Innehållsförteckning för April 2019 från Architectural Digest

“Sam has truly been a great partner, and we have made a once-in-a-lifetime house.” —Frank Gehry This issue brims with big-name talents at ease in their personal spaces—it is, after all, our 5 annual Designers’ Own Homes issue. And these MVPs all prove that they practice what they preach. No less a giant than Frank Gehry allows AD an exclusive look into the fascinating, unconventional, unpretentious, and totally personal Santa Monica house he codesigned with his son Sam (who works alongside his father at Gehry Partners) for himself and his wife. A hearty thank-you is in order to critic and historian Paul Goldberger—who describes Casa Gehry as “a modern version of an Adirondack lodge”—for both writing and shepherding this important story. Among the other mega-players in these pages: Architect and…

When Kelly Wearstler sat down to develop designs for the storied Danish design company Georg Jensen, she found a sea of inspiration just outside her windows. “Our house sits right on the sand,” says the AD100 decorator (and avid surfer) of her family’s Malibu house. “The ocean is a big part of my life.” Taking her cues from the waves, she devised six bowls and vessels in one of her favorite materials: mirror-polished stainless steel. Each one is wrapped in an undulating motif and hand-finished by Jensen’s artisans. Achieving an effortless flow with no visible seams, Wearstler explains, “was really challenging, but they pulled it off.” Of course, the Georg Jensen team is used to pushing past its comfort zone. The collection, titled Frequency, is just the latest collaboration for…

Years ago, I sat next to John Richardson, the Picasso scholar and art curator, at a small luncheon at Annette and Oscar de la Renta’s apartment, and was spellbound. His deep, mellifluous voice seasoned the afternoon with tales that prompted not only laughter but seriousness as we discussed politics, literature—even, perhaps surprisingly to some, decorating. The award-winning man of letters also happens to be a dab hand when it comes to interiors, as John Richardson: At Home ($65; Rizzoli) bears eloquent witness. It’s a candid 224-page memoir of one man’s life and where he’s lived it, with tart, funny, self-deprecating, and erudite essays about eight places he has called home. At one end is his birthplace in suburban London, outfitted by his elderly father, a Victorian quartermaster general who “had…

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Techo-Bloc is breaking the mold of what we have come to expect of outdoor design, encouraging decorative art lovers and design-savvy creatives to extend their passion to their outdoor space. This imaginative landscaping lineup offers design flexibility to create custom stonework patterns. The outdoors represents a world of new design possibilities. Mix and match game-changing high-definition textures with rich color palettes and surprising plays on scale to create a clearly bespoke look for your outdoor stone flooring. Techo-Bloc’s HD2 technology uses special anti-aging properties to ensure long-lasting looks—so that not even the harshest of climates or de-icing salts are a match for these high-quality landscaping collections. Crafted by design experts for design lovers, Techo-Bloc gives anyone the materials to transform regular outdoor spaces into works of art at the ground…

Epicenters of urban life at the turn of the 20th century, France’s classic brasseries have too often, in recent decades, fallen prey to neglect. But designer John Whelan, founder of the Guild of Saint Luke, is turning back the hands of time. For the past couple of years, he and his team of experts have been on a mission to return these iconic restaurants to their former glory. At Brasserie Floderer in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, he restored faded frescoes, replaced broken chandeliers, and reproduced original banquettes. In Reims, at the Brasserie Excelsior, he removed the drop ceiling and revived 19th-century molding, adorning the walls with Limoges porcelain and a wallpaper mural of an 1856 David Roberts painting of the sun setting over Rome. And at Bouillon Julien, a…

Designed by Italian architect Antonio Citterio, B&B Italia’s new Ribes collection of outdoor furniture puts a fresh twist on modular seating. Low-lying futon bases—they function as stand-alone chaises—can be combined to create sectionals and extra-long sofas, all with a smart system of removable bolster arms and backrests. Striped indoor/outdoor upholstery fabrics, meanwhile, nod to traditional South American textiles that Citterio picked up on his travels. bebitalia.com…

New Moon Rugs’ latest collection takes a subtle cue from the Far East yet makes a bold statement underfoot. Eastern Influences While on a trip to Asia, COO and lead designer Erika Kurtz was captivated by an exhibit of antique Kimonos, cloth textile fragments, and block print materials she saw in a museum. “The fluid and organic feel of the designs, the blues in the traditional Shibori dying techniques, and the antique wood block forms resonated with a history and beauty that are a perfect complement to the Tibetan rug weaving traditions,” Kurtz says. “Paying homage to one ancient handwrought art form through the techniques of another seemed like a perfect union.” Design Translation Upon her return, Kurtz was inspired to weave the items she saw abroad into a new…

The house Frank Gehry created for himself and his wife, Berta, in 1978 on a highly visible street corner in Santa Monica, and which he renovated and updated again in the early 1990s, helped make his reputation as one of the most potent creative forces in 20th-century architecture. An assemblage of glass, plywood, corrugated metal, and chain-link fencing that enveloped an old Dutch Colonial that remained, slightly disembodied, at its core, the Gehry house was hailed as an icon of residential design from its earliest days, and the architect lived happily in it for decades. He and his wife raised two sons there, and the family learned to more or less ignore the tourists and architecture students who came by to gawk at his creation. With their sons grown and…

“I just let the art and the furnishings, with all their sculptural quality, do the talking,” Stilin explains. There’s no shortage of pedigreed pretty things in the New York City apartment of AD100 designer Robert Stilin. Aficionados of design will recognize stools by Charlotte Perriand and Poul Kjærholm, a classic Paul Laszlo chrome-plated desk lamp, and a sweet little wooden side chair by Pierre Chapo, to name a few. Likewise, amid the kaleidoscopic display of artworks, there are plenty of easily identifiable pieces by artists on the order of Wade Guyton, Wolfgang Tillmans, Joe Bradley, John Waters, and Rob Wynne. One would expect as much from the home of a designer with a reputation for integrating compelling contemporary art into his interiors. But the main allure of Stilin’s deftly layered…

When Laure Heriard Dubreuil first opened the boutique The Webster in Miami Beach a decade ago, she did something almost unthinkable at the time. Displaying Chanel alongside Superga, she curated the clothes as if they were her personal wardrobe. Out went snobbish head-to-toe looks. In came the mix—all filtered through the French expat’s refined eye. The Webster has since expanded to five boutiques across the U.S., each brimming with design gems such as Pierre Paulin Elysée chairs or a Gaetano Pesce cabinet. Understandably, her loyal clientele has come to crave more than just a fashion fix. “The problem is, I get attached,” Heriard Dubreuil says of the statement furniture. “It becomes part of the DNA.” With the help of interior designer Stéphane Parmentier, she is now launching The Webster Home—an…

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Nothing Michelle Nussbaumer had seen in San Miguel de Allende, the romantic Spanish Colonial city in Mexico’s Bajío mountains, was pleasing her exacting eye. “I want something unusual,” the Dallas decorator told a real-estate agent a dozen years ago, at the start of her search for a getaway. “A ruin, even.” Instead, she found herself trudging through glossily renovated houses that were “just plain weird.” One afternoon Nussbaumer spotted a dilapidated wall and decided to climb over it. Behind it, the stylish trespasser discovered a U-shape building, much of it dating from the 16th century, that included a hacienda and a multi-chamber granary with barrel-vaulted ceilings rising more than 30 feet high. As for the lot, it had been used as a dump site for as long as anyone could…

Just one month into their courtship, Giovanni Ribisi popped the question to Emily Ward: “I was showing him pictures of our design work,” she recalls, “and he was like, ‘Oh, my God, my house has been under construction for so long. It’s never going to end. Can you please help me?’” Did she ever. Ward and design partner Louisa Pierce spent the next year resurrecting Ribisi’s 1939 Monterey Revival, and Ward moved in with him upon its completion. The couple welcomed twins Enzo and Maude last December. The house’s evolution from bachelor pad to family home is a fitting metaphor for the AD100 duo’s own serendipitous journey as a practice. The founders met in New York City as young drifters: Pierce managed a spa, among other odd jobs; Ward was…

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