01.12.21

Up and Coming

Ok Kim Uses a Centuries-Old Korean Lacquer Technique to Make These Very 2021 Pieces

The Seoul-based artist and designer Ok Kim makes colorful contemporary art and furniture using Ottchil, a centuries-old Korean technique that’s at risk of dying out. "Ottchil" refers to the sap that seeps out of lacquer trees when cuts are made in its bark; the substance is a natural lacquer that’s mixed with fine sand and pigments to achieve a variety of durable finishes for furniture.
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11.21.20

Saturday Selects

Week of November 16, 2020

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: Stockholm syndrome gets gentrified, a couple of ECAL grads consider light from a dark place, and a gallery show pays homage to John Lewis, Serena Williams and — who else? — Beyoncé.
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09.28.20

Q+A

China’s Most Influential Design Duo on the Country’s Future As a Cultural Powerhouse

To understand the contemporary design scene in China, learning about Neri&Hu’s work is a prerequisite. The country has experienced phenomenal social and architectural growth over the last two decades, and the pair have been a key part of the powerful creative driving force behind it, contributing numerous landmark designs inside and outside the country. I spoke with them about their current projects, and China’s place in the modern world.
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09.28.20

Sight Unseen Presents

Guest Editor Yoko Choy Explores the Work in Progress That is Chinese Design

Chinese design is still finding its way and is too diverse to be captured in a neat single identity. So while the global community may be eager to create a brand for this emerging body of work, defining it is still a work in progress. In the 15 years I’ve been working as a design journalist, I’ve been asked constantly, “What is Chinese Design”? I, too, have been asking myself that same question. And I feel that now I’m finally seeing an answer (or answers) and am proud to share my discoveries, some of which formed the basis for my guest-editor curation this week.
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05.27.20

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Lambert & Fils’ New Collection Was Inspired By Airport Floodlights and Vintage French Mopeds

Riding high on the buzz from their installation at last year’s Salone del Mobile, Lambert & Fils had planned to open their first New York showroom and launch a monograph detailing the brand’s first 10 years. But, as we are all well aware, the universe had other ideas. With their grand plans shifted to the back burner, the studio is instead focusing their energy in a new direction: Expanding the Dorval lighting system, which was first unveiled in 2018 in collaboration with Paris-based SCMP Design Office.
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Italian interiors stylist Greta Cevenini
06.03.19

Up and Coming

Meet Greta Cevenini, The Best Italian Interiors Stylist You’ve Never Heard Of

Greta Cevenini has been quietly circling behind the scenes of the Italian design world for the past few years, styling lookbooks for Spotti and cc-tapis and envisioning spreads for Icon Design; she most recently took the helm for Cassina’s new catalogue, which was released during Salone. Her work is quiet — cool and rich with light-touch visual references well before they become ubiquitous, leaning more on texture and subtle color variations rather than dramatic, scene-stealing statements.
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04.26.19

Excerpt: Exhibition

One of Our Milan Week Favorites? An Adult Playground Made From Industrial Flooring

We're now deep in the age of the Instagram-friendly immersive installation, which was especially evident at this year's Milan furniture fair, where we couldn't help but laugh at how many brands were touting some sort of earnestly dramatic light-based experience. And yet, for materials brands, there really is no better way to inspire visitors — and no one did that better last month than Tarkett, who with Note Design Studio installed a towering forest of playful geometric columns inside one of Milan's most beautiful buildings, the 150-year-old Circolo Filologico Milanese.
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04.23.19

Excerpt: Exhibition

Studiopepe Went Full Mystic For Milan Design Week

A few weeks ago, while other brands and design studios were barraging our inboxes with press releases and preview images pre-Salone, Studiopepe — the Milan-based interiors duo of Arianna Lelli Mami and Chiara Di Pinto — kept relatively mum, announcing only that they would be investigating "the interconnection between matter and the archetypal power of symbols" in a former gold factory in Porta Venezia. In other words: design week catnip.
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04.04.19

Sighted

Milan Preview: New Lighting — And the Cutest Café — By Lambert & Fils

At Salone every other year, a special portion of the fair is devoted to Euroluce, aka all the lighting brands you can cram into one (or two) pavilions. But this year, one of our favorite lighting brands is debuting its new collections miles away from the fairgrounds of Milan: Next week, the Montréal-based Lambert & Fils will pop up with a six-day concept café at Alcova, a former panettone factory in the northeast corner of the city.
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03.28.19

Fair Report

Milan Preview: Jorge Penadés’ Aquatic-Inspired Aluminum Vases

Jorge Penadés has been popping up on our radar a lot lately, and the Spanish designer’s latest move is a collaboration with the manufacturer BD Barcelona, a furniture brand known for its extensive design catalogue and pioneering technology in aluminum extrusion dating all the way back to the 1970s. Entitled Piscis, the six different vases are made from extruded aluminum profiles, converted from the offcuts of old tables and shelves (including those by Konstantin Grcic) produced over the last 50 years in BD Barcelona's factory.
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03.26.19

Up and Coming

Designer, Painter, Sculptor, Architect — This Parisian Multihyphenate is About To Be Everywhere

The Instagram bio of Paris-based designer Garance Vallée once included the designation “HumanCreativeRomantic;” a quick scroll through her works, and painter, illustrator, jewelry designer, sculptor, and furniture designer could all easily be included as well. Vallée is a quintuple threat who recently completed her master’s degree in architecture and scenography, where she focused on concrete pieces, or what she considers “objects as small architecture.” But whichever medium she’s in, Vallée seems equally at home.
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