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07.03.24

Interiors

A Tour Through the London Architectural Marvel The Cosmic House, Charles Jencks’s Postmodern Masterpiece

Located in London’s ultra-wealthy Holland Park, architect Charles Jencks's London home, The Cosmic House, doesn’t particularly stand out at first glance from the classic row of Victorian brick houses. But a closer look reveals unorthodox details, including circular windows and a metal gate that’s a collage of historical styles — telltale signs of Postmodernism. Adam Štěch revisits the 1983 masterpiece, now a museum and art foundation open to the public.
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06.27.24

Travel

Four Incredible Designer Villas You Can Rent This Summer in Europe, Or Just Admire From Afar

Every winter, when I start fantasizing about summer vacations I might go on that year, there's one form the daydreams always take: the enduring paradigm of the verdant country villa shared with family and friends, something straight out of a French or Danish film. But once you try to actually book a villa like that, the grounds may be picturesque, and the building pretty enough, but the interiors usually leave a lot to be desired. That's why we've been so happy to get to know the high-end home-sharing platform Boutique. Their offerings are geared towards design-forward properties rented by and for creatives, so your vacation can be both idyllic and aesthetic. We went hunting on Boutique's site for some of our favorite villas for rent across Europe and the UK that are lovely to look at, inside and out.
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04.19.24

Excerpt: Exhibition

If You Like Architectural Details, You’ll Love This Comprehensive Archive of Modernist Buildings and Interiors, On View in Milan

Unless you’re very offline, design-wise, you probably know about Prague-based architecture historian and curator — as well as frequent Sight Unseen contributor! — Adam Štěch. On his well-loved Instagram account, @okolo_architecture, he’s been assiduously and beautifully cataloging 20th-century architecture and interior design details for years. His photographic efforts aren’t simply representative, they’re revelatory, and they’re currently on view as part of Salone in his Elements exhibition at Dropcity, a new center for architecture and design in Milan. By focusing on the parts — the lighting, seating, tables, railings, doors, handles, windows, floors, and more — Štěch’s 3,000 images give us a new sense of the whole: not only the larger project of how a particular building was put together in a cohesive way, but a comprehensive view of how architecture and design developed and moved throughout the last century, charting the differences and similarities of Modernist buildings over time and through place.
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02.01.24

Interiors

How Do You Make a Home Inside a Monument? Ask the Gachots, Who Just Spent Three Years Living in a Paul Rudolph Masterpiece

In 1976, the architect Paul Rudolph bought the 19th-century townhouse at 23 Beekman Place where he’d had an apartment since the early '60s. While keeping the existing building as residences, he constructed his now-landmarked, multi-level penthouse on top of it: a steel and cement work of art that is rigorous and spare in its lines yet dizzying in its scope and form. Inside, beams clad in reflective material support a light-filled space with few walls, delineated by platforms and catwalks and cantilevered, landscaped terraces with spectacular views out over FDR Drive and the East River. For Rudolph, it was a kind of creative laboratory — and it’s also not hard to imagine it as a site for glamorous, louche, late disco-era parties. But how about a family home? Enter designers John and Christine Gachot, of New York’s Gachot, known for the warm modernism they bring to their high-end interiors.
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06.09.23

Interiors

Curved Walls — and Color — Are French Architect Pauline Borgia’s Secret to Designing a Small Space

At Pauline Borgia’s childhood home in Corsica, every room was a different color. Growing up in this polychromatic environment, she quickly understood the power of color to create associations and identity, and now applies hues in a highly considered way — to focus a sightline, play with proportion, or create a trompe l’oeil effect — in projects by her Paris-based studio, Atelier Steve.
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01.11.23

Travel

Four New Design Hotels With Interiors to Melt Your Winter Blues

Anyone else get back from their end-of-year break and immediately start thinking about their next vacation? We’re only a week into 2023 and already mapping out trips for the rest of the year. To help plan yours, or simply provide a moment of mental escape from the January gloom, floods, and other bizarre happenings, here are some of our favorite new, gorgeously designed hotels that offer everything from a beach getaway in Oaxaca, to a romantic weekend in Paris, to total relaxation in the Azores.
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10.20.22

Sighted

In His First Work of Architecture — A Country HQ for Kvadrat — Thomas Demand Takes Inspiration From the Page

Known for his highly nuanced, opaque, anything-but-straightforward photographs of cinematically lit, full-scale sets made of paper, artist Thomas Demand’s latest project is an incredibly literal work of architecture that appears like a paper construction. The pavilion — done in partnership with Caruso St John Architects as part of the textile manufacturer Kvadrat’s headquarters in coastal Ebeltoft, Denmark — follows, as the artist says “the logic of paper."
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09.14.22

Travel

Berlin Startup Raus Is Building Designer Cabins in the Woods that Let Tired City-Dwellers Become One With Nature

With its 170 square-foot bookable designer cabins, German startup Raus lets its guests leave the craziness of the city behind to experience being separated from endless trees and sky by a mere sliver of glass (without giving up the comforts of a proper mattress and shower). Its founders created the first few cabins themselves, negotiating deals with farmers outside Berlin to park the off-the-grid structures on their land, then commissioned architect Sigurd Larsen to envision model 2.0, which debuted this past spring.
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01.03.22

Interiors

An Insider’s Tour of the French Ski Resort Charlotte Perriand Designed in the 1960s and 70s

From the late 1960s through the 1980s, Charlotte Perriand designed several residential and recreational buildings in France’s Savoy Alps, inspired by the area’s traditional mountain architecture. The monumental project — Les Arcs — became one of the largest ski resorts in the world, and I had the opportunity to spend a few days there last July, documenting its interiors and exteriors.
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11.22.21

Interiors

Tour the Unbelievable 1930s Color-Blocked Fantasy Interior Hiding Inside a Simple Brick Building in Belgium

The modernist pioneer Jozef Schellekens was the public architect of Turnhout, a Belgian town halfway between Antwerp and Eindhoven, where he worked on schools and city halls. But his best-known and greatest work was his own house, a 1935 rectangular brick-and-glass structure whose simplicity belies the expressiveness of its interior, where Schellekens created a colorful world full of bespoke built-in furniture and other functional and decorative details.
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10.21.21

Interiors

Tour “The Bae,” A 250 Square-Foot Airbnb Whose Functions Are Hidden in Its Walls

In 2017, Tasmanian architects Alex Neilsen and Liz Walsh bought a 250 square-foot apartment and rebuilt it into their vision of a perfect “micro-luxury” home. Their intent was to create something amazing enough that it could set an example for small-space living, and by renting it out on Airbnb, help open other people’s eyes to its possibilities. The apartment became “The Bae,” and guests who enter it are often nervous at first about its small footprint — but ultimately fall in love.
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