Architectural Digest December 2022

SUN SALUTATION MORNINGS START IN THE KITCHEN, WHERE SUDBURY YELLOW EVOKES THE RISING SUN. AS TABOURET EXPLAINS, “IT WAS REALLY ABOUT UNDERSTANDING WHERE THE LIGHT IS AT DIFFERENT TIMES.” MOOD ENHANCEMENT “IT’S A MATTER OF TELLING A STORY, TRANSITIONING FROM ONE ROOM TO ANOTHER IN A NATURAL WAY,” THE ARTIST SAYS, MUSING ON THE CHOICE OF RED EARTH, A DUSTY SHADE OF TERRA-COTTA, FOR THE DINING ROOM. BUFFER ZONES WHITE WALLS OFFER VISUAL BREATHS, BUT ALSO OPPORTUNITIES FOR FUTURE COATS OF COLOR AND PAINTERLY INTERVENTIONS. TABOURET CONSIDERS IT ALL A WORK IN PROGRESS. “I’M SURE IN TWO YEARS IT’LL BE MORE AND MORE ALIVE.” NIGHTCAP THE FAMILY ROOM’S AZURE WALLS HELP EASE EVERYONE’S EYES INTO THE EVENING HOURS. FOR A SIMILARLY NOCTURNAL NOTE, TRY FARROW & BALL’S WINE DARK, A NEW DEEP BLUE INSPIRED BY THE MIDNIGHT…

“To create one’s own world takes courage.”—Georgia O’Keeffe Of all the issues the AD team produces yearly, it is the December Art issue that I most find brimming with sheer surprise and wonderment. Of course, artists of all stripes tend to ignore convention and do things their own way, resulting in exciting, memorable homes and interiors that very often break rules, push boundaries, and are utterly sui generis. The creatives who share their personal domains this year are conducting experiments in environment: Quite literally, many of them are living in their own artworks, which are themselves constantly evolving. Japanese artist Mariko Mori, known for her site-specific, light-sensitive sculptures, acquired land on idyllic Miyako Island in the East China Sea, then spent five years observing the sun and the landscape and 3D-modeling various…

My father liked to swing on a chair,” recalls Catherine Prouvé, daughter of the French designer Jean Prouvé. “It’s why he designed one with stronger back legs.” She’s speaking about Prouvé’s Standard chair, first made in 1934, in which two 90-degree bends of tubular steel slot into hollow, folded steel back legs to form a lightweight but sturdy frame for a solid wood seat and back. Those robust back legs—often likened to airplane wings—would become a Prouvé hallmark, appearing in tables and architecture. They gave the seat extra strength, since, as Prouvé pointed out, “a chair always breaks at the back joint between the legs and the seat.” This became a template that Prouvé honed over the years. Seats soon shifted to molded plywood. An all-wood version, the Chaise Tout Bois, was…

Eleven years ago, designer Mónica Calderón and her husband, architect Ezequiel Farca, transplanted their family from Mexico City to Los Angeles, lured by the siren call of LA’s flourishing arts scene and its deep connections to Latin America. “There are many similarities between Mexico City and Los Angeles as far as climate and culture, and we simply fell in love with California,” says Calderón. “But part of our heart was still in Mexico, just not Mexico City, which had become so busy.” After visiting the Yucatán capital of Mérida during a spring break sojourn with their four sons, Calderón and Farca decided to reaffirm their Mexican roots by building a second home there. “We wanted to give our children a totally different experience than they have living in the Santa…

BLANKET: PINKYELLOW STUDIOS. ALL OTHERS COURTESY OF THE COMPANIES.…

After Notre-Dame de Paris burned in 2019, French politicians promised to rebuild the 12th-century cathedral as it was. But the city of Paris, which has pledged to be the greenest city in Europe by 2030, decided to take advantage of the restoration to rethink the surrounding gardens and esplanade, known as the parvis, as an eco-friendly public space. In September 2021, the mayor launched a pro-environment design competition for the site, and last June, the jury unanimously selected a team led by award-winning Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets, whose proposal will turn the Île de la Cité, the island in the Seine where Notre-Dame sits, into a sustainable microclimate. “The Île de la Cité is the cradle of Paris,” Smets explained during a recent visit to his Brussels studio, alluding to…