Marimekko Florals Now Grace Peel-and-Stick Wallpaper, and Other News

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Marimekko Florals Now Grace Peel-and-Stick Wallpaper

Ever since Armi Ratia founded Marimekko seven decades ago, the Finnish label has set out to spark creativity and joy with exuberant multi-layered prints in vibrant colors and bold patterns that have become synonymous with an optimistic lifestyle. Now, Marimekko’s most recognizable patterns will be available on peel-and-stick wallpaper for the first time thanks to a new partnership with wall coverings purveyor Wallpops. The collection encompasses four signature Marimekko patterns, from designer Maija Isola’s classic Pieni Unikko’s poppy flowers to Rulla, a menagerie of elephants, giraffes, and rabbits racing around on wheeled feet. Wallpaper feels like a natural next step for Marimekko, whose impressive archive of 3,500 prints have graced everything from dresses and bags to ceramics and fabrics. 

A Restaurant in Bigger Texas Focuses on the Small Stuff

There are restaurants with good design and then there are restaurants where you want to take everything home. March falls under the latter category. Located in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood and designed by Studio Robert McKinley in collaboration with one of the partners, June Rodil, who also happens to be a master sommelier, the newcomer is a treasure trove of whimsical objects. 

From its unexpected space inside of a strip mall, chef Felipe Riccio’s tasting menu explores the diversity of Mediterranean flavors while putting on a show: Appetizers are served on Portuguese Surrealejos tiles with motifs of eggplants and roosters, drinks are presented in vintage Austrian Bimini glassware with cheeky dancing lady stems, and bottles of bubbly arrive in gorgeous hand-painted French Champagne buckets sourced from secondhand markets online. The pièce de résistance is the textured woven tapestry by Buenos Aires artist Alexandra Kehayoglou that extends from the ceiling to the private dining room wall, evoking the Mediterranean landscape with vibrant greens and blues. Don’t miss the new casual lounge, replete with a custom Murano glass chandelier by German artist Christoph Ruckhäberle and 1960’s Champagne cart conceived by Italian furniture designer Aldo Tura.

Cassina reintroduces an armchair, nesting tables, and trolley designed by Bodil Kjær.  

Bodil Kjær first started designing furniture in the 1950s and ‘60s in order to address the problems she kept encountering as an interior architect. Cassina is reintroducing three key pieces by the trailblazing Danish designer. Among them is the ergonomic solid wood High Back Chair, which Kjær envisioned in 1955 as the ideal piece in which to relax,  unwind, and read following a day spent in rigid office furniture. An avid entertainer, Kjær introduced a serving cart in 1963 as a stylish yet functional addition to modern living rooms thanks to shelving with raised edges that accommodates cutlery, crockery, pots, and an optional compartment for wine glasses. She also noticed ever-evolving dining habits at home and introduced the Nest of Tables, a series of three cubic stackable tables that take up little space—ideal for small city apartments. 

JR enlists volunteers to unfurl a giant photograph of a five-year-old Ukrainian refugee.

French artist JR traveled to Ukraine last week and enlisted local residents in a monumental public art action featuring a portrait of a five-year-old refugee named Valeriia.“This little girl is the future and, in this war, she reminds us what Ukrainians are fighting for,” JR wrote on Instagram as he unveiled the image, which is one of two covers for the upcoming issue of TIME magazine. The shot of Valeriia is the work of Ukrainian photographer Artem Iurchenko, who encountered the little girl and her mother at the Ukrainian border, fleeing the country. The two are from the central city of Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but are now safe in Poland. [H/T Artnet News]

Alexander McQueen’s first New York runway show in 20 years nodded to mushrooms.  

Alexander McQueen returned to New York, for one night only, with several large piles of pungent dirt and wood chips. The debris, dumped into a Brooklyn warehouse and then sculpted into tall hills, became the backdrop for the label’s fall 2022 show, which was titled “Mycelium,” after the threaded fungal networks from which mushrooms grow. Obviously there were mushrooms in the collection, just as one was printed in chartreuse on a poster sent to guests with their invitations. Mushrooms appeared in vibrant colors on tattered oversize knits, growing freaky tendrils via single strands of flowing mohair. They were also on asymmetric sleeveless dresses, piling on top of one another in a psychedelic mélange of crystals, beads and sequins. [H/T New York Times]

RAMSA’s revamp of the Yale student center debuts with its stunning ornate dining hall.  

After five years, New York–based architect Robert A M Stern has completed a restoration of Yale’s 120-year-old Schwarzman Student Center. The former school of architecture dean returned to his former stomping grounds to breathe new life into the 1901 structure, formerly known as Yale Commons, including the stunning ornate dining hall with beamed ceilings and chandeliers. “The 66-foot-high Commons was largely preserved and cleaned of a century’s worth of smoke and grime,” describes the project description. [H/T Dezeen]

Damien Hirst’s 60-foot-tall bronze demon will tower over a new London development.

Travelers on London’s river-spanning cable car might soon find their journeys overshadowed by an enormous headless demon, courtesy of Damien Hirst. The property developer Knight Dragon plans to install Hirst’s 18-meter-tall bronze sculpture Demon with Bowl (2014) on the site by the Thames on the Greenwich Peninsula, pending planning permission. Knight Dragon are leading the multi-billion pound redevelopment of the area, which was once the site of Europe’s largest gasworks, and is now home to the O2 Arena… Demon with Bowl is part of Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable series and was first presented in the courtyard of Palazzo Grassi during the 2017 edition of the Venice Biennale. The artist created a fictional provenance for the works, saying they were discovered by divers in an ancient shipwreck off the coast of East Africa. Some are encrusted with barnacles, while others have been “conserved.” [H/T The Art Newspaper]

The 9/11 Tribute Museum is permanently closing due to pandemic revenue losses.

The 9/11 Tribute Museum in New York will be shuttering its doors permanently after running up too much debt during the Covid-19 pandemic. The museum is the smaller and far well less known of the two museums built in honor of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. It sits not too far from its larger counterpart, the National September 11 Memorial Museum, the better-known next to the memorial pools built on the footprints of the twin towers after they collapsed when hijackers flew passenger planes into them, at the site in lower Manhattan still informally known to many as Ground Zero. Since the pandemic, the smaller museum, on Greenwich St, has struggled to rely on international tourism to stay open, the Wall Street Journal first reported on Thursday. [H/T The Guardian]

Today’s attractive distractions:

This traditional British pub’s in-demand Sunday roasts have a four-year wait list. 

Jonathan Anderson is on costume design duty for Luca Guadagnino’s latest film. 

Amazonian lily pads have much to reveal about the mechanics of building design. 

Can hairy black holes explain a major paradox identified by Stephen Hawking?