Over the Moon

Cindy Allen -- Interior Design, 10/1/2010 4:22:00 PM

You've heard those old wives' tales about the effects of the harvest moon. It seems that design and architecture may be guilty of following lunar phases, too. With magnificent flows, if occasional ebbs, tide levels vary dramatically from place to place over time. Nevertheless, our October issue manages to capture the high-water marks around the world, from the West Coast to South Africa. Our selection includes a tsunami of forms: educational, cultural, residential,
rec­reational, and more. 

But it's when our camera crew crosses the threshold that the storytelling becomes most essential. The plain white monolithic exterior of an academic building at a Portuguese polytechnic offers few clues that architect Nuno Montenegro has filled it with phantoms and riddles. Look­­ing at the skyline in San Francisco, would you guess that the tippy top of the Chronicle Building is now home to a YouTube founder's duplex by Joel Sanders and Melissa Winn? From the sidewalk in front of a 19th-century building in New York, you'd never dream that the apartment visible through the ground-floor windows then proceeds to zigzag down, level after level, in a brilliant performance by Work AC. Nor would you have any idea that the family of fashion designer Lela Rose lives there. (Unless you saw her son selling ice cream out the window.)

Yes, interiors are our flagship subject, and soundings taken from our prow are the best gauge of the depth of design of all kinds. The stylistic variety and razor-edged creativity of the work in every issue of this magazine are truly fathomless.

Welcome aboard.