His work may divide opinion but there’s no disputing that Richard Rogers is one of the most influential architects of our time. Still, at 81 he admits he “can see an end coming” and has changed the name of his firm from Richard Rogers Partnership to Rogers Stirk Harbour+Partners so…
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Design
One of the big stories of China may be how international luxury brands are successfully luring China’s new rich to spend on their status symbols but we’re far more interested in another scoop, namely how Hermès has thrown its weight behind Jiang Qiong Er as she pioneers an original Chinese…
Considering it’s only fifteen years younger than Cartier, it’s amazing that the Lebanese, family-owned jewellery house of Tabbah is not more widely recognised. Of course, this has much to do with the nature of their business – quietly creating one-off haute joaillerie, often for international royalty. If you were a…
Chopard is a family-run business in the midst of a generational handover. Despite this evolutionary yet also potentially disruptive transition, things are much the same with a steadfast commitment to a long-term vision rather than short-term gains. And with sales hitting an all-time high, it goes to show how slow…
As I make my way through the busy streets of Ashrafieh, it might be due to my biased perception but my eyes are drawn to Maktabis everywhere. And all of them in the carpet business. There’s Nivine Maktabi’s Oumnia, with its modernist tribal rugs, Hadi Maktabi’s traditional Oriental carpet shop…
The hotels Jean-Michel Gathy designs for the likes of Aman, One&Only and Cheval Blanc are off the decadence Richter scale. It’s therefore about time we meet the man who pioneered the private plunge pool, ‘naughty bathrooms’ and basking nets. The name Jean-Michel Gathy may not feature in the panoply of…
Born in Beirut but based in Paris and as passionate about graphic design as he is about furniture or lighting, Charles Kalpakian’s designs sit at the junction of several different overlapping worlds. A quote from Gibran. A vase called ‘Saida’. A room divider called ‘Hawa’. A light fixture entitled, ‘Travail…
Practicing interior design and architecture out of the same office, professions as separate as they are entwined, Dada & Associates and TheOtherDada operate in a way that is interdependent but independent. As family businesses go, the Dadas rather break the mould. Not deliberately, as the result of some hipper-than-thou marketing…
Nathalie Khayat’s studio isn’t especially quiet. Just down the road from the post office on Sassine Square in Beirut’s Ashrafieh, it opens onto the city’s soundscape; the dull roar of traffic, squealing tyres, honking horns, the drill of construction, passing conversations, the cries of street vendors, all the ambient sounds,…
If ever it is completed, Abu Dhabi’s Mastaba Project would be the world’s largest public sculpture. First developed by the celebrated art duo Christo & Jeanne-Claude back in 1977, a new book by Taschen documents the process of the monument’s construction. The craft of the builder was regarded as a…