Stories by name

Los Angeles: Wedged between the Eastside’s working-class enclaves and the Westside’s Botox bubble, the slopes surrounding Silver Lake have long been a locus of Los Angeles bohemia, and Louise Bonnet and Adam Silverman have long been a local presence. In 1991, Adam co-founded the streetwear company X-Large; Louise, fresh from Geneva, soon signed on as an…

London: On a Sunday afternoon, Deanna Fanning and Kiko Kostadinov make a little lunch. In matching Charvet slippers, the couple navigate their galley kitchen with peaceful, unspoken methodology. Their flat is covered in textured wallpaper from the ‘50s, carpeting that seems an unavoidable feat for London renters, and a stained-glass door that goes out to a…

Formello: About 40 minutes by car from the centre of Rome, north of the industrial warehouses and the marble stores for cemetery headstones, there’s a small village called Formello, surrounded by olive trees and maritime pines. There, until recently, lived Lucia Di Luciano and Giovanni Pizzo. A couple in life and art for nearly 70…

Tbilisi: We first met Levan Koguashvili on the sixth floor of a 19th-century apartment building that overlooks the Rioni River in the Royal Quarter of Kutaisi, Georgia. It was Valentine’s Day, close to midnight, and my girlfriend and I had stumbled home from Palaty restaurant after several bottles of saperavi wine. I suppose you could say…

B+ is a collaborative architectural practice currently led by Arno Brandlhuber, Olaf Grawert, Jonas Janke, Roberta Jurcic, and Jolene Lee. It is, as such, a new office, but at the same time it has been active since the ‘90s under different iterations. Since the beginning of his career 30 years ago, Arno Brandlhuber has not…

The alienation and loneliness of this year strangely remind me of the period I spent in New York after separating from a woman I loved and who I believe loved me and who ended up marrying another man, one she truly considered a real one. That was a time when I thought I would go…

Wellington: Most days I wear pearl earrings by Lisa Walker, gold and gem rings by Karl Fritsch, and a silver necklace with a teardrop in artificial diamonds by their son Max. When our house was burgled in London, none of my jewellery was stolen. My collection is exclusive to Walker-Fritsch family; I don’t think the burglar…

Rome: When I asked Luigi Serafini to send me a short, informal biography he replied, ‘I entrust it to you; I’m sure you’ll write it in a moment’. Very difficult. Despite the friendship that binds us, our shared plans to conquer the world and other galaxies, and many four-handed projects—the last being Ubu Roi, a…

Fire Island: I discovered the work of Larry Stanton by chance, while searching online for information about an artist I love and have collected for years, Patrick Angus. That was in January 2018. Larry Stanton did not know Patrick Angus, because Larry died of AIDS in 1984, when he was just 37 years old. That same…

We have just passed the one-year mark of the pandemic, and yet we’re still fully implicated. Restrictions are still in force, and mobility between countries is almost impossible. These circumstances make it difficult to carry out our conversation in person, but in the case of Leopold Banchini (Geneva, 1981), the situation becomes even more complicated….

Milan: Before meeting Lucia Pescador I’d seen, and instantly loved, her work. When the moment came to meet her, it was like rediscovering an old friendship, tied together perhaps by similar personalities and our love of art and artefacts from the 20th century. Lucia was born in 1943 in Voghera, Italy—and the 20th century is…

Shanghai: Since 2008, Luo Yang has led her audience into the homes of the many girls who’ve inhabited her personal project of the same title. These rooms, located all across China, have witnessed these girls’ lives, moments of their love and growth. But when we try to distinguish the details of their rooms, we find…

New York City: The French–American artist Louise Bourgeois lived in the Chelsea neighbourhood of New York City for almost 50 years. She purchased the narrow townhouse—a mere 15 feet wide—in 1962 with her husband, the art historian Robert Goldwater; their three sons, Michel, Alain, and Jean-Louis, were already grown and lived elsewhere. They furnished it…

Living in a palimpsest Zurich: Lora Lamm’s apartment is not her own. Or, not exclusively her own. It is a built palimpsest—its original author being the architect Hans Demarmels. Before his death in 2010, he used to come here regularly with architecture students, this being the only apartment in a row of three listed houses from the…

Liam Gillick pays attention to architecture. A nice pair of binoculars sits conspicuously on his coffee table, and he uses them. He lives on the 17th floor of a building designed by Wallace Harrison, overlooking the United Nations Plaza and the East River. The building’s exterior gives the appearance of uniformity and order. Harrison served…

Los Angeles: Swedish pop star Lykke Li has finally settled down in Los Angeles. Since releasing her long-awaited fourth album, so sad so sexy, in 2018, the 33-year-old artist has digested the trauma and triumph of the past few years. While writing so sad so sexy, Li had just given birth to her son, Dion, split…

From the time I left home until I was 34 I moved 35 times. Since then my moving gradually slowed down. For 11 years I’ve been living in a loft-like house in Paris above the Montmartre Cemetery. This is longer than I’ve ever lived in any place in my life. It’s also the first time…

A journey is a specific dimension that has different meanings, all correct. Usually a journey implies the place you’re aiming at, the place you’re going to. Not the moving, the transaction, or the road you’re going through to get there. I think of the caravan on the road, the sailboat in the ocean, slow and…

From 2006 to 2008, I spent many Saturday evenings lying prone on the carpet of American minimalist composer La Monte Young’s Manhattan loft—repurposed for the last 18 years as a sound and light installation—listening to the steady drone of electronic sine waves tuned in a system wherein each note is related to every other note…

In cities all over the world it is possible to observe inherited gestures, or free interpretations, of the architectural imagery of Herzog & de Meuron. It is common to see, in the same neighbourhood, repeated versions of the Dominus Winery. Dubious clones that, with different objectives, use the notorious solution of enclosing stones in gabions…

I met editor Luis Venegas 12 years ago through a mutual friend at a dive bar in Barcelona. Shortly after we began chatting, it already seemed as if we had known each other since forever. Aside from discussing our idols and references, I was already telling him intimate stories, like the time that I participated…

During the time that I am writing this, the power plant Fukushima-Daichi is continuing to spread fatal radioactive emanation that over the next few years will kill thousands of children, women, men, and animals. In an attempt to reassure the people that the contamination could be controlled, false information is given through the newspapers and—even…

I live with my mum in this small apartment with tatami floors. We moved to Tokyo two years ago when I was 14, from Berlin where all the apartments are huge and cheap. Therefore it was hard for me to adapt to living in a tiny room with less privacy. Just like it was hard…

Humor Furniture Graphic Born and raised in Milan, Luciano Consigli (1930) has been a key figure in the grapho-humoristic Italian scene since the early ‘60s, when he first founded Humor Graphic. Part book part magazine, it was a series that ran all the way into the early ‘90s. Humor Graphic has been one of the…

The first pieces of arts and crafts furniture I bought were two Harry Napper chairs. Though primarily a textile artist, he also designed a series of tall-back chairs around the same time as Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I became obsessed with the way the arms were constructed and how something could be from a different period but…

The left side of the omelette Before Catalan design, and long before Catalan design became that uncomfortable name which we try to shake off at the sight of Mao necklines, frameless glasses and untreated wood, there was Leopoldo Pomés (Barcelona, 1931). Photographer, creative advertiser, film-maker, restaurateur; and art, design and photography catalytic visionary. A figure of…

London: I first met Lina Scheynius on a sunny day in Paris in 2008. She was strolling down the Canal Saint-Martin with her best friend, Amanda, and the combined height of the pair, who are often mistaken for each other, made me assume they were models. Shortly thereafter, I was introduced to Lina’s photographs, and…

Wall Street shack New York City: Leon Ransmeier is a young American industrial designer that has made quite a name for himself designing utilitarian objects, such as doormats, dish racks, lampshades, heaters, and humidifiers. He has been unafraid to take on un-glamorous but essential products transforming them so they can actually fit in with the rest…

Flashing pink notes, quite hysterical, written here and there—‘THINGS TO DO’, ‘THINGS NOT TO DO’—all over yellow Post-Its. I’ve never thought of them as threatening, rather funny instead. Antonio and I had never met. He had left me his house keys after hours chatting on the phone, a few interviews; more questions, I’d say. Probably…

Collecting is a condition of humanity. To collect is to possess. Ownership is something that very few people manage to live without, collecting is almost a subconscious activity. What I am interested in is the peripheries and the extremes. Collecting is to do with entertainment; an enthusiasm for a particular object or experience, for whatever reason….

Scenographies from a marriage Buenos Aires: Ten years ago in an art gallery I was like a child interacting with the artworks of Leandro Erlich, and the sensorial quality of the art made me happy; it was simple and complex at the same time. They were mini-installations (an elevator which looked as though it led…

Athens: The first time I saw Lena Platonos was on the cover of a record in a Madrid shop. ‘Look at this’, Nikos, my Greek husband, said excitedly, holding the vinyl up to my face until I was eye to eye with Lena’s pale-blue gaze. ‘Thirty euros. Do you know who this is? Do you…

Mexico City: Carlos Matos and Lucas Cantú, founders of Tezontle, live and work in the historic centre of Mexico City, El Centro. Despite being the busiest and most hectic part of the city at certain daytime hours, at night it turns into a sort of ghost town, where dark cantinas and famous taquerías consort in…

Point Reyes: Leonard Koren and I first met over a lunch of soup and salad at the Lucid Art Foundation in 2010. At the time, I was familiar with his book Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. The book is a part of our family library, and along with Leonard’s deft synopsis of a…

A ceramic legend Stockholm: Ask pretty much any Swede, and even those that have been living under a rock for the last 60 years would probably still be familiar with the ceramic artist Lisa Larson. Today in her 80s, Lisa is probably as close you can get to a national ceramic legend. I, as many others, grew…

A conversation chaired by Amelia Stein Drawings by Stefan Marx This is a conversation between four people about living in the present. Which means, at least for our purposes, a conversation about inevitability and possibility, anxiety and hope, the flexible and the fixed. About life and how it happens: where, in what, and with whom. Stephanie…

Play to achieve Milan: During her childhood in the Swedish countryside, drawing was Liselotte Watkins’ escape from everyday life. Her artistic talent brought her from Texas college studies to Chelsea, New York, and a growing obsession with the city’s more fashionable and eccentric historical characters. Thanks to hard work, social skills and a pinch of luck,…

Florence: Lapo Binazzi is the soul and cofounder of UFO, one of several Florentine groups that changed the way people approached architecture and design (a word that didn’t yet exist) during the second half of the 20th century. They were part of the so-called Italian Radical Design storm, which also included works by Superstudio, Archizoom, Remo…

There was one faux pas growing up as Nicola L’s grandsons, and it was instilled into us early and with fervour: we could absolutely not refer to her as grandmother. Or grandma, or grand-mère, or anything that would suggest she could possibly be old enough to have offspring with offspring of their own. Nicola takes…

New York City: When I arrived to visit the ground-breaking conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner in his West Village home, his wife, Alice, opened the door and invited me in before asking who I was. We found ourselves standing in the kitchen, which fronts the street, quickly finding things to talk about. On the wall behind us…

The composer and musician Laurie Spiegel is distinguished by many accomplishments, including one that really sets her apart. For the past 40 years a musical composition made with computers and based on the work of a 17th-century astronomer has been orbiting the solar system on NASA’s two Voyager space probes. The scientist Carl Sagan selected…

Tiphaine de Lussy’s childhood summers would begin with the sight of an exotic bird’s tail. Waking up at her grandparents’ chateau in a room shared with her brother and one of her nine cousins, the first morning’s glimpse of the original 19th century bird and flower wallpaper would remind her of the holidays. In the…

Lives in a bakery Biel: While I was driving through the snow up in the mountains of Biel, I was very nervous. It’s a particular feeling when you finally meet someone you know through pictures and through writing. I know his image will be familiar, yet his voice will be strange to me. Maybe we won’t…

Bernard Rudofsky (1905–1988) and his wife, Berta, constructed La Casa, a home in the small town of Frigiliana, Málaga, Spain, towards the end of the ‘70s. Rudofsky was a multifaceted character—architect, theorist, designer, curator, professor, entrepreneur—who generated an influential discourse based on his observations of the way human beings inhabit and satisfy their vital necessities….

JR arrives with a bag of slips and panties. She’s petite and adorable, with an unexpected Jersey girl accent and a lot of flair. Nelleke looks like a beautiful, young Kurt Cobain with freshly-coloured (bright) ginger hair! The inspiration came from a dream catcher above her bed in which she confides over Helping Heart Tea….

A conversation chaired by Federica Sala Now that objects are dematerialising, what will be the future of our relationship with light? On a fine Milanese afternoon, with Piero Gandini, president of Flos; Jolanthe Kugler, curator at the Vitra Design Museum; and Francesco Zanot, photography critic and curator, we endeavoured to find out. Light has been around…

I once dated a girl who was 8 years my junior. A twenty something nymphet who was ripe in the art of seduction. An art student. Although she was not terribly book-smart, she was curious enough to listen to my literary diatribes with wide eyes and a dirty mind. I was fascinated by the way…

Celui qui regarde du dehors à travers une fenêtre ouverte, ne voit jamais autant de choses que celui qui regarde une fenêtre fermée. Il n’est pas d’objet plus profond, plus mystérieux, plus fécond, plus ténébreux, plus éblouissant qu’une fenêtre éclairée d’une chandelle. Ce qu’on peut voir au soleil est toujours moins intéressant que ce qui…

‘You’re nobody in L.A. unless you live in a house with a big door.’ – L.A. Story (1991)