From a Whimsical Illustrator in Maine to a Japanese-Style Vinyl Bar in Nashville, Here Are AD ’s Discoveries of the Month
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Photo: Yoshihiro Makino
Debut: Décors Barbares conceives a 17-piece collection with legacy earthenware atelier Gien
Nathalie Farman-Farma has always been a detective of details. To create the enchanting folkloric patterns for which her textile and design studio Décors Barbares is known, she’ll pore over archival materials from the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, and beyond. But her research spans contemporary channels too. “Somebody will post something on Instagram, only I’m looking at the dress that the lady in the background is wearing,” she confesses. Such was the case for her first foray into tableware. Realized in collaboration with the legacy earthenware atelier Gien, the 17-piece collection reinterprets a clover motif spotted in a black-and-white snapshot. She’s appropriately named the line Chance Folle, or Crazy Luck in English. Without any chromatic clues, Farman-Farma imagined her own fortifying palette of forest green, Turkey red, sunny yellow, ink black, and indigo blue. The latter, she says, posed a challenge to perfect using Gien’s age-old chromolithography firing process. “I try to do things that are not being done by others,” she says. “There’s a lot out there that I love, but there wasn’t very much in these bandana colors. I felt that we could add a little fun.”
As with Décors Barbares textiles, she approached these pieces as compatible parts, deconstructing pattern details. Whereas florals frolic within large-scale clovers on platters, pitchers, and cake plates, the motif appears as a more refined border on cups and saucers. “It’s the same as with the fabric—you can stack things up differently,” she says. “Bring out a mix-match of mugs. The idea is that that’s not a mistake, but the intention.” gien.com —Mel Studach
Reboot: Cassina resurrects an iconic pendant light by Charles Eames
In 1934, long before he was a poster boy for midcentury American modernism, Charles Eames and his then partner Robert Walsh designed St. Mary Church, a redbrick late Gothic Revival house of worship in Helena, Arkansas. Eames conceived its cabinetry, pews—thought to be his first furniture—and pendant lights. Those star-spangled globes, outfitted with adjustable aluminum shades, are now in production as wall-mounted and hanging lamps thanks to Cassina’s new partnership with the Eames Office, created by Form Portfolios. Legend has it that when architect Eliel Saarinen saw pictures of the church, he invited Eames to teach at Cranbrook Academy of Art. The rest, of course, is history. cassina.com—Hannah Martin
Craftsmanship: A furniture collection pays homage to Indian saris
“A traditional sari has nine and a half yards of fabric,” says New York–based architect Suchi Reddy, who was born and raised in Chennai, India. In homage to that figure, she and Palak Shah—a fourth-generation textile manufacturer and cofounder of the fashion label Ekaya Banaras—have unveiled nine and a half pieces of furniture, with a sculptural side table accounting for the fractional. To cushion their sinuous eucalyptus forms, the duo came up with their own spin on traditional Banarasi fabric: an archival herringbone motif overlaid with numerical zeros that nod to Brahmagupta, the Hindu mathematician who developed the concept of nothingness in 628 AD. Meticulously hand woven from silk and cotton, it appears on an array of seating—all of which recently debuted at New York’s Ateliers Courbet gallery. Both furnishings and yardage advance Shah’s goal of “making Indian textiles a part of everyone’s daily life.” ateliercourbet.com —H.M.
Nightlife: Commune Design draws inspiration from the Land of the Rising Sun for a record lounge in Nashville
Nashville seems an unlikely place to discover anything even remotely akin to a Japanese kissa bar. A kissa—or, more traditionally, a jazz kissa—is a type of café that initially sprang up in Japan in the 1920s as a communal place for people to drink, socialize, and listen to vinyl records. “They’re typically very intimate, casual, DIY spaces, sort of cobbled together,” explains Roman Alonso of the AD100 firm Commune Design, which recently completed work on 888, a combination kissa and sushi restaurant improbably tucked in the base of the JW Marriott Nashville hotel tower. The brainchild of Harrison Soffer, a principal at the hospitality and real estate development firm Turnberry, 888 celebrates the spirit of the kissa along with the fertile design heritage of the country in which it originated.
“We wanted to create an authentic ambience by using humble materials in imaginative ways—construction-grade plywood, recycled wood gymnasium flooring on the ceiling, acoustic batting made from reclaimed denim, and cardboard Sonotubes,” Alonso says. The Commune team also enlisted the talents of multiple Japanese artists and craftspeople, as well as frequent Commune collaborators who find inspiration in Japan. The array of bespoke decorative flourishes includes Senda Takanori’s washi paper made from pulped album sleeves, applied to a light installation by artist Yusuke Nagai; textiles by Akira Minagawa for Minä Perhonen; patchwork lanterns by textile artist Adam Pogue; and a fantastic sushi bar and DJ stand wrapped in custom tiles by ceramist Sofía Londoño. “Japanese design has always been part of Commune’s DNA,” Alonso notes, citing the firm’s work at the Ace Hotel Kyoto and other collaborations. “At 888, we want you to feel the love and respect—and the beauty.” 888nashville.com —Mayer Rus
One to watch: Lukas the Illustrator revives the romance of the past
“I try to trick myself into thinking it’s the 18th century,” says the artist known simply as Lukas the Illustrator, speaking from his studio on Westport Island, Maine. To a soundtrack of orchestral chants or sea shanties, fanciful motifs flow from his old-school dip pen, conjuring scenes that hover between architectural ruins, theater sets, and sylvan dreamscapes. “Lately, I’ve been fixated on men riding scallop shells and fighting dragons,” he reports.
Lukas grew up in Connecticut, traipsing through the forest behind his childhood home. He pursued art for a simple reason: It would allow him to spend time outside drawing from nature. He hadn’t yet graduated from Rhode Island School of Design, where he studied illustration, when his friend the fashion designer Harris Reed got him a job creating packaging for MAC Cosmetics. Commissions have since followed from House of Hackney and AD100 maestro Beata Heuman.
“I’ve always felt these two sides of myself, the prince and the green man,” Lukas says, explaining the creative push and pull between life’s finer things and the great outdoors. True to that tension, sumptuous canopy beds in woodland environs form a recurring subject. “I love the idea of a luxurious castle bedroom but with no walls—nothing but the trees, leaves blowing, a frog jumping over your bed, a stream bubbling by.”
These days, he’s channeling those reveries into a children’s book, a miniature theater for Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop in London, and patterns for fabrics and wallpapers, among them a lattice of iris leaves. Not surprisingly, his dreams continue to grow bigger. “I’d like to create one of my arctic grotto tents as a mural,” he says, referring to his ongoing series of campaign-style drapery set in frozen landscapes. “You’ll see icebergs out the windows.” Consider it a trompe l’oeil 18th-century folly, tailored to our modern times. lukastheillustrator.com —Hannah Martin
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
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