A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a set of very austere chairs, a contemporary take on Asian-influenced tableware, and a Barcelona apartment that’s reminiscent of a lemon meringue pie.

Interiors

Lemon meringue pie was the first thing that sprung to mind upon seeing this apartment by Lama Studio. The long, narrow space in Barcelona’s Ravel neighborhood features vaulted ceilings (kind of like whipped egg whites?) and slices of yellow. The sunny hue is applied as a microcement across the floor throughout, and matched on closet doors, a vertical shelving element, and a breakfast table/workspace in the living area. For an extra touch of color contrast in the otherwise white interiors, dark green was chosen for the modular sofa and bathroom tiles. Delicious! Photos by Cristina Palomar

Discoveries

Giancarlo Valle‘s new Soho gallery-esque annex, located in the former loft of artist Marcia Hafif, was open during NYCxDesign and we spent a glorious hour there, charging our phone in the sun amongst the antique Flemish tapestries, the new items by Valle’s studio and slip-skirt lamps by Analuisa Corrigan. Open by appointment and highly recommended. Photos by Clément Pascal

New from The Rug Company: a collection of five graphic designs that offer a contemporary take on iconic 20th-century American and European-centric art movements. The Future Forms series includes Gem, with organic petal-shaped motifs influenced by Surrealism. Then there’s Plexa, a beige carpet with a darker organic line that traces Retro-Futurism shapes across its surface. Forma borrows its contrasting blocks and stripes from Memphis-Milano, Boulder’s soft colors and abstract shapes evoke Modernism in the American West, and Dancer again nods to Surrealism with bold yet graceful and seemingly random design. All are hand-knotted by expert craftspeople in Nepal and were photographed in the home of Christian Siriano.

“Modern yet primeval” is how Polish designer Jan Ankiersztajn describes his collection of furniture and objects, and we can’t help but agree. Constructed entirely from aluminum, the pieces range from a low coffee table with sculptural legs that have a Richard Serra vibe about them, down to a minimal jug that embodies a utilitarian fantasy. Although they appear simple, the designs all required a complex process, based on traditional coachbuilding techniques, to shape and weld the edges of the metal sheets into the desired forms.

Quilting and batik in one garment? Clothing brand Anaak is onto something with its Raj jacket, which is patterned using the traditional dyeing technique by artisans in India. The one-size-fits-all design features 3/4 length kimono sleeves, open closure, and Sushi Voile lining, so you can throw it over almost any outfit on a cool spring or fall evening and still look effortlessly chic. The rose color of the silk tussar fabric is an extra bonus.

Back in 2020, we crowned paper pulp the “it” material of the year, thanks in part to Humberto de Mata’s Orgus collection of organically shaped home items. Now the Brazilian designer has expanded his series, using bolder colors and repetitive motifs for even more impact. The standout has to be the yellow Chair No.5, which has legs that extend into a tall back in the form of rigid bead strings. Similar strings create a tall vertical floor lamp in dark green, and frame an elliptical mirror in oxblood red. A bright orange stool and a green vessel in ceramic, the first material de Mata experimented with before moving into paper pulp, are also included in the range.

This set of austere chairs is courtesy of Chinese architect Wu Zhenyan, who created the TD Series based on “the inherent power of artifacts and the spirituality of architectural furniture.” Using various material combinations to form three-point seating structures, the aim was to produce volumes that would project the shadows of buildings. Probably not the most comfortable, but beautiful to look at!

Tortuga Forma has tapped Chinese-American designer Farrah Sit to create its upcoming range of modern Asian-influenced tableware based on family-style dining. The Kaolin Collection, named after the mountain range where clay was mined for Tang Dynasty porcelain, includes sculptural serving platters, rice bowls, sauce dishes, and a chopstick holder. The sauce dishes elegantly nestle together in a line thanks to notched edges, while the rice bowl, which is lifted on a small pedestal, is shaped to comfortably be cupped in the hand. A minimal white and black palette was chosen to help highlight the vibrant colors of the cuisine, and the brass utensil holder adds a gleam to the table setting. 

Exhibitions

Some highlights from the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) 2023 Viewing Rooms: sculptures by Rachel Mica Weiss that comprise marbled sheets nonchalantly draped over chunks of rock (Carvalho Park); a painting by Elise Lafontaine (Pangee) featuring a peach-to-chartreuse gradient over a trio of fluted extrusions; a surreal, intricately quilted piece by Hannah Woo (G Gallery): and a dreamy arch-shaped painting by Krista Louise Smith that looks like a portal into the center of a soap bubble (Carvalho Park).

There’s been a noticeable return of tapestries to interiors of late, and British designer Sussy Cazalet’s vibrant wall hangings are a welcome contribution. Her richly earth-toned, very mid-century woven designs were presented alongside the late Japanese ceramicist Taizo Kuroda’s pure white porcelain vessels at Tristan Hoare’s London gallery, for a 10-day exhibition titled Kyoto Sun last month. The stark contrast between their works, yet a similar approach to geometry, created a powerful dynamic through the rooms of the gallery’s Georgian townhouse.