Time Sensitive

The cheeky, happy-go-lucky spirit of the British fashion designer Paul Smith can be felt across everything he does, from his own clothing designs to his multifarious collaborations—Maharam textiles, Mini cars, Burton snowboards, and a suite at the Brown’s Hotel in London among them. Though Smith may run a business with expert tailoring and a mastery of color at its core, everything he creates seems to suggest, with a wink, “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” Beyond designing clothes, Smith also serves as a mentor to the next generation of designers. In 2020, he launched Paul Smith’s Foundation, through which he helps guide young creatives as they develop their careers. Fifty-four years into his business, which opened its first store in Nottingham, England, in 1970, Smith now operates shops in more than 70 countries around the world, from New York and Los Angeles to Paris and Hong Kong.On this episode, he discusses his deep, 40-plus-year engagement with the country of Japan; his long-view approach to building a business that transcends time; his ever-growing collection of rabbit ephemera; and the metamorphic impact of music and humor on his life and work.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:[3:31] Paul Smith[6:33] Rei Kawakubo[12:55] Elle Decor Japan[21:41] Deyan Sudjic[21:41] John Hegarty[23:48] Paul Smith’s Foundation[24:00] Studio Smithfield Fashion Residency[24:00] John Galliano[24:00] Alexander McQueen[24:22] Jony Ive[31:30] Bauhaus[34:50] Beeston Road Club[40:30] The Mini Strip[48:24] Paul Smith Nottingham Store[53:30] Maharam collaboration[53:30] Burton collaboration[53:30] The Rolling Stones[54:19] Brown’s Hotel Sir Paul Smith Suite[54:39] David Bowie[54:39] Patti Smith[54:39] Eric Clapton[54:39] Jimmy Page[1:01:57] Jean-Luc Godard

Belgium-born writer Lucy Sante shares her transition to womanhood at 66, reflecting on her memoir 'I Heard Her Call My Name'. She discusses the 1960s, opening up her womanhood, and her searing, no-nonsense clarity in her work. Sante's literary journey, silence before transitioning, and piercing life moments are explored.

To the cult British interior and furniture designer Ilse Crawford, interiors too often take a backseat to architecture. Through her humanistic, systems-thinking, “Frame for Life” approach, however, Crawford has shown how interiors and architecture should instead be viewed on the same plane and, as she puts it on this episode of Time Sensitive, “walk hand in hand.” Widely known for creating indoor spaces that are notable in their tactility, warmth, and comfort—environments that incorporate, to use her phrase, “visceral materiality”—Crawford oversees her namesake London-based design studio, Studioilse, which she launched in 2003, and whose projects include the first Soho House members’ club in New York, the Ett Hem hotel in Stockholm, and the Cathay Pacific lounges in Hong Kong. Crawford is also the founder of the department of Man and Wellbeing at the Design Academy Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, which she headed for two decades. Prior to her career as a designer, she was the celebrated founding editor of Elle Decoration U.K.On this episode, Crawford discusses her approach to crafting beautiful, highly original spaces that push against today’s speedy, copy-paste, Instagram-moment world; her early career in media; and her personal definition of the word “slow.”Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:[5:09] StudioIlse[7:25] A Frame for Life[58:32] Design Academy Eindhoven[7:25] Svenkst Tenn[7:25] Ett Hem[16:36] Jeanette Mix[1:02:51] Cathay Pacific[47:42] Elle Decoration[29:11] The Eyes of the Skin[33:52] Alvar Aalto[33:52] Paimio Sanatorium[33:52] Christopher Alexander[31:35] Sensual Home[35:24] Leonard Koren[35:46] Frida Escobedo[47:42] Architect’s Journal[47:42] The World of Interiors[47:42] Min Hogg[52:48] Donna Karan[54:04] Soho House[54:04] Babington House[1:00:08] Home Is Where the Heart Is?

The Italian chef Massimo Bottura may be a big dreamer, but he’s also a firmly grounded-in-the-earth operator. Based in Modena, Italy, Bottura is famous for his three-Michelin-starred restaurant, Osteria Francescana, which has twice held the top spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. He also runs Food for Soul, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting social awareness about food waste and world hunger. With its first Refettorio opened in 2015, Food for Soul now runs a network of 13 Refettorios around the world—from Paris to San Francisco to Naples—designed to serve people in need via food-recovery programs. In 2019, with his wife, Lara Gilmore, he also opened Casa Maria Luigia, a hospitality concept in the Emilian countryside that became the jumping-off point for their new recipes-slash-interiors book, Slow Food, Fast Cars (Phaidon). In everything he does, Bottura keeps the tradition of the Emilia-Romagna region alive while constantly imagining and executing new possibilities.On this episode, Bottura discusses the art of aging balsamic vinegar; his vast collection of thousands upon thousands of vinyl records; his deep love of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Maseratis; and how he thinks about the role of time, both literally and philosophically, in and out of the kitchen.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:Massimo Bottura[03:27] Food for Soul[03:27] Refettorio Harlem[03:27] Refettorio Ambrosiano[03:46] Universal Exposition in Milan[15:36] Carlo Petrini[10:40] Gastromotiva[12:30] “Chef Massimo Bottura on Why the Future of Food is in Our Trash”[15:22] Slow Food, Fast Cars[15:36] Trattoria del Campazzo[56:07] Casa Maria Luigia[58:50] Osteria Francescana[41:32] Cavallino[41:32] Lo Mejor de la Gastronomia[43:30] Joseph Beuys[43:30] Lara Gilmore[1:01:42] Tortellante

Helen Molesworth discusses her lifelong engagement with Marcel Duchamp, transformative power of conversation, and newfound freedom as an independent voice in the art world. Embracing slowness in curation, redefining museum time, and exploring cultural upbringing in New York. Reflecting on art memories, career reflections, and intersection of art, true crime, and personal stories in podcasting. Delving into media consumption, aging, and writing aspirations.

In another life, the German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf might have been a painter or a profile writer. In this one, she expresses her proclivity for portraiture as the principal of the New York–based firm Selldorf Architects, which she founded in 1988. Renowned for its work in the art world—from galleries such as David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth to cultural institutions including The Frick Collection in New York, the National Gallery in London, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.—Selldorf’s firm has also designed a wide variety of residential projects and civic buildings. Many of these designs serve as architectural depictions of their respective clients, revealing each one’s inner nature and underlying ethos.On this episode, Selldorf discusses the links she sees between Slow Food and her architecture, the intuitive aspects of form-making, and why she considers architecture “the mother of all arts.”Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.Show notes: [00:31] Selldorf Architects[08:19] The Frick Collection[10:42] Lucian Freud[17:45] Dia Beacon[18:43] Art Gallery of Ontario expansion[18:54] Two Row[18:57] Diamond Schmitt[26:08] Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility[30:03] CSO Red Hook[30:05] CSO Owls Head[34:31] National Gallery, London[35:17] One Domino Park[37:15] John Russell Pope[37:28] Thomas Hastings[43:13] I.M. Pei[55:38] Ludwig Mies van der Rohe[58:54] Neue Galerie

To the landscape architect Walter Hood, “place” is a nebulous concept made meaningful only through the illumination of its history and the people who have inhabited it. Hood has dedicated his career to this very perspective through his roles as creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California, and as chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley, where he has taught since 1990. His projects include a series of conceptual gardens at the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina; the grounds of the campus of the tech company Nvidia in Santa Clara, California; and the landscape of San Francisco’s de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Currently, he’s at work on the wayfinding for the Barack Obama Presidential Library in Chicago; a new park in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina; and twin memorials for Emory University’s campuses in Oxford and Atlanta, Georgia.On this episode, Hood discusses the intersection of social justice and landscape architecture, his arguments against what we traditionally deem “memorials” or “monuments,” and the power of language to literally shape the world around us.Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.Show notes: [03:34] Black Landscapes Matter[03:39] The World They Made Together[08:18] American Academy in Rome[08:27] Carthage[08:55] Loma Prieta Earthquake[13:48] Monticello[13:50] National Memorial for Peace and Justice[13:53] Gadsden’s Wharf[14:28] Lorraine Motel[16:07] Montgomery County Justice Center[18:40] Double Sights[24:37] Macon Yards[25:32] The Power of Place[28:59] Confederate Obelisk[29:55] Splash Pad Park[30:16] Lafayette Square Park[38:21] International African American Museum[38:25] “Native(s)”[39:54] Water Table[40:51] McColl Park[42:28] Twin Memorials[47:11] Octagon House[48:43] de Young Museum[51:13] The Broad[54:14] The Future of Nostalgia[54:53] Blues & Jazz Landscape Improvisations[58:01] Solar Strand[01:06:02] Art Institute of Chicago

Min Jin Lee could be considered an exemplar of the old adage “slow and steady wins the race.” The author’s bestselling 2017 novel Pachinko—a National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller that was adapted into a television series for Apple TV+ in 2022—took 30 years to write from its inception as a short story. Her debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires (2007), took five years. These extensive periods of time become understandable, or even seem scant, within the sprawling, multigenerational contexts of her novels—Pachinko spans almost a century—into which she pours deep anthropological, sociological, and journalistic research. Lee is also the editor of the just-published The Best American Short Stories 2023 (Mariner Books) anthology, and she’s currently at work on American Hagwon, the third novel in her diasporic trilogy.On this episode, she talks about the complex role of time in Pachinko, her miraculous recovery from chronic liver disease, and why she likens short-story writing to polishing diamonds.Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.Show notes: [00:25] Min Jin Lee[03:39] Viet Thanh Nguyen[06:08] Free Food for Millionaires[06:10] Pachinko[06:19] The Best American Short Stories 2023[08:08] Amy Tan[08:09] Salman Rushdie[09:36] “Bread and Butter”[09:37] “Motherland”[09:38] “The Best Girls”[10:04] William Trevor[10:06] Alice Munro[12:45] Yale University[17:23] Harvard Business School[17:34] Fashion Institute of Technology[47:37] Queens Public Library in Elmhurst[49:21] The Bronx High School of Science[49:32] The Hotchkiss School[49:33] Phillips Exeter Academy[58:46] American Hagwon[01:03:33] Stoner by John Williams

In art and design circles, the name George Nakashima is synonymous with expert woodworking, exquisite furniture, and high-quality craftsmanship. Over the past 30-plus years, his daughter, the architect and furniture maker Mira Nakashima, has not only artfully built upon his techniques and time-honored traditions, further cementing his legacy, but also stepped outside of his shadow and carved a name for herself. Having worked full-time at George Nakashima Woodworkers since 1970, Mira took over as its president and creative director upon her father’s death in 1990. Since then, she has carried on his unfinished projects, continued producing dozens of his designs, and also developed many of her own creations, including her Keisho and Shoki furniture lines. Through it all, Mira has remained as humble as ever and maintained a deep reverence for her father, his boundless creativity, and his exacting vision.On this episode, Nakashima talks about her family’s time spent in a Japanese internment camp during World War II; the enduring “karma yoga” influence of the Indian philosopher and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo, whom her father once studied under and worked for as an architect; and why her father considered his work “an antidote to the modern world.”Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.Show notes: [01:15] George Nakashima Woodworkers[03:39] Nakashima Foundation for Peace[03:43] George Nakashima[03:52] Altar for Peace at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine[04:08] Altar for Peace at the Russian Academy of Arts[04:14] Altar for Peace in Auroville, India[08:42] Hague Appeal for Peace[13:52] Sri Aurobindo[15:36] Bnai Keshet[15:45] St. Martin of Tours[15:50] Monastery of Christ in the Desert[15:58] Queen of Peace Chapel[17:14] Ivan Wyschnegradsky[17:22] Antonin Raymond[17:36] Golconde[21:00] George Nakashima Woodworker[23:07] Katsura Imperial Villa[23:26] Junzō Yoshimura[30:11] Udar Pinto[31:27] The Soul of a Tree[42:07] Nature Form & Spirit: The Life and Legacy of George Nakashima[45:22] The Krosnicks’ furniture collection[49:54] Keisho collection[54:14] Shoki collection

Ian Schrager, a hospitality titan and Studio 54 co-founder, shares insights from his illustrious career. He discusses his design philosophies, emphasizing authenticity and the soul of a space. Schrager draws inspiration from visionaries like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney, reflecting on how their innovative thinking shapes his approach. He also explores the evolving concept of luxury, defining it through the freedom to pursue passions rather than material wealth. The conversation highlights the lasting cultural impact of Studio 54 and the art of creating memorable experiences.