THE INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AUTHORITY MARCH 2017

TOMMY
HILFIGER
LORD OF
THE MANOR

STAR
POWER
FRANCA SOZZANI REMEMBERING HER PASSION FOR DESIGN
PIERRE YOVANOVITCH FRANCES TOP TASTEMAKER
JOHN PAWSONS MANHATTAN MASTERWORK
MIKE D A BEASTIE BOYS MALIBU BEACH HOUSE
 CONTENTS march
Features
86 MINDING THE MANOR
Tommy and Dee Hilger
transform a Greenwich,
Connecticut, landmark into
a home for their family.
By Kate Betts
98 LIGHT FANTASTIC
Architect John Pawsons
seductive Manhattan duplex for
antiques dealer Jill Dienst is
all about the poetry of sun and
shadow. By Mitchell Owens
108 BEACH BOYS
Mike D of the Beastie Boys enlists
architect Barbara Bestor to devise
a haven in Malibu that celebrates
the best of California living.
By Mike Diamond
116 FORCE OF NATURE
Through his botanical
sculptures, Japanese oral
artist Azuma Makoto has risen
to rock-star status.
By Jane Keltner de Valle
120 ODE TO BEAUTY
Franca Sozzanis Paris pied-
-terre reects the late Italian
Vogue editors lifelong passion for
art and design. By J. J. Martin
8 AR C HD I GES T.CO M
136
A DOUBLE-HEIGHT LIBRARY
IN GREENWICH VILLAGE.
98
A MANHATTAN DUPLEX
OVERLOOKING THE
HUDSON RIVER.
126 BLOM COUNTY
British landscape designer Jinny
Blom cultivates gardens that look
like theyve always been there.
By Vicky Lowry
132 MAN OF THE WORLD
FROM TOP: ANTHONY COTSIFAS; DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN
AD catches up with the
internationally in-demand
designer Pierre Yovanovitch
at his brand-new Paris atelier.
By Joshua Levine
136 HISTORICAL REVISION
Twenty-ve years ago, author
Andrew Solomon called on
Robert Couturier to breathe new
life into a crumbling New York
townhouseand the story is still
ON THE COVER THE ENTRY HALL OF DEE
being written. By Andrew Solomon AND TOMMY HILFIGERS CONNECTICUT
HOME. MINDING THE MANOR,
PAGE 86. PHOTOGRAPHY BY OBERTO
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 14) GILI; STYLED BY CAROLINA IRVING.
 CONTENTS march
Discoveries
33 SHOPPING: PATTERN PLAY
Geometric elements align to
make a bold statement.
108 BEASTIE BOY MIKE DS
MALIBU COMPOUND.
Produced by Parker Bowie Larson

36 WORLD OF: VIRGIL ABLOH

The Off-White founder, Kanye
West creative director, and
trained architect returns to his
design roots with a furniture
collection and forthcoming books.
By Jane Keltner de Valle

40 ARTISAN: FOLK REVIVAL

Dcors Barbares Nathalie
Farman-Farma gives new purpose
to centuries-old textile designs.
By Hannah Martin

44 DESIGN: BRIGHT EYES

Ana Meier teams up with her
Pritzker Prizewinning father
and Herv Descottes to
launch Richard Meier Light.
By Sam Cochran

46 DEBUT: IN HER ELEMENT

At Friedman Benda, British
designer Faye Toogood premieres
an esoteric line of furniture and
objects inspired by earth, moon,
Culture
and water. By Hannah Martin
51 TRAVELS: HIGH HEAT
In Lisbon, cutting-edge talents

116
from near and far put a fresh
spin on Portugals beloved azulejo

FROM TOP: TREVOR TONDRO; SHUNSUKE SHIINOKI; COURTESY OF ARONSON ANTIQUAIRS, AMSTERDAM
tilework. By Sam Cochran

56 AD VISITS: LIKE MINDS

The sprawling studio of artists
Doug and Mike Starn is a
FLORAL ARTIST testament to the brothers
AZUMA MAKOTO shared vision. By Vicky Lowry
CHECKS ON ONE
OF HIS BOTANICAL
SCULPTURES.
60 ARCHITECTURE: PAIR OF ACES
Rising-star rm Christ &
Gantenbein hits it big with back-
to-back museum projects.
By Fred A. Bernstein

62 ART SCENE:
DANCING IN THE STREETS
Artist Liz Glynn re-creates a
Gilded Age ballroom for a must-
see public art installation.
By Michael Slenske

(CONTINUED ON PAGE 18)

30
AN 18TH-CENTURY
DELFTWARE JUG.

14 AR C HD I G E S T.CO M
 CONTENTS march

126 A SUSSEX GARDEN

BY LANDSCAPE
DESIGNER JINNY BLOM.

In Every Issue
24 EDITORS LETTER By Amy Astley

26 OBJECT LESSON:
HERD MENTALITY
The whimsical allure and
enduring popularity of Franois-
Xavier Lalannes 1960s sheep
sculptures. By Hannah Martin

120
30 DEALERS EYE:
ROBERT D. ARONSON
The Dutch delftware dealer on
what hes buying, selling, and
pursuing. By Hannah Martin

144 SOURCES FRANCA SOZZANIS

PARIS TOWNHOUSE.
The designers, architects, and
products featured this month. FROM TOP: ANDREW MONTGOMERY; MATTHIEU SALVAING

146 LAST WORD:

PEOPLE WATCHING
In New York, the Second Avenue
Subway is the citys newest
art attraction. By Sam Cochran

follow @archdigest

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18 AR C HD I G E S T.CO M
 THE INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AUTHORITY VOLUME 74 NUMBER 3

EDITOR IN CHIEF PUBLISHER, CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER

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22 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
 editors letter

2
3

If I werent in fashion, I would have gone

into real estate or architecture. I love
talking to architects. Franca Sozzani
On December 22, 2016, as the AD staff was nishing up this issue and vacating our
New York ofces for the holiday week, we received the sad news of the untimely

1. ANGELA PHAM/BFA.COM; 2. DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN; 3. ANTHONY COTSIFAS; 4. EMILY WEISS FOR INTO THE GLOSS; 5. MATTHIEU SALVAING
passing of Franca Sozzani, the legendary and longtime editor of Italian Vogue and our
colleague at Cond Nast. We had included Francas Paris townhouse in this, our Star
Power issue, because she embodied the word starshe was magnetic, powerful,
luminous, rare. Francas beloved son, Francesco Carrozzini, who this past fall debuted
his touching documentary Franca: Chaos and Creation, with his mother at his side on
the international red carpets, encouraged us to publish the home as a tribute to her
great passion for architecture and design. And so we offer fans of Francaalong with
readers who may be unfamiliar with herthis personal glimpse of the last property she
bought, one her son says was very special to her. It is indeed a privilege when public
gures welcome us into their private worlds, and we are honored that among the other
1. & 2. WITH TOMMY AND DEE HILFIGER, WHOSE notables featured this month are Tommy
CONNECTICUT ESTATE, ROUND HILL, IS OUR and Dee Hilger, whose splendid ivy-covered
COVER FEATURE. 3. A MANHATTAN TERRACE
DESIGNED BY JOHN PAWSON. 4. & 5. THE LATE castle in Greenwich, Connecticut, boasts lush
FRANCA SOZZANI, PHOTOGRAPHED AT HER interiors by Martyn Lawrence Bullard and
PARIS HOME BY EMILY WEISS AND CAPTURED
IN A PAINTING BY JULIAN SCHNABEL. gardens by Miranda Brooks; Beastie Boy Mike
D, relaxing at home with his kids in Malibu;
celebrated antiques dealer Jill Dienst, in her
4 masterful John Pawsondesigned apartment in
New York; and author Andrew Solomon, who
writes about his own richly layered, Robert
Couturierdecorated Manhattan townhouse.
Dont miss articles on fascinating design-world
movers and shakers Virgil Abloh and Faye
Toogood, major-league landscaper Jinny Blom,
and Japanese oral artist Azuma Makoto.
Rock stars one and all.
5

AMY ASTLEY
Editor in Chief
Instagram: @amytastley

24 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
 object lesson THE STORY BEHIND AN ICONIC DESIGN

Herd Mentality
The whimsical allure and enduring
popularity of artist Franois-Xavier
Lalannes 1960s sheep sculptures

WILLY RIZZO

FRANOIS-XAVIER LALANNE AND HIS WIFE, CLAUDE, PICTURED

IN 1965, WATCH OVER A FLOCK OF THE LEGENDARY MOUTONS DE LAINE,
WHICH WERE AS MUCH SEATING AS THEY WERE SCULPTURE.
26 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
 object lesson LEFT LALANNE STOOLS IN
SINGER ANDY WILLIAMSS
CALIFORNIA LIVING ROOM.

F
or the 1965 Salon de la Jeune Peinture
in Paris, French artist Franois-Xavier
Lalanne wanted to make a statement.
If you come with a snail as big as a
thumb, nobody notices, he said. You
have to go with something immodest and
slightly embarrassing. His idea? Twenty-four sheep.
Lalanne fashioned the faux livestock in the living
room of the Paris apartment he shared with Claude,
his wife and artistic partner. Four sculptures
received impassive faces of patinated bronze while
the others remained headless; all were swathed in
uffy sheepskins. Les Lalannes then trotted the
surrealistic herd off to the storied Palais de Tokyo
exhibition hall, where the moutonsmaking their grand debut
as art furniture, complete with casters in their hooves for easy
mobilitywere placed prominently at the salons entrance.
Le Tout-Paris was charmed and covetous. Having a sheep
in your living room, as opposed to an armchair or a wood
bench, is just pure fun, says garden designer Madison Cox,
a longtime friend of the Lalannes.
That fun was as instantaneous as it has been enduring. (And
pricey: In 2011 a group of ten sheep fetched nearly $7.5 million
at Christies.) Several were commissioned by Yves Saint Laurent
and Pierre Berg, who positioned them throughout their Paris
library. [They help me] pretend I am on a farm in Normandy,
the couturier wistfully observed. And when Adelaide de Menil
got wind of artist William Copleys third divorce, in the 1970s,
she sent her condolences: a rare black sheep to add to his
collection. I always prefer them in a big mass, says decorator
Franois Catroux, who recently gathered a trio in a Paris

FROM TOP: DAVID GLOMB; LUKAS WASSMAN; HORST P. HORST/COND NAST; ERIC PIASECKI; FRANOIS HALARD
apartment. Architect Peter Marino remembers when Franois-
Xavier asked what was his favorite mythological tale: Without
hesitation, I said, The Golden Fleece, and he answered, I shall
make you an entire ock. Cast in bronze, the Moutons de Peter
now stand on his Hamptons lawn year-round and graze, just like
the ruminants that inspired them. HANNAH MARTIN

ABOVE VALENTINO, IN GSTAAD,

SWITZERLAND, WITH HIS MENAGERIE OF BELOW DESIGNER REED KRAKOFFS
PUGS (REAL) AND SHEEP (LALANNE). LONG ISLAND HOUSE.

A WEATHER-
RESISTANT
LALANNE TRIO AT
INVESTOR WILBUR
ROSSS HOME IN
SOUTHAMPTON,
NEW YORK.

LEFT YVES SAINT LAURENT AND

PIERRE BERGS PARIS LIBRARY.
28
 dealers eye WHERE ART MEETS COMMERCE
1

1. MID-18TH-CENTURY ROCOCO
OVAL TUREEN AND COVER. 2. A 1630
PLATTER INSPIRED BY MOTIFS IN
CHINESE PORCELAIN. 3. MONKEY-
SHAPED MILK JUG, CIRCA 1755.

SPECIALTY: A fth-generation dealer

trained by his father and grandfather,
Robert D. Aronson is an expert on
delftwaretin-glazed ceramics made in the
Dutch town of Delft between 1650 and 1850.
COLOR CODE: Since cobalt is easy to work
with, delftware made in the 17th century was
mostly blue and white, he says. But from
1685 on, there are some rare examples of red or
manganese-purple.
WHATS HOT: Flower vases, particularly tulipires, are
at the top of the market right now, and the bigger, the
better. The largest one I sold, from 1690, stood about four feet.
FUN FACT: Many delftware factories started in
2 abandoned breweries, explaining company names
like the Double Tankard and the Metal Pot.
AUTHENTICITY TEST: Pick it up. A true piece of
3 delftware should be lighter than you expect.
HUNTING: Black-glazed delftware. It
was only made between 1700 and
1720, and were aware of about
60 existing pieces.

Robert D. RAREST FIND: A pair of guresKing

William III and Queen Mary II
holding ower baskets, from 1690. Its
Aronson the only pair of royal gures that we know
COURTESY OF ARONSON ANTIQUAIRS, AMSTERDAM

of in delftware. The molds, the shapes, and

The Dutch the type of decoration are all unrecorded.
PRIZED POSSESSION: A fairly simple pair of
delftware dealer butter tubs with birds on the covers. Theyre
the last objects I bought with my father.
on what hes NEXT UP: In March we will bring 150 18th-

buying, selling, century delftware animalscows, goats,

horses, and the liketo TEFAF Maastricht in
and pursuing the Netherlands. Its a menagerie I have
known for most of my life; my grandfather
was a friend of the collector. aronson.com
HANNAH MARTIN

30
 DISCOVERIES
THE BEST IN SHOPPING, DESIGN, AND STYLE EDITED BY JANE KELTNER DE VALLE

Pattern Play
Geometric elements
align to make a bold
statement

LOUIS VUITTON HAS INTRODUCED A LINE OF

LUXURIOUS SMALL ACCESSORIES IDEAL FOR
THE DESK OR VANITY. FROM TOP GRAPHIC
CERAMIC VALET TRAY, 8" L. X 6" W.; $595.
FLOWER LEATHER BOX, 5" L. X 5" W. X 2" H.; $630.
SQUARE GRAPHIC CERAMIC VALET TRAYS, 3" SQ.;
$365 EACH. LOUISVUITTON.COM, 866-884-8866

PH OTO G R A PH BY JO H N MANNO AR C H DI G E S T. CO M 33
 DISCOVERIES shopping
1

4
5

1. SCHUMACHER
ANGOLO WALL-
PAPER IN MAPLE;
TO THE TRADE.
FSCHUMACHER.COM,
800-523-1200

2. THE RUG COMPANY

TILT WOOL
CREWELWORK
CUSHION IN CORAL.
22" SQ.; $120.
THERUGCOMPANY-
.COM, 212-274-0444

3. ANN SACKS

1. COURTESY OF SCHUMACHER; 2. COURTESY OF THE RUG COMPANY; 3. & 5. JOHN MANNO; 4. COURTESY OF
ALMAS DIAMOND
TERRA-COTTA TILE;
$53 PER SQ. FT.

BERND GOECKLER; 6. COURTESY OF BEN PENTREATH LTD.; 7. COURTESY OF PROPERTY FURNITURE

ANNSACKS.COM,
800-278-8453

4. ROBERTO
GIULIO RIDA
MINOSSE SMOKED-
MIRROR-AND-BRASS
CABINET. 32" W. X 16"
D. X 59.5" H.; $95,000.
BGOECKLERANTIQUES-
.COM, 212-777-8209

5. WEDGWOOD
BYZANCE BONE CHINA
ACCENT TIDBIT PLATE.
6" DIA.; $150 FOR
SET OF FOUR.
WEDGWOOD.COM,
877-720-3486

6. PENTREATH & HALL

FALLING CUBES
WASTEPAPER BIN.
12" H.; $74.
PENTREATHHALL.COM,
+44-20-7430-2526

7. MERVE KAHRAMAN
DIPLOPIA MARBLE-
AND-BRASS COCKTAIL
TABLE. 29" W. X 33" D.
X 18" H.; $6,200.
PROPERTYFURNITURE-
.COM, 917-237-0123

34 AR C HD I GES T.CO M P ROD U C ED BY PARK ER BOWI E L A R S O N

 DISCOVERIES world of
VIRGIL ABLOH, WITH
CUBE CHAIRS FROM
HIS BLUE STATE CHAIR
COLLECTION, OUTSIDE
ALCHEMIST, AT
MIAMI BEACHS 1111
LINCOLN ROAD, THE
PARKING GARAGE
DESIGNED BY HERZOG
& DE MEURON.

Virgil Abloh
The Off-White founder, Kanye West
creative director, and trained
architect returns to his design roots
with a furniture collection and
forthcoming books

36 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M P ORT RAI T BY JASO N S C H M I DT

 DISCOVERIES world of
AN IMAGE, SHOT AT THE BARCELONA PAVILION,
FROM ONE OF ABLOHS UPCOMING BOOKS. IM
TRYING TO TEACH THE YOUNGER GENERATION
ABOUT ARCHITECTURE THROUGH BUILDINGS
THAT HAVE INSPIRED MY WAY OF THINKING.

DANIEL BURENS LES DEUX PLATEAUX IN

PARIS. LINES ARE A LARGE CONSTRUCT OF
THE OFF-WHITE BRAND. THEYRE OFTEN
USED IN INDUSTRIAL CASES, BUT THEY CAN
ALSO BE AN ARTISTIC STATEMENT.

THROUGH THIS CANON OF READY-MADE ART, IM HIGHLIGHTING STUFF PEOPLE

SEE EVERY DAY, THEN ORGANIZING IT IN A DIFFERENT CONTEXT, SAYS ABLOH, WHO
EXHIBITED A FOUND-OBJECT TABLE AND A TRIVISION SIGN AT DESIGN MIAMI. THE

G
uests at the Off-White runway ART WORLD CAN LOSE TOUCH WITH THINGS THAT REAL PEOPLE IDENTIFY WITH.
show in Paris this past September
left with more than your typical
fashion memento: Many purloined
the blue-foam cubes they had
been seated on. (Colettes Sarah
Andelman called the next day to secure 20.)
The pillaging was more than welcome as far as
Virgil Abloh was concerned; it was an afrmation.
The lightweight seats were the seeds of his
latest project, a furniture collection he would
debut at Design Miami two months later.

FROM TOP: FRANK HEUER/LAIF/REDUX; COURTESY OF OFF-WHITE; FABIEN MONTIQUE/COURTESY OF OFF-WHITE

Best known as a fashion designer, DJ, and right
hand to Kanye Westthe millennial denition of a
Renaissance manAbloh holds an architecture
degree from Chicagos Illinois Institute of Tech-
nology, where he studied in buildings designed by
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It inspired my way of thinking,
says the native Illinoisan. So much so hes publishing a
series of books that place models wearing his clothing inside
iconic structures, such as Miess Barcelona Pavilion and
Le Corbusiers Villa Savoye. The idea is to teach my
demographicthe younger generation whos immersed in
fashionabout architecture through these sites.
Ablohs philosophy of furniture has a similarly cross-
cultural goal. Im taking the concept of streetwear and
translating it to the art world, he says, going on to reference
Marcel Duchamp and Tom Sachs as like-minded inspirations.
My idea is to draw a link to that kid who has a thirst for
the new graphic T-shirt, he continues. And the fact that 50
percent of the cube chairs were gone after my show proves
that theres an inherent value after being in my grips.
I design streetwear in
quotes. So how do I do that
in the art world? Its this.
Abloh may lack humility, but he has a point. His most recent
edition of the cube is black and, in a sly postelection political
statement, is printed with the words Blue State Chair. The cubes
are produced in limited runs, with some free for the taking
if you happen to be in the right place at the right time; the rest
will be sold at a price comparable to that of Ablohs T-shirts.
Other furnishings are ambitious and layered. One table has a leg
that is a pile of rocks, while another leg is stacked Sheetrock.
Im highlighting stuff people see every day, then organizing it
in a different context, Abloh says. The art world can lose
touch with things that real people identify with.
The designers next project is a Toronto shop, created
with New Yorks Family architecture rm, that will feature a
meandering path surrounded by overgrown weeds. I want it
to feel like an experience, not a store, Abloh explains. Does
he ever worry hes overextending himself? Just the opposite:
These projects convey my design exibilities, he says. You
dont become Raf Simons or Mies van der Rohe by not doing
everything. At least, thats how my brain is wired. Whats
torture to me is to think of something and then not do it.
JANE KELTNER DE VALLE

38 AR C HD I GES T.CO M
 DISCOVERIES artisan 2

1. NATHALIE
FARMAN-FARMA
ON THE TERRACE OF
HER NEW STUDIO IN
LONDONS CHELSEA
NEIGHBORHOOD.
2. ANDRINOPLE,
FARMAN-FARMAS
TAKE ON AN 1850S
RUSSIAN FABRIC.
3. THE AUREL
COTTON IS BASED
ON A 1920S PRINTED
RUSSIAN TEXTILE. 4

Folk Revival
Dcors Barbares Nathalie
Farman-Farma gives new purpose
to centuries-old textile designs

W
hen Nathalie Farman-Farma purchased
a ravishing 19th-century Russian fabric
in 2000, her rst thought was a rather
practical one: to make pillows. Objects
become so much more interesting when
theyre put to use, says the French-raised,
London-based collector and designer, who recently moved
into a charming new Chelsea studio. The problem with old
textiles is that after six months of people sitting on them,
they fray; the ber is too dry.
Farman-Farmas solution: Reimagine them. Since 2010 she
has been printing enchanting fabrics inspired by her favorite folk
traditions from Eastern Europe and northern AsiaTurkmen
2., 3., AND 4. COURTESY OF DCORS BARBARES

robes, Russian pinafores, Slavic embroideryunder the moniker

Dcors Barbares. For the Andrinople print, she had elements
of that crimson Russian pattern redrawn and transferred onto a
cotton that was then dyed Turkey red using an ancient technique.
Next, she notes, Im thinking of doing something based on
this skirt I saw in Krakow. She pulls up an iPhone photo
of a buoyant white getup decorated with sweet red owers. 5
Wouldnt it be great as caf curtains? Thats the way 4. FOLKLORE, PRINTED ON A WEIGHTY COTTON-LINEN
Farman-Farma worksfunction rst. I always ask myself two BLEND, NODS TO TRADITIONAL RUSSIAN DESIGNS.
5. FARMAN-FARMA CALLS HER NEW STUDIO A
questions, she says. Does it make me dream? And, How LABORATORY OF DECORATING IDEAS. I NEVER MAKE
would I use it? decorsbarbares.com HANNAH MARTIN A FABRIC THAT I WOULDNT PERSONALLY USE, SHE SAYS.

40 AR C HD I GES T.CO M P HOTOGRAP HY BY M I GU EL FLO R E S -V I A N N A

 DISCOVERIES design
2 A RICHARD
3 Ana Meier teams up with her
1. CYCLADIC SQUARE SCONCES, AVAILABLE
IN 12" SQ. 2. A RENDERING OF THE
CYCLADIC PENDANT. 3. CYCLADIC CIRCLE
SCONCE, WHICH COMES IN 14" OR 24" DIA.
L
ight has always played a dening role in the
work of Richard Meier, whose white, rigorously
geometric buildings seem to harness the sun
reecting its rays and guiding them to cast
dynamic shadows. And yet lighting is a category
that has eluded the Pritzker Prize winner, with
no such product bearing his name. At the urging of his daughter,
furniture designer Ana Meier, thats about to change. Launch-
ing March 14 at New Yorks Ralph Pucci showroom is Richard
Meier Light, an array of rened xtures created by the two in
collaboration with lighting master Herv Descottes, cofounder
of LObservatoire International.
We were thinking about how light gives volume to planes,
how it can dramatize forms, explains Ana, who shepherded
the sculptural collectionall white, naturallyas its creative
director. The Cycladic Circle and Cycladic Square sconces,
for example, divide their namesake shapes into halves,
one aglow and one in shadow. As she notes, Depending on
the intensity of light, the xtures really change.
44 AR C HD I GES T.CO M
MEIER
DESIGNED
HOUSE ON
NEW YORKS
FIRE ISLAND.
Bright Eyes
Pritzker Prizewinning
father and Herv Descottes to
launch Richard Meier Light
SCOTT FRANCES/OTTO; 1. AND 2. SCOTT FRANCES/COURTESY OF RICHARD MEIER LIGHT;
The simplicity of those forms belies the complexity of their
construction, which integrates Corian surfaces with state-of-
the-art, adjustable LEDs. At Descottess suggestion, gold-leaf
lining was added to the shade of the Cycladic pendant, a
handblown orb of Venetian glass capped by powder-coated
aluminum. Ingeniously, the gold and the glass can be lit
independently for two distinct looks. Every detail has been
thought through, says the French designer.
While those xtures all channel the ethos of the esteemed
architects signature style, the Barcelona series offers a more
3. COURTESY OF RICHARD MEIER LIGHT
literal interpretation, translating the front elevation of his
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art into two different
sconces. Whereas one is recognizably buildinglike, with
articulated pilotis, the other is an extruded curve that recalls
Alvar Aaltos iconic Savoy vase. Architecture has the power to
inspire, to elevate the spirit, to feed both the mind and the
body, Richard says. With this collection, we have distilled this
feeling into objects that touch people inside the spaces where
they live, work, and visit. richardmeierlight.com SAM COCHRAN
 DISCOVERIES debut
In Her Element
At Friedman Benda,
British designer Faye
Toogood premieres an
esoteric line of furniture
and objects inspired by
earth, moon, and water
1. FOR 2012S LONDON DESIGN
FESTIVAL, FAYE TOOGOOD CREATED
ART OUT OF 49 WORK COATS,
REPRESENTING EVERYONE FROM
STONEMASONS TO SILVERSMITHS.
2. A SPOON CHAIR FROM
TOOGOODS SERIES ASSEMBLAGE 5,
CAST IN A UNIQUE MIXTURE OF
EARTH AND AGGREGATES.
3. THE PATINATED UNDERSIDE
OF HER BRONZE SPADE CHAIR.
3
46 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
F
aye Toogood is holding her breath. Somewhere in
the Czech Republic, her short and squat Roly-Poly
chair (or the dumpy elephant, as she fondly calls
it) is being cast in solid glass. Its a real gamble, she
says of the curing process, which takes ve months.
None of us knows whether it will survive when
they remove the mold. The precarious piece is just one of 23 that
make up Toogoods new furnishings series, Assemblage 5: Earth,
Moon, and Water, which will make its debut at Manhattans
Friedman Benda gallery in late February. Perhaps its tting then
that the fate of the shows pice de rsistance be left in the hands
of shape-shifting elements.
Toogood, who spent her childhood in rural England
assembling stones, mushrooms, and glass into compositions on
her bedroom table, and who later cut her teeth arranging
still lifes under editor Min Hogg at The World of Interiors, has
always marveled at the wonders of nature. For this
collection, I wanted to get back to something primal
and human, she says.
Each piece is realized in one of three
materials devised by Toogood and her team
in their new laboratory, a house in Londons
DESIGNS: COURTESY OF FAYE TOOGOOD
hip Shoreditch neighborhood. I wanted
to make my own elemental materials,
she offers. Ancient adobe architecture
inspired earth, a complex mixture of
dirt and aggregates. We were endlessly
cooking, she says of concocting it. We
baked almost 30 samples, like loaves
of bread. For moon, she went
with nitrate-covered bronze,
 DISCOVERIES debut
2

1. TOBIAS HARVEY; 2., 3., 4., AND 5. COURTESY OF FAYE TOOGOOD

1. A VICTORIAN
APARTMENT
I hope the forms DESIGNED BY
TOOGOOD IN

have an almost LONDONS MAYFAIR

NEIGHBORHOOD.
2. THE NITRATE-
human quality, COATED BRONZE
PEW BENCH FROM

Toogood says. ASSEMBLAGE 5.

3. HUMAN-SCALE
SCULPTURES IN
I hope they feel TOOGOODS 2015
AGENDER POP-UP
full of personality. SHOP AT LONDON
DEPARTMENT
STORE SELFRIDGES.

the color of dull, deep lead. And for

water, she found Czech artisans who
would realize her pieces in clear glass. 4
After a hiatus from the furniture
wing of her studio (Toogood also does clothing and interiors), 4. THE PLAY TAPESTRY,
WHICH IS BASED
the designer delivers a much-anticipated group of new shapes ON CHILDRENS
with this collection. The Spoon chair (Now Roly-Poly has BUILDING BLOCKS.
5. THE SQUAT
a friend! she exclaims) nods to African fertility chairs. And a ROLY-POLY CHAIR
batch of tables, benches, tapestries, and chalice-shaped stools SHOWN HERE IN
FIBERGLASSWILL BE
took inspiration from a visit to Henri Matisses chapel on the CAST IN SOLID GLASS
French Riviera. In fact, the show kicks off a year of introduc- FOR ASSEMBLAGE 5.
tions: Toogood is creating light xtures with New York City
design shop Matter, producing a wall covering with Brooklyn-
based Calico, and fashioning piled wool rugs with CC-Tapis.
In keeping with the multidisciplinary nature of Toogoods
practice, the new furniture designs have already set other ideas
in motion: She hopes to rethink her tapestries as coats and 5
is hatching plans for earth, moon, and water suits. Maybe Ill
wear one to the opening, she says with a laugh. HANNAH MARTIN

48 AR C HD I GES T.CO M
 CULTURE
WHERE TO GO, WHO TO KNOW, WHAT TO SEE EDITED BY SAM COCHRAN

High Heat OVERLOOKING

LISBONS TAGUS
RIVER, THE NEW
In Lisbon, cutting-edge talents from MUSEUM OF ART,
ARCHITECTURE
near and far put a fresh spin on AND TECHNOLOGY
OCCUPIES A TILE-

Portugals beloved azulejo tilework CLAD BUILDING BY

AMANDA LEVETE.

PH OTO G R A PH Y BY LUIS DAZ DAZ AR C H DI G E S T. CO M 51

 CULTURE travels

1. ANDR SARAIVAS
RECENTLY UNVEILED
AZULEJO MURAL
AT BOTTO MACHADO
GARDEN. 2. THE
ARTIST IN FRONT OF
HIS WALL. 3. VINTAGE
SUBWAY TILEWORK
BY MARIA KEIL.

A
t the 1889 Universal
Exhibition in Paris, while
the French were unveil-
ing the Eiffel Tower, the
Portuguese were present-
ing feats of a considerably
more compact variety. The countrys
pavilion made dramatic use of azulejos,
the glazed ceramic tiles that have been a
hallmark of Iberian craftsmanship for
ve centuries. Today the art form
remains a source of national pride and
delight, as evidenced by a recent trip to
Lisbon, whose steep streets reveal
stunning examples at every turn. And
thanks to two recently unveiled local
3
projects, traditional tilework is getting
a bold new spin.
This past October the city welcomed
its largest expanse of azulejosan
11,625-square-foot mural by artist and
nightlife impresario Andr Saraiva, who
We Portuguese The wall is my dream city, explains
Saraiva, who splits his time between
was commissioned by MUDE, the local dont take ourselves Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and his
museum of design and fashion. (He has
Portuguese roots.) Comprising some too seriouslywe home outside Lisbon. He incorporated
references to all four locales into the
55,000 hand-painted tiles, each one
fabricated at the historic Viva Lamego
are like clay, we mural, an imaginary pastiche skyline.
Rendered in his signature, exuberant
factory, the work wraps the perimeter of adjust, says curator style are Lisbon icons such as the Santa
the Botto Machado garden, inspiring
seles and serving as a graphic backdrop
Alexandre Nobre Pais. Justa Elevator, So Jorge Castle, and
Discoveries Monument. Elsewhere theres
to one of the citys bustling ea markets. his Paris nightclub, Le Baron; his grafti

52 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
 CULTURE travels
1 Andr Saraiva says of his favorite
1. VIBRANT AZULEJOS LINE THE
FAADE OF THE HOME GOODS
EMPORIUM A VIDA PORTUGUESA.
2. INSIDE CORTIO & NETOS,
WHICH OFFERS AN ARRAY OF
RARE VINTAGE TILES.
alter ego, Mr. A; and a boat
bearing the name Jackie, an
homage to his girlfriend.
Asked whether he was nervous
about the wall being vandal-
ized, Saraiva responds with a
smile, Why do you think I left
so much white space?
Across town, meanwhile,
design acionados are ocking
to the new Museum of Art,
Architecture and Technology,
where British architect
Amanda Levete has created a
sinuous building that rises from the
boardwalk like a cresting wave. Cladding
the structure is a multifaceted skin of
ceramic tiles, its creamy crackle glaze
catching the sun as it bounces off the
river Tagus. Purists might argue that the
tiles dont qualify as azulejos on account
of being afxed to an aluminum frame-
work rather than adhered using a more
traditional method. But most people will
be too seduced by the rooftops spectacu-
lar river views to give it a second thought.
We Portuguese dont take ourselves
too seriouslywe are like clay, we adjust,
says Alexandre Nobre Pais, a curator at
Lisbons National Tile Museum, which
54 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
2
just reinstalled its trove of treasures. As
he explains, his countrymen have been
reinventing the craft ever since they
began importing Spanish azulejos and
mixing patterns in the 15th century: We
grasp what is interesting in others and
integrate that into our culture.
As for Saraiva, hes just getting started.
Ive seen my technique improve so much
since the beginning of this project, he
reects, dining on grilled sh in the
seaside town where he now has a small
shermans cottage. I would love to do a 41-room hotel with sweeping views of
a wall in New York. Azulejo is the rare
artistic expression that really endures
time wont fade it. SAM COCHRAN
MORE TO DO
IN LISBON
SIGHTS
The Portuguese capital lacks not for
cultural attractions, from the cloisters
and vaulted ceilings of the Jernimos
Monastery (mosteirojeronimos.pt) to
the wondrous ruins of the Carmo
Convent, now adjoining an archaeo-
logical museum (museuarqueologico-
docarmo.pt). Architecture lovers will
delight in the two-year-old National
Coach Museum, designed by Pritzker
Prize winner Paulo Mendes da Rocha
to display 70 carriages (museudosco-
ches.pt). And across town Santiago
Calatravas Oriente train station stuns
with its lacy canopy.
RESTAURANTS
Its the ultimate throwback, artist
haunt, Gambrinus, a wood-lined
eatery thats been serving up tradi-
tional Portuguese cuisine for more
than 78 years (gambrinuslisboa.com).
Iberian flavors get fresh twists at
Bairro do Avillez, the latest hot
spot from local chef Jos Avillez of
Michelin-starred Belcanto fame
(joseavillez.pt). Set inside a restored
18th-century palace, Palcio Chiado
puts an elegant spin on the food-hall
trend, with seven restaurants plus a
bar under one roof (palaciochiado.pt).
SHOPS
If its azulejos you want, head to
Cortio & Netos for spectacular
wares from defunct manufacturers
(corticoenetos.com). Antique tiles,
some dating from the 15th century,
can be found at the charming DOrey
(doreytiles.pt). Nearby, Cermicas na
Linha brims with chic home goods
(Rue Capelo 16, +351-21-598-4813).
And no trip to Lisbon would be com-
plete without a stop at its famed spe-
cialty shopsfrom Conserveira de
Lisboa, an emporium of canned deli-
cacies (conserveiradelisboa.pt), to
the closet-size gloves store Luvaria
Ulisses (luvariaulisses.com).
HOTELS
Saraiva swears by the Four Seasons
Hotel Ritz Lisbon, a time capsule of
Estado Novo glamour commissioned by
Portuguese autocrat Antnio de Oliveira
Salazar in 1952; dont forget to check out
the ballroom and rooftop track (foursea-
sons.com). Contemporary touches pre-
vail at the new Memmo Prncipe Real,
the city (memmohotels.com). Its a
welcome follow-up to the brands sleek
Memmo Alfama, set in the heart of
Lisbons most historic district.
 CULTURE AD visits

Like Minds 1

The sprawling studio of

artists Doug and Mike Starn
is a testament to the
brothers shared vision

G
rowing up in New Jersey, Doug and Mike Starn
would sit next to each other at their familys
kitchen table and do what kids do around the
world: make art. In their case, the identical twins
worked in complete harmony. Im painting on
his painting, and hes painting on my painting,
and were perfectly happy, recalls Mike. Its just the way we are.
The Starns have been collaborating in unison ever since,
moving from childhood doodles to photography-based work
that explores the intersection of art, science, and religion. In
the 1980s, unable to afford enlarging an image to 30 or 40
inches, they just stuck small sheets of photographic paper
together with Scotch tape, like a mosaic, before exposing them
to chemicals in the darkroom. Since then they have pushed
themselves far beyond photography, melding sculpture,
performance, and more into their practice. Their 2010 rooftop
installation, Big Bamb: You Cant, You Dont, and You Wont
Stop, a jungle-gym-like structure consisting of 6,800 bamboo
poles, remains one of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts most
popular exhibitions ever, with 630,000 visitors and at least
six marriage proposals reported over six months. 2
For the past eight years, the brothers have worked side by
1. THE BEACON, NEW YORK, STUDIO OF DOUG AND MIKE STARN.
sidefueling each others ideas, nishing each others sentences 2. FEATURED AT THE SPACE IS A VERSION OF THE BROTHERS 2010
in a former factory in Beacon, New York. The 40,000-square-foot INSTALLATION FOR THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART.

56 AR C HD I GES T.CO M P HOTOGRAP HY BY W I LLI AM A B R A N OWI C Z

 CULTURE AD visits
1
1. GLASS PANELS FROM A RECENT PROJECT FOR PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY. 2. AMONG THE MATERIALS ON A WORK SURFACE
ARE ALBUMS FOR THE STARNS NEW SERIES, DEBUTING AT THE
ARMORY SHOW AND TRAVELING TO THE BALDWIN GALLERY
IN ASPEN, COLORADO. 3. A NEWLY RENOVATED STUDIO SPACE.
3 Cristina Grajaless space in Manhattan.
58 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
building once served as a foundry for casting metal sculptures as
high as 50 feet not only for patriotic monuments on Washingtons
National Mall but also for fantastical creatures by such artists as
Louise Bourgeois and Jeff Koons. The Starns original Big Bamb
lives here, festooned with a bamboo sailboat (test-launched two
summers ago on the upstate New York lake where they each have
a weekend house). The room-size sculpture, inset with a woven
staircase leading to the second-story gallery and a third-story
ofce, continues to shift across the ground oor thanks to local
rock climbers who extract and reattach poles using colored rope
while 128 webcams capture the meticulous evolution. Our vision
is that nothing in the world is monolithic, nothing is one thing
everything is interconnected, Mike explains.
Its an especially productive time for the brothers. The
annual Armory Show in New York City, running March 25, is
featuring a double booth of new piecesincluding large-scale
portraits and a ten-foot-tall glass sculpturefor Stockholms
Wetterling Gallery. An exhibition of beloved album covers
(complete with vinyl records) that they have reworked with
paint opens at the Baldwin Gallery in Aspen, Colorado,
on March 17, followed by a show of woven-bamboo furniture
debuting April 27 at design dealer
One of their most complex projects
to date, a 90-foot-long stained-glass wall
commissioned by the Art in Embassies
program during the Obama administration,
will be erected outside the U.S. embassy
in Moscow this May. The freestanding
faade, which consists of a composition of
satellite images relating to space explora-
tion and the cosmos, harks back to the
brothers 1990s tenure as NASA artists in
residence. The digital photos have been
transferred onto layers of glass (some of it
handblown) by Franz Mayer of Munich,
a fth-generation workshop in Germany.
Weve made translucent work with
photographic lm and glass throughout
our career, Doug says, but this piece has
an additional meaning of transparency
science is positivelooking for truth in a
transparent universe. VICKY LOWRY
 CULTURE architecture
E
manuel Christ and Christoph
Gantenbein are architectures
boy wondersbut it took a
CHRIST &
GANTENBEINS while for the world to notice.
NEW WING In 2002, at ages 31 and 30, the
FOR ZURICHS
SWISS NATIONAL duo won a competition to
MUSEUM. expand the Swiss National Museum, a
beloved institution in the heart of Zurich.
Seven years later they won a second major
competition, this time to add a new building
to their hometowns Kunstmuseum Basel,
one of the worlds great collections of
contemporary art. (In winning the commis-
sions, they beat out the likes of Rem
Koolhaas, David Chippereld, and Zaha
Hadid.) With these victories, they were on
their way to stardom.
Funding controversies, however, delayed
the completion of the Zurich building, which
resulted in both projects opening last year.
It was a thrill and, frankly, also a relief, says
Christ of their annus mirabilis. In Zurich
they added an 80,000-square-foot thunder-
bolt of concrete to a fussy 19th-century
building. In Basel they produced a gray-brick
structure that looks like an alp transported
to the city center. Both extensions have won
rave reviews. But the architectswho
studied together at the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology before founding
their rm, Christ & Gantenbein, in 1998are
hardly resting on their laurels. The pair
spent this past fall teaching at the Harvard
Graduate School of Design, which required
constant transatlantic travel (and time away
from their wives and children). Now they are
engaged in projects ranging from social

Pair of Aces housing in Paris to a visitor center in Zurich

for the chocolatemaker Lindt. There theyll
have to manage expectations. As Christ
Rising-star rm jokes, People will expect Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory. FRED A. BERNSTEIN
Christ & Gantenbein hits
it big with back-to-back
museum projects FROM TOP: IWAN BAAN (2); MARKUS JANS

ABOVE AN AERIAL VIEW OF THE ZURICH PROJECT.

LEFT CHRISTOPH GANTENBEIN (LEFT) AND EMANUEL
CHRIST, PHOTOGRAPHED FOR LUOMO VOGUE.
60 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
 CULTURE art scene

LEFT LIZ GLYNN

POSES AT A
QUEENS,
NEW YORK,
WORKSHOP WITH
A CONCRETE
FOOTSTOOL AND
SIDE CHAIR FROM
OPEN HOUSE,
DEBUTING AT
CENTRAL PARK IN
MARCH. BELOW
THE WILLIAM C.
WHITNEY
BALLROOM, LONG
DEMOLISHED.

Dancing in
the Streets
Known for merging performance
and sculpture, Liz Glynn re-creates
a Gilded Age ballroom for a
must-see public art installation

I
like disaster, says artist Liz Glynn. I like being sur-
rounded by rubble. That much was clear on a recent
visit to her Commerce, California, studio, a vast space
H. H. SIDMAN/COURTESY OF PUBLIC ART FUND

lled with sculptural otsam and jetsamfrom stacks of
polyurethane molds to countless replicas of ancient tools.
The latter she crafts in clay before digitally scanning
their forms, which she then 3-Dprints and displays in groups
that trace the evolution of toolmaking.
This month Glynn will mine more history at New York
Citys Doris C. Freedman Plaza, on the southeast corner of
Central Park. There, as part of the Public Art Funds ongoing
installation series, she will reproduce some two dozen
of the antique French sofas, chairs, and footstools that once
graced the William C. Whitney ballrooma legendary
Gilded Age space designed by Stanford White for his clients
Fifth Avenue mansion. Immortalized in Edith Whartons
The House of Mirth, the opulent interior was said to have been
the largest private ballroom in Manhattan until Caroline
Astor one-upped Whitney in her own palatial home.
During that time there was this arms race in terms of
ostentatious architecture for the most prominent New
Yorkers, says Glynn, whose new project is titled Open House.
Meticulously cast in concrete at a Queens workshop, the
furniture pieces will serve as a free-to-all ruin of what was
once Manhattans foremost chamber of exclusivity.

62 AR C HD I GES T.CO M P ORT RAI T BY V I C TORI A HELY- H U TC H I N S O N

 CULTURE art scene

Since earning an MFA at

the California Institute of the
1
Arts almost a decade ago,
Glynn has combed through old
stories of money and power, reexamining them via installa-
tions that often bridge performance and sculpture. At Queens
SculptureCenter, in 2014, she reimagined the room where
16th-century Spanish conquistadors once held the Incan
emperor Atahualpa prisoner. To secure his release, legend has
it, Atahualpa summoned gold and silver treasures from afar,
1. GLYNNS 2014
INSTALLATION but he was still executed, his precious trove melted down into
RANSOM ROOM AT ingots. Inspired by that tale, Glynn lled SculptureCenter
SCULPTURECENTER
IN QUEENS. with wax trophies that she lugged to the exhibition over the
2. TO ORIENT, 2016, course of the show, melting her hoard in the nal week. For a
FROM HER

2. STEPHEN PROBERT/COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND PAULA COOPER GALLERY, NEW YORK; 3. FREDRIK NILSON
TECHNOLOGICAL multiphase project at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
TOOLBOXES SERIES. meanwhile, she and a team of assistants attempted to repli-
3. SCULPTURES IN
THE SPIRIT OF cate Rodin gures in plaster during a two-day performance.
RODIN FROM The resulting props were eventually assembled and recast as
GLYNNS MYTH OF
SINGULARITY eight bronze sculptures that were displayed at the museum
PROJECT AT THE for much of last year.
LOS ANGELES

COUNTY MUSEUM
OF ART.
3 out of shipping pallets) that host job-training seminars. With
Im much more interested
in interaction and experience,
even if thats a bit messy,
1. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND SCULPTURECENTER, LONG ISLAND CITY, NEW YORK;
I try to construct systems that let all different scenarios
play out, says Glynn, who mounted a show of her Rodin
sculptures at New Yorks Paula Cooper Gallery earlier this
winter and is preparing for a fall solo exhibition at the Massa-
chusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The latter project will
tackle the perils of technology, incorporating caves (made
performance thats related to conventional theater, theres
this aesthetic control. Im much more interested in interaction
and experience, even if thats a bit messy.
In Central Park that messiness may come in the form of
casual encounters between strangers, the simple erosion of her
Gilded Age replicas, or the larger issues involved. Theres a lot
of contention around air rights right nowpeople are building
skyscrapers that hurt the landscape of the park because of their
shadows, Glynn says. This is just one more moment in the

says Glynn. ongoing conversation about affordable housing, public-private

partnerships, and freedom of assembly. Pausing to reect, she
poses the question: Whose park is this now? Its not something
I can answer; its just something I can ask. MICHAEL SLENSKE

64 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
LOOKING INTO THE ENTRY
HALL OF TOMMY AND
DEE HILFIGERS HISTORIC
HOUSE, WHERE A 19TH-
CENTURY HUNTING DOG
PAINTING IS SURROUNDED
BY ANTIQUE ANTLERS;
THE HOME WAS RENO-
VATED BY ARCHITECT
ANDRE TCHELISTCHEFF
AND FURNISHED BY
MARTYN LAWRENCE
BULLARD. OPPOSITE THE
COBBLED ROSE GARDEN
FEATURES A FOUNTAIN BY
PHILLIP WATSON; MIRANDA
BROOKS DESIGNED
THE LANDSCAPE. FOR
DETAILS SEE SOURCES.
minding
the manor

Tommy and Dee Hilger transform

a Greenwich, Connecticut,
landmark into a home for their family
TEXT BY KATE BETTS PHOTOGRAPHY BY OBERTO GILI STYLED BY CAROLINA IRVING
87
ABOVE A CASTELLATED YEW HEDGE DIVIDES THE BOXWOOD
KNOT GARDEN FROM THE ROSE GARDEN. STAG STATUES FROM
LA MAISON FRANAISE ANTIQUES. OPPOSITE TOMMY,
SEBASTIAN, AND DEE HILFIGER IN THE GAME ROOM. ON DEE,
TOMMY HILFIGER SWEATER AND PANTS, HERMS WATCH,
MANSUR GAVRIEL SHOES. FASHION STYLING BY SARAH SLUTSKY.
 tommy
and dee
hilfigers
HAIR BY RICARDO ROJAS AT RICARDOROJASHAIR.COM; MAKEUP BY
LIAM DUNN AT BERNSTEIN & ANDRIULLI FOR CHANEL COSMETICS

castle sits atop a high hill in Greenwich, Connecticut,

with views stretching all the way to the Long Island
Sound. In fact, from Tommys third-oor ofce, in
what was once the billiard room, the quintessential
American designer can even see New York City.
The immediate landscape is very ruralwe
feel like were in the English countrysideyet the city
is so close, says Tommy, who is sitting in the homes
wood-paneled entryway, lacing his sneakers in
preparation for a game of tennis with his wife on the
sunken court that lies just beyond a magnicent lawn
dotted with quirky cone-shaped boxwoods; Miranda
Brooks masterminded the landscape. Behind him a
dramatic staircase climbs to a second-oor landing
outtted with Flemish still-life paintings and a pair of
stag antlers from Baron de Rothschilds chteau. Given
the decornot to mention the romantic rooine,
ivy-covered turrets, and leaded bay windowsit would
be easy to mistake the house for something closer to
a historic manor house than a suburban home.

AR C H DI G E S T. CO M 89
 You cant have a house like this and
make it Americana, Tommy notes.
We wanted to preserve that feeling of
being in a European country home.

IN THE BARONIAL ENTRY HALL, AN ANTIQUE

IRON CHANDELIER HANGS OVER AN 1840S
GOTHIC REVIVAL LIBRARY TABLE AND
BULLARD-DESIGNED STOOLS, WHICH ARE
DRESSED IN A ROBERT KIME PRINT WITH A
SAMUEL & SONS FRINGE TRIM. SEVENTEENTH-
CENTURY OUSHAK FROM MANSOUR.

TOUR HIS-AND-HERS CLOSETS WITH TOMMY

AND DEE AT ARCHDIGEST.COM.

90 AR C HD I GES T.CO M
 ABOVE IN THE
OAK-PANELED
BREAKFAST ROOM,
CHAIRS IN A
CHELSEA TEXTILES In many ways Round Hill, as it is now called, is a
LINEN-COTTON perfect mix of Tommys sporty, all-American style and
CHECK ARE PAIRED
WITH AN ANTIQUE Dees sophisticated European aesthetic. Dee, a handbag
OAK TABLE. VINTAGE designer who had previously lived in Europe working
HORN CHANDELIER;
17TH-CENTURY as a model, fell in love with the house from the rst
DUTCH STILL LIFE; minute the couple drove up the switchback driveway.
19TH-CENTURY
FRENCH CONSOLE. The house was in disrepair, and we knew it
needed a lot of work, but we also knew that this would
be our home, she says. Tommy likes to buy and sell
houses, but were here to stay!
Originally known as Chteau Paterno, the castle was
built for real-estate magnate Charles Vincent Paterno
in 1939 by award-winning architect Greville Rickard, a
graduate of the Yale School of Architecture. In 1961
the art collector Joseph Hirshhorn bought the property
and used it to house nearly 6,000 19th- and 20th-
century paintings and sculpturesmost of which can
now be found in the Hirshhorn Museum in Washing-
ton, D.C. Over the years the castle had been remodeled
in parts and added on to, but by the time the Hilgers
pulled up, the place had been long neglected. They
immediately enlisted architect Andre Tchelistcheff to
oversee a renovation that included new electrical
wiring and a painstaking restoration of the original
terra-cotta roof, whose tiles needed to be replaced;
molds were made for new tiles, which were cast in
Turkey and nally installed one by one. It was truly a
92 A R C HD I G E S T.CO M
labor of love, says Dee, seated in a tufted leather chair
in what she calls the Winter Room, a space outtted
with antique Bavarian antlers and a new plaster ceiling
bearing a pattern of two 16th-century French insignias.
It was frustrating at times because we had to
redo every single doorknob, Tommy says. The house
is a local historic landmark, he adds, so Tchelistcheff
relied on old photos and architectural plans to
re-create the original footprint and devised new
additions based on existing elements, such as the
soaring two-and-a-half-story leaded bay window in
the entryway. You cant have a house like this and
make it Americana, Tommy notes. Its an English
manor with French details. And we wanted to
preserve that feeling of being in a European country
home with the carved-oak paneling and a patina that
is authentic and a bit worn.
to
achieve that layered, lived-in feel
while also adding entertaining spaces
and creating more relaxed, family-
friendly rooms, the Hilgers turned to decorator
Martyn Lawrence Bullard, who had worked on their
Miami home. In the dining room, Dee and Bullard
mixed Ming dynasty porcelain from the 16th and 17th
What the Hilgers
wanted most was
to pay homage to
the history of the
house while adding
a modern edge.

RIGHT THE MASTER BELOW THE

BEDROOM BOASTS PROPERTYS CHICKEN
AN ENGLISH COOP. BELOW RIGHT
MAHOGANY FOUR- A STARRY RALPH
POSTER, AN ANTIQUE LAUREN HOME
ITALIAN ARMORIAL WALLPAPER COVERS
SHIELD, AND A THE CEILING OF
PAINTED BAVARIAN SEBASTIANS
CHEST. EMBROIDERED BEDROOM. WALLS IN
BEDDING BY BENJAMIN MOORES
LEONTINE LINENS. CURRANT RED; BED BY
POTTERY BARN KIDS.
centuries with Venetian glass, Portono linens, and
Tiffany silverware. In the kitchen, 18th-century
blue-and-white delftware is paired with curtains and
upholstery by Chelsea Textiles and a rug that previ-
ously belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
The eclectic architectural and design elements that
are part of Round Hills DNA could have posed a
challenge, but Bullard drew inspiration from them and
had a lot of fun with the details. I call it that great
American style from the 1920s and 30s when Ameri-
cans would tour Europe and bring back an interesting
concoction of ideas from, say, Tuscany and France,
he says. The exterior is a Norman-inspired chteau
with Tudor elevations, but the interior is an English
country house with French Gothic touches.
What the Hilgers wanted most was to pay homage
to the history of the house while adding a modern
edge and weaving in personal elements. Dees Turkish
heritage is reflected in the screening room, which
Bullard designed around two large divans copied from
an 18th-century house on the Bosporus. The hand-
painted fabric on the walls was inspired by a tile frieze
in the Topkapi Palace. In a nod to Tommys 2014
acquisition of Miami Beachs Raleigh hotel, Bullard
bought a 1590 portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh and hung

Tommy likes to buy

and sell houses,
says Dee. But
were here to stay!
it in the dining room on a wall covered in paisley
fabric printed to look like an Indian wedding shawl
from the 1820s. The game room, a baronial hall
dominated by a huge 17th-century stone replace and
a pool table, serves as a hangout for the Hilgers
seven-year-old son, Sebastian, and their older children
when they come to stay. Instead of something fancy
like a Picasso, we put a sign from an old fairground
on the wall, Bullard says. Theres also a spa, a gym,
and a bath lined in pheasant feathers.
But one of the most glamorous rooms in the house
has to be Dees expansive second-oor dressing room,
which boasts sweeping views and a museum-like
display of vintage couture gowns. I felt it was too bad
to have all of these gorgeous dresses hidden away in
the attic, she says, pointing to a Paco Rabanne mirror
dress and a white chiffon Alexander McQueen
number dripping in feathers; both seem to perfectly
match the ethereal silver de Gournay wallpaper.
Conveniently, the dressing room also doubles as Dees
design atelier. Its inspiring because its my space,
she says. Theres always a lot of stuff going on in the
house, and this is a peaceful retreat.
THE LIVING ROOMS LABYRINTHINE PLASTERWORK CEILING WAS EXECUTED BY HYDE PARK
MOULDINGS. GEORGE SMITH SOFA IN A CLARENCE HOUSE SILK VELVET WITH PILLOWS OF
ANTIQUE TAPESTRY AND A SCALAMANDR LEOPARD PRINT; COCKTAIL TABLE BY BULLARD.

AR C H DI G E S T. CO M 95
SMALL CHECK
FABRIC IN SEAFOAM
BY CHELSEA
TEXTILES;
TO THE TRADE.
CHELSEATEX-
DESIGN NOTES
TILES.COM The Hilfigers let their homes baronial architectural and
STRATON SINGLE-
blue-blooded details guide their aesthetic choices
TIER CHANDELIER IN
NATURAL BY RALPH
LAUREN HOME;
$9,900. RALPHLAUREN-
HOME.COM

STAG HEAD
PRINT BY KURT
MEYER- THE UPPER HALL.
EBERHARDT;

$1,400.
GORSUCH.COM
We wanted to achieve that look of
layering you would see in an old estate,
says designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard.

SPANISH CONSOLE BY
FORMATIONS; TO THE TRADE.
FORMATIONSUSA.COM

CHINESE BLUE-
AND-WHITE
GINGER VASE FIVE-PIECE
FROM STAGHORN
SHOWPLACE PLACE SETTING
ANTIQUE + BY VAGABOND
DESIGN CENTER; HOUSE; $150.
$4,500. HORCHOW.COM
1STDIBS.COM
 ALEPPO PANEL IN EMBROIDERED POUF
RED BY IKSEL IN CORAL BY RAJ
DECORATIVE ARTS; TENT CLUB; $142.
PRICE UPON RAJTENTCLUB.COM
REQUEST. IKSEL.COM

TANGIERS SIDE TABLE BY

MARTYN LAWRENCE BULLARD
ATELIER; $2,900.
MARTYNLAWRENCEBULLARD.COM
MARTYN LAWRENCE BULLARD ATELIER; OBERTO GILI; COURTESY OF FORMATIONS; JOHN MANNO (3); COURTESY OF 1STDIBS; COURTESY OF GORSUCH
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JOHN MANNO; COURTESY OF RALPH LAUREN HOME; OBERTO GILI; COURTESY OF ABC CARPET & HOME; COURTESY OF
MARTYN LAWRENCE BULLARD ATELIER; COURTESY OF RAJ TENT CLUB; COURTESY OF IKSEL DECORATIVE ARTS; JOHN MANNO; COURTESY OF

MOROCCAN GLASS
CUPS FROM ABC
CARPET & HOME; $14
EACH. ABCHOME.COM
AURELIA TASSEL FRINGE IN BEAUJOLAIS BY SAMUEL
& SONS; TO THE TRADE. SAMUELANDSONS.COM

THE SCREENING ROOM.

SMALL BRASS SNAKE-HANDLE

BOWL BY MARTYN LAWRENCE
BULLARD ATELIER; $339.
MARTYNLAWRENCEBULLARD.COM

The screening room

is a real Turkish salon,
says Bullard. The divans
are copied from a
beautiful 18th-century
house on the Bosporus.
AR C H DI G E S T. CO M 97
 LIGHT
Architect John
Pawsons seductive
Manhattan duplex
for antiques dealer
Jill Dienst is all
about the poetry of
sun and shadow
TEXT BYMITCHELL OWENS
PHOTOGRAPHY BYANTHONY COTSIFAS
STYLED BY MICHAEL REYNOLDS
FANTASTIC

SUNLIGHT SETS JILL AND DAN DIENSTS NEW YORK APARTMENT

DESIGNED BY JOHN PAWSONAGLOW. THE LIVING AREA IS
FURNISHED, FROM LEFT, WITH A VINTAGE PHILIP ARCTANDER
ARMCHAIR, A SOFA BY STEPHEN SILLS IN A HOLLAND & SHERRY
WOOL BLEND, A JORIS LAARMAN COCKTAIL TABLE, AND AN
18TH-CENTURY SWEDISH SWIVEL CHAIR. FOR DETAILS SEE SOURCES.

AR C H DI G E S T. CO M 99
ABOVE WHITE ONYX WALLS DIFFUSE LIGHT IN THE MASTER SUITE. CIRCA-1740
SWEDISH TABLE; CIRCA-1920 ALVAR AALTO CHAIR; CIRCA-1770 SWEDISH ARMCHAIR.

S
omewhere in Manhattan, just steps from
the Hudson River, is one of British architect
John Pawsons most intimate works. It is
a family home, suffused with his signature
vocabulary of shifting light and exquisite
proportions, an ecstatic language that
eschews commonplace distractions. There
are no baseboards; there are no cornices.
The troweled plaster walls are as soft as
suede, and the raw wood oors as plainspo-
ken as those in a farmhouse. The effect is spare, even
monasticjust dont call it minimalist.
I dont think its minimalist at all, Pawson says,
in a tone that suggests the word is starved and mean.
Instead purity is the architects goal, whether designing
a ceramic vessel (a bowl for 1882 Ltd.), renovating a
monastery complex (the Czech Republics Abbey of Our
Lady of Nov Dvur), or planning another Edition hotel
for Ian Schrager and Marriott (the West Hollywood
location will open in 2018). In Pawsons interiors for the
new premises of Londons Design Museum, sunlight is
as much a material as terrazzo, marble, and r.
That same alchemy is witnessed every day at that
Hudson-facing duplex, where Jill Dienst, proprietor
of the Scandinavian-antiques mecca Dienst + Dotter
Antikviteter, and her husband, Dan, a lifestyle brands
adviser and investor, live with Emma, their teenage
PAWSON DESIGNED THE MASTER BATHS
SOAKING TUB AND FITTINGS; THE COUNTER IS A
20-FOOT-LONG SLAB OF CARRARA MARBLE.
daughter, and three dogs, Country, Magic, and Pistol.
Pawsons rst major U.S. commissionMadison
Avenues Calvin Klein store, completed in 1995
turned the couples heads, its blanched aesthetic
echoing, in modernist fashion, the clean-scrubbed
Nordic style that Jill had always admired. It wasnt
long before she and her husband became the
architects most ardent fans and, ultimately, impas-
sioned collaborators.
We design places around the way that people
want to live, Pawson says of his rm, and what was
nice is that Jill was always going to populate the
apartment with beautiful things. That extends to the
small stone-oored laundry room (It seems a bit
like a Vermeer painting, Pawson observes), which is
centered on a circa-1750 Swedish table, the object
that Jill says inuenced the whole home. Having once
worked for decorator Jacques Grange and antiquaire
Herv Aaron, she has an eagle eye for expressive
details. The only wood in sight is Douglas r, which
has been used in Scandinavian manor houses for
centuries and is softer to the touch than denser timbers
like oak, Jill explains. No other species would have
made sense to our objective. What remains unseen is
just as awless. That little space behind the oating
walls reveals is perfectly nished, she continues,
laughing as she urges a visitor to crouch and peer into
ARCH DI G E S T. CO M 101
ABOVE THE POWDER ROOM. OPPOSITE THE LIVING/DINING AREA FEATURES A JRGEN
HVELSKOV CHAIR (LEFT), A BORNE, DRESSED IN A BLUE SCALAMANDR VELVET, BY JILL DIENST
AND STEPHEN SILLS, AND CIRCA-1750 SWEDISH CHAIRS AROUND A PIERO LISSONI TABLE.
ARCH DI G E S T. CO M 103
 ABOVE A SWEDISH BAROQUE TABLE CENTERS THE LAUNDRY
ROOM. RIGHT THE ENTRANCE HALLS STONE-AND-METAL
FLOATING STAIRCASE RISES ABOVE A TAXIDERMY REINDEER.
the slenderest of voids. They usually arent, but it
would have driven me crazy if it wasnt.
The culmination of ve years of planning, con-
struction, and rening, the duplex began as raw space,
an utterly blank slate. What intrigued Pawson about
the commission was the pink-gold western light that
glints off the Hudson River and the opportunity, given
the structure, to conjure up double-height rooms.
Thus, the main levels biggest space is a multipurpose
area that stretches the full length of the apartment.
At the west end is a single-height sitting room that
features a long, low slash of replace. Dead center is a
gathering area that rises to 18 feet. The east end of the
spatial sequence is a dining space, also single height
and where the far wall is surfaced with Douglas-r
boards. Enormous windows, cloaked by lmy white
curtains, face south, while at cocktail hour sunset
pours through a single undressed window that is set
like a medieval jewel within a deeply angled reveal.
That solar crisscrossingrepeated on the upper
oor, where a vast light well is lined with thin sheets
of translucent, dramatically gured white onyx
illuminates intensely romantic roomscapes that have
been distilled, honed, reduced to the elemental.
104 AR C HD IG E S T.CO M
A skeletal 1968 Harp chair by Jrgen Hvelskov seems
to sail past a Robert Polidori C-print depicting a
boiseried antechamber at Versailles. Antique Swedish
side chairs, cabriole-legged aristocrats embodying
that transitional moment when Baroque became
Rococo, unexpectedly accompany a lean white Piero
Lissoni dining table, and a taxidermy owl casts
a quizzical gaze over a snow-white Joris Laarman
cocktail table. Each of those furnishings is highlighted
and shadowed as the sunlight waxes and wanes, an
incremental procession that Jill records with her
iPhone and, to Pawsons great delight, then posts to
@dienstanddotter, her Instagram feed. The photo-
graphs are a very nice way for me to see how a space
is used and inhabited, the architect explains. I wish
all my clients did that.
With a cool palette inspired by Scandinavian winters,
the Dienst apartment possesses a hallucinatory quality.
It presents itself to the visitor like a dream, crisp but
hazy, which is also how it is recalled days later. This
quality pleases Pawson. Thanks to the Diensts creative
input, the architect says that the duplex probably is the
richest atmosphere his rm has ever produced, noting,
It is very special and unique in what weve done.
THE STONE-PAVED TERRACE, OFF THE LIVING/DINING AREA,
OVERLOOKS THE HUDSON RIVER AND NEW JERSEY.
 THINLY SLICED WHITE ONYX CHAMPAGNE

DESIGN PANELS FILTER SUNLIGHT

WHILE THE ABSTRACT VEINING
RECALLS ICY LANDSCAPES.
GLASS BY
REIJMYRE
GLASBRUK;
$115. DIENSTAND-

NOTES
For Manhattan antiques
DOTTER.COM

dealer and connoisseur

Jill Dienst, Scandinavian
style is all about being
cool, calm, and collected

STAINLESS-STEEL
FLATWARE BY
Consistency
of materials
results in a
more peaceful
JOHN PAWSON FOR
WHEN OBJECTS experience,
WORK; $200 FOR
A FIVE-PIECE Dienst notes.
PLACE SETTING.
MARCHSF.COM VINTAGE HARP CHAIR BY
JRGEN HVELSKOV;
PRICE UPON REQUEST.
CANDLESTICK BY DIENSTANDDOTTER.COM
TAGE ANDERSEN;
$305. DIENSTAND-
DOTTER.COM JP BOWLS BY JOHN
PAWSON FOR WHEN
OBJECTS WORK;
FROM $1,091 EACH.
SUITENY.COM ANTIQUE
BAROQUE
ARMCHAIR BY
BURCHARD
PRECHT; PRICE
UPON REQUEST.
DIENSTAND-
DOTTER.COM

THE KITCHEN FEATURES

A CARRARA MARBLE
COUNTER AND
AN ISLAND TOPPED
WITH BASALTINA.
 JILL DIENST IN HER SECOND-
FLOOR HOME OFFICE, WITH
SCANDINAVIAN TREASURES.
The apartments palette, Dienst
says, is naturalScandinavian
winter skies merged with
Hudson River view.

PH50 PENDANT LAMP IN MINT-BLUE

BY POUL HENNINGSEN FOR LOUIS
POULSEN LIGHTING; $996. DWR.COM

ANTIQUE GUSTAVIAN
SULLA CHAIR;
PRICE UPON
REQUEST. DIENSTAND-
DOTTER.COM
CUMULUS MARBLE COCKTAIL
BENDA AND JORIS LAARMAN STUDIO; COURTESY OF DIENST + DOTTER ANTIKVITETER (3); ANTHONY COTSIFAS; COURTESY OF DIENST
DIENST + DOTTER ANTIKVITETER; COURTESY OF DESIGN WITHIN REACH; ANTHONY COTSIFAS (2); JON LAM/COURTESY OF FRIEDMAN

TABLE BY JORIS LAARMAN;

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ANTHONY COTSIFAS; COURTESY OF DIENST + DOTTER ANTIKVITETER; JOHN MANNO; COURTESY OF

PRICE UPON REQUEST.

FRIEDMANBENDA.COM
+ DOTTER ANTIKVITETER; JOHN MANNO; COURTESY OF SUITE NY

AN ANTIQUE
SWEDISH TALL CASE
CLOCK ADDS A
VOLUPTUOUS TOUCH
TO THE DINING AREA.

HANS J. WEGNER:
JUST ONE GOOD CHAIR SCULPTURE FROM SHAPING
(HATJE CANTZ) BY FLUID SERIES BY CHRISTINA
CHRISTIAN HOLMSTED SCHOU CHRISTENSEN; PRICE
OLESEN; $75. UPON REQUEST.
BARNESANDNOBLE.COM DIENSTANDDOTTER.COM

ARCH DI G E S T. CO M 107
beach
boys
Mike D of the Beastie
Boys enlists architect
Barbara Bestor to devise
a haven in Malibu
that celebrates the best
of California living
TEXT BY MIKE DIAMOND
PHOTOGRAPHY BY TREVOR TONDRO
STYLED BY LAWREN HOWELL
 SEEN FROM THE BACK LAWN, THE MAIN
HOUSE OF MUSICIAN MIKE DS FAMILY
COMPOUND FEATURES A STANDING-SEAM
ROOF AND BOARD-AND-BATTEN SIDING.
FOR DETAILS SEE SOURCES.

109
thirteen
years ago, my wife, Tamra, and I were living in a
beautiful, spacious Spanish Colonial house in the
Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was a
California dream: three stories, steps down to a pool,
commanding views of the city. It was close to
Hollywood and Silver Lake, where everyone we knew
lived, and we could walk across the street to Grifth
Park for endless miles of hikes with our dog.
Then we discovered the beach.
Our son Davis had just been born, and we were
looking for ways to get out of the house. Two friends
introduced us to one of those hidden spots that only
locals seem to know, a secluded beach reached by
meandering rugged pathwaysit was a patch of sand
with only a few people around, children and dolphins
playing in the water, and gentle, surfable waves
breaking just beyond. Out on the horizon lay all of
Santa Monica Bay, and on clear days, we could see
Palos Verdes and even Catalina Island. It was
intoxicating, and we visited so regularly that the rst
words Davis uttered were beach and ocean. Before
we knew it, we were looking at homes for sale.
110 AR C HD IGES T.CO M
We were already in love with that particular beach,
so proximity was key. We narrowed our search
further so that our kidswe were about to have our
second son, Skylermight someday bike to friends
ON SKYLER, HURLEY SHIRT AND SHORTS; ON DAVIS, FACT T-SHIRT, HURLEY SHORTS, NIKE SHOES
homes or the water on their own. Then we found it:
a large, at property with a lawn that stretched out to
a fruit orchard bordered by a neighbors horse pasture.
Never mind the agglomeration of ramshackle struc-
tures (a three-bedroom house with a few loosely
connected guest cottages) and an eyesore of a fence
enclosing it all. Our multilevel Los Feliz home paled
in comparison. We took it.
Tamra wasted no time ripping out the ugly fence
all on her own. And our challenge became clear:
to unite and logically redesign what had become a
hodgepodge of nondescript buildings.
The architects we met universally wanted to tear
down all the existing structures and build a pristine
new version of our compound. This would require
way more money and patience than we had. Then we
talked to our friend Barbara Bestor, whom wed
known for years. Barbara had kids, and she under-
stood how we wanted to live. She also had experience
working within tight money constraints. A quick
alliance was struck. Barbara would do all the architec-
ture, and I would oversee the interiors, collaborating
THE DINING AREA HAS BOCCI PENDANTS AND
CHAIRS FROM AMSTERDAM MODERN. ARTWORK
BY KELTIE FERRIS; BLUE BOWL AND TALL VASE
FROM NICKEY KEHOE. OPPOSITE MIKE D JOINS
SONS SKYLER (SEATED) AND DAVIS DIAMOND
IN THE KITCHEN. REFRIGERATOR BY SUB-ZERO.
 LEFT DAVIS AND
SKYLER IN
FAMILIAR WATER.
BELOW THE
INTERIOR OF THE
POOLHOUSE
SPORTS MIKE DS
CUSTOM-MADE
MALIBU TOILE
WALLPAPER.

We had the luxury of a lot of

square footage but not a
huge budget, so we couldnt
afford to be too precious.
LEFT A COLLECTION NICKEY KEHOE; RUG
OF VINYL IN ONE OF FROM DEKOR & CO.
THE KIDS ROOMS. RIGHT AN OUTDOOR
BELOW THE MASTER SHOWER FOR HANDY
BEDROOM OPENS POSTBEACH WASH-
TO A TERRACE. DOWNS IS CLAD
PHOTO SERIES BY IN GRANADA TILE.
LEROY GRANNIS; FITTINGS BY
PILLOWS AND TASSEL HANSGROHE.
BLANKET FROM

closely with her team. We were already in construc-

tion on our Brooklyn home, which I was also design-
ing, so I felt prepared to handle the job.
One thing on which we all agreed was that the
main house was too segmented and didnt connect
with the outside. Barbaras smart solution was to raise
the middle section, creating an entirely new great
room, with radiant ooring, that opened up completely
to the terrace and lawn. She cleverly inverted the
standard gabled roof, swapping it for a buttery shape.
We all love using bold color. The bright-yellow
entry door nearly drove our painter to quitso many
coats were required to achieve the desired effect
but the result makes me happy every day. So do the
vibrant tiles in the baths and the cerulean barn doors
on the poolhouse. I had just designed a wall covering
called Brooklyn Toile with the company Flavor
Paper for our New York house, so a Malibu version
featuring beach scenes was a natural t.
Barbara embraced the indoor-outdoor living
concept by adding skylights and clerestory windows
and bringing the exterior walls board-and-batten
treatment inside. We used the same upholstery fabrics
for indoor built-ins and outdoor cushions and had
matching dining table frames fabricated. I gave the
interior model a resin-tint top courtesy of a surfboard
glasser, while its sibling got a more sun- and weather-
resistant hickory top.

ARC H DI G E S T. CO M 113
 The master suite is on one side of the living room,
with its own deck, where I can shed my wet suit and
head straight into the outdoor steam shower. The
boys zone lies across the living/dining area, and they
gladly spill over into the poolhouse when their friends
arrive. The remaining structures got thoroughly
remodeled: all baths redone, all new systems, oors,
and roofs. Theres a suite for our frequent house-
guests, a training/yoga area that is a real luxury, and a
combination poolhouse and screening room, all
connected via an outdoor walkway.
In the end we preserved the vibe of the place while
gaining a unied compound that responds to the way
we live. Bikes, skateboards, and golf carts all pull up
from the beach and park at our side door. Our boys,
now 12 and 14, and their friends race one another into
the hot outdoor shower after setting their boards in the
rack nearby. When it comes to entertaining, we can
go from having no plans at all to hosting ten people for
dinner with absolutely zero notice. If ten becomes
20, no problemwe use the long table inside and its
outdoor twin just a few feet away. If more friends come
over, boardwalks and paths lead us to the re pit, and
then its time to roll the couches aside so we can deejay.
What we had originally thought of as a summer
house soon became our full-time residence. And
though Tamra and I are now separated, the home we ABOVE COCO THE DOG STRETCHES OUT IN THE GREAT
ROOM. PHOTO SERIES BY JOHN BALDESSARI; SHARK
created with Barbara is so joyful that it still unites us ARTWORK BY MICHAEL MULLER AND SAGE VAUGHN;
as a family. The kids remain there while Tamra and BUILT-IN SOFA BY BESTOR ARCHITECTURE; VINTAGE
MODULAR SEATING BY MARIO BELLINI FOR B&B ITALIA;
I split our time with our sons and the place we all love, RUG FROM DEKOR & CO.; BENJAMIN MOORE PAINT.
as friends and family happily wander in and out. ABOVE LEFT DAVIS WORKS THE SKATEBOARD RAMPS.

114 AR C HD IGES T.CO M

 We preserved the vibe while gaining a
compound that responds to the way we live.
FORCE OF
Through his
wildly imaginative
botanical
sculptures,
Japanese oral
artist Azuma
Makoto has risen
to rock-star
statusbut his
latest undertaking
is his tallest
order yet
TEXT BY JANE KELTNER DE VALLE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHUNSUKE SHIINOKI

RIGHT AZUMA MAKOTO, WEARING HIS

SIGNATURE MONOGRAMMED LAB COAT,
UNVEILS VOLUME 1 OF HIS BOTANICAL
SCULPTURE: DAMNED IKEBANA
SERIES. FOR DETAILS SEE SOURCES.

116 A R C HD IG E S T.CO M
NATURE
T
he delicate art of oral
design has long been
mired in politesse
conventional,
domestic, overtly
femininebut the
work of Azuma
Makoto is explosive,
both literally and
metaphorically. Over
the course of two decades, the peroxide-
blond Japanese superstar has set dahlias
on re, propelled a bonsai tree into space,
and oated 10,000 heliconia blooms in the
middle of an ocean, all to haunting effect.
Traditional arrangements, these are not.
Azumas radical approach can be
traced to his background as a musician.
He played in a rock band in the 1990s
until a part-time job at a ower market
led him to his true calling. I realized
there were common points between
music and owers, recalls Azuma, who
also has created installations for Herms
and Fendi. They are both momentary
and unique. Just as there are many
expressions of red roses, music is also
different depending on the mental state
of the player and the environment that it
was created in. Azuma says that hearing
is still his most vital sense: When
I confront plants, instead of looking at
their color and form, I try to listen.
For Azuma fans, 2016 was a banner
year. First, in March, at New York Citys
Chamber gallery, he exhibited tree fungi
coated with precious metals. Then, six
months later, he set the fashionand
Instagramworld ablaze with nearly 30
monumental oral iceboxes made for
the Dries Van Noten show in Paris (his
second collaboration with the designer).
Wild arrangements of Japanese gentian,
Heliconia marginata lutea, clematis,
cosmos, delphiniums, and oriental lilies
from the Aalsmeer market in Amsterdam
were sent to a Belgian factory to be encased
in blocks of ice, trucked to the Van Noten
venue, and set on a tiled runway where the
ice gradually melted. A owers life cycle
is so short, the artist says. It is even more
precious and heavy than a human beings.
At the root of Azumas oeuvre is the
tension between science and the natural
world. Technology gives me options
and ideas, but inspiration comes from the
plants, he notes. Japanese people
believe gods exist everywhere in nature,
so we approach it with awe and rever-
ence. Without that respect, the process of
changing natural life into artworks with
my own hands does not happen.
Azumas latest botanical sculptures
made of ber-reinforced plasticsdont
use flowers at all. They are based on his
Damned Ikebana series, for which he

118 AR C HD IGES T.CO M

 Every day,
365 days, I live
to pursue
expressions of
owers and
plants, Azuma
says. I dont
take time off.

LEFT AZUMA IN HIS

LIGHT- AND TEMPERATURE-
CONTROLLED TOKYO FLORAL
LABORATORY. ABOVE THE
VOLUME 2 SCULPTURE
MARRIES AN ANTHURIUM
ANDRAEANUM STEM TO
A PHALAENOPSIS BLOOM.
RIGHT THE VOLUME 1
SCULPTURE BALANCES
A TULIPA TURKESTANICA
BULB ATOP A CYATHEA
SPINULOSA FIDDLEHEAD.

combined scraps of stems, roots, leaves,

and owers into compositions recalling
traditional Japanese ower arranging. I
collected pieces discarded in the course
of creating beauty and transformed
them into something beautiful, he says.
The new works imitate the old but in
supernatural proportions. Each stretches
more than eight feet tall and is hand-
painted to mimic the original. Azuma
expects to exhibit them in Buenos Aires
and Tokyo this spring. The series is one
of his only creations to date that isnt
beholden to the fragile limits of time.
Still, Azuma insists that temporal,
living matter remains his most fertile
groundand soon he will sink owers
into the ocean. I want to continue
bringing out the charms that owers and
plants have, he says. From botanical
skyscrapers to deep-sea ora, charms
is a massive understatement.
 Franca Sozzanis
Paris pied--terre
reects the late
Italian Vogue editors
lifelong passion for
art and design

ode
to
beauty
ABOVE A STAIRWAY IN FRANCA SOZZANIS ART-FILLED FRENCH RETREAT,
WHICH AD WAS INVITED TO TOUR JUST BEFORE THE EDITORS UNTIMELY
DEATH IN DECEMBER. OPPOSITE A PHOTOGRAPH FROM SHIRIN NESHATS
WOMEN OF ALLAH SERIES HANGS IN THE MEDIA ROOM; THE BOOKCASE
WAS DESIGNED BY ARCHITECT MASSIMILIANO LOCATELLI, SOZZANIS
LONGTIME FRIEND, WHO RENOVATED THE 19TH-CENTURY TOWNHOUSE.
FOR DETAILS SEE SOURCES.

TEXT BY J. J. MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHIEU SALVAING STYLED BY ANA CARDINALE

ABOVE THE LIVING ROOM FEATURES AN ALVAR AALTO LOUNGE
CHAIR, A MINK-COVERED SACCO CHAIR BY ZANOTTA, AND TWO
VINTAGE MARCO ZANUSO SLEEP-O-MATIC SOFAS PLACED BACK
TO BACK. AN ANDREAS GURSKY C-PRINT HANGS IN THE HALLWAY.
OPPOSITE SOZZANI IN HER HOME OFFICE IN MILAN.
 PORTRAIT: ANGELO PENNETTA/TRUNK ARCHIVE
i n trim pencil skirts, chic cardigans, and kitten heels, her
long, wavy, golden locks framing her glowing aquamarine
eyes, Franca Sozzani, the longtime editor of Italian Vogue,
was always the picture of perfection. The Milan-based
editrix, who passed away just before Christmas, adopted a
similarly uniform look for her homes, which she bought and
ipped like a savvy Las Vegas card dealer. In each residence
her former New York townhouse, the Milan apartment, a
family getaway in PortonoSozzanis take on interiors was
rigorously reductive. Stern black and white lines created a spotless
and fuss-free gallery-like aesthetic in all her domestic surround-
ings (except for a riad in Marrakech, decorated some 30 years ago
in a slightly more unbuttoned bohemian style and kept that way).
If I werent in fashion, I would have gone into real estate or
architecture, she said in an interview last fall. But not interior
design. Because what I really like is the division of the house,
not where to put the couch and owers.
She was always a minimalist, notes her son, the lmmaker
and photographer Francesco Carrozzini. The furniture was
always clean-lined, modern Italian and modern Scandinavian.
The visual interest didnt come from curtains or wallpapers;
it was the way she layered things. Her houses were truly an
expression of her personal philosophy. When she wasnt working,
she was thinking about her places: what she was going to do
nextplanning, xing, doing in the garden.
Sozzani rst spotted her Paris property, a magnicent 19th-
century townhouse, while browsing an issue of AD France after an
haute couture show six years ago. I went immediately, she recalled.
It was in bad shape, divided into three apartments, but it totally
blew my mind. I said, I want it! I knew there was great potential.
To refurbish as well as furnish the four-story home, Sozzani
called upon one of her closest friends, Massimiliano Locatelli, who
combined the existing apartments and then slashed huge holes in
the ground-oor walls to bring air and light into the entry and living
and dining rooms. What I like most about Massimiliano is that
hes an architect, Sozzani said with a laugh. Im sick of all these
decorators! Theyre too decorative. I love talking to architects.

ARC H DI G E S T. CO M 123
 She could have been one, Locatelli notes. She even did the
lighting and electricity plan for this house. She never wanted
to come to the work site, because she hated dust, but she would
make me send her photos documenting every single corner.
In her Paris home, pure white walls contrast with wood oors
dyed black. Original moldings were reproduced, while the doors
and ceilings all retain their bronze patina. A magnicent skylight
was added to the top oor, and the basement was converted into
quarters for staff. On one visit, Locatelli sent Sozzani iPhone
photos of this lower level, where the walls are clad in white
subway tile. In a picture of a maids roomjust a small space, not
the main living room or her own bedroomshe immediately
spotted a tiny white wire next to the doorframe and focused on it,
he recalls. Thats where the sconce will go, I told her. She said,
No, not there. When I got back to my ofce and looked at the
plans, I saw she was right. She knew exactly where she wanted
each light, outlet, and switch. No detail escaped her vision.

I really need order Sozzani grew up in Milan in a home lled with Norwegian and
at home, Sozzani Swedish design pieces. It was very unusual for the time, she
noted. My father was obsessed with modernity. But no one talked
explained. It gives me about design back then. Continuing his legacy, she stocked the
Paris house with a valuable collection of pedigreed furniture and
such a sense of peace. lighting from the 1950s and 60s, including an original Isamu
Noguchi lamp, four lamps created in the 50s by Osvaldo Borsani
for Milans Triennale, and 14 Medea chairs by Vittorio Nobili.
A collection of small folded light appliques by Charlotte Perriand
(which Sozzani shed out of a box at a Paris antiques shop)
utter across a wall like glowing black butteries. And a set of
rare neon tube lamps by Borsani, presented to Locatelli by the
artists archives at Tecno, were given to Sozzani by the architect.
Outside the frenzy of fashion week, Paris provided Sozzani
with an elegant refuge, where she could see local friends
and attend the theater. Houseguests were pampered with such
decadent amenities as retractable theater screens in their
bedrooms. Yet, despite the indulgent air, the environment was
also regimented. I really need order at home, Sozzani
explained. Its fundamental. It gives me such a sense of peace.
Everything is so chaotic in my personal and work life. (That
life has been marvelously captured in the recent lm Franca:
Chaos and Creation, a documentary by her son.)
Paris was the last house she bought, and it was very special
to her, Carrozzini says. At rst it felt a little empty, but over
the years it lled up with beloved books, pictures, objects, even
special bottles of perfume. She was very careful about bringing
in only things that she loved, and this accumulation was like a
visualization of time passing, each new layer representing years
like the rings on trees.
The decor in Paris, as in all her homes, was centered on the
art, an enviable collection of photography that was the fruit of
Sozzanis life in fashion. Wall-size photos by Andreas Gursky,
Peter Lindbergh, and Vanessa Beecroft, plus paintings by Julian
Schnabel, blanket some rooms like wallpaper, while small photos
dance around replaces and along hallways. Images speak more
than any other form of art, Sozzani declared. My whole career
has been based on images, not text. She piled her other prized
possessionbookson Locatelli-designed mahogany shelving
with thin iron shelves. The only things I buy and really care
about now are books and art, she confessed.
Not shoes? I asked the famous fashion editor.
Nah, she replied, laughing. By now they all look the same.

124 A R C HD IGES T.CO M

LUSH PLANTINGS LINE THE PATH TO
THE FRONT DOOR OF THE TOWNHOUSE.
OPPOSITE TOP THE KITCHEN
FEATURES A COOKTOP AND OVEN BY
ALPES INOX, A BLACK CORIAN-TOP
TABLE, AND FONTANAARTE PENDANTS.
OPPOSITE LEFT IN THE MASTER
BEDROOM, 17TH-CENTURY PRINTS
GLOW IN GILDED FRAMES. OSVALDO
BORSANI DESK; MEDEA CHAIR BY
VITTORIO NOBILI.
 IN A JINNY BLOMDESIGNED ENGLISH GARDEN, POLLARDED
WILLOWS ARE REFLECTED IN A POND. FOR DETAILS SEE SOURCES.

126 AR C HD IGES T.CO M

JASON INGRAM

BLOM COUNTY
British landscape designer Jinny Blom cultivates gardens
that look like theyve always been there
TEXT BY VICKY LOWRY
a successful
gardener needs
more than a
facility with
Latin binomials
to tame and
cultivate a plot
of land. As
one of the
most sought-after talents in her eld,
London-based landscape designer Jinny
Blom brings an especially diverse set
of skills to her job.
Being English is, of course, a leg up
all that childhood time spent romping
in country meadows. When youre a kid,
youre not thinking, This is an amazing
garden, explains Blom, the daughter
of an agricultural engineer and a linguist.
Youre just in that environment and
understanding it. College theater courses
taught her how to craft inviting settings,
but Blom is also a trained psychologist,
thanks to an earlier career path that took
up a dozen or so years. That experience
has helped make her adept at not only
interpreting the desires of her clients but
also unearthing the underlying personal-
ity of a property to bring order and a
sense of calm.
In Bloms rst book, The Thoughtful
Gardener: An Intelligent Approach to
Garden Design (Jacqui Small), which
comes out this month, she explains how
a walking trip in the Spanish mountains
led her to switch professional gears.
Protesting that I couldnt give up
my sensible job as a psychologist, she
writes, I found I couldnt make an
argument for keeping it.
Two decades later Blom has a booming
practice, working with a blue-chip
clientele whose names rarely get dropped
and whose budgets are merely sugges-
tions. Twenty years is not that long in
gardening, she explains. I had to go into
turbocharge. I had a rule that I didnt
want to do things that dont get built.
The Thoughtful Gardener, at once a
lavishly illustrated coffee-table tome
and a friendly hands-on primer, offers

128 A R C HD IGES T.CO M

 TRAINED HORNBEAMS
ARE UNDERPLANTED
WITH ROSES, ALLIUMS,
AND LAVENDER AT
TEMPLE GUITING MANOR,
A MEDIEVAL COTSWOLD
ESTATE TURNED HOTEL.
ANDREW MONTGOMERY
AN ORNAMENTAL
MEADOW IN ENGLAND
IS ENRICHED WITH
POPPIES, CORNFLOWERS,
ALLIUMS, AND TULIPS.
 An old house
with run-down
land is
Bloms favorite
challenge.
a glimpse into some of the most magical
gardens in the worldfrom a lodge in
Kenya, where Kikuyu and Masai assis-
tants broke into song when the plants
were delivered, to the Buckinghamshire
home of Victoria Getty, widow of Sir Paul,
the philanthropist. Lady Getty was quite
terrifying, Blom recalls with a laugh.
I asked her, What do you want? She
peered down her nose and said, Well, you
decide. It was one of my greatest
experiences. I had complete freedom.
Whether the project is a tiny urban
garden or a full-blown estate overhaul,
Blom takes a straightforward approach.
First, we must destroy, is how she likes
to start the conversation with a client. But
of course theres more to her gut renova-
tions than just stripping dead trees and
overgrown brush. Blom is herself a
cultural geographer who scopes out the
historical features of paths, gates, and
antiquated farm buildings on a given
property prior to drawing up a plan that
proceeds almost instantaneously,
writes Paula Deitz, the American garden
authority, in the books foreword.
My favorite thing is to get an old
house with a load of run-down land,
Blom says. She has hit the jackpot with
the Fife Arms, a faded Scottish Highlands
hotel that has been in business since the
early 19th century and is now owned
by powerhouse art dealers Manuela and
Iwan Wirth. After Blom completed a
private garden for the Wirths, the couple
invited her to transform the hotels green
surrounds before the baronial landmark
reopens to the public next year.
Jinny is undoubtedly one of the
ANDREW MONTGOMERY

greatest landscape talents, but she doesnt

take herself too seriously, Iwan observes.
There is absolutely no ego. And while
she is approachable, Jinny knows what she
wantsand shes usually right.

ARC H DI G E S T. CO M 131
 LEFT: JEAN-FRANOIS JAUSSAUD
AD catches
up with the
internationally
in-demand
designer Pierre
Yovanovitch at
his brand-new
Paris atelier

MAN OF
THE WORLD
TEXT BY JOSHUA LEVINE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMBROISE TZENAS

RIGHT A SITTING AREA IN PIERRE

YOVANOVITCHS OFFICE FEATURES A
FLOATING SOFA AND CERAMIC TABLE OF
HIS DESIGN. CHAIR BY AXEL EINAR
HJORTH; PENDANT LIGHT BY JOSEPH-
ANDR MOTTE; FLOOR LAMP BY JOSEF
FRANK. ABOVE A 1970S CHAIR BY
ROBERTO MATTA WELCOMES VISITORS
TO A SWISS CHALET DECORATED BY
YOVANOVITCH. FOR DETAILS SEE SOURCES.
ABOVE YOVANOVITCH DESIGNED A 45-FOOT-LONG LIGHT FIXTURE, COMPOSED
OF THREE BLACK METAL RODS, FOR THE MAIN STAIRCASE OF HIS PARIS OFFICE.
ARC H DI G E S T. CO M 133
p ierre Yovanovitch apologizes as
he hurries into the small sitting
room where Ive been asked to
wait. The interior designer
recently moved his rm into this
grand 18th-century htel particu-
lier in Pariss Sentier neighbor-
hood, and the oors are still
cluttered with cardboard and
bubble wrap, not to mention
a Georg Baselitz painting or two
waiting to be hung.
Meanwhile, Yovanovitch is
looking to open ofces in the U.S.,
where an increasing number of
his residential clients live. (Americans give you a kind of fuel
the French dont, he notes. They say, Whoa, my house is
going to be the best house in the worldeven if its not true.)
The future New York ofces will also serve as a showroom for
his own furniture, like the plump Ours chair. (Once I catch
the name, French for bear, I make out two fuzzy
ears on the model sitting in the next room.)
Yovanovitch plans to launch his collection in
September to coincide with a design exhibition
he is curating at New Yorks R & Co. gallery.
Yovanovitch is a suave guy, but right now even
he appears slightly frazzled by all the projects hes
juggling. Im very ambitious, the talent says.
Thats putting it mildly when youve modeled your
career on that of Jean Royre, the great midcen- ABOVE A PORTRAIT BY
tury French designer who opened branches in the STEPHAN BALKENHOL
OVERLOOKS A SET OF
Middle East and Latin America before spending BLUE-LACQUERED
his nal years in the U.S. Im working like a DANISH FURNITURE IN
A PROVENCE DINING
donkey, he says. This is not a serene life. ROOM BY YOVANOVITCH.
You wouldnt know it by the surroundings. BRASS CEILING LIGHT
BY PAAVO TYNELL.
Yovanovitchs understated aesthetic makes the LEFT THE DESIGNERS

room feel calm: Slabs of soothing, almond-color
travertinea material he lovescover the lower
part of the walls; oak chairs by Axel Einar
Hjorth, a little-known Swedish designer from the
1930s, lend a rustic note. Yovanovitch reveres him
as a kind of Viking precursor to Donald Judd in the
purity of his lines. The gestures here are not showy but
very rened and precise, which is a Yovanovitch hallmark.
(Hes always been a detail freak. Before turning to interiors,
Yovanovitch oversaw Pierre Cardins licensing business
in Belgium, and he just couldnt stop himself from tweaking
the look of the belts and ties: They were ugly, ugly, ugly!
Eventually, he moved to Paris and was given charge of Cardins
menswear collections.)
I didnt want anything over the top. This is the spirit of
French design, he says. Very chic but restrained, minimal in
its way but still warm.
Yovanovitch is particularly good at shaping space. Hes
got an amazing sense of volume, says Cdric Morisset of
Carpenters Workshop Gallery, which collaborates frequently
with Yovanovitch. Morisset remembers one cramped Paris
apartment with oppressively low ceilings. After Yovanovitchs
FROM LEFT: JEAN-FRANOIS JAUSSAUD (2); AMBROISE TZENAS (2); JEAN-FRANOIS JAUSSAUD
BB OURS (BABY
BEAR) CHAIR IN A
CASAMANCE FABRIC.
intervention, the whole place felt airier and grander, almost as
if he had altered its dimensions. He couldnt have raised the
ceilings, Morisset says, but I cant gure out how he did it.
Perhaps this mastery of space is also what makes Yovano-
vitch so deft at displaying the contemporary art that he and
many of his clients collect. He has designed galleries for Kamel
Mennour in Paris and London as well as exhibition spaces at the
Patinoire Royale contemporary art museum in Brussels. Lately
hes gone further, commissioning artists to create work on-site
for several residential projects. Through Kamel Mennour, he
got Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata to fashion a giant wood
birds nest for the bedroom of a house in Paris. Hallucinant!
says a delighted Yovanovitch. (He now has collaborations under
way with Ugo Rondinone, Daniel Buren, and James Turrell.)

134 AR C HD IG E S T.CO M
 ABOVE YOVANOVITCH DEVISED THE PARIS OFFICES OF KERING, WHICH
OWNS GUCCI, SAINT LAURENT, BALENCIAGA, AND OTHER LUXURY
BRANDS. LEFT THE DESIGNER IN HIS PAPA OURS CHAIR. FLOOR LAMP
BY HANS BERGSTRM. BELOW THE DINING ROOM AT YOVANOVITCHS
OFFICE; THE TABLE, CHAIRS, AND CEILING LIGHT ARE HIS CREATIONS.

The elements that make a Yovanovitch

spacethe polished restraint, the coy
dramatic gestures, the artisanal richness,
the masterful manipulation of volume
are all on ample display in his new
ofces, or they will be when hes done.
For example, he designed the 45-foot-
long light xture that hangs in the
central staircase. Its just three black
rods with bulbs protruding along its
length, but it somehow makes the
four-story staircase seem twice as tall.
The result appears effortless, but
getting here, Yovanovitch says, was a
nightmare. When the designer came
across the building a year ago, it was a
run-down mess. Rotten, rotten, rotten
just this side of unhealthy, he recalls.
But, struck by the opportunity it would
give him to present his vision to clients,
he signed a lease and undertook the
herculean task of restoration.
Were interrupted by Emmanuel
Barrois, who made the ofces massive
black-glass entrance doors. Barrois is now crafting windows for
This is the spirit of a top-secret venture on the Left Bank. The more time I spend

French design, says managing, the less time I get to work with artisans, which is
really what I like to do best, Yovanovitch says grumpily.
Yovanovitch. Very But Morisset sees the payoff, even if Yovanovitch sometimes
loses sight of it. Pierre has managed to make himself one of
chic but restrained, the top ve European designers, he says. Sure, hes stressed,
but I told him, Look, youve got projects everywhere in the
minimal but still warm. world. If Jean Royre can do it, so can you.
HISTORICAL
REVISION
 Twenty-ve years ago, author
Andrew Solomon called on
designer Robert Couturier to help
THE KITCHEN OF
ANDREW SOLOMONS
breathe new life into a crumbling
ROBERT COUTURIER
CRAFTED HOME WAS
New York townhouseand
OUTFITTED BY BRITISH
DESIGNER JOHNNY
the story is still being written
GREY, WHO FASHIONED
A GRAND PIANO TEXT BYANDREW SOLOMON
LIKE STAND FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN
VIKING COOKTOP.
STYLED BY MARTIN BOURNE
OPPOSITE A PORTRAIT
OF SOLOMONS MOTHER
HANGS IN THE
MAPLE-PANELED STUDY
FILLED WITH PIECES
COLLECTED BY THE
WRITER. FOR DETAILS
SEE SOURCES.

ARC H DI G E S T. CO M 137
 LEFT A CANOPY BED
INCORPORATING
CHINESE CARVED-
WOOD PANELS IS THE
CENTERPIECE OF
THE MASTER BEDROOM.
SOFA AND ARMCHAIR
BY COUTURIER.
BELOW THE DRESSING
ROOMS BARREL-
VAULTED CEILING IS
ADORNED WITH AN
EMBROIDERED SILK
PANEL FROM CHINA.
CUSTOM-MADE
MAHOGANY CABINETRY.
OPPOSITE A GUEST
ROOM KNOWN AS THE
ICE CAVE WAS CREATED
BY ARTIST STEPHEN
HENDEE. BED BY
MATHIAS BENGTSSON.

not long after my mother

died, her best friend became a real-estate agent.
Dorothy had enjoyed a successful career as a psychol-
ogist, but losing my mother made her too sad to take
on additional depressed patients, she explained; what
she had liked best about her work was snoop-
ing through the lives of strangers and helping solve
their problems, and she gured she could do so
equally well in this new career. When I returned to
New York in the summer of 1992 from South Africa,
where I had been reporting on the end of apartheid,
I had a phone message from Dorothy, saying, Ive
found the house youre going to live in for the rest of
your life. Call me as soon as you can. I told her I
wasnt even sure I wanted to stay in New York. She
said, When you see this house, youll stay.
The squalor was almost unimaginable. Grafti
covered the walls; leaking pipes projected from the
ceilings; the roof had been taken off a room on the
top oor, and the dangling roots of suspicious plants
grew through the ceiling of what is now my bedroom.
The place smelled alarming; I found a dead cat under

138 AR C HD IG E S T.CO M
RIGHT SWATHED IN A ROSY COPPER
DADO, THE POWDER ROOM FEATURES
A CUSTOM-MADE STEAMPUNK-STYLE
SINK. OPPOSITE THE DOME ROOM
FEATURES A STONE FOUNTAIN FROM
FRANCE AND MOSAICS DESIGNED
BY ARTIST FARLEY TOBIN.

one of the bathtubs when I took possession. The

windows were so dirty that light could barely
penetrate around the peace-sign decals that adorned
them. Inexplicable Formica cabinets sagged in several
unhygienic kitchens. But the scale was noble, and
the decades of neglect meant that the lovely original
features of the townhousereplaces, carved balus-
trades, inlaid oors, detailed woodworkhad not been
stripped out, as had happened to so many neighboring
homes in the 1970s. I bought the property at a probate
sale where there was only one other bidder.
I had written about design for some years and
knew I wanted Robert Couturier to revitalize the
house. I recognized his knack for intersecting
volumes and his unerring sense of proportion: His
work is steeped in renement but not enslaved by it.
He was sympathetic to my pretensions of grandeur
and unfazed by my perfectionism. I can be rigid and
uncompromising; Robert has a rare gift for being
denitive but conciliatory. He had charmed me the
rst time I met him, and his effusive kindness and
generous sense of humor would be essential for the
huge project ahead. I was convinced that his wild
imagination, coupled with his fathomless scholarship
of architectural history, could turn this desolate
wreck into someplace warm and exuberant. More-
over, I had lived in England for many years and

Robert, with his singular ability to celebrate

history without pandering to it, brought in
a bit of Europe without being precious or coy.
wanted a house that didnt feel altogether of New
York, and Robert, with his singular ability to celebrate
history without pandering to it, brought in a bit of
Europe without being precious or coy.
Robert proposed that we punctuate the long,
narrow living room with twin arches to the entrance
hall. When we opened up the walls, we found brick-
work for nearly identical aperturesproof of the
rightness of his instincts. He added tall mirrors over
the two replaces, and the room began to breathe; then
he designed wall moldings to enliven the at expanses
subtly. I had always yearned for a double-height library,
since books are my life. He gured out how to make
the upper tier of bookcases seem almost to oat, using
a wrought-iron catwalk as delicate as a spiderweb.
He achieved coherence that encompassed the myriad
acquisitions of my wide-ranging travels. He incorpo-
rated the tile panel Id bought in Afghanistan into
a bath wall and installed my panel of Chinese
silk embroidery on the arched ceiling of the dressing
room. Cloth woven in India from peacock feathers
was to trim the dining room curtains; passementerie
from Madagascar could be deployed in the living
room; feather money from the Solomon Islands was
framed for one of the baths; Mongolian chatelaines
were positioned in the dressing room; and the
Burmese begging bowl went onto a mantel. As
Dostoyevsky wrote, Beauty will save the world. My
work with Robert on this and other projects since
has both reected and profoundly inuenced my
personal aestheticand is enmeshed even in my sense
of purpose.
I found my dining table, crafted by the Bath Cabinet
Makers, when I was living in London in the 1980s.

ARC H DI G E S T. CO M 141
 RIGHT SOLOMON (CENTER) WITH HUSBAND
JOHN AND SON GEORGE. OPPOSITE THE
DOUBLE-HEIGHT LIBRARY IS AN ODE
TO SOLOMONS LOVE OF BOOKS. THE
WINDOWS AND COUTURIER-DESIGNED
SOFA ARE DRESSED IN SILK DAMASK.

It was produced, I was told, in 1927 as a showpiece

in order to secure a cabinetry contract for the great
Cunard ocean liners. After it had been in the dealers
window for over a year, I walked in one day and said,
I have just received an inheritance from my great-

GABRIELE STABILE/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

aunt and can offer you half your asking price in cash
today, but nothing more. That afternoon we found the
table wouldnt t through the doors of my London
house, and it went into storage. When I bought the
New York place, my father dryly remarked, I see
youve nally found a house to go with that table of
yours. The Austrian Biedermeier chairs are astonish-
ingly of a piece with it, though they are a hundred
years older than the table. Robert helped me envision
the dining room as an oasis of highly stylized serenity,
lacquering the walls so that the space feels moonlit.

I had always yearned for a double-height

library, since books are my life.
The house is unusually deep, and we had to gure
out what to do about the middle of it, where there
is almost no natural light. On the rst oor, the depth is
swallowed by the long living room; on the third oor,
it was a natural location for the dressing room and
baths; and on the top oor, a terrace garden opens up
the space. But the second oor, which was a warren
of closet-size rooms when I found the house, was a
mystery. When Robert suggested that he could make
the small rooms into a large square one, I mentioned
how much I loved John Soanes breakfast room; he
then devised a domed aerie, with arches opening onto
the dining area, where we could have more intimate
meals. He promised that it would be incredibly
pleasing to sit in, and it is. A few years later, through
a mutual friend, I met the mosaicist Farley Tobin, and
we concocted a plan to tile the ceiling and the panel
surrounding the French stone fountain that sits in an
arched niche on one wall. It took ten years. Crews
of Tibetan tileworkers were up on scaffolding at all
hours of the night on an erratic and bewildering
schedule. The intricacy of the small patterns within
the tilework is a triumph not only of Farleys art but
also of her mathematics.
I had bought two carved-wood panels at a Beijing
ea market, back when those markets were still
full of treasures. William Soeld incorporated them
into a canopy bed, and Robert worked out the rest
of the chinoiserie in the master bedroom. Robert
also vaulted the dressing room ceiling and devised in
my bath the complex layout of antique Iznik tiles
I had bought in Turkey. He did the concept drawings
for the Indian-inected upper terrace and designed
the railing; the planting is by Barbara Blechman,
whose sense of restrained effusion has created a
paradise far removed from the bustle of Manhattan.
I was already established here when I met my
husband, John Habich Solomon, 16 years ago.
When John moved in, he would occasionally suggest
changes, brightly venturing, What would you
think of moving that picture six inches to the left?
I would rejoin frostily, If I had thought it would look
better there, I would have hung it there in the rst
place. Robert, as keenly attuned psychologically
as he is visually, and a cherished friend to us both,
helped resolve such issues so that the house gradually
came to reect both of our sensibilities. It is in
a state of permanent evolution, and those changes
I once resisted have come to feel like a cheerful
conversation between John and me.
Then our son was born. Though we have three
other children, who visit often but do not live here
full-time, George, now seven and to whom Robert is
an honorary godfather, introduced welcome chaos.
We learned to tolerate the profusion of Lego bricks
in some rooms, the general bouncing by which our
velvets were rapidly subdued, a trail of soccer balls
and miscellaneous chapter books. People have asked
if I mind having such disruption of the precision
Id maintained before we became parents. Mostly, I
dont. The genius of Roberts work is that the grand,
underlying order he established in the house is
revealed only more fully when such joyous pande-
monium interrupts the hegemony of its elegance.

142 A R C HD IGES T.CO M

 sources
Items pictured but not listed Barn Kids; potterybarnkids.com. mattermatters.com. PAGE 111: loropiana.com. PAGE 124: In
here are not sourceable. Items Carpet by Stark (T); starkcarpet- Cabinetry by Bestor Architecture; kitchen, cooktop and oven by
similar to vintage and antique .com. PAGES 9495: Custom- bestorarchitecture.com. Dining Alpes Inox; alpesinox.com. Huna
pieces shown are often available made ceiling plasterwork, chairs by Gijs van der Sluis from suspension pendant lights by
from the dealers listed. designed by Martyn Lawrence Amsterdam Modern; amster- FontanaArte; fontanaarte.com.
(T) means the item is available only Bullard Design; martynlawrence- dammodern.com. Table frame
to the trade. bullard.com; fabricated by Hyde fabricated by Ohio Design (from BLOM COUNTY
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MINDING THE MANOR On George Smith sofa, Traviata ohiodesign.com. Blue bowl and Jinny Blom Landscape Design;
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Lawrence Bullard Design; Clarence House (T); clarencehouse- nickeykehoe.com. 28.1 Random
martynlawrencebullard.com. .com; with pillows of Leopardo globe pendant lights by Bocci; MAN OF THE WORLD
Architecture by Andre silk blend by Scalamandr (T); bocci.ca. PAGES 11213: In pool, PAGES 13235: Interiors by
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tchelistcheff.com. Landscape tapestry fabrics from Y & B trunks by Hurley; hurley.com. On dIntrieur; pierreyovanovitch-
design by Miranda Brooks Bolour; ybbolour.com. Umbria chaise longue, pillow from deKor .com. PAGE 132: In Swiss chalet,
Landscape Design; cocktail table by Martyn & Co; dekorandco.com. In master handblown lights by Jeff
mirandabrooks.com. PAGE 86: Lawrence Bullard Atelier; bedroom, on bed, square pillows Zimmerman from R & Co. (T);
Antique A.W.N. Pugin oak side martynlawrencebullard.com. and tassel blanket from Nickey r-and-company.com. Custom-
chairs from James Graham- Window curtains of Sinhala linen, Kehoe; nickeykehoe.com. Rug made oak benches by Pierre
Stewart; jamesgraham-stewart- in pomegranate, by Martyn from deKor & Co. In poolhouse, Yovanovitch Architecture
.com. Window curtains of Pasha Lawrence Bullard for Schumacher on custom-made doors, Summer dIntrieur; pierreyovanovitch-
Paisley wool by Martyn Lawrence (T); fschumacher.com. Antique Sky 2046 paint by Fine Paints of .com; fabricated by Pierre-Eloi
Bullard for Schumacher (T); fireplace from La Maison Europe; finepaintsofeurope.com. Bris; pebris.fr. Hand-knotted rug
fschumacher.com. PAGE 87: Franaise Antiques; lmfantiques- On sofa, polka-dot pillows from by Samuel Kasten Tisserand;
Nymph fountain by Phillip Watson .com. Marquis armchairs (near Nickey Kehoe. On back wall, samkasten.com. In sitting area,
Designs; phillipwatsondesigns- fireplace) by Martyn Lawrence Malibu Toile wallpaper by Mike sofa and ceramic table by Pierre
.com. PAGES 8889: In garden, Bullard Atelier. Diamond (Brooklyn version Yovanovitch Architecture
stag statues from La Maison available from Flavor Paper; dIntrieur. On sofa, handwoven
Franaise Antiques; lmfantiques- LIGHT FANTASTIC flavorpaper.com). In outdoor linen by Samuel Kasten Tisserand.
.com. PAGES 9091: Gothic PAGES 98107: Architecture by shower, tile by Granada Tile; PAGE 133: Custom-made light
Revival library table from James John Pawson; johnpawson.com. granadatile.com. Axor Uno fixture by Pierre Yovanovitch
Graham-Stewart; jamesgra- Select furnishings throughout shower fittings by Hansgrohe; Architecture dIntrieur; pierreyo-
ham-stewart.com. Stools by from Dienst + Dotter Antikviteter; hansgrohe-usa.com. PAGES 114 vanovitch.com. PAGE 134: Bb
Martyn Lawrence Bullard Atelier; dienstanddotter.com. PAGES 15: In garden, skateboard ramp Ours chair designed by Pierre
martynlawrencebullard.com; 9899: Custom-made sofa by by OC Ramps; ocramps.com. Yovanovitch Architecture
upholstered in Mughal Flower Stephen Sills; stephensills.com; In great room, built-in sofa dIntrieur; pierreyovanovitch.com;
linen by Robert Kime (T); upholstered in Rambouillet wool and concrete bench by Bestor fabricated by Jouffre; jouffre.com;
robertkime.com; with French blend, in fossil, by Holland & Architecture; bestorarchitecture- upholstered in Niveal acrylic
Bullion viscose fringe, in rust/ Sherry (T); hollandandsherry.com. .com. Sofas pillows and rug from blend, in noir, by Casamance (T);
gold, by Samuel & Sons (T); Cumulus cocktail table by Joris deKor & Co.; dekorandco.com. On angelabrownltd.com. PAGE 135:
samuelandsons.com. On sofa Laarman from Friedman Benda; concrete bench, succulents from Papa Ours chair designed by
benches, Fleuret Chevron fabric friedmanbenda.com. Window Sea Lily Malibu; sealilymalibu- Pierre Yovanovitch Architecture
by Old World Weavers (T); sheers by Zak + Fox; zakandfox- .com; in planters from Rolling dIntrieur; pierreyovanovitch-
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Rayure Nantes linen-cotton, in borne by Jill Dienst; dienstand- .com. On walls, Atrium White PM- .com; upholstered in Rumi mohair
blue, by Clarence House (T); dotter.com; and Stephen Sills; 13 paint by Benjamin Moore; blend by Chapas Textiles from
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Oushak wool carpet from Tiberius silk-cotton velvet, in door, Van Gogh Yellow 2070 paint Kering offices, Assis(asy)mtrie
Mansour; mansour.com. PAGE 92: azure, by Scalamandr (T); by Fine Paints of Europe; armchairs by Pierre Yovanovitch
On dining chairs, Medium Check scalamandre.com. Window sheers finepaintsofeurope.com. Architecture dIntrieur. In dining
linen-cotton, in navy, by Chelsea by Zak + Fox; zakandfox.com. room, ceiling light, table, and
Textiles (T); chelseatextiles.com. FORCE OF NATURE chairs by Pierre Yovanovitch
Window curtains of Naz linen- BEACH BOYS PAGES 11619: Azuma Makoto Architecture dIntrieur. On
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custom-made monogrammed Sliding glass doors by Fleetwood ODE TO BEAUTY
bed linens and Fantasy satin Windows & Doors, fleetwoodusa- PAGES 12025: Architecture and HISTORICAL REVISION
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by Leontine Linens; leontinelin- from deKor & Co.; dekorandco- of CLS Architetti; clsarchitetti- interiors by Robert Couturier
ens.com. Antique armorial shield .com; and Room at the Beach; .com. PAGE 120: In media room, Inc.; robertcouturier.com.
from La Maison Franaise roomatthebeachmalibu.com. custom-made bookshelves by PAGE 137: Custom-made
Antiques; lmfantiques.com. In PAGE 110: Custom-made CLS Architetti, clsarchitetti.com. stove by Johnny Grey Studios;
Sebastians bedroom, on ceiling, cabinetry and barstools by Bestor PAGES 12223: In living room, johnnygrey.com; with cooktop by
Northern Hemisphere wallpaper, Architecture; bestorarchitecture- Sacco beanbag chair (in custom- Viking; viking.com. PAGE 138:
in midnight-blue, by Ralph Lauren .com. On island countertop, bowl made mink cover) by Piero Gatti, On walls, Sudbury Yellow paint
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walls, Currant Red 1323 paint by nickeykehoe.com. Gossamer Teodoro for Zanotta; zanotta.it. .com. PAGE 139: Custom-made
Benjamin Moore; benjaminmoore- pendant light by Sather Duke and On sofa, cotton-velvet fabric bed by Mathias Bengtsson;
.com. Speedboat bed by Pottery Ruby Metzner from Matter; by Loro Piana Interiors (T); mathiasbengtsson.com.

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144 AR C HD IG E S T.CO M
 last word

GEORGE ETHEREDGE/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

People Watching
Nearly a century in the making, Manhattans Second Avenue Subway finally opened this
past New Years Dayand the wow factor certainly made up for the wait. Distinguishing the
four stations are tile installations by a quartet of contemporary artists. At 96th Street, a
porcelain blueprint by Sarah Sze unfurls along the walls, while 63rd Street features vintage
streetscapes rendered in glass and ceramic by Jean Shin. And whereas Vik Muniz popu-
lated the platforms at 72nd Street with mosaics of some three dozen largely anonymous
commuters, Chuck Close filled the 86th Street stop with portraits of fellow art stars such
as Kara Walker, Alex Katz, and Cecily Brown (shown). Part of what makes riding the subway
so special, of course, is the thrill of seeing faces both familiar and new. SAM COCHRAN

146 A R C HD IGES T.CO M