Interior Design and Furnishings

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares199 Views

    Yrjo Kukkapuro, Who Made the Easiest of Easy Chairs, Dies at 91

    by

    A celebrated Finnish modernist, he designed a variety of furnishings but was best known for his seating — which, his company said, “almost every Finn has sat on.”Yrjo Kukkapuro, a Finnish furniture designer who devoted his restless creative energies to sedentary comfort, creating dozens of chairs that coddled sitters and lent a zesty flair to their surroundings, died on Feb. 8 at his home in Kauniainen, Finland. He was 91.His death was confirmed by his daughter, Isa Kukkapuro-Enbom.In his seven-decade career, Mr. Kukkapuro designed a variety of furnishings for homes, offices and public institutions. But he was best known for his seating.“Almost every Finn has sat on a chair he designed — at a metro station, in a bank, at a school or in a library,” his company, Studio Kukkapuro, said in a news release.An experimental modernist who was invigorated by the availability of lightweight synthetic materials after World War II, Mr. Kukkapuro made abundant use of fiberglass and other plastics, which could be sculpted to the human form. He also favored organic materials like steam-bent plywood and leather.Referring to Mr. Kukkapuro’s relentless pursuit of ergonomics, Jukka Savolainen, a former director of the Design Museum in Helsinki who now heads the Alvar Aalto Museum in Finland, described him as “playful with form and color, but always thinking about the user at the center.”Among Mr. Kukkapuro’s most celebrated designs was Karuselli, a slick fiberglass lounge chair with exuberant leather upholstery rolling over the edges. He attached the bulbous bucket seat to the flowerlike base with a steel bracket that permitted the chair — whose name means “carousel” in Finnish — to both swivel and rock.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Antique Wall Tapestries Are Back. Here’s Where to Buy.

      by

      Leafy antique wall hangings are having a resurgence in the design world, showing up in even the most modern rooms.Picture a tapestry hanging on a wall and the setting is likely a rambling manor house. Lately, however, ornate European examples have been appearing in less expected places, including contemporary Manhattan apartments. “Just as they did in castles in Belgium in the 15th century, tapestries provide an enormous amount of visual impact, warmth and artistry,” says the New York-based interior designer Billy Cotton, 42, who recently installed one as a stand-in for a headboard in an eclectic apartment on the Upper East Side. “They bring something unique that art or wallpaper just doesn’t.”European tapestry, as an art form, dates back at least as far as the Middle Ages, when intricate, outsize weavings depicting everything from wildlife scenes to biblical stories were woven by hand on looms using wool, silk and even gold and silver thread. During their first surge in desirability, between the 15th and 18th centuries, they were found exclusively in the grand abodes of royals and aristocrats — not only because of their prohibitive prices but because of the vast wall space required. Thick and dense, they also acted as insulation, making them ideal for drafty castles. (Henry VIII was a fan.)According to Jim Ffrench, 60, a director at the gallery Beauvais Carpets in Manhattan, antique wall hangings remained as expensive as important oil paintings and other fine art until around the time of the Great Depression, when they fell out of fashion and lost value. “The concept of them being a decorative or secondary art form is very much a mid-20th-century conceit,” he says. “But the upside is that, today, even the best tapestries in the world are still cheaper than a Basquiat.” While that’s a high bar — and figurative woven scenes are relatively rare and priced accordingly — simple verdure tapestries, which depict lush landscape scenes, and fragments of larger pieces can often be found for less than $1,000.In the New York City bedroom of the interior designer Billy Cotton, a verdure tapestry that he found at a Paris flea market acts as a headboard.Blaine DavisA rare wool-and-silk panel woven in Brussels in the early 1500s and depicting a betrothal scene hangs on the wall at the Manhattan showroom of the textile dealer Vojtech Blau.John Bigelow Taylor“The palette and scale of tapestries can lend a room a beautiful openness because, oftentimes, they have an interesting sense of depth in their compositions,” says Adam Charlap Hyman, 34, a co-founder of the New York- and Los Angeles-based architecture and design firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero. In the living room of his New York City apartment, an early 18th-century verdure tapestry — inherited from his grandmother and made in Aubusson, a French town famed for its weaving — takes up almost an entire wall, framing a curved 1970s sofa by the German designer Klaus Uredat.The Manhattan-based architect and designer Giancarlo Valle, 42, often incorporates tapestries with nature scenes — known as cartoons — into his projects because, he says, “they’re like lenses into another world.” Recently he hung a 14-foot-high 17th-century Flemish piece above a midcentury chest of drawers in a client’s otherwise minimalist New York apartment. The piece, which he acquired from an estate, is part of a four-panel set, other panels of which hang in the palatial English manor houses Holkham Hall in Norfolk and Mamhead in Devonshire. “I think their rise in popularity fits in with the larger trends we’re seeing in the art world now for figurative paintings, real life scenes and historical-looking works,” he says, adding that “tapestries are great for rooms that need a big storytelling element or have a very large wall.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Roberto Gerosa Converted a Milan Woodshop into a Maximalist Home

      by

      The Italian architect and designer Roberto Gerosa has converted a disused wood shop into a live-work space where his imagination can run wild.With a hand-rolled cigarette pinched between his fingers, the architect and designer Roberto Gerosa, 71, is rushing around his house, a cavernous former lumber workshop in Milan’s residential Villapizzone district, pointing out his favorite objects. In the corner that serves as his office, he presents a 13-foot-tall gilded column that was once part of a 19th-century theater set. Against a nearby wall is a wooden bookcase heaving with bolts of vivid fabrics: glossy heirloom brocades, pinstriped cottons and his most recent acquisition, from a tour of markets in Provence, a 19th-century paisley cashmere shawl that he plans to repurpose for a client’s upholstered headboard. In the guest bathroom is a birdcage-shaped metal shower stall of his own design painted Yves Klein blue and crowned with a bouquet of ostrich feathers.An antique Chinese bed sits in the center of the living, dining and kitchen areas.Francesco DolfoIn the sitting area, a suede sofa of Gerosa’s design with revolving seat cushions. Behind, a wooden shelf is stacked with books and passementerie.Francesco DolfoGerosa moved into the 2,100-square-foot space, which has a basement studio of the same size, in 2020, in search of a place where he could both live and work. “But I didn’t want to make a typical architect’s loft,” he says. “That’s not my style.” Instead, he’s created a warm, irreverent home and atelier that speaks to a lifetime of collecting and curating forgotten objects. The layout of the single-story building — which is open save for the guest suite at the back and the primary bedroom at the front — allows Gerosa to keep his various passions at his fingertips. In the span of a few moments, he might arrange flowers in the kitchen, pull reference books off the shelves in the office, then disappear into the workshop, where he resuscitates vintage furniture.Gerosa made the kitchen island from a wooden door he found when he moved into the building. Above it hangs a brass pendant lamp of his own design.Francesco DolfoOver the past several decades, Gerosa has earned a reputation reimagining homes for members of Milan’s bohemian aristocracy. He is often called in once a drafty Venetian palazzo or opulent city pied-à-terre has been tidily renovated and needs an injection of elegance and patina. “When I enter a room, I can see it transform,” says Gerosa. The finished spaces are dramatic and whimsical, filled with custom furniture, abundant greenery and patterned vintage textiles from his vast collection. In a stately apartment in Milan, he hung lace curtains along the walls, topping them with antique framed etchings and festooning the windows with gold-colored taffeta. He left a villa in Sicily mostly spare and whitewashed but accented the foyer with an antique pommel horse and sculptures of donkeys made from woven jute. “I have nothing against modernity,” he says. “It just doesn’t belong to me or my taste.”In the guest bedroom, an antique Indian copper bed.Francesco DolfoGerosa designed a birdcage-like shower stall for the guest bathroom, which he finished with a spray of ostrich feathers.Francesco DolfoWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Karl Lagerfeld’s Paris Apartment Sold at Auction for $10.8 Million

      by

      What happened when Karl Lagerfeld’s last residence, where he worked and where Choupette lived, was offered at auction.Karl Lagerfeld was a mega-collector. Of high-collared white shirts (1,000). Of books (300,000). Of period décor (Art Deco, Memphis Group, 18th-century European). And of homes — at least 20, in Europe and in New York.“He loved buying, redesigning and decorating houses,” said Sébastien Jondeau, the longtime assistant and bodyguard of the fashion designer, who died in 2019 at the age of 85. “It was a true passion.”One of those homes, the Bond-villain-like lair on the Quai Voltaire in Paris that was Mr. Lagerfeld’s last residence — sold at auction at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris on Tuesday for 10 million euros ($10.8 million). More than 50 attendees gathered for the sale of the 2,800-square-foot apartment, which Mr. Lagerfeld shared with Choupette, his beloved blue-eyed Birman cat. Bidding began shortly after 10 a.m. at 5.3 million euros, and quickly turned into a standoff between two parties: one who was off-site and communicating through an auction official in the room via a landline telephone, the other who was represented by a French lawyer seated in the second row and taking instruction on his cellphone.The sale of Mr. Lagerfeld’s apartment comes at a time of renewed interest in the designer.Christophe Ena/Associated PressThe lawyer, who would not give his name for reasons of confidentiality, appeared to be taking direction in English from his client via a telephone earpiece. Offers bounced between the two bidders by increments of 50,000 to 150,000 euros for nearly 20 minutes, until the lawyer’s bid jumped from 9.3 million euros to 10 million euros. The auction official on the landline with the telephone bidder made a hand motion that her bidder stood down. When the auctioneer, Bertrand Savouré, announced that the apartment had been sold, attendees erupted in applause. Mr. Savouré would not reveal the buyer’s name or nationality.Proceeds of the sale go to Mr. Lagerfeld’s estate, which will be distributed to Mr. Lagerfeld’s seven heirs: the former model Baptiste Giabiconi, who will receive 30 percent; Mr. Jondeau and the former model Brad Kroenig (the father of Mr. Lagerfeld’s godson, Hudson) will each receive 20 percent; and the Chanel artistic director Virginie Viard, Mr. Lagerfeld’s creative muse Amanda Harlech and the Karl Lagerfeld brand executives Caroline Lebar and Sophie de Langlade, who will split the remaining 30 percent, according to the French weekly magazine Le Point.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More