Daniella On Design

The cherished dresser in my bedroom was acquired at an auction by Phillips just after 9/11. When I recently discovered that it came from the private collection of John Exelrod, I became intrigued by this connoisseur, who has assembled one of the finest collections of American modernist design. Created in the 20s by Viennese-American industrial […]

Some artists—successful ones—can afford to construct their own legacy. They want us to see their work, not only at an art gallery or museum, but in their living and working environments, so visiting their homes allow us a more widespread means of experiencing their creative world and oeuvre. Look, for example, at Auguste Rodin, whose

No wonder Greta Garbo’s portrait was selected as the cover image of the blockbuster Exhibition, ‘Swedish Grace: Art and Design in 1920s Sweden’ at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. Why? Because this show comes to glamorize the arts of Sweden in the same era which celebrated Garbo as one of the finest, most successful movie stars

There are cemeteries that contain masterpieces of modern architecture and there are those cemeteries which are masterpieces themselves. The Woodland Cemetery in central Stockholm is one of them. Perhaps the most famous of all, a site of architecture pilgrimage since almost its very beginning for its beauty and innovation. It was designed by Erik Gunnar

If there is something the people of Stockholm are prouder of than their magnificent City Hall, it is its National Romantic Style in architecture. It was rising from an upswell of national consciousness, spread across the Nordic countries in the early 20th century, and coming to express their unique northern identity. Stockholm City Hall is one

There is no other institution more closely associated with the culture and legacy of Danish Modern and Nordic design than Designmuseum Danmark, the famed museum for design and craft in Copenhagen. Now that it has reopened after two years it was closed for major renovations, it is where I have opened my visit to Denmark’s

As an admirer of Expressionist architecture, I have always wanted to see Grundtvig’s Church in Copenhagen, the church built entirely of brick, adhering to craft tradition. Today I visited this monument, one of the rare examples of this brief movement which introduced the notion that architecture is a form of art and spirituality while promoting

American writer Robin Hobb famously said, ‘Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.’ In my endless architecture pilgrimages, I visit homes of famous architects and homes they created for others—homes that came to change the

Another architectural icon was opened as a hotel this week. The nine-story Brutalist building in New Haven, Connecticut was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1967 for the Armstrong Rubber Company. Named Hotel Marcel, this building marked another height in the career of the Hungarian-born modernist who had completed the Whitney Museum of American Art in