Air France by my idol Andree Putman
Donald Judd is one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century. He began as a painter and moved to more geometric 3-dimensional work. Judd was also a thought leader and wrote extensively on the importance of land preservation, empirical knowledge, and engaged citizenship.
He is most well known for being part of the artistic movement in the early 70s in New York, establishing a community on spring street (now SOHO) before moving to Marta, Texas. Judd escaped to Marfa to find “more space to think” and ultimately created giant works of art that bask beneath vast desert skies. In the years since, Marfa has emerged as a mecca for art tourism.
An important aspect to Judd’s 3D work was the furniture he designed. Fundamental to Judd’s designs are his specifications regarding dimensions, material type, finish, and construction of each piece. Judd specified that the quality remain high, a considered approached given that fabrication of the furniture involved the expertise and handwork of both local carpenters and master craftsmen. He selected fabricators he entrusted with the interpretations of his designs, working directly with them to develop and refine his desired level of quality.
Art Deco Palm Beach as seen on Worth Ave. The symmetry, ribbed metal and abstract decoration of circles and diamonds on the banding are all stable features of the Art Deco architectural movement. The technological advancements of the ‘20s through the ‘40s produced a style that revered the “machine” and incorporated elements and materiality of airplane and automobile design. The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb also influenced this era of design, and Egyptian motifs are often woven into Art Deco buildings and interiors. The results are crisp, elegant, worldly and modern.
Probably one of my favourite dining spaces ever, by Nina Campbell’s daughter Rita Konig. Nina is most famous for her line of floral fabrics still in production today, she designed interiors for Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart and members of the British royal family.
More interiors using Donald Kaufman’s custom paints.
Between 1958 and 1973 Kettle’s Yard was the home of Jim and Helen Ede. In the 1920s and 30s Jim had been a curator at the Tate Gallery in London.
At Kettle’s Yard Jim carefully positioned these artworks alongside furniture, glass, ceramics and natural objects, with the aim of creating a harmonic whole. His vision was of a place that should not be “an art gallery or museum, nor … simply a collection of works of art reflecting my taste or the taste of a given period. It is, rather, a continuing way of life from these last fifty years, in which stray objects, stones, glass, pictures, sculpture, in light and in space, have been used to make manifest the underlying stability.” Kettle’s Yard was originally conceived with students in mind. Jim kept ‘open house’ every afternoon of term, personally guiding visitors around his home. In 1966 he gave the House and its contents to the University of Cambridge. In 1970, three years before the Edes retired to Edinburgh, the House was extended, and an exhibition gallery added. The House is by and large as Jim left it. There are artworks in every corner, and there are no labels.
Prada 1999
Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was one of the twentieth century’s most important and critically acclaimed sculptors. Through a lifetime of artistic experimentation, he created sculptures, gardens, furniture and lighting designs, ceramics, architecture, and set designs. His work, at once subtle and bold, traditional and modern, set a new standard for the reintegration of the arts.
Noguchi, an internationalist, traveled extensively throughout his life. (In his later years he maintained studios both in Japan and New York.) He discovered the impact of large-scale public works in Mexico, earthy ceramics and tranquil gardens in Japan, subtle ink-brush techniques in China, and the purity of marble in Italy. He incorporated all of these impressions into his work, which utilized a wide range of materials, including stainless steel, marble, cast iron, balsa wood, bronze, sheet aluminum, basalt, granite, and water. Via the Noguchi Museum
One of the most iconic interiors of all time, Peter Marino’s Jean Michel Frank-inspired apartment for Giorgio Armani in Milan. Armani asked for his designer to be inspired by Paris in the ‘30s, Marino ran with that reference and followed the disciplined and refined interior of JMF’s 1938 Parisian apartment. The walls are lined with wood or parchment tiles, and the monochromatic furniture employs linens, leathers and silks in subtle hues.
Mies van der Rohe’s glasshouse for Edith Farnsworth- would be a cliche if it wasn’t so perfect.
Elsa Peretti’s apartment by Horst P. Horst. Peretti began designing silverware and jewelry in the ‘70s and ‘80s and was introduced to Tiffany and Co. by her good friend Halston. Peretti’s work for Tiffany propelled the established brand forward, and brought a modern, distinct and fun style to the jewelry house.
An all time favourite bathroom by Vincent van Duysen, with tuck away detailing designed within an old townhouse, with former notaries offices.
A pair of pedestals from Montreal’s @bruisesgallery
Some spaces never go out of style, Jack Ceglic and Joel Dean’s (of Dean and Deluca) Soho apartment Kitchen, photographed for Manhattan Style, 1990.
Jean Michel Frank: the self-taught decorator radically influenced the shift away from ornate and highly decorative to pared back minimalism in the 1920s. He designed spaces that were considered almost bare at the time, and created furniture from materials novel to homes of the era. By the 1930s, his designed became more influenced by the neoclassical and Napoleon III style. Michel Frank employed renowned artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Paul Rodocanachi, Jean Hugo, Emilio Terry and Christian Bérard to create the furniture he designed. His life was riddled with tragedy though, by the 1940s he is in New York City and ends his shining career by suicide. His aesthetics and furniture continue to influence high design today.
Vincent Van Duysen early work
The Parisian home of Eileen Gray, surprisingly warm for the modernist industrial designer and sometimes architect. Gray was an Irish born designer and she became a leader of the modernist movement in the ‘30s and ‘40s in Europe. She is remembered for her industrial furniture design which is still in production today. And while she was closely connected to Le Corbusier and practiced architecture according to his principles, she understood the need for the softer elements of design and the important of the interior plan. She wrote “The interior plan should not be the incidental result of the facade; it should led to a complete harmonious, and logical life." This idea was progressive even beyond the modernists she worked alongside.
Nap time in a cream puff.
Vintage Ralph Lauren marble and brass lamp, sold @woven_homeware
Through my preservation work Ive discovered true craftsman and artists who rely on traditional building and painting methods. The results are worlds apart from many modern building materials and technology. Paint mixologists are some of the most interesting professionals in historic preservation. Donald Kaufman and his wife Taffy Dahl are painters and sculptures that have brought their craft to developing custom colours for architects and historic properties throughout the states. They develop each colour custom, and their method allow miniscule particles of pigment suspended in skeins of paint to exhibit a spectral subtlety – blues and purples peeking out of reds and yellows. The effect is one of color luminosity – of light coming from within.
In the second half of the 20th century German porcelain manufacturer Rosenthal commissioned a set of modernists known for their avant-gardism to design the Studio-Line. What resulted was a diverse group of designs for vases and place settings. The white vase on this mantle (called Open Lotus) was designed by Rosemunde Nairac for her Op-Art line.
Know the name: Charles Rennie Mackintosh. These photos are from the his own apartment he shared with his wife Margaret. Today, Mackintosh is perhaps Scotland's most famous architect but he lived in relative obscurity during his lifetime. Born in Glasgow in 1868, the architect, artist and designer was a pioneer of modernism, blending Scottish and Japanese influences with art nouveau to create his own unique aesthetic.
Although influential, Mackintosh built relatively few projects, with his best known commissions – including the Glasgow School of Art, Hill House and Willow Tea Rooms – coming in a short 10-year period between 1895 and 1905.
At many of his projects Mackintosh designed not only the building, but also, working with his wife Margaret Macdonald, the furnishings and items of furniture, including the Argyle Chair.
Due to a lack of commissions, by his 50s he had abandoned architecture to concentrate on painting watercolours. Mackintosh died of cancer aged 60 in 1928.
Andree Putman’s apartment for Yvon Lambert, renowned Parisian art dealer since the late ‘60s. Ever the modernist, this is still one of Putman’s most spare interiors.
Woven headquarters/home ✨
After meeting at the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, architect Robert Mallet-Stevens collaborated with sculptural artists the Martel Brothers to design their townhomes and studio space.
Hotel Martel as it would be called, was completed in 1927, part of an overall residential plan by the architect in the Auteuil area where Mallet-Stevens had already completed several houses. The residence been restored and conserved by its current owner, art/antiquities dealer Eric Touchaleaume, and is now the most complete example of Mallet-Stevens’ residential work.
A table by Paul Dupre-Lafon, a Beaux-Arts trained architect, he worked throughout the late ‘20s and into in ‘50s. His furniture and interior designs were influenced by the burgeoning artistic style of Cubism. His works use bold lines and strong materials, balanced with soft curves. Dupre-Lafon designed pieces for Hermes, and wrote extensively about design later in his life.
Parisian Art Deco designer Jean Royère produced lighting that is both perfectly avant garde yet classical. His work from the ‘30s onward is considered the “Hermes of interior design”.
Eileen Grey, modernist designer alongside marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier and Mies van der rohe, is often mistakenly left out of the mainstream conversations on furniture design and architecture of the 1930s/40s. Grey ran a gallery that showcased her own furniture and later in life worked as an architect to create spaces that feel current and edgy even today.
Andree Putman’s design for the office of the French Minister of Culture in the Elyee Palace. Putman became a great dame of French design in the 1980s and is attributed as being the first designer of boutique hotel when she worked on the Morgan Hotel in New York City in 1984.
The house in Sardinia, called La Cupola, was designed and built by the Italian architect Dante Bini for Monica Vitti and her then boyfriend, the director Michelangelo Antonioni, in the late ’60s. Abandoned and a little destroyed, somehow the beauty is even more apparent in the raw.
The bathroom at the Villa of Greta and Fritz Tugendhat in the Czech Republic designed by Mies van der Rohe over the years 1928–1929. Interesting, In August 1992 Tugendhat Villa played host to negotiations between the prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia regarding separating Czechoslovakia. The house is considered one of the most iconic in Europe with its use of exquisite and unique materials like onyx, ochre and travertine.
Architectural Digest France