08.03.19

Saturday Selects

Week of July 29, 2019

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: The Spanish artist making some of the coolest lamps we've seen, two different projects involving metallic furniture and lighting, and (another) incredible new hotel interior, this time in Portugal.
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08.02.19

Up and Coming

Meet the New Mumbai-Based Studio Making Lamps Inspired by Ancient Culture

The work of the new lighting design studio 500 B.C. comes from a fairly unexpected place, in more ways than one — not only is the firm based in Mumbai, India, but founders Anandita Shah and Shiraz Noorani both have backgrounds in disciplines other than product design. Before creating their very first lamp together a year ago, Shah ran a handbag company for 15 years, while Noorani was a civil and structural engineer. Since pivoting, they've been churning out lamp after lamp under the influence of icons like Luis Barragan, Alvar Aalto, and Ettore Sotsass.
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08.01.19

Interiors

Is Menorca the Next Puglia? Probably, Thanks to This Hotel Designed By Dorothee Meilichzon

When we first saw photos of the Experimental Menorca, the latest hotel to be outfitted by one of our very favorite interior designers, Paris-based Dorothee Meilichzon, part of us wanted to keep it to ourselves — at least until we got a chance to personally visit it. Especially since its resume is so hip it's almost ridiculous: 43-room agriturismo on an under-developed and overlooked island, Meilichzon's signature style, au courant branding, textiles and ceramics by LRNCE, food sourced from the hotel's garden, pottery and painting classes on offer, owned by a boutique hospitality agency... We could keep going.
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07.31.19

Sighted

This Canadian Designer — Known for His Woodwork — Is Making the Most Epic Glass

When we posted our New York Design Week round-ups earlier this spring, there was one project we held for later because it was just. that. gorgeous. Amidst a sea of walnut, bronze, maple, and steel at Vancouver-based designer Jeff Martin's booth, we spied these craggy, colorful glass vessels, glinting under the lights of the Javits. Turns out, when we reached out to Martin for more information, that the process by which they're made — from the remnants of past projects — is as interesting as the way they look.
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12.08.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

Josef Albers is One Of Design’s Biggest Influences — See What Inspired the Artist Himself

Things have changed quite a bit since we began Sight Unseen eight years ago, but one interview question has remained steadfast in our arsenal: Who are your biggest influences? And while the same answers tend to pop up often enough — Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Luis Barragán, Donald Judd — there's one name that seems to get checked more than anyone else: Josef Albers, the 20th-century artist, educator, and designer, whose book, Interaction of Color, is one of the most essential design texts ever written. But in a new exhibition at the Guggenheim, Josef Albers in Mexico, one of Albers's own greatest influences is laid bare.
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07.27.19

Saturday Selects

Week of July 22, 2019

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week, four pieces for building a colorful kitchen, two artist-edition sunglasses by Geoff McFetridge, and the single most magical piece of furniture we've ever seen.
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07.24.19

Current Obsession

No, You’re Not Imagining It — These Three Vintage Lamps Are Suddenly Everywhere

In design circles, there are a few things that might be considered "Instagram famous" — certain plants, to be sure; Luis Barragán interiors; Ricardo Bofill exteriors; the Atelier Brancusi replica at the Centre Pompidou; anthuriums. But in recent months, we've noticed three lamps popping up with such frequency that they might also be ascribed that title. Each lamp is vintage, but perhaps the more crucial thing they have in common is that each represents a trend currently winging its way through the design world.
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Ryan Belli Haas Brothers
07.23.19

Up and Coming

This Haas Brothers Protégé is the Next Big Designer Out of Los Angeles

When talking about his work to date — wooden pieces with an often rough-hewn, whittled feel, topped by lollipop-like textiles — Ryan Belli describes a reference map in his mind of things he’s seen: the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon, a bristlecone pine forest, the bubble clusters that form when you’re a kid blowing into a glass of milk with a straw. Sometimes these things come together in strange combinations to create an idea, and in recent months they have given rise to a wild collection of seating and light fixtures.
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07.20.19

Saturday Selects

Week of July 15, 2019

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week, reimagining the iPhone case as sculpture, a furniture exhibition inspired by temptation and paradise, and a collection of synesthesia-inducing candles.
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07.17.19

Sighted

This Tubular Furniture is Made From the Most Basic Construction Material You Can Imagine

Coils and springs are bouncing around the current design trend Zeitgeist — or at least we've seen enough of them lately that we started a Pinterest board to keep track — but Korean designer Greem Jeong's take on them might be our favorite application yet. Her Mono series employs silicone tubes — typically an industrial material that's used to protect wires or pipes — that are here wrapped around a steel core form everything from table bases to a stiff bench, in colors that range from velvety blue to brilliant banana yellow.
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