Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2016 i ELLE DECOR

WHEELS IN MOTION Ceramist Amanda Moffat, whose Brooklyn home is featured on page 170, opened New Clay Studios in the borough’s Gowanus neighborhood in 2002. There she produces her own line of pottery and leases space to 12 artists. “It’s fascinating to see people working with the same materials but making vastly different pieces,” says Moffat. Her own creations include mugs, plates, vases, and umbrella stands, and she employs 35 glazes and an array of coloring techniques. “I look for inspiration in old fabrics, architectural forms, and in the process itself,” says Moffat. “Clay can shift in the firing and bend or warp. Sometimes that destroys a piece—but other times it helps.” amandamoffatpottery.com VOLUME CONTROL Virginia Tupker, who decorated the Bedford, New York, home that appears on page 156, shares…

The Beirut-based design duo of David Raffoul and Nicolas Moussallem met as students at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts. “He used to copy my drawings,” quips Raffoul. “I initially thought I could never be friends with him.” Time has proved him wrong. Not only have the pair become extremely close, but since setting up their studio, David/Nicolas, in 2011, they have also become highly sought-after. Everything they create is very much a four-handed affair. “There’s never a drawing done by just one of us,” says Raffoul. “One does a line, the other adds something, and then it just builds up,” adds Moussallem. To date, their projects have included dinner services for the Portuguese tableware company Vista Alegre and several objects for the French design firm Collection Particulière. The latest—their…

WHAT’S NEW TO THE TRADE—FABRICS, FURNISHINGS, AND FABULOUS FINDS 1 Inspired by architect Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre in Paris, the Bibliothèque bookcase by Cox London features a steel frame with mesh compartments fronted by panels of brass or lantern glass. Shown in a Black Iron finish, the piece measures 57″ w. x 14″ d. x 94.5″ h.; custom sizes and finishes are offered. rosetarlow.com. 2 For his Clear Band floor lamp, Philadelphia-based designer John Pomp suspended a clear glass pendant from a 68″ h. blackened-steel frame. Other glass colors and metal finishes are available; a 60-watt incandescent bulb is included. johnpomp.com. 3 The Poolside Elevated lounge chair by John Hutton for Sutherland has a frame of summery teak. Measuring 34″ w. x 37″ d. x 30.5″ h., it is…

The cocktail table is the nerve center of the modern living room. The low-lying surface is where we put not only drinks and snacks, but also art books, flower arrangements, and remote controls. “A cocktail table sets the tone of the room,” says designer Bennett Leifer. “It needs to be functional while also pleasing to the eye.” When choosing a cocktail table, consider how you plan to use it, says designer Paris Forino. “Go delicate and sculptural if it is in a formal space and won’t get a lot of wear and tear,” she explains. “But for a den, where people might be eating around the TV, you’ll want something more utilitarian.” “Keep the table height close to the seat height,” adds Leifer. “This not only ensures visual harmony but…

WHAT’S NEW BRIDGE THE GAP Portland goes by many nicknames—Rose City, Stumptown, Bridgetown—but the latter may be the most apt, considering that the city’s 12th bridge, Tilikum Crossing, opened last September. Named after the indigenous Chinook tribe’s word for “people,” the cable-stayed steel structure is the longest car-free bridge in the United States. After dusk, it’s also a canvas for artists Douglas Hollis and the late Anna Valentina Murch: Their installation of 178 LEDs, which change color according to the temperature and current of the Willamette River, casts dreamlike hues on the bridge’s 40 cables. TASTING MENU The warehouses of the Central Eastside neighborhood are rapidly becoming an unofficial food-factory corridor. You can sample salt culled from Oregon’s Netarts Bay—and flavored with black truffles or Stumptown coffee— at Jacobsen Salt…

HE STUMBLED UPON the property accidentally. One afternoon in 2007, while Eric Hadar was driving around looking for the home of a friend in the estate-laden terrain of Bedford, New York, he pulled up to an elderly fellow on a tractor to ask for directions. He realized almost immediately that the man’s 45-acre farm, which included an expansive main residence and a large carriage house, was a remarkable piece of intact history. On the spot, Hadar, a Manhattan real estate executive who once owned the Citicorp Center, made a handshake deal with the owner, a Quaker whose ancestors had built the place in 1870, but whose grown children had no interest in running it. “I had $60 in my pocket, and I gave it to him as a deposit,” says…

HINKLEY LIGHTING On January 22, Hinkley Lighting, in partnership with ELLE DECOR and VERANDA, celebrated the debut of the company’s newest collections at Lightovation in Dallas. Guests enjoyed a night of cocktails and dancing followed by a re-energizing morning at Hinkely’s famous “Morning After” Jazz Brunch. WITT +BLISS This past fall, Witt + Bliss opened in the heart of the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis. Located within the retail collaborative D. NOLO, the urban lifestyle boutique offers a not-to-be-missed selection of highly curated home accessories and gifts. For more information visit wittandbliss.com. SCAVOLINI Foodshelf, designed by Ora-Ïto for Scavolini, reinterprets the function of the kitchen by seamlessly integrating it into and making it part of the home’s living area. The new kitchen concept—a combination of advanced function and minimalist but…

PAST MASTERS With a Botticelli show at the Victoria and Albert Museum (vam.ac.uk) and a survey of the age of Giorgione at the Royal Academy of Arts (royalacademy.org.uk), a rage for the Renaissance is sweeping Europe. Is it any wonder that the period’s sumptuous gowns, dusky jewel-tone colors, and intricate brocades are enticing designers? For Valentino’s spring collection, designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli sent out gowns that would look right at home in a Venetian palazzo (valentino.com). Meanwhile, Idarica Gazzoni has modeled silk-velvet shoes after gondolier slippers (arjumands world.com). And Fadini Borghi’s new Roma velvet fuses Renaissance and Baroque motifs (www.pierrefrey.com). GROWTH INDUSTRY It may be time to shake off the winter blues and hit the great outdoors, but greenery can also be found in some surprising interior…

Imaginative and handcrafted, Michael Aram’s designs beg to be noticed, whether he is creating an enchanted garden–inspired candlestick or a bronze lamp with a pattern of lily pads. The designer himself keeps a lower profile. “People at trade shows or events sometimes ask me if Michael Aram is a living designer,” he says. “I let my work speak for me.” He is very much alive, of course, and thriving, with his collection of home accessories and furniture sold at such stores as Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s. Last year, he realized his longtime goal of creating a jewelry line, and metal-glazed porcelain tiles for Artistic Tile are coming soon. Aram divides his time between his homes in New York and New Delhi, where he maintains a design studio. “I love India’s…

If there is one image burned into the memories of visitors to the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale, it is of a wood-clad theater, composed of simple rectangular boxes, bands of sky-blue paint, and a pyramidal roof, floating lazily on the lagoon. Resembling a dream-like apparition, it signaled not only the presence of a fully functioning 250-seat barge-based performance space, but also the ability of its Italian architect, Aldo Rossi, to seemingly conjure magic. Rossi, who would go on to become the first Italian architect to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1990, was born in Milan in 1931. After graduating from the city’s polytechnic school in 1959, he wasted little time in establishing himself as one of the leading architects, designers, and theorists of his generation. In 1966, he published…

ELLE DECOR: Before you built this house, where did you live? MARC MEIRÉ: In New York City, actually. My ex-wife and I had an apartment uptown in Manhattan and also a charming Victorian house in Dering Harbor on Shelter Island. When I moved back to Germany, I rented a house around the corner from this property while this house was under construction. ED: Where in Cologne is it located? MM: It’s in an old residential area called Lindenthal, which means “valley of lindens,” close to the center of the city. The front of the house overlooks a beautifully landscaped canal. ED: Who lives with you? MM: My two daughters—Maxine, who is studying marketing and communication, and Stella, who is about to finish school. And my partner, Alice Trier, who is…

AMERICAN-BORN interior designer Christopher Noto was not exactly planning to buy an apartment in Paris. He already owned one—in a Haussmann-era building near the Palais-Royal. But one day in 2011, he found himself waiting on a sidewalk in the 7th arrondissement just as a “for sale” sign was unrolled on a neighboring building. He’d always loved the district and, on the spur of the moment, he decided to call. “I was waiting for the last number to appear to punch it in,” he remembers. “The woman who answered said, ‘We already have 15 appointments,’ to which I replied, ‘How can you? You’ve only just put up the sign!’ ” Within days, he’d seen the apartment and made an offer. But then he started to get cold feet. “I thought, Am…

A century ago, when Marcel Duchamp slyly displayed a urinal off the wall and called it art, his point was to reject works that are made to please the eye. Beauty, pretty much ever since, has had a complicated relationship with the art world. The lyrical, abstract paintings and sculptures by Pouran Jinchi, an Iran-born, Brooklyn-based artist, rely on the kind of visual allure that Duchamp and the Dada artists might have deplored. But look closely, and you’ll feel their pain. Delicate, hand-cut curls of copper, like twirling golden earrings, end in tips as sharp as a scimitar. Vibrant pinks, violets, and blues, made from inks that Jinchi painstakingly mixes, start to resemble the shades of a very bad bruise only after you read the titles of the paintings—Wound, Hacked,…

HE’S AN ÜBER-MODERNIST, favoring sleek lines and large expanses of glass. She bends more to the traditional, preferring soft curves and mullioned windows. So when designer Alison Palevsky and her husband, Alexander, began discussing plans for their home in Pacific Palisades, California, there was plenty of, shall we say, back and forth before a successful blending of their styles was realized. They did agree on the basics. They both loved the neighborhood— a sliver of twists and turns perched atop the wall of a canyon that spills into the ocean—and the privacy of their property, which is at the end of a street. They liked the house but felt it didn’t take full advantage of the breathtaking views. “I wanted to be eating breakfast and looking at the ocean,” says…

DESIGNER PHILLIP THOMAS likes to describe himself as “a type A personality.” Which means that, in addition to his Georgetown University and New York School of Interior Design credentials and his fluency in Spanish—which endears him to Latin American clients such as the owners of this duplex—he is, well, a tad obsessive about details. Luckily for all concerned, so are his clients. In fact, their New York City digs, in a glass tower by Richard Meier overlooking the Hudson, are seriously type A, from the precise carpet seams to the custom-monogrammed table linens. “A lot of cocktail napkins died for those monograms,” Thomas says with a laugh. The owners are thrilled with their apartment’s new warmth, which they attribute to “the love put into each moment of working in, and…

A young man arrives in America speaking virtually no English. In his possession are one suitcase, one book, and the name of a single contact. No, this is not a scene from Ellis Island circa 1903, but from JFK nearly a century later. The man, Val Nikitin, moved here from his native Ukraine to ply his trade as an architect. Fast-forward 20 years. Today, as principal of his own design firm, he has just completed work on a suite of rooms upstairs in a 9,000-squarefoot house on an estate in Scarsdale, New York. He had previously designed the poolhouse, terrace, and formal garden on the property, not to mention the clients’ beach house, as well as a number of other projects, both large and small, for other clients in the…