April 2021 Issue: Wallpaper* Magazine

*Architecture � Design � Art � Travel � Entertaining � Beauty & Grooming � Transport � Technology � Fashion � Watches & Jewellery

THE GLOBAL INTERIORS ISSUE Showstopping design from six continents

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ Makeovers for a trio of midcentury marvels LIFE LESSONS Anupama Kundoo’s architecture of happiness HOMETOWN HERO Rem Koolhaas’ visions of Rotterdam

april 2021

APRIL DOUBLE-HEIGHT LIVING SPACE AND A SWIMMING POOL AT A NORFOLK GRAIN STORE TURNED INTO A FAMILY HOME BY LONDON-BASED ARCHITECTS 31/44, SEE PAGE 138

GLOBAL INTERIORS

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Six continents of design Explore our world-beating new finds

ARCHITECTURE

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Back to the future Rem Koolhaas on the unbuilt big idea that inspired his smallest new design Green room Studio Shamshiri transforms a midcentury Hollywood Hills gem Gable service Young Projects delivers a contemporary retreat in the Hamptons

102 Escape artist

Kelly Wearstler makes over a Malibu beach house

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Hidden depth A grain store turns spacious family home in Norfolk High life Uplift at John Lautner’s Garcia House Content creator Anupama Kundoo on architecture that builds happiness

Postmodern romance Paolo Portoghesi on his career curves

ART

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Sharp objects Wit and whimsy from Serban Ionescu Outside edge Chilean artist Federico Assler’s monumental outdoor pursuits ∑

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The Vinson View Picky Nicky on design for the Covid era

MEDIA

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Subscribe to Wallpaper* and save Plus receive limited-edition covers WallpaperSTORE* Refined design, delivered to your door

RESOURCES

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TOP, £1,350, BY JIL SANDER BY LUCIE AND LUKE MEIER. EARRINGS, PRICE ON REQUEST, BY VAN CLEEF & ARPELS, SEE PAGE 174

FASHION

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Crowning glory Why jewellery label Third Crown rules

Stockists What you want and where to get it

TECHNOLOGY

077 Special effects

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Open-source audio from Mod Devices

Sound scape Devialet’s eloquent speakers

108 Surreal deal

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Standout new jewellery

Charm school Effortlessly elegant womenswear

FOOD

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Artist’s palate Oliver Beer’s sesame and peanut candy

FRONT OF BOOK

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Newspaper Wearable art; perfectly sized bags; São Paulo retail; Kyoto confectionery; and Radnor’s New York design showcase

‘FIVE KISSES’ NECKLACE IN GOLDENED BRONZE, €2,800,

BY SAMUEL FRANÇOIS, SEE PAGE 108

Wallpaper.com @wallpapermag

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Sarah Douglas Digital Editor Elly Parsons

Editor TF Chan Fashion Director Jason Hughes

Photography Director Holly Hay

Design Editor Rosa Bertoli

Architecture Editor Ellie Stathaki

Transport & Technology Editor Jonathan Bell Group Art Director David Graham

Fashion Features Editor Laura Hawkins

Head of Interiors Olly Mason

Watches & Jewellery Editor Hannah Silver

Designer Ben Rimmer

Executive Editor Bridget Downing

Arts Editor Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Assistant Photography Editor Sophie Gladstone

Producer Tracy Gilbert

Beauty & Grooming Editor Mary Cleary

Entertaining Director Melina Keays Production Editor Anne Soward

Sub Editor Léa Teuscher

Contributing Editors Nick Compton, Deyan Sudjic, Ekow Eshun, Marco Sammicheli, Tilly Macalister-Smith, Nick Vinson, Emma O’Kelly, Hugo Macdonald, Bodil Blain, Alice Morby, Henrietta Thompson, Suzanne Trocmé US Editor Michael Reynolds • New York Editor Pei-Ru Keh • Milan Editor Maria Cristina Didero • Paris Editor Amy Serafin • Germany Editor Sophie Lovell Madrid Editor Maria Sobrino • Japan Editor Jens H Jensen • China Editor Yoko Choy • Singapore Editor Daven Wu • Australia Editor Elias Redstone Latin America Editor Pablo León de la Barra • Buenos Aires Editor Mariana Rapoport

PUBLISHING & MARKETING Managing Director Malcolm Young Associate Publisher Lloyd Lindo

Business Director Kelly Gray

Advertising Digital Advertising Director Chris Goh Watches & Jewellery Advertising Director Silvia Blahutova

Bespoke Senior Account Manager Tom Hemsley

Advertising Business Manager Amanda Asigno

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Bespoke Producer Minna Vauhkonen

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CONTRIBUTORS MAZZI ODU Writer This month, the London-raised, Lagosbased Odu interviewed the founders of jewellery brand Third Crown (page 074).

‘Kristin and Kofi Essel are a beautiful illustration of how a love story can evolve into a brand with so much resonance for many,’ she says. Odu is currently working in collaboration with Kian Smith on the Kingdoms Collection, a jewellery range designed by leading creatives of African descent using responsibly mined gold.

DAVID PLAISANT Writer

KEISUKE OTOBE Photographer

Rome-based architecture writer Plaisant was perfectly placed to explore the world of Italian icon Paolo Portoghesi (page 186).

‘We were incredibly lucky to gain access to his wonderful house and gardens just days before Italy’s lockdown last March,’ he says. And it wasn’t just the architecture that made the experience memorable, as ‘Portoghesi was also keen to show us his private zoo’. Plaisant is now working on a book documenting the Roman palazzina.

‘Every time I work with my scanner, it’s a memorable experience,’ says Otobe of the technique behind his jewellery shoot for us (page 108). ‘The outcome is unpredictable; I never have control over the process and that’s the beauty of it.’ Based between three capitals (Beijing, London and Tokyo), Otobe is working on his ‘I Am a Sculptor’ series, using his scanner ‘to change the shape of an image exactly like a sculptor would do with “physical” materials’.

ELLY PARSONS Digital Editor Parsons, who joined us six years ago as an intern, heads up our digital operation.

Masterminding a wealth of inspiring content during the pandemic, she has set Wallpaper.com on course to double its traffic in a year. She has also grown our combined social media following to a fantastic 5.9 million. Having spent two lockdowns working from her London sofa, she says, ‘I finally invested in a desk this month, using the W* House as inspiration.’

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ROGER DAVIES Photographer

SHAWN ADAMS Writer

When the John Lautner Foundation asked LA-based British photographer Davies to shoot the Garcia House (page 152), he didn’t have to travel far. ‘It’s on Mulholland Drive, right around the corner from my home.

Every Lautner house I’ve photographed is more incredible than the last; he’s my favourite architect,’ says Davies, who lives with his wife and 16-year-old son, another Lautner fan. ‘He was as excited as I was as he loves Lethal Weapon 2, in which the Garcia House had a starring role.’

This month, Adams gave us the lowdown on a new-build home on Long Island by Brooklyn practice Young Projects (page 096). ‘In a time when most of the world was under lockdown, it was refreshing to write about a project in the Hamptons – I mean, I wouldn’t mind being able to walk to the beach,’ he says. An advocate for diversity and inclusion within the architecture industry, Adams is currently working on a new project with four other members of the New Architecture Writers group.

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WRITER: LÉA TEUSCHER

EDITOR’S LETTER

New horizons

Newsstand cover Photography: Roger Davies Art Direction: Michael Reynolds On the cover and top, John Lautner’s 1962 Garcia House, which has been sensitively restored and refurbished.

Take a tour with us on page 152

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Welcome to our annual Global Interiors issue. Good design can enable, inspire and elevate our lives. This has been magnified over the last year, as circumstances have required us to stay at home, with more opportunity than ever to contemplate the stuff that surrounds us. Marking a year since the pandemic turned the world upside down, this Global Interiors issue salutes the design pieces that have brightened our days, and the luminous talents behind them.

We’ve broadened the scope of our headline interiors story, featuring designs from six continents, rather than focusing on six specific countries as we did in previous years. Our head of interiors Olly Mason worked with Berlin design studio Form & Rausch to create a visual feast, setting standout furniture pieces against escapist backdrops that are modern while rooted in geographical context.

We also bring you a trio of midcentury Californian homes that have been given a new lease of life. In Malibu, Kelly Wearstler transformed a long-neglected beach house with an illustrious pedigree into a striking surf shack. In Los Angeles, meanwhile, just below the Hollywood sign, Studio Shamshiri’s take on the former home of Robert Kennard (a leading Black architect of his generation) is an exercise in thoughtful luxury. Nearby, we revisit John Lautner’s Garcia House, an icon of American architectural history that was featured in Wallpaper’s January 2009 issue (W*118). Owners John McIlwee and Bill Damaschke, architects Marmol Radziner, interior designer Darren Brown and environmental designer John Sharp offer us a masterclass in sensitive reinvention,

presented over 12 pages and also starring on our newsstand cover.

Further alluring homes in the issue include a converted barn in Norfolk,

by London-based 31/44 Architects, and a family home in the Hamptons that pays homage to the area’s farmhouses,

by New York’s Young Projects.

We call on three visionaries who have changed architecture in very different ways.

In a conversation with our architecture editor Ellie Stathaki, Rem Koolhaas discusses Boompjes, his first commission for Rotterdam and an early expression of his now-famous vision for urban living. ‘Towers are the expression of capitalism and slabs are the main expression of socialism. In the 1980s, it was very interesting to try and create a hybrid shape,’ he says.

We take a deep dive into the work of Anupama Kundoo, which is at once elegant, resourceful, environmentally sound, and celebratory of local knowledge. Above all, she believes that architecture should be a conduit to happiness: ‘There is no other aim: to be alive is to be happy.’

And we look back on the career of Italian postmodernist master Paolo Portoghesi, a creator of Baroque-inspired buildings and advocate for the first Venice Architecture Biennale. Going against the currents of his era, he championed ‘a bit of noise and colour in architecture’, a call for greater creative freedom that has proven prescient when we consider the plurality of contemporary architecture.

As 2021 gathers momentum and optimism, this is a timely celebration of design. We hope you enjoy the issue!

Sarah Douglas, Editor-in-Chief

Limited-edition cover

by Anupama Kundoo Architect Kundoo designed this month’s limited-edition cover, a membrane structure drawn in fountain pen ink on tracing paper.

The Wallpaper* logo is partially concealed by the cover artwork to highlight the idea of porosity, ‘as we are looking at the world outside through windows or façades that allow or don’t allow us this contact’, says Kundoo.

See our interview with the architect, page 164 Limited-edition covers are available to subscribers, see Wallpaper.com/sub21

Newspaper* Wallpaper’s hot pick of the latest global goings-on Roll-neck, £2,300; trousers, £1,150, both by Dior For stockists throughout, see page 193

We like to wear our art on our sleeve

Model: Emmanuel Adjaye at Next Models. Photography assistant: Martin Eito

Under canvas

PHOTOGRAPHY: DOUGAL MACARTHUR FASHION: JASON HUGHES

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Newspaper

Clockwise from top, sweatshirt, £1,100, by Loewe. Cardigan, £940,

by JW Anderson. Jumper, £1,200; trousers, £840, both by Berluti ‘S28’ chair, £1,000, by Pierre Chapo, from Béton Brut

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or S/S21, a host of menswear designers used clothing as a canvas, interpreting the gestural strokes of figurative portraiture and the globulous bulges of ceramic forms within their folds.

At Dior, Kim Jones was compelled by the bold brushstrokes of Ghanaian portraitist Amoako Boafo, who had his first solo show at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery in Chicago last autumn. In a tactile and tonal twist, a figure inspired

by Boafo’s oil on canvas Yellow Dress has been translated into an intarsia motif on a cashmere roll-neck. Jonathan Anderson showcased the work of Catalan illustrator Pol Anglada in his eponymous brand’s spring collection.

A fiery knit-weave cardigan features

PHOTOGRAPHY: DOUGAL MACARTHUR FASHION: JASON HUGHES WRITER: LAURA HAWKINS

a brow-furrowed face, inspired by images in Anglada’s father’s comic book collection. At Loewe, where Anderson is also creative director, the designer nodded to the figurative works of Paul Cadmus, whose portraits paid homage to the male form. A jacquard wool jumper translates the egg tempera brushstrokes of Cadmus’ The Inventor into fabric. Meanwhile, at Berluti, the oozy, molten forms of ceramicist Brian Rochefort inspired Kris Van Assche, who transformed the colourful glazes and lava-like textures of the LA-based sculptor’s pieces into prismatic jumpers.

Their tactile fabrications evoke the appearance of Rochefort’s works, which seem to overflow with dribbling glazes.

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Newspaper A retail project in São Paulo fuses physical and digital experiences

Mall wonders Located on the former site of São Paulo’s Fasano restaurant, which became Wallpaper’s headquarters for a few weeks in 2010 when we produced our Born in Brazil issue (W*135), CJ Shops is an exquisitely designed retail project that matches luxury brands with the finest local restaurateurs. Launched by Brazilian real estate developer JHSF and designed by Arthur Casas, the mall features a glass rooftop canopy, which maintains an open-air feeling while protecting patrons from the elements, and expansive green walls that celebrate the region’s plant diversity. The roster of brands includes Hermès, Balmain (its first dedicated men’s store in Brazil), and Isabel Marant and Ines de la Fressange, which both opened their first boutiques in Latin America within the complex. Fasano is back on site with stylish café Gero Panini and Selezione Fasano, which is equal parts imported Italian speciality food shop, enoteca and interiors store. And as part of JHSF’s ‘phygital’ strategy, the company has also included a showroom-style experience that allows visitors to try on all the clothing, shoes and jewellery offered by the retailers on the mall’s digital platform. Once items have been paid for by mobile phone, shoppers can take delivery at home or in hand. It’s an exciting experience in both the physical and digital worlds. cjfashion.com

born again Furniture by Rena Dumas is now coming together for a new generation

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The Greek-born, Paris-based architect Rena Dumas, who died in 2009, opened her own studio, Rena Dumas Architecture Intérieure (RDAI), in 1972, and is perhaps best known for creating the look of Hermès’ retail spaces.

Although Dumas designed furniture and objects for select brands, in 1988 she designed the ‘Okeanis’ table (pictured) just for herself. Made up of two halves, this is a double object that can be paired or left apart. Parts of the tabletop can fold up to provide a tray table and, with the addition of a central leaf, it can be transformed into a dining table or desk.

The table is now being reissued by curated online platform The Invisible Collection, alongside Dumas’ ‘Aria’ console and bedside table, from 1985, and ‘Lumière’ rug (pictured), also from 1988. theinvisiblecollection.com

PHOTOGRAPHY: FRAN PARENTE, ALEX PROFIT WRITERS: SCOTT MITCHEM, NICK VINSON

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he latest launch from Hermès Beauty has us flushed with excitement. Composed of eight blush shades, two application brushes, a leather blush case and three pink lip tints, the Rose Hermès collection comes a year after Hermès Beauty’s inaugural Rouge Hermès lipstick launch (see W*252). For Hermès Beauty’s creative director Jérôme Touron, cosmetics that enhance a natural, rosy flush were a logical progression after the bold lip-defining hues of the previous collection. ‘Rose Hermès initiates a subtle unveiling of the complexion,’ says Touron. ‘It is a palette of shades that sketches contours without fixing them, animating the face and giving it movement.’

To create the collection, Touron and his team scoured the Hermès archives, singling out shades of pink on a diverse range of items, from riding caps to parasols, which were then reimagined as cosmetic hues. Even the textures of the products are derived from the brand’s signature designs, with lip tints boasting a smooth finish similar to their beloved leather products, and blushes that are silky to the touch, recalling the feel of a Hermès scarf.

The line’s refillable packaging is designed by the brand’s creative director of shoe and fine jewellery collections, Pierre Hardy, and features a delicate scent created by in-house perfumer Christine Nagel.

The result is a range of timeless objects that are, in Hardy’s words, both ‘desirable and discreet’.

Photography: Neil Godwin at Future Studios for Wallpaper*

Clockwise from left, lip enhancers in Rose Abricoté, Rose Tan and Rose d’Été, £58 each; blush in Rose Pommette, £63; Pommette blush case, £3,020; blush, £63; blush brush, £80, travel blush brush, £41, all part of the Rose Hermès collection, by Hermès

Newspaper

The latest collection from Hermès Beauty takes a rose-tinted view

Pretty in pink

WRITER: MARY CLEARY

Newspaper

A celebrated Kyoto restaurant offers a custom-built outlet for its confections

Sweet spot There is a new addition to Honke Owariya, widely regarded as Kyoto’s oldest soba confectioner and restaurant.

Today, it is run by 16th-generation owner Ariko Inaoka, who asked Osaka-based designer Teruhiro Yanagihara, creative director of ceramics brand 1616/Arita Japan, to transform an empty bicycle park next to the restaurant, housed in a 19th-century wooden machiya townhouse, into a dedicated sweet shop. In the new space, a wall of glass showcases a minimalist interior, the contemporary lines of a concrete block counter softened by plaster walls, walnut door frames and atmospheric lighting

by New Light Pottery (see W*236).

Beneath an old shop sign on the wall, wooden boxes display the confectionery for which Honke Owariya is famed, from soba rice cakes to melt-in-the-mouth soba warabi-mochi. Meanwhile, a glass side door slides open across a threshold of graphic roof tiles (found buried in the garden during renovations) onto a walled garden that flows towards the machiya entrance, connecting shop to restaurant. honke-owariya.co.jp

PHOTOGRAPHY: TAKUMI OTA WRITER: DANIELLE DEMETRIOU

At the main branch of Honke Owariya, located on Niomontsukinukecho in Kyoto, a wall of glass (above) showcases the minimalist interior of its new outlet dedicated solely to soba sweets, while a side door (left) crosses a threshold of graphic tiles to lead into a walled garden

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Newspaper Jacket, £5,770; skirt, £1,635; ‘11.12’ bag, £5,555, all by Chanel. Bracelet, £32,700,

by Sophie Bille Brahe

Life’s too short to be toting the wrong-sized bag

Model: Becky at Established Models. Photography assistant: Sami Weller

Balancing act

PHOTOGRAPHY: ALICE FISHER FASHION: JASON HUGHES

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Newspaper Left, jumpsuit, £1,600; bralette, £650; knickers, £670; earring, £390; ‘Caro’ bag, £3,300, all by Dior Below, jacket, £2,390; skirt, £920; ‘Moonlight’ bag, £1,450, all by Fendi. Earrings, £585, by Completedworks Below left, top, £810; trousers, £845; ‘Cleo’ bag, £1,520, all by Prada. Bracelet, £700,

by Alighieri

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ashion frequently flirts with bag shapes, from the spectacularly sizeable to the ludicrously Lilliputian. But if recent lifestyle changes have taught us anything, it’s that our accessories should provide ease to our existences. As a result, we’re banishing styles that have Mary Poppins-friendly proportions or surface areas too miniscule to hold a credit card, and instead we’re embracing silhouettes that are proportioned to perfection, opting for bags that nestle ergonomically under the shoulder.

Some, like Chanel ‘11.12’ bag and Gucci’s ‘Jackie’, are brand signatures. »

PHOTOGRAPHY: ALICE FISHER FASHION: JASON HUGHES WRITER: LAURA HAWKINS

Newspaper Top row, jacket, £1,950; roll-neck, £365; ‘Triomphe’ bag, £1,550, all by Celine by Hedi Slimane. Necklace, £1,150,

by Alighieri. Bodysuit, £1,950; skirt, £3,800; ‘Mors de Bride’ bag, £4,500, all by Hermès Middle row, jacket, £2,200; ‘Jackie’ bag, £1,590, both

by Gucci. Earrings, £195,

by Completedworks.

Jumpsuit, £1,690, by Valentino.

‘Roman Stud’ bag, £2,100, by Valentino Garavani. Earrings, £295; bracelet, £395, both

by Alighieri. Jacket, £2,175; ‘Le Monogramme’ bag, £1,285, both by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Earrings, £10,925, by Sophie Bille Brahe Bottom row, jacket, £1,940; ‘Curve’ bag, £1,090, both

by Alexander McQueen.

Earrings, £350, by Alighieri.

Dress, £3,045; bag, £1,830, both by Salvatore Ferragamo.

Earrings, £280, by Alighieri

Others, such as Prada’s U-shaped ‘Cleo’ and Hermès’ boxy ‘Mors de Bride’, are new silhouettes. The former nods to minimalist 1990s styles from the Milan label’s archive, while the horsebitinspired closure of the latter’s offering nods to the Parisian maison’s equestrian heritage. The most striking shoulder bags feature tactile fabrications and graphic hardware details but err against any other ostentation. Celine, Christian Dior and Saint Laurent all laud the logo or monogram in metal form, while Valentino Garavani has sized up the stud details synonymous with its accessories to striking effect. Let these bags take your utility-inspired dressing to another dimension.

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Newspaper The studio of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, at 48 Howard Street, New York, was filled with drawings, photographs and art materials

Unwrapping the hidden world of Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Private lives

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A recent sale at Sotheby’s in Paris offering personal items belonging to artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude included many previously unseen works and personal items from the couple’s longtime studio at 48 Howard Street in New York. Before the auction, we secured special access for photographer Brigitte Lacombe to visit and photograph the studio almost as Christo left it when he died in May last year – with drawings, tables lined with pencils, rulers and other materials, posters and personal photographs pinned on the walls, and postcards that the couple received from their famous friends.

‘I was most excited about the chance to see the studio and living space of these great artists, which is largely untouched,’ says Lacombe. ‘It was very moving, intimate and inspiring. It’s all about the work and not about the presentation of its design. The bedroom, bathroom and kitchen are all miniscule. Life and work are indistinguishable.’ Also visible are plans and drawings of the wrapped Arc de Triomphe (a project Christo was working on in his final days, and which is still set to go ahead in September), highlighting just how active the artist was right up until the end. christojeanneclaude.net

PHOTOGRAPHY: BRIGITTE LACOMBE WRITER: PEI-RU KEH

Newspaper A new school in Chile aims to protect and inspire

Support act

Commissioned by the Isabel Aninat Echazarreta Foundation, a charity that supports vulnerable people, including children and young people with disabilities, this new school, on the outskirts of Santiago in Chile, is designed by architect Sebastián Irarrázaval. A crisp, white, concrete composition of low and tall volumes, the Integral Stimulation Center unites a variety of spaces, including classrooms, laboratories, a gymnasium, a chapel and a heated pool, with functions divided into clusters and designed to cater to specific student groups and special educational and

Above, located in Talagante, on the outskirts of Santiago, Chile, a new school for children with special mobility and educational needs offers a protective environment, as

PHOTOGRAPHY: CRISTÓBAL PALMA WRITER: ELLIE STATHAKI

mobility needs. ‘We proposed to accommodate these varied programmes in the manner of a walled citadel that would provide children with a protective environment, while allowing the coexistence of not only these diverse programmatic units, but also of different forms of movement through the interior: some more hierarchical and orderly, others more free and labyrinthine to encourage fortuitous encounters,’ says Irarrázaval. The two taller buildings flag up the main entrance and the chapel, respectively, while operating as orientation points for the school’s users. sebastianirarrazaval.net

well as facilities designed to stimulate the cognition of its pupils, including classrooms, laboratories, a gymnasium, outdoor play areas and a heated pool

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Newspaper

The New York design company that celebrates the homemade

Great American makers When Susan Clark founded New York design company Radnor in 2016, her mission was to create elegant designerled furniture, lighting and accessories at an approachable level. Building on its practice of curating experiential showrooms in residential settings (it formerly occupied a two-bedroom apartment at the David Chipperfielddesigned The Bryant), Radnor unveils a new home this month in a 4,000 sq ft apartment at 180 East 88th Street, a new development in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hill. The airy space is designed in collaboration with Elizabeth Roberts Architects and filled with nearly 70 design works and collectibles. Some notable highlights include a table by Karl Zahn (his first ever furniture piece), as well as a series of solid milled

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marble tables and lighting designed

by Clark, marking the first time the Radnor founder has put her name to products. There is also Roberts’ first furniture collection, comprising a desk, a bedside table, an upholstered stool and a collection of rugs. All are exclusive to Radnor. Although the collection encompasses an international mix of creatives, the company is regarded as a champion of American manufacturing and design. ‘I hope Radnor can help to contribute to the history of American design,’ says Clark. ‘We’re based here, and I want to make sure that whatever we’re making is constantly thinking about the community of people who are in this with me, and making them as proud as they can be.’ radnor.co

Above, in Radnor’s curated apartment at Manhattan development 180 East 88th Street, from left, ‘Bone 01’ credenza, by Loïc Bard; ‘Pillar’ light, by Henry Wilson; ‘Pris’ floor lamp, by Pelle; ‘Halyard Equ’ rug; ‘Beau’ armchair, both by Bunn Studio; ‘Howard’ sectional sofa, by Egg Collective; woven horsehair pillows, by Alexandra Kohl; ‘Parallax’ coffee table,

by Karl Zahn; ‘Bone 02’ chair,

by Loïc Bard; and ‘Core’ side tables, by Susan Clark, all prices on request, from Radnor

PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTHEW WILLIAMS WRITER: PEI-RU KEH

Column

THE VINSON VIEW Quality maniac Nick Vinson on the who, what, when, where and why

NICKY’S HOME IMPROVEMENT WISH LIST 1. A version of the ‘butler box’ from the Peninsula Hotel in Tokyo. Hotel staff access the space from the corridor, guests from the room.

It’s used for deliveries and collections, such as invitations, shoe shine, laundry; a button alerts both parties if something is inside. I would swap my apartment letter box for a domestic version of this, ideally beside my door, for contactless deliveries and to maintain privacy. And for when I’m out, I’d like an additional street-side delivery box with a digital entry system.

2. A dedicated area to open e-commerce packages and prepare any returns, with space to keep packaging for reuse and recycling.

3. A home office with: a giant desk, ideally the ‘Table En Forme Libre’ by Charlotte Perriand; a smart and simple background for FaceTime and Zoom; and flattering lighting.

4. My home office would be connected with sliding doors to a space for working out and stretching, with a projector for sessions with my personal trainer and for online classes.

I’d add some weights, a Loro Piana cashmere mat, a foam roller and a Theragun to get rid of muscle tension.

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Designs for Covid-era living

Picky Nicky on a radical rethink of our domestic space

Posh apartments used to be designed with separate entrances for residents and tradesmen, as well as a room for a maid, a reflection of how the occupants lived.

In the Covid era, as we work from home, work out at home, and shop from home, reality for most of us is less about live-in staff and more about online deliveries; that tradesmen’s lift is more likely to be used by couriers delivering takeaways or packages, while any spare rooms are put to new uses.

There are thousands of new-build apartments completing in London this year. Nina Coulter, director of residential development sales at Savills in London, says second or third bedrooms are already being marketed as offices. Design changes will follow as developers cater for two people working from home. Think built-in desk spaces, and adaptable lighting to take you between work and relaxation modes.

British architect and designer Jonathan Reed has clients who asked for a standalone office building at their home last year, with two bedrooms so assistants can work on site for longer periods without needing to come into the house. The clients found ‘huge efficiency’ in not leaving home to work.

In 2019, Glenn Sestig moved into a 1972 building by Ivan Van Mossevelde, in Deurle, Belgium, making it both his home and architectural studio. Part of his respectful

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renovation includes sliding doors between spaces, which he has found especially useful for video calls. In his projects, meanwhile, Sestig has been responding to the increased use of e-commerce by adding exterior structures to apartment buildings and offices to facilitate contactless delivery.

Architect Patrick McInerney is addressing similar concerns in California, where couriers traditionally leave packages on the front step of a freestanding home, now a magnet for thieves. McInerney is interested in the hall as a transitional space.

His idea is for a double set of doors and an antechamber between, where packages can be received safely and without intrusion. But his main Covid-era design idea is that we take fitness out of the gym and into the work zone, to counteract the effects of sitting at a desk. For me, it’s also about efficiency – desk to gym without leaving the room. Pop onto your Peleton for 20 minutes or take a 4pm training session and get straight back to work. This calls for an intelligent domestic design solution.

Charlotte Perriand, forever the pioneer, achieved just this in 1935 for La Maison du Jeune Homme, a concept complete with an office, a gym and a giant commissioned painting by Fernand Léger. I am not exactly a jeune homme anymore, but it would suit me nicely, especially if it includes the Léger. ∂

02 Contactless deliveries The Bringme doorbell allows you to open the front door via your phone and directs couriers to deliver parcels to the Bringme box in your lobby. bringme.com

03 Virtual fitness Many gyms have helped clients work out remotely. I take Zoom personal training sessions and classes with Marylebone’s AMP, no matter where I am. amp.fit

ILLUSTRATOR: DANAE DIAZ

Architecture

BACK TO THE FUTURE Rem Koolhaas revisits his revolutionary but never-built 1980 Boompjes development in a new, pocket-sized design project WRITER: ELLIE STATHAKI

An original drawing for OMA’s unrealised Boompjes project for Rotterdam.

Commissioned in 1980, the project mixed housing and workspace on a constrained riverside site and combined vertical and angled towers with a horizontal slab

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Architecture

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otterdam and OMA have long been intertwined.

The Dutch port city has been home to the celebrated architecture practice for over four decades now, and it is also co-founder Rem Koolhaas’ birthplace. Still, the architect didn’t spend a lot of time there until the 1980s. Instead, he followed a more international trajectory in his early years. His childhood was mostly divided between Amsterdam and Jakarta, and after graduating from the Architectural Association in London, he moved to New York to attend Cornell.

His book, Delirious New York, published in 1978 to much acclaim, was a kind of love letter to the great American city, exploring its development as well as notions of urbanity and congestion that came to define his career. OMA was established in 1975 between New York and London (by Koolhaas together with Elia Zenghelis, Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp) and by the time of the book’s publication, the architect was heading back to Europe. ‘I was in a strange position, as the book made me relatively well known, but I had never built anything,’ he admits. He decided to return to the Netherlands to pursue work; and if New York played a landmark role in making Koolhaas architecture’s favourite theorist, Rotterdam allowed him to build, to turn theory into practice.

Landing in Amsterdam in 1979, a meeting with a Rotterdam city councillor soon resulted in a ‘dream’ assignment – and one of the first big commission wins for OMA. ‘He was sitting in front of a map of Rotterdam and asked, “So, where do you want to build?” It was very generous. I saw a site on the river and the interesting thing about it was that it was very constrained on one side by water, on the other by a bridge, on a third side by a road, and on the fourth by a building,’ says Koolhaas. He picked the site and started designing. The scheme was named Boompjes (‘little trees’ in Dutch) and mixed housing and workspace along the Maasboulevard. It marked

The main artwork for the Boompjes project is this 1982 silkscreen triptych created

by Koolhaas with Italian architect Stefano de Martino

the start of a long relationship between the city and the architecture firm.

Rotterdam, devastated by bombing from both sides during the Second World War, presented a challenge and an opportunity for architects and planners in the second half of the 20th century – large parts of it had to be entirely rebuilt. This was also the reason Koolhaas chose it as his Dutch base in 1980, shortly after the Boompjes commission (two more schemes, the IJ-Plein housing and a commissioned study for the possible renovation of the Koepel Panopticon Prison were also in the works in different parts of the country).

‘It made the city very fertile ground for architecture.

I had more affinity and interest in Rotterdam. I started an office there almost on a hunch,’ he says. So, in the 1980s and early 1990s, the OMA headquarters was next door to the Boompjes’ plot and the water (a London office had opened in 1975, and Koolhaas and colleagues travelled back and forth as needed).

Due to its geographical constraints, the Boompjes site could only be experienced in two ways: either passing by the road running parallel to the plot on ground level, or approaching it from across the River Maas via a bridge. These ‘unusually controlled’ views stimulated Koolhaas’ imagination and informed the design. This, combined with the fact that the city authorities allowed him great flexibility, meant the site was ripe for experimentation. ‘We made the design so that it was like an accordion. It could be spread wide or if you approached it from a single angle, you only saw a very narrow side,’ he says.

The project’s formal response reflects Koolhaas’ architectural preoccupations at the time. The design incorporates a series of five tall, lean highrises set against a horizontal slab placed at the top. Some vertical elements are perpendicular to the slab, others sit at an angle, while one is just slightly apart. The formation became a kind of urban screen, filtering light and framing views from the river to the city and the »

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Architecture

other way round. ‘Of course, I had written a book about New York, but I was actually much more interested in another typology, the slab,’ says Koolhaas. ‘Towers are the expression of capitalism and slabs are the main expression of socialism. In the 1980s, it was interesting to try to create a hybrid shape. Boompjes is a hybrid.’

The main artwork for the design, produced in 1982, is a silkscreen rendering created by Koolhaas with Italian architect Stefano de Martino, and can still be found in the practice’s archives. It is a triptych, a colourful, geometric composition that brings to mind abstract or constructivist art, and the work of Piet Mondrian or László Moholy-Nagy. A print run of a couple of hundred editions was produced and now many of these sit in museum collections – at MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, CCA and The New Institute, for example. ‘We wanted to explain everything you need to say about this project in a single representation,’ says Koolhaas. The buildings’ colours nod to the passing ships’ bright hues; as port activity was ever-present in the office views, it provided constant inspiration.

Beyond formal considerations, Koolhaas’ vision for the long and narrow site explored new models for

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housing development and the future of living. ‘In the 1980s, housing in the Netherlands meant social housing,’ he says. ‘I had just come from America and I was interested in less defined spaces, open spaces.

So the building had an industrial quality.’ The design – including a range of private apartments from studios to larger duplexes and loft-style spaces – with its river views, ‘was about flexibility, openness, an uncluttered space’. It also contained a gym and a library on site, a particularly forward-thinking move at a time when amenities in larger-scale residential schemes were anything but the norm.

Boompjes was sadly never built – ‘we presented it to the city a number of times; in the end they sold the site to a developer, but nothing came out of it’, Koolhaas concludes – but its ideas were pioneering, and live on.

In the late 1990s, OMA was commissioned to work on another site by the river in Rotterdam, which faced a similar situation – again, approached by a bridge and its perception controlled by limited viewpoints. That project, just across the water from the Boompjes site, eventually became De Rotterdam, a mixed-use, ‘vertical city’ completed in 2013 beside the Wilhelmina Pier.

Now, Boompjes has one more incarnation. In 2019, American Express approached OMA, proposing an artistic collaboration with Koolhaas on a new design for Amex’s exclusive Centurion Card. The practice had been working with the card’s signature Roman references, when the client came across the Boompjes project. It became a starting point for the new design, with Koolhaas and his team adapting the triptych visual to the card’s specifications. Launching through 2021 and 2022, the result blends graphic design with thought-provoking architecture that was ahead of its time, in the smallest item ever designed by Koolhaas.

‘I see graphic design as a crucial domain to project ideas in,’ says Koolhaas, who regularly explores twodimensional design through OMA’s research and design arm, AMO. ‘Architecture is also a domain to project ideas in. The similarity [between the disciplines] is about ideas, and these can take any form.’ ∂ oma.eu; americanexpress.com

Top left, Koolhaas, captured by his daughter, artist and photographer Charlie Koolhaas, in Amsterdam in February 2021 Top right, some of OMA’s ideas for Boompjes live on in De Rotterdam, a mixed-use ‘vertical city’ completed by OMA in 2013, on the other side of the river Left, a new design for Amex’s Centurion Card, created in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas and referencing the Boompjes triptych

De Rotterdam image: courtesy of OMA, photography Ossip van Duivenbode

‘Towers are the expression of capitalism and slabs are the main expression of socialism’

Jewellery

CROWNING GLORY The New York power couple bringing everyday regal bearing to contemporary jewellery PHOTOGRAPHY: TINO CHIWARIRO WRITER: MAZZI ODU

Kofi and Kristin Essel, the couple behind New Yorkbased jewellery brand Third Crown, have developed the kind of verbal overlaps and interweaving common to successful life-work partnerships. Kofi, who grew up in Ghana, says, ‘Third Crown is about taking the aesthetic of a queen mother or a chief wearing all those traditional rings that are huge and stacked up, and when you see that person you just know who they are.’ Kristin, whose parents are from Jamaica, adds, ‘When you go to Jamaica – real Jamaica, not the resorts – you see everyone in big gold chains and lots of jewellery. So we want to make sure that all our pieces are big and bold.’ They laugh, realising they have mirrored one another’s responses but posited them in two locations. However, they are not interested in leaning on nostalgia, but instead are committed to crafting something new from their New York base that has resonance further afield.

Third Crown wears its founders’ heritages lightly.

While cultures of origin inform the brand’s overall aesthetic, geometry, architecture and travel also inspire pieces that are simultaneously audacious and timeless. ‘Our first collection was “Arc” and it was a little translation of that shape of the Arc de Triomphe,’ says Kofi. ‘We like to think of all our collections as chapters in a book.’ Like a book, where the characters evolve with time and circumstance, Third Crown’s initial design theses have grown into collections that form an elegant continuum. Thus the ‘Arc’ morphed into the ‘Marcy’, a curvier iteration, and in the case of the ‘Hedron’ and ‘Prizm’ collections, tetrahedron forms were reinterpreted to include bevelling details and a custom chain link.

Since launching in 2013, Third Crown has remained wholly authentic to its ethos while nimble in execution.

‘A strong part of our brand DNA is the power of the pair,’ says Kofi. ‘Us coming together is what the brand

is: as husband and wife, as male and female. But it’s also about creating this genderless space.’ For Kofi, who studied at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, and Kristin, who followed her degree in apparel design at Florida State University with stints at David Yurman and Reed Krakoff, it has meant creating jewellery that fits seamlessly into wearers’ everyday realities but doesn’t compromise the brand’s design language.

Actively rejecting the high jewellery scene and opting instead to create contemporary gold-plated pieces, pieces you ‘can ride the train in’, was canny and inclusive. And, rather than old-school suites or parures, pieces are simply paired, creating mini sets. When New York’s retail jewellery gatekeepers gave the brand a lukewarm response, they pivoted, focusing instead on e-commerce. ‘It actually worked in our favour,’ says Kristin. ‘Because once the pandemic hit and all the stores closed, everyone was shopping online.’

The brand’s ethos and daring, elevated aesthetic has attracted an A-list clientele that includes Beyoncé, Solange and Cardi B. ‘I feel that what we’re bringing to the table is different, and the artists that have worn us are just an extra nod,’ says Kofi.

The death of George Floyd in May last year and the attention it garnered for Black-owned creative businesses was bittersweet. ‘It was quite unfortunate that it took someone’s death for people to recognise Black creatives,’ says Kofi. But Kristin adds that they used the moment to pay their success forward, adding, ‘We made sure to donate a lot of the money we earned from the exposure to help others’. Future plans are informed by their new Brooklyn atelier, where a collaboration with fashion designer Jonathan Simkhai is in progress. Kofi is also keen to forge new links with Ghana. ‘One thing I really want to be able to do is source gold from the motherland,’ he says. ∂ thirdcrown.com

The brand’s daring, elevated aesthetic has attracted an A-list clientele that includes Beyoncé and Cardi B

Small gold-plated/silver-plated brass cuffs, $380 each; large gold-plated brass cuff, $440; gold-plated/silverplated brass rings, $220 each, all part of the ‘Marcy’ collection, by Third Crown

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Technology

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Retouching: RGBerlin

Mod Devices’ open-source pedals play a different tune

Our tech landscape may be dominated by carefully manicured walled gardens overseen by zealous tech titans, but at the coalface of creative tinkering, restrictions are the death of innovation. The future of sound is open source. The Berlin-based Mod Devices subscribes to the ethos that systems should be open to those with the time and skills to make a change. Mod builds effects processors for musicians of all stripes, with each device a building block for an unlimited sonic world. In layman’s terms, its digital boxes sit between instrument and amplifier, allowing players to layer different effects in infinite numbers of ways, as well as create their own. ‘I play the guitar and have tinkered with computers since 1990,’ says Gianfranco Ceccolini, who set up Mod Devices in Brazil in 2014.

‘When the first digital multi-effects units emerged in the 1990s, I tried many of them and was disappointed.

They might have been digital, but the products were still very analogue, with pre-defined functions and no way to reprogramme them.’ Ceccolini’s dream was a processor that could run his own software.

Mod’s first product was the Quadra, a compact box aimed primarily at guitarists and bass players that wanted convenience and flexibility in one small package. Today, the company is 13-strong and has three core products, the Duo, Duo X and the new Dwarf, along with a burgeoning range of accessories. Half the workforce is based in Berlin’s House of Music, a former train depot that’s home to a number of music tech firms, while the rest work remotely around the world.

Mod’s devices come to life when connected to a computer. Using a skeuomorphic interface, users build up complex chains of effects from around 400 options, from delays and reverbs through to synthesisers and sequencers. The resulting virtual ensemble, or pedalboard, is saved into the pedal, which can be used as a standalone device away from the computer, with a variety of ways to tweak and shape the sounds.

Mod’s industrial and graphic design ethos grew out of its ‘off-the-shelf ’ approach, bringing together high-quality components with a Braun-like simplicity.

‘We’re highly driven by function,’ says Ceccolini.

PHOTOGRAPHY: STUDIO AMOS FRICKE WRITER: JONATHAN BELL

‘I believe this is what makes our products so minimalistic compared to what they offer in terms of features.

Ruggedness and durability are also important, because a musician needs to trust their equipment absolutely.

In some ways, making hardware has never been so easy,’ he adds. ‘3D printing, fast prototyping and low-volume production are all accessible realities.’

To date, Mod has crowdfunded its prototypes, building up a buzz before selling through selected dealers. ‘We’re essentially a new segment for musical instruments, standing between traditional selfcontained devices and laptops,’ says Ceccolini. ‘In the future, more and more creative people will be able to use technology that was designed with a very specific use in mind. Our purpose is to enable anyone to achieve any sound in any musical context.’ ∂ moddevices.com

Above, the aluminium Mod Dwarf, currently available to preorder from Mod Devices, offers monthly releases, so you’ll never get bored with your sounds

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Art

Sharp objects

Photography: John Watts, Joe Kramm

The whimsical works of Serban Ionescu cut across the border lines between design and art Inspired by a summer job as a model maker at an architectural firm, Serban Ionescu went on to study architecture at Pratt Institute, where he thrived creatively and discovered a fondness for the work of Lebbeus Woods and John Hejduk. ‘But the negative side of architecture school is that it builds up this amazing kind of naivety that you’re going to change the world,’ he reflects. Graduating in 2007, he was soon disheartened by the difficulty of making a dent in the profession, and set his sights on being an artist instead.

Growing up in his native Romania, Ionescu could draw before he learned to speak (between the ages of three and five, he drew exclusively in aerial view, taking after his engineer parents who taught him about plan, elevation and section). Drawing became his way of unlearning the lessons of architectural school. He drew and painted and sculpted, bringing the three together in his 2016 Pinocchio Chair – pieces of plywood, painted baby blue, bubblegum pink and bright red, and with the likeness of the puppet carved into the seatback.

It established a cartoonish style that has characterised Ionescu’s work since, a combination of design and art that makes him one to watch on the creative scene.

Today, the now Brooklyn-based Ionescu often works with sheets of powder-coated steel, and his output stretches across scales: the largest, Chapel for an Apple (2020), is a 20ft-tall folly nestled in a field in Hudson »

WRITER: TF CHAN

Above, Ionescu’s ICES (In Case of Emergency Sculptures), 2020, are small handheld works that can be utilised in the event of an emergency, a comment on the shifting notions of sculpture over time Right, Aza, showing as part of the group exhibition ‘Objects: USA 2020’ at R & Company New York

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Art Left, the 20ft-tall Chapel for an Apple, on a hillside in Hudson, originated as an improvised paper model in Ionescu’s studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn Below, the anthropomorphic Folk sculptural chairs are made from wood and steel, with whimsical expressions carved into the seatbacks

in upstate New York. Its outline evokes both a prototypical chapel and the area’s industrial heritage; there’s a viewing platform, an apple-shaped entrance and Lego-like colours for a dash of whimsy. Among the smallest are his ICES (In Case of Emergency Sculptures), with a rough resemblance to Swiss army knives. These are ‘objects of dormant utility’, says Ionescu, pointing to the uncertainties of the pandemic era and the evolving definitions of design and art.

His rising stature is reflected by his inclusion in the group show ‘Objects: USA 2020’, currently on at New York’s R & Company. One of 50 contemporary ‘object makers’ to participate, Ionescu created a new piece, Aza, ‘furniture, architecture and sculpture crashing into one’. The gallery’s principal, Zesty Meyers, has worked with Ionescu for two years. ‘Every time you look at his work, you find new interesting details,’ Meyers enthuses. ‘The mix of colour, architecture and abstract forms create relationships in a way that I have never seen before.’

Meanwhile, Ionescu’s first solo exhibition in Europe is about to open at Antwerp’s Everyday Gallery.

Titled ‘In Order of Appearance’, it features smallerscale pieces that show ‘how a cast of characters becomes things, becomes furniture’. Stuck in Toronto for ten months during the pandemic, Ionescu set out to create at least one drawing a day and has since accumulated more than 500. What began as a personal project is now poised to occupy gallery walls, offering an opportunity for viewers to glimpse into his fertile imagination. ‘It’s going to show a bit more of how things come together,’ he says. ∂ r-and-company.com; everydaygallery.art; serbanionescu.com

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Photography: Sara Fox, John Watts

‘The mix of colour, architecture and abstract forms create relationships in a way that I have never seen before’

Technology

Sound scape French brand Devialet teams tech with aesthetics to reshape audio experience PHOTOGRAPHY: CAMILLE SAVIOZ WRITER: JONATHAN BELL

Timeless technology is something of an oxymoron in our accelerated age. Consumers are conditioned to expect rapid tech advancements expressed in a swift turnover of products, with annual upgrade cycles the de facto method of signalling how our devices get faster, smaller (or bigger), better, sleeker and more efficient. It’s a gallop, not a canter, that goes against the ethos of luxury design, with its emphasis on craft, care and attention to detail. It’s a rare brand that manages to dovetail both qualities into its products.

From its inception, French audio specialist Devialet set out to make art out of audio.

The company was founded in 2007 by PierreEmmanuel Calmel, Emmanuel Nardin and Quentin Sannié, combining knowledge of acoustics, industrial design and finance, respectively. Its most important invention was a patented new form of amplification, Analog Digital Hybrid (ADH). This uses modern digital amplifiers to boost signal, rounding off the process with a traditional analogue amplifier for output. The result is less noise and distortion, doing away with speaker hiss, and creating crisp sound with a full dynamic range regardless of volume.

The team worked to translate innovation into tangible and highly desirable products, while high-profile investors came on board, including Bernard Arnault, Jay Z’s Roc Nation entertainment conglomeration, Renault, and Foxconn.

Devialet eventually debuted a series of high-grade amplification products, starting with the D-Premier model in 2012. These were soon followed by the original Devialet Phantom, a compact all-in-one speaker system that compressed the team’s know-how into an elegantly portable package.

Introduced in 2015, it cemented Devialet’s claim to be the first choice of aesthete audiophiles. Then, as now, Nardin was in control of every aesthetic decision. ‘Every Devialet product has a certain timeless quality,’ he explains. ‘The new Phantom 1 »

Devialet’s new Phantom I compact speaker, in matte black, at the company’s production facility south-east of Paris. Its technology means sound waves travel away from the rounded device in a perfectly balanced way

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Technology This picture, a medium woofer in production for the Phantom I Below, work-in-progress design

‘Our idea was – and remains – to design products with full conviction and no compromises’ follows this logic. It is now over five years since the original was launched, and Phantom 1 reinvigorates the product and emphasises the qualities that define it.’

Updating the Phantom series would present a challenge for any designer. Nardin is quick to point out that the original speaker ‘upended’ the high-end audio market, making a splash with its distinctive form. Those who are truly passionate about buying into and building ultra-high fidelity have a tricky relationship with industrial design. Beyond a certain price point, customers want to see their speakers, not just hear them; the experience of the Phantom is shaped by the sculptural qualities of the device itself. Yet for those audiophiles determined to embark on the never-ending quest for audio perfection, aesthetics become subsumed by a deluge of minutiae – cabling, stands, the resonance of certain woods, the shape of your room, the construction of your house, the purity of the materials used to carry the signal. This is an infinite rabbit hole that Devialet, to its credit, deftly side-stepped with its all-in-one,

wireless device, which still manages to offer the utmost in fidelity. Exceptional sound quality is a given. But if you’re the kind of person who gets a kick out of the carat of your cables, Phantom’s plug-and-play simplicity probably won’t suffice.

That’s not to say the product can’t be improved. Enter Phantom 1. Nardin asserts that this new model is a revolution, not an evolution, explaining that many elements have been improved, from the internal software to the build quality and the tactile feel of the materials themselves.

Designed to work as a single unit or in a pair, the new Phantom 1 continues to include Devialet’s key innovations, the ADH system among them. The units also incorporate two powerful woofers for an extremely deep and dense bass sound – the kind you can physically feel. As well as the bass drivers, Phantom 1 has an aluminium tweeter and medium driver, with all speakers carefully arranged within the compact, pebble-like object. Speaker placement and projection are extremely important; another proprietary »

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Technology Left, a pair of Phantom I speakers demonstrate the design’s sculptural appeal.

A mainly monochromatic colour palette is intended to express simplicity and make for enduring appeal, says Devialet co-founder and chief design officer Emmanuel Nardin, below

technology, the Active Cospherical Engine, ensures sound waves travel away from the rounded forms of the device in a perfectly balanced way. Connectivity is via Bluetooth, WiFi, Airplay or Spotify’s Connect system, controlled by a dedicated mobile app. The smaller Phantom 11 (formerly the Reactor) shares the original’s design language and is best described as the ultimate wireless speaker, offering 350 watts of power in its most simple form and designed for a multiroom system.

One of the key questions for Devialet was how to take the Phantom’s singular and refined form to another level. Industrial designers often struggle with the central dichotomy of their profession; do you design for sustainable longevity, or should you sate the market’s relentless desire for novelty?

Devialet’s decision to subtly enhance, rather than completely overhaul, the appearance of its flagship product is driven by both necessity and pragmatism. ‘Phantom was born out of functionalism,’ says Nardin, ‘it’s a very robust design. Ultimately, it’s the market that decides, not the designer, whether we have a product that’s as iconic as a Porsche 911.’ He acknowledges the ‘push and pull between technology and design’, stressing that the speaker’s ‘form factor serves the acoustic performance – the architecture is very sophisticated. Any evolution of this form is therefore cosmetic, by and large.’

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The company’s production facility in Le Châtelet-en-Brie, near Paris, is more lab than factory, with robots and skilled technicians carefully assembling the Kubrickian forms of the Phantom from high-quality components from France and other European countries.

Machining, polishing, balancing and final testing take place at the same facility.

The new material finishes of Phantom 1 double down on the luxury. In the past, special editions, such as the Gold Phantom Opéra de Paris model, were explicitly targeted at a more lifestyle audience, with handapplied gold alloy to enhance the casing.

From the outset, Phantom 1 demonstrates a more tactile approach. ‘We’ve chosen materials that create a strong contrast, from high-tech matte composites to metallic ones,’ says Nardin. ‘The white polycarbonate shell has the feel of ceramic – it’s luxurious to look at and touch. We want our colours to endure and to imply simplicity.’ The relatively monochromatic approach – matte black, dark chrome, white/light chrome and with flashes of gold – also allows the Phantom 1 to be accommodated in every kind of interior.

For Nardin, Devialet ‘has been a designer’s dream’, he says. ‘I was a design consultant for 20 years. As a consultant, you are always making compromises to mitigate risk to someone else’s brand and image. When I decided to embark on this project in 2007, it was a dream to work without concessions.’

In the Phantom, the firm might have found its enduring icon, but it’s also clear that its core technology still has a long way to go in a world increasingly obsessed with high-quality sound. ‘Our idea was – and remains – to design products with full conviction and no compromises,’ Nardin says, ‘and to be comfortable with a certain level of risk.’ The team was joined by CEO Franck Lebouchard in 2018 and now covers all bases in the sphere of premium sound. As well as the Phantom 1 and the Phantom 11, there is the Expert Pro amplifier range (extending all the way up to the Expert 1000 Pro Dual system, which costs a shade under £25,000), and the Gemini wireless earbuds.

The company has also branched out into small-scale vinyl production, with a new label, The Lost Recordings, publishing heavyweight pressings of cult albums in collaboration with musician Frédéric D’Oria Nicolas’ Fondamenta label; remastered concerts by the likes of Dave Brubeck and Ella Fitzgerald showcase the capabilities of Devialet’s systems. In addition to powerboosting special editions in the years to come, the company’s uncanny ability to condense audio quality into small packages will bear fruit in less visible ways, as new partners seek to share its secrets. Nardin and his colleagues may have taken risks to get this far, but you can be sure your ears are in good hands. ∂ Phantom 1, from £1,890, devialet.com

In Residence

Ledgewood, originally designed by Robert Kennard in 1961, opens onto a sheltered pool courtyard, remodelled by landscape design studio Terremoto

US Homes 1: The Angeleno Abode

Green room Studio Shamshiri gets a midcentury Hollywood Hills gem ready for its close-up PHOTOGRAPHY: STEPHEN KENT JOHNSON PORTRAIT: SAM FROST ART DIRECTION: MICHAEL REYNOLDS WRITER: TILLY MACALISTER-SMITH

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In Residence

N

estled in the verdant Hollywood Hills, shaded by lush foliage and giant palms, is Ledgewood, a singlestorey, modestly sized 2,298 sq ft house.

The 1961 building actually has a lot to shout about: its designer and initial owner was Robert Kennard, an associate of Richard Neutra and a leading Black architect of his generation. Not grand by Hollywood standards, this handsome jewel box of a property is situated in perhaps the least inconspicuous of locations – just below the Hollywood sign.

Six decades on, Ledgewood maintains a confident, graceful presence, thanks to two great creative minds: its current owner, French-Tunisian entrepreneur Franck Nataf, and designer Pamela Shamshiri. Nataf, the founder of LA-based Exquisite Surfaces (which has become design world shorthand for exemplary European and North African flooring and surfaces in stone, wood, terracotta and tile, see W*225), bought the house in 2017 from Kennard’s daughter, after a year of searching for the perfect property.

Then in her sixties, the daughter had lived in the house since she was eight years old.

‘She had kept it exactly as he intended,’ says Nataf. ‘She is also part of an architectural foundation that preserves midcentury architecture in the city, so she had a book of every receipt for every purchase made for

Top, the northern side of the living room is furnished with a Christopher Farr x Studio Shamshiri ‘Tibetan Tantric’ rug and Poul Kjærholm lounge chairs Above, the new kitchen is split into two adjoining areas, with appliances hidden at the back, and a large kitchen island at the front Opposite, thanks to a new row of glazed sliding doors and floor-to-ceiling windows, Robert Kennard’s long hallway now opens up onto the courtyard garden

the house.’ Nataf ’s challenge was to treat the architecture with reverence and sensitivity while updating the house for contemporary life. ‘I wanted to keep the essence, and I knew what I wanted eventually,’ he says. But although he was seasoned in interior design, ‘I didn’t know how to get there right away’.

He appointed Shamshiri to redesign, renovate and restore the property. Considered California design royalty, Shamshiri is one of the most influential forces in American design today. A founder of Commune Design and a set designer in earlier years, the IranianItalian founded Studio Shamshiri with her brother Ramin in 2016 and has since designed homes for Paul McCartney and the actor Anne Hathaway, a flagship store for jeweller Irene Neuwirth, the Maison de la Luz hotel (see W*243) and more.

Wallpaper’s US Editor Michael Reynolds has collaborated with Shamshiri extensively, and styled the shoot on these pages. He affectionately describes her as ‘a triple threat with a magnetic, rockstar personality. Firstly, she is beautiful. Secondly, she is nurturing and compassionate, with a maternal, salt-ofthe-earth vibe. On top of all of that, she is incredibly talented with exquisite taste.’

‘Pam was already a friend,’ says Nataf, although the pair had never worked together on a personal project until Ledgewood. They first met years before, when Pamela was still »

In Residence

Above, the master bedroom suite, with a leather-panelled wall, teak millwork and a painting by James Brown. Its bathroom, below, is clad in zellige tiles Opposite, Pamela Shamshiri at Ledgewood

at Commune, and in time they became each other’s clients and collaborators. ‘When I got the house, she was the first person I showed it to,’ says Nataf. ‘Her own place is close by and it just reminded me of her. She knows exactly this type of architecture and its challenges.’

By coincidence, Shamshiri had recently viewed the house for herself as she was also on the hunt. ‘We were both going through life transitions, setting ourselves up for the next chapter. I love translating those life moments into interiors, because that’s the purpose and point of a home,’ says Shamshiri.

‘I knew Franck needed something that was very indoor-outdoor, elegant and familyfriendly, but really pretty slick. He is very stylish and he lives his life a certain way,’ she says, reeling off a verbal tearsheet of inspirations including Craig Ellwood, James Bond, Tom Ford’s A Single Man, and John Lautner.

Having deftly restored many homes by prestigious architects, including Archibald Quincy Jones, Stanford White, Nigel Coates and Rudolph Schindler, Shamshiri knew the balancing act that was required. ‘Buildings like this one have so much DNA in them and it can be overwhelming being a steward of one. I free myself up by thinking, “What

would Robert Kennard have done if he were doing it now?”’ says Shamshiri. ‘The liberties we take tend to be with the kitchens and bathrooms, because we use those spaces so differently now, and the outdoors.’ Updating the kitchen – ‘the trickiest part of the house to resolve’ – involved a major overhaul, relocating it from its former central location in the house and splitting it into two adjoining areas: one that discreetly houses appliances and a second, clean space with a large island and open vertical shelving.

Featuring Exquisite Surfaces’ range throughout the house was a natural move, although the surfaces were utilised in a new light. ‘I really wanted to show their materials in the context of California modernism, as opposed to the historical homes that you see them in more often,’ says Shamshiri.

Particularly inviting is the master bathroom, with its sunken soaking tub and steam shower that looks out onto the Hollywood Hills. Shamshiri suggested using traditional handmade Moroccan zellige tiles, which have a natural variation in colour that creates warmth, but cut unusually small, and stacked vertically to accentuate the geometry of the house. ‘It was very laborious but Franck was game,’ she laughs. Shamshiri pushed »

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Nataf ’s comfort zone with colour; she chose to mirror the sultry, leafy exterior landscaping by local studio Terremoto with a deep turtle green used throughout the interior, from the lounge to the master bedroom, where it is complemented with a chestnut leather-panelled wall. ‘Midcentury houses are generally not done with a lot of colour. I had to hold Franck’s hand on that one, but he really did let go,’ says Shamshiri.

‘If it was anyone but Pam, I would be second guessing everything,’ confides Nataf.

‘I have a very strong opinion, but I trust her taste entirely. The only restriction was the budget! I’d say, “As long as it fits the budget, I’m good with whatever you want to do!”’

Pieces such as Poul Kjærholm wicker and metal lounge chairs, a Christopher Farr x Studio Shamshiri ‘Tibetan Tantric’ rug and vintage objects dress the rooms. Due to space constraints, each piece of furniture was specifically sourced for a set position.

Consistent with Studio Shamshiri’s ethos, conscientiously selecting and responsibly sourcing materials was important. ‘All the cabinetry was made locally, primarily oiled and using low-VOC sealers,’ says Shamshiri.

‘The stone did come from far away, as everything for Exquisite Surfaces comes from Europe, but the zellige tiles use the oldest of production techniques and we wanted to support the original artisans doing that.’

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Respect for the natural world plays directly into design elements, too. ‘You enter the house on the axis of its long hallway, the life thread of the house, and we replaced all the glass on the left and opened up the hallway as much as possible to the outside, so as you’re travelling linearly up and down the house, there is always a garden on one side,’ says Shamshiri.

‘I feel like I’m suspended in a tranquil tree house when I’m sitting in the living room, with the green walls hitting the green leaves outside,’ says Nataf. ‘The entire house is very Zen and meditative; you feel very calm there.

The past year, little by little I have been noticing how all these considerations work perfectly.’ The renovations concluded just before the world ground to a halt in early 2020 due to the pandemic. ‘Before the pandemic, I barely spent any time in the house as I am a big traveller, often spending time in New York and Paris. But it quickly became my sanctuary,’ says Nataf.

‘Franck called me right away when Covid happened and he was so happy to be nesting there,’ says Shamshiri. ‘I was thinking about how efficient his space is, there isn’t a wasted corner, and it feels spacious and appropriate.

There is no excess but it feels luxurious. I love that and I want to carry that forward and encourage people to live that way.’ ∂ studioshamshiri.com; xsurfaces.com

‘I feel like I’m suspended in a tranquil tree house when I’m sitting in the living room; the entire house is very Zen and meditative’

Above, a ‘Flag Halyard’ armchair by Hans Wegner in the main living room, which, like the rest of the house, is painted in a deep turtle green to mirror the lush exterior. It also features new teak cabinetry, in keeping with the modernist heritage of the house

Architecture

US Homes 2: The Hamptons House

Gable service

A Long Island new-build looks on point but offers up some curve appeal PHOTOGRAPHY: ALAN TANSEY WRITER: SHAWN ADAMS

Consisting of six gabled volumes wrapped in dark grey Accoya timber, Six Square House sits in a verdant two-acre plot on Long Island

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s you enter the Hamptons, if you aren’t too distracted by the bone-white beaches and cerulean waters, you’ll start catching glimpses of the farmhouses that populate the rural landscape in this part of America. Peppered across the clustered villages at the eastern end of Long Island, these houses hint at the area’s rich agricultural history.

Playing on the area’s vernacular, the New Yorkbased practice Young Projects has reimagined the conventional barn as a bold structure in its latest project, Six Square House. Consisting of six gabled volumes, the elegant 3,500 sq ft family home features an eclectic mix of architectural expressions.

The plan is a ‘clustered grid, which sets up an interesting dialogue between the spaces,’ says Bryan Young, the founder and principal of Young Projects.

It’s a symmetric pattern of squares that intersect, leaving trilateral voids that invite nature into the scheme. Five of the tessellating modules collectively provide two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, a porch, and living areas, and enclose a triangular courtyard, while the sixth sits away from the rest,

accommodating a garage. Approaching the scheme from the polished concrete path, you’re greeted by two symmetrical gables. These elevations are ‘a false introduction to the building’. As you walk around the house, the geometry departs from the traditional pitched form and transforms into a dynamic sculpture with sweeping curves. Despite appearing threedimensionally complex, the more fluid portions of Six Square House were simple to construct. Made from entirely straight joints, the roof is a masterful sequence of ‘ruled surfaces’.

The six volumes are skilfully wrapped in a skin of charred Accoya timber, a dark slatted façade that contrasts perfectly with the bright Western red cedar of the central courtyard’s entertaining space. This accentuates the dichotomy between the external and internal elements. From the outside, one can read each module. However, inside, there is an unexpected sense of continuity. ‘It is a smooth, unfolding interior that is embraced by the complex geometry,’ explains Young.

Internally, the form of the ceiling creates a harmonious fluidity. ‘As you move through the rooms, there is »

Above, highlighting the flow of the ceiling’s geometry, the large open-space living area comes with a refined white oak floor and a kitchen with natural ash millwork

by Brooklyn furniture makers Chapter & Verse

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Above, the central open-air dining area is clad in Western red cedar, in a nod to the material used in the existing 19th-century farmhouse that sits at the front of the site Left, the master bathroom features a large window that perfectly frames the garden, which is scattered with oak, beech and ginkgo trees

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this sense of spatial ambiguity,’ he continues.

Having owned the plot for several years, the client was keen that the new building emphasise the foliage that has always defined the land. Taking this into account, Young Projects teamed up with the Minneapolis-based landscape specialists Coen + Partners to sensitively choreograph intricate scenes across the site. ‘In a way, you can read the house as a lens that looks back at the garden and begins to engage you with the surrounding context; a lens that allows you to experience the surrounding environment in a way that is structured and intentional,’ explains Young. The outdoor porch carefully captures four ginkgos, while the master bedroom enjoys a direct view of a mature beech tree. The living room volume and its corner window look out onto an oak tree as the diagonal ridgeline directs your eyes towards the farmhouse. As you move through the kitchen, past the milled island, another ginkgo can be seen in the triangular court, reinforcing the sense of nature seen throughout the scheme.

A well-orchestrated Hamptons home that ‘pushes the potential of the vernacular into unknown territory’, Six Square House both successfully acknowledges existing typologies while at the same time providing something new and refreshing. It showcases the practice’s innovative approach to the creative process, reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of Young’s work (which spans material research, furniture design and art installations) while challenging the architectural conventions of Long Island. ∂ young-projects.com

US Homes 3: The Surf Shack

Escape artist Kelly Wearstler makes over a midcentury Malibu beach house PHOTOGRAPHY: THE INGALLS PORTRAIT: JOYCE PARK WRITER: TF CHAN

In Residence This page, Wearstler photographed in September 2020 in the lounge of her Malibu beach house Opposite, the entryway features a Chuck Moffit bench, a ‘No.2’ chair by Comme des Garçons, and a blackened redwood console from Base 10’s ‘Kodama’ series

In Residence

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tretching across a triple lot on Malibu’s Broad Beach, this 1953 residence is the kind of rare find that sets the imagination racing. A timber-sided structure that stands out among its more contemporary neighbours, the four-bedroom house comes with generous gardens at one end, and a spacious deck, rolling sand dunes and unobstructed ocean views at the other. It also has a Hollywood pedigree: believed to have been built by Frank A Garbutt, a co-founder of Paramount Pictures, for his daughter, it was later acquired by actor Carroll O’Connor, star of the 1970s sitcom All in the Family. Yet, before designer Kelly Wearstler moved in last spring, the house had been on the market for three years, drawing little interest.

Wearstler, like many other affluent Angelenos, was in search of a beach house where her family could pass the pandemic months. She had already seen this property from the outside, as a good friend had once rented three doors down, and she was charmed by its original architecture, expansive windows and scenic location. ‘It even has a driveway where you can take your boat down from the house and just go all the way to the ocean,’ she enthuses, pointing out that her family are avid surfers. She tracked down the owner of the house and asked if he might be willing to let it for a few months; he agreed, with the caveat that he’d still be able to show the house to potential buyers.

Knowing this would be a fixed-term stay did not prevent Wearstler from giving the house an extensive overhaul. Out went the white shag carpet, and in came a mix of Californian and European midcentury pieces that looked at home amid the original timber panelling and shoji screen doors and ceilings: in the living room, for instance, Wearstler put 1970s seating by Afra and

Above left, the family room features an iroko side table

by Arno Declercq, vintage tessellated coffee tables clad in tortoiseshell, a pair of 1968 ‘Pulkka’ lounge chairs by Ilmari Lappalainen, and a vintage Turkish rug Above right, timber cabinetry in the original galley kitchen Opposite, a lacquered steel and white plaster ‘Caféstuhl’

by Lukas Gschwandtner under the stairway

Tobia Scarpa for Cassina, and a 1950s ‘Control’ lamp,

by American designer Mitchell Bobrick, that she has had for 12 years. Many of these were drawn from her extensive collection of vintage pieces, a reflection of Wearstler’s upbringing (her mother worked as an antiques dealer) and longtime passion. ‘I shop all over the world, and anytime I see anything that is unusual, I buy and store it in my warehouse,’ she explains.

Having selected key pieces that would set the tone, she turned to Joel Chen, owner of fabled LA antiques emporium JF Chen, for the rest. ‘I’ve been purchasing things for projects from him for as long as I remember.

He has a 30,000 sq ft store that stayed open [during the pandemic] because there’s a lot of room for social distancing. So I went and got a few pieces from him.’

Wearstler also introduced works by emerging talents to bring a fresh eclecticism to the house: in the entryway, Californian designer Chuck Moffit’s black leather bench on a delicate bronze frame contrasts with LA studio Base 10’s burly console, made of salvaged redwood and blackened using a combination of natural alchemical patination and shou sugi ban. Another charred wood piece, a side table formed of three tapered cylindrical volumes, is a contemporary take on a Senufo table by Belgian designer Arno Declercq, while a steel chair with a seat, seatback and armrests in white plaster, evoking a sculpture in progress, comes courtesy of Austrian designer Lukas Gschwandtner (see W*258). From Angeleno ceramic artist Caroline Blackburn, Wearstler selected a richly textured vessel that beautifully complemented the organic forms of the living room furniture.

Working with landscape designer Art Luna and local nursery Inner Gardens, Wearstler introduced »

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Photography: Mark Durling. Florist: Sophia Moreno-Bunge

In Residence

‘It was about bringing together old spirit and new spirit to create unique experiences that make every room memorable’ lush tropical foliage in and around the building. Plants were particularly abundant in the solarium-turneddining room, housed in a mix of early California and contemporary pots, overrunning the dining table and huddling up to an enormous Isamu Noguchi lamp suspended in the centre. With the windows open, they would sway in the ocean breeze, further blurring the boundaries between outdoors and in.

The house is an apparently effortless melange of design styles, rich in texture and mindful of context.

Yet it diverges from Wearstler’s previous work (and, indeed, her usual LA home, a Spanish Colonial Revival building dating back to 1926) in its bohemian energy and intimacy. The spaces here were deliberately crafted with the expectation of an extended lockdown, emphasising ease of use and suited to relaxation and play. The office, despite its statement green marble table by Mario Bellini, is configured simply for the one or two days a week when Wearstler would work from home (on other days, she made the 70-minute drive to her studio, which continued to operate at 30 per cent capacity). Meanwhile, a family room comprises lowslung seating for just four: an Italian cognac leather sofa and a pair of Finnish lounge chairs, perfect for evenings spent playing cards and board games.

The virtues of the house became evident over time. Wearstler found an affinity for cooking during lockdown and took pleasure in the way the house’s galley kitchen opened into the family room.

Above left, tropical plants, surrounded by Danish midcentury chairs, in the solarium-turned-dining room Above right, a Mario Bellini dining table from 1987 in the office, alongside a painted woven canvas by artist Jean Alexander Frater Opposite, top, the lounge features a fibreglass table by Aschberg Magnuson, a pair of Illum Wikkelsø’s ‘Hoop’ chairs, and a pendant lamp that is original to the house Bottom, the living room includes a 1970s sofa and chaise longue by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, a ‘2750’ lounge chair by Dan Johnson, a Mitchell Bobrick ‘Control’ floor lamp, and a ceramic artwork by Caroline Blackburn

The family also made ample use of the outdoor spaces, setting up a big volleyball net and a place to have bonfires – as the pandemic eased, it proved a perfect set-up for entertaining friends from their quarantine pod. ‘I have two boys who are in high school, and [the pandemic] has been such an odd time for kids whose school and social lives came to a standstill, so I wanted to make it a really memorable experience for them,’ Wearstler recalls.

As it turns out, her reinvention of the house made an impression in more ways. Blown away by her design, the owner commissioned new photographs for a real estate listing website, and found a buyer in just a month – a young Silicon Valley type with a love of surfing, who was inspired by Wearstler to retain and restore the midcentury building. ‘You could have built a house three times the size of this one, which is what everybody unfortunately does on Broad Beach. But he’s not tearing the house down, just fixing up the original bathrooms and doing a little more landscaping.

That was amazing to hear,’ says Wearstler (who took her furniture back, as there are quite a few pieces she ‘would never part with’). Looking back at her Broad Beach days, she relished the opportunity to breathe life back into an underappreciated building that was unlike anywhere she had lived before: ‘It was about bringing together old spirit and new spirit to create unique experiences that make every room memorable.’ ∂ kellywearstler.com

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Jewellery

M/G Tasaki ‘Sliced’ necklace in freshwater pearls and yellow gold, £8,070

SURREAL DEAL We’re besotted with the bold and the beautiful Photography Keisuke Otobe Jewellery Hannah Silver

Fabio Salini Earrings in carbon fibre, pink titanium, pink sapphire, white gold and diamonds, price on request

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Buccellati ‘Hawaii’ diamond necklace in yellow and white gold, £69,000; ‘Hawaii’ diamond earrings in yellow and white gold, £17,000

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Louis Vuitton ‘LV Volt’ cuff in 18ct yellow gold with 84 diamonds, £20,400

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Jewellery

Bernardaud ‘Alba’ ring in enamelled porcelain, €102

Newspaper

Roberto Coin ‘Octopus’ ring in rose gold with diamonds and black sapphires, AED58,440 ($16,000)

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Hermès ‘Galop d’Hermès’ double bracelet inrose gold and black spinels, £73,000

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Francesca Villa ‘Abracadabra’ necklace in pink gold with vintage vari-vue, €700, from Objet d’Emotion

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Newspaper

Nyukkin ‘Character 002’ slim bracelet in polished steel with Moment inlay in Kuma, €489

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Jewellery

Marion Vidal ‘Pluton’ necklace in enamelled ceramic with jersey ribbon and brass clasp, €345

Jewellery

Francis de Lara ‘Eve’ eyewear in yellow gold with tourmaline, cognac diamonds, pink sapphires and gold cabochons, £19,800 For stockists, see page 193

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GLOBAL INTERIORS We’ve searched pole to pole and pillar to post for the sleek, the chic and the unique

From left, ‘No Waste’ chair, price on request, by Taller Capitan (South America).

‘Dislocation’ table, $3,500,

by Buzao (Asia). ‘57t’ light, from £345, by Omer Arbel, for Bocci (North America).

‘Lean’ side table, from £860,

by Okha (Africa). ‘Arch Pendant 01’ light, NZ$1,620 ($1,177), by Douglas and Bec (Oceania). ‘Sumo’ sofa, from €5,064, by Piero Lissoni, for Living Divani (Europe)

ARTWORK: FORM & RAUSCH INTERIORS: OLLY MASON

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Global Interiors

AFRICA From left, ‘Lebone’ lamp, price on request, by Inès Bressand, for Mabeo.

‘Yang Kapa Yang’ seat, price on request, by Atang Tshikare. ‘Sohori’ table, from GHS200 ($35),

by Tekura. ‘New Moon’ sofa, ZAR37,600 ($2,566),

by Mia Senekal, for

Murrmurr. ‘Talking Table’ side table, $1,500,

by Lani Adeoye, for Studio Lani. ‘LM’ stool, NGN210,600 ($553),

by Nifemi Marcus-Bello, for Nmbello Studio.

Umthwalo II, price on request, by Zizipho Poswa, from Southern Guild

EUROPE From left, ‘Alltubes’ cabinet, €6,200, by Muller Van Severen. ‘Nemi’ rug, part of the Spectrum collection, €18,000, by Jan Kath. ‘Spool’ table, £943, by Piero Lissoni, for B&B Italia. ‘Echoes’ lounge chair, £1,699,

by Christophe Pillet, for Flexform. ‘Koishi’ tables, price on request, by Jean-Marie Massaud, for Poliform. ‘Milana’ lighting system, price on request, by Jaume Ramírez, for Marset.

‘Kartta’ glass sculpture, from €500, by Santtu Mustonen, for Iittala.

‘Ruff’ armchairs, from £1,380 each, by Patricia Urquiola, for Moroso

Global Interiors

Global Interiors

SOUTH AMERICA From left, ‘Miranda’ lounge chair, from COP1,403,300 ($396),

by Simón Ballen Botero, for Perceptual. ‘Judd, Again’ table, $4,000, by Juan García Mosqueda and Maximiliano Ciovich, for It Met Studio. ‘Fuso’ glasses, price on request,

by Ries Studio, for

Cristaleria San Carlos.

‘Adobe’ floor lamp, $1,300,

by Guilherme Wentz, for Wentz. ‘Daiki’ outdoor armchair, from £5,208; footstool, from £2,688, both by Marcio Kogan/ Studio MK27, for Minotti.

‘TM3’ side table, from CLP850,000 ($1,194), by Rodrigo Bravo, for Bravo

ASIA From left, ‘Mün’ floor lamp, £630, by OEO Studio, for Stellar Works.

‘Mazha 3.0’ lighting system, price on request,

by Mario Tsai Studio.

‘Dragonfly’ dining chair, from €352, by District Eight. ‘Quadrangle’ table, CNY18,800 ($2,900),

by Singchan Design.

‘Elio’ lamp, $1,200, by Palaash Chaudhary and Utharaa L Zacharias, for Soft-Geometry.

‘Elements’ coat stand, price on request, by Shin Azumi, for Ariake.

‘Constellation C030’ side table, price on request, by David/Nicolas, for Carpenters Workshop Gallery. ‘Tako’ armchair, from JPY148,000 ($1,400), by Naoto Fukasawa, for Maruni

Global Interiors

Global Interiors

NORTH AMERICA From left, ‘Avio’ sofa system, from £4,520,

by Piero Lissoni, for Knoll International. ‘Chamfer 1’ table, $18,500, by Christopher Stuart, from The Future Perfect. ‘Bridge Handled’ vessel, $1,195; ‘Stav’ vessel, $925, both

by Simone Bodmer-Turner.

‘Parrish’ chair, $590,

by Konstantin Grcic, for

Emeco. ‘Origo’ pendants, MXN6,400 each ($314),

by Studio Davidpompa.

‘Procedencia’ vessel, part of the Discarded collection, $800,

by Sofía Véliz. ‘Marble Plinth’ side table, from $1,387, by Timothy Oulton, for RH Modern.

‘Matinee’ chair, $750,

by Bernhardt Design

Global Interiors

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OCEANIA From left, ‘Isabella’ chair, in ‘Hallingdal 65’ fabric

by Kvadrat, from £1,390,

by Simon James, for Resident. ‘Breeze’ side table, €560, by Ross Gardam. Mobile, price on request, by Daniel Emma.

‘Thimble’ stool, A$320 ($250), by Dowel Jones.

‘Wyrie’ table, A$24,995

($19,600), by Nick Rennie, for New Volumes. ‘Vase Versa’ vase, A$180 ($141), by Dean Toepfer.

‘Solute’ floor lamp, price on request, by Liam Fleming and Dean Toepfer, for Jam Factory For stockists, see page 193

Architecture

Hidden depth A disused grain store in rural Norfolk gets a new life as a family home PHOTOGRAPHY: NICK DEARDEN WRITER: CLARE DOWDY

London-based architecture practice 31/44 is used to getting the most out of tight, urban spaces. Its Red House, in East Dulwich in south London, picked up a RIBA London Award and a Manser Medal, and No.49, in Lewisham, won a RIBA National Award.

‘We’re used to doing very difficult sites that have a direct relationship with perhaps 30 neighbours,’ says 31/44 director Will Burges. So designing a house in the English countryside was ‘slightly liberating’, he adds. ‘It was just about the preservation of the immediate environment.’

Burges and his team were commissioned by a London-based family to create a weekend retreat in a tiny Norfolk hamlet.

Luke and Klara Hawes had spotted a disused

grain store, sitting between other farm buildings and a listed parish church. The area was familiar to Luke as he had grown up nearby. Before starting the work, ‘we spent two summers in a camper van in the field, getting a feel for the land’, he says. The 450 sq m steel-framed barn, which had been built around 1990, had little historical interest or architectural distinction but local planners stipulated that its frame had to be retained. Early concept work was carried out by architect and family friend Michael Loates-Taylor of TaylorMadeSpace, then 31/44 handled the architectural character and detailing of the final scheme. A priority for 31/44 was to define an appropriate language for a modern barn. ‘The materials are very »

Above, the house is wrapped in corrugated metal and larch louvres, echoing its previous incarnation as an agricultural building Opposite, the capacious family living area offers far-reaching rural views

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Above, the indoor swimming pool, which is separated from the open-plan living space by a glazed wall

basic choices,’ says Burges, citing the concrete, plywood and acoustic straw ceiling. ‘But the level of execution is finessed to make it feel more domestic.’ The planners also wanted the scheme to look like an agricultural building from the outside, so Burges wrapped it in corrugated metal walls with larch louvres above. The Haweses were after a capacious family living space and an indoor swimming pool, with other rooms on a more modest scale. From the quiet road, it’s intentionally difficult to identify the house’s entrance.

‘We liked the idea that as you drove up to it,

it was very mute and didn’t give away its domesticity,’ says Burges. 31/44 introduced a pale green metal-clad drum, reminiscent of a grain silo, at the front entrance. Within this drum, a helical staircase leads up to the first floor, where windows are hidden behind a veil of timber.

The hallway leads to the main living area: a vast, double-height, open-plan kitchen/ dining/living space. Swathes of glazing give views of the garden and pool. At first-floor height, concrete frames support boxes of natural birch ply, creating a house within »

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Left, a metal-clad drum, reminiscent of a grain silo, conceals a helical staircase that leads up to the first floor Below, the view from the pool through to the open-plan kitchen

a barn. The box at the rear contains the master bedroom, which has views over the garden and down to the pool and living space. The bedroom is linked by a glass bridge to the timber-framed structure, which houses a guest room and a bedroom for each of the couple’s two sons, all of which are plastered rather than ply.

This project balances the industrial with the domestic in both atmosphere and scale.

To achieve that, the architects have opened up internal views. ‘Where you see pockets of the big space, it doesn’t feel too overwhelming, it feels more domestic,’ says Burges. As Luke and Klara are both designers (Luke is a director at industrial design firm PriestmanGoode and Klara runs her own design company), they were fastidious about the fixtures, fittings and detailing of their project, such as the colour of the ply (whitewash rather than yellow), the depth

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and thickness of the louvres, the screwheads (small, flush and discreet) and the colour of the pool. Klara specified lighting by the likes of Flos, Foscarini and Muuto.

The project’s landscaping was inspired

by Klara’s passion for Mediterranean gardens and plants, as well as family trips to Greece and Spain, hence the olive and palm trees.

She also wanted to replicate the link between indoor and outdoor spaces found in the homes of southern Europe. At the rear, 31/44 accommodated this by ‘tweaking the walls back further, to get the garden furniture under the overhang’, says Burges.

Luke and Klara initially planned to use the house just as a retreat for weekends and holidays, but as the project neared completion in early 2020, they decided instead to relocate there full-time, just before the UK went into its first lockdown. ∂ 3144architects.com

Art Icon

OUTSIDE EDGE

Chilean artist Federico Assler is a master builder of monuments with a common purpose PHOTOGRAPHY: MARCOS ZEGERS WRITER: BENOîT LOISEAU

Federico Assler’s monumental concrete sculptures may have made him a fixture on the Chilean art scene, but don’t call him a sculptor. ‘I’m a constructor,’ he offers instead, speaking on the phone from his home in Cajón del Maipo, south-east of Santiago and flanked by the Andean mountains. ‘I believe that art – any form of art – is a construction.’

Born in Santiago in 1929, the artist didn’t last long at the international school chosen by his parents, who were of German and British origin. ‘I was a very bad student,’ says the nonagenarian in a soft English accent before switching to Spanish: ‘Me echavan! [They kicked me out!]’ he laughs. His first job was as a technical illustrator at one of Chile’s largest furniture manufacturers, which was then innovating with wood as a result of steel shortages caused by the Second World War. Eager to see the world, he quit after six months and travelled to Italy by way of Argentina, with nothing but a few pesos and a sleeping bag.

Opposite and above, Federico Assler photographed last year with some of his artworks at his workshop in Kawelluco, in Pucón, central Chile, which was designed by Santiagobased architect Cazú Zegers in 2017

Two years later, in 1954, he returned to Chile, still intoxicated by the wonders of the Florentine High Renaissance, and enrolled at the Catholic University of Valparaíso’s School of Architecture, on the Pacific coast. Soon after, much to his engineer father’s chagrin, he transferred to the School of Fine Arts’ painting department, in nearby Viña del Mar, where he was mentored by German artist Hans Soyka.

As a painter, Assler emerged from the 1950s Grupo Rectángulo; a movement of Chilean artists, including Ramón Vergara Grez and Elsa Bolívar, whose geometrical abstraction shifted the country’s thendominant figurative paradigm. It took Assler another 12 years – and about as many international biennials, from Paris to São Paulo – to finally turn his attention to sculpture. ‘I was very interested in nature,’ the artist remembers of that period, which also involved a stint as director of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de la Universidad de Chile, from 1965 to 1968. »

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Art Icon

‘I abandoned painting because I felt it necessary to take the work out of the studio.’ After experimenting with chipboard – likely inspired by his factory days – his aha-moment came in 1970 when he discovered concrete, a material best suited to the outdoors.

His now-signature technique consists of assembling polystyrene moulds – based on preliminary sketches and sculpted with hot wires – which he then fills with a mixture of concrete and powder pigments. ‘I need the colours,’ he says. The resulting organically shaped casts, which range from off-black hues to earthy reds and light creams, have since graced parks and plazas from Tenerife to Santiago. ‘I’ve always wanted sculptures to go to the city, to the street, not the museum,’ insists Assler. He moved to Spain in 1972 (soon before Pinochet assumed power in Chile) and spent much of the following decade based near Madrid, where he became acquainted with Spanish contemporaries like the late Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida, best known for his colossal steel installations. ‘Encountering a historical work on the street forces you to think.’

His greatest influence, however, is Henry Moore, his ‘spiritual father’. The Chilean artist was only 22 when he stumbled across a reclining bronze – ‘una maravilla!’

– at the 1951 Festival of Britain, whose combined celebration of art, architecture and industrial design inspired the nascent British ‘constructionist’ movement (its terminology appears to have stuck with the young Assler). In 1991, while teaching at Brighton »

Top and above, sculptural works, in Assler’s signature off-black and earthy red hues, inside and outside his Cajón del Maipo studio, which is in the process of becoming a foundation and museum

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Art Icon OUTDOOR SCULPTURES

BY FEDERICO ASSLER Clockwise from left, Two Standing Figures, on show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK, in 1991; Homenaje al Hormigón, in Huechuraba, Chile; Hito Geográfico Centro de Chile, in Coronel, Chile

Assler’s greatest project remains unrealised: a sculpture, rising in the middle of the arid Andean plateau, like the vestige of an ancient civilisation Polytechnic (now part of the University of Brighton), Assler was invited to create a new work for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield and close to where Moore grew up in Castleford.

There, he erected two concrete figures, nearly 5m tall and reminiscent of crooked tree trunks standing opposite one another: ‘The only sculpture to emerge from the ground,’ he says, confessing that it required moving a work by Barbara Hepworth.

Curator Clare Lilley remembers this moment fondly: ‘It was extraordinary to watch Federico work with such intensity and skill. For many years, this extremely handsome sculpture reminded people of sunrise and sunset, and it was enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of visitors.’

Assler received the Chilean National Prize for Plastic Arts in 2009 in recognition of his career achievement (it has since been awarded to artist Alfredo Jaar and photographer Paz Errázuriz, among others). Today, the 91-year-old is still at work, commuting between his 5,000 sq m studio, Roca Negra, in Cajón del Maipo – set to become a foundation and museum, displaying some 400 works – and his

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workshop in the town of Pucón, in central Chile’s Lake District, overlooked by the snow-capped Villarrica volcano. He is currently developing a sculptural addition to the Cerro Dominador solar power plant, located in the northern region of Antofagasta, in the Atacama Desert – one of the driest places on Earth.

Part of Chile’s national renewable energy programme, and estimated to have cost $1bn, the plant is unique to South America. ‘There’s nothing quite like it,’ the artist enthuses. His contribution consists of a concrete sculptural diptych made of an 8m-tall grey column and a 3m x 3m red-toned circular shape, which will be housed at the site’s observation tower.

For Assler, working in the desert is a dream come true. But his greatest project, however modest, remains unrealised: a sculpture, rising in the middle of the arid Andean plateau, ‘where there’s absolutely nothing’, like the vestige of an ancient civilisation. ‘I hope I have time to make it,’ he says. One such ‘construction’ might receive fewer accolades than in a well-kept public space, but that’s beyond the point. ‘Why does one make an artwork?’ he muses, ‘To this day, I don’t understand it. It’s a mystery… el arte.’ ∂

APRIL IS ALL ABOUT...

THE REGENERATION GAME p152 NEW WAVE John Lautner’s curvaceous Garcia House gets a makeover p164 WONDER WALLS Anupama Kundoo on architecture to make you feel good p174 SHAPE UP Easy pieces for effortless elegance p186 POETIC LICENCE Paolo Portoghesi on postmodern liberty p194 CRUNCH KICKS Oliver Beer’s sesame and peanut candy ∑

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HIGH LIFE

Uplifting restoration at John Lautner’s 1962 Garcia House in LA Photography Roger Dav ies Art Direction Mich a el R ey nolds Writer Pei-Ru K eh

Completed by architect John Lautner in 1962, the otherworldly Garcia House, balanced 60ft above its lofty site in the Hollywood Hills, has been lovingly restored and refurbished over almost two decades by its current owners, inside and out

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In Residence

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In Residence

P

erched nimbly on one side of the Hollywood Hills along Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, John Lautner’s futuristic Garcia House is one of the most enduring specimens of the midcentury modern movement. Completed in 1962 for the jazz musician, conductor and Hollywood composer Russell Garcia and his wife Gina, the almond-shaped house is as well known for the steel caissons that hoist it 60ft above the canyon below as it is for its part in 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2, where it appears to come crashing down in a foul blow to the film’s villains.

Special effects and celebrity aside, the Garcia House, which is, in fact, standing tall and well, now serves as a piece of living history, with its V-shaped supports, parabolic roof and stained-glass windows.

The house’s current owners, entertainment business manager John McIlwee and Broadway producer Bill Damaschke, have been on a mission to restore and revive the house since they purchased it in 2002, while living there full time.

Wallpaper* first reported on the house in our January 2009 issue (W*118), when McIlwee and Damaschke were enjoying the fruit of their ambitious restoration efforts. ‘When we first saw the place in 2002, it was a little bit of a shambles,’ recalls McIlwee now. ‘It was 25 years of neglect. Structurally, the house was perfect. The whole house sits on caissons and not one part of it touches the ground. However, the roof was a big issue because it had deteriorated,’ he continues. ‘There was a leak by a window and it ate through a portion of the house. We came in, took out some old carpet, painted the house and lived in it for a year. That was critical for us because we would

have made different decisions if we had tried to do the work before we moved in.’

Aided by the expertise of architecture firm Marmol Radziner, which oversaw the renovation of Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House in Palm Springs among many other gems of the era, the couple were fully committed to restoring the house to as close to its original state as they could get it.

‘We did not change one piece of its footprint.

We didn’t do anything that compromised the structural integrity,’ says McIlwee, who has served on the board of The John Lautner Foundation since purchasing the house. ‘In fact, there was an owner in the 1980s who had removed some load-bearing walls and we put those back.’ Whenever there was a question, they deferred to the original plans, which were passed on by the house’s previous owner, the actor and director Vincent Gallo.

From reinstating the terrazzo floors and restoring the light fittings, some of which hang from 40ft up, to rehabilitating the 55ft expanse of windows and even reducing the interior square footage upstairs to maintain the original transparency of the house, McIlwee and Damaschke’s painstaking renovation feels natural and seamless. Complemented by an eclectic, earth-toned assortment of contemporary design pieces that were selected with the advice of interior designer Darren Brown, the rejuvenation of the Garcia House transcends time. ‘A lot of the things we did made it feel symmetrical and original,’ says McIlwee. ‘We have people coming to the house and asking if we had to renovate much. It’s the biggest compliment, and the craziest thing, because we had to do so much work.’

Rather than stopping there, the couple have continued to dedicate time and effort to expand »

Above, the Garcia House is also known as the Rainbow House, thanks to its glass façade dotted with colourful stained glass windows, and its vast arched roof Opposite, the living room features stained walnut cabinetry installed by the architects Marmol Radziner for the owners when they first started renovating the house. Furnishings include an ‘Arco’ lamp by Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, a coffee table by Charles Hollis Jones, and a banquette upholstered in Romo fabric, while the photograph is by Terry Richardson

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In Residence The 55ft expanse of windows fills the home with light. Seen here are club chairs, ottomans and a sofa by Saporiti, with custom drum tables

by Darren Brown, who worked with the owners on the property’s interiors

upon their labour of love. In 2008, they added a pool (which was part of Lautner’s original design, but never built because the Garcias ran out of money). In 2019, they reunited with Brown to redecorate the interior, this time making the most of their growing personal art collection. They also overhauled the landscaping with the aid of environmental designer John Sharp to fully shepherd the house into the 21st century.

In its present incarnation, the interiors of the Garcia House lean on a strong 1980s Italian aesthetic that represents the evolution of the couple’s taste in art and design. ‘John and Bill had become serious art collectors, and I suggested the place could use a bit of fluff,’ Brown recounts. ‘The idea was not to reinvent the house but to make it look fresher.

‘In 2006, they had what I call client design fatigue.

They asked me to help bring it to the finish line,’ he adds. ‘The general vibe was leaning towards an earthy luxury sparseness, so we pushed it a bit further towards hyper-disco in the master bedroom with the Lucite bed frame and large-scale pattern rug and fur.’

The house’s renewed sophistication is signalled by the acquisition of 1974 Saporiti dining chairs that flank a dining table, custom-designed by Brown; the finesse continues through to the 1980s neoncoloured paintings by artist Ed Paschke, a leader in the Chicago Imagist movement, that adorn the upstairs media room.

‘When I came across the chairs, I made the obvious connection between their wave shape and the curve of the house, and away we went,’ recounts Brown.

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‘I wouldn’t say I was doing a 1980s look – it’s more of a mood: Malibu, the ocean waves, the palms, the textures, soft tones, a lightness.’ He continues, ‘I had been begging John and Bill to pursue Ed Paschke for years, but only work made from 1980 on, when the artist began to focus on electronic media, abstraction, television waves and flashes. That is how the paintings ended up in the media room. Much of Paschke’s work from this period includes fame, violence, sex and money – perfect metaphors for decorating!’

The tasteful hedonism overflows into the outside, where Lautner’s original design for a pool stands true to form. Almond-shaped, just like the pool at another Lautner great, Silvertop, and built from his sketches that the couple handed over to Marmol Radziner, the pool took four years to complete, due to changing building codes, and ‘just about killed me’, quips McIlwee. ‘It took two years to get a permit.’

Originally intended for another part of the property (a lot that was sold by earlier owners in the 1970s), the pool had to be relocated to where it stands today; it ended up being a better location, since it gets sunshine from 7am to 7pm daily. ‘Our decision for the shape and position of the pool was based on Lautner’s plans and a response to the challenges of building into a steeply sloped site,’ says architect Leo Marmol. ‘We wanted the pool to feel like it had always been there.’

‘You also have to go out from the living room and traverse the entire property to get there,’ adds McIlwee.

‘You have to walk through the yard and garden.’

That walk down the garden path today involves »

Above, the dining table, custom-designed by Darren Brown, is surrounded by 1974 Saporiti dining chairs with curved profiles that recall the house’s roofscape. The chandelier is original to the house Opposite, a traversing wall and the main chimney stack were built out of lava rock brought from Hawaii. In the foreground stands a custom selenite gemstone totem, one of a series installed into the bedrock across the site by environmental designer John Sharp, and intended to encourage positive energy

In Residence

This page, in the master bedroom, a photograph

by Diane Arbus, with a Venini lamp on a custom table by Darren Brown Opposite, top, the bedroom features a Lucite four-poster

by Charles Hollis Jones, a dining table by Paul Evans, and artwork including a painting by Kirsten Everberg above the bed Opposite, bottom, Ed Paschke’s Labula, 1980, takes centre stage in the media room, with tables

by Silas Seandel

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In Residence

‘Lautner’s designs open up an entirely new world of thinking, so living here, you can’t help but think bigger’

In Residence

meandering round an extensive collection of plants, composed by Sharp. Ranging from dozens of varieties of agave and cacti to a huge rubber tree, originally planted underneath the house by the Garcias and now towering all the way up to the top, the bounty of greenery transforms the dramatic terrain and enhances the house’s legacy.

‘We really focus on how the landscape plays an intricate role in bringing these architecturally significant properties back to life,’ says Sharp. ‘From an experiential perspective, it does take you to an entire new realm.’ For example, he explains, ‘the rubber tree had gotten so large, it looked like the house was on the ground, but really it is floating in the air on the side of the hill. Our goal was to look at how we could create a landscape that could work with the architecture and emphasise the significance of the house.’

Approaching the landscape as a canvas where you could add colour and shape, Sharp created a concept that brings together texture, colour and seasonality in consistent harmony, while nevertheless changing year round. ‘We called the concept we came up with “the Dawn of Jurassic”,’ says Sharp. ‘The idea was that, if the Garcia House was a spaceship, and that spaceship was to land on another planet, this is where it landed.

It’s as if this was a foreign place. There are Australian ferns and ghost euphorbias that are 10ft tall and take you into another world. The entire palette is unique.’

Aside from the vegetation, which almost cascades in waves down the topography of the site, Sharp also

Above, Sharp’s planters and lush scheme, including agave, cacti and succulents, line the path to the swimming pool Opposite, the almond-shaped swimming pool was added in 2008 using Lautner’s original plans. Poolside is a Tucci umbrella, with seating upholstered in Sunbrella fabric, and custom tables by Darren Brown Interior styling: Blake and Laura Bachman Curator and art advisor: Simon Oldfield

added custom art installations, including selenite gemstone totems that are installed into the bedrock of the site, ‘so the whole property is being charged with protection and positivity’, and a series of oversized planters that line the walkway leading towards the pool. ‘We call them ancient future planters,’ says Sharp.

‘They’re massive, with hanging succulents, and give a really supernatural feel.’ Next to the historic rubber tree is another group of planters, housing flowering epiphyllum that were collected by McIlwee’s mother.

‘It’s not just landscape. What we wanted to create was an exterior experience,’ Sharp emphasises. ‘To work on a house like this was truly inspiring and an honour.

The end result was the labour of lots of people who came together to make something magical happen.

Anyone who goes to the house can feel it.’

While some storied midcentury houses have been bequeathed to museums and institutions for care, McIlwee and Damaschke’s stewardship of the Garcia House imbues it with a living, breathing quality that builds on its history to create an even richer environment than you might ever expect.

‘Lautner’s designs open up an entirely new world of thinking, so naturally, living here, you can’t help but think bigger,’ McIlwee reflects. ‘Most of the people who own these properties share our enthusiasm. We share this belief that we are the stewards of the place and have a responsibility to maintain it. The properties are important, especially for California. These collections of houses are our landmarks.’ ∂

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From craft-inspired baked kiln homes to comforting jali-walled classrooms, architect Anupama Kundoo explores groundbreaking techniques to design happiness-inducing buildings for every context.

She talks with writer and trained architect Shumi Bose about design for contented living Portrait M a x Cr easy

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Photography: Alka Hingorani

CONTENT CREATOR

Architecture This page, Anupama Kundoo, photographed at home in Berlin in February 2021 Opposite, the Volontariat Home for Homeless Children in Puducherry, completed between 2008 and 2010.

Bicycle wheels provided the formwork for windows in kiln-inspired mud-brick and mud-mortar buildings that were then fired in situ

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‘I managed to find a way that I could just focus on proactivity… to actually build what I want the world to be’

Photography: Sonja Winkler, Andres Herzog, Javier Callejas

T

en years ago, Anupama Kundoo and I discussed the labels and descriptors that had thrown us together: female architect, Indian architect, architect of the Global South, architect working with traditional-slash-vernacular-slashregional-slash-‘indigenous’ techniques.

Each of these labels elicits a special appreciation of Kundoo’s work, while at the same time producing a particular kind of frustration – they constrain and diminish. At the time, she conceded to the description of lyrical modernist – for here is a practitioner driven to understand materiality, technology and capital utility, in the manner of the early modernists; how to maximise the efficiency of resource and labour, while at the same time providing a sense of joy, beauty and identity. For Kundoo, though, none of this would qualify her work as regional or vernacular. Rather, it is born of a wilfully objective assessment of resource and circumstance. ‘I don’t see happiness as something frivolous. There is no other aim: to be alive is to be happy.

When we are not happy, it indicates that something in us is not alive.’

From a broad portfolio of built works, two are particularly emblematic of Kundoo’s approach. An orphanage, or home for homeless children, built for the charity Volontariat in 2008, is one of her most photogenic projects, and is beloved by students as an example of unique but wholesome architecture. Developed with pioneering ceramicist Ray Meeker, individual building units were effectively designed as large-capacity kilns, which were themselves fired in situ to produce a sort of home-baked house. Modelled after

Architecture This page, the Shah Houses in Brahmangarh, completed in 2003, combine locally available basalt with hollow terracotta tubes, made by local potters, for vaulted ceilings

catenary structures to provide maximum stability, the finished homes resemble mosaic molehills. Local artisans stuffed a great many ceramic objects – from building elements to handcrafts for sale – into the kiln houses, to be fired during the ‘baking’ process. As such, the project allowed the use of local materials while supporting artisanal production. The result is the emergence of a new building technology, which ennobles knowledge latent in the community.

While recalling its technical challenges with love and seriousness, Kundoo is a little tired of the attention garnered by the project’s appearance. But its visual appeal is instant and powerful; its unusual form and texture draw us in, while the production narrative explains the ethos of the project. Not only does the aesthetic of this building signify a different way of doing things, its construction and operation align graciously too, along with the decisive utility of both contemporary and traditional technologies. This quality is evident in much of Kundoo’s work – at once sublime and pragmatic.

Kundoo’s own residence, Wall House (2000), also illustrates her experimentation with innovative techniques – such as the repurposing of artisan-made terracotta bowls, embedded in the ceiling to cut mass, regulate humidity, and enhance comfort, or the use of perforated ferrocement louvres. With typical intimacy, Kundoo exhibited fragments of Wall House as her debut at the Venice Architecture Biennale, in 2012, underlining that for her at least, real life and architectural inquiry are very much intertwined. Spectacular without being ostentatious, the collaboratively built installation

Opposite, top and bottom, the Volontariat Home domes.

Each was fired while stuffed with raw ceramics, so the making of the home produced other goods simultaneously

recreated 1:1 fragments – memorably, a vaulted terracotta ceiling – from Wall House, inviting the visitor into lived space.

Her next offering at the Biennale, in 2016, was less poetic: a ferrocement house, buildable in less than a week. Rectilinear and visibly contemporary, the Full Fill Home doubled down on refined building technologies, and the promise of both utility and satisfaction.

Kundoo denies any posturing loyalty to low-tech or ‘traditional’ methods, adhering to a holistic but essentially modern approach.

Kundoo’s philosophy has broadened and grown branches over a career spanning three decades. And she has had ample time to review that growth while preparing for a current exhibition at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark (until 16 May), a generous and tactile survey of her work so far. ‘Time’ recurs as a motif throughout, notably in ‘Taking Time’, Kundoo’s own short but inspiring essay written for the occasion. As Kundoo writes, the work of [an architect’s] lifetime is part of a large collective action in time and space. As such, it is essential to claim not only space but time too – puritanical ethics be damned. After all, ‘who are we to manage time?’ she says, laughingly. ‘Time is managed by the sun.’

Graduating from architecture school in 1989, Kundoo eschewed the frenetic pace of Bombay (as it was then) and gravitated towards rural South India. Based near the former French-Indian territory of Pondicherry (now Puducherry), she gave herself the permission to take time – a decade, no less – to develop her own agenda, away from the competitive commercial jobs sought by her peers. These years »

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Architecture Wall House, Kundoo’s Auroville home completed in 2000 and revisited as an installation for the Venice Biennale in 2012. Repurposed terracotta bowls embedded in the ceiling reduce mass and regulate humidity Photography: Javier Callejas

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productivity for its own sake. It’s hard to imagine where she has found the time to do nothing, given a prolific output, a string of teaching positions and research projects between Sydney, Madrid, Berlin and New York, and a slew of studies on sustainability. In an interview with Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Prize, Kundoo deftly reframes the trifecta of practice, research and teaching as ‘function, mind and spirit’. The conversation prompts a confounding realisation: to date, Kundoo has never been recognised with an award, for her built work or her groundbreaking research – nor any of the special recognitions reserved for the still-marginalised categories of women and minority architects. More notably, her work has enabled unprecedented collaboration between students, architects, engineers and artisans, between hemispheres and across materials.

This is the real prize: that at almost all scales and regardless of the client, Kundoo’s approach allows for uncommon transfer of knowledge. The Nilgiri Mountains of Tamil Nadu are home to the Keystone Foundation, developed incrementally by Kundoo and her team over the last 20 years. Supporting the organisation’s mission to enhance quality of life for indigenous and tribal communities, Kundoo’s intervention is based on a model of restraint. ‘This is not about making stunning buildings,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind being invisible where necessary.’ Empowering local builders to use their knowledge of rammed earth, and encouraging skill exchanges rather than top-down design solutions, the project has grown into a bricolage of honey and coffee production facilities, a tribal development centre and guest houses, carefully imbricated in the landscape. »

Photography: Javier Callejas, Andreas Deffner

were not spent idly; having established her own office at the age of 23, Kundoo applied herself to the collective intellectual and structural development of Auroville – a uniquely experimental town straddling Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, continuously in the making, and founded in 1968 ‘to realise human unity’. ‘I managed to find a way that I could just focus on proactivity, on positive action, rather than resisting and fighting against the grain; to manifest the opposite of some things, to actually build what I want the world to be.’

Kundoo’s experimental and resourceful approach began with the construction of her own humble residence in Auroville, the Hut in Petite Ferme (1990) – a thing of bravery and simplicity. The image is undeniably romantic: this barefoot architect goddess, riding around the lushness of Tamil Nadu on a motorbike, befriending local craftsmen and building from the heart, retiring to her hammock to dream up idealistic futures. But it happened, and the approach that it forged for Kundoo is anything but sentimental. Living in this engineered cobweb, with only slatted palm stems against the elements, Kundoo ran an office of some two dozen architects, producing ambitious experiments and radical techniques. Combining modern materials with the skills of artisanal communities to meet climactic, ecological and socio-economic needs, the office tested the use of round wood, thatch and rammed earth alongside concrete and ferrocement; Kundoo estimates she completed 35 buildings during this time, each innovating and paving the way for future constructions.

She speaks with glee about taking time to do nothing, to contemplate the richness of doing nothing, to reject the oppression of

Architecture

Kundoo designed our limited-edition cover, a play on the idea of porosity (details on page 038).

Available to subscribers, see wallpaper.com/sub21 Opposite, Wall House Above and left, Hut in Petite Ferme, Kundoo’s low-impact Auroville home built in 1990, with an upper floor of split palm stems

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With Kundoo’s urban co-housing, ‘the footprint is small, but you have a good time. I want the human to feel well’ its urbane neighbours. Gently angled classroom walls provide enclosure without suffocation, while cost-saving terracotta ‘jali’ walls allow the building to breathe and retain a connection to context.

Reflecting on her career, Kundoo toys with the idea of writing not a memoir but a self-help book, in which the structured yet sprawling complexity of architecture might offer a way of thinking about life.

‘I do feel like I can offer some way forward. I have imagined scenarios I would like to see happen.’ This instinct reflects the generosity that drives her work: to enable others with knowledge, and to place faith in the positive act of creation. Others may struggle with labels, but for this architect, the category of ‘happy’ would seem to fit best. ∂ ‘Anupama Kundoo: Taking Time’ is at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, until 16 May, louisiana.dk; anupamakundoo.com

Photography: Javier Callejas

My most recent conversation with Kundoo was – like the first – long, frank, passionate and enlightening. The Covid lockdown has, despite its horrors, given us an abundance of time, and she is comfortable making use of it. ‘I’m getting into AI, I’m zooming out with poetry; I’m zooming in with anthropology,’ she enthuses – and she’s not talking about the video conferencing software. ‘This is what is going on in my head.’ She’s still working on futuristic visions, although she doesn’t believe in vast distances between dreams and reality.

Already with several residential schemes under her belt, Kundoo is designing ecological co-housing models on dense urban sites, ‘where the footprint is small, but you have a really good time. I want the human to feel well, individually and collectively.’

The challenge of urban inequality is vividly present in India’s metropolises, and so Kundoo’s attention to it comes as no surprise. A recent project, the Sharana Daycare Centre in Puducherry, negotiates not only the complexity of the city, but how to provide a humane, appealing quality of space, even to the most disadvantaged client.

Kundoo is not shy of concrete and render where necessary, and her aim was to produce a building with dignity, which its low-income user group would view with pride. The result is a handsome school for young children with strained home lives, which holds its own against

Architecture This picture, at Sharana Daycare Centre for disadvantaged children in Puducherry, completed in 2019, terracotta lattice walls create a sense of openness and a connection with the outdoors, while providing shade and ventilation

Opposite, Mitra Youth Hostel in Auroville, completed in 2006. The design includes terraces and public space for interaction, and shared bathrooms and kitchens

Fashion

CHARM SCHOOL We’re offering a few lessons in the fine art of apparently effortless elegance

Photography V incent Le Ch a pela in Fashion Jason Hughes

This page, jacket, £595, by Paul Smith Rouge Allure Velvet Le Lion de Chanel limited edition lipstick in Rouge Fauve, £33, by Chanel Opposite, jacket, £3,105, by Lanvin. Shoes, £595, by Jimmy Choo. Necklace, £1,760, by Kloto ‘CH111’ chair (throughout), £3,750, by Hans J Wegner, for Carl Hansen & Søn

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This page, jacket, £895; top, £225; skirt, £325, all by Max Mara. Shoes, £660,

by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Earrings, price on request, by Chopard Opposite, jacket, £2,763, by Petar Petrov. Trousers, £450, by Marni.

Shoes, £600, by Acne Studios. Bracelet, £855, by Tom Wood

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Fashion

Fashion

This page, jacket, price on request; trousers, £1,100, both by Louis Vuitton.

Necklace, £295, by Rejina Pyo Opposite, jacket, £1,210, by Paco Rabanne. Shoes, £595,

by Jimmy Choo. Necklace, £395, by Rejina Pyo

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This page, jacket, £10,790; skirt, £4,325; cuff, £1,260, all by Chanel Opposite, jacket, £1,600, by Boss. Earring, £6,550, by Sophie Bille Brahe

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Fashion

Fashion

This page, jacket, £7,400, by Hermès. Shoes, £660, by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Earrings, £8,340, by Chaumet Opposite, jacket, £3,170, by Gucci. Necklace, £770, by All Blues

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This page, jacket, £2,325, by Bottega Veneta. Necklace, £525, by Tom Wood Opposite, apron, £2,160; trousers, £1,097, both by Peter Do. Shoes, £600, by Acne Studios.

Earrings, £10,925, by Sophie Bille Brahe. Bracelet, £855, by Tom Wood For stockists, see page 193 Models: Hayett McCarthy at IMG, Georgina Hill at jM Scouting, Coumba Samba at Anti-Agency Photography assistant: Barney Couch Interiors: Olly Mason

Architecture Icon

POSTMODERN ROMANCE A love affair with the Baroque, a playful sense of irony, a captivation with curves and a passion for patterns define the life and work of Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi Photography Leona r do M agr elli Writer david plaisant

This page and opposite, octogenarian architect Paolo Portoghesi photographed in the gardens of his home in Calcata, Lazio, which feature a series of steps that echo the geometric patterns found inside Francesco Borromini’s Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza in Rome

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Architecture Icon

D

o you know that I’ve always been rather fascinated by wallpaper?’ says Paolo Portoghesi gently, almost as if trying to break the ice.

The 89-year-old architect, historian, poet, designer and mercurial icon of modern Italian culture shares a house with wife Giovanna in Calcata, a medieval hilltop town near Rome that has, in recent years, been repopulated by artists. The interiors feature a lot of wallpaper, mostly in patterns by William Morris, covering what empty wall space there is in the various libraries, studies, nooks and awkward anterooms.

Everywhere are objects, miniscule and large, soughtafter and found by chance, geological and zoological, in equal measure. The almost ludicrously decorative home-cum-museum of a polymath architect and historian might feel oppressive, or at least too strictly preserved in aspic, but this house is far from stuffy.

Here, where every inch creates a patterned juxtaposition of past and present, where Portoghesi passes nimbly through the warrens and menageries, everything, including the walls and those Morris prints, seem to be very much alive.

Despite an architectural legacy that spans at least six decades – ranging from the radical, concrete curves of Casa Baldi (1959-61) on the outskirts of Rome to the elaborately sinuous interior of the Mosque of Rome (completed in 1994) – Portoghesi remains a contentious figure in modern Italian architecture. The country’s merciless theorists, often contemporaries, peers and

Above and opposite, it took more than ten years to complete the Mosque of Rome, the city’s only Islamic temple. Taking influences from Baroque and Islamic architecture, Portoghesi played with curves and geometric patterns, creating soaring vaulted ceilings and an internal forest of tree-like columns and Ottoman-style hoop chandeliers

collaborators of Portoghesi, were not always kind.

In his History of Italian Architecture 1944-1985, Manfredo Tafuri asserted that Portoghesi’s work showed ‘a taste for excess but lacked any excitement’.

It is perhaps Portoghesi’s obsessive exploration of Italian, and specifically Roman, Baroque architecture that led to his isolation and categorisation as an adherent of historicism, a doctrine that was the very antithesis of 20th century architecture. Portoghesi was born and raised in central Rome, and the city’s monuments and their makers clearly cast a long shadow. He speaks of the precise moment when, as a young boy, he was struck by the cupola of Francesco Borromini’s 1642 church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, which was near his school. ‘It was problematic for me, but I was enchanted,’ he says. Borromini’s manipulation of geometry and perspective was full of paradoxes, such as the harmony between sharp points and soft curves: ‘I saw that poetry is expressed through architecture.’

The main reception room of the house at Calcata is dominated by a metal and glass screen, fixed on a wall, which provides an alluring backdrop. It is »

‘Postmodernism represented liberty.

Of course, liberty can make you do irrational, absurd things, but we all need a spectacle’

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Architecture Icon Right and below, Casa Baldi (1959), on Via Sirmione on the outskirts of Rome, was built for a film director, with Portoghesi taking inspiration from the work of 17th century Italian architect Francesco Borromini Opposite, the Sala Portoghesi, at the Terme Tettuccio spa in Montecatini, designed by Portoghesi in 1987

inspired by the false apse of the church of Santa Maria at San Satiro in Milan, which was completed in 1482 and features an early example of trompe l’œil, attributed to High Renaissance architect Donato Bramante. As Portoghesi opens a secret mirrored door within the screen, he marvels at Bramante’s trick of making only nine metres of depth appear to be more like 80.

A playful sense of irony defines Portoghesi’s work and best explains his role as a pioneer of Italy’s postmodernist movement. In 1980, he spearheaded the creation of the first Venice Architecture Biennale, entitled La Presenza del Passato (The Presence of

the Past). The fair was centred around the ‘Strada Novissima’ exhibition, for which he wrangled submissions from some of the world’s most prominent architects, among them Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Arata Isozaki, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and Ricardo Bofill. Portoghesi created a street lined with the contributions of each participant architect, and the exhibition is considered by many as a rallying point for the postmodernist movement and certainly one of its most intellectually rigorous manifestations.

‘Sometimes you need a bit of noise and colour in architecture,’ says Portoghesi. During the 1980s, when postmodernism seized the architectural upper hand, he edited the ravishingly eclectic, large-format architectural quarterly magazine Eupalino. Looking inside any of the magazine’s 12 issues is a trip into the mind of the editor and a taste of the spirit of those times. ‘It was an era of optimism,’ he says. ‘Edonismo Reaganiano [Reagan-era hedonism].’ He felt relieved that the privations of modernism were gone.

Le Corbusier, according to Portoghesi, managed to create astonishing works of art, but the modernism he spawned lacked expression and ultimately ruined the modern city. Indeed, ‘Strada Novissima’ offered a counter to Le Corbusier, who hated the closed-in ‘rue corridor’ and advocated endless, open streets stretching into the horizon. Portoghesi champions the opposite, saying, ‘It’s the very closing of the street that makes it beautiful. It’s how you create a gathering space.’

Adjacent to the complex of dwellings that forms Portoghesi’s house is an expansive garden containing various follies, fountains, temples and a library, as well as an impeccably-kept zoo. As tropical birds flap and squawk in their elaborate enclosures, he bends down to mimic the quacking of one of the geese that are allowed to roam free. Reflecting on a movement that he acknowledges is once again in fashion, Portoghesi remains enthusiastic: ‘Postmodernism represented liberty,’ he says. ‘It was freedom to explore the past or the future. Of course, liberty is dangerous, it can make you do irrational, absurd things. But we all need a spectacle.’ ∂

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Shop now at store.wallpaper.com ‘Equilibri’ vase, Visionnaire ‘Turner’ bookcase, Poltrona Frau

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‘Nimbus’ mirror, Menu —— €1,009 ——

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‘Triadic Ballerina’ vase Vista Alegre

‘Shorebird’, Normann Copenhagen

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‘Art’ book, Phaidon

‘Store’ jar, Established & Sons

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‘Parrot’ lamp, Tobias Grau —— €958 ——

‘Wiggle’ side chair, Vitra —— €859 ——

‘Touch Half Moon’ stool, Zanat —— €444 ——

‘Saguaro’ rug, Missoni Home

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Stockists Jacket, £2,700, by Dior.

Earrings, £10,925,

by Sophie Bille Brahe, see page 174

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Artist’s Palate

OLIVER BEER’S Sesame and peanut candy

#119

For a 2019 solo exhibition at the Met Breuer, titled ‘Vessel Orchestra’, artist Oliver Beer presented 32 hollow objects from the Met’s collection, suspending a microphone in each to unexpectedly transform cultural artefacts into musical instruments. It’s an approach echoed in his favourite nibble, a Korean candy bar (gangjeong) with a ‘super crispy percussion crunch’. His preferred recipe, by YouTuber Maangchi, sees freeze-dried berries added to the more traditional mix of peanuts and sesame seeds.

Beer is part of British Art Show 9, southbankcentre.co.uk; ropac.net. For Beer’s recipe, visit Wallpaper.com ∏

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PHOTOGRAPHY: FRANÇOIS COQUEREL FOOD: LEI SAITO WRITER: TF CHAN

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