The Designer’s Eye: Four New Books, Four Distinct Visions

There is something particularly revealing about a designer’s monograph.

This season, four designers I have known and worked with over the years, Nathan Turner, Sean Anderson, Sheldon Harte, and Alexandra and Michael Misczynski of Atelier AM, all have new books out. Each reflects a very different point of view and a distinctly individual sense of style, yet all four are remarkable in their own way.

A room seen in a magazine captures a moment. A book, however, begins to tell a larger story. Project after project, certain instincts emerge: the colors a designer returns to, the proportions they favor, the artists and craftsmen they admire, and perhaps most tellingly, the objects they choose to live with.

I have been fortunate to count all four as friends and clients, and what interests me most about their books is not simply the beautiful rooms they document, but the way those rooms have been assembled. Though their aesthetics are quite distinct, each has a strong and recognizable voice, and each understands the importance of objects with history.

The best interiors rarely feel as though everything arrived at once. They contain contradiction, memory, texture and age. An eighteenth-century chair might sit beside a contemporary painting; a primitive table may anchor an otherwise highly refined room. These juxtapositions are what make a space personal.

Nathan Turner approaches collecting with a characteristic ease. His interiors feel comfortable, traveled and deeply personal. Antiques are rarely treated as precious objects to be admired from a distance; instead, they become part of everyday life. A worn armchair, an old table or an object discovered on a trip adds another layer to a room and gives it the informality that makes Nathan’s work so appealing.

Sean Anderson’s interiors have an entirely different atmosphere. There is a restraint to his palette and a strong sense of mood, but within that restraint are objects of remarkable character. A weathered chair, a sculptural table or a beautifully patinated surface becomes almost more powerful against the simplicity surrounding it. His use of antiques reminds us that an object does not have to be ornate to carry history.

Sheldon Harte has always understood the quiet authority of an antique. His rooms are refined without becoming overly formal, and there is often a sense that the furnishings have been collected over time rather than selected simply to complete a scheme. The antiques provide punctuation—a beautifully worn surface, an unexpected silhouette, something that prevents a room from feeling too resolved.

And then there is Atelier AM, the Los Angeles practice of Alexandra and Michael Misczynski. Their interiors demonstrate an extraordinary level of connoisseurship. Architecture, art and furniture are considered together, and antiques are often used with tremendous confidence. An important piece does not necessarily announce itself; it simply belongs.

Their rooms illustrate something I have always believed: the finest antiques are remarkably modern when placed in the right context. What is especially interesting is how different these four bodies of work are from one another. Sheldon’s refinement, Nathan’s relaxed and collected sensibility, Sean’s quiet restraint, and Atelier AM’s rigorous connoisseurship could hardly be mistaken for one another. And yet each feels deeply personal, highly considered and unmistakably its own.

Perhaps that is what makes these books so compelling. They are not simply records of finished rooms. They are portraits of instinct, taste and experience, of what each designer notices, values, collects and chooses to live with.

A monograph tells a story in a way a single photograph never can. Page by page, you begin to see the threads that connect the work: a recurring shape, a certain restraint, a love of color, an appreciation for age, or the confidence to place something unexpected in exactly the right room.

For an antiquarian, that is particularly interesting. Antiques bring something to an interior that cannot simply be specified from a catalog: history, individuality, and the evidence of another life. In the hands of a talented designer, they do not pull a room into the past. Quite the opposite. They often make it feel more personal, more layered, and more alive.

And perhaps that is the real pleasure of these four books. The styles are entirely their own, but each reminds us that the most memorable interiors are not created by following a formula. They come from a practiced eye, a distinct point of view, and the confidence to trust both.

These are the rooms they make, and the books that tell their story.

Lee Stanton