Table of contents for May-2018 in Wallpaper

HENRIETTA THOMPSON Writer For our look at factories of the future (page 120), Thompson made for Swarovski’s swish new Manufaktur building in Austria, to interview group chairman Markus Langes-Swarovski and Snøhetta co-founder Kjetil Trædal Thorsen. ‘The conversation quickly turned visionary,’ she says. ‘We went from designing a building to the evolution of the human race in three minutes.’ Thompson has grand plans of her own, the launch of a new interior design and art platform, Harth. PHILLIP K SMITH III Artist Working from his Californian studio, RISD-educated artist Phillip K Smith III produces light-based installations set against great expanses of desert, on public display from Los Angeles to Nashville. He designed our limited-edition cover using photographs of the desert and sky, a teaser for the new mirrored installations he has…

During Salone del Mobile, curator Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, co-founder of Beirut’s Carwan Gallery and the Nomad design fair, will be taking over a 19th-century palazzo historically dubbed the ‘house of demons’ to present an exhibition dedicated to collectible design. Located in Milanese design district 5Vie, Unsighted will feature the work of seven international designers – including Jeonghwa Seo from South Korea, Omer Arbel from Canada, and Eric Schmitt from France – all asked to think beyond the usual restrictions of space, if not time. Also among the ranks is Italian designer Roberto Sironi, who has worked with local foundry Fonderia Artistica Battaglia and Piemonte-based craftsman Simone Desirò to create a series of furniture pieces on the theme of ruination. The ‘Ruins’ collection will be the second series of three he is…

Gearing up to be the sale of the century, this May, Christie’s will offer the Peggy and David Rockefeller collection for auction in New York. Liberally sprinkled with headline-grabbing Picassos and Monets, the collection is a vast haul of not just fine art but also furniture, ceramics, silverware and various examples of domestic finery, with all proceeds of the sale going to charity. To spike the interest of younger collectors – perhaps priced out of the fine art sales but daring enough to match a Louis XV walnut bergère with an ‘LC2’ chair – Christie’s enlisted the help of American photographer Stephen Kent Johnson and our US editor Michael Reynolds. Kent Johnson charged up the ring flash while Reynolds applied his expert touch with finely turned legs and plumped upholstery…

Moments after the Maison Margiela Artisanal show in January, artist Jessi Reaves stood shyly to one side of the crowd. Tall with fine features and an American freshness reflecting her Oregon roots, she was the last person one expected to find behind the raw, hulking installation in the centre of the room. Reaves is the first artist that Margiela’s creative director, John Galliano, has ever asked to present a new work as a backdrop to a collection. Discovering her artwork in New York late last year, he was stunned. ‘There is an uncanny similarity to our creative process,’ he says. ‘A connection, a vibration that drew me instinctively to her world.’ Originally an upholsterer, Reaves is gaining attention for her deconstructed, furnitureinspired sculptures, some of which appeared at the 2017…

One minute: that’s how long it takes to create a monster. ‘I don’t recall ever being fearful of monsters as a child, so my design is childishly simple: I started with a doodle,’ says Dutch designer Maarten Baas, one of 16 creatives asked to think monstrous by the Czech glass manufacturer Lasvit. Transforming those dark imaginings into Bohemian glass, however, has taken almost two years. The project will finally be unveiled at Salone del Mobile in Milan’s Teatro Gerolamo, a neoclassical puppet theatre. Conceived by creative design strategist Stephan Hamel and Lasvit founder Leon Jakimič, the project has delivered a diverse family of monsters, from a mirror encrusted with googly eyes by the Paris-based couturier Maurizio Galante to a menacing stained-glassons from new artists. ‘Every culture and individual perceives the…

Designers have been showing a new proclivity for proportion, with trimmed tailoring cropping up on this season’s catwalks. At Chanel and Bottega Veneta, boxy cropped jackets have Swinging Sixties appeal, and measure up best against matching A-line skirts. In 1968, Yves Saint Laurent created Le Smoking, the tuxedo suit for women; this spring, the androgynous essential has been given a nip and tuck at Saint Laurent, and layered at Lanvin with skinny cigarette trousers and a longer jacket over the top. Time to try your favourite out for size. chanel.com; bottegaveneta.com; ysl.com; lanvin.com…

This elegant outdoor shower by Belgian architect Hans Verstuyft got us thinking about what else we might need for a spot of sun-soaked loafing. Hair often gets forgotten, but OWay, a new Italian botanical hair brand, is providing us with many new favourite staples, including its Sun Protective Elixir. There’s also the detergent-free New Wash by Hairstory, Davines’ replenishing Su Hair Mask, and Frédéric Malle’s hair mist, newly available in cult scent Portrait of a Lady. CABIN CLASS When one of our Handmade projects gets a new lease of life, it really floats our boat. The ‘Passage of Wood’ folly, created by Swedish architects In Praise of Shadows, Danish wood specialists Dinesen, Austrian craft association Werkraum Bregenzerwald and carpenter Oliver Beer for Handmade 2014, has been reimagined as a serene…

Andro Wekua’s Berlin studio is located on a curve of the River Spree near the Tiergarten park. This used to be quite a backwater, but escalating property prices and proximity to the river have turned it into prime real estate turf. The studio is in the remains of an old red brick building, a surviving wing of a larger industrial complex, surrounded by seven construction sites with billboards for future co-working spaces and relocation invitations. As he shows me up to his secondfloor atelier above a small printing works (and opposite the studio of British artist Angela Bulloch), Wekua explains he doesn’t expect to be here much longer – ‘the owner is here almost every day with potential buyers’ – but he doesn’t seem unduly concerned. Wekua is aged just…

Over the last two decades London-based art director Tom Hingston has worked with The Rolling Stones, Nick Cave, U2, The Chemical Brothers and Young Fathers, as well as collaborating with David Bowie on his last three music videos. Perhaps his best-known work, though, are the covers created for Massive Attack with band member and artist Robert Del Naja and the photographer Nick Knight, including 1998’s Mezzanine (part of MoMA’s permanent collection) and 100th Window, from 2003. To celebrate his studio’s 20th anniversary, Hingston has joined forces with Paul Smith to create ‘Process’, an exhibition to open in Smith’s flagship store on London’s Albemarle Street in May. It will include 15 of Hingston’s album covers, reworked as lenticulars. Del Naja, Nick Cave and The Chemical Brothers have also worked with Hingston…

‘Miguel Castro Leñero is one of the most important artists working in Mexico today,’ says Alexis Fabry, deputy artistic director of Hermès’ home universe, who first discovered the work of the Mexico City-based painter in the early 1990s. Castro Leñero is known for his graphical representations of objects and natural elements, and Fabry was especially taken ‘by the way he uses animal forms and imprints’. Hermès has now given a new life to the artist’s stylised animal silhouettes – specifically his horses, to reflect the French brand’s equestrian credentials – on a trilogy of blankets to be unveiled at Salone del Mobile. Each is made of bicoloured, hand-dyed double cashmere decorated with block prints, appliqué and embroidery. To create each horse outline, one single hand-cut piece of cashmere was sewn…

On a wet March day in a small industrial town, under an hour north-west of Venice, Ronan Bouroullec is in the main hall of a vast glass-casting factory belonging to London-based brand WonderGlass. Here, basking in the glow of the furnaces, he is standing atop a platform to get a bird’s-eye view of the factory floor below, where a team of craftsmen wrestle with vats of molten glass, expertly working it into simple but elegant shapes. The sculptural designs are new pieces by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for WonderGlass, set to be unveiled during Milan’s Salone del Mobile in a matter of weeks. Although it is the Paris-based brothers’ first collaboration with the brand, it’s not their first with its co-founder, Maurizio Mussati, who recently completed an eight-year tenure at…

Ube cheesecake Serves 10-12 450g frozen, grated ube (purple yam), defrosted180g caster sugar2 tbs cornflour150g digestive biscuits1 tbs dark brown sugar2 tsp ground ginger85g butter600g cream cheese1 tsp vanilla paste3 large eggs150ml sour cream Line a 21cm springform cake tin with baking paper. Wrap the ube in a flat, well-sealed foil parcel, then steam for 25 minutes. Allow to cool. Combine the caster sugar and cornflour in a bowl. Heat the oven to 170°C. Put the biscuits, brown sugar and ginger in a plastic bag and crush to fine crumbs with a rolling pin. Melt the butter in a pan over a low heat. Add the crumbs and stir until well combined. Transfer to the cake tin and press down with the back of a spoon. Place the tin on…

Wallpaper’s hot pick of the latest global goings-on At this year’s Salone del Mobile, oenophiles are advised to hot-foot it to The Surreal Table, an exhibition curated by architect Davide Fabio Colaci and Italian winery Santa Margherita. Five designers were invited to create objects inspired by dining and drinking rituals, and among them are these vessels by Analogia Project. Crafted in coloured Murano glass, their zoomorphic shapes echo rhytons, ancient drinking vessels typically shaped like animals. The Surreal Table, 17 April-18 May, via Durini 24, Milan…

church’s has turned tradition on its head, reimagining its classic pembrey penny loafer design in a prismatic range of shades, including bold hues such as inky blue, cherry red and bright orange. and it’s not the only one introducing rainbow shades to mens’ wardrobes this season. for a colour-blocked take on tailoring, we will be pairing our pembrey loafers with spring’s spectrum of brightly-coloured suits by the likes of paul smith, Z Zegna and pal Zileri. church-footwear.com OUT OF OFFICE|ERIC FISCHL BODIL BLAIN SHARES COFFEE AND CREATIVE SMALL TALK WITH… American art’s master of suburban intrigue BB: How do you take your coffee? EF: I love my coffee. I have a machine and use Roseline Coffee. People call your work cinematic. But is it? There’s a difference between a cinematic…

Last year Birkenstock debuted its Birkenstock Box, a mobile retail concept designed by Gonzalez Haase and featuring stacked freight containers, which act as blank boxes for the design whims of Birkenstock’s collaborators, ranging from Andreas Murkudis in Berlin to Barney’s New York. Now the Box is pitching up outside Rick Owens’ La Brea Avenue boutique in California. ‘Retail experiences must deliver the unexpected,’ says Birkenstock CEO Oliver Reichert. ‘The Box is about creating a holistic experience, a creative platform and meeting place where product and architecture interact.’ Rick Owens has raised the roof on Reichert’s immersive aim, overhauling the interior of the Birkenstock Box with organic elements inspired by ‘a Joseph Beuys temple’. The two-storey space features mirrored-and army felt blanket-lined walls, and is dotted with interior design objects, including…

For most architects, leaving university means kissing the crazy ideas and impossible designs goodbye and buckling down to pragmatism and compromise; not for Ellen van Loon. The Dutch architect, a partner at Rem Koolhaas’ OMA since 2002, approaches her projects with the same ambition, uncompromising passion and conceptual rigour she had when she was a student back at TU Delft. And what’s more, she is extremely adept at bringing those ‘crazy’ projects to life. Following a strong concept is at the core of van Loon’s work, a quality that makes her buildings both very easy to explain, but also, often, pretty challenging to actually build. ‘I have always been driven by concepts; things like mood boards and styles came much later for me,’ she says, sitting in a nondescript Rotterdam…

‘From our first conversation with the client, we thought this would be a conventional weekend house,’ says architect Fernanda Canales of Casa Bruma, a remarkable retreat located just a couple of hours outside Mexico City. ‘However, when we visited the remote and rural site, it was hard to even work out the shape of the plot,’ she continues. ‘There were no markings and just so much vegetation.’ Canales, who collaborated on the project with architect Claudia Rodríguez, a former fellow student who now works with Taller de Operaciones Ambientales in Mexico City, realised they needed another strategy. ‘For a start, we couldn’t remove any existing trees, and it was hard to find a single space on the site longer than five metres,’ she recalls. ‘So we decided to develop the…

Trading places VINTRY & MERCER, LONDON London’s ancient guilds may no longer be the powerful mercantile bodies they once were, but their influence continues to be felt in the British capital in unexpected ways. Set between the 14th-century Vintry and Mercer guildhalls, the newly minted Vintry & Mercer hotel effortlessly pits a new eight-storey building against the area’s old-world patina and the looming bulk of the City’s skyscapers. Appropriately, Dexter Moren Associates has dressed the 92 rooms and public spaces in fine silk, textiles and leather, old trading maps and ceramic tiles. Indoor plants and green hues subtly reference the vast pastures that once surrounded the area. Warmer days will lure guests upstairs to the roof-terrace restaurant, with its charcoal oven, farm-to-plate menu and views of St Paul’s Cathedral and…

Osvaldo Borsani was born at the crossroads of craft and modern manufacturing. The son of a cabinetmaker, he trained as an architect in Milan in the 1930s, when the city was a centre of technological advancement and flourishing artistry, with the economic momentum to push both at speed. A creative pioneer, technical innovator and entrepreneur, he would come to revolutionise the world of contract furniture. With his twin brother Fulgenzio, Borsani developed a new productive formula based on two tenets: ‘an original idea’ and ‘fulfilling a need’. Their vision took shape in 1953, when they founded Tecno, and started manufacturing Italian design on an industrial scale. The use of innovative technology gave Tecno furniture a distinct elegance that came to characterise the brand. Tecno’s focus under the direction of the…

Upstairs at the east London HQ of British furniture brand Established & Sons, Sebastian Wrong crosses his long legs and perches on a ‘Quilt’ sofa, designed for the brand by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. Assistants are sent away so we can talk alone. ‘I’m not Kim Jongun,’ he laughs, although, coincidentally, the sofa is a shade of North Korean red, and the company Wrong co-founded, left and rejoined last spring has had as tumultuous a past as many a wayward state. During this year’s Salone, in his resumed role as Established & Sons’ design director, Wrong is launching the brand’s first new collection for six years. It’s a big moment for the rock ‘n’ roll furniture manufacturer, which, since its birth 13 years ago, has suffered the departure of its…

101 Copenhagen Tel: 45.31 33 72 56 (Denmark) 101cph.com 1882 Ltd 1882ltd.com 4D Model Shop Tel: 44.20 7264 1284 (UK) modelshop.co.uk A Agapecasa Tel: 39.03 7625 0311 (Italy) agapecasa.it Alessi Tel: 44.20 7518 9090 (UK) alessi.com Alma Leather Tel: 44.20 7377 0762 (UK) almaleather.co.uk Amara Tel: 44.800 587 7645 (UK) amara.com Antique Mirror Tel: 39.05 7731 4479 (Italy) antiquemirror.it Apparatus Tel: 1.646 527 9732 (US) apparatusstudio.com Artel Tel: 420.271 732 161 (Czech Republic) artelglass.com AYTM aytm.dk B B&B Italia Tel: 39.03 1795 111 (Italy) bebitalia.com Baxter Tel: 39.031 35999 (Italy) baxter.it BD Barcelona Tel: 34.93 4570 052 (Spain) bdbarcelona.com Boss Tel: 44.20 7734 7919 (UK) hugoboss.com Bottega Veneta Tel: 44.20 7838 9394 (UK) bottegaveneta.com Brunello Cucinelli Tel: 44.20 7287 4347 (UK) brunellocucinelli.com Burberry Tel: 44.20 3402 1444 (UK) burberry.com C…

#92 Mundane materials, from wood scraps to soft toys, have been transformed into distinctly Brazilian furniture in the hands of Humberto and Fernando Campana. Appropriately, the Paulistano brothers serve up a double dose of local culture for this month’s recipes. Humberto offers us bacalhau à Gomes de Sá (salt cod), like their grandma used to make, while Fernando opts for beef brochette with mushrooms, potatoes and béarnaise sauce, an off-the-menu dish from São Paulo restaurant La Casserole. ‘It combines a staple of French cuisine with the everyday food of the Brazilian Sertão,’ he says. Shown here in deconstructed form, their dishes are proof that, like the best furniture, great food can come from humble origins. lacasserole.com.br. For the recipes, see Wallpaper.com…