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The Making of Miss Minimalism by Tyler Brűlé Mid morning, late summer, lower Manhattan, and architect Deborah Berke is hang out in her exposed-brick and plywood-floored loft-cum-office, happy to be back in the city having just survived a weekend in the Hamptons. On this particular morning, between client meetings for projects that stretch between Anguilla and London, Berke seems concerned about the general lack of authenticity in America, and somewhat disturbed by the belt of people who populate that tract of Long Island between by Southampton and Montauk. 'You know, at the moment I really like going to non-place kind of places, where there are non-people, who are doing non-fabulous things,' she says, matter-of-factly. 'It seems that every venue you go to is trying to create a scene for itself. It's based on this that I find the search for authenticity to be increasingly difficult.' Such a comment strikes me as rather curious. The first time I ever consciously wandered into a Berke-designed space was on a visit to photographer Fabrizio Ferri's Industria Supperstudio, just below New York's meat-packing district. With shoots for Italian Vogue and The Gap going on, you couldn't have found a scene more full of fabulous people doing fabulous things if you tried. That said, beneath the haze of hairspray, attitude, egos and clothes rails, lay the serene authenticity with which Berke seems so obsessed at the moment. Carved out of a 30s car-repair shop, Industria Superstudio is a study in whitewashed minimalism and was perhaps the flagship for Berke's style. Three years and countless cover-shoots later, Industria's airy design and polished concrete floors form the blueprint upon which Berke's current aesthetic is based. 'I like the edges to be a little softer now. The same materials are employed but I'm looking at introducing more colour,' she explains. Berke's new hues will debut when Calvin Klein's ck shop opens in London later this autumn. Having created the interior image for the ck range alongside Klein and his creative director Fabien Baron (also director of Harper's Bazaar), Berke is devising a masterplan for a series of ck shops soon to appear across Europe and Asia. 'It will be interesting for people to see colour in the case of ck,' says Berke, 'but let's be clear, we're not talking Laura Ashley.' Berke is also clear about the fact that she doesn't want to be seen solely as a retail architect. Currently doing lofts for the artist William Wgman and the mail-order magnate Emily woods of J Crew, and a 6,000-square-foot house for an unnamed client in the Carribean, one of her most high-profile projects to date has been the interior of Fabien Baron's design studio, Baron & Baron. Tucked above Columbus Circle on Manhattan's West Side, Baron & Baron handle the art direction for clients that include Ian Schrager Hotels (Royalton, Paramount, Delano, et al), Francois Nars Cosmetics, Hugo Boss, Giogio Armani Cosmetics, Lancaster Cosmetics and Pirelli Tyres. 'I first met Fabien in 1990, at Fabrizio Ferri's house,' Berke explains. 'Shortly afterwards, he asked me to design his apartment. I've done three more for him since then and, based on that he asked me to do his studios.' Walking through the light and airy top-floor space, it's difficult to imagine a designer-client relationship more perfectly matched than Berke and Baron's. So similar is the combined aesthetic that you feel you could quite easily glide through Berke's shiny foyer straight onto one of Baron's elegantly designed pages for Harper's Bazaar. 'Deborah's an amazing force and what she does works perfectly for a studio lie ours,' says Baron & Baron's Lisa Atkin. 'There's a seamless quality that exists between her work and Fabien's.' Hoping to continue down a more residential path, Berke's biggest pleasure is doing real houses, rather than apartments and lofts. 'It's such a luxury to be able to walk around the perimeter and study how exterior will relate to the interior spaces,' she explains. 'Truth be from the outside. Please, give me a house to work on any day.' |