The Monocle Minute
On Design

This week, we bask in the glow of lighting brand Giopato & Coombes’ new Paris showroom, warm ourselves inside a fresh take on a Norwegian wood cabin (pictured), explore the connection between Swiss and Indian design and more. First, Virginia McLeod reflects on what we can learn from a visit to an architectural masterpiece.

In 1938, just after the German annexation of Austria, the Tugendhat family left their much-loved and longed-dreamed-of house in the Czechoslovakian city of Brno. It seemed that their country would be next so the clan left the villa designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Lilly Reich and Sergius Ruegenberg after just eight years of enjoyment. The house has since become recognised as an architectural masterpiece and is now a tourist attraction. When I visited – on a sub-zero, crystalline winter’s day between Christmas and New Year – it was filled with natural light casting long, dramatic mid-afternoon shadows onto the floors and walls.

It’s now on a long list of famous homes that I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. I have trekked to some of the most celebrated – Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Alvar Aalto’s Villa Mairea, to name but a few. But what can we learn from this kind of residential “architourism”? Houses such as Villa Tugendhat are a demonstration of art and beauty, and the magic that happens when the right client finds the right architect, collaborating to create something that is both unique to their combined vision but also transcends its time and place. Villa Tugendhat tells us much about the lives and aspirations of a family living in Czechoslovakia in the years after the First World War.

Finished in 1930, it was a truly ground-breaking house with every mod con available at the time. This included full-height windows that descend into a basement well, a garage where the Tugendhats parked their convertible Tatra and a room to protect fur coats from moths, not to mention staff quarters accommodating a maid, a cook and a chauffeur. All of this is encapsulated in what is a masterclass in pure Bauhausian modernism, complete with curved glass, travertine, onyx, chromed columns, rosewood and, of course, the free plan (these early modernists were among the first to conceptualise open-plan living). The house set a benchmark in terms of the perfect marriage of progressive architect and creatively engaged client – something from which designers and those commissioning them could learn today. One cannot exist without the other.

While it’s worth visiting the building purely for Van der Rohe and Reich’s architecture, it’s also worth making the trip to put yourself in their clients’ shoes. If you take your time as you walk up the stairs, gaze at the view and stand where the Tugendhats once stood, you might be surprised to feel an emotional connection with the individuals who laughed, loved and brought up a family in these spaces. It could just be the catalyst that you need to find your own pioneering architect – one who you might wish to commission to build your own masterpiece.

Virginia McLeod is Monocle’s books editor. For more design, opinion and analysis, subscribe to Monocle today.

Oslo-based studio Fjord Arkitekter’s Mylla is a contemporary take on the traditional Norwegian hytte (wooden cabin), rooted in both simplicity and sustainability. Its exterior is clad in pine treated in the MøreRoyal style, a method that involves vacuum-cooking the wood in oil. The approach allows the residence to blend into the landscape without requiring much maintenance or any chemical weatherproofing treatments to maintain its rustic appearance. “The materials are durable and natural,” says Fjord Arkitekter partner Finn Magnus Rasmussen. “The construction is simple and rational.”

Recognising that green credentials mean little without quality space, the architects have also prioritised a soothing interior. Oiled spruce walls and ceilings create a warm, inviting atmosphere, while a central sculptural staircase divides the building into zones. “The cabin is elongated and narrow for the best adaptation to the plot,” says Rasmussen. “This provides distance between the quiet and active parts of the cabin. It might have a sober exterior but when you get inside it is rich in spatial qualities.”
fjordarkitekter.no

For more on Mylla and other Norwegian wood cabins, pick up a copy of Monocle’sDecember/January issue.

Cristiana Giopato and Christoper Coombes run lighting brand Giopato & Coombes from an 18th-century villa in the northern-Italian city of Treviso. When it came to opening a new showroom in the French capital, the duo chose a similarly elegant two-storey space in Le Marais. “Paris has a lot of appreciation for what we do,” says Coombes when Monocle visits. “This space allows visitors and clients to take their time.”

Indeed, customers will want to savour the site-specific installation, “Bruma: A Thousand Landscapes”. Consisting of a series of suspended lights from Giopato & Coombes’ Bruma collection, the installation evokes a gently lit mountainous landscape. This is complemented by a display featuring a new iteration of the orb-like Dewdrops collection in two new finishes. The result is a showroom that’s worth visiting whether you’re in the mood for a gallery-like experience or shopping for lighting pieces.
giopatocoombes.com

Read a special report on Giopato & Coombes in‘The Entrepreneurs’, our business-minded annual, which is on newsstands now.

Finding craftspeople with the know-how to make contemporary versions of classic designs is tricky but India’s Phantom Hands has risen to the challenge. The furniture firm rose to prominence with its reproduction of chairs that Swiss architect Pierre Jeanneret designed with Le Corbusier in the 1950s and 1960s, and which were originally created for buildings in the Indian city of Chandigarh. The results are a prime example of good craftsmanship that would have made Jeanneret proud – and an indication of what Phantom Hands’ co-founder Deepak Srinath aspires to achieve at his Bangalore workshop, which employs a team of more than 100. It is now working on a collaboration with Swiss design studio Big-Game. Here, Srinath tells us more.

Tell us about the design relationship between Switzerland and India.
India’s modern design history is closely associated with Switzerland through Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret’s Chandigarh project. The influence of the Swiss architects extended to a generation of Indian designers who learnt under them and then went on to spread their approach across the country. Phantom Hands’ co-founder and creative director Aparna Rao studied at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, where the curriculum is heavily inspired by Swiss methods. Aparna now collaborates with ETH Zürich design school and has been doing so for the better part of a decade. So this Indian-Swiss connection continues today. It’s an extension of our national history but also part of the Phantom Hands story.

How did your collaboration with the designers at Big-Game come about?
They visited our workshop in 2016 when we were really small. At the time, it was too early for us to collaborate with them. In 2022, after setting up an upholstery division, we reached out to them with a specific brief to create a collection. They happened to see the quilted packing bags that we used to ship our furniture and they loved the idea of creating something using the same sort of method. That was how the collaboration began.

How has the Indian furniture market developed since your establishment?
When we started Phantom Hands 10 years ago, there were very few domestic buyers for our work. Back then, Indians in our target market preferred buying Italian brands but that changed in the past three years and the country has become our fastest-growing market. Indian consumers are very well traveled today and exposed to global trends, which has resulted in them moving away from traditional heavy furniture. While we sold to the global market first, India has since discovered us.

For more from leading furniture brands such as Phantom Hands, tune in to‘Monocle on Design’.

US designer Don S Shoemaker did what many of us dream of at this time of year: he packed up and moved to the tropics. Born in Nebraska, Shoemaker fell in love with Mexico while on his honeymoon and relocated to Michoacán with his wife soon afterwards. He spent a few peaceful years in front of an easel in an idyllic hilltop village but he eventually felt the entrepreneurial tug. So he founded Señal, a furniture company that employed more than 100 craftspeople at its peak in the mid-to-late 20th century and delivered pieces to the smartest showrooms in the US.

Señal’s bestseller was its Sling line of chairs, which have a bone-like frame carved from wood with a thick piece of leather across it. The Sling Sloucher (illustrated) comes with a slightly more angled backrest and has inspired countless imitations. Only the 1960s originals, however, are made from precious tropical hardwoods such as cocobolo, zebrawood or grenadilla. If you’re not already slouched somewhere in the sun, this is the ideal armchair for whiling away the winter months and dreaming of moving to warmer climes.

Paris-based design studio Goons is presenting its first solo show tomorrow at the St Vincents gallery space in Antwerp. Until March, visitors can explore a new eight-piece range of furniture called Evolving Forms, which includes two types of table, three kinds of chair, a bench, a stool and a console, all rendered in Scandinavian birch plywood. While the designs’ simplicity evokes the minimalism of US artist Donald Judd, the possibilities offered by the various combinations are attuned to a more contemporary lifestyle in which a stool can be a nightstand as well as an extra seat for a dinner party.

Goons was founded in 2020 by fashion designer Mia Kim, who previously worked at Hermès and Chanel, and her partner, Paul Trussler, who cut his teeth making maquettes for Frank Gehry before founding his own architectural studio. “We’re rooted in a desire for simple solutions,” says Trussler. “Judged lightly, these might be considered dumb but there’s a strong philosophy and quiet sophistication behind each piece.”
studiogoons.com; stvincents.co

New York-based gallerist Jean Lin’s What We Keep: Advice from Artists and Designers on Living with the Things You Love is a thoughtful guide for budding collectors. Lin knows a thing or two about cultivating a selection of objects to artfully furnish a space. As the founder of co-op and gallery Colony, she works with a host of independent designers such as Brooklyn-based studio Moving Mountains and lighting specialist Allied Maker. Inspired by traditional Chinese medicine, the book is organised into five sections – wood, fire, earth, metal and water – each exploring the relationship between objects and identity through items including vintage clocks, silver teapots and equine dental tools.

Published by Abrams Books, the edition features profiles of collectors as well as perspectives from creatives such as Mira Nakashima, Adam Rolston and architectural studio Worrell Yeung. Every chapter offers practical ideas for styling objects in our homes and workplaces. It’s a great addition to the bookshelf of anyone seeking to turn treasured objects into a united and meaningful interior.
goodcolony.com