Friday Favorites 3/18/2011

March 18, 2011

Cheryl Katz
Born in Milan in 1961, the architect and designer Patricia Urquiola is known for designs that are both beautiful and functional. Her Bend-Sofa for B & B Italia is no exception. The curved sculptural modules offer flexible compositions, while the contrasting stitches emphasize the piece’s undulating quality; modern without being hard edged. Who could ask for anything more? Patricia Urquiola’s Bend-Sofa for B & B Italia is available at Montage in Boston.

Paula M. Bodah
This Library Chest from Europe2You‘s Farmhouse Collection is a wonderful piece for the bibliophiles among us. Sustainably crafted from salvaged wood found in demolished antique buildings in central Europe, it has a real whiff of authenticity. The dozen apothecary-style drawers remind me of childhood visits to my local library. Remember riffling through those narrow files filled with index cards bearing cryptic descriptions along with the clever, enigmatic Dewey Decimal System number that pinpointed a book’s exact location in the stacks? This piece is 30 inches high by 48 inches long by 16 inches deep and is glazed a distressed Dove Grey with non-VOC paint and natural beeswax . The Library Chest is available at the ICON Group in the Boston Design Center, and elsewhere in New England.

Photo courtesy of Europe2You

Kyle Hoepner
If you’d enjoy a treasure trove of easygoing design, cherry-picked from magazine articles, Web sites and other sources all over the world, please check out The Style Files. Danielle de Lange, who lives in the Netherlands and runs an online boutique called Le Souk, does an amazing job finding a huge variety of spaces and things that manage to be playful, inventive, quiet and comfortable–all at the same time.