Milano: Day 2

I spent the day wandering around Milano looking at design. There was a great buzz at Rosanna Orlandi Gallery and it was here that I saw some the best work.

A delightful, if messy, lamp that featured an actual soap bubble by Front:

Poetic unglazed Japanese ceramics:

Resin tables with hundreds of inlaid plastic pieces

And this illusional chair upholstered in "marble" pattern.

My last stop was the Triennale, the design museum, where the forthcoming London Olympics torch, by Barber Ogersby, was on display. Very cool.

And Ross Lovegrove had a show with the glass manufacturer, Lasvit. It was a display of undulating glass walls. Here is an image of Ross distorted through the glass. It all made me sort of queasy, but I have a low tolerance for undulating architecture.

Milano: Day 1

I arrived in the morning and spent most of the day setting up with the Gaia and Gino / Swarovski team. The show looks amazing, right in the heart of the shopping district on Via St Andrea.

I then headed over to my friend Tanja Solci's apartment to see how her renovation is going. She has redesigning her classic Milanese penthouse to include "a little more pattern". Its not done yet, but these shots will show you where it is headed. Sometimes I think the best design is about a commitment - and Tanja has made a commitment to color and pattern. The apartment is a swirl with flowers and bees and tartan and it is amazing.

Here is Tanja getting ready to go out. 

FYI, she takes forever.

Tanja and I went to a couple of events and then I ended up with some NYC friends at dinner, including David Weeks and Joe Doucet ...

Lindsey Adelman and Jason Miller...

We closed the night at Bar Basso, a mistake, and thankfully no pictures.

Sparkling in Milano

Our Gaia Vase for Gaia&Gino debuts this week in Milano...

adorned with Swarovski crystal...

Come see her sparkle...

Luxpack Shanghai

China being the new frontier, Harry Allen Design headed to Shanghai the week before last. 

We were showing at Luxepack, a trade show that showcases the luxury packaging industry. The booth was given to us free as part of the Platinum Pentaward we won for the Marc Jacobs Bang bottle. All we had to do is get ourselves there. 

The trip was grueling, so I was happy to know about the URBN hotel. It is a little boutique oasis in Jing'an constructed of reclaimed material, including the amazing wall of leather suitcases behind the reception desk. 

Shirley (HAD Studio Manager) and I ended up at Fu 1088, a very fancy restaurant the first night, located in an old house. Just the two of us in a room by ourselves. Amazing food, but not a great place to take the pulse of Shanghai.

The trade show was located just a stones throw from the Shanghai World Financial Center - an incredible building designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox. Its hard to take a bad picture. I shot this one from the back of a taxi.

Our booth at the show was more modest in scale, but still pretty beautiful. We set up two Macs with our portfolio and made the last minute decision to black out as much of the dingy slat-board as possible. A variety of our packaging projects were on display at the back of the booth. 

We received hundreds of potential clients, and the response to our work was great. It is clear China is booming, but I'm not sure China is ready for us yet, and vice versa, but the jury is still out.

Next week Milano!

Green Walls

Sorry, it's been a while... I've been to China and am working hard in the studio getting ready for the Salone Del Mobile and the ICFF. 

However, on Easter Sunday we snuck in a visit to the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden to see Patrick Blanc's vertical installations. It was a crazy idea to visit on Easter, one of the biggest days of the year at NYBG, but we got in and out early and it was a gorgeous day!

The Orchid show is well worth a visit, and it is up until April 22. 

My only complaint is that the conservatory is so stuffed with plants already that it is hard to see the "green walls" from the rest of the place. I would have preferred a gallery setting to isolate and accentuate, but the orchids are amazing. 

The Orchid Show used to fill the void before spring started in the Garden, gloomy March, but this year global climate change has the entire garden in bloom at least a month early. If this weekend was any indication, the end of the world will certainly be spectacular. 

Paperwork

If you have been following our work at Harry Allen Design, this might feel like déjà vu. We started making these paper lamps in the studio back in 2005 and subsequently tried to manufacture them in China. The project stalled, and it was not until Kenneth Cobonpue and his talented team at Hive took over the project that they came to fruition. Together, we basically invented a manufacturing technique.

Our Paperwork lighting for Hive speaks of the past, present, and future. The production technique is an innovative take on age-old papier-mâché, at the forms are lifted from traditional lamps. However, the molded-lamps have a very contemporary feel and they are lit by cutting-edge LED technology - an environmentally-friendly combination that will serve for years to come.

The lamps fall into Harry Allen's REALITY series, which consists of objects whose form is "sampled: from existing sources. Harry has never been attracted to overly-formal design. His design process emphasizes the inherent beauty of things - from beauty from concept, beauty from materials, and beauty from structure- REALITY takes his quest one step further and borrows forms from the world around us.

Paperwork will preview March 22-25 at the
Architectural Digest Home Show: Kenneth Cobonpue, booth #327.
Pier 95, 55th Street at 12th Avenue, New York City

David Rockefeller Award for MoMA

The David Rockefeller Award is presented annually by Museum of Modern Art to an individual from the business community who exemplifies enlightened generosity and effective advocacy of cultural and civic endeavors. The award is named for the Museum's honorary chairman, and early advocate of and successful pioneer in developing strong and enduring links between the corporate community and cultural organizations

We were asked by MoMA to re-imagine the David Rockefeller Award,. We figured the best way to honor these individuals was with MoMA itself. MoMA is a great example of philanthropy, and the great things that come of corporate giving, so we used it very literally as the decoration on the award. A little model of MoMA, rendered in an interpretive variety of materials sits on top of a cement base. It's our way of saying, thanks to the people who build, house, and preserve our culture.

Design Threat

HAD is participating in the AmDC show, THREAT, 3/9.

For this show, centered around the theme of Threat, we were asked to customize a baseball bat. Our baseball bat design is smart and gorgeous, if we do say so ourselves. Play the "Name that Bat" contest for a chance to win a bat and support the American Design Club! Please join us. 

Design Chicago

I spent last weekend in Chicago judging two competitions for the IIDA.

It was a very distinguished and fun panel of judges:

Around the table from left to right are Architect Michael Green (juror) of Vancouver, Interior Designer Gino Castano (juror) of San Francisco, Dennis Krause and Cheryl Durst who run the IIDA, smiley Me (juror), and Architect Dina Griffin (juror) from Chicago.

A couple of us had drinks at Ian Schragger's latest venture in Chicago, the Public Hotel, which sports a very restrained, elegant, Yabu Pushelberg interior. The leafed vault behind the bar in the Pump Room is amazing ...

as are the raw fiberglass globes over the tables. Sorry, this pic was taken in the dark after a few drinks ... sort of atmospheric, no?

 The results of the competition can be seen here: http://www.iida.org/content.cfm/competition-news

Jaa Bar, Hong Kong

Last Friday I spent the evening with my friend Ann Tsang in her cute new little bar in Hong Kong.

It is called Jaa Bar, and if in HK you must pay a visit. If only for the tip jar, which is a Bank in the Form of  Pig. That little piggy bank has made a home here. Here is Ann with the piggy which, since the cork was swept up in the trash, sports a lime stopper:

Apparently late at night they pass it around and shout "feed the pig," for tips. I was there too early, but Andrea the bartender sent me these photos of the Pig partying it up.

Crazy.

Reality Production

I visited the resin factory last week in Dongguan, China. 

They make my REALITY line for Areaware, and production was in full swing. 

With any luck, there soon will be some additions to the collection. 

Center Stage

Check out Harry's Q&A with Beauty Packaging, featured in this month's issue.

Goggle Globe, Park City, UT

I'm not normally a big fan of do-it-yourself, sports-themed design. But this lighting fixture in Bazooka's sport store at the base of Park City Mountain caught my attention this weekend. All of the subtly different colored lenses are really beautiful; I love the technology transfer - the high tech goggle lenses filtering light bulbs instead of sunlight, and it is a great recycling story. The disposable nature of sporting equipment is so depressing, and here is a very viable reuse story.

The Closing of Moss

To mark the end of an era, I thought I might share this image from the beginning:

This shot is from a December '96 Abitare article on Moss. Murray (blurry) with my friend Ashton Hundley helping him behind the counter. I designed this original store for Murray in '94 and helped him expand in '99. Such fun projects for me. An education. I look forward to the next incarnation, but I will miss stopping in to marvel at the edit.

Plaza Deco

Harry's apt. (above Harry Allen Design studio) featured in Plaza Deco.

HGTV Interview

Check out Harry's interview with Judith Mackin on HGTV.ca.

Color Report: Iridescence

My holiday display take-away was full-spectrum and glittery:

Knotty Love

On the top of my reading list:

3900 knots for my design pleasure.

Hyatt Hands

As seen in suites of the Hyatt Long Beach:

Katonah in the City

My new years resolution is a no-brainer. More yoga.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Last year I had the privilege to design a studio for my yoga teacher Nevine Michaan, and her daughter Danielle. Katonah Yoga NYC is located at 17th Street and 8th Avenue.

Nevine synthesized a wide variety of thought, including a healthy portion of Taoism, to develop Katonah Yoga. She and Abbie Galvin, her second in command, break many of the rules of traditional yoga. When I first discovered them up in Westchester I was confused. No shavasana? No coddling? Dialogue all through class? Starting in Pigeon pose? It was not yoga as I knew it. Now I am addicted. They go deep and the effects are profound. 

Katonah Yoga is a hands-on practice. In the image below Nevine has strapped and blocked a student into reverse namaste. She breaks us down and rebuilds with precision. Please also note the morning light streaming through the shear blinds and reflecting off the pickled oak floors! 

I welcomed the challenge to design a yoga studio. For a long time the correlation between yoga and design eluded me. These two great interests of mine seemed far apart. Then, a couple of years ago during a yoga intensive (not at Katonah Yoga) the instructor asked the class where beauty comes from. I am not a huge fan of the soul-searching side of yoga, but I managed to blurt out "order." Which was correct! Suddenly, yoga, which is all about ordering the mind and body, and design which is all about ordering one's life did not seem so far apart.

Katonah Yoga is an exercise in restraint. It is a clean, well-lighted space, ordered down to the last details. There are, however, a few "design moments" in the space like the honeycomb cubbies in the hallway (below) and the tent-like dressing rooms.

I encourage everyone to visit in the New Year. 

Namaste:)