Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Architectural Digest

Rwanda is trying to put its history of war and genocide behind it. Landlocked and without substantial natural resources, the country is investing in its people, turning to education as a force for change. Recent reforms have included raising the standards for advancing from primary to secondary school. That’s a good thing. But it has increased the number of older primary-school students, creating social tensions as well as a predictable shortage of classrooms. Enter MASS Design Group, a nonprofit architecture firm based in Boston. Founded in 2008 by Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks, MASS is known for devising a striking hospital in northern Rwanda and a serene cholera clinic in Haiti, among other philanthropically and aesthetically ambitious projects. One of the group’s most recent successes came after it was tapped…

Most professionals are encouraged to leave their work behind them at the end of the day. Not so chefs, who are expected to casually whip up small feasts for friends and family. Perhaps that’s why Yotam Ottolenghi sounds a tad apologetic when he admits his home refrigerator is nearly bare—“I keep on hand pickles, cheese, nuts, stuff that’s easy to snack on,” he says—and that he typically entertains only every other weekend. But surely the man deserves some slack. The co-owner of five London restaurants and delis and the author of a weekly recipe column for The Guardian as well as five cookbooks, including the bestsellers Plenty and Jerusalem, the Israeli-born Ottolenghi has long workdays, developing recipes in his test kitchen for his books (the next one, devoted to baking,…

Lucca, Italy $14.5 MILLION Once owned by Napoléon’s sister Elisa—Princess of Lucca—this 17th-century Tuscan compound encompasses 274 majestic acres overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. Some 20 years ago Italian entrepreneur Giuliano Baldini set about refurbishing the five-bedroom main villa with the help of local craftsmen. Preserved details include marble fireplaces, wood-beamed ceilings, and terra-cotta floor tiles, while a heated pool, elevator, and helipad are among the property’s luxe upgrades. There’s also an olive-oil farm and centuriesold gardens, the latter providing a noble backdrop for alfresco entertaining. contact: knightfrank.com; +44-207-861-1058 New Canaan, Connecticut $5.25 MILLION Legendary modernist Marcel Breuer crafted this masterwork in 1951 as his personal residence. He sold the dwelling 24 years later, and by 2005 it was in danger of being demolished. That’s when the current owners stepped in,…

To hear Sara Story tell it, taking on the resuscitation of a historic house is not for the faint of heart. “It’s a luxury to live in a gorgeously built and designed home,” says the exuberant Manhattan-based interior designer. “But it means you are really obligated to pay attention to its original intention.” Not that the Texas-raised mother of three was the least bit reluctant when she first laid eyes on Niederhurst, a High Victorian Gothic estate perched majestically above the Hudson River in Snedens Landing, New York. “There were mushrooms growing inside, the front door was nailed shut, the shutters were dangling from their hinges, and the grounds were completely overgrown. And I loved it, ” Story says. It took poking around on only two of the mansion’s three…

Twenty people can fit on that sofa,” says Ken Fulk, pointing out the emerald Edward Wormley number that snakes across a seating area in his airy new Tribeca loft. “It’s a party sofa if there ever was one.” This piece and more party-perfect furnishings fill the Manhattan outpost of the San Francisco–based interior designer and event planner. “It really blurs the line between work and play,” he says of the apartment, where he will live, meet with clients, and, of course, entertain. “I never really wait for the weekend.” And why should he? For Fulk, work looks a lot like play. Just thumb through his new book, Mr. Ken Fulk’s Magical World (Abrams), for a peek inside some of the elaborate homes he has devised for Bay Area tech giants…

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” Andy Warhol All too true. And in the realm of houses, gardens, and buildings, it explains our dogged determination to make improvements—despite the fact that renovation, the theme of this issue, is certainly one of the most fearsome human experiences. There is no doubt that age can give a desirable patina and maturity to properties great and small, but time can also equal decay and datedness. As someone who’s transformed no less than nine residences, Meg Ryan is an apt cover star, and as the new director comments, “I know it sounds crazy to most people, but I love renovating. As an actor, you are so rarely in control. But with decorating I am in control;…

The first antique I ever bought was an 18th-century chinoiserie armoire,” recalls Los Angeles decorator Mark D. Sikes, beloved for his crisp, quintessentially California interiors. “I found it 15 years ago, and it’s been my favorite ever since.” But the perfect piece—old or new—can be elusive, as any designer can tell you. So Sikes has taken matters into his own hands and created a new collection of furniture for Henredon, accompanied by a home line for Maitland-Smith, both of which nod to some of his favorite antiques and one-of-a-kind furnishings he’s designed over the years. The two collections debuted in October, on the heels of his first book, Beautiful: All-American Decorating and Timeless Style (Rizzoli). From a riff on that prized armoire to a trio of sweetly proportioned slipper chairs—“the…

W hen Rick Cook of CookFox Architects first visited the Pearlroth House, a boxkite-like icon of midcentury modernism in Westhampton Beach, New York, the building was a mess, boarded up and on the verge of falling down. But Cook’s son David, then eight years old, climbed around the dilapidated structure and pronounced it “the coolest house ever.” “He was responding to its lightness and playfulness,” reflects Cook, who calls the house “freakishly great.” Designed by architect Andrew Geller in 1959, the oceanfront home became emblematic of an age when a 600-square-foot cabin was considered plenty big for summer weekends. But by the time Cook visited, the property’s owner, Jonathan Pearlroth, who had inherited it from his father, had considered tearing it down to make way for a bigger place for…

The news out of Greece has not exactly been cheery the past few years, with the economic and refugee crises dominating the headlines. So hopes are high that Athens’s recently completed Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) will provide a morale boost not only for the city but for the country as a whole. The $854 million SNFCC complex was developed and built by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which administers the fortune of the late shipping magnate. Situated in the historic coastal neighborhood of Kallithea—on what had been a parking lot for the 2004 Olympic Games—the center was designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop to house the Greek National Opera and the National Library of Greece, and it includes a 42-acre park by the New York landscape design firm…

One could argue that interior decorator Alberto Pinto never met a packet of gold leaf he didn’t like. Indeed, the Paris style icon, who died in 2012, at age 69, is universally associated with a kind of grandeur not seen since the furnishing of Versailles—which helps explain why his client roster included more than a few crowned heads, among them Mohammed VI of Morocco (Pinto was a native of Casablanca) and a Saudi prince. But the decorator—whose office and its staff of 80 are now led by his sister, Linda Pinto—also had an extraordinary facility for conjuring freshfaced, easygoing interiors that some of his admirers might consider a trifle pauvre in comparison with his more celebrated commissions. “The simpler projects are some of Alberto’s finest works,” says one loyal Brazilian…

On a recent afternoon, interior designer Esteban Arboleda of the firm Haynes-Roberts was beaming. Resting on the floor of his Shelter Island, New York, dining room, ready to be installed, was his latest vintage purchase—a groovy 1970s chandelier found at a local tag sale. “It’s a Sonneman!” he announced, delighted. More and more that’s a name on people’s lips as aesthetes rediscover the discoera creations of Robert Sonneman, the 73-year-old American lighting guru who, for the past five decades, has been translating a Bauhaus ethos into sculptural, often experimental fixtures. “I love the shapes of his lights, especially pieces from the ’60s and ’70s,” notes AD100 talent Martyn Lawrence Bullard. “There’s a fluidity to the forms that’s both modern and futuristic. They add a punch of glamour to any interior.”…

With their coiffed black hair, almondshaped eyes, and scarlet lips, the women in Hayv Kahraman’s paintings are all beautiful. Yet the exquisitely detailed works are as devastating as they are seductive. Detached limbs float in space. Punctures made in the canvas recall knife wounds. As for those eyes, they are heartbreakingly sad. By the time she was just 11, the Baghdad-born (now Los Angeles–based) artist had lived through two wars before fleeing Iraq with her family. After a chaotic migration they settled in a small town in Sweden. “I was the only kid with black hair in my class,” she remembers. “Because I had to assimilate, I lost who I thought I was. So I identify with the pain of other women who have been affected by war.” A scholarship…

For all the years I knew her, Julia Child lamented the loss of the La Cornue stove in her kitchen in Provence. She could go on for hours about “the marvelous hot plate with the strong burner.” I was, I’ll admit, jealous when I heard she’d sold the much-loved stove to Patricia Wells when she finally left France. I’ve always longed to try one, but top-of-the-line handcrafted La Cornue ranges start at 25 grand and rise into the stratosphere. When I heard about Pirch, an appliance emporium that allows you to audition equipment before making a purchase, I realized that this was my chance. I made an appointment at the new Manhattan branch. Pirch is, to put it mildly, no ordinary appliance store. The rapidly expanding company has replaced salespeople…

Two centuries ago, the Coote Sykeses—that would be Harriet and Anthony, both members of venerable English families— would have lived in a great house with many servants scurrying up vertiginous stone staircases from dark basements to light the fires, dust the furniture, and serve the food. But times have changed, and the servants, visible or invisible, are long gone. So some 20 years ago, when Anthony, a builder and property developer, decided to erect a new great house for his wife and their three children, he wanted a place that smacked of days gone by but was tailored to a simpler life. The result is Bellamont House, a sham-Gothic eccentricity that is the centerpiece of a sheep-and-pig farm tucked into a steep fold of the Dorset Downs, on England’s southern…