Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i Architectural Digest

Architectural Digest|October 2016

Contributors

DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN The dynamic photographer shot a trio of features for this issue: the Romanek home, Jessica Chastain’s Manhattan apartment (“Classic Beauty,” page 162), and the art-filled San Francisco mansion of collectors Norah and Norman Stone (“Pet Project,” page 144). “It was a dream to work on,” he says of the latter story, “and the Stones were so much fun.” Friedman is launching a men’s underwear line this fall and has a book on beach properties, The Seaside House (Rizzoli), slated for release next March. BRIGETTE ROMANEK & ESTEE STANLEY Romanek’s elegantly updated Hollywood house (“Blithe Spirit,” page 174) marks the debut project of Hancock Design, the Los Angeles interiors firm helmed by Romanek (above, left) and Stanley (right). Named after the city’s Hancock Park enclave, where the pair met…

1 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

EARTH STUDIES

Three years ago Chris Brock and his husband, designer Paul Fortune, the West Coast arbiter elegantiarum, abandoned the Los Angeles rat race and resettled in Ojai, California—land of dream catchers, stunning valley vistas, and, more recently, movie stars like Anne Hathaway, Channing Tatum, and Emily Blunt. But despite the couple’s desire for a more serene existence, Brock soon decided that too much quiet can be, well, disquieting “After we left Hollywood I was floundering,” the erstwhile landscape designer confesses. “I felt like I was one of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Ladies Who Lunch.’ It’s tragic not having anything to do.” So Brock headed into town from the pair’s heavenly mountainside house and signed up for a ceramics class. It clicked. “Making ceramics is incredibly difficult and frustrating, but there were enough successes…

2 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

FORGING BONDS

Creative energy courses through the Fonderia d’Arte De Andreis, a historic bronze foundry on the outskirts of Milan. Here, amid shelves stacked high with the molds and maquettes of the workshop’s many clients, designer Gabriella Crespi has cast her gleaming furniture and artist Francesco Messina once labored over his stoic busts. These days you can find the motherdaughter design duo Osanna and Madina Visconti di Modrone devising enchanting furnishings and jewelry. “My favorite moment is when a piece comes out of the oven,” says Osanna, who, even after spending a long day at the foundry, will happily return to work after dinner just to inspect a newly cast dining table or chair. “The result is always a surprise. Sometimes I just can’t wait until the next day.” Chasing creative thrills…

3 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

FULL ALERT

At the Los Angeles studio of artist Doug Aitken, daylight floods through sliding window walls, surfaces meet at tidy right angles, and sea breezes subdue the arid heat. The midcentury-style structure feels quintessentially Californian—as does Aitken himself, who was born just down the coast, in Redondo Beach. Answering the door barefoot, the blue-eyed, six-foot-one artist looks very much the lifelong surfer that he is. However palpable the studio’s sense of place, the art Aitken produces there cuts loose any ties to a single locale. Now 48, Aitken has spent the past two decades as an intrepid global explorer, taking his multimedia practice to France, Namibia, India, and beyond. That boundless curiosity has produced a difficult-to-define body of work, one that encompasses everything from landscape photography to sculpture to film installations,…

3 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

THE 2016 AD INNOVATORS

5 DESIGN TALENTS WHO ARE DARING TO DREAM BIG AND REIMAGINE THE WAY WE LIVE 1 ACHIM MENGES Calling upon robots and cuttingedge materials, the experimental German architect is showing the world a whole new way to build According to German architect Achim Menges, it’s time to rethink how we build. “Over the past decade the materials and processes at our disposal have developed dramatically,” notes the Stuttgart-based talent, lamenting that contemporary architecture tends to be either “efficient but boring” or “exciting but wasteful.” As he insists, “there is a possibility to reconcile both ambitions.” One radical approach can now be found in the courtyard of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), where Menges has installed a futuristic structure dubbed the Elytra Filament Pavilion. Spanning more than 2,000 square feet,…

12 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

THE HIGH LIFE

MANHATTAN’S MOST EXCLUSIVE COCKTAIL LOUNGE MAY BE A GLASS JEWEL BOX OF A ROOM ON TOP OF A NINE-STORY BUILDING IN SOHO. Perched on a 3,100-square-foot double-decker terrace, this private aerie has sweeping views of the city’s mesmerizing jumble of towers. “We call it the sky bar,” says designer Christine Gachot, who kitted it out with a sleek granite-and-steel bar and Jean Prouvé stools. She and her husband, John, who run New York–based Gachot Studios, liken the space, with its barrel-vaulted teak ceiling, to a turret, or to a contemporary widow’s walk for the 10,000-plus-square-foot triplex apartment. Previously owned by Rupert Murdoch and decorated by Christian Liaigre, the residence now belongs to a hedge-fund manager who likes to throw big parties. That the sky bar resembles a VIP room at…

5 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

BREAKING THE MOLD

George Lucas, who plans to spend more than $700 million on a namesake museum of narrative art, could have chosen any architect he wanted. In the end the Star Wars creator picked the 40-year-old, Beijingborn talent Ma Yansong, whose buildings might look at home in a galaxy far, far away. In 2014 Ma and his firm, MAD Architects, unveiled designs for a tent-shaped structure to be built on Chicago’s waterfront. Litigation over the property’s land use ensued, and Lucas decided in June of this year to leave Illinois for California. That meant going back to the drawing board. But the filmmaker didn’t abandon Ma, who is now working on proposals for two possible locations. After a period when Western firms such as OMA and Herzog&de Meuron were busy constructing landmarks…

2 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

Paradise Regained

Slowly and relentlessly, the plagues took hold. Five years ago, Fernando Caruncho—the landscape designer known for peaceful gardens rich with archaic allusions and monumental geometries—watched, mystified, as plants withered and leaves became spotted with dark lesions at his Madrid home. The third-of-an-acre haven he had created for his family in the 1980s, at the dawn of his career, was dying. The culprits were anthracnose and Cylindrocarpon, unwittingly introduced when Caruncho proudly brought home specimens of Escallonia macrantha, a South American shrub with red, honey-scented flowers. “It is a fabulous plant,” he says, “but the ones I bought came with infections that destroyed the garden’s immune system.” For a year Caruncho tried every possible cure, but there was no hope. In despair, he ripped out everything that had flatlined, from the…

3 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

Last Word

HIGH NOTE Up in modernist heaven Le Corbusier must be smiling. This past summer UNESCO added 17 of the pioneering architect’s projects to its list of World Heritage Sites, among them Cité Radieuse in Marseille, France. Designed in the 1950s, the apartment tower is now home to the rooftop art space MAMO (shown), whose latest display—on view through October 2—features a trio of graphic murals by Swiss artist Felice Varini. What appear to be irregular strokes of color, some coating the building’s iconic ventilation stack, form carefully composed geometric abstractions when seen from just the right angle. Corbu had always hoped the roof would double as exhibition space. Now, from his Chandigarh chair in the sky, he can enjoy a bird’seye view.…

1 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

Editor’s Letter

Bilbao, the celebrated Mexican architect who moves with humanitarian ease from building bold dream houses to designing user-friendly, government-commissioned affordable housing, is at the forefront of what it means to be creatively relevant today. As we compiled talents for the October Innovators issue—brilliantly masterminded largely by editor Sam Cochran—certain themes continually arose, equally expressed by architects, landscape designers, and interior decorators: sustainability, geographic sensitivity, and a sincere respect for how people will experience the environment. Consider this quote from the California-based Surfacedesign about the National Parks Conservancy visitors’ center in San Francisco that the firm crafted from a parking lot: “None of the plantings are irrigated—they survive, as they should, in the climate. That’s one of the ways we are thinking about water conservation.” Architect Achim Menges tells AD that…

1 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

STYLE WITH AN EDGE

1 In his witty Reflect collection, Richard Brendon couples lone antique saucers with mirrored bone china tea and espresso cups to create the illusion of perfect pairs. Prices start at $104 for an espresso-cupand-saucer set. richardbrendon-.com, +44-20-8962-8924 2 Hervé Van der Straeten found inspiration in the folds of origami for his convex Yoko mirror, which is framed with swatches of cerulean anodized aluminum. The piece, from Ralph Pucci International, measures 66.5" w. x 70" h. x 8.5" d.; to the trade. ralphpucci.net, 212-633-0452 3 Seventeenth-century still lifes in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum are the basis for the photorealistic rugs Marcel Wanders has devised for Moooi. The 11'5"-diameter version shown here sells for $4,595. moooicarpets.com, 646-396-0455 4 Lacquered-beech rods burst from Pia Maria Raeder’s brass-top side table, a striking offering from the designer’s…

2 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

WATER WISE

Back in the 1970s, long before it was necessary for Californians to plant drought-resistant lawns, a freak freeze led Ruth Bancroft to make over her Walnut Creek garden in a style more suited to a Mediterranean climate. Her boundless curiosity, endless tinkering, and meticulous note-taking resulted in a landscape so compelling it became the founding project of the Garden Conservancy. The plot now serves as a mecca for those wanting to learn about the joys of sustainable cultivation (and a book about it, The Bold Dry Garden, by Johanna Silver, is out this month). “Ruth planted all kinds of things in the garden that people told her ‘Oh, no! You can’t grow that here,’ ” says Brian Kemble, the garden’s curator, who has worked with Bancroft since 1980. Now 108…

3 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

JEWEL IN THE CROWN

The only constant in Manhattan real estate is change. As a case in point, consider 653 Fifth Avenue, which has undergone numerous architectural tinkerings since 1917, when silverfox yachtsman Morton F. Plant sold his Renaissance-style palazzo to Cartier for a token $100—plus a pearl necklace, worth $1 million (about $22 million today), coveted by the commodore’s much younger bride, Maisie. “The building was a bit of a mess by the time I came in,” says architect Thierry Despont, the latest tastemaker to take on Cartier’s North American flagship, which is reopening after a 30-month renovation. “This is one of the last great Fifth Avenue mansions, so it was important that it feel like a house again.” An aristocratic staircase now swirls up from the entrance hall, and a magnificent east-west…

2 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

On the Market

Water Mill, New York $25 MILLION Cutting-edge technology is seamlessly integrated into this modernist Hamptons getaway, completed by AD100 architect Steven Harris in 2014. Set on a pristine dune between the Atlantic Ocean and Mecox Bay, the four-bedroom home features geothermal HVAC systems and rooftop solar panels, not to mention smart touches like Wi-Fi-connected thermostats and motorized floor-to-ceiling windows. Landscape guru Edmund Hollander revived the 1.5-acre grounds, which boast a striking saltwater pool and poolhouse, after they were damaged by storms. A newly built steel bulkhead now protects the coastal plot. contact: corcoran.com, 516-380-0538 Bali, Indonesia $6.95 MILLION Drawing on Sumatran vernacular architecture, designer Linda Garland crafted this light-on-the-land compound (Architectural Digest, August 2009) for The Fast and the Furious director Rob Cohen in 2006. Built almost entirely out of…

1 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

PET PROJECT

From the outside, the stately house on a prime hilltop block in Pacific Heights, the gold coast of San Francisco, couldn’t be more traditional. Devised in 1927 by one of the city’s most prominent architects, Arthur Brown Jr., the classically appointed Beaux Arts residence features a handsome redbrick-and-limestone façade capped with a slate roof whose fish-scale tiles mimic the gentle arches of the windows below. The only hint that the interiors, not to mention the homeowners, are anything but staid is the plaster bust of a Greek god crowned with a vivid blue glass sphere perched behind one of those windows. The irreverent sculpture is by Jeff Koons, and it’s one of the many bold contemporary artworks that give the home of Norah and Norman Stone its exuberant spirit.…

5 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

Classic Beauty

Back in May 2011, Jessica Chastain exploded onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere. She emerged, a fully formed movie star, on the Cannes Film Festival’s red carpet to begin promoting an astounding six films coming out that year, including The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, and The Help (for which she was nominated for an Oscar). In the five years since, she’s redefined what it means to be a Hollywood leading lady, playing a tough-as-nails CIA analyst in 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty (winning a Golden Globe for that one) and a flinty astronaut commander in last year’s The Martian. She’s already receiving awards buzz for her role as a gun lobbyist in Miss Sloane, due out in December. According to Chastain, the secret to making such complex characters come…

6 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

Feedback

Colorful Cast I recently received the August issue of Architectural Digest, and all I can say is “Wow.” From the wonderful Anderson Cooper cover story [“Paradise Found”] to the rest of the fabulous homes full of color, I’m thrilled. It’s so refreshing to see vibrant, exciting interiors after far too much generic minimalism. Here’s to more interesting design and decoration, and to AD’s continuing coverage of such. PRISCILLA BOWMAN Glendale, California I’ve been working in the architectural field for 50 years, many of them as a designer, and Anderson Cooper’s getaway is the first house I’ve seen that I would live in as is! It displays amazing taste blended with a true sensitivity to its neighborhood. Bravo, Anderson and designer Wilbert Das! TOM SIGLER Wilmington, Delaware History Lesson Thank you…

2 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

JOHN DERIAN

Sometimes I feel like a chef at a farmers’ market,” says decoupage artist John Derian, amid the vast collection of antique etchings, engravings, and manuscripts in his studio on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “What’s available is what I end up using,” he says of the prints, which he finds at estate sales and flea markets and fashions into his signature creations. For more than two decades Derian has sold his own plates, lamps, and other objets alongside a selection of artisan-made home goods at his eponymous shops in New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Now his favorite images—from delicate 18th- and 19thcentury botanical and animal studies to charming children’s drawings—have come out of their storage bins (Hermès boxes and vintage suitcases) and onto the pages of his first tome, John Derian…

2 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

TURNING THE PAGE

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall of the Rose Main Reading Room at Manhattan’s New York Public Library (NYPL) early on May 28, 2014. At two in the morning, one of the ceiling’s gilded-plaster rosettes suddenly fell to the floor, 50 feet below, shattering to pieces. On account of that errant 16-pound wreath, ironically a symbol of strength, the space was immediately closed off for repairs. This October, after an extensive restoration, the room is reopening—along with the revamped Bill Blass Public Catalog Room. As an NYPL trustee, I may be biased, but I believe our library is the greatest of its kind—free, open to all, and with its main branch set inside a stunning 1911 Beaux Arts landmark designed by Carrère&Hastings. Widely considered to be that…

2 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

LION’S SHARE

How many times, for a writer, does fortune smile and drop a great story in your lap? The answer, at least in my case, is not very often. Great stories don’t just drop. They have to be shaken loose from their hiding places—or, what is sometimes even more difficult, recognized when hiding in plain sight. For the past four years I have been working on a book, which Rizzoli is publishing this month, about the French decorator François Catroux. This may sound like a straightforward proposition, but the seeds of the project were planted in 1987, when I was 17 years old. That’s when I walked into Diane von Furstenberg’s Catroux-decorated Paris apartment, on the rue de Seine, as a guest of her daughter, Tatiana. I was transfixed. Twenty-three years…

3 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

VALLEY GIRL

La vie du château is full of tradition and style—especially so at Château du Fresne, a modestly proportioned, sublimely neoclassical country house not far from Tours in central France. There, Brussels decorative-arts dealer Flore de Brantes and her husband, Count Amaury de La Moussaye, host riotous summer costume parties and relaxed alfresco dinners, all while managing the property’s 1,400-acre farm and tending to its more than two dozen dependencies. “With a château,” Brantes says, “there is always a project.” Anatole Amoudru, a local architect known for his churches, completed the house in 1770. Some three decades later, Le Fresne became the property of General Pierre Perron, who had gone to India, made a fortune, and brought back a wife. After that the house was passed down through the female…

5 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

The Earth Whisperer

English landscape architect Kim Wilkie prefers to intuit what a site wants to be rather than impose his will upon it. It’s an approach that has brought clients from around the world to the door of his farmhouse in Hampshire. But his best-known work is close to home: a garden at Boughton House, the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch’s seat in Northamptonshire. There, a pyramidal hillock, known as the Great Mount, had gone to seed, next to what Wilkie calls a “scrubby little stream” and a broad flat area. The duke asked him what should be done about the mishmash of features. “That’s when the idea to invert the pyramid came to me,” says Wilkie, 60. He sank a reverse ziggurat in the earth and built a pond at the…

2 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

BLITHE SPIRIT

First things first: The weird and wonderful Los Angeles home of interior designer Brigette Romanek, her husband, director Mark Romanek, and their two young daughters is not the Harry Houdini estate. Every day, Hollywood tour buses pull up to the imposing mix-and-match Mediterranean-style manse at the top of Laurel Canyon and the amplified voices of clueless cicerones can be heard waxing rhapsodic about the property’s alleged pedigree. “They say that Houdini cooked up his most famous escape acts here, his mistress is buried here, the house has 22 bedrooms—crazy stuff,” Brigette says. Such mythology becomes less far-fetched when one considers the evidence that Houdini did in fact live nearby in the 1920s. And then, of course, there’s the residence itself, which is pure magic. The original 1925 house that stood…

4 min

Architectural Digest|October 2016

SOURCES

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 VALLEY GIRL PAGES 122–37: Flore de Brantes of Galerie Flore; galerieflore.com. For information on renting Château du Fresne, contact Galerie Flore. THE HIGH LIFE PAGES 138–43: Interiors by Gachot Studios; gachotstudios.com. Landscape design by Plant Specialists; plantspecialists.com. PAGES 138–39: Custom-made teak cabinetry and counter by William Somerville; williamsomerville.com. Blackened-steel island by Kern/Rockenfield (T); kernrock.com. Vintage Jean Prouvé barstools from 1950 Gallery; 1stdibs.com. On beams, Black Panther paint by Benjamin Moore; benjaminmoore-.com. PAGE 140: Custom-made outdoor seating by NMS Co.; 631-267-8992; with cushions and pillows by Sutherland (T); sutherlandfurniture.com; of Rough ’n Rowdy acrylic, in geranium red;…

6 min