A New Design Hotel in Porto for Everyone Going to Portugal Right Now

Situated on the Douro river, The Rebello hotel in Porto features 103 rooms, a full-service restaurant, two bars, and a luxurious yet unfussy spa. But it’s the design, of course, that we’re most taken with. Outside, local architecture firm Metrourbe transformed a disused, 19th-century factory for kitchen utensils into four thoroughly modernized yet character-rich buildings, two of which were newly constructed to connect the original stone structures. Inside, Spanish designer and founder of Lisbon’s Quiet Studios Daniela Francheschini has woven together four central elements that reference Porto: water, wine, wood, and industry.

01.06.22

Up and Coming

With Its Whimsical Ceramics and Mirrored Lounges, Project 213A is Bringing a Bit of Joy to 2022

If you needed more proof that we're living in something of a golden age of small-batch production, look no further than the new design brand and housewares shop Project 213A, which was founded in 2020 by four friends and is based between London, Paris, and Portugal. In the last two years they've built up an enviable portfolio of that mixes the kind of ceramic silhouettes that are popular right now with wild cards that keep you guessing like a fully mirrored low lounge, a multicolored tiled bench, and a chestnut wood milking stool, with one lone leg carved in the shape of a foot.

08.15.18

Interiors

Visit the 200-Year-Old Portuguese Vineyard That Pierre Yovanovich Turned Into a Chic New Hotel

When the French winemaker Philippe Austruy purchased the Quinta da Corte vineyard in 2012, the 200-year-old property was in a state of utter neglect and disrepair. But by this past July, when I drove two hours from Porto to reach its perch in the hills of Portugal's Douro Valley, it had been completely transformed — turned into a luxe country inn by the buzzy French architect Pierre Yovanovich.

07.02.15

Q+A

Portuguese Designer Célia Esteves of GUR Rugs

While Portugal is probably best known, these days, for manufacturing clothing and shoes for big brands like COS, Zara, and Camper — or if you're a product designer, for supplying 50% of the world's cork — Porto-based designer and printmaker Célia Esteves homed in on its longtime flat-weave rug-making tradition when she founded GUR two years ago. After meeting a weaver in her hometown of Viana de Castelo, who for 15 years had been handcrafting the style of rug that she'd seen on "every Portuguese kitchen floor" since she was a child, Esteves decided to hire the weaver to use the same technique to produce colorful limited-edition designs commissioned from illustrators she knew and admired, like Atelier Bingo and Ferreol Babin. We recently interviewed Esteves about the project, which has collabs with Après Ski and Reality Studio on the way; scroll down to read more about how she transformed a local craft into a contemporary design brand.

01.06.14

Sighted

Studio AH–HA’s Stationery Collection

We don't do this very often at Sight Unseen — post about the same subject twice in the span of two weeks — but in this case, we couldn't help it: When the young Portuguese graphics duo Studio AH–HA submitted their answers for our recent Up and Coming profile, they included eight impeccably styled photos of their personal stationery collection, and we couldn't bear to let the images go to waste. There are few things more beautiful than old paper goods, as anyone who's ever perused the goods at Present and Correct, or the mountains of vintage office ephemera available on Etsy, can surely attest. So we asked AH–HA's Catarina Carreiras and Carolina Cantante to share the stories behind the objects in the photos they shot for us, many of which they inhereted from Carreiras's late grandfather.

12.24.13

Up and Coming

Studio AH–HA, Graphic Designers

Working as a design journalist confers some pretty amazing benefits — travel to international design fairs, VIP invitations to parties, the occasional holiday gift — but this, right here, is hands down our favorite part of the job: discovering something so new and exciting we get a rush just from being the first to be able to share it with you. We originally met Portuguese graphic designer Catarina Carreiras a few years ago during the Milan Furniture Fair, where she was helping staff the installation of her then-employer, Fabrica, and we've kept in touch with her ever since; in 2011 she joined forces with fellow designer (and OMA alum) Carolina Cantante to start the communication and design agency Studio AH—HA, which now operates out of Sam Baron's office in Lisbon. Carreiras still does work for Sam and Fabrica, but as of this very story, she and Cantante are officially announcing the existence of their burgeoning practice — and its brand new website — to the rest of the world. You'll want to stare at the duo's gorgeous work for ages; seeing as it's the last story we'll be posting until January 2 as we embark our annual holiday hiatus, you'll have plenty of time to do just that. Happy new year, and enjoy!

01.04.10

What They Bought

Kiosk’s Portugal collection

It’s hard to put a finger on just how the New York store Kiosk — which peddles quirky housewares from around the world, one country at a time — vaulted from cherished destination of a few to the kind of place Jasper Morrison, London's best-known everyday-object apologist, feels obliged to check out when he’s rolling through town. But while the 4-year-old Soho shop has begun to shed its air of secrecy, it has never lost its charm. Climbing a set of graffiti-covered stairs to its second-floor entrance, you never know what you’re going to find at the top.