Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2020 i Architectural Digest

“Decorating a room is like making a great salad. You want interesting ingredients.”—Bunny Williams I always take preparing the January issue extra-seriously. It is the month that the much-anticipated AD100 list appears, which is subsequently discussed and debated by industry professionals yet, more important, is also relied upon by consumers as they consider designers and architects to hire. But January 2020 feels especially loaded to me, and no wonder: AD celebrates its remarkable 100th birthday this year. And while I wish for every issue of AD to feel like a keeper, this collector’s edition in particular begs to stand the test of time. So the editors went all out, seeking major projects from AD100 talents across the globe to mark the centennial. Cover honors go to the Milanese design duo…

The global roster of designers behind Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades collection is an impressive one indeed—India Mahdavi, the Campanas, Atelier Biagetti—but until now it has never included an American. Enter Andrew Kudless, founder of the San Francisco–based practice Matsys. His Swell Wave shelf, which just debuted at Design Miami, features polished-oak boards suspended from straps of (what else?) Louis Vuitton leather. Consider the unexpected form a fitting tribute to the brand’s adventurous spirit. Price upon request; louisvuitton.com…

Famous for its epic fjords and oil-rich sea, Norway, with its pristine landscape, has long been a place of dropped jaws and pleasant surprises. This past September, the countryside on the outskirts of Oslo welcomed a bold new art space, The Twist, designed by AD100 superstar Bjarke Ingels. Part of the Kistefos sculpture park, an hour by car from the city, the structure transitions—as if liquid aluminum—from an enclosed double-height gallery to a naturally lit single-story exhibition space. “From certain angles it has this perfect enigmatic form,” notes Ingels. “It feels like some mega artifact, left by a giant.” Notably for peripatetic design buffs, The Twist is just a taste of more architectural excitement to come this way. Back along the Oslo waterfront, the city’s new public library, designed by…

New York If you’ve visited the Brant Foundation in lower Manhattan, chances are you noticed the dramatic slice through the historic building’s fourth-floor ceiling. The striking skylight—created by New York–based Gluckman Tang Architects—doubles as a water feature on the roof of the former power substation. “Introducing natural light in an unexpected way brings joy; it makes you feel good,” explains Dana Tang. “That’s what we’re after, whether it’s a place for viewing art, a spa, or a residence.” In 25 years of working together, she and Richard Gluckman have turned their hands to all of the above. Those same good vibes can be found at their Mii amo spa in Sedona, Arizona, a complex of stucco and fired-adobe structures set among red rock formations in Boynton Canyon, as well as…

Items pictured but not listed here are not sourceable. Items similar to vintage and antique pieces shown are often available from the dealers listed. (T) means the item is available only to the trade. INTO THE WOODS PAGES 162–73: Architecture and interiors by Studio Peregalli; studioperegalli.com. Custom furnishings throughout by Studio Peregalli. PASSION PROJECT PAGES 174–87: Architecture and interiors by Peter Pennoyer Architects; ppapc.com. Landscape design by Reed Hilderbrand; reedhilderbrand.com. Custom hardware throughout by Peter Pennoyer Architects for Lowe Hardware; lowe-hardware.com. Custom mantels throughout by Peter Pennoyer Architects of stone from Bertozzi Felice; bertozzifelice.com; fabricated by Great Lakes Granite Works; glgraniteworks.com. PAGES 174–75: Pavilion by Peter Pennoyer Architects; ppapc.com. PAGE 176: Shylights by Studio Drift; studiodrift.com. Console and cocktail table, both by Ingrid Donat; carpentersworkshopgallery.com. Custom side table (right) by Atelier Viollet;…

Street Shrine 1: A Notorious Story stands five feet tall—nearly the height of its creator, Roberto Lugo. “It’s jarring,” says the Philadelphia-based potter of the vessel. “No pun intended.” Viewers come face-to-face with a portrait of Biggie Smalls, the legendary rapper who was shot and killed in 1997. His likeness is framed by neoclassical motifs and graphics from Versace garments, Air Jordans, and Biggie’s famous Coogi sweaters. “I want people to be confronted with death, with our culture of gun violence.” In other sculptures, Lugo has memorialized victims of police brutality like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Freddie Gray, and celebrated African American heroes such as Angela Davis, Shirley Chisholm, and Kendrick Lamar. The work is about representation, Lugo explains, noting, “The first time I sat at a pottery wheel,…

“I read a lot,” says London-based ceramist (and parttime bookshop clerk) Lena Peters, whose studio brims with volumes like The Greek Vase, The Book of Symbols, and Sex in the World of Myth. It’s all factual fodder for her fictional narratives. Take her 2017 graduation project at Central Saint Martins, which consisted of ritual objects from an imaginary tribe of Romans and Celtic Britons, supposedly excavated in Northumberland National Park, just above Hadrian’s Wall. London design dealer David Gill certainly noticed, giving her a 2018 solo exhibition for which she dreamed up a series of “shrine statues of noncanonical saints.” The Warrior (an eagle) is the patron of strength, while the Familiar (a cat) offers protection and the Innocent (a lamb) forgiveness. Adorned with gilded halos, all 14 were, according…

“IT TAKES A SPECIAL PERSON to do something this risky,” says Reinaldo Leandro of the AD100 firm Ashe Leandro, referring to the black kitchen. “People are always very hesitant.” He and Ariel Ashe, however, found willing clients in her sister, Alexi, and brother-in-law, Seth Meyers, whose Manhattan kitchen they cloaked in Farrow & Ball’s Off-Black paint (AD, March 2019). The key, as Leandro reveals, is to use a shade closer to charcoal or gunmetal, just shy of pure black. “It adds depth,” he explains, noting that the hue, somewhat counterintuitively, works particularly well in a small space. Varying the surface textures—smooth shop-painted cabinetry, ribbed shiplap walls, black-stone countertops—creates visual rhythm, while glass cabinet fronts add more depth still. And don’t feel the need to go all in; rather, accent the…

Back in 1977, a 22-year-old photographer named Mitchell Denburg touched down in the extravagantly baroque Guatemalan city of Antigua and started snapping. Spanish Colonial cathedrals scarred from the 1773 earthquake, sunburned coffee-plantation laborers, come-hither ladies of the night—all caught the vacationing American’s wondering eye. A year later, still under Antigua’s spell, he came back, setting up a business “taking portraits of locals for six dollars each and photographing events like baptisms and weddings.” The local serapes, or wool blankets, captivated Denburg too. Then a daydream suddenly kicked in: Why not start a weaving studio that would improve its workers’ standard of living while catapulting a Guatemalan tradition out of the country’s artesania shops and into international living rooms? “My immigrant grandparents always did something to give back,” explains the entrepreneur,…

London “The best design combines form and function with personality,” says the bubbly Heuman, a native Swede trained in the office of British style mandarin Nicky Haslam, who describes her mischievous, family-friendly aesthetic as combining “a Scandinavian attention to detail with the desire to create something original and characterful.” Bespoke furnishings (think a bed perched atop white-wood lion’s paws) meet fabrics and wallpaper of decidedly mirthful mien (a dining room appears to be encased entirely in penciled doodles) in fresh-faced rooms that Heuman conjures up from Nantucket, Massachusetts, to Hamburg, Germany. A burgeoning line of idiosyncratic, craftsman-made home furnishings is gaining steam—her Dodo Egg Light, which resembles a large egg crossed with a pineapple, has become a cognoscenti favorite—and 2021 will see a book published about her interiors. beataheuman.com ADJAYE…

Dallas Nussbaumer is the guru of the grand gesture—juicy palettes, patterns that twist and shout, and a magpie array of influences given dazzling tribute in Wanderlust: Interiors That Bring the World Home (Rizzoli), a punchy 2016 shot-across-the-decorating-bow book that has become a cult favorite. “I never worked for anyone before,” the high-style autodidact explains. “I started out on my own.” In the decades that have followed, the globetrotting Nussbaumer has made an international splash from her perch in Dallas, where the epicenter of her empire is the phantasmagorical showroom Ceylon et Cie. Current projects range from a hacienda in San Antonio to a Georgian house in the Cotswolds to a neo-Mayan residence in her home city, and she’s also worked her magic on Clarence House fabrics, Addison Weeks hardware, and…

London and New York The suave Brudnizki’s creative philosophy is simple: “Context, culture, and the client—the end result needs to be a response to how they want to live.” Lucky for the Stockholm-born interior architect and designer, those admirers, from privacy-conscious financial types to hospitality powerhouses such as Soho House, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, and The Birley Group, appreciate high style goosed with a significant dose of irreverent maximalism. His eye-popping 2018 revamp of Annabel’s, the legendarily louche London private club, features a disco with columns shaped like golden palm trees, a mirrored ladies lounge where the ceiling is blanketed with pink artificial peonies, and more trelliswork than at Château de Versailles. “We treat every project as a collaboration, ensuring we don’t enforce a house style,” avers Brudnizki. mbds.com TOSHIKO…

Saving Grace In these uncertain times, what’s great can so soon be gone. Politics, war, development, disaster—these forces and more all threaten architectural treasures around the globe. So we must rally to protect them, a battle long fought by the World Monuments Fund, dedicated to the conservation of cultural heritage. For the past 24 years, a tentpole of the nonprofit’s efforts has been the Watch, a biennial list of endangered sites worldwide. The 2020 index, narrowed down from more than 250 nominations, spotlights 25 extraordinary places. There are far-flung icons like Easter Island and Machu Picchu, as well as lesser-known, socially significant structures like the San Antonio Woolworth Building, a landmark of the Civil Rights movement. Some are modest, for instance Tokyo’s Inari-yu Bathhouse; others span neighborhoods, among them the…

THE SALON FEATURES A 1940s GAME TABLE AND CHAIRS, 1970s VICO MAGISTRETTI PENDANT, AND 1950s JEAN-PIERRE VINCENT FLOOR LAMP FROM LAPLACE ANTIQUES; PAUL MCCARTHY DRAWING. I wan Wirth calls me the ‘silent architect,’” says Luis Laplace, referring to his art-dealer client. “My work is subtle. We respect context. We want to enhance where we are, who the client is.” Where we are, in the case of a recent afternoon meeting, is a Haussmannian building in Paris on the Place Saint-Georges. And the client, for a change, is Laplace himself. Earlier this year, the AD100 Argentinean architect and his French partner, Christophe Comoy, transformed the ground floor of the edifice that houses their office and apartment into what they now call their atelier. “This is where we welcome our friends, clients,…

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be made in America,” says AD100 designer Billy Cotton, whose latest project led him to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Known as Furniture City, this Midwestern mecca is not only home to U.S. brands such as Herman Miller, Steelcase, and Scott Group Studio but also historic estates by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Walker and Gillette, and the Olmsted Brothers. Recently Scott Group Studio, a luxury rug manufacturer, enlisted Cotton to create six new floor coverings, marking both his first carpet collection and the brand’s first designer collaboration. As co-CEO John Hart explains, Cotton, a lover of craft, fine materials, and traditionalism, “checked all the boxes.” The feeling was mutual. When Cotton visited the mill, he was impressed with what he…

Mexico City Every project by Mexico City–based architecture firm Tatiana Bilbao Estudio begins with a collage of historical, topographical, and aspirational images. “Context defines my work,” declares principal Tatiana Bilbao, “not only the physical landscape but social, cultural, and political as well.” With an oeuvre that ranges from private villas to a botanical garden to social housing, her work is always locale-driven and designed with beauty in mind. In 2019, Bilbao’s fascinating approach was celebrated in an exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark (on view until April 5), and resulted in a new mixed-use building for the University of Monterrey in her native Mexico as well as her first furniture collection with Copenhagen gallery Etage Projects and Mexico City’s AGO Projects. Up next, the architect, who…

Los Angeles and New York As founder and creative director of the multidisciplinary firm wHY Architecture, Kulapat Yantrasast, a former project architect in the office of Japanese maestro Tadao Ando, has spearheaded the development of one of the most dynamic, innovative practices on the design scene today. With an extensive array of museum, gallery, collector, and artist projects, wHY has emerged as a juggernaut in the arena of contemporary culture. In 2020 alone, the firm will open a major expansion of its original design for the David Kordansky Gallery in L.A.; a redesign and addition to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco; a renovation of a wing of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; and a new music-and-arts center dedicated to the youth of East…

the celebrated French writer Colette first moved to 9 rue de Beaujolais, overlooking the Palais-Royal garden in Paris, in the 1920s. Her south-facing flat was an entresol—one of the low-ceilinged “lairs huddled under the arches, squeezed between first floor and the shops beneath,” she wrote. Colette loved living on the elegant quad, with its percolating fountains and squealing schoolchildren. But she lusted for the roomier, airier apartment directly above. In the late 1930s—after having moved, and moved again—she declared in an interview her unyielding desire to live on No. 9’s first floor. Its owner read the article and offered her and her husband, the journalist Maurice Goudeket, the flat. It would be Colette’s final and most famous home. In 1990, more than three decades after Colette’s death, French interior designer…