Six U.S. Designers Receive Maison&Objet Rising Talent Awards
Industry heavyweights selected six U.S. designers to receive Maison&Objet Rising Talent Awards at the 2019 Paris fair.
Nominated by: Rhode Island School of Design president Rosanne Somerson
Product: Bubbly 03
Standout: The act of blowing bubbles inspired the 2011 RISD graduate and Brooklyn-based lighting designer’s custom table lamp, securing a vote of confidence from her alma mater’s president. Happiness radiates from the iridescent rainbow PVD finish of its brass baubles, which perch atop a Spanish alabaster base.
Nominated by: Architecture at Large founder Rafael de Cárdenas
Products: Railcar, Half-moon
Standout: The brand began life as an ad-hoc art gallery in upstate New York; now Ben Bloomstein and Aaron Aujla’s ambitious four furniture collections a year include organic-modern gems such as a boxy laminate loveseat upholstered in sage vinyl and crescent-shape stools made of coffee-stained Douglas fir.
Nominated by: Bernhardt Design president Jerry Helling
Product: Handle With Care
Standout: The Los Angeles–based industrial designer’s oeuvre is rooted in the workaday, from speed bumps to laundry clotheslines. For his multipartite table he riffed on the plebian pallet, with a mirror-polish aluminum base topped by low-iron-glass boxes digitally printed with a chipboard effect and shipping crate labels.
Nominated by: Luminaire CEO Nasir Kassamali
Product: Dusk
Standout: Sparked by admiration of the setting sun, this LED sconce by studio founders Reed Hansuld and Joel Seigle channels its golden inspiration via one-way mirrored glass and bronze-anodized aluminum. Both designers have grandfathers named Harold, hence the company moniker.
Nominated by: WantedDesign co-founders Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat
Products: Painting, Plane, and Lean
Standout: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago grad’s repertoire includes his Painting series of pebble-like stacked, stretched canvases; Plane, a bench pairing charred wood with hand-worked cement; and Lean, a charred-timber mirror whose surface calls to mind a darkened doorway, its inky depth leavened by an integrated light bulb.
Nominated by: Rockwell Group president David Rockwell
Products: Remains Light, Slip, Wave, and Cascade
Standout: Cousins Joseph Vidich and Kira de Paola harness their metalwork skills to produce a quartet of patinated pieces. Remains Light, a collaboration with Bianco Light & Space, couples metals and marble in a table lamp with a purple-to-pink color-shifting glass half-disc. Slip mirror’s bronze gradient is surrounded by an attenuated frame of blackened steel. Cocktail table Wave has a curling steel form heat-treated with an oil-slick finish. And Cascade, a mobile, assembles a mixed-media galaxy of discs, rings, and half-moons.
> See more from the Winter 2019 issue of Interior Design Homes
