A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: furniture that appears trapped in ice, a charming Parisian powder room, and an apartment that has us hankering to paint stripes on our wardrobes.

Exhibitions

A whole host of hits have been brought together by Gallery Fumi for its first exhibition in Los Angeles, coinciding with this month’s Frieze LA art fair. Among the works by international artists and designers represented by the gallery are a collection of furniture by Max Lamb made from discarded cardboard boxes, characterful ceramic lamps by Jeremy Anderson decorated with metal droplets, wiggly transparent light fixtures by Jochen Holz that remind of Medusa’s snaky hair, and a faceted porcelain vase by Johannes Nagel that’s glazed to look as if it’s been colored in with a blue felt-tip pen. On view at Sized Studio until March 9.

Interiors

BRB, painting red stripes over our vintage armoire! This piece is one of several major mood moments in an apartment named Stacey’s House, renovated by London-based Belgian architect Leendert de Vos. There’s a library with shelves modeled on Milton Avery’s Two Figures painting, a mirror that swoops up at one end to follow the staircase, a ribbon-shaped metal shelf draped over a radiator, kraft paper applied as wallpaper in the sitting room. We could go on…

At a former movie theater in the Dutch city of Dordrecht, previously also a convent, a school and a laboratory, has been reborn again as a “food and film destination.” The many lives of the historic building influenced Studio Modijefksy’s design of the interiors for the new space, called De Witt. The wavy wooden bar fronts and similar blue ceiling installations above are based on flowing nuns’ habits, checkered floor tiles evoke typical school decor, lighting fixtures are shaped like test tubes, and velvet drapery nods to the glamor of the silver screen era. Dordrecht’s official color palette (it was the first city in the Netherlands to adopt one, apparently) is applied throughout to imbue a sense of civic pride.

Discoveries

Seoul-based Fict Studio has taken shards of dark marble and encased them in transparent resin, so that they appear to be trapped in ice. Both the stone and the resin have uneven edges, adding to the glacial appearance of the Fragment series. The flat slabs are joined to form a table and a shelving unit, which were created to be installed at a showroom for women’s clothing brand, MUE.

Known for its brightly hued and boldly patterned interiors (see this checkered restaurant for proof), Valencia-based Masquespacio has now put its playful spin on ceramics—designing a series of tiles for Maora Ceramic. The tile surfaces are scored with organic lines, creating a multitude of patterns when installed together in different orientations, and come in a range of 26 styles and colors that are as daring as the studio’s spatial designs. The 20x20cm tiles can be placed on walls, floors, tabletops, you name it. Bonus! The studio also created a series of small plant pots to accompany the collection.

Nemo Lighting has decided to revive a design by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza, first created for his 1999 solo exhibition in Vicenza, Italy, and we’re very glad they did. The super stylish Lorosae pendant lamp features a two-tiered translucent diffuser, now available in three sizes and five new Italian-inspired color finishes: jasmine white, ocean blue, sorrento yellow, sicilian orange, and rosemary green.

In our minds, every toilet roll holder should be shaped like a tiny cottage. Luckily, Nicholas Devlin is on the same wavelength, and created one as part of a whimsical set of metal designs for a Parisian powder room. There’s also a mirror whose freeform frame is adorned with miniature medieval French buildings, a three-candle sconce that wouldn’t look out of place in a spooky chateau, and a sculptural basin that extends to form a shelf and appears to be slowly melting off the wall.

A Brooklyn couple who began selling vintage furniture and artwork during the pandemic have scaled up their operation significantly, opening a new 3,600-square-foot showroom in Greenpoint for their business, Renew Finds. This major step up from the nearby industrial loft they were using previously allows the duo street-level space to present pieces including vintage Ligne Roset, Gae Aulenti, and Mario Bellini, as well as collections from USM Haller, Gustaf Westman, and TWEMCO. 

Artworks for your floor! The textural landscapes of Hiromitsu Kuroo, a Japanese artist who combines origami with collage painting, have been transformed into a collection of rugs by Ruggism. Kuroo’s Fading Beauty range comprises various muted color combinations and repeated cross-shaped and dash-like patterns. The rugs are handmade from wool, linen and silk in India and Nepal.