Now Serving | Arty Spoons

(Max Lamb)

The 28-year-old British designer Max Lamb has found his niche: spoons. This fall Lamb introduced a collection of utensils at Johnson Trading Gallery in New York that he makes by hand out of bamboo, pewter, driftwood and copper. Using techniques that range from electroplating to whittling, he’s created pieces by hammering copper pipe and nails and by carving branches from Lausanne, Switzerland, where he teaches industrial design. For Lamb, who dreams of making spoons from leather, glass and clay, “the beauty of the handmade is that it allows each spoon to hold the identity of the maker.”

For the Moment | Felix Burrichter Plays House

(Kenneth Pietrobono)

This week’s guest blogger is Felix Burrichter, a New York-based architect. Burrichter, who was born in Germany, is also the founder and editor of PIN-UP, an independent biannual magazine launched in the fall of 2006, whose unlikely editorial foundations are architecture and sex. To read all of Felix Burrichter’s previous blog posts, click here.

Buying furniture is a very personal affair — perhaps not as momentous as buying a house, but more significant than, say, buying a cute new summer outfit, and can thus be far more difficult. Given that the 20th International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York kicks off this weekend, I thought it would be fitting to share five of my favorite furniture and design stores or galleries in the city.

”Fauteuil” chair by Aranda/Lasch.
Johnson Trading Gallery
One of the youngest New York furniture galleries is also one of the most ambitious in terms of commissioning new pieces, instead of simply showing vintage furniture by established designers. It’s a financially risky and time-consuming strategy, the success of which relies on backing the right horse. But with young New York-based architects Aranda/Lasch, Philippe Morel, Steven Holl, Peter Macapia, Max Lamb, and Joseph Heidecker as some of his artists, owner Paul Johnson certainly has some hot studs in his stable.