it signifies in Ashville very much what was happening in New York.”

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PHOTO: THE FRANZ KLINE ESTATE/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

(ABOVE) Willem de Kooning, “Asheville” (1948): “Asheville is a classic American town with a Main Street with storefronts. The students and the faculty went to Asheville—there was a bar there where beer could be bought. Different folks had a different idea of what a trip into town meant: For some students, it was just about having fun, while for others, it was an awakening to rural southern life, which was segregated and profoundly conservative. Almost everyone who left any physical record in the college’s archives speaks about the physical beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Having been there many times, I can attest that it’s impossible not to be arrested by the quality of the place. For this painting, the interpretation is individual. There’s an argument that it’s a landscape, and there’s another argument that this is a radically abstract painting named ‘Asheville’ because that’s where de Kooning was when he made it.”

PHOTO: THE WILLEM DE KOONING FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

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PHOTO: THE FRANZ KLINE ESTATE/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

PHOTO: THE WILLEM DE KOONING FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY.

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Culture Club A photo portfolio of recent events in the Surface universe, including the groundbreaking of the Virgin New York hotel and the Hammer museum gala in Los Angeles.

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Culture Club On Oct. 2, architect Annabelle Selldorf, art dealer Vito Schnabel, and others hosted a celebratory dinner at the restaurant Dirty French in New York for artist Rashid Johnson, whose new show at The Drawing Center, “Anxious Men,” opened the same day. The dinner also served to showcase the 14+ Foundation, which builds and operates schools and orphanages in rural African communities, and is supported by both Johnson and Selldorf (the architect will be designing the nonprofit’s second school in Zambia). Guests included Joseph Mizzi, David Kordansky, Lynn Nesbit, Cheryl Johnson-Odim, and Claire Gilman (pictured, left, with Johnson). (Photo: Courtesy The Drawing Center) 179

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Chez Bushwick Honors Daniel Arsham and Jonah Bokaer On Sept. 29, nonprofit organization Chez Bushwick held its annual gala at the Russian Tea Room in New York. During the evening, a multimedia collaboration called Rules of The Game was announced; it will combine the choreography of Jonah Bokaer, the visual art of Daniel Arsham (pictured, left, with Usher), and an original score by Pharrell Williams to be performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Guests included Jaden Smith, Alex Mustonen, Beth Rudin DeWoody, and Teddy Wasserman. (Photo: Ryan Kobane/bfa.com)

Vionnet Celebrates First Paris Flagship French fashion house Vionnet hosted a cocktail party to celebrate the opening of its first flagship store on Parisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rue FranĂ§ois. The brand paid homage to the founding couturier, Madeleine Vionnet, by placing the boutique in close proximity to her original atelier on Avenue Montaigne. The Oct. 1 party was attended by Goga Ashkenazi and Sienna Miller (pictured here, right to left) as well as Ora Ito, Magdalena Frackowiak, Anna Cleveland, Suzy Menkes, and Tina Leung. (Photo: Courtesy Vionnet) 181

CULTURE CLUB Move! At Brookfield Place Brookfield Place, a shopping center in lower Manhattan, launched Move!, an art and fashion exhibition. A party on Oct. 1st celebrated the new initiative, curated by Cecilia Dean and writer David Colman. Cynthia Rowley (pictured here), Jenna Lyons, Stacy London, Amanda Lepore, and others enjoyed interactive installations and music by D.J. Matthew Higgs. (Photo: patrickmcmullan.com)

Chromecast at the Top of the Standard Google fĂŞted its newest product release, Chromecast Audio, with electronica musician Chet Faker (pictured) at the Top of the Standard on Oct. 14. Guests including Lindsay Ellingson, Andreja Pejic, Bonnie Wright, Danielle Snyder, and others snacked on caviar and MoĂŤt champagne, surrounded by views of Manhattan, then danced the night away to a performance by Faker. (Photo: David X Prutting/bfa.com)

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Le Manifeste d’Hermès Global Launch Hermès and Véronique Nichanian hosted a visually interactive party on Sept. 24 at the Chicago Museum of Arts Warehouse to celebrate the launch of Le Manifeste d’Hèrmes, the French label’s new online platform dedicated to men. Guests enjoyed 3-D hopskotch, a poetry lounge, tutting dancers, and a choreographed treadmill routine (pictured here). (Photo: bfa.com)

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CULTURE CLUB Peter Dundas Fête at Paris Fashion Week The fashion designer Peter Dundas hosted a private dinner at Caviar Kaspia in Paris to celebrate the city’s Fashion Week—as well as his first collection for Roberto Cavalli—on Oct. 5. Fashion world insiders included model Anna Ewers, Natasha Poly, Candela Novembre, Bianca Brandolini d’Adda, Eugenie Niarchos, Anna Cleveland, and Catherine Baba (pictured here with the host). (Photo: Courtesy Roberto Cavalli)

Rebuild Foundation Benefit The artist Theaster Gates’s Rebuild Foundation gathered more than 150 guests for the first Build/Rebuild Benefit in Chicago. The event took place at the Stony Island Arts Bank, which was recently restored by the foundation, just before it opened to the public. Hosts Amy Rule and Mayor Rahm Emanuel welcomed guests to an evening that included a silent auction of artworks by Gates and musical performances by Meshelle Ndegeocello, Jebin Bruni, and D.J. Alan King. Attendees included David Adjaye (pictured, left, with Gates), Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Nick Cave, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, and others. (Photo: Kelly Taub/bfa.com)

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Virgin Hotels Breaks Ground in New York Richard Branson celebrated the groundbreaking for construction of Virgin’s New York City flagship hotel (to be opened in 2018) with Virgin Hotels CEO Rail Leal. A Virgin time capsule containing company memorabilia, like a Virgin Hotel key card and a pair of Virgin America headphones, was buried at the site. Branson and Leal are pictured here, marking the moment with Louis Roederer champagne at the construction site. (Photo: Charles Sykes/Invision for Virgin Hotels/AP Images)

Max Mara’s William Wegman Show To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Max Mara asked William Wegman (of Weimaraner fame) to shoot his signature dogs in the brand’s 101801 coat. On Oct. 14, those photos were displayed for the first time in an opening exhibition at the Max Mara store on New York’s Upper East Side, setting off a traveling schedule for the show that will see it go to nine cities. The exhibition coincides with a limited-edition re-release of the jacket. William Wegman is pictured here with a four-legged guest. (Photo: Kelly Taub/bfa.com) 189

CULTURE CLUB Brant Foundation’s Free Art Day On Sept. 26, the Brant Foundation Art Study Center and Tory Burch hosted Free Art Day. Children from New York City shelters were invited to the Brant space in Greenwich, Connecticut, for a day of arts and crafts. Lead by artist Rob Pruitt, each child was paired with an adult mentor to work on different projects like splatter paintings and personalized tote bags inspired by Pruitt’s style. Notable attendees include Liz Hopfan, Allison Brant, Sheri Repicci, and Misha Nonoo. Pictured is Emily Mcelwreath. (Photo: Ben Rosser/bfa.com)

Hammer Museum’s Gala in the Garden On Oct. 10, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, along with Bottega Veneta, honored artists Diane Keaton and Paul McCarthy at its annual gala in the building’s outdoor courtyard. The evening included speeches from Emma Stone and Matthew Barney along with a musical performance by Aloe Blacc. The sold-out gala raised $2.5 million dollars. Other notable guests included Elizabeth Banks, Armie Hammer, Marisa Tomei, Patricia Arquette, Viveca Paulin, and Matt Bomber. Pictured are Will Ferrell, Julia Roberts, and Mark Bradford. (Photo: Getty Images)

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Double Up

THE HUDSON SIDE TABLE BY THE NUMBERS:

2 6 1912 2009 210 5 11 18.5 15 4,274 4 11 5 9

Tables that comprise Hudson (a perforated leather shell can be lifted and removed to make two pieces, and reveals a slightly smaller padded and upholstered stool beneath) Sides in the table Year Poltrona Frau was founded Year Harper started her studio Perforations in the leather Materials used People needed to make one Hudson Hours it takes to produce Tools used Miles between Harper’s studio in Manhattan’s Lower East Side Neighborhood and Poltrona Frau’s headquarters in Tolentino, Italy Colors and iterations the outer table is being released in Years Harper has been involved with Poltrona Frau Revisions made after the initial proposal Months it took to develop into a final product from initial drawings PHOTO: COURTESY POLTRONA FRAU.

Italian brand Poltrona Frau and New York designer Virginia Harper collaborated on Hudson, a side table (or stool) that takes cues from the One World Trade Center building.

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