Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2019 i Architectural Digest

“There is a huge trapdoor waiting to open under anyone who is critical of so-called popular culture.”—Christopher Hitchens Love ’em or hate ’em, the Jenner/Kardashian clan has an indisputable grip on the American imagination. At press time, Kylie Jenner looks well on her way to unseating big sister Kim’s dominance on Instagram, with 124 million followers to Kim’s 125 million, and momager Kris Jenner, often credited as the brains behind the whole lucrative operation, commands a cool 24.4 million herself. Presented with the opportunity to show our readers (and the internet!) their brand-new, freshly decorated California homes, we sent in the cameras for exclusive double cover stories on mother and daughter. Founded in Los Angeles nearly 100 years ago, AD has a long history of charting the tides of domestic…

On 11 acres in Long Island City, Queens, design firms SWA/Balsley, Weiss/Manfredi, and Arup have realized something groundbreaking: a waterfront scheme (part architecture, part infrastructure, part landscape) to please crowds and withstand the worst. Completed in two phases over the last decade, Hunter’s Point South Park comprises a network of pathways, lawns, play spaces, and more, much of it on landfill. But embedded within the design are innovations that protect the site from natural disaster. In the event of storm surges, tidal marshes absorb and gently release rising waters, while porous gabion barriers filter storm water from upland streets. It all worked like a charm in 2013, when the project—then nearing completion on phase one—survived Hurricane Sandy. “We knew what was coming,” landscape architect Tom Balsley of SWA/Balsley reflects on…

don’t believe everything you see on television. Like the time Kris Jenner hilariously referred to Le Corbusier as Le Courvoisier on an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, the Zeitgeist defining television show she has produced since 2007. It turns out that the queen of momagers (a term Jenner herself trademarked) knows perfectly well who Corbu is. A chair he designed—in partnership with Pierre Jeanneret, for the High Court in Chandigarh, India—sits front and center in her plush, sprawling closet, the perfect perch for selecting the right handbag and shoes from the kaleidoscopic assortment on display. The iconic chair isn’t the only surprise Jenner’s millions of fans and followers will discover in her chic new home in the Los Angeles suburb of Hidden Hills. A collaboration between AD100 designer…

“There’s nothing so precious that you can’t stand, jump, or dance on it.”—Martyn Lawrence Bullard “I wanted a fresh, fun vibe to match the way I was feeling.”—Kylie Jenner…

Spanning more than five decades, the love affair between Architectural Digest and Mario Buatta was legendary. Ever since his first AD feature appeared in the May/June 1974 issue, there was no place he would rather be published. And the relationship extended right up to today, with the careful shepherding of this story into print. Mario died a few months ago, and this project—an absolute plum—was his last: a glamorous duplex in one of Manhattan’s most iconic prewar buildings overlooking the East River. Not that he would ever admit to favorites, but this client couple was especially beloved. They had worked together umpteen times and could speak together in decorating shorthand. They occasionally disagreed about this or that choice, but “Mario would always win,” the wife says with a laugh, “and…

“I have never-ending curiosity about the character of the spaces that surround us,” notes Cologne-based photographer Candida Höfer, best known for taking large-format, psychologically charged images of architectural wonders—places she calls “humble or proud, restrained or boastful, hurt by history or overcoming their fate, or simply beautiful.” For her latest series, on view at Manhattan’s Sean Kelly Gallery through March 16, the artist spent three weeks in Mexico, traveling by bus and plane to visit an array of historic buildings, among them the spectacular 19th-century Teatro Juárez in Guanajuato (pictured). There she made her way from stage to auditorium, moving from one side of the balcony to the other “in search of similarities and differences in similarities.” As always, she worked alone save for an assistant, forgoing additional lighting or…

Around the world, innovative minds are finding new ways to build better as they devise schools, shelters, parks, and more that benefit the greater good. Can design make a difference? The proof is in these trailblazing projects…. The Quonset hut is back. At True North, the first new development in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood since the 1960s, Edwin Chan of EC3 has reinvented the World War II military structure as affordable housing for a community of creatives. “There’s a beauty in industrial buildings,” says the architect, who designed eight semicircular galvanized-steel huts with varying profiles, open floor plans, and common green spaces that link the homes. “The challenge was introducing modern design to the neighborhood while respecting its industrial character.” Since its completion in 2017, the complex has inspired adjacent…

“Every piece of furniture evokes a feeling. The house is a symphony of feelings.”—Kris Jenner “The mood is peace and calm. There's nothing crazy going on.”…

Adding windows always invites more light into a room, but what if the suddenly expansive view isn’t up to par? In the case of a charming English country house—a renovated 19th-century stable not far from London—there was little garden to see once the empty-nest owners decided to add a sunny new kitchen and dining area at the rear of the redbrick building. “The greenhouse was insurmountable,” the husband says of the sprawling antique conservatory that stood dismayingly close to the planned extension. Still, he adds, he and his wife “couldn’t bring ourselves to destroy something so beautiful.” Debbie Roberts and Ian Smith of Acres Wild, an award-winning landscape design firm in West Sussex, had a solution. First, reduce the size of the greenhouse to a more manageable footprint; have it…

do you like your room?” the designer Ariel Ashe, one half of the New York–based AD100 firm Ashe Leandro, asked a demanding client one bright morning in Manhattan. The client proceeded to throw himself onto the floor, reach into a basket full of plushy toys, and begin tossing them all over the place. Would that be a yes? To clarify any misunderstanding, he then erupted into an epic giggle fit that suggested nothing short of sheer joy. Count him as another satisfied Ashe Leandro customer. They tend, like this happy guy, toward the young and creative, including actor Liev Schreiber (AD, June 2018), artist Rashid Johnson, La Ligne cofounder Meredith Melling, and Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland. They also, inevitably, end up feeling like family, thanks to Ashe and partner Reinaldo…

“Pink is unapologetically pretty and old-fashioned, in the best way,” says Tory Burch, who has expanded her lettuceware collection (a collaboration with Dodie Thayer) to include a pale, rosy colorway. Those pieces, along with raffia place mats and hand-painted platters, are among the new additions to her home line, all of which now regularly grace the table at Burch’s Antigua house. Sounds peachy, if you ask us. toryburch.com…

On any given night in Travis County, Texas, some 2,000 people must sleep without shelter—roughly twice the statewide homelessness rate. To alleviate the problem, Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a charity founded by Alan Graham, has turned to architecture. Enlisting Stephen Ross of the Design Build Alliance, and his students at the University of Texas, the nonprofit located a 27-acre site nine miles from downtown Austin and set about conceiving a new neighborhood for those in need. A design competition, launched with AIA Austin, challenged designers to create stand-alone homes in 200 square feet or less. “Small spaces require people to come out and interact,” says Graham, whose idea for tiny houses was inspired by campground living. Select architects have since realized their schemes at Community First! Village. While some homes…

What were you doing when you were 21 years old? Looking for a job? Settling for an unpaid internship? Shopping for a foldout futon? Kylie Jenner hasn’t got time for all that. The wildly popular entrepreneur, reality-television star, and youngest member of the Jenner/Kardashian clan is busy presiding over a cosmetics empire worth roughly $800 million. Forbes magazine speculated that she is on track to become the youngest self-made billionaire in history. She also has more than 124 million followers on Instagram—a single 2018 post introducing her daughter, Stormi Webster, garnered more than 18 million likes. To borrow a hackneyed phrase, when Kylie talks, people listen. “Kylie is the ultimate celebrity, the ultimate influencer. For someone her age to have achieved so much is frankly astonishing,” says Martyn Lawrence Bullard,…

i moved from St. Louis to New York in 2000, the year I turned 18 and graduated from high school. That means that last year, 2018, was the moment I had lived here for exactly as long as I had lived there. I didn’t realize it at the time, but buying this apartment (my first real apartment!) on the Upper East Side was the ultimate inflection point in morphing from an overachieving Midwestern teenager into a New York City professional. Consistency is the word I’d use to describe my first 18 years: I lived in the same bedroom in the same house in the same suburban neighborhood my whole life. (Boring is another word, but it’s not as polite.) By the time I left, I had wallpapered the room—including the…