A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a Prada Marfa-esque store in a decommissioned gas station in the Swedish countryside, a debut collection by an up-and-coming South African designer (now based in the US!), and a new lighting collection that channels a Ligurian summer.

Discoveries

The debut furniture collection from South African designer Hanneke Lourens sets undulating curves against geometric shapes and sharp lines in a lounge chair, bench, and three tables made of white oak. Lourens, who now lives in Northern California, was inspired by the sheets of corrugated metal found throughout the urban landscapes of her home country. She describes the five-piece series as “a love letter to South Africa, a place where shimmering corrugated metal sheets catch your eye almost everywhere you look. There is an inexplicable quality that makes Africa so special — it’s a place that delicately perches somewhere between beauty and chaos. Growing up in this land of contrast, my aim has always been to capture this sense of duality in my work.”

Joinery is a highlight in Børge Mogensen’s BM0057 oak and brass sideboard, whose beautiful simplicity of form belies the complicated, detailed nature of the cabinetry. The iconic Danish modern designer’s piece from 1957 — which can stand alone or connect in multiples to form a longer sideboard — will be available this September from Danish company Carl Hansen and Søn.

In 2023, London-based designer Livia Lauber launched the Enzo Shelves, a two-sided, wheeled, aluminum bookshelf that can also serve as a room divider – a perfect blend of functionality and style. Plastic netting on the aluminum surfaces adds texture and color while keeping books and objects from slipping. This year, Lauber has created variations on the Enzo theme: a single wall shelf and a multilevel wall shelf, a nightstand, and a shoe rack.

Istanbul’s Day Studio, founded by Doğanberk Demir and Yeşim Eröktem in 2015, recently released Maçka, a seating collection defined by slim lines and elegant floating backrests. Inspired by “the hidden modernist jewels” that contrast with the ancient architecture of the Turkish city, Maçka pieces come in minimal bold powder-coated red, black, and stainless steel frames, with seats upholstered in fabric or leather or the pared-back option for metal. Available at Avlu Istanbul.

Joséphine Choquet, a creative consultant and designer of fashion accessories and objects, and Margaux Degoy, an interior and furniture designer, are fascinated by the way objects tell stories. They’ve now translated that fascination into STUFF, a temporary mini showroom in Lausanne, Switzerland, bringing together their personal collections of jewelry, timepieces, tableware, rare books, artworks, and more. Available for sale at 6 rue Grand Saint Jean and online, through October.

Imagine what you might find inside a crumbling stone palazzo that time seems to have forgotten along the Ligurian coast of Northern Italy. For former magazine editor turned designer Christopher Tennant, who upcycles antiques and sustainably sourced materials into limited editions under Tennant New York, it’s a faded glamour he’s channeled into the Ligurian Summer collection. Sea shell and bamboo floor and table lamps are both refined and playful, as is a pendant made from 1950s deadstock Japanese parasols, and lighting that incorporates seagrass, leather, and marble.

Exhibitions

Árboles, a dual exhibition of paintings and furniture at Marta in LA, puts the work of artist Klas Ernflo and designer Mark Morro, both based in Barcelona, in an irresistible conversation. A juxtaposition of textures, color, materiality, and form, Ernflo’s abstracted but still figurative fabric paintings, saturated in their hues, combine and contrast with the natural wood tones and volumes of Morro’s pieces. Ernflo’s motifs have also been carved into the solid wood surfaces of Morro’s furniture and then painted. Formally spare, Morro’s footstools, step stools, and chairs emphasize their joinery, the way they literally fit together to comprise a new whole, and more metaphorically, how things can connect and grow – like the system of roots and branching that the show’s title suggests.  On view through August 3rd.

If you happen to be near the Swedish island of Öland this summer, go visit JOYLAND, a pop-up shop from Stockholm designer Fredrik Paulsen’s interior brand JOY and Milan brand and retailer Slam Jam. Up through August 9th, a decommissioned gas station in the village of Näsby is the site of a reimagined, self-service lanthandel (or general store) with a selection of furniture, fashion, and objects. To enter, visitors are asked to text or call a number to receive a code which will open the door. Very Prada Marfa.

Matt Paweski’s painted, riveted aluminum sculptures bear some resemblance to everyday functional objects you might find assembled on a table top but they resist easy definition or classification. They seem simple enough at first glance but vertiginous the closer you look. With the Table Setting exhibition at Volume Galleryin Chicago, the Los Angeles-based artist gathers together these pieces, which allude to the decorative, ornamental work of Austrian artist Dagobert Peche (co-director of the Wiener Werkstätte) but elicit a mystery that’s all their own. On view through August 17th.

The Meditations on Movement exhibition at New York’s Twenty First gallery showcases French artist-artisan Vincent Corbière, presenting a capsule collection of his pieces dating from 2014 to the present. For Corbiere, based in Anjou, movement is the element that brings life to his pieces; his sculpture and furniture fixes movement into a moment and into an object. He uses traditional, centuries-old techniques to craft his visions out of hand-forged metals and woods like walnut and oak, often oxidizing them to bring out burgundies, blacks, and gold tones. The show also highlights the collaborative pieces he’s created with his wife, Anne Corbière, integrating her handwoven textiles; this is fanciful work that imagines itself among objects and flora encountered by Virginia’s Woolf’s time-traveling Orlando. On view through the end of the month.