Designing the 21st Century

The design world has lost one of its most important and brilliant legends. Gaetano Pesce died last month at 84, leaving an enormous legacy behind. During his six-decade career, he held a special position in contemporary art and design; always remaining provocative, surprising, and interesting. He was an architect by training, but devoted his life and career to design, creating innovative furniture and objects that were at times eccentric, at times radical, and always colorful. They may appear to be playful and whimsical at first, but if you know how to read them, you’ll find that they are filled with social, political, and contemporary narratives. Participating: Marc Benda and Sara di Gangi. Follow Daniella Ohad: Facebook Instagram

Have you ever asked yourself what is the lifespan of furniture copyright? Whether design objects are protected as intellectual property? As the market becomes flooded with copies and fakes, and the web is filled with design masterpieces of the past, poorly produced and sold inexpensively, this question has become more and more relevant. Mark Masiello knows the answer. He founded a company called Form Portfolios and its mission is to preserve, guard, and advance furniture through licensed reeditions.

Frank Gehry, the architect we all love to love. Even since he completed his Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 1997, Gehry became a favorite architect by everyone. By the public, by architects, and by the architecture criticism community, a true celebrity, who turned architecture into popular enterprise, and at 70, Gehry launched a second and super successful chapter of his long career, the leading architect of the millennium. Jean-Louis Cohen, the award-winning French architect, architectural historian, and curator, has published the latest monograph on Gehry, which comes to illuminate some of his best buildings.

Recent years have witnessed a growing attention to the study of female artists, architects, designers and their contribution to the story of modern design. Jane Hall’s book Woman Made: Great Women Designers comes to tell the story of 200 pioneering female designers from 50 countries, who have worked in the past 100 years in furniture, textiles, and lighting design. Some helped shaping the industry, some made history, some created work that has been recognized as groundbreaking despite difficulties to express their voices, and together they formed an enormous body of work created exclusively by women.

Swiss industrial designer and innovator Yves Behar has created a global and influential career in product design always fusing design, technology, and sustainability. He has worked with endless brands in various industries and the products he created throughout his career are the topic of a new monograph Designing Ideas, published by Thames and Hudson. It brings us to the forefront of the world of industrial design, where robots, technologies, futuristic solutions, and new materials have pushed the field to its 21st-century identity.

The Billionaire’s Row is a series of ultra-luxury tall residential towers built along 57th street, turning the area into Manhattan's new center of developments. Each one of these towers was designed by a star-architect, and they have come to offer a new way of New York lifestyle. Architecture critic Martin Filler has published a remarkable article in the New York Review of Books, where he analyzes the politics, zoning, aesthetics, and everything that has made this phenomenon possible.

The Carnegie Museum of Art has opened a new show that comes to celebrate and define current architecture through the work of 10 practices from around the world. The exhibition is called The Fabricated Landscape, and it explores some innovative minds working in contemporary architecture today. What defines the projects is not a common style, but rather relationships, to local communities, to natural environments, awareness of cultures, but also cutting edge perceptions and sustainable solutions.

Tom Kundig is a partner in the award-winning firm Olson Kundig Architects, based in Seattle. I have discovered his incredible, immaculate, elegant houses years ago and fell in love. Tom's buildings are engaged with their landscape, and their strong relationship with nature has come to define their identity because context is highly meaningful to him.

Mimi Lien is a Tony award-winning stage designer who is known for her scenic creations for theater, opera, and dance. Her new project of reimagining the outdoor entrance of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts into an enormous green lawn was launched last week. Known as The GREEN, this project comes to provide New Yorkers with a place of pleasure, rest, and outdoor, free, and low-cost performance events. For one summer.

Mike Grosswendt is a builder who has perfected the art of the building to its ultimate expression. He builds the most ambitious custom residences in Southern California, where design and architecture excel and where any innovation becomes possible. Most of his clients prefer to remain private and never allow the camera to enter their homes, but Mike shares the secrets of the art of building in the 21st century.

David Stark is an influential artist who is known for the brilliant events and powerful experiences he has devised. In an age when experiences are valued more than consumption, his creative imagination brings new ways of engagement with products, people, and ideas. How did event design transform during the age of COVID-19, and what is in its future?

Through his unique voice both in architecture and in critical theory, Kengo Kuma has brought the continuity of Japanese heritage and its craftsmanship to 21st century architecture. His new book My Life as an Architect in Tokyo is a poetic tribute to the city he loves.

Five visionaries, extraordinary talents, who stand at the forefront of the world of design and architecture share their insights on designing, envisioning, and thinking the 21st century: Kai Bergman, partner at Bjarke Ingels Group; Craig Robins, the Miami-based renowned real estate developer and collector; Mitchell Joachim, founder of Terrefoem ONE, a nonprofit group that seeks to stop the extinction of planetary species; architect Dan Kaplan who creates high-performance urban buildings that respond to their environments; and Serban Ionescu, who makes the most amazing furniture where form, bright happy colors, and narratives are combined into unique personal creations.

What is in common between Cindy Allen, the legendary editor-in-chief of Interior Design Magazine; Edwina von Gal a landscape designer for the famous, who cares about nature and sustainability; Jennifer Olshin, partner of Friedman Benda Gallery, a platform for cutting edge contemporary design; Beatrice Galilee, a curator and writer of contemporary architecture and design; and Susan Rodriguez, an architect who believes in the power of architecture to effect change and improve the quality of life for all? These amazing women are champions of design, whose work I admire. Join the first episode of Designing The 21st Century.