Tabla de contenidos para Issue 4 en Design Anthology, Asia Pacific Edition

Welcome to issue number four — the first birthday issue (!) — of Design Anthology. It feels a little surreal to say that, as it’s been quite a year. At the beginning of this adventure there were certainly a few naysayers and doubting Thomases who weren’t sure we’d last long. In the world of magazines, a year is a long time — many don’t make it this far. So this issue is obviously a very proud milestone for all of us at Design Anthology. Throughout the last year, the support we’ve received from our readers, advertisers, contributors, distributors and event partners has been overwhelming, and so appreciated. Without you all Design Anthology ceases to exist. So again, we say thank you. In this issue we’ve again brought together our signature…

Pioneers come in many forms. In the world of design, the 40-year-old Czech-born designer and entrepreneur Leon Jakimic is already recognised as one of the most exciting experimental creators of modern lighting. Born in Liberec, Bohemia, Jakimic is now based in Hong Kong, the city where he established his global company Lasvit in 2007 (although all glass production and craftsmanship remains in the Czech Republic). The unique name reflects his personal passion for the interaction between glass and light: laska means ‘love’ and svit means ‘light’, combining to reflect a ‘Love of Light’. ‘Merging the worlds of design and art is what Lasvit is known for,’ Jakimic explains. ‘It is a light and glass company but these complement each other. Without the right light, glass is dead. This very powerful…

CITY The first hotel from esteemed restaurateurs Jeremy King and Chris Corbin (the guys behind beloved London establishments such as The Wolseley, The Delaunay and Zédel) is the Beaumont Hotel in London’s Mayfair, a grand but intimate boutique hotel situated in an Art Deco-era garage that has been transformed by ReardonSmith Architects, with interiors by Richmond International. A specially commissioned inhabitable Antony Gormley sculpture called Room is one of 73 guestrooms. One restaurant, a bar and a private resident’s lounge are on site to satisfy, and a spa with hammam, a pool and a gym are amongst the facilities. The very first Mondrian Hotel outside the US recently opened in London’s Southbank. The 359-room hotel was designed by Design Research Studio with iconic British designer Tom Dixon at the helm.…

It has been called a niche industry venerated only by the Hong Kong cinema ‘cult’, but Hong Kong has produced more than 7,000 films. Fewer than half of these have been preserved, and according to A Selective Collection of Hong Kong Movie Posters: 1950s-1990s by Lo Che Ying (‘Collection’), only a fifth of the films’ associated posters still exist. To Mike Leeder, a Hong Kong-based casting director and line producer, the lack of film preservation and related paraphernalia is unsurprising. He says that there is little concept of their value in the territory, not to mention a lack of space. ‘When they were knocking down the huge Shaw cinema in Causeway Bay, I asked if I could have the Shaw logo: “No”. Twenty minutes later there was a guy smashing…

Architecture often takes on emotional and symbolic content, but this seems to be particularly true in London, loaded as it is with such a dense overlay of historical and literary allusions. It is a city steeped in words and quotation marks at every turn — from Defoe, Swift and Dickens to Thackeray, Conrad and Eliot (...the timekept City, Where the River flows, with foreign flotations...) to the more recent prose of McEwan and Amis — that it can be read like a richly textured, sometimes confusing tome. Benjamin Disraeli compared the city to a modern Babylon. GK Chesterton thought it a ‘riddle’ while Virginia Woolf compared it to a tawny-coloured magic carpet where ‘people pop in and out, lightly, divertingly like rabbits’. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle compared it to a…

To an outside observer, Suzy’s background in design and mine in publishing might have made a design magazine inevitable. But when Suzy first broached the idea seriously, I was dubious. ‘A print magazine?’ I asked. ‘Haven’t you seen what’s happening to print?’ Of course, we’re all wrong sometimes, and this time I’m very glad that I was! Suzy’s creative vision for Design Anthology persuaded me that it was a good idea, and that vision has been as sharp as it has been unwavering. Suzy and our art director Frankie Yuen came up with an inspired look for the magazine, and it’s a style that has received plenty of appreciative comments from readers and supporters. Equally as pleasing to me as the team member tasked with textual oversight, though, is that…

A Frame for Life: The Designs of StudioIlse by Ilse Crawford and Edwin Heathcote (Rizzoli) Autodidact Ilse Crawford, creative director of StudioIlse, was the founding editor of British Elle Decoration magazine before establishing the Department of Man and Well-Being at the Design Academy Eindhoven and then finally establishing her own design studio in 2003. Since then, with more than 100 projects under her belt, Crawford has consistently challenged our ideas on the design of the built environment and the power of design to alter and improve our way of life and well-being. Crawford’s philosophy of human-centric design and building for longevity permeates all her projects. In her first retrospective, A Frame for Life, Crawford has selected several projects she feels illustrate the studio’s thought processes and design philosophy most eloquently.…

When it first appeared, the pop-up format was simple: small start-ups took advantage of temporary spaces with the bare minimum of furnishings, assuming that interior design was too much work for such a fleeting experience — by the time word spread, the pop-up would be gone. More recently, however, even well-established businesses are experimenting with bold designs of temporary spaces driven in part by the need to compete with increased online sales. The evolution has required a shift for designers away from creating traditional spaces that are mainly about transactions to places that offer an element of discovery. One of the savviest, fashion powerhouse Louis Vuitton, had an interesting take on the modern pop-up when late last year it unveiled its ultra-exclusive L’Appartement. The 350-square-metre home-from-home set within a private…

Folklore decrees that hidden treasure is unearthed in the darkest caverns, the deepest seas or buried chests. However, here in Hong Kong there’s an exception to the rule. Stroll around the prestigious Mid-Levels residential district and you’ll encounter a romantic 1950s apartment building that could take you by surprise. Ride the quaint cage-door elevator to the top floor and you’ll discover the flamboyant home of Jenny-lyn Hart Boden: interior designer, collector, fashion stylist and all-round tastemaker. In this rare jewel sandwiched between the brutal architecture and the massive monoliths that form Hong Kong, Jenny-lyn has curated her prized collection of mid-20th century classic furniture, contemporary art and other cherished objects. Arriving in London from Australia some 18 years ago determined to succeed in Europe’s elitist design world, the stylish Australian…

Lily Jencks is one busy lady. Through her landscape architectural practice Lily Jencks Studio, she is working on green spaces for developers in Shanghai, India and Turkey. She is teaching architecture at London’s Architectural Association. She is on the board of Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre, a supportive drop-in environment with branches in the UK and Hong Kong founded by her mother, Margaret Keswick Jencks. She got married last summer. And she has been travelling non-stop, including a 24-hour flyby of Hong Kong in November to give a talk at Maggie’s in Tuen Mun upon the release of The Gardener’s Garden, published by Phaidon. ‘I love Hong Kong!’ says Jencks as she kicks off her shoes and relaxes after the talk, which included a tour of the garden at Maggie’s that…

Casa Capriz, Hong Kong Casa Capriz, one of the few vintage furniture stores in Hong Kong, has moved premises to Aberdeen Street. The new Central location still has their unique selection of mid-20th century Italian pieces (furniture, lighting, posters, etc.), but now you can enjoy some chocolate and a coffee by Hong Kong-based Twins while you peruse the hand-picked selection. casacapriz.com Penhaligon’s, Hong Kong The quintessentially British perfumer Penhaligon’s has recently opened a flagship store in IFC, the brand’s first ever in Hong Kong. The interior of the store, designed by London-based Fabled Studio, looks more like a gentlemen’s club or a library than a retail space. This was quite deliberate, and makes for a stylish backdrop to experience the brand’s 30-plus men’s and women’s fragrances. penhaligons.com CRITERIA, Melbourne CRITERIA,…

Fast facts Country: Thailand / Region: Central Thailand / Airport: Suvarnabhumi / Bangkok International Airport (BKK) Time: GMT +7 time zone / Currency: Thai Baht ( B / THB) / Population: 8.3 million Country Code: +66 / Area code: 02 / Official language: Thai / Power: 220V, plug types A, B, C and F About Bangkok is a city that seems to elicit extreme responses from people — they hate it or they love it. For those of us that love it, there’s a lot to love. Ever changing and ever growing, it seems to be a different city on each visit. Bangkok, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, or simply Krung Thep (as it’s known to the Thais), evolved from what was actually a small trading port during the Ayutthaya Kingdom…

Axel Vervoordt occupies a unique place in the art and design world. Esteemed collector, curator, antiquarian and world-renowned designer, his vast knowledge of art and his profound personal philosophy have resulted in a highly individual approach — and an aesthetic that has strong influences from the East. Today the award-winning Axel Vervoordt Company continues to set standards that other interior designers can only aspire to while looking on with envy at his prestigious client list. Design Anthology had the rare opportunity to meet with Vervoordt in the magical setting of his fabled 12th-century castle near Antwerp, Belgium, and at the same time spoke via conference call with his son Boris in New York. Now overseeing the daily management of the family business, Boris is well on his way to becoming…

As managing director of Hong Kong real estate and investment company Goldig and founder of design firm ACTS Studio, Carl Gouw certainly understands the impact that good design can have on a property; the work he has done on his 500-square-metre home, which he shares with his parents in Jardine’s Lookout, Hong Kong is testimony to this. A lavishly decked out, sophisticated gem that whisks one away from Hong Kong into a classical European mise en scène, this project, which Gouw worked on together with architect Roger Hackworth of Collaborate, is an ode to refinement. Gouw, who has been interested in architecture since he was a child, says he fell in love with hotels and began studying spaces and design trends at the age of ten. In his twenties, he…

Greetings from W Doha, a three-night stopover on my way home from Istanbul. Recently a little bit tired of cocooning myself in a gated community, I deliberately picked the W as it is right within the ‘new downtown’ area of Doha: West Bay. It’s become my usual ritual to explore a city by wandering around the neighbourhood of the hotel I stay in, so I asked the concierge to provide me a local map highlighting the interesting places in the vicinity of the hotel. To my surprise, I was given a map of the whole country of Qatar with a section on Doha — as a middle-aged man of 52, I could barely read any details on it! Even more unexpectedly, he advised me not to walk around the neighbourhood…