Sommaire pour Fall 2024 de MILIEU

The Fall 2024 issue marks the beginning of a new decade for MILIEU. While wrapping up our 10th Anniversary celebration this summer, I decided it would be fun to revisit some of our past “Objects” stories. These stories have always been produced by our in-house team on sets in Texas or the United Kingdom. For context, our very first “Objects” story appeared in our “mini mag”—a preview magazine we produced, printed, and presented to potential subscribers and advertisers. The set was staged outside a warehouse with fabric-lined crates and furniture, and scheduled in the middle of the day in full sun. Little did we know that this was the most difficult light to shoot in. Looking back, we had so much to learn, yet it was the excitement we all…

“I think about my work as telling stories,” states UK-born and based sculptor Ann Carrington. “I have a story in my head I want to tell. The materials I choose have to express that.” With a prolific career already spanning decades, Carrington has built a serious reputation, recognized by artists and collectors from around the world, with major fans in finance, fashion, design, including Queen Elizabeth II herself. Trained as a painter at the Royal College of Art, Carrington developed a style and process that blurs traditional craftsmanship with contemporary themes. Her work explores ideas of beauty, utility, and decay, as she repurposes ordinary objects such as cutlery, buttons, and denim that she discovers at fairs, antiques shops, and junk stores. She transforms them into complex sculptures that challenge viewers'…

Nestled in a former factory in a residential-industrial area in the New York City neighborhood of Long Island City, The Noguchi Museum personifies that blend of art and nature which provides a serene, Zen-like retreat. Founded by Isamu Noguchi in 1985, the collection contains the artist’s estate and serves as a homage to his legacy. Here visitors can see an extensive assemblage of sculptures, models, drawings, and designs. Born in Los Angeles in 1904 to a Japanese father and an Irish-American mother, Noguchi spent his early life in Japan. Over a lifetime of travel and exposure to varied artistic movements, his journey led to an original exploration of multiple art forms and crafts—from sculpture and landscape architecture to furniture and lighting design. Blending Eastern and Western aesthetics, he is celebrated…

Last May, MILIEU’s Design Director, Leslie Newsom Rascoe, had the pleasure of attending French window and door craftsmen Maison Janneau’s inaugural Window Tour through France with a select group of architects. The event was hosted to celebrate the opening of Maison Janneau’s first United States showroom, which is in Austin, Texas. Founded by Henri Janneau more than 50 years ago, Maison Janneau has become one of Europe’s leaders in the artisanal tradition of crafting custom windows and doors. The attentive group was led through France by company CEO Marc Fauchreau and renowned French-American architect Charles Di Piazza. Starting in Paris and environs, continuing through the Loire Valley, and ending in Nantes (Maison Janneau’s headquarters), the group toured museums, chateaus, private residences, and other cultural sites, many of which included Maison…

As adept at arranging delicate chinoiserie in stately Park Avenue drawing rooms as he was at hoisting sections of felled trees into West Coast homes for use as coffee tables and poster beds, Michael Taylor (1927–1986) was an interior decorator fluent in the visual language of both traditional and contemporary styles over the course of his career as an American design master. A native of Modesto, California, Earnest Charles Taylor was born to parents who wanted a medical career for their son—a child known for his walks along beaches with a grandmother who taught him to embrace the wonders of the natural world. Bypassing graduation from high school, Michael Taylor (as he later called himself) served in the U.S. Navy and later studied at the Rudolf Schaeffer School of Interior…

“The old stone is used everywhere in beautiful ways—in the walls, the floors, and even the molding. It defines so much of the look.”—ISABEL LÓPEZ-QUESADA "An Island Destination” p.122 “From the start of my work as a designer, I was that person who would go into a Holiday Inn and move the lamp to get the room to feel right.”—HEIDI AVEDISIAN “Home Matters” p. 134 “Color is like a distinctive handwriting that makes a home unique.”—NICOLA HARDING “Settling In” p. 148 “The thing I know about life and about this industry: We don’t ever know everything.”—PAMELA PIERCE “An Eye On Design” p. 162 “Establishing an early relationship with clients makes for a far better end result in the design.”—EMILY MUGHANNAM “Let There Be Light” p. 176…

A Man On Fire While every artist experiences a sense of having failed at fully realizing a creative work, the ceramicist is especially used to this dynamic. Clay simply can’t be counted on to perform as its ceramicist might intend. And then there are the variations of fire—when it might suddenly cool or warm to an undesired extreme. But master ceramicist George Sherman works to counter these realities of his medium by producing related pairs or multiples of his trays or jugs, floor or wall sculptures—though each version is quite distinctive. The Pasadena-based artist showed a variety of his high-fired ceramic glaze creations at the Marta Gallery in Los Angeles last winter, works as much sculptural as functional. “I have a potter’s background, so my utilitarian wear is functional,” Sherman…

No stranger to difficult projects, Spanish designer Isabel López-Quesada has tackled a plethora of historic homes in need of major overhauls in various parts of Europe over the course of her career. But this particular dwelling in a small village on a Mediterranean island presented more challenges than she’d encountered in the past. “The couple who owns the property invited Marta Marin, the architect who works in my studio, and me to visit the home to see if we could help them,” says López-Quesada. Undaunted after a thorough walk through the property—which consisted of three separate but adjoining stone structures in poor condition—the designers agreed to take on the job. “We told them we could do something amazing,” says López-Quesada. “And they hired us on the spot.” The homeowners, a…

During her long career as an interior designer and, for the last decade, as the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of MILIEU, Pamela Pierce has seen lots of interiors—and lots of creative design interpretations of what makes for a comfortable, functional room. “People have different needs at different phases of their lives,” says Pierce. “We come out of school and live for a while with our college furniture. Then we enter that phase where we buy what we can afford and that we can fit into our homes, followed then by a more grown-up phase when we begin buying good quality furnishings and fabrics.” Later in life, Pierce says, we enter a paring-down stage, which is how, she adds, “so many wonderful things turn up with antiques dealers.” Quality, comfort, and longevity…

Last September I received a surprise invitation from Laurent Scordino-Mazanec, Director of the École Boulle in Paris, to tour their famous school. He had been to New York and had seen my design work at the Par Excellence Showroom, a collective of amazing French artisans who are seeking to collaborate with American architects and designers. I had recently completed the design of their showroom and had the wonderful opportunity to work one-on-one with many of their uber-talented artisans. Laurent and the CEO of Par Excellence, Guillaume Bouchez, thought I would enjoy a private tour of the school on my next trip to Paris. The École Boulle was founded in 1886 and remains one of Europe’s largest schools of art and design. Its focus on artistic craft and applied arts is…

Fewer than 15 minutes have passed since we left Palma de Mallorca Airport, but as I approach the imposing gates of Cap Rocat, I feel like a time traveler, albeit a titled one or, perhaps, a member of the landed gentry. But I quickly come to reality to realize that we are not in a horse-drawn carriage approaching a royal residence, but, rather, in Cap Rocat’s Range Rover as Dua Lipa plays on the sound system. That said, we still fancy ourselves as minor European royalty, at least just a bit, as we are ushered out of the cushiness of our ride into Cap Rocat’s breezy courtyard. There, we are presented with a refreshing drink made from orange peel, honey, cloves, and cinnamon, while our bags are magicked away. Set…

Home as Medium Among the most enlightening stories to write and edit at MILIEU are those about the homes of interior designers. We have the chance to actually go through their front doors and experience the rooms that reflect their creativity. But as writer Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian relates, some artists, unlike interior designers, choose “not to have their own work on their walls at home.” As one of his subjects said to him, “I have enough of that in the studio every day.” Yet, most do display what they make, including Julie Mehretu who purchased a deconsecrated Harlem church, large enough to hold her canvases. The very rafters of Claire Tabouret’s LA home are as polychromatic as her canvases. Guillermo Kuitca’s Buenos Aires home is, as he says, “a large…

Every time Heidi Avedisian walks through the rooms of her home in suburban Illinois, she takes a trip around the world—at least to the places that she and her husband and children have visited. Wherever the family goes, she brings back something for the home, whether it’s an actual object, a practical item, or just a memory that somehow becomes part of the décor. “I want all the rooms of this house to reflect my travels,” says the interior designer and founder of White Ink, her influential design and branding consultancy. “The rooms are a layered study of the places that, collectively, my husband and I and our children have loved.” When Avedisian enters the primary bedroom, for instance, and sees the panoramic wallpaper scene showing flourishing agave plants amid…

Many mornings, the homeowner of this house situated atop a hill in California’s Sonoma County greets visitors at her front door. After interior designer Emily Mughannam reconfigured the couple’s front entrance, removing a dark and forbidding wooden door and replacing it with an arched all-glass entry, the husband-and-wife residents see not only the surrounding wine vineyards but also the local fauna. “I’ll come downstairs and there looking in through the glass might be a deer or wild turkey, turkey vultures, jackrabbits, or any variety of birds,” says the wife. “They walk up to the house and as they’re looking in at us, we’re looking back at them.” Such is the new relationship this home has with its glorious locale. When Mughannam and her Sonoma-based firm, Fletcher Rhodes, were commissioned by…

COVER Interior design: Isabel López-Quesada, isabellopezquesada.com Styled by: Loreto Lopez-Quesada Photography: Miguel Flores-Vianna Tables: Custom design by ISABEL LÓPEZ-QUESADA, isabellopezquesada.com. FROM THE DESK OF… Pages 8 Southborough wallpaper and ottoman covered in Loopy Spot fabric, from HARLEQUIN X HENRY HOLLAND COLLECTION, sandersondesigngroup.com. Sleight chair, SALADINO, saladinostyle.com. Landscape cube light, BEVOLO GAS & ELECTRIC LIGHTS, bevolo.com. Dovetail coffee table, RACHEL DONATH, racheldonath.com. Swedish polychrome bench, TARA SHAW, tarashaw.com. Page 9 Parson side table, GDC HOME, gdchome.com. Vermeer mirror, ROSE TARLOW MELROSE HOUSE, rosetarlow.com. Arne Jacobsen Egg chair, EMERSON BAILEY, emersonbailey.com. Art Deco bamboo desk, PAOLO MOSCHINO, paolomoschino.com. OBJECT LESSONS Page 36 Spring 2021, Produced by Katrin Cargill, Photography by: Simon Brown, simonbrown.london. Flowers by: Harald Altmaier Floral Design, haraldaltmaier@mac.com. Location: Euridge Manor, euridgeorangeryweddings.com. All stitching by: Melanie Williams. Apron: NH Design…