Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2019 i MILIEU

THIS IS THE AGE when the digital voice is powerful, so much so that sometimes it seems as if it will drown out print altogether. The publishing world is in flux, but we at MILIEU are here to stay—and flourish. Our staff believes strongly that the best way to write about and promote good design work is through the printed word and image. Design, after all, is a tactile endeavor, and print is a direct reflection of that dynamic. Of course, we recognize the many attributes of digital formats as a way to reach and engage with readers and consumers around the world, but print accomplishes something digital cannot. Designers want and need to have their work published, and MILIEU will continue to do so—on our heavy paper stock, using…

I had little idea of what Marrakesh was like before I went there for the first time a few years ago. I had in my mind images that were already commonly known, some that were even iconic and others of certain famous people who had lived in the city. I think of the glamorous and eccentric socialite Talitha Getty, on a terrace with the distinctive cityscape rising behind her like a magical mud sculpture, and the designer Yves Saint Laurent, in his garden, in a wonderful kaftan. Mostly, those references in my mind’s eye were to characters from the 1960s who went to Morocco to live their dreams of exoticism and freedom. The city itself I could not imagine somehow. I took the Marrakesh Express that first time, perhaps to…

“The art of the crèche for me is pure passion. I like to tell a tale through my sculptures. The tradition allows me to express my artistic nature through the making of the figurines.” I love walking through Naples, particularly Spacca Napoli, the true center of the old city. I often venture to an area just off San Gregorio Armeno, where one little shop after another sells the elements that make up the famous Neapolitan presepe, the nativity scenes, or crèches, that embody the holiday season for people all over the world. The history of the presepe is particularly important for Naples, integral even to the city’s cultural history. The origins of the craft date to the twelfth century and it is often attributed to the workings and teachings of…

SO TAKEN WAS designer Barbara Westbrook with her clients’ collection of art and antiques that she contemplated the elements, often well into the night. She sketched, she made notes, she continued to envision ways to integrate and display the treasured objects—vintage earthenware, vibrant artworks by such disparate masters as Audubon and Hockney, and pieces of exceptional early American furniture. In configuring the rooms of the newly constructed Atlanta home, Westbrook wanted to honor the many objects—collections built up over two generations. “The real challenge was how to organize those wonderful collections of art and antiques in a way that satisfied me as a designer and satisfied them as the collectors,” says Westbrook. As the principal of the Atlanta-based Westbrook Interiors, Westbrook relished the design challenges inherent in this project: a…

THOMAS CALLAWAY HELPED his clients travel back in time. That is not a goal an interior designer is often called upon to achieve, but the Los Angeles–based Callaway managed to honor such a request to invoke the past by creating four related buildings on a single piece of property in Brentwood. “The clients wanted to live in a home that made them feel they were embracing an earlier time period,” says Callaway. The resulting complex or compound of structures—a Spanish-style main house, a stone and stucco chapel, and two picturesque casitas—works as a kind of self-sustaining village. “Although these buildings are new, they feel like something from the past that have been kept and preserved,” he adds. “There is a prevailing sense of peace and quiet on the grounds, with…

WHAT PART OF MAKING ART APPEALS TO YOU MOST? The way that ideas manifest themselves depends on the materials on hand, a time frame, a site of great interest, or an offer to exhibit or install. IS THERE SOMETHING FROM THE ANCIENT PAST THAT MOST INFLUENCES YOU? Yes! There was no art supply store. The gathering of materials was a creative process that engaged all of the senses. Imagine what it took to be the first Homo sapiens who used burnt wood to make a line, or fingerprinted with wet clay filled with red iron oxide. WHAT ALWAYS INSPIRES YOU? The natural flow of energy that’s palpable as I live and work. A WORK OF PUBLIC ART YOU ADMIRE? The Brooklyn Bridge. FAVORITE SIGHT IN NEW YORK? The Metropolitan Museum…

Magda De Smet Belgium-based Magda De Smet began her work in a floral shop with decorative accessories, and it was there that her interest in interior design flourished. As she recalls, "Everything about the interiors of homes fascinated me, and it was through my work as a designer that I met my husband, Claude, a renowned photographer of interiors." Barbara Westbrook Barbara Westbrook, a native of Virginia, launched her Atlanta-based interior design firm, Westbrook Interiors, in 1992, after designing under the tutelage of venerable talents Nancy Braithwaite and Gandy/Peace. For more than twenty years, she has made her mark on Atlanta interiors, employing her signature style: tasteful, tactile, timeless, and elegant. Unlimited in scope, her extensive design vocabulary ranges from casual American and formal English to French Moderne. Westbrook’s inviting…

Rarely does a painter of such striking talent and originality choose to keep her most imaginative artworks out of public view, and even stipulate in her will that her paintings should remain private until twenty years after her death. Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), an artist whose abstract paintings predate those of Vasily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich, worked outside of the public spotlight with a group of women who referred to themselves as “De Fem,” or “The Five.” The women met regularly and conducted séances to contact the “High Masters,” and af Klint served as a medium between “The Five” and the spirit world. The group meticulously documented their experiences in notebooks and practiced the techniques of automatic writing and drawing in which they allowed the divine spirits to…

BELGIAN DESIGNER MAGDA De Smet and her interiors photographer husband, Claude Smekens, split their time between two very different architectures. The successful couple’s elegant town base is a classical city mansion, dating from 1900, in Kortrijk, near the French/Belgian border. Their country place is a refreshing, lightstreamed weekend getaway surrounded by the verdant forests and racing rivers of the Ardennes. Its discovery was unplanned—certainly by Claude, who didn’t know the area. But Magda, who did, may have already had a twinkle of anticipation in her eye. “I’ve known the Ardennes for twenty years and I’ve always wanted to have a house there,” she admits. “So we started looking. And the house arrived just like that. We bought it without thinking what we would do with it or how we would…

THE IRON GATE With a new expansion into Nashville proper, The Iron Gate’s Rozanne Jackson is offering the best of both worlds for her interiors outposts. The original location in nearby Franklin, Tennessee, retains its vintage charm (it’s housed within a building from the late 1700s) and is the perfect juxtaposition to the new location’s more open and contemporary warehouse style, with abundant natural light and gorgeous forty-foot timber ceilings that had been hidden away and were discovered during the remodel. Jackson was also able to expand her design services business, which had long outgrown the previous location. “We’re like birds out of a cage,” she says. “It’s wonderful.” Regardless of the physical aesthetics, The Iron Gate’s timeless accessories, antiques, upholstery, and lighting offerings remain consistent across both locations. “We’re…

When Elizabeth Barlow Rogers walks to the windows of her New York apartment, she takes in the full panorama of Central Park. What she sees from her vantage point is an 843-acre work of art, more so even than a natural creation. She points to distant rocky outcroppings and speaks of their sculpted quality, the patinas and sheens of their schist. Noting undulating landscapes at the park’s center, she refers to them as “romantically picturesque.” “People think I’m responsible for painting every tree blossom,” she says, referring to her work as the visionary founder of the Central Park Conservancy in 1980, a nonprofit body that has since grown very deep roots in the life of New York and whose effects and success have germinated similar organizations in other cities. “But…

THE TWO APARTMENTS couldn’t be more different from each other. Back in Paris, American textile designer Lisa Fine’s pied-à-terre had nineteenth-century grace and two separate sitting rooms. Its New York City replacement is made of post-War Sheetrock, with one combined living/dining/working space. “The apartment in New York didn’t really speak to me,” admits Fine, whose primary residence is in Dallas. “It’s so boxy, with nothing special about the architecture.” But the Upper East Side co-op had been in her family for decades, and when she decided a few years ago to let the Paris apartment go and find a home base in the city she calls “the center of the universe,” it was unoccupied. “It would have been crazy to let it go,” she says. So instead of trading in…

WHILE THE MINARETS and souks of a Moroccan city are not visible from the fifty-eighth-floor perch of this Manhattan apartment, it’s easy to imagine that details of the North African country might come into focus on a clear day. On the streets far below, Manhattan can sometimes take on the chaotic energy of a marketplace in Marrakesh. However, up here, in one of the city’s most elegant new apartment towers, the calm atmosphere of an urban oasis prevails. “The first thing the client told me is that she and her husband wanted the apartment to have the feel of Morocco,” says Kerry Joyce, who has, to date, designed six residences for the couple. “She’s a very accomplished actress and he’s very successful in finance and when she first saw this…

COVER Interior Design: Magda De Smet, Magda De Smet Interior Styling, +32-477-396-398, magdadesmet.be. Photography: Claude Smekens, claudesmekens.be. THE COLLECTOR’S EYE Photography: Peter Vitale, petervitale.com. Page 24 Collection of nineteenth century Swedish bowls some with original paint and old metal repairs on eighteenth century Italian walnut table, W. GARDNER, LTD., wgardnerltd.com. Page 26 Swedish Renaissance cabinet, from left to right: Jean Marais footed pottery bowl, Early twentieth century French “Luster” pitcher, Wedgwood Basalt bowl English Regency circa 1810, patinated Oriental Bronze Vase, W. GARDNER, LTD., wgardnerltd.com. Page 27 Set of Zinc academic drawing models on Swedish eighteenth century Rococo Dropfront desk, W. GARDNER, LTD., wgardnerltd.com. Page 28 Late twentieth century Ikat panel from East Sumba, Indonesia, CAROL PIPER RUGS AND TEXTILES, carolpiperrugs.com, with editor’s collection of wicker bottles. Page 29 Late twentieth century vintage floral…