ELLE DECOR April 2015

I was reminded of that again in January, when my flight home from Paris, where I was attending the trade shows Maison & Objet and Déco Off, was canceled due to an impending "blizzard." Even though Juno, as the storm was dubbed, turned out to have less of an impact on New York City than predicted, the hype—not to say hysteria—engendered by the 24-hour news cycle proved that however sophisticated and in control we like to think ourselves, however protected we feel by modern technology, we are all children of Mother Nature. Of course, there are worse fates than having to spend an extra day in Paris, and I am not complaining. (Ironically, my trip the year before was bracketed by snowstorms—in New York on the day I was taking…

GROWTH FUND For our special gardening report (pages 70 to 74), Susan Lowry and Nancy Berner—who have collaborated on books about the gardens of New Jersey and the Hudson Valley, and who are neighbors in Cold Spring, New York—talked to rising stars in the field and investigated new trends. How do their own gardens grow? "I have marigolds, nigella, nasturtiums, and forget-me-nots growing among my vegetables and blueberries," says Berner. "And I always have boxes of zinnia, which remind me of my mother." Says Lowry: "For my three-acre garden, I ignore every precept I was taught and stuff specimens where I think they will thrive. I'm already trying to figure out where to put the 'hot' plants we describe in our article." A spring array in Nancy Berner's garden. Susan…

SHAPE SHIFTERS From the Spanish doublet to Spanx, crinolines to codpieces, men and women throughout history have molded the human form to the whims and dictates of style. "Fashioning the Body: An Intimate History of the Silhouette," a new exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City, demonstrates the ways in which we've lifted and tucked, flattened and supported our bosoms, bellies, and bottoms, with displays of formal court dresses, bustles, and even corsets for children (April 3–July 26; bgc.bard.edu). Meanwhile, "Ralph Pucci: The Art of the Mannequin," at Manhattan's Museum of Arts and Design, follows the career of a designer who has brought a sense of whimsy to the anonymous department-store dummy. Pucci's mannequins—made in collaboration with such talents as fashion designer Anna Sui and illustrator Maira…

IN STITCHES Textile artist Meg Callahan pairs traditional techniques with 21st-century tools such as digital printing to produce her range of graphic patchwork quilts. Queen-size cotton quilts cost between $450 and $8,000, depending on the complexity of the pattern and stitching, and custom sizes are available. 405-833-6653; megcallahan.com 1 / BASIC BEAUTY Ryden Rizzo's Dome Arc pendant lamp for Allied Maker marries elemental materials with simple geometric forms. A white handblown-glass globe—also available in clear—is capped by a powder-coated shade with brass and walnut details. It measures 16 h. x 10 dia. and costs $680; the shade comes in a range of finishes. 516-200-9145; alliedmaker.com 2 / BRIGHT IDEA The jaunty Soft Modern Tower étagère by third-generation Ohio-based furniture manufacturer Sauder is made of metal with…

In a high-tech world that is increasingly being fashioned from glass and steel, the simple brick can sometimes feel a touch analog. And yet as Brick (Phaidon, $50), a new book by English architect William Hall, makes clear, one of the world's oldest man-made building materials has always been, and continues to be, capable of soaring to new heights. In his introduction, Hall quotes architect Louis Kahn's famous dialogue with a block: "You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?' And brick says to you, 'I like an arch.'" Hall reinforces the brick's imagined response with glorious examples of arched brick-itecture, from the ancient Roman Baths of Caracalla to Kahn's own Bangladesh National Assembly. In striking photographs and lucid text, Brick convincingly demonstrates the material's amazing range and…

Maison La Roche, a 1920s house by Le Corbusier. The designer's sketch for the LC-4 chaise. The LC-2 chair in Taupe and Light Blue. THE MASTER BUILDER This year, European cities from St. Petersburg to Stuttgart are paying tribute to the visionary modernist architect and urban planner Le Corbusier, who died 50 years ago. There are exhibitions, conferences, and commemorations—even at his Villa Savoye outside Paris, which features a nine-month festival of music and dance inspired by his work (villa-savoye.monuments-nationaux.fr). One flagship event will be a survey at Paris's Centre Pompidou focusing on the relationship between his buildings and the human body (April 29–August 3; centrepompidou.fr). But a more modest show at Maison La Roche, a Corbu-designed house on the outskirts of the French capital that is now a museum…