May 26, 2021
While they often seem impromptu, the interior images we constantly encounter (both online and in print) are the result of many people’s purposefully invisible labor. Colin’s role in making these images is to work closely with photographers and designers in order to create a story around a setting. To imbue a space with subtle narrative gestures, thus creating the conditions through which a viewer may tell themselves a story that is compliant with the needs of the piece at hand.
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April 27, 2021
2021 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Matthew Hilton’s Balzac chair. Designed by Hilton in 1991 for SCP’s very first upholstery design, the Balzac has become a touchstone of contemporary furniture design. Beginning with a rough sketch made by Hilton, this chair was meant to invoke, as Hilton puts it: “...a contemporary, leather, comfortable club armchair ... [and] curvy, amoeba-like, anthropomorphic shapes and natural forms - not really a fashionable thing to be doing at the time.”
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April 06, 2021
One year ago, in the early days of the pandemic, we called on a selection of artists from our roster to contribute to a digital body of work addressing a central aspect of this crisis: impossibility. The impossibility of going outside, living life and making work. Under the umbrella of an online exhibition called “Unrealized Dreams”, we wanted to show how this impossibility in turn created the potential for creative catharsis - that is to say, when everything feels impossible and imagination is all we have, that imagined space creates endless possibilities.
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February 16, 2021
It is every artist’s prerogative to court a certain kind of discomfort. A perpetual state of unease that engenders momentum and forestalls inertia. Coming less from external production demands and more from the instinct to learn and grow, this inclination towards the unknown is essential to the exploratory nature of making things.
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January 20, 2020
In both her design and fine art practices, Bari Ziperstein is constantly breaking the rules of contemporary ceramic art. Like compositions that seem to have rained down from another planet, Ziperstein’s works are always pushing the boundaries of process of construction. The LA-based ceramicist, now part of the Future Perfect Family has appeared in The Future Perfect’s MESS and The Chair shows as well as a current exhibition of new works by the artist at the company’s San Francisco gallery.
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October 11, 2019
Evocative Style is an apt, if understated title for Kelly Wearstler’s new monograph, given the Los-Angeles based designer has the ability to synthesize a vast range of references and eras within a single room. A Wearstler interior, in pure terms, feels like a magical invocation of mood, history and contemporary narrative.
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September 23, 2019
The Future Perfect has acquired the first head sculptures in a series entitled The Beauty of Many Nations by artist Jacob Tetteh-Ashong for Paa Joe. Paa Joe’s artistry is rooted both in West African spiritual beliefs and in African art forms that echo a lost time. The ancient bronze Ife heads of the Yoruba and the terracotta Mmaa head carvings of the Akan resonate in Paa Joe’s contemporary work, in which he references similar hand carved techniques and mastery in the making of head sculpture, miniatures, and his large scale, life-sized coffins.
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August 01, 2019
Arriving with suitable interplanetary panache, a retrospective of French fashion icon Pierre Cardin is set to touch down at the Brooklyn Museum this month. Opening on July 20th, Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion explores the universe of one of the 20th century’s most innovative designers, with over 170 objects dating from the 1950s to the present day.
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April 05, 2019
There’s no question Jeanne Detallante is one of the most talented female graphic designers working in the field today. The Parisian artist’s work has been unmissable in a range of titles, including Vogue Italia, Vogue Japan, The New Yorker and GQ and many others. It’s difficult to associate Jeanne with one particular style - she’s a natural shape-shifter, switching between surreal illustrations to ironic realism to vibrant jump-off-the-page graphics.
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February 21, 2019
For Modernism Week, which seems to grow in success and prominence each year, we took a moment to chat with the woman to know Brooke Hodge, Director of Architecture and Design at Palm Springs Art Museum.
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January 25, 2019
William Smart, the visionary behind Smart Design Studio, should be on the radar of anyone who appreciates innovative architecture and design. Founded some 17 years ago in Sydney, Australia, the studio has remained determinedly boutique in size with projects that are increasingly global in quality and scope (as evidenced by the constellations of awards that the practice has been awarded).
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January 17, 2019
2018 was without question a banner year for Jason Duzansky. The veteran creative director and graphic designer - who has worked with an international client roster that includes V Magazine, Visionaire, Rizzoli and The Future Perfect (for whom he designed the icon) - began creating boldly geometric fine art pieces that quickly gained acclaim in the art and design world.
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November 30, 2018
In the history of human evolution, glass, a material that’s both commonplace and a little mysterious, remains relatively new. Only achieving regular use in the last years of the Middle Ages, glass has moved from the rarefied homes of the upper classes to a staple of everyday life. Today, glass has transcended its limited uses as windows or tableware to become the material of choice for a generation of architects and product designers.
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October 27, 2018
Italian photographer Paola Pansini is a prolific chronicler of spectacular environments, many of them discovered in Milan, Italy, where she works and lives. Whether she’s documenting a restored midcentury home in Palm Springs or choreographing one of her theatrical product shoots for brands such as Aesop and Cartier, the photographer is known for images of rare imagination and visual depth. During a recent visit to Italy, we discussed, among other topics, Paola’s career trajectory and her much admired book Entryways of Milan.
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October 12, 2018
Bodrum, the chic resort in Southern Turkey, is hardly undiscovered. But this little slice of heaven, just an hour’s flight from Istanbul, has had a recent resurgence with a new breed of luxury hotels and first class restaurants. With its long summers and gentle Autumn, it’s not too late to catch a slice of this piece of Mediterranean heaven. Below is our guide to one of Europe’s hottest resort destinations which Homer himself once proclaimed as “the land of eternal blue”.
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August 11, 2018
Throughout the 20th century, the swimming pool has represented the apotheosis of the stylish American good life. Consider Esther Williams captured in the throes of one of her iconic swan dives, the supine luxury of Slim Aarons’ Palm Springs photographs or the seminal artworks of British transplant David Hockney. According to Hockney, “water in swimming pools changes its look more than any other form.”
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July 17, 2018
According to architect John Pawson, “Minimalism is not defined by what is not there but by the rightness of what is and the richness with which this is experienced.” That notion explains why the design movement has continued to thrive well into the 21st century and why a sense of chic restraint defines the work of many of today’s top creatives.
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April 15, 2018
It was once said, by none other than Phillip Johnson, that Italian architect Carlo Scarpa had the ability to “make poetry out of the smallest rod or stone.” A master of proportion and detail, Scarpa, who worked in glass, furniture and buildings, offered a quiet but prescient vision that only seems to grow in influence more than forty years since his death.
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April 06, 2018
Experience has taught us that some degree of advanced organization is essential when visiting Milan’s annual design week, ‘Fuorisalone’.
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March 22, 2018
Located in Calpe, Spain, La Muralla Roja (The Red Wall) is a building project masterminded by prolific Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill. Some fifty years after its 1968 inauguration, this remarkable structure continues to entrance with its labyrinthine edifices and luminescent colored walls.
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February 01, 2018
After his captivating series Midnight Modern, which documented classic modernist homes in Palm Springs, photographer Tom Blachford has become a hot commodity in both the art and design worlds. A master of light, Blachford was flown to Tokyo on behalf of iconic Japanese beer brand Asahi to document the city’s fascinating and constantly evolving modern architecture. We spoke with Tom and got an insight into his singular process.
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January 09, 2018
Oskar Schlemmer, who almost nine decades after his death remains one of the most influential 21st century aesthetes, was the original multihyphenate. Scouted by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius in 1921, the Stuttgart-born painter, sculptor and choreographer became one of the first masters of the “staaliche” movement in Weimar.
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October 05, 2017
The term Arte Povera - literally Poor Art - was coined in the late sixties by critic and curator Germano Celant who sought to capture a radically new style of work that was emerging in late sixties Italy. As the no-nonsense name implies, the aesthetic eschewed the bright, shiny and new, opting for simple, prosaic materials, archaic motifs, natural forms and boundary-blurring mediums.
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September 15, 2017
In the annals of history, it’s almost impossible to separate religion and architecture. For many centuries, sacred buildings - including mosques, churches, temples and synagogues - were the largest and most magnificent structures on earth (many would argue that remains the case).
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August 11, 2017
“My house is my refuge, an emotional piece of architecture, not a cold piece of convenience.”
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June 12, 2017
Portugal’s combination of centuries-old craftsmanship and new world innovation has made it one of the world’s most in demand design destinations.
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April 27, 2017
Long before our heavily cross-pollinated times, Isamu Noguchi established himself as a true revolutionary with a six-decade career that merged art, sculpture, architecture and design.
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March 30, 2017
Whether you’re pounding the pavement in bohemian Brera or combing the galleries in the design-centric enclave Cinque Vie, Milan is the ultimate moveable feast. In anticipation of the 2017 edition of Salone del Mobile, the TFP team took a moment to round up some of our favorite spots in Italy’s foremost design capital.
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March 07, 2017
New York-based photographer Paul Barbera has been chronicling creative spaces since he was 16 years old. This passion - uncovering the unique workplaces of artists, designers and architects - led Barbera to found Where They Create, an online platform which features many TFP friends including Roll & Hill, Jasper Morrison and Lindsey Adelman.
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November 16, 2016
To many architecture and design fans, the name Pierre Chareau is synonymous with one thing – his spectacular Maison de Verre “the house of glass” – which used radically modern materials and methodologies to create a house that looks perfect for today.
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October 11, 2016
Iceland is really one of those places that had always intrigued me - a destination that evokes a combination of mystery, awe and sheer out-of-this world visuals.
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September 21, 2016
Our favorite Milanese duo DIMORESTUDIO make a splash in Mexico with Casa Fayette, a spectacular boutique hotel in Guadalajara.
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August 23, 2016
Ron Arad's Design Museum in Holon, Israel plays host to a spectacular retrospective from Nendo, the iconic Japanese design firm.
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July 21, 2016
Situated off the coast of Japan in the Seto Inland Sea, the small and tranquil fishing island of Naoshima is an unexpected mecca for lovers of contemporary art and design.
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June 01, 2016
Don Freeman's Art House offers an intimate glimpse into homes created by artists and designers.
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June 01, 2016
Too Cool for School: Pierre Paulin's seminal designs continue to resonate with today's design scene.
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June 01, 2016
Rizzoli's new Tom House offers a captivating glimpse into a one-of-a-kind California Home.
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May 31, 2016
Robert Mapplethorpe's groundbreaking photographic career is being celebrated with a new documentary and massive retrospective in Los Angeles.
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May 26, 2016
We take a visit to 101 Spring, artist Donald Judd's former home and a shrine to his work.
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