An interesting foray into the world of design by popular writer/essayist/NPR-regular David Rakoff in his piece, "The Future Knocks Again." It's in part about the history of the Innoventions building at Disneyland, but more specifically about the newly opened Dream Home exhibit that lies within, which showcases futuristic design pieces in partnership with Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Life/ware. The early history portions are interesting, to be sure, but it really kicks off when Rakoff gets into the house, exploring all the crazy gadgets, from personal sound systems that follow you around to kitchens that tell you how to make things to mirrors that show you how you'll look in various projected outfits, all triggered by small RFID tags. It's exactly like visiting the House of Tomorrow at the World's Fair. But if you can't make the trip out to LA, you'll probably find no better tour guide than Rakoff.

Rare is the interior designer/decorator whose fiery temper leads to a prison term for assault, but James Mont (1904-1978) was anything but ordinary. Born in Istanbul as Demetrios Pecintoglu, Mont created dramatic, largely Asian-inspired furniture (dig those circa 1950 ebonized settees, pictured above) for a mix of celebrities (Irving Berlin, Lana Turner) and mob kingpins ("Lucky" Luciano, Frank Costello), and he's the subject of an illuminating, if not online, article by Gregory Cerio in this month's issue of The Magazine Antiques. With a series of Manhattan stores bankrolled by the mob, Mont mixed designing furniture flavored with "the delicate touch of Oriental spice" and his passions for gambling, showgirls, and flashy cars. He was above all, a showman.

He cultivated a reptutation as a perfectionist. While escorting a prospective client through his shop, he might suddenly start to slash a chair with a knife, declaring it imprecisely upholstered. Though often such outbursts were an act, he had a genuine vicious streak. He unmercifully beat his nephew John Karfo, when the boy failed to have his uncle's shoes shined, as ordered.

An interesting piece that serves as a nice follow-up to a post we put up a while back about Motel 6 redesigning their room interiors: BusinessWeek's "Hotel Rooms by Design." The focus is on a local stop, Chicago's The James hotel, which has pulled out all the stops in making their rooms, and the entire building interiors itself, swanky and modern, in the hopes of capturing that higher-end market willing to spend $400 a night for a well-designed room (as opposed to the inexpensive $350-a-night rooms at the Chicago Best Western, we guess). But the larger reach of the story is whether or not all of this new trend of redesigning and uniqueness in the hotel industry is a good idea or if it's going to lead to a world of hurt as the economy struggles. It's an interesting piece, from all angles. Here's a bit:

Through the 1990s, the big names in hostelry -- Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Holiday Inn -- used design to convey consistency across all their properties. They rethought that cookie- cutter approach after Starwood Hotels & Resorts opened its first W Hotel in New York in 1998 and turned high-fashion, high-energy design into a marketing tool. Today, the industry's mantra is differentiation, with design supplying a property's "story."

"We now see design at the forefront of the planning process," says Roger G. Hill, head of the Gettys Group, a Chicago design shop that managed the Blackstone and Cass reno­vations. "Capital markets want to know far in advance what the ultimate project will look like."

If those Marcel Wanders wallpaper designs we showed you earlier this week are a little too William Morris-goes-to-Eindhoven for your tastes, how about the new line by Geoff McFetridge? The "graphic design auteur" and his wife, Sarah diVincentis, are behind Pottok Prints, a line of wallpapers named after a rare breed of pony that frolics about the Pyrenees. Among the image-based patterns are those featuring playful graphics of apples, dead trees, whales, and blobby monsters dubbed "shadows of the paranormal."

Paper magazine caught up with McFetridge for its May design issue and asked him about his path to Pottok. "A few different things happened that tipped the balance for me," he told writer Sarah Cohen. "I started working with a new manufacturer that runs a really clean non-toxic operation, and does great work. Also my wife runs the company so I know things are being done right. Better than if I was doing it. I'm really happy to have people have the paper, and that they are getting it directly from me. We see every roll, sample, and print that leaves the studio." While Pottok currently sells only McFetridge's designs, the company will soon expand to collaborate with other designers and artists.

Among the buzzed-about launches at this year's Milan Furniture Fair was designer Marcel Wanders' wallpaper designs for Graham & Brown, the British wallcovering company that has put the likes of Umbra and fashion designer Julien MacDonald on a roll. Wanders' "Couture" line (pictured above) includes eight designs in a range of colors, and there's something for everyone. "Suzanne" (above, at right) uses a floral motif that looks ripped from Herr Rorschach's brocade analysis couch, while "Henry" (at left) is a fresh, variegated stripe. "Audrey," at first glance a staid tartan, doesn't look so much like wallpaper as a pattern whispered onto the wall by a troupe of softspoken Scottish interior design sprites, and "Stella" employs a giant honeycomb pattern, so probably best to leave its hanging to professionals. And if Wanders' wall patterns makes your eyes tired, don't worry. We hear the designer is following Fabien Baron into the world of eyewear design with an imminent line of specs for MODO. More images of women defying gravity in the presence of Wanders' wallpaper after the jump.

continued...

Some have plumbed Ian Parker's new New Yorker profile of George Clooney for its reference to the megastar's use of a spritzable salad dressing called "Balsamic Breeze," but what caught our eye was the discussion of Clooney's Hollywood Hills home, which last year was "largely remodelled" by his longtime friend Rande Gerber, who Parker describes as "the owner and operator of many fancy bars, and the husband of Cindy Crawford, the model." What does chez Clooney look like?

The result is not extravagant, but it carries the hint of a hotel steakhouse under bold new management: dark wood, beige curtains, a chandelier. According to both men, Gerber made all the decisions, without a word of consultation: everything from the size of the swimming pool to the framed photograph of Steve McQueen in the living room. In Clooney's screening room, behind DVDs of Once and All the President's Men, I saw a row of tall glass jars containing packaged candies, which I took to be a personal quirk until I read that Rande Gerber keeps packaged candies in tall glass jars in his offices in New York and Malibu.

Not to mention a monthly online one. Potter-turned-lifestyle brand Jonathan Adler has done more for tchotchkes than The Antiques Roadshow, and now he's entered the blogosphere. For his freshman effort at a "Monthly Musing," the avuncular Adler ponders the "grandiosity of Neoclassical design," inspired by the dearth of grand, historicalesque gestures observed during his recent weekend HGTV marathon. He offers a candy-colored list of suggestions for infusing a bit of neo-neo-classicism into your life, ranging from Rent Caligula ("Be patient -- the first episode is a bit dreary but it quickly heats up and you'll soon be unable to leave your house until you watch the whole thing") to Greek Key is the Key to our favorite, Fornasetti ("Always, always, always").

Of course, there's also a bit of product pushing, but it's subtle and relevant. Adler expounds on the thinking behind his Grand Tour porcelain pieces. "I took classical busts and turned them into silhouettes," he writes. "Because these busts are objects rather than flat wall art or pictures, they needed dimension so I took the silhouette and sort of extruded it, which makes it look totally modern and suprising." We've got our fingers crossed that April sees Adler muse on Alexander Girard, Palm Beach style, and/or psychoactive drugs (three tastes that taste great together)!

We've got the perfect excuse for you to spend a couple days in the dazzling new Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons the New School for Design: AfterTaste 2, a two-day symposium on Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5 that will take a critical look at contemporary issues in the field of interior design. In the course of three panels that promise to tackle everything from "the intellectual history of taste" to "the narrative life of things," more than a dozen illustrious designers, scholars, and artists will explore how interior design has come to be a curious blend of environmental psychology, fashion design, product design, architecture, material science, and cultivated taste (hmm, sounds like a certain blog we know). Among the speakers are artist James Casebere, known for his photographs of modeled built environments; the amazing Quay Brothers; Columbia dean Mark Wigley; and I.D. editor in chief Julie Lasky.

The fun begins on April 4 in Parsons' new Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium. "The auditorium's perforated bamboo side walls slow down the speed of sound as it travels back," architect Lyn Rice told us when we toured the new Parsons building last month. Come for the design discussion, stay for the defying of physical laws!

The cover of the March-April issue of Luxury SpaFinder magazine (alas, not online) has a real Elle Decor vibe, featuring Shannon Greer's shot of a fuschia-walled sitting room with Louis XVI-style chairs upholstered in Warholian camouflage atop a hypnotic hand-woven carpet that would make even Bridget Riley go cross-eyed. It is the "Pink Salon" of the g hotel, so named for its improbable location: Galway, Ireland. The hotel's design director is Galway native Philip Treacy, who apparently wears many hats in addition to his primary one, as the world's best-known milliner.

Luxury SpaFinder is focused on the, well, luxury-spa angle (the hot stone Balinese massage doesn't skimp on the oil; they serve house-made lavender fondant candies) but also does an admirable job of sizing up the surroundings, designed by Treacy in collaboration with Irish architects and designers Douglas Wallace:

Treacy assembled an impressive collection of vintage fashion photography that includes Irving Penn's image of Jean Patchett, a Cecil Beaton shot of Marilyn Monroe, and a Patrick Demarchelier photo of supermodel Linda Evangelista. The art also helps deflect attention from the location. While the g, technically speaking, overlooks Lough Atlalia, it's separated from the placid lake by a busy highway, and the view from the dining room is of a Statoil filling station. But the hotel triumphs over its less-than-stellar location (15 minutes from downtown) by turning all attention inward.

And we'd challenge any guest to turn away from the Tom Dixon lighting installation that resembles a bouquet of silver Christmas ornaments or the mirrors shaped to resemble the chapeau Treacy designed for Camilla Parker Bowles to wear at her wedding to Prince Charles. Our favorite surprise is revealed on Treacy's website: the distinctive swirls (pictured above, at right) that translate suprisingly well from headwear to door handles.

UPDATE (6:30pm): So there's a good reason that the March-April issue of Luxury SpaFinder is not online. The print publication is folding, FishbowlNY reported this evening. Was it something we said?

The New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects has announced the winners of its 2008 Design Awards, which are given out in the categories of interiors, architecture, and projects (unbuilt). The awards were judged by juries that included architect David Adjaye, interior designer Pamela Babey, and critic Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi. Among the winners chosen from 400 submissions from architects worldwide are Steven Holl Architects for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, FXFowle Architects for The New York Times Building, and Polshek Partnership Architects for the renovation of the Yale University Art Gallery's Kahn Building. And among those taking home honors in the project category was New York-based Leeser Architecture, for its design (above) for an imminent tourist mecca: the World Mammoth and Permafrost Museum, which will be located in (where else?) Siberia.

An exhibition of the winning work opens May 1 at New York's Center for Architecture. After the jump, the full list of winners by category.

continued...