Neutral colors, natural materials, and minimal elements define the Danish hygge concept.

Whether or not hygge is here to stay is anyone’s guess, but there can be no doubt that this Danish concept, which includes a contemporary interior design esthetic, is most definitely here. Somewhat nebulous by definition, hygge (pronounced who-guh, and loosely translated from the Danish as ‘cozy’) or hyggelig has Scandinavia written all over it—which is to say, it endorses restraint, tranquility, and community, and, as such, is wholly inviting to those of us inhabiting a considerably less tranquil culture. Lately, spreading the word on hygge has become something of a winter design obsession, yielding an endless stream of casually attractive vignettes, replete with chunky blankets, hot cups of cocoa, springs of herbs, and loads of all-around homespun goodness.

Hand applied workmanship and textured layers are essential to hygge, exemplified by casually draped chunky knitted blankets.

Home—or, more accurately, refuge—is, in fact, a key component of hygge, no doubt owing to Denmark’s interminable winters, and how little incentive they provide to leave home. Staying in, pulling close, and keeping the elements at bay all work together neatly to foster home-bound indulgences, like textural richness,  home cooked meals, the flicker of candlelight, and the kind of down home visual elegance we normally (and enviably) associate with Scandinavia. In other words, separating hygge from what we’ve come to associate with Denmark’s esthetic tradition is very nearly impossible.

Humble, non-digital indulgences, like a perfectly brewed cup of tea and thoughtfully chosen accoutrements, illustrate the art of hygge.

Not surprisingly, though the origins of hygge are a bit deeper than the current craze belies, speaking to something more emotional and cultural than purely visual, and extending beyond the home to overall social connectivity. “When Danes say that a social gathering is hyggelig, it also means that no one will discuss opposite opinions about politics, the economic development, or raising children,” says social anthropologist and hygge expert, Jeppe Trolle Linnet. “Conflicts or conflicting opinions are not perceived as hyggelig. Should someone disagree on a subject and a discussion start, you can be sure that it will be put to an end with a quick remark.”

A muted color palette, wool carpet, faux fur accessories, and fresh flowers make for a calm snapshot of hygge.

Modern design trends, however, tap into something a bit more immediate, and the current fixation on hygge offers a timely excuse for combating the coldest months with sumptuous blankets and hot tea, infusing dark days with the golden glow of candles, and ditching digital devices for simple analog pleasures. If all this sounds suspiciously like good old winter common sense—and looks a whole lot like plain old Nordic good taste—to you, it does to us, too. But, hey, we can think of worse things than pouring over beautifully composed home interiors during long winter evenings.

Credits: Your Danish Life, H. Skjalm P., Ohhio, Elle Decoration UK, OhEgihtOhNine

In Manhattan’s Union Square subway station, a display of Post-It notes became a visual protest against the results of the November 8 Presidential election.

Say this for psychic turmoil: it stirs the creative soul. From Hemingway to Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf to Frida Kahlo, the most powerful artistic expression rarely emanates from a place of equilibrium and serenity. For many Americans—New Yorkers, in particular—neither equilibrium nor serenity comes easily, and, in the days and weeks following the Presidential election, emotional dissonance reached an apex not seen since 9/11. And so, Subway Therapy provided a highly original, if ultimately feeble, salve. Matthew ‘Levee’ Chavez, a New York-based artist, is the founder of the Subway Therapy project, a collaborative endeavor which requires the participation of passing strangers, and which predates the election—but sticks to its original premise: give frustrated and perpetually vexed subway riders Post-It notes and a pen, and they will write.

The brainchild of Matthew ‘Levee’ Chavez, the post-election Subway Therapy project encouraged New Yorkers to voice their dissent over the election outcome.

“When people are overflowing with emotion, help channel their energy into something good,” explains Chavez. “Subway Therapy is about making people smile, laugh, and feel less stress. I believe people grow and learn through dynamic conversation.” With stress at its zenith on November 9th, Levee parked himself in the tunnel of the 14th Street subway stop in Manhattan, and encouraged New Yorkers of disparate origins—but an overwhelmingly single worldview—to record their outrage and sorrow, dissension and shock on tiny colored paper squares; and then, one by one, adhere them to an endless expanse of tiled subway wall.

Stretching the length of a wall in Union Square station in Manhattan, a mosaic of Post-It notes containing personal expressions about the Presidential election.

Part art piece, part theatre, part protest movement, the post-Election Subway Therapy project remained, ultimately a classic New York City enterprise: a spontaneous collective experience, a portrait in resourcefulness, an imaginative stab at quelling the chaos of an unthinkable moment. It was also, surprisingly enough, quite pretty, presenting a vivid mosaic of color that, for a few dreary weeks, enlivened the grey and harsh florescence of subterranean city life, while beckoning even the most harried subway traveler to stop and read, if not write.

Messages of affirmation and hope mingled with less optimistic declarations.

Sticky notes spread to other subway stops, most notably the Union Square station, one of downtown’s major hubs, which played canvas to an ever-thickening paper display of aphorisms and affirmations, exhortations and exclamations, each hastily scribbled in marker or pen or pencil. Governor Andrew Cuomo made a visit (and a written contribution), and scores of tourists took it all in, jaws dropped, reading, filming, saturating their Instagram feeds. Like many a New York City experience, Subway Therapy proved ephemeral, the notes methodically taken down in mid-December, their impact duly noted and recorded for posterity. The New-York Historical Society stepped in to preserve a portion of the Union Square display, and then offered up its own entrance wall to keep the project alive through Inauguration Day. Only in New York.

Post-It notes form a mosaic of color in an otherwise grey NYC subway station.

Images: Promila Shastri

Calling it a refreshing and revitalizing shade, Pantone has selected Greenery as its 2017 Color of the Year.

After choosing TWO colors as its 2016 Color of the Year, Pantone went the traditional route this year, selecting Pantone 15-0343, better known as Greenery, as its 2017 Color of the Year. “Greenery is symbolic of new beginnings…a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew,” explained the color authority, adding that “Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.”

While last year’s dual selection of Rose Quartz and Serenity—pink and blue—brought with it distinct political and social overtones related to gender roles and gender itself, Greenery makes a more subtle inference to current events. “The more submerged people are in modern life, the greater their innate craving to immerse themselves in the physical beauty and inherent unity of the natural world,” Pantone announced. Executive Director Leatrice Eiseman was more specific: “Greenery bursts forth to provide us with the reassurance we yearn for amid a tumultuous social and political environment…satisfying our growing desire to rejuvenate and revitalize.” My, don’t we all wish a color could do all that?

Pantone 15-0343, or Greenery, is the 2017 Color of the Year

Via Pantone

In the newly refurbished rotunda of London’s Tate Britain, an upside-down Christmas tree installation by artist Shirazeh Houshiary.

London’s gone mad for Christmas trees. How else to explain what’s happneing all over town with evergreens—namely, a trio of festive installations that pay homage to the pine tree in ways best described as unusual.

To begin with, there’s the Tate Britain’s upside down Christmas tree, an installation by the Iranian-born artist Shirazeh Houshiary, currently on view in the gallery’s refurbished rotunda. Centered and held aloft by wires, the tree is natural and unadorned, save its roots, which, having been given a gold-dipped makeover, remain the installation’s falshiest and most ornamental part. Explains the artist, “I would like us to contemplate that the pine tree is one of the oldest species and recognize the roots are the source of its continued stability, nourishment and longevity,” Houshiary, a celebrated sculptor, continues a Tate tradition of artist-commissioned Christmas tree interpretations—a tradition started in 1988, and put on hold in 2013 as a massive renovation project commenced. Tate Britain’s Director, Alex Farquharson, is pleased. “This tree fits the new space perfectly, allowing a different generation to experience the majesty of Houshiary’s work in the striking setting of the new entrance and staircase.”

In the lobby of London’s Claridige’s hotel, a Christmas Tree installation by designers Jony Ive and Marc Newson greet visitors.

Across town in tony Mayfair, the Claridge’s hotel lobby has been given over to an immersive Christmas tree experience created by Apple’s design gurus, Jony Ive and Marc Newson. “Our aim was to create an all-enveloping magical experience that celebrates our enormous respect for tradition while recognizing our excitement about the future and things to come,” say the designers. To that end, Ive and Newson leverage both mother nature and modern technology for their seasonal installation: an ethereal forest of real birch trees, glowing boxes of photographed birch trees, artificial snow, and an orchestra of colored lights, all of which converge for a moody, magical tableau which visitors can traverse for a fleeeting few weeks.

British artist Alex Chinneck has created a sculpture that appears to show a Christmas tree ensconced in a block of ice.

Elsewhere in London—in the city’s King’s Cross neighborhood, to be exact—British artist Alex Chinneck has created another art piece in which a Christmas Tree figures prominently. Fighting Fire with Ice Cream is, in typical Chinneck fashion, an optical illusion in which a real Christmas tree, measuring 17 feet high, appears to be encased in a huge block of ice. The ice, in question, however, is actually a carved resin sculpture into which the tree is ensconced, and the melted section at the installation’s bottom is fashioned from wax. Explains the artist, “I was thinking about a seasonally relevant material and landed on the idea, like a fly-in-an-ice-cube.”

Via Dezeen

Named one of the most influential photographs in history by Time Magazine, this image of Stahl House was created by Julius Shulman in 1960.

A ravishing black-and-white photograph of Stahl House—an enduring symbol of modernist architecture—takes its place amongst portraits of Che Guevara and Demi Moore in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Images of All Time. One of only 3 man-made objects featured in Time’s 100 selections (the Hindenberg airship and Montana’s Fort Peck Damn are the other two), Stahl House is also one of the few aspirational shots featured in a roundup of painfully potent landmark moments extracted from America’s story—replete with wars, political unrest, famine, AIDS, and 9/11. In such weighty company, this iconic image of Stahl House—the most famous and widely disseminated photo from Julius Shulman’s architectural portfolio —is a welcome respite of breathtaking beauty, one that, according to Time,  ‘… perfected the art of aspirational staging, turning a house into the embodiment of the Good Life…’

It is, of course, hard to imagine anything but a good life being lived in Stahl House, aka Case Study House 22, architect Pierre Koenig’s Mid Century masterwork designed for Clarence ‘Buck’ Stahl in 1959 as part of Southern California’s Case Study Program. Nestled into the Hollywood Hills, it remains the apotheosis of modernism’s love affair with glass and concrete, geometry and elegance, killer views and steely glamour. While it may be impossible to take a bad photo of a house this camera-ready, in 1960, Julius Shulman found a way to make the penultimate Stahl House statement. Says Time, “To show the essence of this air-breaking cantilevered building, Shulman set two glamorous women in cocktail dresses inside the house, where they appear to be floating above a mythic, twinkling city. The photo…is the most successful real estate image ever taken.”

Another 1960 image of Stahl House by Julius Shulman

via Time Magazine

The Gräshoppa Floor Lamp by Greta Grossman is one of the many design reprisals undertaken by GUBI.

If you find yourself suddenly in-the-know about Greta M. Grossman, you can thank GUBI. The Danish design brand, which is equally focused on the past and present, has been instrumental in introducing a whole new generation of design enthusiasts to Grossman, a Swedish-born architect and designer who became a key contributor to the modernist movement, but whose name never gained the luster of her male contemporaries, Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. Chief amongst the iconic Mid Century products that GUBI has reprised is a collection of modern lamps designed by Grossman in the 1940s and 1950s, each piece instantly recognizable for its restrained beauty, brass detailing, and anthropomorphic form.

Shop the GUBI Greta Grossman Collection here >

The GUBI Gräshoppa Table Lamp by Greta Grossman, a 1948 design, is available in 5 colors.

Without a doubt, the most famous of Greta Grossman’s designs is the Gräshoppa collection, a suite of lamps—floor lamp, table lamp, and pendant light—that features tubular steel stem, conical steel canopy, and burnished brass detailing. The Gräshoppa Floor Lamp, in particular, has become a modern interiors staple, owing its cult status to an elegantly angled body and conical head—an immaculate composition that uncannily mimics the human form. First produced in 1947, the lamp’s free moving head and painted steel shade make for an ideal directional light source with a minimal amount of glare.

Shop the GUBI Gräshoppa Collection here >

The Cobra Table Lamp, designed in 1950, gets its name from its hooded shade.

Like many of her fellow European designers, Greta Magnussen Grossman left the continent for America, immigrating to Southern California in 1940. There, she designed more than a dozen modernists houses that bore the rectilinear, glass-glad profiles, open floor plans, and expansive views that came to define California modernism. A key (female) figure of the esthetic that would eventually be known as Mid-Century Modernism, Grossman also created a slew of innovative furniture and modern lighting designs—like her whimsical and dynamic Cobra Lamps, so named for their flexible arms and oval shades, reminiscent of a cobra’s hooded head. Grossman’s Cobra Table Lamp was a celebrated design, shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1951 as part of its Good Design exhibition series. The GUBI Cobra series includes Cobra Floor Lamp, table lamp, and wall lamp.

Shop the GUBI Cobra Collection here >

Greta Grossman’s G10 Floor Lamp, a 1950 design, has a distinctive angled stem and brass detailing.

GUBI’s reprisal of Greta Grossman’s G10 lamp collection—originally produced for the Swedish manufacturer Bergboms—is amongst the brand’s releases of long forgotten designs. A lesser known Grossman creation, the GUBI G10 Floor Lamp (a pendant lamp is also included in the G10 series), features the designer’s trademark combination of angled stem and distinctive lampshade. Simultaneously refined and industrial, the G10 Floor Lamp, first introduced in 1950, manages the Grossman feat of being both classic and innovative, vintage and of-the-moment.

Shop GUBI Modern Design here >

Created in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita, the original set of 176 emoji illustrations is now in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Don’t accuse the Museum of Modern Art of being too big for its…brushes. The famous gatekeepers of masterworks by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Warhol, announced last week that it had acquired for its permanent collection the original set of emoji, the 176 digital pictograms developed in 1999 by Japanese phone company NTT DoCoMo. This latest digital acquisition comes 6 years after the @ symbol was welcomed into the collection of MOMA’s Department of Architecture & Design—and where these original emoji will also reside.

While emoji are abundant and ubiquitous today, it’s useful to remember that in 1999, a decade before Apple’s App Store opened, they were revolutionary. The ‘Father of Emoji’ is Shigetaka Kurita, whose work for NTT DoCoMo included creating heiroglyphics for the first major mobile Internet system, and who found inspiration in China’s pictographic written lanugage and Japan’s manga tradition, among other sources. Kurita’s resulting suite of 176 charmingly rudimentary symbols would lay the groundwork for the evolution of emoji from 1999’s primitive pixel arrangements to today’s sophisticated animations.

In announcing the acquistion, Paul Galloway, the department’s Collection Specialist, waxed poetic. “These humble masterpieces of design planted the seeds for the explosive growth of a new visual language,” he wrote, adding, “Emoji tap into a long tradition of expressive visual language…augmenting both the expressive content of the text and the overall aesthetic quality of the printed page .” And you thought those smiley faces were a waste of space.

Two of the 176 pictograms that make up the original emoji collection, created for Japanese phone company NTT DoCoMo.

Via MOMA, the Wall Street Journal

Aside from their ethereal beauty, Spanish lighting designs by Arturo Alvarez have one thing in common: SIMETECH®, the proprietary patented material composed of stainless steel mesh and silicone, on display in the majority of the brand’s modern lighting designs. A highly malleable and moldable material, SIMETECH® is a key component to the sculptural, asymmetric forms that define Arturo Alvarez lighting designs—and never more so than in the brand’s recent collaboration with Valencia-based designer Hector Serrano, whose Ballet series elevates SIMETECH® to its most graceful heights yet.

Save 20% on Arturo Alvarez Modern Lighting >

The designer explains, “At the beginning, I didn’t know how to contribute with something new and I felt a mix of sensations: on one hand, insecure about my ability to accomplish the assignment, on the other hand, respect for the work done by Arturo. I decided to keep going, but taking it from the beginning as an experiment. I would try and make something attractive, but if I wasn’t able, I would simply quit.”

While Serrano’s misgivings about working with the material ultimately proved unfounded, working with SIMETECH® had its challenges—namely, its idiosyncratic tendency to do what it pleased. “…we made several prototypes, and it was a disaster: we were forcing the material to behave in an unnatural way. So I realized I had chosen a wrong way to face the project and I should start all over again.”

Save 20% on Arturo Alvarez Ballet Pendant Lamps >

Back tot he drawing board—literally—meant delving into the materials’ specific properties and allowing it to dictate the resulting shapes, rather than the other way around. “I needed to give it freedom to seek its own way. I realized the less manipulation, the better the results.” Hours of cutting and folding later, and with a slew of prototypes to show for it, Serrano arrived at the suite of 3 deceptively delicate, elegantly organic volumes that make up the Ballet series. The collection’s name, Ballet, was “a wink to the beauty of its forms and the constant dance of lights and shadows.”

See the Arturo Alvarez Ballet collection here >

Shop the Arturo Alvarez Sale, and save 20% >

 

Via Arturo Alvarez

The Innermost Stupa Collection of modern pendant lights is composed of resin.

We’re in the midst of a major Modern Lighting Sale, featuring a range of celebrated and innovative lighting brands from around the globe. Lasting through the end of October, this sale offers of up to 25% off on pendant lights, chandeliers, table lamps and modern floor lamps by well-known contemporary design names, like Tom Dixon and Louis Poulsen, and bright new stars, like Britain’s Innermost and Denmark’s Lightyears.

London-based Innermost combines ‘very British’ design sensibilities with the irreverence intrinsic to the punk music scene to arrive at a collection of contemporary lighting designs that carry unexpected wit and surprising elegance all at once. The Innermost Exclusive Modern Lighting Sale features a 20% savings on the entire collection, through October 17th only.

Shop the Exclusive Innermost 20% Off Sale >

A trio of Caravaggio Matte Pendant Lights by Lightyears

Denmark’s Lightyears is a Danish design studio known for sleek contemporary lamps that merge traditional Scandinavian design sensibilities with state-of-the-art technology. Clean forms, tactile materials, and industrial elegance are Lightyears hallmarks—characteristics evident in the best selling Caravaggio and Juicy pendant lamps.

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Pablo’s new Giraffa Table Lamp is a whimsical new design, available in 3 finishes.

The latest from San Francisco’s Pablo includes Giraffa, a whimsical table lamp that bears the stylized form of a giraffe’s neck. Available in 3 different finishes, Giraffa, along with all Pablo modern lighting designs, remains on sale at 15% off through October 31st.

Shop the Pablo Lighting Sale here >

Cirque pendant lights by Louis Poulsen, are equally suited to residential and commercial settings.

Other featured brands on sale during this month-long Modern Lighting Sale include Denmark’s venerable Louis Poulsen (above) and California’s Cerno (below). Floor lamps, ceiling and wall lights, table lamps, and modern pendant lights are all featured in this sale, which lasts through October 31st.

Shop the Modern Lighting Sale here >

The faceted Calx is a stunning new LED pendant light from Cerno

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The Annual Blu Dot Sale presents an opportunity to save on a whole range of modern furniture, lighting and home accessories by a popular contemporary brand—and includes best selling designs and new arrivals alike. The sale, which lasts through October 30th, features 20% off on all Blu Dot modern furnishings. Save on the famous Real Good Chair (above, and below), an origami-like creation that ships flat, and can be folded along perforated lines to create a comfortable dining or side chair.  Available in a range of colors, the Blue Dot Real Good Chair is a great option for dining room, home office, or guest room.

Save 20% on Blu Dot through October 30 >

Save 20% on the Blu Dot Real Good Chair >

The Blue Dot Punk Lamp cuts a compact, immensely simple profile, featuring a monochromatic powder coated steel base and shade, topped off with a solid walnut wood switch. Three finishes—charcoal, white and metallic copper—and an exceedingly reductive profile give the Punk Lamp its irresistible visual appeal, while its diffused lighting ups the ante on ambience.

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With its Mid-Century overtones, the Blu Dot Field Lounge Chair must surely be an icon-in-the-making. A curved, sculptural shell and roomy cushioned interior boldly invokes the Saarinen Womb Chair, while the powder-coated steel base adds a distinctly contemporary touch.  Designed to unlock the secret of lounging without guilt,the Blu Dot Field Lounge Chair looks cuts a handsome profile on its own, or paired with the equally stylish Field Ottoman.

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David Bowie’s eclectic art collection, which includes vintage deign pieces, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s London in November.

The late, great David Bowie left behind an art collection vast enough (some 400 items) to warrant 3 separate auctions—Sotheby’s Bowie/Collector auction takes place over 2 days this November—the last of which will feature Bowie’s collection of modern design. While the singer’s art acquisitions are, unsurprisingly, an eclectic collection of 20th Century works—paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture that Sotheby’s defines as “truly breathtaking in its scope and diversity, encompassing all the major art movements of the period.”—his design pieces focus predominantly on the Memphis Group, the Milanese Post Modern design movement founded in 1981 by the Italian architect and product designer Ettore Sottsass.

David Bowie’s Magic Act >

Ettore Sottsass’ Carlton Bookcase, an icon of 1980’s design, will be auctioned off in the Bowie/Collector sale at Sotheby’s London.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by this either. Though a serious and erudite artist, Bowie managed to nevertheless come off as someone who didn’t take himself all that seriously—an attitude one could fairly say was mirrored by Memphis. Bordering on kitsch, the collective’s colorful, cartoonish objects invited as much derision as adoration, shunned by proponents of restraint and elegance who forever lumped Memphis with myriad other dated creative expressions of the 1980’s. Bowie, though, ever marching to the beat of his own drummer, was a great admirer of Sottsass and his fellow Memphis members, and his collection illustrates this, comprising the movement’s most famous pieces—like Sottsass’ now-iconic Carlton Bookcase, above.

Martine Bedin’s Super Lamp, another Memphis Group creation, is part of the David Bowie auction at Sotheby’s

Aside from Memphis-designed pieces, Bowie collected other Italian design—like this Brionvega console, designed by Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni.

“Bowie was a voracious collector of the works of eccentric Italian designer Ettore Sottsass and the Milan-based Memphis group,” explains Sotheby’s. “The final session of the sale series will comprise pieces such as the iconic Post-Modernist ‘Casablanca’ Sideboard, from the first Memphis collection of 1981, and the unconventional record player, the RR 126 Radiophonograph, designed in 1965 by the brothers Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni for Brionvega, both of which are definitive pieces of cutting edge Italian design fitting for the most innovative and daring musician of his generation.”

‘Treetops’ floor lamp and ‘Casablanca’ sideboard, by Ettore Sottsass, both dating to 1981.

‘Big Sur’ sofa, designed by Peter Shire in 1986

‘Ivory’ table by Ettore Sottsass, 1985 and ‘Alzata’ vase by Sottsass, 1958.

‘Ashoka’ lamp, by Martine Bedin, 1981; and ‘Tigris’, ‘Nilo’ and ‘Euphrates’ vases, by Ettore Sottsass, 1985.

Enorme telephone, designed by Ettore Sottsass in 1986

Via Wallpaper, Fast Company, Sotheby’s

The Knoll Womb Chair & Ottoman by Eero Saarinen was designed in 1948.

Our Knoll Annual Sale has just begun, presenting a rare chance to own authentic, groundbreaking modern furniture by some of design world’s storied figures and rising stars. Now, through September 27th, save 15% on all Knoll chairs, tables, and storage pieces from Mid Century giants, like Florence Knoll, Harry Bertoia, and Eero Saarinen, and more recent creations by contemporary designers, like David Adjaye and Barber Osgerby. Along with a 15% reduction, this event features complimentary white glove delivery, as well. Shop the Knoll Annual Sale here >

5 Knoll Designers Everyone Should Know >

The Knoll Saarinen Oval Dining Table and chairs from the Tulip collection.

Finnish born Eero Saarinen, created dramatic architectural landmarks—the TWA Flight Center at New York’s JFK Airport and the St. Louis Gateway Arch—and transcendent furniture designs. His elegant pedestal-based Tulip collection, and the sculptural Womb Chair are amongst the most recognized symbols of  the Mid-Century era,  and, arguably, more well known than his buildings. “The underside of typical chairs and tables makes a confusing, unrestful world. I wanted to clear up the slum of legs,” Saarinen told Time magazine in 1956, when explaining his iconic pedestal table design. The graceful, sinuous base was said to be inspired  by “a drop of high viscosity liquid.”

Save 15% on the Knoll Saarinen Collection >

The Knoll anniversary edition of the Bertoia Diamond Chair, plated in 18 karat gold.

A sculptor and jewelry maker long before he became a furniture designer, Harry Bertoia nevertheless created a modern furniture collection for the ages. Bertoia’s ‘wire’ collection of chairs and lounge seating—a graceful synthesis of form and material—remains a gleaming symbol of 20th Century industrial design, introduced by Knoll in 1952, and in continuous production since. To mark what would have been the designer’s 100th birthday this year, Knoll has introduced a golden edition of the Bertoia Diamond Chair, its famous undulating shape now plated in 18 carat gold.

Save 15% on  the Knoll Bertoia Collection >

David Adjaye’s Washington Prism Collection for Knoll features the British architect’s first foray into lounge seating.

The Washington Prism Collection for Knoll marks David Adjaye’s first foray into furniture design, and transforms the British architect’s instinct for the built form into handsome objects for the home and office. A suite that consists of lounge chair, ottoman, and side table, the Washington Prism Collection applies geometry and pattern towards defining form. Designed to be viewed from any angle, each piece from the collection is meant to be as much sculptural object as functional furniture.

Save 15% on the Knoll Washington Collection by David Adjaye >

The Barber Osgerby sofa collection for Knoll features sofas, lounge chairs, and ottomans.

The sofa collection that Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have created for Knoll was introduced at the 2013 Milan Furniture Fair, and extends Knoll’s tradition of collaborating with prolific contemporary designers. A suite of streamlined sofas, lounge chairs, and ottomans, the Barber Osgerby sofa collection bears the designers’ signature elements, including geometric forms, soft contours, and subtle detailing—while effortless complementing the classic modernist profiles of Knoll’s Mid Century collection.

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Philip Johnson’s Glass House, covered in the signature dots of Japanese conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama.

The Japanese Conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama’s preoccupation with dots has been whimsically projected onto a legendary Mid Century icon: Philip Johnson’s Glass House. Marking the occasion of what would have been the architect’s 110th birthday this past July, Kusama has bedecked the entire exterior of the house with an arrangement of her signature red dots. Dots Obsession – Alive, Seeking for Eternal Hope, an installation which opened on September 1, will be on view only through September 26th, completing a trio of site-specific Kusama works on the property, dating back to the spring.

Yayoi Kusama has decorated everything, from department store windows to clothing to George Clooney, with her dot compositions, but few of her canvases (Clooney included) have been as famous—for as long—as Johnson’s iconic Glass House, completed in 1949. And, one can argue, few are more suited to her work. The house’s pure geometry and near-total transparency offers a markedly different kind of immersive experience from the artist’s ethereal “infinity room” gallery installations, allowing visitors to, according to the Glass House committee, “simultaneously see the world through the eyes of both Philip Johnson and Yayoi Kusama,”

‘Dots Obsession’ is the latest site-specific installation at the Glass House by Yayoi Kusama.

The installation of Yayoi Kusama’s Dots Obsession was a long-distance affair, with the elderly artist dispatching a team from Japan to complete the project, armed with vinyl red dots in 3 sizes, and exacting instructions from her for each dot’s placement. Applied piece by piece via scaffolding, the dots adorn the four glass sides of the house, including its doors, turning Philip Johnsons’s Glass House into, appropriately enough, a gaily wrapped modernist gift.

Arranged in a very specific pattern,  three different sizes of vinyl dots cover the exterior of Philip Johnson’s Glass House.

At 87, the once reclusive Yayoi Kusama has never been more prolific, feted with retrospectives at the world’s most famous museums—including London’s Tate Modern and New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art—over the last decade. Of her most famous motif, she has said, ‘A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement … Polka dots are a way to infinity.’

Yayoi Kusama’s Dots Obsession installation on the Glass House lasts only through September 26th.

Photographed at night, Yayoi Kusama’s signature patterning on the Glass House.

Via: Wallpaper

The facade of a Mid Century motel in The Wildwoods, New Jersey, invokes a distinct west coast architectural vernacular.

Who would have thought that the New Jersey shoreline was a bastion of Mid Century Modern architecture? Not us, we confess. But that’s exactly what photographer Tyler Haughey set out to illustrate—impressively, we might add—with his beautifully composed Ebb Tide series, featuring images of modest vintage structures that dot a five-mile-long barrier island along the southern New Jersey coastline. Known collectively as The Wildwoods. the area’s suite of three small shore towns, Haughey claims, holds “the largest concentration of postwar resort architecture in the United States,” a collection embodied by a series of motels, built in the 1950’s and 1960’s, that remain astonishingly intact today.

Tyler Haughey’s phtograph of a Jersey Shore motel shows a remarkably well preserved Mid Century facade.

What’s most remarkable about Tyler Haughey’s photographs is how thoroughly Californian they look. Spare, color-inflected, and flat-roofed, these little jewels may as easily be mistaken for edifices built in Palm Springs or Venice Beach. And, as the photographer points out, this was less an accident than a means by which post-war east coasters could assuage wanderlust without straying too far from home.  “These structures represent the way America’s middle class traveled and vacationed during the postwar era,” he says, a theory confirmed in the motels’ equally intact vintage signage, where “Malibu” and “Capri” charmingly occupy the same geographic terrain.

Motels in The Wildwoods coastal towns of New Jersey display equally well preserved Mid Century signage.

In his Ebb Tide series, Tyler Haughey has wisely chosen to photograph The Wildwoods during the off-season, when the summer bustle and crowds are inevitably replaced with an eerie desolation, an emptiness that only lends gravitas to a bygone era’s architectural legacy. For, as impressively as these Mid Century jewels have aged, the fact remains that encroaching new construction may eventually replace entirely what still remains—more than half of the once 300+ motels have already been demolished. Haughey, not surprisingly, wants as much to record these emblems before they’re gone as make a case for their continued protection. He’s succeeded on the first count; let’s hope he succeeds on the latter one, as well.

Vintage neon signage along the New Jersey shore’s Mid Century motels.

Tropical colors, like minty greens and aquamarines, distinguish the Mid Century motels of The Wildwoods.

Photographer Tyler Haughey’s showcases the vintage neon signage along with the vintage architecture of The Wildwoods.

Kitschy artificial palm trees help bring a taste of the sunny west coast to the New Jersey shore.

Clean-lined geometry and tropical colors are a feature of the Mid Century New Jersey motels photographed by Tyler Haughey.

Via Fast Company, Tyler Haughey

Designed in 1931, but forever young, the Anglepoise 1227 Desk Lamp

If being immortalized on a postage stamp is any indication of an object’s significance, it’s safe to say that the original Anglepoise desk lamp qualifies as a full-fledged icon. Back in 2009, Britain’s Royal Mail included the classic Anglepoise table lamp amongst its 10 British Design Classics postage stamp series, cementing the famous lamp’s place amongst the most recognizable of Britain’s design objects—alongside other ubiquitous symbols, like the red double decker bus and the London Underground Map. And little wonder, considering the Anglepoise’s timeless appeal. Developed in 1931 by an automotive engineer named George Carwardine, the first Angelpoise lamp had a novel three-spring system that was revolutionary enough to be granted a patent in 1932. In production since then, the familiar anthropomorphic Anglepoise profile has been endlessly replicated by countless manufacturers of modern lamps, but stands alone as an emblem of British design innovation.

Shop the Anglepoise Original 1227 Desk Lamp >

A 2009 Royal Mail postage stamp series, featuring the Anglepoise desk lamp amongst 10 British Design Classics.

The pioneering characteristic of the Anglepoise table lamp was its peerless combination of flexibility and balance. Creator George Cawardine’s three-spring system imbued the lamp with a head and body of articulated elements that allowed for a range of height and directional options novel to an object of illumination. And long before anthropomorphic design became a staple of Apple’s computer interface, the Anglepoise’s human-like form made a beguiling modern lighting addition to both domestic and commercial interiors.  Today this quintessential British brand oversees a range of modern task lamps, floor lamps and wall lights powered by energy-efficient LEDs, reaffirming the company’s watershed moment as one that transcends eras, having yielded an ageless design object that remains relevant to this 21st Century, and beyond.

Shop the Anglepoise contemporary lamp collection >

The Anglepoise Original 1227 lamp, shown here in a wall-mounted version.

Shop the Anglepoise 1227 Wall Mounted Lamp >

XOCO 325, a new condominium building in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood, features a cast aluminum facade.

A new condominium building in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood has found a way to both blend into and stand apart from the area’s distinctive architectural style. XOCO 325 (aka 325 West Broadway) is a luxury apartment building that features the usual amenities expected of New York’s tony residences—walls of glass, outsized square footage, designer fixtures, LEED™ certification—but its most distinctive feature is its cast aluminum facade, a homage to Soho’s famous pre-war buildings.

Occupying what was once a chocolate factory, XOCO 325 was designed by DDG, a multi-disciplinary firm which calls its latest project “a modern interpretation of the district’s historic cast-iron loft buildings,” a collection of  250 buildings long ago given landmark status. DDG’s reinterpretation trades in the vernacular’s delicate ornamentation for a chunkier sculptural version, echoing as much Antoni Gaudi’s neo-Gothic architecture as Soho’s most coveted old buildings.

Paying homage to Soho’s cast iron architecture, XOCO 325 offers a modern re-interpretation.

Floor to ceiling windows at XOCO 325 are set deeply within a cast aluminum framework, offering a measure of privacy.

Via DDG, Designboom

Pantone Studio is a mobile app that gives designers a comprehensive color tool at their fingertips.

Keeping itself ever-relevant, Pantone has released a mobile app that gives designers a seamless way to capture colors from a variety of sources and match them up to the company’s famous color swatches. Pantone Studio, a collaboration with the L.A. based design practice, Rokkan, gives creatives a comprehensive mobile color tool at their disposal, thanks to an application that convert’s images captured via a device’s camera into color values that reside alongside Pantone’s own RGB, HEX and CMYK numbered hues.

According to Rokkan, the impetus for this new app was Pantone’s desire to expand its identity beyond that of a venerable color provider to that of a state of the art software company that can now serve up its full range of products on digital platforms and devices.  To that end, “Pantone Studio is all about color. Selecting libraries, exploring swatches, building and sharing palettes from fan-decks and images alike.” In plain language, Pantone Studio allows designers to view images captured on their devices—whether found or self-initiated—through the lens of color, allowing them to build their own library of hues in tandem with Pantone’s, test them on personal digital projects, and share them via social media. Compatibility with Adobe Creative Cloud means designers can export these custom color libraries across all working platforms, including desktop.

Though Pantone Studio can be downloaded for free, designers seeking something beyond a basic version of the app will have to spring for a monthly subscription of $7.99 or an annual up-front subscription of $59.99 ($4.99 per month).

The new Pantone color app converts digitally captured images into color values that can reside alongside Pantone’s library of colors.

 

Via Rokkan, Pantone

The Scraplight collection of modern lamps is hand assembled from strips of corrugated cardboard.

We’re delighted to welcome Graypants to our brand family, and the company’s flagship Scraplight collection of modern pendant lamps to our lighting offerings. Graypants is a Seattle-based design practice, founded in 2007, that has taken the concept of ‘upcycling’ to ravishing heights, thanks to a range of contemporary lamps made entirely of repurposed corrugated cardboard. Adhering to a motto of ‘responsible design, responsible materials, responsible production,’ Graypants conceived of an ingenious method of laser cutting strips of scrap corrugated cardboard, and then hand-assembling them into modern lamps so sumptuous and decorative as to wholly belie their humble origins.

View Scraplights by Graypants >

Decorative and sustainable, the original Scraplights by Graypants are especially striking in multiples.

Elegant and vaguely exotic, Scraplights cast an ethereal glow that lends itself equally well to residential and hospitality contexts, while presenting clean modern profiles that unfailingly beguile, whether installed in groupings or as single pendant lights. Building on the success of the original Scraplights, Graypants has extended the range to the Scraplight white series , in which the rustic hues of natural cardboard have been replaced with custom-made pure white corrugated cardboard, the original series’ moody glow traded in for a brighter brand of illumination, ideally suited for the contemporary environment.

View Graypants Scraplights White >

Scraplights white is a series of modern lamps crafted from custom made white corrugated cardboard.

Graypants expanded its offices to Amsterdam in 2012, partnering with social outreach programs that provide craft-based careers to the local community. The Scraplight white series, which mirrors the entire range of original Scraplights, is hand-assembled in Amsterdam via these social outreach partnerships, leveraging the beauty of custom made corrugated cardboard (fashioned from FSC-certified paper), and offering up a light and airy visual counterpoint to the weightier elegance of the original Scraplight series.

View Scraplight Collection by Graypants >

Scraplight white pendants are hand assembled in Amsterdam via social outreach programs that promote craft-based careers.

The new Panthella MINI, a scaled down version of Verner Panton’s 1971 table lamp, has just been released by Louis Poulsen.

Danish lighting giant Louis Poulsen is making a welcome splash with the release of a new version of its famous Panthella table lamp, a design by Verner Panton that dates back to 1971. The Panthella MINI presents a scaled down version of the original—featuring a shade diameter of 220 mm (9.8 inches), down from the original 400 mm (15.7 inches)—and adds a suite of 8 electric colors (along with black and white) to the original’s all-white profile.

In a key way, the Panthella MINI is more true to Panton’s original design, which called for the dome-shaped shade to be realized in painted metal. But technology hadn’t quite caught up with Panton’s vision, and the PVC plastic composition of the original Panthella was the necessary compromise. The Panthella MINI, then, not only updates the design to the designer’s original specs, but to 21st Century standards, too, with three settings and energy-saving LED technology lighting the way.

The Panthella MINI is being made available in 8 vivid colors, including bright orange.

Verner Panton’s Panthella table lamp, released in 1971, fast became a symbol of the era’s stylized, color-happy iconography, and remains emblematic of the designer’s penchant for sumptuous, rounded forms, dizzying hues, and material experimentation. The Panthella MINI pays homage to Panton’s singular color sense by drawing inspiration from the designer’s last project, the Lyset og Farven (Light and Color) installation at the Trapholt Museum of Modern Art in Kolding, Denmark, featuring Panton’s career-spanning output in modern furniture, lighting, and textiles. In announcing the launch of the new Panthella, Louis Poulsen noted, “Color and imagination were two key elements in the world of Verner Panton, and Louis Poulsen has chosen the new colors for the Panthella MINI from the spectrum that Verner Panton himself had selected for the remarkable universe that was Lyset og Farven.”

Louis Poulsen is releasing the new Panthella MINI table lamp in a suite of 8 vivid colors, ‘mauve’ being one of them.

According to Rasmus Markholt, Design Manager at Louis Poulsen, Verner Panton’s designs remain in great demand, and requests for a smaller version of the famous Panthella—”designed to stand on window sills, shelves, tables or other limited surfaces”— were on the rise. No doubt, the company sees the lamp’s new iteration, including its vivacious new color range (yellow, orange, mauve, red, pink, blue, and two shades of green, along with white and black) and evolution from plastic to metal shade as a winning formula—and a fitting tribute to Verner Panton’s irrepressible spirit.

Along with 8 bright colors, the Panthella MINI will also be offered in black. white and opal acrylic.

Via Louis Poulsen, Dezeen

At Ontario’s Drake Devonshire Hotel, a guest room’s vivid green wall is flanked by Monocle sconces by Rich Brilliant Willing.

Green, it should be noted, is not easy. Even the more daring interior designers tend, in general, to play coy with green, relegating the hue to a subsidiary role in accent pieces. Green’s strong holiday associations, of course, may have something to do with it—there can be no Christmas without green, after all—but, in general, large doses of interior green are relatively rare, perpetually usurped by the always popular trifecta of red, yellow and blue. Lately, though, modern green seems to be emerging as a bold color choice in interior schemes, and the results, to our eyes, are undeniably refreshing.

A Drake Devonshire Hotel vignette shows folksy finds and modern accents juxtaposed with a painted green wall.

Green is everywhere at the Drake Devonshire Inn, located in Wellington, Ontario. The once shabby bed and breakfast was recently given a complete makeover by Toronto studio +tongtong,  The desired esthetic, according to the architects, was to reference a “tapestry of historical layers and styles, practical ad- hoc renovations, readily available building materials, and mismatched furnishings,” while making a strong contemporary statement. To that end, bespoke furniture and quirky antique markets finds are juxtaposed with neat modern accents, like Monocle Wall Sconces by Rich Brilliant Willing—along with conspicuous expanses of green.

An emerald green glass walk makes a splash in this London kitchen/dining room by Tom Dixon

Tom Dixon is one contemporary designer who has embraced green wholly, though judiciously. At No 2 Upper Riverside, a London apartment complex slated for completion in 2018, splashes of green make dramatic appearances amidst dark finishes and polished metallic details. An emerald green glass backsplash in the eat-in kitchen (which dazzlingly showcases his Lens Pendant Light) and iridescent green bathroom tiles illustrate the designer’s penchant for inserting touches of glamour into minimally furnished spaces.

Iridescent green tiles cover the bathroom walls in a London apartment being refurbished by Tom Dixon

Tom Dixon’s design for the bar inside London’s Bronte Restaurant features green leather booths.

Tom Dixon’s recent design of a bar inside London’s Bronte Restaurant reveals his fondness for green yet again, a color that shares billing with on-trend pink. Bespoke vivid green leather booths snake along the interior’s main wall, providing a decadent, glistening counterpoint to the light pink concrete bar on the opposite side. Dixon’s own chairs—wingback chairs upholstered in deep green and dining chairs covered in dusty rose fabric—complete the bar’s tableaux, along with the designer’s signature brass accents.

Green shares billing with pink at London’s Bronte Restaurant bar, designed by Tom Dixon.

In the restaurant of Pari’s Hotel Vernet, a long green banquette designed by Francois Champsaur is a focal point.

Paris’ Hotel Vernet recently celebrated a 100th birthday refurbishment, overseen by French interior designer Francois Champsaur, who also created most of the hotel’s new furniture. For the hotel’s restaurant, named The V, Champsaur designed a series of striking curved banquettes, sticking to a palette of blue and green. Elegant and inviting, Champsaur’s banquettes bear a distinctly Mid Century profile which, along with the V’s entire suite of modern furniture, is beautifully contrasted with the building’s classic Belle Epoque ornamentation.

At the V restaurant in Paris’ Hotel Vernet, bespoke banquettes in green, along with original art.

Image Credits: Arch Daily, Dwell, Decoist, Tom Dixon, Yatzer