Designing the 21st Century

Sebastian Errazuriz is an artist and activist who celebrates design’s presence in every part of our life. He works with many disciplines. He is a craftsman, thinker, and creator who makes beautiful objects and fun things but also making provocative statements. His work is bold, ambitious, and experimental, touching on his own personal experience while connecting to the spirit of the age. It is always surprising, unexpected, and exciting, and if you know how to read it, you will discover layers and layers of meanings. They include themes of morality, religion, political and social statements, and the discovery of design as an agent of change.

To Sebastian, design is a means of communication, questioning, and as a way to engage with the world. He is a brilliant storyteller, and today I am having him as my guest to speak about those stories and about how he conveys them in social media.

While the world of design is currently struggling with the changing modes of Instagram, wandering between reels and posts, and navigating between AI and the authentic while questioning what makes Instagram influencers successful, it seems that he found the right formula.

I am a long-time admirer of the work of architecture firm Sawyer Berson because I can see myself living in every one of the houses they create—every apartment, every interior, and every garden. Their homes, whether modernist, Federal, or traditional, are always so airy, beautiful, chic, and inviting. They are dazzling in their elegance as they make your heart drop, because Sawyer Berson have mastered all fields of architecture. Their homes are thoroughly researched, beautifully executed, and meticulously furnished to the smallest detail, with landscapes that are simply divine. They have famously created homes for stars, but it is lesser known that they have also built community gardens for Bette Midler’s NY Restoration Project and the kitchen garden for the God’s Love We Deliver which provides meals for the needy.

The design world has lost one of its most important and brilliant legends. Gaetano Pesce died last month at 84, leaving an enormous legacy behind. During his six-decade career, he held a special position in contemporary art and design; always remaining provocative, surprising, and interesting. He was an architect by training, but devoted his life and career to design, creating innovative furniture and objects that were at times eccentric, at times radical, and always colorful. They may appear to be playful and whimsical at first, but if you know how to read them, you’ll find that they are filled with social, political, and contemporary narratives. Participating: Marc Benda and Sara di Gangi.

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Have you ever asked yourself what is the lifespan of furniture copyright? Whether design objects are protected as intellectual property? As the market becomes flooded with copies and fakes, and the web is filled with design masterpieces of the past, poorly produced and sold inexpensively, this question has become more and more relevant. Mark Masiello knows the answer. He founded a company called Form Portfolios and its mission is to preserve, guard, and advance furniture through licensed reeditions.

Frank Gehry, the architect we all love to love. Even since he completed his Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 1997, Gehry became a favorite architect by everyone. By the public, by architects, and by the architecture criticism community, a true celebrity, who turned architecture into popular enterprise, and at 70, Gehry launched a second and super successful chapter of his long career, the leading architect of the millennium. Jean-Louis Cohen, the award-winning French architect, architectural historian, and curator, has published the latest monograph on Gehry, which comes to illuminate some of his best buildings.

Recent years have witnessed a growing attention to the study of female artists, architects, designers and their contribution to the story of modern design. Jane Hall’s book Woman Made: Great Women Designers comes to tell the story of 200 pioneering female designers from 50 countries, who have worked in the past 100 years in furniture, textiles, and lighting design. Some helped shaping the industry, some made history, some created work that has been recognized as groundbreaking despite difficulties to express their voices, and together they formed an enormous body of work created exclusively by women.

Swiss industrial designer and innovator Yves Behar has created a global and influential career in product design always fusing design, technology, and sustainability. He has worked with endless brands in various industries and the products he created throughout his career are the topic of a new monograph Designing Ideas, published by Thames and Hudson. It brings us to the forefront of the world of industrial design, where robots, technologies, futuristic solutions, and new materials have pushed the field to its 21st-century identity.

The Billionaire’s Row is a series of ultra-luxury tall residential towers built along 57th street, turning the area into Manhattan's new center of developments. Each one of these towers was designed by a star-architect, and they have come to offer a new way of New York lifestyle. Architecture critic Martin Filler has published a remarkable article in the New York Review of Books, where he analyzes the politics, zoning, aesthetics, and everything that has made this phenomenon possible.

The Carnegie Museum of Art has opened a new show that comes to celebrate and define current architecture through the work of 10 practices from around the world. The exhibition is called The Fabricated Landscape, and it explores some innovative minds working in contemporary architecture today. What defines the projects is not a common style, but rather relationships, to local communities, to natural environments, awareness of cultures, but also cutting edge perceptions and sustainable solutions.

Tom Kundig is a partner in the award-winning firm Olson Kundig Architects, based in Seattle. I have discovered his incredible, immaculate, elegant houses years ago and fell in love. Tom's buildings are engaged with their landscape, and their strong relationship with nature has come to define their identity because context is highly meaningful to him.