Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Architectural Digest

“We always want to create new recipes, but we have ingredients that we know work. Maybe we’ll add a new spice here, a new sauce there. In this field, you create your own rules, but you can also break them.”—Giancarlo Valle The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas coined the term “Manhattanism” when describing the evolution of architecture and urban design associated with the dense borough, a place where skyscrapers support congestion and crowding. But city living is not all tall towers and cookie-cutter apartments. In fact, the urban dwellers profiled in this issue, who live in Toronto, Paris, London, Brooklyn, and, yes, Manhattan—all obsess over historical character and original detail, with nary a high-rise in sight. The handsome Toronto house on the cover—one of that city’s oldest—was thoughtfully updated by Giancarlo…

Ever since she was a kid, Emily Lindberg has been interested in how things are constructed. Crafting dollhouse furniture, reigning as the only girl in woodworking class, repairing boats with her grandfather—these experiences and more all foretold a future in design. “Making, fixing, and dreaming, that was our family language,” recalls the AD PRO Directory member, who studied interior architecture at RISD, including a formative year abroad in Rome. “A lot of my education was just living in a culture where art and history are so celebrated.” Since moving back to Providence after a stretch in New York City and launching her own studio, Lindberg (photographed at home, below) has built a portfolio of freshly modern homes throughout the Northeast, among them an Amagansett beach house and a Brooklyn brownstone,…

Nature, in all its exuberant irregularity, was a common passion for Jean Schlumberger and Rachel Lambert Mellon—he the legendary longtime Tiffany & Co. designer, she the philanthropic green thumb better known as Bunny. Little surprise then that these two self-taught tastemakers hit it off, developing an intimate friendship and exchanging many letters over the years as Mellon collected his dazzling zoomorphic and botanical creations. “Good morning my darling,” read the entirety of a succinct missive, signed Johnny and emblazoned with his drawing of a flower. In 1965 she purchased one of the jeweler’s earliest Bird on a Rock brooches: an emerald-eyed fledgling of canary and white diamonds, perched on a cabochon lapis lazuli. Legend has it that he took inspiration from a charismatic cockatoo encountered on his travels, perhaps to…

The world of Ralph Lauren Home has long included hallmarks of the American West: tooled leather, silver accessories, handmade rugs, and more. For its new Canyon Road collection, the iconic brand followed that inspiration directly to the source, teaming up with seventh-generation sister-brother Navajo weavers Naiomi and Tyler Glasses to create a range of furnishings that herald indigenous craft. The siblings now serve as the label’s first artists in residence in the home category. “Like us, many Navajo weavers learned from our family members,” explains Naiomi. With Tyler, she was taught how to use an upright loom by their grandmother after moving to Dinétah (Navajo Nation) from the Phoenix suburbs. Practicing with undyed strands, they eventually made saddle blankets for their horse—the beginning of a lifelong practice. Now, Naiomi and…

The first sign that this 19thcentury residence is not your standard Pinterest archetype of a Brooklyn town house appears on the front door—a bespoke bronze knob that looks strangely like Globey from Pee-wee’s Playhouse. The hardware’s promise of weirdness and delight is fulfilled immediately upon entry, where, instead of a predictable Victorian hall tree or pier mirror, one encounters a polychromatic panel from an antique carousel, a kaleidoscopic arrangement of advertising signs and ephemera, and a cutout of Mr. ZIP, the cartoon character introduced by the US Post office Department in the 1960s to coax reluctant mailers aboard the zip code train. Welcome to the mad, mad, mad, mad world of Melia Marden, Frank Sisti Jr., and their two children, Alfred and Daphne. Built in the 1840s, the house, as…

OPENING TO THE PUBLIC on October 25, the new Fondation Cartier Pour L’Art Contemporain in Paris, like its predecessor, has been designed by Jean Nouvel, the architect of such modern landmarks as the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and the National Museum of Qatar in Doha. When the French Pritzker Prize winner, now 80, first met with foundation president Alain Dominique Perrin to discuss the project, he recalls, “I knew what Monsieur Perrin wanted: a monument for Paris.” It was a long time coming. Twelve years ago, Perrin zeroed in on the cavernous building, a 19th-century hotel turned department store on the rue de Rivoli, which, for the last four decades, had served as a mall for antiques dealers. Once he determined it would be the perfect spot for…

Blinds are never the thing you notice. But window covers designed to block out the sun have been around for millennia. In ancient Egypt, people hung up wet strips of fabric; in Iran they developed horizontal wooden slats to obstruct light, later termed “Venetian” when they arrived in Italy on trade ships. By the mid 20th century, the humble blind was yet another subject ripe for innovation as manufacturing techniques evolved. So in 1942, when Henry Sonnenberg, a German immigrant who had set up the tool company Douglas Machinery in New York, met Joe Hunter, a competitor based in California who had invented a continuous aluminum-casting machine, they decided to team up on a new product: aluminum blinds. Hunter’s mechanism could produce narrow coil stock, perfect for making thin, two-inch-wide…

Noah Ruttenberg NEW YORK CITY “Why not?” It’s a bit of a mantra for Noah Ruttenberg, founder of NJCR Studio. After studying architectural history and French language/culture at Brown University, the Manhattan native has pursued his myriad interests—working at Bode and San Vicente Bungalows, even cofounding the art gallery Mariposa. Stints at Gachot and the studio of artist/furniture maker Marc Hundley opened his eyes to interior design, leading him to a master’s program in Paris. These days, the designer (photographed at home) has a half dozen projects underway, each a canvas for the unexpected. “There’s a playfulness to my work,” reflects Ruttenberg, who cites artist studios as influences. “I’m not necessarily familiar with the rules. I hope the results are refreshing.” njcrstudio.com…

Architecture and design had already entered Taska Cleveland’s field of vision when she studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. “My experience as a fine artist has been informative in the way I work now,” says the LA-born talent, who struck out on her own three years ago after rising to the position of artistic director of the AD100 firm Studio Shamshiri. Since then, she has focused her practice on the revitalization of two important early modernist houses: Rudolph Schindler’s 1925 How House in Silver Lake, and Lloyd Wright’s 1922 Taggart House in Los Feliz (pictured). “I have a responsibility to respect a house’s history while reactivating the space in a way that reflects the current owners and the way we live now,” she explains. “I’m interested in craftsmanship…

“I’m always considering the visual hierarchies of a space, proportion, and scale at the micro and macro level,” says Jason Chen (pictured at home in Brooklyn). Credit that attention to detail to his pedigree. Raised in Kansas City, Kansas, he studied industrial design at Pratt, interning for Knoll, and later working for AD100 maestro Billy Cotton. Since launching Studio Chen in 2025, he has developed his own style while remaining attuned to client needs—whether leaning into the Colonial Revival spirit of a Berkshires house or conjuring a new Manhattan dining concept for the team behind Jupiter and King. “I’m still influenced by the work of Florence Knoll,” Chen says of his function-forward approach. “Her eye for pure, total design and her modernist values continue to inspire me.” jasonchendesign.work…

Fascinating people at home. This was my vision when I joined Architectural Digest. Then as now, AD was a legend, and I wanted to both honor it and shake it up. Certainly timeless, yet could it be timely? We needed to add more personality, more energy, more surprise, more buzz. In short, to add more life. Cue the people—creatives of every type loomed large in my mind for an AD fizzing with ideas and inspiration on how to live now. Everyone welcome, the more the merrier. We plan magazine issues as meticulously as a stellar host does an epic dinner party, and I seek a wildly entertaining cast of characters. For this book—what a feast! Pull up a chair. “When I arrived at AD in 2016, I had only two…

I don’t ever want the things I design to scream,” says Billy Cotton. By prizing subtlety, proportion, and craft, the AD100 talent instead lets pieces sit in quiet conversation. Such is the case with his new collection for Soane Britain, the beloved British home-furnishings brand. Comprising more than 40 designs, including fabrics, wallpapers, lighting, and furniture, the line easily harmonizes without yelling. “They understand what it means to make something soup to nuts, locally, down to the screws,” Cotton explains of Soane Britain, a longtime source for bespoke designs. Throughout the project, he leaned on that expertise, with multiple techniques coming together in single objects. The Aquinnah lounge chair, for example, combines rattan, custom upholstery, metalwork, and more. Close inspection reveals that its metal frame has been wrapped in leather…

WHEN IT CAME TO Paris renovations, Sara Story had heard all the horror stories and knew she would have to say “Non, merci” to any place requiring construction. “I didn’t want to have to do a lot of work,” she admits. Instead, the Texan designer, who is now based in New York City, bought a two-bedroom, third-floor pied-à-terre on the Left Bank that did not need any demo: The kitchen was ready, the place had archetypal parquet floors—a design element she regarded as essential—and it had good light. Story, whose work brings her to the French capital a few times a year, had long wanted a foothold in the city. And finding such a perfect property allowed her to skip the messy stage and get “right to the good part,”…

IN 2012 I left New York City life to move to a farm with my family in Oxfordshire, England. In the subsequent years I lived and breathed all things Cotswolds, and eventually opened Cutter Brooks, a shop that celebrated this aesthetic. But after six years of sourcing the world for treasures, the effects of Brexit and post-COVID inflation led me to make the tough decision to close down what had grown into a thriving lifestyle brand and begin a new chapter. Luckily I had one project already well underway to keep me busy and explore what my creativity might now look like. A few years ago, a two-bedroom apartment that my husband, Christopher, and I owned on Chrystie Street came to the end of its lease. Longing to stay connected…

Leo Seigal and Maxwell Anderson weren’t in the market for a new home in the early pandemic days of 2020. But when the couple came across a Raphael Soriano house for sale in the hills north of West Hollywood, the dominoes fell quickly. “We went to see it the next day, and we put in an offer the following,” recalls Seigal, a cofounder of the online design consultation and e-commerce platform The Expert. “We’re both obsessed with California midcentury design, and this house, with its broad expanses of glass and intimate connection to the landscape, represented all the midcentury ideals.” Part of the property’s allure was its rarity. The 1940 Polito House, a designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, is one of roughly a dozen extant structures by Soriano, an influential…

Zeb Knudsen and Jazmyne Crunk first crossed paths while working at Reath Design, and both credit Frances Merrill, the AD100 firm’s founder, as a mentor and guiding light for the namesake practice they established in 2020. “Our approach is casual and comfortable,” says Crunk. “We’re passionate about color and pattern used thoughtfully to bring soul and energy to a space.” Adds Knudsen, who divides his time between Salt Lake City and LA: “We take our work seriously, but the process should always be joyful.” The AD PRO Directory designers (photographed at a Santa Monica project, above) were fortunate to find another champion in AD100 architect Barbara Bestor, with whom they’ve collaborated on a creative compound for actor/director Donald Glover as well as an extraordinary Foster Rhodes Jackson house in the…

As résumés go, Ashley Lavonne’s is hard to beat. After studying architecture at Syracuse University, the Cincinnati native interned in New York City for designer Juan Pablo Molyneux. “That was an eye-opener,” she recalls. “I’d never seen velvet on office walls.” Lavonne then heeded the siren call of LA, where she honed her eye under celebrated talents like Madeline Stuart, Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Michael S. Smith, and Frances Merrill. Having completed projects of every scale and type, the AD PRO Directory member set up her own practice some four years ago. She’s now working on a Craftsman bungalow in Long Beach and a 1970s abode in Rancho Santa Fe, among other jobs. “I gravitate to color, craft, and form, not a trademark style,” says Lavonne (photographed in her former office).…

How do you evolve a great idea? It’s a question that Giancarlo Valle and Jane Keltner de Valle, partners of the newly rechristened practice Studio Valle de Valle, ask themselves often. Project to project, the two endeavor to build conceptual through lines, referencing past successes without resting on repeats. “We always want to create new recipes, but we have ingredients that we know work,” reflects Giancarlo. “Maybe we’ll add a new spice here, a new sauce there. In this field, you create your own rules, but you can also break them.” Case in point, the firm’s latest project: a comprehensive update to one of Toronto’s oldest houses. A short drive but a world away from the city’s bustling downtown, the 19th-century Italianate edifice had undergone piecemeal alterations over time, resulting…

A set of pistachio-green Crittall doors sealed the deal when British actor Michelle Dockery and her producer husband Jasper Waller-Bridge found their dream home five years ago in a leafy neighborhood of west London. “I really fell in love with them,” says Dockery with the same soothing but more urban than clipped vowels of her cinematic alter ego Lady Mary Crawley of Downton Abbey fame. “They were just so unusual and so rare to find in a color like that.” Those doors came to define what would unwittingly become a four-year renovation plan, informing both the color palette and upbeat spirit imbued throughout the house with help from London-based interior designer Emma Ainscough. “We started out just doing some aesthetic changes, adding curtains and changing colors in rooms,” Dockery recalls.…

More than 100 years ago, Georges Vuitton—scion of the Louis Vuitton empire—left his stamp on history when he introduced the brand’s iconic Monogram print, pairing his father’s initials with abstracted floral and quatrefoil motifs. In the decades since, the pattern has graced all manner of treasures, landing in the hands of tastemakers the world over. And today it dazzles as never before in the new Dolce Vita Art of Dining collection of porcelain tableware, which reinterprets its famous forms in an upbeat yellow reminiscent of limoncello digestifs on the island of Capri. For the ambitious collector, the line can be purchased along with the Malle Vaisselier, a made-to-order trunk wrapped in Monogram canvas of course, with drawers plus compartments for glassware and dishes. Your guests will be impressed. louisvuitton.com…