Nubeluz at the Ritz-Carlton New York, Nomad by Martin Brudnizki bring guests to the skies of New York

Martin Brudnizki and Bruno Moinard are two of the most celebrated names in interior architecture and design today. Here, Brudnizki takes LUX on a grand tour of Martin Brudnizki Design Studio’s most recent projects, while Moinard shares his design inspiration and creative process

Martin Brudnizki

Nubeluz at the Ritz-Carlton new York, Nomad
With Nubeluz located on the 50th floor of the Ritz-Carlton, our concept for its interior was to create a star in the New York sky. The project’s core is a central backlit onyx bar, and the surfaces are designed to reflect its lighting. A high-gloss lacquer ceiling, a marble floor, mirrored and onyx tables, plus six statement brass saucer chandeliers ensure that light bounces around the room in a magical way.

Martin Brudnizki

The colour scheme takes the project from lightbox to jewel box with a teal envelope to the walls, floor and ceiling, highlighting the coral seating in its luxurious mohair and flame stitch-patterned fabrics. We didn’t want to disrupt the views, so sheer teal-trimmed roman blinds hang across the windows. Our interior is a celebration of light and the city, referencing the classic hotel bar and saluting the views over an iconic skyline. It is modern and quintessentially New York.

nubeluzbyjose.com

Hôtel Barrière Fouquet’s New York
This is the illustrious French five-star hotel brand’s first foray into the US. In Paris it is located on the Champs-Élysées, so you might think its natural New York home would be the Upper East Side, but its team chose Tribeca – a decision I love. Our design challenge was to combine a distinctly Parisian ambience with a downtown location.

Hôtel Barrièrre Fouquet’s New York by Martin Brudnizki brings the iconic Parisian hotel to Paris

We have brought together high glamour and elegance in a modern, timeless design, while leaning on the building’s loft-style architecture that blends seamlessly into the Tribeca landscape. Parisian design accents can be found in the rich materiality and colour palettes, while a carefully curated art collection, featuring many local artists, has a gritty urban appeal.

hotelsbarriere.com/en/collection-fouquets/new-york

Vesper Bar at The Dorchester, London
With this project, it was important to respect the past while bringing it to a new era. We were inspired by celebrated Roaring Twenties creatives, such as Cecil Beaton and Oliver Messel, who each had a history with The Dorchester.

Vesper Bar at the Dorchester by Martin Brudnizki

Their inspiration was integral to the spirit of this landmark bar. We also nodded to designer Syrie Maugham in our use of the mirrored columns. The hope is that the Vesper Bar inspires another Roaring Twenties.

dorchestercollection.com

Mother Wolf, LA
Situated off Sunset Boulevard, Mother Wolf is a playful Italian restaurant that has become a magnet for LA celebrities since its opening in 2022. Working with chef Evan Funke and Ten Five Hospitality, we created a homage to the glamour and elegance of Italian design.

Mother Wolf, LA by Martin Brudnizki

References to architects Gio Ponti and Carlo Scarpa can be found in the dining chairs and central bar, while a trompe-l’oeil scene depicts lemons and pomegranates – an ode to Italy’s chic riviera. With its Murano-glass lighting, antique mirrors and Siena-marble table tops, every aspect of the restaurant’s interiors connects to the design heritage of Italy.

motherwolfla.com

Bruno Moinard

I am guided by lines, materials, light, energy and movement: whether in my work as an architect – in our projects around the world with Claire Bétaille for famous brands and high-profile clients – or in my more intimate work as a designer and painter.

Bruno Moinard in his studio amongst his paintings

When I began to appreciate beautiful old cars – and I have three mythical English models – I saw their design is a distillation of everything that makes me vibrate in my creative process. I see these qualities in the bodywork, the leather, wood and chrome, the colours, the interplay between interior and exterior, the vision of the future in front of me and of the road travelled behind.

Interiors of Hôtel Plaza Athénee lobby, Paris by Bruno Moinard

So the challenge I set myself is to work with authenticity to evoke an emotion, to give a simple pleasure and generate unique sensations. This is luxury. It has nothing to do with glitz or so-called rarity.

Hôtel du Marc lobby, Reims by Bruno Moinard

So in the cellars of Clos de Tart, a 1,000-year-old Burgundy vineyard with a Cistercian history, we built on the exceptional quality of the historic building, bringing light into the space, giving it life, to place it in harmony with the pure elegance of the wines.

Hôtel du Marc dining room by Bruno Moinard

In “Résonance”, my recent exhibition in Paris, we made each painting an experiential space that I invited people to enter. My recent furniture collections also seek this sense, which has a direct impact on quality of life and on the welcoming nature of a space.

One Monte-Carlo living room, Monaco by Bruno Moinard

My lights, furniture, carpets and objects bring freshness and softness with natural forms and materials. I am privileged to work in complementary fields and my inspiration in both is based on the same triptych of emotion, continuity and sustainability, while promoting the finest workmanship and expertise.

brunomoinardeditions.com

moinardbetaille.com

brunomoinardpeinture.com

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

Santiago Calatrava. Portrait by Jacqueline Roberts

The beauty and purity of form of Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava’s buildings around the world belie the marvels of engineering that he brings to his show-stopping designs, as well as sometimes the controversies over budget overspends, design flaws and construction delays. But, as Mark C. O’Flaherty finds when he speaks to the architect, his extravagant vision never loses sight of each project’s singular purpose

Few things truly warrant the term ‘sensational’. Santiago Calatrava’s architecture demands it. You don’t look at his structures, you experience them. He engineers a feeling. Each project has its own potent energy, from the exhilarating elongated archery bows of his Puente de la Mujer in Buenos Aires and Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin, to the balletic falcon silhouette of one of his most recent works, the UAE Pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai. “Look, let me show you something,” he says, sitting in the garden of his home in Zurich. “See…?” Taking a finger to his iPad, he draws the outline of a bird in flight, with curlicued feathers, reminiscent of a Cocteau sketch. “And here is my signature…” Again, he creates an effortless swoosh and a soaring gesture on screen. “Birds were a big part of my childhood. I grew up in a house next to a tower full of doves and watched them come and go. Using nature as an approach to architecture has always fascinated me. Not in a decorative way, but as a purity of spirit.”

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Calatrava’s career began in the early 1980s, with warehouses and railway stations in Germany and Switzerland and the Bach de Roda Bridge in Barcelona. Even then his style was fully formed, with its roots in fine art. He left Spain in 1968 with the intention of studying in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts. But fate – and that year’s student riots – closed one door and opened another. “I visited Notre Dame one morning,” he recalls. “The light was streaming through the windows on the south side of the building and it was the first time I realised how sublime architecture could be, and how it can reach levels of expression that move your heart.” He left Paris and returned home to Valencia to study architecture for the next six years. Today, his work has been acknowledged with twenty-two honorary degrees, a retrospective (in 1993) at MoMA in New York, and a gold medal from the American Institute of Architects in 2005.

Innovation, Science & Technology Building at Florida Polytechnic University, designed by Calatrava in 2014. Image by lan Karchmer for Santiago Calatrava

In person, Calatrava radiates enthusiasm and charm, frequently appending sentences with an endearingly accented English “…isn’t it?” When he isn’t hard-wired into his studios in Zurich, Dubai and New York, he reverts to painting and sculpting. “I think of it as patient research, and parallel to my architecture,” he explains. “It all has the same energy. All my work is figurative. Even when I sculpt something abstract, the weight and tension in it are related to the human body. It’s all based on nature.” Those doves at the family home are part of an expansive flowchart of a global ecosystem that is Calatrava’s mood board. “I used to visit the Paleontological Museum in Valencia with my brother, and I was fascinated by the shells there,” he says, “I take inspiration from things that are skeletal, but also unicellular organisms visible by microscope. My PhD thesis was called ‘The Natural is Mother and Teacher’. I see the science of engineering as empirical – it comes from observing the behaviour of natural structures.”

The Puente de la Mujer, Buenos Aires, 2001. Image by Diego Grandi/Alamy. 

A Calatrava building is anything but simple. It also certainly isn’t cheap. In 2013 The New York Times ran a critical piece on the architect, flagging up certain projects in Europe that ran two or three times over budget. His striking red bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice, completed in 2008, had various parties lawyering up after it took an extra €4.6m to complete, while his PATH station in New York City – the World Trade Center Oculus – is rumoured to have cost $4bn, twice its original estimate. Money aside, many wondered if the Oculus would ever actually be finished. But, as the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, and Calatrava’s are some of the most ambitious buildings in history. Walking into the Oculus, despite the visual noise of its retail outlets, is akin to walking into the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, or St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. The spatial qualities are sublime.

The World Trade Center Transportation Hub, New York, 2016. Image by Alan Karchmer

The architect’s vision for the future of our cities is as ambitious as his individual projects. While much of his work is for private clients – including the Turning Torso residential skyscraper in Malmö – he is a go-to for governments. He creates landmarks that market their location, but he is also, for all his flash, obsessive about the impact on a landscape. “We have an obligation to deliver for the next generation,” he says. “Communities need to be respectful of all things natural – something that begins with government, and then private clients react to that.” One forthcoming project is a new bridge across the Rhine in Eglisau, intended to pull traffic flow from the town centre, while being harmonious with its idyllic landscape. The jury behind the project flagged Calatrava’s design as having “a certain discretion” while still being “extremely elegant and self-confident.”

Innovation, Science & Technology Building at Florida Polytechnic University, Lakeland, FL, 2014. Image by Ian Karchmer for Santiago Calatrava. 

Modern architecture and nature can seem at odds, but Calatrava’s skill is in elevating what currently exists – he is a paradigm of the future of city planning as well as a high-profile architect. His 2015 Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow) in Rio de Janeiro, which focuses on the role of science in the future of the environment, is remarkable for several things. The structure features solar panels that shift according to the direction of the sun, while water from the bay it overlooks regulates the temperature inside. “If you visit the museum, you learn so much, so simply,” he says. “We built a miniature forest and created a series of pools around the museum, drawing from the river. Gravity pumps it to the end of the pier and it cascades to the sea, not only filtering it, but oxygenating it. We are condensing an idea – showing how important the forests are around the city, and how the bay can regenerate things.” The museum also represented a major intervention in the existing urban plan of Rio. “We demolished the viaduct that had cut the city in two,” explains Calatrava. “Architecture can transform a city and contribute to a better way of life. Look at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco – it brings magic to that Pacific bay.”

Read more: Product designer Tord Boontje on sustainable materials

While working in Rio, Calatrava met Brazilian master architect Oscar Niemeyer, whose contemporary art museum opened in Niterói in 1996. Its blindingly white, futuristic, flying-saucer form offers a dialogue with Calatrava’s new building across the water. “He was over 100 when I met him, but still capable of enormously clear thinking,” he says. “He was my idol. His work showed me how you can transmit a kind of poetry through the shapes and forms of architecture, and how it goes beyond the everyday needs of people, and becomes art.”

Guillemins TGV Railway Station, Liège, 2009. Image by James Ewin

Art is inherent in Calatrava’s work. Like the sculptor Richard Serra, he creates negative space that generates a sensation: “It is the void that delivers the atmosphere and emotion,” Calatrava says. “It is a constant for me. Even with my bridges, there is a space beneath them, and looking up at it can be as interesting as crossing over it. Architecture is essentially a material casket around a space you are developing. And, like a wheel without the hole in the middle, it won’t turn. It’s the most important aspect.”

The Oculus at the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, New York, 2016.

His use of negative space to create emotion is perhaps most apparent at the Oculus and at the neighbouring St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, currently under construction. Both are in his typical reductionist Mediterranean white, and both expose internal space to the sky. “The Oculus is a strip and the church is a circle,” he explains. “The latter has ribs in the dome to let the light in, and the void there has an image of the Almighty at the centre of the roof.” Calatrava references the beauty of the Pantheon in Rome, where the focal point of everything is, essentially, the hole at the centre of the ancient dome – “The emotion of the immaterial being framed by the material,” as he describes it. So with the church, it is Jesus that is framed rather than the sky. But at the white-winged Oculus, it is pure air. “The roof is designed to open,” Calatrava explains. “We calculated it precisely so that when it retracts each 11th September, at 10.28am to mark the time of the 2001 tragedy, the orientation of the sun delivers a strip of light down below. It is the light, and the void, that deliver the message.”

Find out more: calatrava.com

This article was originally published in the Summer 2021 issue.

‘that pause of space’ (2019), Edmund de Waal, on view in the North Hall, © Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection; photo: Christopher Burke

Edmund de Waal is known as a contemporary ceramist, who pushes the preconceived ideas of his discipline, by questioning an object’s narrative, their place in collections and how they are displayed. His installations are interventions, which resonate with their historic locations, creating an intriguing dialogue between art and space. By contrasting old masters and his new forms, de Waal offers a comment on time, memory and the journey of objects, reminding the viewer that context is integral to the meaning of art.

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‘that pause of space’ (2019), Edmund de Waal, on view in the North Hall, © Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection; photo: Christopher Burke

In de Waal’s first solo US exhibition Elective Affinities at the Frick Collection in New York, his ceramic sculptures have been placed amongst the museum’s permanent collection; rooms which comprise of Henry Clay Frick’s Old Master paintings and objets d’art, including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velásquez and Goya. de Waal’s artwork ‘that pause of space’, is situated between Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s ‘Comtesse d’Haussonville’ (1845) and an eighteenth-century French side table of blue marble and gilt-bronze, commissioned by the Duchess of Mazarin.

Read more: Life on the thrillionaire trail by Geoffrey Kent

‘that pause of space‘ is a gold-framed, floating vitrine containing both glazed and unglazed porcelain beakers. de Waal’s framing and fragments of gilt porcelain on the beakers ties the work to the surroundings through a common materiality. There is a unification of the works in terms of formal qualities, but equally as a collection as the works are all displayed within a gilt-frame. However, the contemporary aesthetic and context of de Waal’s pieces allows us to also view the works as distinct objects, each with individual stories. The beakers’ white, minimal and slender forms present their modern creation in comparison to the light and dark of Ingres’s chiaroscuro portrait painting.

‘on an archaic torso of Apollo’ (2019), Edmund de Waal, on view in the Fragonard Room, © Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection; photo: Christopher Burke

The exhibition features nine of de Waal’s artworks in total, each provoking a dialogue between modern and old, object and context, as well as offering fresh perspectives on the space itself.

Rosie Ellison-Balaam

‘Elective Affinities’ runs until 17 November 2019 at The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, New York. For more information visit: frick.org

‘Space Odyssey’ (2019) by Etienne Rey

Space in the hands of today’s artists means not just making sculpture but also whole physical or digital environments that the spectator experiences. Clint McLean selects six explorers of these new worlds

DEUTSCHE BANK WEALTH MANAGEMENT x LUX

JULIE MEHRETU

Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu’s abstract paintings compress space and time to reveal imaginary places birthed from unrecognizable but real locations. The artist layers her distinctive markings with architectural drawings, maps, drafts and plans to create the “in-between psychological spaces,” as she refers to them. The paintings are a storm of simultaneous perspectives rendered in pencil, ink and paint and are at times monumental in size.

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‘Hineni (E. 3:4)’ (2018) by Julie Mehretu

KLAUS PINTER

The largest installations of Austrian artist Klaus Pinter don’t just occupy space, they dominate it. The buoyant airships and ornaments are often translucent and, though enormous, have a lightness and playfulness to them. The two giant balls that constitute Rebonds, which was installed at the Paris Panthéon in 2010, turned the space into a Cubist dream by creating a warped and translucent simulacrum of the architecture it inhabited.

‘Rebonds’ (2010) by Klaus Pinter

ETIENNE REY

The installations by French artist Etienne Rey confuse our sense of space through light, movement and reflection. Works like the semi- reflective, semi-translucent wall Flou No. 1 (2017), and the light sculpture Space Odyssey (2013) created with Wilfried Wendling, are like portals to another dimension. Except that we never arrive at another place. Rather, the artworks distort and erase our environment, making depth and distance disappear and leaving us forever in an in-between place.

‘WDCH Dreams’ (2018) by Refik Anadol

Read more: Curator Zoe Whitley on the art of collaboration

REFIK ANADOL

Turkish artist Refik Anadol makes the digital space physical through immersive projections of light and sound that draw on data collection and artificial intelligence, among other things. In Archive Dreaming (2017), Anadol surrounds us with data from a digital archive that in turns leaves us hurtling through a vortex of information, floating in space, and inspecting a library of images. The installation is as futuristic as it is nostalgic.

‘Untitled (Pulp)’ (1999) by Rachel Whiteread

RACHEL WHITEREAD

British-born Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures make negative space positive by casting the spaces in, under and around things in rubber, resin, plaster or cement. The Turner Prize-winning artist has cast domestic items such as the space under chairs (echoing Bruce Nauman’s chair-space casts from the 1960s), as well as architectural spaces such as a room (Ghost, 1990) or an entire house (House, 1993). Her work shuffles between playful and haunting while evoking themes of absence and memory.

‘Me Somewhere Else’ (2018) by Chiharu Shiota

CHIHARU SHIOTA

The ‘thread drawings’ of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota fill spaces in dense webs of yarn as they traverse universal themes of life, death, love, relationships and memory. They adorn and claim structures, and tornadoes of her signature red, black or white threads absorb objects such as boats, books, dresses and keys. Her installations turn spaces into dramatic environments as both backdrops and vehicles for sentimental narratives.

This article was originally publishing in the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management x LUX supplement inside the Summer 19 Issue.