1stdibs Enters the Auctions Game, and Other News

The Design Dispatch offers expertly written and essential news from the design world crafted by our dedicated team. Think of it as your cheat sheet for the day in design delivered to your inbox before you’ve had your coffee. Subscribe now. 

Have a news story our readers need to see? Submit it here.

1stdibs Is Entering the Auctions Game

Last week, 1stdibs launched an auctions platform that offers a welcome alternative to acquiring items at full or negotiated prices through dealers. The luxury design marketplace now allows users to place bids on a continually updated inventory of furniture, art, and fashion items offered by its reputable roster of international sellers—a method akin to eBay or Sotheby’s. The platform also won’t charge a buyer’s premium, meaning that auction winners will pay exactly their winning bid.

“We know that some of our customers appreciate the ability to negotiate and the convenience of ‘buy it now,’ while others enjoy bidding at auction to acquire something they love,” 1stdibs CEO David Rosenblatt said in a statement. “Being able to offer both models on our site is a significant step toward meeting our customers where they are and how they prefer to shop.” In addition to the Auctions feed, 1stdibs will also roll out curated offerings by influential dealers and designers. Kicking things off is design power-couple Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan, who guest-curated an array of design items ranging from 19th-century ceramics to midcentury-modern cabinets.

At Le Bon Nosh, European Café Culture Comes to Atlanta 

Inspired by timeless Parisian and Viennese cafes, Le Bon Nosh is an ode to Iranian-born chef Forough Vakili’s peripatetic life that spans continents and cultures. The L.A. studio Commune interpreted the saffron fields of Vakili’s childhood in Iran with golden-toned velvet drapes and hand-painted pomegranate wallpaper by the storied French design house De Gournay. Her time spent in Brittany training at a two-Michelin star restaurant, meanwhile, is represented by the interior’s pale blue and earthy teal color palette and a painting by BDDW’s Tyler Hays. 

Located in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, the all-day café, bakery, and market concept is anchored by a fierce dedication to fresh ingredients sourced from local farms. Warm bone broth porridge bowls and beet cured salmon with tzatziki are on the menu for breakfast; French ham sandwiches and squash caponata tartine at lunch. Coming soon: Persian-inflected dinner service and a sultry natural wine bar outfitted with salon-style Thonet chairs and Woka chandeliers.

New York’s planning commission unanimously approves permanent outdoor dining sheds.

The restaurant industry has cleared a major hurdle in fighting the lawsuit against outdoor dining sheds: the City Planning Commission of New York has voted unanimously to keep them permanent. The amendment is now heading to the City Council for a public hearing and vote; afterward, the Department of Transportation will need to complete the design and outline the regulations of a permanent program. The New York City Hospitality Alliance hailed the decision as a victory: “Open Restaurants has saved more than 100,000 industry jobs and countless small businesses from financial collapse, and this ‘yes’ vote is a critically important first step towards developing a sustainable future for this very popular program,” said Andrew Rigie, the group’s executive director. 

The escalating climate crisis is causing serious damage to ancient Australian rock art. 

Despite surviving multiple ages of human history, Aboriginal rock art is facing another threat of coastal erosion, fires, floods, and cyclones caused by the climate crisis. Rock art is often painted on sandstone, a material that readily absorbs moisture. Heated water from an influx of wildfires actually expands the water, which explodes the rock and destroys the art. Archaeologists are calling for an urgent reduction in carbon emissions as the future of rock art becomes increasingly unclear.  

A New York billionaire has been told to revise plans for his “temple to a titan” penthouse.  

After neighbors complained that it looks like “a Malibu beach house that got blown onto our New York roof,” New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission rejected Bill Ackman’s plan to build a Norman Foster–designed penthouse atop a historic Upper East Side apartment building. The hedge fund billionaire and his wife, Neri Oxman, will have to amend their plans to replace the existing pink stucco penthouse, which Ackman bought for $22.5m in 2017, and resubmit. “We ask the applicants to continue to study this project,” Sarah Carroll, the chair of the commission, said at the end of a community meeting this week. “You are in the right direction, [but continue] thinking about how you can fulfil the design intent of this glass house on the roof by sinking it down, lowering it, and maintaining a more sort of horizontal quality.”  

Nora Lawrence has been appointed the artistic director and chief curator of Storm King.

The beloved sculpture park’s first-ever artistic director, Lawrence will also succeed David R. Collens as director in January. She started there in 2011 as curator, focusing on bringing in the large-scale outdoor commissions that define Storm King’s programming. Besides founding the institution’s artist residency in 2015, her major curatorial responsibilities have included permanent commissions by Sarah Sze and Rashid Johnson, as well as “Indicators: Artists on Climate Change” in 2018. 

The future of New York’s Fearless Girl statue is unclear as its permit expiration date nears.

Sitting at the steps of the New York Stock Exchange, the four-foot-tall statue has struck a personal chord for many women as a symbol of economic empowerment on Wall Street. The artwork faces an uncertain future, however, as its three-year permit is drawing to a close on November 29, while a hearing to settle on its potential relocation is being slated for December at the earliest by the Public Design Commission, a mayor-appointed panel that oversees the city’s art portfolio. 

Two firms revamp an old cigarette factory into a warehouse-inspired brewery in Australia.

Studio Y. and Placeformspace have unveiled their design for a multi-use venue in Melbourne called the Stomping Ground Brewery Moorabbin—a brewery, beer hall, and beer garden all rolled into one. The two firms repurposed the site’s original blue flooring and introduced an exposed overhead timber grid that connects indoor and outdoor spaces. The factory-turned-beer hall sets the scene for a rustic-inspired brewery experience that marries its historic shell with contemporary design cues. 

Miramax files a lawsuit against Quentin Tarantino over his planned Pulp Fiction NFTs.

After the director announced at a crypto-art event in New York where he planned to auction off a series of NFTs for his famous film, Pulp Fiction, Miramax has filed a lawsuit claiming it owns the rights. The Tarantino Collection, as he calls it, includes seven uncut scenes as “secret NFTs” that only the owner would be able to see, as well as the movie’s first handwritten scripts and exclusive commentary from Tarantino “revealing secrets about the film and its creator,” per the release.

Today’s attractive distractions:

The same creators of Immersive Van Gogh will soon debut a Frida Kahlo experience. 

A blue diamond recently excavated in Botswana offers clues into how the Earth works.

Despite Nazi efforts to erase him, the car designer Paul Jaray gets his due in Venice.

This ridiculously impressive six-foot-wide Hogwarts cake took 320 hours to create.