Culture A’s hospitality projects include London’s new wellness hotel Inhabit, which will open this summer. Image courtesy of Inhabit Hotels

Anne T. Rogers is the founder of Amsterdam-based art consultancy  Culture A, which curates collections and experiences for a range of clients from hotels to luxury retail and residential. Here, she speaks to Candice Tucker about visual storytelling, AI-generated art and how to curate a collection at home

Anne T. Rogers

1. What inspired you to create Culture A?

I’m a trained art historian and experience strategist. After years of working in curating, interior design, and retail design, I saw the opportunity to position art as an experience as well as an investment. I started Culture A to curate and produce art as something that transforms a public space. Art is an important design differentiator, particularly for clients such as hotel owners, property developers, and retail brands. We find the best art suitable for investment, visual storytelling, or pure aesthetics.

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2. Why do you think there’s been such a dramatic rise in experience culture?

It’s an interesting time where we’re focusing on the benefits of community, but not at the risk of the individual. Self-love, self-care, wellness: these are all hot topics right now. I think the rise of experience culture is tied to this. Generally speaking, we like to be a part of something that feels bigger than ourselves, but also have the space to find our own interpretation and act upon that feeling. Experience culture is about encouraging engagement and acting on it. For me, art is visual storytelling, and visual storytelling is a key component to experience design. Looking at art encourages discussion, individual interpretation, and personal connection. How many other consumer goods spark such freedom of expression?

An artwork by Amsterdam-based artist Camille Rousseau for Inhabit London. Image courtesy of Culture A

3. Where does your curation process begin for a hospitality project?

I adopt the mindset of a guest, dig into the brand story, and ask: how can the art experience enhance the customer journey? For hospitality projects, I approach curating through the lens of experience design versus museum design. It allows me to consider diverse audiences and how to best integrate art into the context of a brand. For example, when curating the art collection for Inhabit, a new London hotel focused on wellness, I really wanted to illuminate the brand’s vision for health and wellbeing. To start, we did a deep dive into research around wellness, urban oasis, colour psychology, and nature in London. We then developed curatorial themes in relation to Inhabit’s ethos and sourced our pieces accordingly.

Read more: Alia Al-Senussi on art as a catalyst for change

4. Could you share any tips on how to curate and frame art in your home?

Build a collection slowly and one that reflects your tastes and interests. Frame it professionally to avoid damage and maintain the investment. Don’t ignore key vantage points in your home. Where does the eye instinctively go when you scan the space? Hang art in those areas and study how each work relates to the other in the context of the space. This could be done thematically, by scale, by colour, or a mix of all three.

An art scarf designed by designer Lisa King. Image courtesy of Culture A

5. What artistic and design trends do you foresee emerging this year?

A growing demand for slow and considered art and design. People will ask themselves, “What do I really need and what do I really enjoy?” It’s a time to re-configure and refresh the spaces already lived in. As for design presentations and sourcing, virtual viewing rooms are certainly on the rise. I recently completed a project that was largely approved because of how successful the artwork looked in our virtual reality demo. Right now, we’re also experimenting a lot with AI-generated art driven by a brand’s heritage and image archive.

6. Which contemporary artists are you currently keeping your eye on?

Landon Metz, Matt Gagnon, Sarah Crowner, Kapwani Kiwanga, Martine Gutierrez, Miya Ando, Loie Hollowell, Douglas Mandry, Tyler Mitchell, Nicolas Party, Anne Hardy, Hugo McCloud, Emily Kiacz, and Wyatt Khan. Also, anyone working with AI technology to generate art and design.

Find out more: culture-a.com

The K11 MUSEA features a roof garden where clients can grow their own herbs and vegetables

Adrian Cheng has high hopes for the new K11 MUSEA in Hong Kong: to change the way retail, art and culture collide, says Darius Sanai

Entrepreneur Adrian Cheng

When billionaire Hong Kong entrepreneur Adrian Cheng opened his K11 MUSEA development on Hong Kong’s Victoria Dockside late last year, he heralded it as “The Silicon Valley of culture”. It was a concept that some found hard to get their heads around, but a visit to the development is enlightening and points to ways K11’s innovations could have influence across the world in future.

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At the heart of K11 MUSEA is a funkily designed luxury and fashion retail mall, housing the usual roster of names found elsewhere in China, from Alexander McQueen to Supreme. It’s the architecture and design, headed by New York-based James Corner, and the depth of concept in the detail, that is so innovative. K11’s roof is a kind of kitchen garden-cum-safari park, with spaces where clients can grow their own herbs and vegetables, a natural butterfly park (open for visits by any passing butterfly), a giant aquarium mimicking Victoria Harbour directly below, and rangers working to show local school groups the rooftop flora and fauna Inside, alongside the living walls and slides connecting different floors, is a constantly rotating roster of curated public art, chosen by Cheng (a significant collector) and his team. An e-sports zone allows you to indulge in the sports of your choice, there are public art and performance spaces, and nattily attired concierges sit at desks made of recovered logs.

The interiors of the luxury and fashion retail mall

Cheng’s aim in the development, which sits on prime waterfront land in Kowloon directly facing Central Hong Kong across the water of Victoria Harbour, is to bring retail, culture and technology together. Cheng is himself a complex and multifaceted entrepreneur: third generation heir to a multi-billion-dollar property and services empire, he is reinventing the family company, which also includes
brands like Rosewood Hotels and Resorts, for the future. He has as many friends in art and fashion as he does in the traditional family industry, and you feel Cheng is never happier than when reinventing something – and yet he has also invested time and money into a foundation to restore traditional Chinese crafts, and is something of a craftsman himself – it is his own hand that forms the calligraphic decorations around K11 MUSEA.

Read more: Plaza Premium Group’s Founder Song Hoi-see on airport luxury

The development has innovative platforms being planned using AI and facial recognition, as well as tie-ins with AI retail companies Cheng’s group has invested in, across the water in Shenzhen’s technology zone and across the globe: these are the spaces developers and retailers around the world will be watching.

The Kube kiosk designed by Rem Koolhaas’ studio OMA

As Cheng tells LUX: “When you purchase or sign up for something at K11 MUSEA, our loyalty programme allows us to understand your preference, basically what excites you the most. With enough samples, we can sufficiently draw correlations that will shape how we curate our brick-and-mortar spaces in the future. This is the advantage of running vast spaces like K11 MUSEA because it offers flexibility and a lot of possible curations. It’s about growing with our customers, predicting their needs and also working with brands and partners to create an inspiring customer journey. In fact, one of the companies I invested in, Moda Operandi, which we brought into K11 MUSEA, has a similar model. Online preferences will shape the store display, styling services and the various events that they host. Both K11 and Moda believe in creating a journey of wonder, for customers to learn and discover.”

There is also, importantly for Hong Kong’s current climate and from a scion of one of its most important families, a significant public/ community aspect to K11 MUSEA and the surrounding Victoria Dockside area which Cheng and his family company, New World Developments, has revitalised.

K11 MUSEA may be ground-breaking, but it’s unlikely to be the last creation of its kind from the peripatetic multi-business, multicultural Hong Kong dynamo.

‘Musea: A Book of Modern Muses’, published by Condé Nast, is available at boutiquemags.com

For more information visit: K11musea.com

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue.

Number 16 Clifford Street in Mayfair, Cifonelli’s new residence

One of Paris’ most illustrious tailoring houses has opened the doors to its a new London boutique. LUX takes a look inside

It’s not often mannequins are intimidating, but the three standing in the shopfront windows of Number 16 Clifford Street are enough to make most men question their wardrobe. This is the new London residence of Cifonelli, a tailoring house renowned for its distinctive details and sharp lines. Karl Lagerfeld was famously quoted as exclaiming that he “could recognise a Cifonelli shoulder from a distance of a hundred metres.”

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The brand was established in Rome in 1880 by Giuseppe Cifonelli before settling in Paris via a short stint in London, and now it’s back in Britain’s capital with fourth-generation cousins Lorenzo and Massimo at the helm.

Cifonelli’s boutique has been designed to offer clients a space to relax and shop

Read more: Truffle making & Michelin-star dining at St. James’s Hotel & Club

On a wintery evening earlier this month, LUX joined a crowd of handsomely dressed men to celebrate the opening with a glass or two of champagne, and dancing to tunes from the in-house DJ. Not the kind of scene you’d necessarily expect from a traditional tailors, but Cifonelli despite its heritage remains very much on the pulse.

The shop itself, for example, is luxurious, but welcoming with plush velvet seats and flattering lighting, the idea being that customers can come in to relax as well as buy. It’s well worth a visit, if only to admire those well-dressed mannequins.

For more information visit: cifonelli.com

From left to right: fashion designers Mei-Hui Liu and Anne Sophie Cochevelou, stylist Daniel Lismore and Sue Kreitzman pictured at Bicester Village

Today marks the beginning of luxury shopping destination Bicester Village’s springtime campaign featuring artists and designers from East London

If you happened to be at Marylebone Station this morning in London, you might have noticed a gathering of vibrantly dressed individuals waiting on the platform for the next train to Oxford. This was the starting point for artist and designer Sue Kreitzman‘s ‘Colour Walk’, which led a group of East London‘s creatives deep into the heart of Oxfordshire’s countryside and along the paths of Bicester Village.

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The practise of ‘colour walking’ is to encourage like-minded artistic people to dress up in as many colours as possible, and meet to walk and discuss ideas; usually beginning in Old Spitalfields Market, today’s walk kicked off a new artistic campaign at Bicester Village. Inspired by artist and LUX contributing editor Maryam Eisler‘s book Voices East London , ‘Spring Fever’ aims at supporting the work and practises of artists and designers from London’s East End. Amongst those involved is artist turned fashion designer Meihui Liu, whose pop-up art-inspired concept store will feature limited-edition artworks by the likes of ‘post-it poet’ Andy Leek (the man behind the ‘Notes to Strangers’ series), French fashion designer Anne Sophie Cochevelou and celebrity stylist Daniel Lismore.

Read more: President of LEMA Angelo Meroni on business with a soul

Meanwhile Bicester Village itself has undergone a transformation, with a VIP building resembling the club lounge of a particularly luxurious hotel. Shoppers can relax in marble-swathed private rooms while being served cocktails and snacks by butlers; fruit bowls overflow and the experience is enhanced even further by the hands-free shopping service that is also offered, meaning you can wave your Amex Black in Prada and Dior and have the butler carry your bags back to the lounge, where you can sip a glass of champagne before reluctantly setting out for home. LUX loves.

For more information on the upcoming events and experiences visit: bicestervillage.com

The apartments boast spectacular views over the square and the ocean

LUX travelled to Monaco for the opening of One Monte-Carlo, the swankiest residential and retail development, in the most expensive location in Europe.

Clear blue skies, champagne poured out of magnums at breakfast time, real fur aplenty, and new flagship stores for the likes of Louis Vuitton and Céline. It can only be Monte-Carlo, and to be precise, it can only be the opening of One Monte-Carlo, a staggeringly opulent new development in the very heart of the principality, incorporating 37 apartments and dozens of fashion and luxury stores in what a property developer would call an ultra prime location.

Prince Albert II,Princesse Charlene, Prince Hereditaire Jacques and Princesse Gabriella at the inauguration of One Monte Carlo

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You may know Casino Square from its starring role in the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix and various movies, or because you park your Ferrari F 512M there when you visit the casino; now in a field of architecture engineering, it also boasts this rather beautiful development, next to the Hotel de Paris, designed by (Lord) Richard Rogers in an organic and eco-friendly style, anchored almost physically by the new Vuitton flagship.

With architecture by Richard Rogers and interior design by Bruno Moinard, One Monte Carlo houses 37 luxury apartments and dozens of retail stores

The apartments themselves are designed by the estimable Bruno Moinard, who works closely with both LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault and Kering founder Francois Pinault, personally. Interestingly, the apartments are only available for long-term rental not purchase. More than half have already been rented for the next 12 months, with some lucky residents paying more than €2 million a year. For les happy few, there is no better location in Monaco, or possibly Europe.

Darius Sanai

The Avenue of the Stars is Hong Kong’s new oceanside promenade developed by Adrian Cheng

The Avenue of the Stars is the oceanside promenade in Asia’s most exciting city that has just been reworked as part of the vision of Adrian Cheng, developer extraordinaire

If you’re visiting Hong Kong this winter – well, lucky you. It’s the best time of year to experience the most vibrant city in Asia, and, as from today, there is no better place to catch the phantasmagorical light show that the city puts on every night than the new Avenue of the Stars. On the waterfront, this is a half-kilometre long pedestrian zone and green space with breathtaking views of the city, which has just been reworked as part of the area’s seminal Victoria Dockside development.

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The Avenue of the Stars at night, with the lights of Central Hong Kong across the harbour

Victoria Dockside is the vision of Adrian Cheng, entrepreneur/visionary, tech and cultural tycoon, and one of LUX’s favourite dudes, and later this year will open fully as a cultural, luxury retail, public art, residential and concert space (stick with us for more details). It will also host the global flagship of Hong Kong-based Rosewood Hotel Group (Hotel de Crillon in Paris, The Carlyle in New York, etc), run with eye-watering panache by Adrian’s super-stylish maths genius sister Sonia.

Sibling rivalry? Maybe, but it’s certainly producing some epochal results. It’s time for that midnight stroll…

Darius Sanai

Read our LUX x Rosewood collaborations on ‘The New Creative Entrepreneurs’ here: lux-mag.com/meet-the-new-creative-entrepreneurs