Innehållsförteckning för July 2017 från Architectural Digest

“The space had great spirit. Perhaps it was the enormous windows onto Broadway, or the ghosts of the dancers who had come before.” —Dan Fink Ballet is the reason I live in New York City. I fell in love with the Big Apple when I first arrived here as a Midwestern kid training in dance, and although I long ago hung up my pointe shoes (and never was talented enough to realize a professional career), I have remained an avid fan and supporter of this most ephemeral art. When the dynamic new executive director of American Ballet Theatre, Kara Medoff Barnett, showed me the frankly shabby lounge her world-class troupe called home during their grueling rehearsal days, my makeover antennae started to quiver, and I thrilled at the prospect of…

THE STORY BEHIND AN ICONIC DESIGN When American artist Isamu Noguchi visited the Japanese city of Gifu in 1951, the mayor had a request: Could he update the locally made washi paper–and– bamboo lanterns, which were quickly becoming obsolete? Noguchi’s solution: Add a lightbulb. Soon the artist and Gifu’s Ozeki & Co. began producing what senior curator Dakin Hart of New York’s Noguchi Museum calls “arguably the most ubiquitous sculpture on the planet”: Akari, inexpensive lanterns for table, floor, and ceiling. The lamps, which can be folded flat and shipped for virtually nothing, were an instant success. Still produced by the original manufacturer—and sometimes the original craftsperson—they remain in demand and affordable. A table model costs little more than $100. “They are gentle and modest but really a stroke of…

24 ARCHDIGEST.COM DISCOVERIES artisan Once Upon A Time In today’s digitized world, the clock as an objet d’art carries with it an air of intrigue and old-world romance I magine a land where desks aren’t cluttered with sleek, impersonal gadgets and in-boxes don’t exist on a cloud. That is exactly what Patek Philippe will invite the public to do when the deluxe timepiece brand stages “The Art of Watches Grand Exhibition” at Manhattan’s Cipriani 42nd Street in July. The showcase will highlight high-precision watch manufacturing and rare handcrafts, with demonstrations by artisans and a curated selection of exceptional pocket and wristwatches dating back to 1530. Also on display will be a trio of new domed clocks, treasures reflecting a time-honored practice—the one shown here is the result of about 256 hours…

“The house is functional, but it really blends into the environment,” says McGraw. “In paradise, you live in ways you can’t in civilization,” says architect Bobby McAlpine. after more than 20 years together, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw don’t quite finish each other’s sentences. Instead, the two long-married country-music stars have developed a manner of speaking that can only be described as downright harmonious, with each supplying an instrumental part of the whole. Consider, for example, the way they talk about the first time they saw the future site of their beloved Bahamas home. “There was just a little shack,” McGraw recalls, “that someone——” “They were friends of the owner,” Hill interjects. “——had sort of floated up onto the beach.” “It was a great little place.” “A great little place,”…

Situated in scenic Lake Maggiore, the Italian islands of Isola Madre and Isola Bella can count Gustave Flaubert, Edith Wharton, and Napoléon Bonaparte among their many historic admirers. Is it any wonder why? Tended by the Borromeo family since the 16th century, both private islands are fantasie of flora—Isola Madre an English-style stunner full of rare plants; Isola Bella a Baroque beauty with 10 tiered terraces and a menagerie of statues. (Pictured is Bella’s eastern shore, where a sculpted yew rises in the shape of a spiraling cone.) Open to the public, the grounds of each are also freshly accessible to armchair travelers thanks to the new book Gardens of Beauty: Italian Gardens of the Borromeo Islands (Electa, $45), which features photography by Dario Fusaro and a preface by Italian…

When Mark Badgley and James Mischka conjure up runwayready fashions for the label they launched in 1988, their creative thoughts often turn to old-time Hollywood. Ditto when the subject shifts to decoration. Mischka says that he and his business partner and spouse often ponder “how we would redo the sets of Vertigo and Rear Window.” At the staging of Badgley Mischka’s fall 2017 ready-to-wear collection back in February, models sauntered amid domestic environments outfitted with selections from the duo’s 100-plus-piece debut home-furnishings collection, which will continue to be unveiled over the course of the year. Think precious metals, retro silhouettes, and shimmering, sensual fabrics, from plush velvets to a zebra stripe wrought in gold and white. Says Mischka, with a laugh, “We’re magpies, attracted by anything that twinkles and glistens.”…

Woody House, on Long Island’s eastern tip, has reached near-mythical stature—the mere mention of it often elicits reverence from design cognoscenti worldwide. But while a tour through the labyrinth of gardens is on every horticulturalist’s wish list, less is known about the interiors, which reflect the owners’ far-flung travels through Europe, India, and the Middle East and evoke a worldly vision all their own. Enticed by the combination of a humble wooden cottage perched on an epic Long Island site between the Atlantic Ocean and a coastal lagoon, the owners came to Woody House first for a summer rental; they eventually purchased it eight years later. Originally a guesthouse on the estate of Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, Woody House is tucked into a beach dune, the surf practically lapping…

Standing at the foot of Maurizio Cattelan’s L.O.V.E. sculpture—that monumental middle finger that rises from the center of Milan’s Piazza Affari in front of the Italian stock exchange— designer Job Smeets contemplates another sordid symbol: the banana. “It’s such a big icon in art. I don’t understand why it’s never been in design,” he wonders. He poses the same question of another edible muse: the all-American burger. “I mean, a hamburger really does make a perfect seat.” At the Seletti flagship during Milan Design Week this spring, Smeets and his creative partner, Nynke Tynagel—the principals of the Belgian-Dutch design firm Studio Job—unveiled a collection that included both. In fact, the line sheet reads rather like a diner menu: Hamburger chair, Banana lamp, Sausage rug, Egg plate, Hot Dog sofa. “It’s…