Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the week

A medieval moodboard

Gabriel Annouka, senior designer

Certain books are so captivating that you can’t stop reading or thinking about them. In contemporary design, we obsess over the usual suspects: Swiss grids, sans-serifs, and radically clean layouts (yes, I’m complicit). But last weekend at Frieze Masters, I fell for something wonderfully un-minimal: the medieval books of hours.

Gold and silver leaf halos, hand-painted saints, margins blossoming with vines and mythical beasts – these were the Middle Ages’ daily devotionals, meant more for admiring than for reading: spirituality meets genuine art direction. Each one was a distinct, portable cathedral of pigment and vellum – delicate, sacred, and decadent.

They were said to be accessible at the time (that is, intended for laypeople), though mostly owned by privileged men of the medieval elite (Catherine of Aragon also had one). I must admit I wish I could own one myself – perhaps one day. It’s fascinating how these illuminated pages make our branding palettes appear a little anaemic. I left Frieze (mostly Masters) fully enchanted, already planning how to incorporate a little medieval embellishment into my next work – because even dedication, it turns out, looks better gilded.

A Singaporean spread

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

The best way to enliven an office routine? A glamorous new restaurant opening just next door. That’s been the case for us with the arrival of Cé La Vi, the acclaimed Singaporean import with outposts in Dubai, Taipei and Tokyo.

Perched atop the newly unveiled Renzo Piano Building Workshop glass cube, the restaurant crowns the 17th and 18th floors with sweeping vistas of the capital. A dedicated lift from the new public square whisks guests skyward, each floor revealing an ever-widening panorama before opening into Cé La Vi’s signature scarlet-hued world. Inside, a slick bar, dining space and terrace set the tone for what’s to come, with the top level soon to open as a lounge and private dining suite.

The menu comprises a confident medley of East Asian flavours and textures rooted in the brand’s Singaporean DNA. Dishes arrive with visual flourish and satisfying substance: highlights include delicately seared tuna tataki with pink peppercorn dressing, ideally followed by a bowl of Maldon-salted fries and a well-timed glass of champagne.

A sumo spectacle

Melina Keays, entertaining director

I’ve been to the Royal Albert Hall and witnessed sumo wrestling’s return to the UK for the first time in 34 years. It was a magnificent occasion, and, for the record, only the second time in history that an official sumo tournament (known as a bansho) has taken place outside Japan. Sipping delicious Hibiki whisky, seated in velvet splendour, I reflected that the Albert Hall seems almost to have been built to host such an event – its grandeur and rotund solidity reflect the features of sumo wrestling, and the great building perfectly encircles the round clay wrestling ring (dohyo) where the action takes place.

The tournament was a mesmerising and very beautiful combination of ceremony, balletic agility, skill, and brute strength – not to mention the thrill of the competition. I will be rattling the doors of the Albert Hall to get a seat next time elite sumo comes to town – hopefully soon.

A magical collab

Anna Fixsen, US editor

Love design history? I certainly do, and one of my enduring fascinations is the life and work of Mariano Fortuny, a Spanish-born, Venice-based design polymath who worked across textiles, lighting, production design and fashion during the early 20th century. Fortuny was so renowned that he was known as the ‘magician of Venice’. Though his design company has been operating for more than a century, it found a kindred spirit in a much younger one: L’Objet, the luxury home and lifestyle brand founded by Elad Yifrach in 2005. The two brands toasted to their latest collab at the Manhattan studio of Athena Calderone this week. The collection, which comprises jewel-toned glassware, Midas-touched plates, games and more, provided an opulent backdrop for the evening. A table, heaped high with glistening fruits and nibbles courtesy of chef Andy Baraghani, looked straight out of a Venetian School still life. Magician, indeed!

An upending exhibition

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

For something unabashedly and authentically different, head to the Royal Academy for ‘The Histories’, a major retrospective of American artist Kerry James Marshall. His work feels so fresh, so defiantly his own, that I had to keep reminding myself I was in the RA – that bastion of British tradition.

Yet there’s no question that Marshall belongs there, among the greats who came before. His paintings are vast, unruly and crammed with references that ricochet from art history to civil rights, comics to science fiction. He moves effortlessly between portraits, still lives, near-monochromes, and electrifying twists on abstract expressionism and Afrofuturism.

Everything about them is bold – the scale, the colour, and, most of all, the presence. Marshall’s Black figures command every canvas, unapologetically occupying the space from which they’ve long been excluded. By remixing the tropes of Western art history, he rewrites it, inserting new heroes into its frames.